Episode 077: The Knobs Issue

This episode has one more Knob that usual - who finds himself in prison with Rhys! Also Dan gets his butt read and Buttons rides a horse in his past life. Theres also peanuts pushed up hills, old Japanese men doing not much and a time-traveler's warning of trap-doors. There's big 'plausible' Cryptid news thats got the team excited too!

\*NEW SEGMENT ALERT\* Fan Files! Where we lucky-dip-pick stories sent in from Fans. This inaugural segment sees Geese taken from the deep and Alien Big Cats on the beach! - Official episode description

## Intro

"Well, take me down to Knobs Tech Shop and reformat me onto DVD then hang me from your rear-vision mirror till I blind you in the face, 'cause we're back!" - Rhys

## Buttons Theory Time

Rhys wonders if you keep the same body throughout past lives, which leads into a Buttons Theory Time.

Before getting to his theory, there needs to be a bit of explanation. Buttons has started learning to ride horses and he is "finding it to be quite easy... feels kind of second nature." While he is riding horses, he "[tries to] mentally connect with a past life because... you can almost guarantee that in a past life you would have actually been able to ride a horse."

"My theory is, is that to your point around 'do people have the same body' if you- if the- this whole horse riding thing is based around the fact that these children that have incredibly vivid past life memories, nowadays with so- with a lot of people feeling like they don't belong in their body, they feel awkward in their body because it feels different, potentially or could it be that that's just past life experiences much like I feel a very strong connection to riding a horse back in the 1970s"

## Weekly World Weird News

### According to a new survey, 49% of Japanese companies claim they all have an old man who does nothing - Dan

300 employees over 300 companies have been surveyed to ask if they employ an old man who doesn't do anything, and 49% responded that they do. The number one complaint about these old men was that they took too many smoking breaks, and the second most common complaint is that "they just stare into nothing."

### Man pushes a peanut up a mountain using only his nose - Rhys

"53 year old adventurer broke the record for pushing a peanut to the top of Pikes Peak in the shortest time" - Rhys

This turns out to be controversial and Dan has a quibble. Dan has seen a photo of the man and says that he didn't push the peanut with his nose, but instead had "attached a sort of spade to his face... some sort of mechanism that allows the peanut to be cupped, effectively like when you're at the cinema and you scoop out the sweets in order to put in your bag."

Dan continues on with a second quibble: "Here's the other thing though: it's not just one peanut! He kept losing it! I think he went through like, 50 peanuts! The whole thing is a...it's a ruse!" but later does admit that "it is amazing at the same time."

Rhys reads some comments from readers who mock the man and say it's a waste of time.

Rhys says, "I think I'm on the fence, it's ridiculous but I do love ridiculous things. There is no point to it, and I love that. On the other hand, I do agree that it is probably a real waste of time. The certificate, and the news, and something you can say at parties, I think that's hilarious, I think that's really cool! But also then there's the aspect like you were saying Dan, of it, you know, how many peanuts did he use? And he actually didn't use the nose, there was this special thing attached to him. It's a weird one. And truly worthy of of Weekly World Weird News, that's for sure. So well done me."

### Time traveler warns hostile subterranean alien species will be found in 2023 - Buttons

"A time traveler has revealed themselves and, well, actually, they are incognito, it's not like they've come out, they've just gone to TikTok and said that they are a verified time traveler but they've warned of a hostile species...they say another world inside earth will soon be discovered. They say the inner earth is home to a hostile race of humans that have been silently causing disaster across the world for years, and are actually responsible for a lot of the tragic events that have happened over the years." - Buttons

They play the video, which is intense music with overlaid text. Dan attempts to read the text out but it moves too quickly for him to keep up. The gist is that in 2023 a man will be exploring underground caves when he discovers a giant hatch which leads to a new world which is filled with hostile people who have caused many problems such as 9/11.

Rhys is skeptical and theorizes that the user has got their ideas from a combination of HG Wells 'The Time Traveler' and Lost. "Think outside the box, dude! There's no hatch to the underworld. If anything, it's an intricate cave system that is hidden via foliage deep down in a sink hole."

### Life guard gets attacked by shark while teaching a shark safety lesson - Dan bonus headline

"He was in the water pretending to be having a shark attack happening, and then a shark actually came up and started eating him while he was doing the fake shark attack."

## Fan Files

### Puma spotted by two fishermen on UK beach - Michelle Kushly

Three fishermen in Wales have spotted what they believed to be a puma. This was the first ABC report in the area, but there have been other puma spotting in Whales.

### Catfish noodler claims a friend summoned bigfoot to kill him - Trish B. (also submitted by many others)

Not discussed by the hosts, as they think it may be too dark.

### Man warns to stay out of lake after three geese are dragged to their deaths from something in the water - Colleen Anderson

A man in on a steam ship in the Lake District of England witnessed three greylag geese dragged backwards and down into the water and they didn't re-appear. The man thinks it may have been an attack from a freshwater shark, crocodile, or a very large catfish.

## Cryptid Buzz

Existence of Loch Ness Monster is ‘plausible’ after fossil discovery

A recent study has been released where scientists from the University of Bath, University of Portsmouth and Universite Hassan II has discovered finding plesiosaur fossils in a 100-million year old fresh water river system in Morocco. In the past some people have theorized that the Loch Ness Monster may be a plesiosaur but skeptics has shot this down because plesiosaurs were thought to only live in salt water. The press release from the University of Bath says this discovery means the theory of Nessie being a plesiosaur may be plausible.

Rhys does point out that the plesiosaur is believed to have died out 66 million years ago with all the other dinosaurs, but occasionally things thought to be extinct do pop up.

## That's a Recap

There are two updates on the sentient AI story from the last episode. The first is that Blake Lemoine (the Google employee who claimed Googles AI had become sentient) has been fired.

The second update is that Lemoines attorney has taken LaMDA (the AI) as a client.

## Post Credits Sequence

Dan announces that the podcast has hit one million listens and this was supposed to be a one million listens celebration episode but they forgot. Buttons admits that when he told the other hosts this, he had only checked one platform and that they already had about 600,000 listens on the old one, so the one million listens milestone was likely hit a few years ago.

1. ↑ https://japantoday.com/category/features/lifestyle/survey-suggests-about-half-of-japanese-companies-has-an-old-guy-who-does-nothing
2. ↑ https://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/news/359198/man-pushes-a-peanut-up-a-mountain-using-only-his-nose
3. ↑ https://www.tiktok.com/@timevoyaging/video/7121875755612523818?is\_copy\_url=1&is\_from\_webapp=v1
4. ↑ https://www.cbsnews.com/news/shark-attack-long-island-lifeguard-smith-point-beach/
5. ↑ https://www.dailystar.co.uk/news/latest-news/fishermen-spot-puma-prowling-shore-26956802
6. ↑ https://www.huffpost.com/entry/fisherman-murder-blames-bigfoot\_n\_62cfc41ee4b0c0bdba666e91
7. ↑ https://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/uk-news/man-warns-people-stay-out-24341045
8. ↑ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/07/26/existence-loch-ness-monster-plausible-fossil-discovery/
9. ↑ https://www.cnn.com/2022/07/23/business/google-ai-engineer-fired-sentient/index.html
10. ↑ https://www.sciencetimes.com/articles/38379/20220625/sentient-ai-lamda-hired-lawyer-advocate-rights-person-google-engineer.htm