Latest / Ridiculous History / The US Camel Corps, Part Two: The Legend of the Red Ghost

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The US Camel Corps, Part Two: The Legend of the Red Ghost · Ridiculous History

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  Speaker 1: Ridiculous History is a production of iHeartRadio. Welcome back to
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  Speaker 1: the show, fellow Ridiculous Historians. Thank you, as always so
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: much for tuning in. Let's hear it for our super
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  Speaker 1: guest producer, the Man the myth legend, mister Matt the Madman.
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  Speaker 1: Still o urrah orrah? Indeed? Uh, you are an old
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  Speaker 1: brown I am ben but.
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  Speaker 2: I finally get the military exclamation right. Isn't it urah?
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  Speaker 1: It is urah, but it's also hoorah depending upon which
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  Speaker 1: branch of the service. Uh, you are five soldier semplified.
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  Speaker 1: That would be marishings.
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  Speaker 2: Yes, that would be the marine.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, cool? Who's that? I ad some I have been
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  Speaker 1: bold first and foremost. Yeah, we stepped on that part.
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  Speaker 1: I am been bullet. We're joined with a special guest, uh,
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  Speaker 1: the returning Jonathan Strickland, who has uh functioned under a
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  Speaker 1: few monikers, a few aliases, a few personas Curly Joe.
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: He wants the curly joke.
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  Speaker 3: In a previous life you would transcribe police altercation reports.
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  Speaker 2: Apparently he has heard some great tales.
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  Speaker 1: Mike.
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  Speaker 4: Our old former coworker, Candy May used to call me Jathan.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, I started baby j Baby Jay h Josh and
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  Speaker 1: Chuck coll me strick Yeah Yeah. I called you big strick.
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  Speaker 2: Jonathan. You can have cookie Strickland, Yeah, I am Jonathan.
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  Speaker 4: You can't have cookie I'm gonna get yeah yeah.
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  Speaker 1: And you may have been the cookie in that story
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  Speaker 1: because we didn't find out the full the full extent
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  Speaker 1: of the annective.
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  Speaker 4: That's okay though, because the listeners haven't even gotten part
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  Speaker 4: of the extent of the anecdote.
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  Speaker 1: Exact imagination. Y'all. It's just like Loup. It is just
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  Speaker 1: likelu Looper. And speaking of Loops, we are on part
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  Speaker 1: two of a continuing exploration of the US camel core.
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  Speaker 1: So a quick recap previously odd, ridiculous history. We talked
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  Speaker 1: about a fascinating aspect of the United States, which is
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  Speaker 1: as it began to become the modern country we know
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  Speaker 1: it as today. They discovered there was a vast swath
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  Speaker 1: of desert, and the European forces there had no idea
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  Speaker 1: how to address this. How do we move things to
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  Speaker 1: the West coast in hospitable land wherein pack animals like
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  Speaker 1: horses and mules will die and people and people. If
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  Speaker 1: you use people as pack animals, they're going to have
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  Speaker 1: a hard time.
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  Speaker 3: Too, at the very least, there's going to be some
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  Speaker 3: serious trudging going on, you know, sinking into the sand dunes.
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  Speaker 4: So then we had some smarty pants people in the
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  Speaker 4: military saying, well, if we're going to need to get
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  Speaker 4: supplies across, which clearly we are, we need to rely
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  Speaker 4: upon something that is well suited for desert environments. And yeah,
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  Speaker 4: this was way before Doune buggies. Yeah, way before Dune,
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  Speaker 4: yes exactly, although Dune itself, who knows when that actually happened.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, is a little loose with the timeframe.
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  Speaker 2: There, thousands of years, honestly.
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  Speaker 1: And so and so a couple of enthusiasts, based often
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  Speaker 1: on nostalgia, went to the powers that be in this
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  Speaker 1: emerging or emergent United States and they said, guys, anybody
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  Speaker 1: else indy camels? Yeah?
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, And it took quite a bit of convincing. This
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  Speaker 4: was a conversation that takes place over decades, with multiple
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  Speaker 4: people suggesting the possibility of bringing camels into the United
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  Speaker 4: States for the purposes of addressing supply chain issues. And
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  Speaker 4: it could have just been one of those things that
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  Speaker 4: was a flight of fancy and never went any further. Sure,
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  Speaker 4: but for the determination of a couple of people, one
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  Speaker 4: of whom had the money and the other of whom
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  Speaker 4: had the humpy dream.
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  Speaker 3: The Humpy Dream and our Tail left off with Major
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  Speaker 3: Wayne and David Dixon Porter having retrofitted a ship called
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  Speaker 3: the Supply Noah's Ark style to ferry these drama dairies
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  Speaker 3: to our lands spitting bars.
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  Speaker 4: Spitting bars, Yeah, and they bring over. They buy thirty
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  Speaker 4: three camels. They end up with thirty.
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  Speaker 1: Four, and the math is difficult.
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  Speaker 4: It turns out one of the camels was smuggling another camel. No,
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  Speaker 4: it turned out one camel died on the way across.
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  Speaker 4: Six camels were born, but only two of those survived,
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  Speaker 4: leaving us with thirty four.
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  Speaker 1: Which sounds like such a middle school math problem. You're
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  Speaker 1: on one side of a river, you have three camels. Train.
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  Speaker 1: What I always would always love about those, about those
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  Speaker 1: math problems, the word math problems in school, at least
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  Speaker 1: in the US, is that there is an implied, ridiculous scenario. Right.
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  Speaker 1: For some, there's nothing in the paragraph that tells you
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  Speaker 1: why Johnny a child has forty eight apples? What's going
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  Speaker 1: on with john? Right?
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  Speaker 4: But you just have to accept that reality and continue forward.
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  Speaker 1: Yes, and why are these people racing on trade?
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  Speaker 4: Honestly, I think it's a really valuable lesson, Like eventually
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  Speaker 4: you learn that just accepting reality and moving forward sometimes
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  Speaker 4: is the only way you can get through life.
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  Speaker 3: So we've got thirty four camels remaining and an additional and.
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  Speaker 1: It turns out that the United States government at that
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  Speaker 1: point says, success, Wow, you actually brought camel's over and
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  Speaker 1: you got one more than you bought and under budget.
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  Speaker 4: So why don't you go back and get more of those?
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  Speaker 1: That's just more camels please, And so they ordered Porter
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  Speaker 1: to turn around. Immediately, he got his Ata boy to
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  Speaker 1: sail back to the Middle East and to buy yet
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  Speaker 1: more camels. Six months later, he has returned and he
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  Speaker 1: has forty one new camels. We made an interesting point
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  Speaker 1: in part one about how long it takes to travel
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  Speaker 1: across the Atlantic. During the previous months while Porter and Wigne,
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  Speaker 1: while they're fact finding mission, tensions in the United States
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  Speaker 1: were rising, so camels became increasingly important. That's why it's
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  Speaker 1: not surprising that they sent them back immediately. And again
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  Speaker 1: months transpire on the on the ship on the new
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  Speaker 1: camel mission. During these six months. This is the official
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  Speaker 1: part two folks. During the six months, our pal Major
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  Speaker 1: Wayne takes these, this first shipment of thirty four camels
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  Speaker 1: out to Camp Verde and Fort Wayne, Texas, and he
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  Speaker 1: has this is like the humorous act to part in
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  Speaker 1: the great you know, like the hero Ernie aspect or
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  Speaker 1: the what's that Disney rule that we always talked about
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  Speaker 1: in improv the Pixar rule for movies.
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  Speaker 2: Oh gosh, I don't know that rule. Okay, we'll fight it.
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  Speaker 3: It does feel a bit like a second act of
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  Speaker 3: a heist movie that also introduces some slapstick elements.
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  Speaker 1: Right right, this is a part of the heist movie.
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  Speaker 1: This is really so hero's journey. Here. You got a
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  Speaker 1: little humor, some levity after the tragic death of these
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  Speaker 1: juvenile camels. Major Wayne out in Texas. He's got his humans,
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  Speaker 1: he's got his animals. He has to figure out when
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  Speaker 1: he has to figure out the following Can we use
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  Speaker 1: these as transport which we always assumed. Then the military
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  Speaker 1: and Congress wants to know this. Can we use this
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  Speaker 1: in war? Bad news? First, Campbell's are terrible at war.
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  Speaker 1: Like they have great affection, they're just it's not there.
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  Speaker 4: Well, for one thing, they can't hold the cards, right, So.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, they don't have thumbs.
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  Speaker 4: So you play a camel at war, I mean, you're
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  Speaker 4: always gonna win.
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  Speaker 1: So I guess there's that, Jonathan, you're being silly. I'm
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  Speaker 1: a little silly the card game war. Yeah you so.
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  Speaker 1: Fish on the other hand, they're excellently Yeah, but they
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  Speaker 1: are good at poker because of their poker face, they
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  Speaker 1: look like they're always smirking. That's true.
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  Speaker 4: But they also they are very good for transport like
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  Speaker 4: that is that is beyond question. They know for a
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  Speaker 4: fact they could use them for supply chains. But they
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  Speaker 4: do experiment with the concept of perhaps a camel cavalry.
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  Speaker 1: A camelvvery war camels, Yeah, on tour with camel core. Yeah, camelvry.
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  Speaker 1: That's I'm just going to keep that portmanteau. Yeah, because
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  Speaker 1: if you look back through ancient history, there are there
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  Speaker 1: are several reports I'm not going to say a lot,
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  Speaker 1: but there are several reports reports of camels being used
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  Speaker 1: in warfare and.
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  Speaker 2: The being fitted with armor and stuff.
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  Speaker 1: For one of the common descriptions you would see in
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  Speaker 1: from some Greco Roman and North African historians would be
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  Speaker 1: the idea that you would have two people mounted on
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  Speaker 1: a camel one guy driving essentially and the other guy
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  Speaker 1: on the back shooting the arrow in retreat or leaning
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  Speaker 1: forward and shooting that.
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  Speaker 3: Way, very similar to the idea of like war rhinocerosis
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  Speaker 3: and more elephents we do know happen, But that was
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  Speaker 3: almost more of a flex than it was a functional maneuver.
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  Speaker 1: That was a little more shocking. All now, we do
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  Speaker 1: know that camels in the past could be used as
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  Speaker 1: a cavalry to drive a wedge and break a line
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  Speaker 1: of opposing forces. But all they were at that point
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  Speaker 1: there were a V shaped agent of chaos.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, they might spit up on them, you know, I
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  Speaker 3: could see how they could be useful in a psychological
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  Speaker 3: warfare way because.
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  Speaker 1: If you see it freaky looking, if you see.
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  Speaker 4: A force approaching you on camelback. First of all, they're
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  Speaker 4: not going to be in a uniform kind of unit.
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  Speaker 4: You're just gonna look and think, well, I have no
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  Speaker 4: idea what these mother flippers are going to be doing
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  Speaker 4: to us.
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  Speaker 2: These people are insane right exactly.
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  Speaker 1: Next, it's like the guy who right before a bar fight,
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  Speaker 1: breaks the bottle over his own head man that says,
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  Speaker 1: let's go.
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  Speaker 2: You know what, I mean or like puts a cigarette
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  Speaker 2: out on his own tongue or yeah, and then.
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  Speaker 1: It's gonna be like Tuco from Breaking.
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  Speaker 2: Back, Yes, exactly, like Tucco or.
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  Speaker 1: Also Looper, yeah, or my friend Darren from Chili's Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: Chili's the restaurant, or Chile of the country, Chili's the restaurant.
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  Speaker 1: Got yeah, Darren still works there.
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  Speaker 2: Did you know that I did not?
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  Speaker 1: Yeah. I think it's a parole thing. Anyway. There's also
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  Speaker 1: this aspect that camels are surprisingly fast for the way
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  Speaker 1: they look. They can exceed forty to forty five miles
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  Speaker 1: an hour.
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  Speaker 3: Once again, just a reminder for people who didn't listen
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  Speaker 3: to part one, in which case, shame on you. You're going
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  Speaker 3: to be completely lost. Please go back and do that.
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  Speaker 3: We are coming to you from Doha Guitar, where camel
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  Speaker 3: racing is big the GCC.
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  Speaker 1: And we also we know that we know that camels
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  Speaker 1: weren't very good at warfare because once you get okay
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  Speaker 1: so you can run, you can cause chaos once you
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  Speaker 1: get into the fray. Your faithful camel, no matter how
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  Speaker 1: much they love you, they're kind of gangly. Like we
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  Speaker 1: talked about in part one, they're not super nimble like
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  Speaker 1: an Arabian horse for instance, and they're mounted so high
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  Speaker 1: that when you want, you know, calvalry wants the height advantage,
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  Speaker 1: but there's a goldilock zone, so if.
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  Speaker 2: You're too within sword reaches.
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  Speaker 1: So then can you imagine the bloody slapstick when some guys,
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  Speaker 1: the guys trying to be camel cavalry for the first
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  Speaker 1: leaning over too far off the side.
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  Speaker 3: Yeah, I love the move where the whole saddle flips
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  Speaker 3: upside down and then they're just mounted underneath the camel
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  Speaker 3: with their like camel balls hitting them in the face.
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  Speaker 1: Also, it turns out camels are not the bravest of mounts,
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  Speaker 1: so I.
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  Speaker 3: Can see not sorry about the camel balls comment. Guys
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  Speaker 3: doesn't mean to put that image carry I.
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  Speaker 4: Was trying to move on. It's I was really trying.
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  Speaker 1: It really a delicacy in some someplace, So I hear
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  Speaker 1: like the hump no anyway, Yeah, so so not the
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  Speaker 1: bravest amounts. So also not very useful if you're going
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  Speaker 1: to ride into an active war zone and you know
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  Speaker 1: they they don't smell so nice. So soldiers were not
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  Speaker 1: very keen on spending a whole lot of time. They're
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  Speaker 1: fine with them carrying their stuff, right, Not so much
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  Speaker 1: with like riding on on the back of a camel
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  Speaker 1: where they present a tempting target, they can't reach their opponent,
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  Speaker 1: and the camel is like, I really don't want to
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  Speaker 1: be here. And and the horses also, and the mules, uh,
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  Speaker 1: these are American horses and mules. They've never seen a camel.
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  Speaker 1: It smells different. They are not on board. So that's
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  Speaker 1: the thing. The soldiers, No, you don't want to camel
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  Speaker 1: blame here or be unfair to the soldiers. Camel right.
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  Speaker 1: The soldiers here also said the camels had a terrible attitude.
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  Speaker 1: We mentioned it part one. Camels are sassy. They got
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  Speaker 1: sass and they the guys who were trying to train
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  Speaker 1: with these camels, they did not have the you know,
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  Speaker 1: they didn't roll high on animal handling and D and D.
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  Speaker 1: These guys were not Steve Irwin. No like hurting cats
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  Speaker 1: more than training a you know, a horse. Yeah, yeah,
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  Speaker 1: it would take to it as well. They were attempting
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  Speaker 1: to go heavy on the sticks rather than the carrots
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  Speaker 1: when they were trying to train camels, and camels didn't
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  Speaker 1: take that. Camels have the size of che Camels were
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  Speaker 1: spitting on people. Side to camel spit.
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  Speaker 3: As nasty as the other thing they would do, not
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  Speaker 3: as nasty.
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  Speaker 1: As the other thing they do, which the bite was.
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  Speaker 1: The bite was super serious because don't let the smirk
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  Speaker 1: fool you. That bite comes quickly. And then they also
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  Speaker 1: what sometimes kicks laughing because they would kick soldiers down
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  Speaker 1: to the ground and then they would they would excrete,
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  Speaker 1: urine or feces on them in a very purposeful move.
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  Speaker 3: Indeed, Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's awful.
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  Speaker 4: Yeah, So then you have soldiers on the runs.
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  Speaker 2: Would you be furious if that happened to you. I
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  Speaker 2: would never trust a camel again, I think. I think
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  Speaker 2: once I got over the horror being horrified, can you
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  Speaker 2: imagine being spit on, bitten and then pooped and pede on? Well,
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  Speaker 2: I mean not for less than fifty bucks.
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  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it's like what's their discout? And so there's
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  Speaker 1: an app for it. So as far as the cavalry goes,
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  Speaker 1: the military quickly realizes, all right, cavalry, that's gonna be horses.
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  Speaker 1: But they did have good news. They had some great news. Actually,
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  Speaker 1: camels were fantastic pack animals. They could carry way more
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  Speaker 1: they didn't need uh they it needs near as much
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  Speaker 1: actual TLC.
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  Speaker 3: They're good at walking in a line, you know, when
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  Speaker 3: you point them in the direction. Isn't it funny?
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  Speaker 1: Though?
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  Speaker 3: And so like the government to like Mission Creep their
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  Speaker 3: way from like the whole idea was these are going
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  Speaker 3: to be transport.
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  Speaker 2: Why don't we try them out in common? Let's just
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  Speaker 2: get more bang for the buck.
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  Speaker 4: I honestly think most of human history is someone looking
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  Speaker 4: at an animal and first asking I wonder if I
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  Speaker 4: can eat it? And they're thinking I wonder if I
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  Speaker 4: could write on it.
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  Speaker 1: Well that's probably what they did with Neanderthals as well,
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  Speaker 1: you know. Yeah, but also I thought you were going
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  Speaker 1: to say something I very much agree with with the
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  Speaker 1: whole story of human history is mission creep. Yeah, you
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: know that's also true. Guys like what I come down
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  Speaker 1: from the tree, you know what I mean? And now
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: we have velcro and someone went to the moon. What
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: if you didn't publish another episode per week? So yeah, exactly,
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  Speaker 1: this is okay. So this is this is crazy because
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  Speaker 1: this is an emotional roller coaster for Wayne, it is
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: for us too. Yeah he uh, he is finally getting
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: good news out out to our producers here, Matt Max,
• 16:02
  Speaker 1: we get like a good news sound cube back in
• 16:10
  Speaker 1: the high life again, can we get the rights to that?
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  Speaker 1: I feel that maybe the warren zevn version, which I
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: think is superior to the originals air looked so okay,
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  Speaker 1: So they have that moment. And these guys, the camels,
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  Speaker 1: I mean, have a bunch higher tolerance for heat. They
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  Speaker 1: actually need less water and food.
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  Speaker 3: And again we did bust the myth and the hump
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  Speaker 3: of the hump being you know, filled with water. I
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  Speaker 3: think I kind of wonder people are like, you know,
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  Speaker 3: are camels like animal versions of cacti, because we know
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  Speaker 3: cacti do retain a lot of water. But the camels,
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  Speaker 3: it's more that they have these fat reserves yea, and
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  Speaker 3: they are able to store a lot of caloric energy cereal,
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  Speaker 3: but not like water.
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  Speaker 1: And this they also this is a point I don't
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  Speaker 1: know about you guys. I didn't think about this. Camels
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  Speaker 1: did not unlike horses and mules. You don't have to
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  Speaker 1: shoe a camel. You don't have to put horseshoes or
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  Speaker 1: mule shoes on them. They already have the clown feet
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  Speaker 1: that have evolved to go through the harsh cliche.
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  Speaker 3: Well, exactly, you say clown shoes because they do have
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  Speaker 3: a lot of surface area, which is very important, so
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  Speaker 3: they don't sink into the dunes. Because a horse it's
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  Speaker 3: a much kind of pointier hoof, right, and the camel
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  Speaker 3: hoof is much broader and it creates like a padding
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  Speaker 3: almost so that it's Yeah.
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  Speaker 4: So in our first episode we talked about how there
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  Speaker 4: have been multiple studies trying to justify the the great
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  Speaker 4: effort it would take in order to transport camels in
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  Speaker 4: the nineteenth century over to the United States. Now we
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  Speaker 4: actually have a situation where the camels have been active
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  Speaker 4: in the United States.
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  Speaker 1: So what's the result, def conc we have active camels,
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  Speaker 1: we have camel.
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  Speaker 4: Camel is, camel is out on field.
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  Speaker 2: The camels have hit the fan.
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  Speaker 1: Right, So are we going to do something worthwhile with this?
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  Speaker 1: Or we like are we like the Gary Larson cartoon
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  Speaker 1: of the dog who finally catches the car? Right? This
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  Speaker 1: is a reference that does not occur to Major Wayne
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  Speaker 1: because Gary Larson in the far side are not a
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  Speaker 1: thing yet, be super excited and he writes, you know, everybody,
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  Speaker 1: do check out part one. He's one of the guys
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  Speaker 1: who made a study study. It was a it was
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  Speaker 1: kind of a fan mail letter based in fact, a little.
• 18:30
  Speaker 2: Bit of fans fiction, you know, woven in there for
• 18:33
  Speaker 2: got a little.
• 18:34
  Speaker 1: Erotic I'm little little slash fiction lit. Little shipping. Yeah,
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: let's ship of the desert.
• 18:40
  Speaker 4: Let's let's not put in too much misinformation in this episode.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: Okay, guys, all right, okay, but it is true that
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: Major Wayne is excited. In October of eighteen fifty six,
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: he wrote that the usefulness of the camels in the
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: interior of the country is no longer a question here
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: in Texas.
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: Among those who have seen them at work or examined
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: them with a tension, which it's.
• 19:00
  Speaker 4: The only way you can examine them, they demand it.
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: They do. Oh yeah, okay, good ver. Somebody wrote to
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: me earlier and they said, you know, I love you
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: guys show, but I feel like sometimes Jonathan is dismissive
• 19:11
  Speaker 1: of camels. And they said, no, he examines them with attention.
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: I do. I do.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: He's a member of the camel level, both the animal
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: and the carrying.
• 19:19
  Speaker 1: So this idea is picking up steam.
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: If we go to the National Park Service, we'll see
• 19:24
  Speaker 1: that they describe how this became slowly of interest to
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: civilians as well. We see a lot of technology come
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: from military applications and then later go to early adopters
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: in the world or the civil world, and not the war,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: the Civil war world, right, and so civilians polite society. Yes,
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: well we're still talking gold Rush, not that polite, okay, yeah, yeah.
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: So it's after the gold Rush. Citizens of the US
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: are starting to say, hey, we need you to build
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: a road west, and a few very clever guys are
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: clocking the existence of this thing called the camel. In
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: eighteen fifty seven, a i'll say it, legendarily bad president
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: overall named James Buchanan almost said President James Buchanan again,
• 20:11
  Speaker 1: as though his first name was president. Do you think
• 20:14
  Speaker 1: anybody there's some there are billions of people someone has
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: the real first name president, just.
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: Like major major, major major.
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, shout out to Heller, right, yeah yeah, catch
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: twenty two. So all right, this guy, President James Buchanan
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: appoints a guy named Edward Beale to build a road
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: from Fort Smith, Arkansas to California. It's a long row, yes, yep.
• 20:37
  Speaker 3: And he's already got a good reputation for his uh
• 20:41
  Speaker 3: involvement in the Mexican American War, as well as being
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: the person who brought the very first golden nugget from
• 20:48
  Speaker 3: California all the way to Washington, actual nugget, not the casino,
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: but he had a whole.
• 20:53
  Speaker 2: Song about it. I got a golden.
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: Nugg is the one where you bite on it? Yeah?
• 20:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, make sure there's a little ten noise that makes Yeah.
• 21:00
  Speaker 1: Oh, because gold is quite ductile. Indeed, that's my one
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: fact I know about gold. That means you can pull
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: it into like wire morgage. Yeah.
• 21:09
  Speaker 2: So so wait a minute, okay, let me let me
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: ask you this question.
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Then.
• 21:12
  Speaker 4: All right, So we've we've had this whole effort to
• 21:15
  Speaker 4: bring the camels over. We've had success in the application
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: of using camels to move supplies around. We've got the
• 21:24
  Speaker 4: interest of civilians making use of camels. So where where
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: to heck the camels? Then, guys? I mean, we brought
• 21:31
  Speaker 4: horses over to the North America in the sixteenth century.
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: They they flourished. Are they about to abandon the camels? Guys,
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: That's what I'm asking. Oh, well, well, I hear it's
• 21:40
  Speaker 4: really hard to give up camels.
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: I know you can it's hard to quit those camels. Yeah,
• 21:43
  Speaker 2: you gotta have like a camel patch.
• 21:45
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, horse camel got stop yeah, camel teen uh
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: they call it. Yeah, that's a great question, Jonathan, because
• 21:53
  Speaker 1: for a while it seemed like camels were going to
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: be you know, horse two point oh to put it
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: in corporate parla, camels arrive in Los Angeles. It's December
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: eighteen fifty seven. You know, people are still very into
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: this westward expansionized camels are coming. They say, yes, they
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: really do say the camels are coming, and they're like
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: celebrities kind of people are gathering to witness the arrival
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: of the camel like the Beatles, like the British invasion. Yes, yeah,
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: and they could go over deep mountains and gullies. This
• 22:23
  Speaker 1: speaks directly to the expansionist, pioneer spirit of American society
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: at the time, and this is where we get the first,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: the first real kind of US Camel Corps. In eighteen
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: fifty nine, the group that is going to Los Angeles,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: they passed by essentially, let's see, okay, I'm going to
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: curse because it's appropriate here. They pass by a big
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: ass rock. It's I think gas isn't. It's not fully
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: a curse anymore. Okay, Yeah, they passed by a rock
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: that is large enough to have its own name, got it?
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: And the rock's name is so Oh and that means
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: the Moro. Yes, yeah, and they're they're passing excuse me,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: they're passing by it on the for the second time.
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: First they passed the rock and they're like, it's a
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: big rock. And then some guy comes out and goes
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: that's and they go, all right, they get to lay
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: they go back.
• 23:20
  Speaker 4: Okay, I'm glad that you're they're going clarify because I
• 23:23
  Speaker 4: wasn't sure if they just like went in a big
• 23:25
  Speaker 4: circle and like, hey, I know we've been by here.
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: There's no way there's two rocks that day.
• 23:30
  Speaker 1: And that guy comes back. That's also.
• 23:34
  Speaker 3: We do get to introduce a few side players that
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: hung out with our buddy Edward Beale.
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: And this dude's name here, I just love. I gotta
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: say it, pe Gilmour, Breckinridge. Yeah. Who else we got?
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: We got e Penn Long and f Engle Junior.
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: These are all great names.
• 23:53
  Speaker 1: These are great names.
• 23:54
  Speaker 4: I mean, those names are so great you want to
• 23:55
  Speaker 4: have them preserve for posterity.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: If only there were a giant rock. There were some
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: giant rock. Uh. The reason we know their names right
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: now and not their full first names. The reason we
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: can't tell you their full first names is because that's
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: what they wrote on the rock. That's what they wrote
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: on El Morrow. We're here. Yeah, yeah, uh. And I
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: love the play of making jove where they possibly lost
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: and just say, okay, okay, if we run into this
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: rock again, if our names are on it, we know
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: we've been here before.
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: And perhaps we can use this as a rallying point to
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: restart civilization in the event of apocalypse.
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: Yes, interestingly enough, they did not write the names of
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: the camels. We don't even lost to history the names
• 24:41
  Speaker 1: of the camel. I'm sure they had one. People always
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: name animals.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Simon Theodore Alvin, there.
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: Was probably, you know, because camels have such sleepy I
• 24:55
  Speaker 1: bet they had. There were some that were like, yeah,
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: there were some like danger ho. There's one who's just
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: old Cairo, you know what I mean. And then there's poops,
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: mister humpty hump, and I hope there's one with just
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: a human name. There's one that's just named Richard yea steven.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: So this gets us to the question the experiments paid off.
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: Camels might become an integral part of the US Army,
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: at least supply chain. They're doing a big pr push,
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: it would seem, yes.
• 25:25
  Speaker 4: And we're still like we're inching toward the massive uh
• 25:30
  Speaker 4: war that would break out within the United States, the
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: Civil War, and.
• 25:34
  Speaker 2: Which is a terrible name between the United States and
• 25:36
  Speaker 2: the United States.
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: It was. It was very not civil it's very much
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: not a civil war.
• 25:42
  Speaker 4: But but one of the big players in that war
• 25:46
  Speaker 4: is our next little point.
• 25:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, And that's how he would want to
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: be referred to as a data point at point a foot. Well,
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: I don't want to.
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: I don't wanna, you know, stir things up again.
• 25:57
  Speaker 1: The barely known in ly obscure Lieutenant Colonel Robert E.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: Lee in eighteen sixty he used camel on a long
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: range patrol and he gave these great reviews. It was like,
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: camels are awesome, this is great. You know, five stars.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: I wish I could give six. Yeah.
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: He did it on yelp, but back then you would
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: just yelp yes.
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: Would recommend yes. And for some reason, his rave review
• 26:23
  Speaker 1: did not get a lot of traction because he was
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: Robert E. Lee.
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 26:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 26:30
  Speaker 4: It turns out that the people in charge, at least
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: of the United States Treasury weren't too interested in what
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: he had to say.
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: And ed I did not know this until beginning research
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: and writing on this episode. Kid you not, there was
• 26:44
  Speaker 1: a political or a corporal political corporal political a word
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: made up, brought by ridiculous history. It was there was
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: a genuine political conspiracy against the use of camels. A
• 27:01
  Speaker 1: mule lobby, a powerful trade organization. The mule owned owned
• 27:07
  Speaker 1: soul fules. They came in as smoky back.
• 27:10
  Speaker 4: We all know that asses carry a lot of power.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: Powerful ass is there, boy, They got wind of this experiment,
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: that's where they comes from a little bit late. So
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: we were able to get that shipment of those two
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: shipments of camels, and by this time camels are reproducing
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: a bit in the US. But the mule lobby shuts
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: down the proposition they were going to put a stop
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: to this camel nonsense. Yeah, to them, this is not
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: a he Haw situation. It's it's quite an existential threat
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: to their own existing government contracts for mules right with
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: the US Army.
• 27:52
  Speaker 4: It turns out that that lobbies are not a new thing.
• 27:57
  Speaker 4: They're not recent. They have been a very much a
• 28:00
  Speaker 4: part of the Great American experiment since the beginning.
• 28:03
  Speaker 3: And they know how to get their way. And then
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: the war between the States does kick off in Ernest
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: in eighteen sixty one, and very early on all of
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: these camels, as we mentioned, were housed at this one camp,
• 28:16
  Speaker 3: Camp ver Day, and it was very quickly captured.
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: Yes, by the Confederates, And the US Civil War started
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty one in Earnest, like you said, and
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: it goes into eighteen sixty five. It was a real bummer.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 28:32
  Speaker 4: No, not a lot of jokes to make about the
• 28:34
  Speaker 4: Civil War that aren't in incredibly poor taste.
• 28:36
  Speaker 2: Now, Robert E.
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: Lee must have been stoked about capturing camp Verde, because
• 28:40
  Speaker 3: now he had all these camels to play with, yes.
• 28:43
  Speaker 4: Which would end up being like almost a non factor,
• 28:46
  Speaker 4: because almost all the actual battles would take place far
• 28:51
  Speaker 4: to the east.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: And in the desert. The Union had possession of their
• 28:56
  Speaker 1: own camel for so you could argue, for brief brief
• 29:00
  Speaker 1: time amid all this chaos, there were two camel cores.
• 29:04
  Speaker 4: Yeah, there could have been camel on camel violence.
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: And coc is a real and present dangerous We don't.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: We don't at all. We want you to know if
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: you were a camel involved in COC violence, there are
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: resources available. Check your local dune. So they had these,
• 29:22
  Speaker 1: they had, the Union had these camels from California. But
• 29:25
  Speaker 1: just like the Confederates, nobody was sure what to do
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: with these guys. So they transferred the groups of camels
• 29:31
  Speaker 1: just back and forth to different places. You know what
• 29:34
  Speaker 1: I mean, Like here you are major brown your camels, Oh,
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: Lieutenant Colonel Strickland to take these camels. Yeah, we don't
• 29:44
  Speaker 1: know what you should do with them, but we just
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: know that we have no use for them at the moment.
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: So they instead of passing the buck, they kept passing
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: the camels like a cigarette in a circle. And which
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: makes sense, they kind of passing camels. Yeah, ye cigarettes, Yeah, sure,
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: it makes sense. Yeah, I'm killing it with comparisons today.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: But the issue here is that.
• 30:06
  Speaker 4: While you could just think of the camel's as being
• 30:09
  Speaker 4: kind of superfluous, what they actually represented, if you want
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: to get really cynical with it, is an expense, right,
• 30:16
  Speaker 4: Like this is something that you still have to spend
• 30:18
  Speaker 4: money on name. Yeah, you got to keep them alive,
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: you know, even if you're just transporting them from one
• 30:24
  Speaker 4: place to another, Like you're paying not just for the camels,
• 30:27
  Speaker 4: but for all the people involved in that too. And
• 30:30
  Speaker 4: you eventually get people who are all those penny pinchers
• 30:33
  Speaker 4: who are saying, why are we spending money on something
• 30:36
  Speaker 4: that's not actually contributing to the efforts that are necessary
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: for us to fight this war.
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: And everybody obviously knows who we're referring to. Secretary of
• 30:46
  Speaker 1: War Edwin M. Stanton. I'm sure we have all heard of.
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: The villain of the piece she encountered in the Civil War.
• 30:54
  Speaker 3: He was unaware of the camel experiments. He simply saw
• 30:58
  Speaker 3: them as a waste of.
• 31:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and he was cowboying in and you know, rightly
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: with validity, he was saying, we need to save some
• 31:05
  Speaker 1: cash here, so the camels. By the end of the
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: war eighteen sixty five, the camels in California are sold
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: the remaining parts for parts for clown feet long necks
• 31:17
  Speaker 1: and smirk. I mean, honestly, I don't really want to
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: think about what people did with those camels.
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: Well, I don't think it was a concern on the
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: part of the selling not at all.
• 31:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, there wasn't a check in. It wasn't like getting
• 31:29
  Speaker 1: a pet, making sure they're getting a good home, right,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: And I'm sorry you don't want to think about it,
• 31:35
  Speaker 1: because you are going to learn about So we know
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: that the camels like when the Confederacy fell, right and capitulated. Alert, Yes,
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: Titanic sinks. Abraham Lincoln has a bad time at the
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: play the Confederates lost.
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: But apart from that, Missus Lincoln, so uh, brought to
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: you by the Ford Theater.
• 31:58
  Speaker 1: So look the remaining camels that are part of the
• 32:01
  Speaker 1: spoils of war when the Confederacy falls, they're sold in
• 32:05
  Speaker 1: eighteen sixty six. And you know, again we made the point.
• 32:09
  Speaker 1: It's because this was a mule and horse centric conflict.
• 32:13
  Speaker 1: Camels are very well adapted, but very specifically adapted to
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: the desert. So you don't if you have a railroad,
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: if you have horses and you have mules and you're
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: in the forest and you actually have roads now and
• 32:25
  Speaker 1: you have roads, then you don't need the camel. And
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: even if you didn't need the camel, things may have
• 32:32
  Speaker 1: worked out differently had that they would have had there
• 32:34
  Speaker 1: not been a civil war or had the major supporters
• 32:37
  Speaker 1: of the camel Corps been union because pretty much all
• 32:41
  Speaker 1: of the major supporters we named. Yeah.
• 32:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, So a lot of those military camels were sold off,
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: all of them. As you mentioned, most of them ended
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: up abandoned by their new owners and or set free,
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: we'll call that charitably. Many did get put to use
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: as pack animals, and some of these Nevada mining towns
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: very sadly, a lot of the remaining ones that weren't
• 33:14
  Speaker 3: so lucky were sold to meat markets uh and butchers,
• 33:18
  Speaker 3: you know, to be consumed and again sold for parts.
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this is the point I'm really excited about, not
• 33:25
  Speaker 1: just the myth parts.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: There's a really, really cool legend that we're about to
• 33:32
  Speaker 3: get into that was likely direct result of these freed camels.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: Se really it is.
• 33:41
  Speaker 4: I've always wanted to say that.
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Jonathan and I respect that. What are we talking We.
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: Are talking about. Uh, this is the coolest chapter the story,
• 33:52
  Speaker 1: one that we can't wait to end on the influence
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: of feral camels because not all of them, not all
• 33:59
  Speaker 1: of them ended up in the bottom mines, not all
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: of them ended up being hopefully very well loved pets.
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: Not all of them ended up being butchered. Some went feral,
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: just like horses of yesteryear. Some got away, and this
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: may have led to the creation of a thoroughly haunting
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: American encryptid, the Tale of the Red Ghost. We have
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: to go to the Smithsonian. They set it up pretty
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: We love the Smithsonian, Chris Heller writes in the eighteen eighties.
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: We we've done work with the Smithsonian too. By the way,
• 34:29
  Speaker 1: we got to get them back on and yeah, another crossover.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: We check out the Sonian podcast, check out the side
• 34:33
  Speaker 1: Door podcast.
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: Indeed, Chris Heller writes in the eighteen eighties, a wild
• 34:38
  Speaker 3: menace haunted the Arizona Territory. It was known as the
• 34:42
  Speaker 3: Red Ghost, and its legend grew as it roamed the
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: high country.
• 34:47
  Speaker 1: It trampled a woman to death in eighteen eighty three.
• 34:50
  Speaker 1: It was rumored to stand thirty feet tall.
• 34:54
  Speaker 4: A cowboy once tried to rope the ghost, but it
• 34:57
  Speaker 4: turned and charged his mouth, nearly killed them both rope
• 35:01
  Speaker 4: a ghost. One man chased it, then cleaned it disappeared
• 35:04
  Speaker 4: right before his eyes. Another swear devour the grizzly bear.
• 35:09
  Speaker 4: All right, wow, so Camebl's are tall, but not thirty
• 35:12
  Speaker 4: feet tall.
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: Also, I imagine stuff of legend though, right, I say,
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: if you've got one of those video games where you
• 35:20
  Speaker 3: can create units of different stuff and make them fight
• 35:23
  Speaker 3: each other.
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: If I've made a camel versus a grizzly bear, I
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: cannot imagine the camel coming out on time. Maybe if
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: the maybe if it took place late in the game
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: in the desert and the grizzly had been in the
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: desert was really Yeah.
• 35:37
  Speaker 3: That's sort of like like a smaller dude tiring out
• 35:40
  Speaker 3: a much larger boxer.
• 35:41
  Speaker 1: Right, I would still if it comes down to it, though,
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: I would regretfully have to vote for even a starving
• 35:48
  Speaker 1: bear over, especially a starving bear over.
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: Again, But these types of details we see all the
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: time in reports of cryptids that we cover often on
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: our other podcast, Stuff they Don't want you to know
• 35:58
  Speaker 3: that are often these exact gerated tales that get repeated
• 36:02
  Speaker 3: and sort of twisted, and and you know, everybody wants
• 36:05
  Speaker 3: to tell a cool story, and everyone wants to put
• 36:07
  Speaker 3: their own spin on, especially if they haven't seen the
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: thing with their very eyes.
• 36:10
  Speaker 4: Yeah, and the stories just get more and more outlandish.
• 36:15
  Speaker 1: Right, you see this throughout throughout history. You know, the
• 36:18
  Speaker 1: legend of the unicorn is some sort of horn to
• 36:22
  Speaker 1: antelope seen from the side. And if you mermaids are
• 36:26
  Speaker 1: are our manatees it was that's wild long time on
• 36:30
  Speaker 1: the ocean of those guys. All is all I could
• 36:32
  Speaker 1: think of. And yeah, this becomes a part of folklore.
• 36:36
  Speaker 1: But we are convinced. I think it's fair to say
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: that there's a grain of truth to this because a
• 36:41
  Speaker 1: group of you would have multiple sightings, and despite embellishment
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: and second hand reporting, the first hand reporting does have
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: a lot of commonalities. Right.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: It lines up with Fort Verde first and Foremers, which
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: was the location where these animals were held, and likely
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: many of them may have been released from there in
• 37:00
  Speaker 3: the first place.
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, or escaped right right. Maybe somebody tried, because again,
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: camels are fast. Maybe someone tried to ride away on
• 37:09
  Speaker 1: a camel. Maybe they got shots in the chaos and
• 37:12
  Speaker 1: the camel kept going. So one attack is described by
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: a group of miners along the Verde River. They say
• 37:20
  Speaker 1: they saw the red ghost. They fired at it, something
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: shook loose and landed on the ground. When they approached
• 37:27
  Speaker 1: the spot where it fell, they saw the skull of
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: a recently deceased person, skin and hair still stuck to
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: the bone. That's our dead rider theory. The red ghost
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: is a ginormous thing that seems to have death riding
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: upon it, which I'm thinking could quite possibly podcast level
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: true campfire story here. It could possibly be someone who
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: tried to escape and then die, right, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: I have to say that at the end of my life,
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: if I see the Grim Reaper astrided camel going to
• 38:00
  Speaker 1: be greatly disappointed, I've just thought he also delighted to
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: take any of it seriously, you know, yeah.
• 38:05
  Speaker 4: Be like, well, now I know that the most ridiculous
• 38:08
  Speaker 4: is yet ahead.
• 38:09
  Speaker 1: For me, there was that's a positive attitude. And then
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: you know what else we could say, like, hey, Grim Reaper,
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: thanks for checking out our show man, Grim, Yeah, you're
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: you're kind of zany.
• 38:21
  Speaker 2: Actually good to have him in our corner.
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: Man, I WoT, yes, let's say it's a hot pepper.
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: So a few years later, we got a rancher near
• 38:33
  Speaker 3: Eagle Creek who spotted a faral red haired camel getting
• 38:39
  Speaker 3: into his tomato patch. Old farmer McGregor.
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and this guy was a much better shot than
• 38:46
  Speaker 1: those miners. Because when he shot the animal, he managed
• 38:49
  Speaker 1: to bring it down and was verified that he had
• 38:53
  Speaker 1: shot a camel. The Red Ghost reign of Terror had
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: concluded a new spread back east uh the New York Sun.
• 39:00
  Speaker 1: You can see you could see this in various archives.
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: They published a report about the demise, and Jonathan A
• 39:10
  Speaker 1: long time ago, you and I collaborated on a story
• 39:16
  Speaker 1: that went viral for brain stuff about the Transatlantic accent.
• 39:19
  Speaker 1: So could you give us could you give us this quote?
• 39:22
  Speaker 1: I think Transatlantic is appropriate for this.
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: When the rancher went out to examine the dead beast,
• 39:27
  Speaker 4: he found strips of raw hide wound and twisted all
• 39:30
  Speaker 4: over his back and shoulders, and even under his tail.
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: This supports the dead rider theory. Someone or something had
• 39:37
  Speaker 1: been lashed onto this camel. No. Obviously, reporting at this
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: time was not what we would call fact based, So
• 39:46
  Speaker 1: it's possible this was to the earlier point made Nola's
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: possible was widely wildly embellished to sell papers yellow journalism.
• 39:55
  Speaker 1: But the question remains, could the Red Ghost have been
• 39:58
  Speaker 1: a real animal. I'm gonna I'm gonna say yes, but I'm.
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: Not Probably not thirty feet tall.
• 40:05
  Speaker 1: Probably not thirty feet tall. I am not also the
• 40:08
  Speaker 1: official state historian of Arizona in twenty fifteen. What that's unfortunate.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: You were robbed.
• 40:15
  Speaker 4: Let me just say, when I was reviewing mister Bowen's resume,
• 40:19
  Speaker 4: it said otherwise.
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: Okay, it said no, it just had the word otherwise.
• 40:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly That's all it said. Otherwise. It was
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: like kind of well, you're hired.
• 40:27
  Speaker 1: This guy's got camel balls, sure, which is what we
• 40:31
  Speaker 1: call him. That's what they call it. If we are
• 40:36
  Speaker 1: talking about the official state history of Arizona, we're talking
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: about a guy named Marshall Tremble.
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: Marshall Tremble the official state History of Arizona as of
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: twenty fifteen. He went through a lot of the clippings
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: reports on this from the late eighteen hundreds to figure
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: out what the actual truth was. Farah Campbells certainly could
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: survive in the desert for some time, although there almost
• 40:58
  Speaker 3: certainly weren't enough of them living in the wild to create.
• 41:02
  Speaker 2: A kind of new camel civilization. Right.
• 41:04
  Speaker 4: It couldn't be enough to have a sustainable population of camels.
• 41:07
  Speaker 4: There's too few of them and possibly spread far too
• 41:11
  Speaker 4: far apart. So uh, that would just mean we would
• 41:15
  Speaker 4: have a very slow and sad story of camels living
• 41:19
  Speaker 4: out their natural life spans in decline in decline, right,
• 41:23
  Speaker 4: the population eventually diminishing to nothing.
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: The word for that is the last This wouldn't quite apply,
• 41:28
  Speaker 1: but there there is a word for the last living
• 41:33
  Speaker 1: example of a species. It's really sad. That's a final camel, Derek.
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: It's called it's from Chili's. It's called it's called an endling.
• 41:43
  Speaker 1: So sad.
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: Quick question, guys, we know that camels can survive, you know,
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: unchecked in the desert for long periods of times.
• 41:51
  Speaker 1: But what what do they enjoy eating?
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: You know, when after a certain point they can no
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: longer survive off of the fat reserves alone, Right, they
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: need to have some sort of natural.
• 42:02
  Speaker 1: Deserts aren't completely devoid of plant life, it's just sparse
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: and far apart. So they would eat greens of some
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: kind of herbivorous for sure, rily bears occasionally, yeah, right,
• 42:15
  Speaker 1: they eat a lot of stuff that would be maybe
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: too dry or salty for other animals. So really for them,
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: it's being around a source of water that they can
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: just howse you know what I mean? Butause do eat
• 42:28
  Speaker 1: cat cacti twigs, leaves, stems. They will also eat I
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: don't know, pretty much any part of a plant. You know,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: plants have evolved to fight off fight off large animals
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: and certain birds and other things that would that would
• 42:45
  Speaker 1: eat plants. Camels d g a f about those protections.
• 42:51
  Speaker 1: Camels probably eat some hot peppers. I don't know. You
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: know what I bet for a good treat for your camel.
• 42:57
  Speaker 1: I bet there are some fruits that they would really.
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: Love, or a nice carrot.
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: And they are savvy about making sure not to consume
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: poisonous greens, poisonous plants.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: Yes, and as we're seeing now we're doing this live,
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: they are. There's some pretty hardcore herbivores. There's some pretty
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: hardcore ruminants. They can eat a lot of stuff. Actually,
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: it looks like the salt is good for them. Oh
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: to have the dietary abilities of a camel, you guys, indeed, Yeah,
• 43:30
  Speaker 1: I'm on an anti camel diet. I'm on low sodium. Yeah, okay,
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: that's true.
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: That's not even a joke.
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: You had to give up the old salt lick. Yeah. Yeah.
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: I was out there like six seven hours a day,
• 43:43
  Speaker 4: and they said, you're not being a productive member of society.
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: This guy used to just always I remember it was
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: in your contract, the salt lick breaks. Yeah yeah, your
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: agent explained to me, that's like a smoke break for
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: other people riding your camel rider. Yep, all right, there
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: we have it. So this is this tells us, According
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: to Marshall Tremble, this tells us these sightings that were
• 44:06
  Speaker 1: reported throughout the region up until the early nineteen hundreds
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: were likely based in fact. And so the legend of
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: the red Ghost. Like you said, no, it fits perfectly
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: with some of our timelines. It also fits perfectly with
• 44:19
  Speaker 1: some of our geography. The legend might be embellish, but
• 44:23
  Speaker 1: a wild camel, possibly an army camel, that escaped from
• 44:26
  Speaker 1: camp Verde, was spotted, someone did kill it. They found
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: that it had scars across its back and body. It
• 44:34
  Speaker 1: had those straps. We know that we owe a lot
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: of this to a lot of the research to guys
• 44:40
  Speaker 1: like Doug Baum, who was a zoo keeper and owners.
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: To be confused with our Doug Baum, who runs our.
• 44:46
  Speaker 1: Ballet podcast studio. Differently, well, we haven't asked them. We
• 44:51
  Speaker 1: should ask him, Doug, where were you in the late
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: to mid eighteen.
• 44:56
  Speaker 4: Hundreds while I was keeping a zoo in Texas. Oh
• 44:59
  Speaker 4: my god, we talked about you on recent show.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: So what did camel Doug have? So zookiber Doug, owner
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: of the Texas Camel Corps. He hunted down just on
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: his own steam, his own volition, the truth of the
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: Red Ghost as well as the fate of all those
• 45:15
  Speaker 1: other former military camels. And we know that a lot
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: of them went through Mobile Galveston, San Francisco. And Baum
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: gives us this note. He says, these commercially imported camels
• 45:29
  Speaker 1: start to mix with the formerly army camels in the
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: eighteen seventies. This is what he's mad about. By the way,
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: this is what Doug is, what really gets Doug's hump here.
• 45:38
  Speaker 1: He says, they innerbred with the former military camels. So
• 45:41
  Speaker 1: unfortunately it's really murky where the military camels end up
• 45:45
  Speaker 1: and what their ultimate dispositions were. You know, their endings
• 45:49
  Speaker 1: were because of these nebulous traveling menageries and circuses. So
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: he's like, like literal circuses.
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: Literally some of these were taken on by you know, traveling.
• 46:03
  Speaker 4: Famous for how well they kept there.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: Even in the modern day.
• 46:09
  Speaker 3: You know, there have been changes in absolutely more oversight,
• 46:12
  Speaker 3: but back in the early days, zero over horrific conditions
• 46:15
  Speaker 3: of these animals.
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: I propose, gentlemen, we end with a nice uh not
• 46:21
  Speaker 1: even call back a book end with our friends here.
• 46:24
  Speaker 1: Well we'll see the friends are get this. We know
• 46:27
  Speaker 1: what happened to at least one camel, a white haired
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: camel named Sayd. He was yeah, we got what because
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: he was Beale's prized riding camel. When they were expediting
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: out west, Sayid was killed by a younger, larger camel
• 46:42
  Speaker 1: in his hers Camela Violence cooc and COCV, and a
• 46:47
  Speaker 1: soldier who is also a veterinarian. He said, look, Bill,
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: mister Bill, I know this. I say meant a lot
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: to you. So we're going to ship him across the
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: country to Washington. He his body is preserved by the Smithsonian,
• 47:03
  Speaker 1: and the boons of Sai are still in the collection
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: of the National Museum of Natural History to this.
• 47:10
  Speaker 4: Very day, right next to mister Lincoln.
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah, it's a it's a weird aisle. Yeah, in
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: the museum.
• 47:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just it's just misk is the title.
• 47:20
  Speaker 1: Yes, yes, it's it's misk. Because budget cuts, uh didn't
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: give us enough from the right. You know, I mean
• 47:27
  Speaker 1: that's a big signs. That's a big sign. It's a
• 47:31
  Speaker 1: big it's a big sign and it's on whiteboard, which
• 47:34
  Speaker 1: is just remarkable. Wow.
• 47:40
  Speaker 4: So the terrible joke one upsmanship has been amazing.
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: For the our collective. Parents.
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: Would dad would be proud, honestly you think so? Oh yeah,
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: my dad? Yeah, he would be like, way to go, son.
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: Mine would be utterly ashamed. Oh right, well, uh, once
• 47:57
  Speaker 1: again I let happens. He was a tough nut and
• 48:01
  Speaker 1: a fantastic four villain that may be coming to a
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: theater near you. No spoilers. Yeah, big, big thanks of course,
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: as I was saying to you, fellow ridiculous historians for
• 48:12
  Speaker 1: tuning in, huge thanks to Matt the Madman. Still O, Matt,
• 48:16
  Speaker 1: how'd we do? There? We go ahead? Of course, we
• 48:20
  Speaker 1: can't thank you enough. Jonathan Strickland. This will probably be
• 48:25
  Speaker 1: the most polite thank you we have given you in
• 48:27
  Speaker 1: the credits, because you are here in making eye contact
• 48:30
  Speaker 1: in human form.
• 48:31
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 48:31
  Speaker 4: Yeah, And I didn't turn it into my evil alter ego.
• 48:34
  Speaker 1: It was.
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: It was on the table, but we ended up running
• 48:36
  Speaker 3: a little long, and we're a little pressed for time
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: here today.
• 48:38
  Speaker 1: At this tech conference.
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: A huge thanks to Chris Frasciotis Naves, Jeff Cote here
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: in spirit, Alex Williams who composed our theme.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: Max Williams, super producer.
• 48:48
  Speaker 3: Max, thank you for the editing, all the crazy sound
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: cues and for just being a mention.
• 48:53
  Speaker 1: And big big thanks of course to the rude dudes
• 48:55
  Speaker 1: over at Ridiculous Crime, our crew of research associates on
• 48:59
  Speaker 1: this show. Big thanks too. Okay, yep, there they go.
• 49:03
  Speaker 1: I didn't want to be shouted out in the credits.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: We are working live. We'll be back next week. We're
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: going to talk about ancient civilizations. You have to wonder
• 49:13
  Speaker 1: what that means. We'll see next time, folks.
• 49:23
  Speaker 3: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows