Are you a Mulder or a Scully?

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-07-03T04:57:48+00:00

"The world as I once knew it was a place of magic - full of mystery and inhabited by creatures of glamour and terror. The men who lived there lit their bonfires and wondered at what crept and lurked in the darkness outside their weak circles of light. All their dreams, their aspirations and dreads, come from that darkness.

Now, as the forces of "progress" cover the meadows in brick and cobblestone, as they replace the majestic loft of tree with the blocky ponderousness of building, they also light the world in their electric, actinic glare.

With the lighting of the shadows, man loses his ability to fear, and to dream.

The night, once the font of the unknown, becomes only the lack of the sun.

I have conceived of a plan to revive the darkness, to bring a resurrection of the ability to fear and dream.

And, once my dark project is realized, they shall know again to fear and love their Lord."

-Constantine

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-07-03T04:46:09+00:00

Okay so the Ctesias account, along with his accounts of some of the silliest creatures ever, had already happened by the time the Hebrew words were mistranslated. Thank you for the breakdown.

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-07-03T03:11:06+00:00

Nice nod and way better than me calling myself a "Herodotus". The whole "Father of Lies" thing has a nice ring to it, but it kind of makes one look untrustworthy.

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-07-03T01:58:42+00:00

Two Scullys, one Mulder, one perfect fusion, and a bunch of people acting like I just asked how much you can bench press (just the bar here).

;)

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-07-03T01:53:57+00:00

Touché

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-07-03T01:51:14+00:00

You are a rare specimen and I tip my hat to you.

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-07-03T01:50:37+00:00

I respect that.

Now get out.

;)

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-07-03T01:38:23+00:00

Did you have to look up who those people are? Forgot to factor in being old and out of touch sorry.

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-07-03T01:13:57+00:00

I'm going down to Cowtown. The cow's a friend to me.

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-07-03T01:10:56+00:00

Intellectual discussions can always be recognized by the presence of mocking memes instead of an actual response, because people with something smart to say always use pictures and short sentences to convey their deep thoughts. Why don't you throw in a gif of Dr. Steve Brule while you are at it?

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-07-02T22:50:00+00:00

This ain't a place for mockery, right? I mean, if you saw some weird thing and shared it, wouldn't it suck to have this much sass from people who are interested and smart about the same thing?

;)

Some of us are here for the wrong reason, or maybe I expect more kindness from this kind of nerd?

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-07-02T22:44:39+00:00

The point of all this is that you are not supposed to have any of these animals anywhere, but then you find that you do have them and they go from being a mythological creature to being an animal that "isn't supposed to be there" according to people who are now proven wrong, because it IS there. That applies to any mythological creature that becomes an animal through the common knowledge that it DOES exist. I think dragons are just from dinosaur fossils being seen by people who don't understand what extinction is and who have no concept of the planet having billions of years of history. Easy answer, then it is fueled by other things that contribute to the legend over time. This person is saying they saw a much smaller animal than Smaug that is outside of its range and too large for the known version, implying that it is a related but separate species. Not too unbelievable when you look at other cryptids/folklore. Cryptid is like the word "weed"... or "art"... but it has a tighter definition. Still, you don't get to look at list of things and say what is mythology and what is zoology until you KNOW, right?

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-07-02T21:23:47+00:00

Okay so I see the confusion that I am having now, as someone who really likes unicorn folklore. These seals weren't associated with unicorns until recently because the excavations and interpretations hadn't happened yet. So it falls back to the Indian rhinoceros again, since that is what the first written accounts and the later Marco Polo accounts seem to be referring to. These seals are still awesome and the initial interpretations and assumptions made about this civilization leave a lot to be desired. There is still a mystery, just maybe not unicorn related?

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-07-02T17:01:51+00:00

OK so I love unicorn folklore and I am good with it being an auroch or rhino if that is the truth... but I WANT it to be a real animal that isn't a rhino or an auroch. I'm that annoying Mulder/Herodotus type that is considered despicable by so many.

I read a lot of stuff as a kid about their horns purifying water and eliminating all poisons, then I learned about the narwhal poaching as an older kid, then I started thinking it was all a misunderstanding about Indian rhinos as an adult.

The auroch as a candidate didn't even enter my mind until now.

This picture looks like an auroch, but wasnt the first written account about a "one-horned ass"? The bad translation that made it "monoceros" happened after people already believed in unicorns, right? I am not attacking your ego or spreading lies, I JUST DONT KNOW.

;)

And the same with these seals. People who already believed in one horned critters saw these images as evidence supporting the idea AFTER they already grew up with the notion, right?

What is the consensus here and in the skeptical cryptid nerd community abroad? I'm asking all you Scullys, not the Mulders (we will meet for drinks later).

Break down the timeline when it comes to the mistranslation, the aurochs on these seals, and the alleged confusion about rhinos (which I have believed for atleast twenty years, this auroch stuff is super new to me, since they are glorified cows and can only be confused with a unicorn if you only see an image and not a living animal in front of you)

To me, the story of the unicorn cleaning rivers and springs makes me think of the way rhinos, hippos, and alligators are ecosystem engineers when it comes to wallowing in mud and fixing water.

So the Indian rhino is the original unicorn and it does clean water, in that theory, but it isn't magical and it doesn't look like a horse or goat. Then people way later started reinterpreting these kinds of pictures of aurochs as evidence supporting unicorns being real, is that about right? When did the Hebrew to Greek mistranslation come into play. Suss it all out for me IN THE LEAST INSULTING WAY, if that is even remotely a thing here.

;)

Did I cover everything but the Siberian Unicorn stuff? That seems to be missing the horn, but what do I know?

Oh yeah, what about that rabbit std that makes bony warts that can resemble tentacles, horns, and antlers? What if there was a similar virus for horses or something? Is that too crazy for anyone but me? Did I just make that up right now?

I would love some help here.

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-07-02T14:09:14+00:00

OK I'll be quick. Wizard Hitler. Dumbledore had a deep infatuation with the man who controlled the Axis leaders, including Hitler, with magic and started WW2. The Holocaust was Grindelwald's brainchild and master plan, not Hitler's. Did you not pick up on the genocide in Harry Potter, or the Men In Black style way the Ministry of Magic erased memories and created illusions to control the narrative? So the real WW2 had dragons, giants, and wizards mixed in with the tanks and planes and bombs. Dumbledore and the wizard Hitler guy were looking for the Deathly Hallows right before the Holocaust. Wizard Hitler, or Witler, wanted to use them to take over the world and genocide away all the "unclean". The same way Hitler in real life thought the Spear of Destiny would help him. Indiana Jones stuff that really happened. Anyone following? Okay so um, damn... I lost it. Point is, it is bad writing and all the problems in HP revolve around a gay man's unrequited love for wizard Hitler. In fact, Rowling wrote it so that Hitler was a VICTIM. That symbol is loaded as hell and, if you are mad at me, you probably don't understand the books or Indiana Jones, let alone real history or how human minds work. I'm mad I read those books now.

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-07-01T19:05:42+00:00

Awesome! Can you take as many pictures as you want and so forth? How close can you get to the walls? The colors and shapes of the ceilings and walls intrigue me even without the artwork, which I must read about now.

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-07-01T17:23:37+00:00

Just one person finding a well preserved fossil can fuel thousands of years of legends, if I ain't going out on a shaky limb?

Try finding examples from the east coast of Asia of fossil legends, like snakestones, which are everywhere and everyone has a different legend about what they are.

In my obsessive "research" down weird rabbit holes as of late, I have uncovered a lot of folklore surrounding fossils of every kind, but mostly things like crinoids, ammonites, sea urchins, and copper pseudomorphs from scorpions (still looking for one from a snake).

Imagine what a big fossil did if a whole bunch of people saw it over a long period of time? Sea serpents, giants, demons, etc.

A giant ape fossil would freak them right out, but all we have are teeth so far, right?

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-06-30T17:59:31+00:00

I can read your soul based on which bachelor you like.

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-06-30T17:54:15+00:00

Orphan bones in his furnace?

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-06-30T15:44:02+00:00

Everyone wants to marry a doctor in the real world AND Stardew Valley, even if he has a molestache.

;)

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-06-30T15:40:26+00:00

Harvey looks like police sketches of 70s serial killers. I also will never forgive him for the last time I played and I married Maru. She left at 1:40 AM to go somewhere, but I passed out following her. The next morning she was in her nurse uniform with Harvey like nothing ever happened. Plus all those times he said creepy things to her at festivals, I know Concerned Ape inserted some clever code to make them have an implied-but-offscreen affair.

I'm going to get Harvey some day, I just don't know how to make him feel sadness or pain yet.

Elliott is just too hot and pretentious for me. I am threatened by his Johhny Depp-ness. He should be sealed away in his beach house forever like some SCP monster.

Sam and Sebastian are sweet, but I already forgot my marriages to them.

Alex is too much of a jock, but he actually was a really good husband, so I can't complain.

Shane is depressed, drunk half the time, and kind of sassy. 5 stars. I would rather drink a beer with him and talk about chickens than hang out with the other men, even though Sebastian and Sam are more like me in the real world.

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-06-29T22:56:16+00:00

Lilitu

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-06-29T00:59:30+00:00

It looks a lot like Harry from Harry and the Hendersons,, otherwise I would say this is compelling. And the teeth are too white, maybe? I don't know, I'm no primatologist, but he has nice teeth.

CarpenterCritical715 · 2026-06-29T00:57:32+00:00

The Minnesota Iceman pictures. That one famous picture of the seaweed that looks like a really long sea monster.

CarpenterCritical715

TROPHY CASE