Mother Nature, in all her brilliance, has birthed some fascinating phenomena. Take the magical skies of the Aurora Borealis in Iceland for example, or the bioluminescent Maldives shores where the ocean lights up like neon blue fairy lights.
Here in Australia, we have Lake Hillier, where the water is the colour of a strawberry milkshake. In England of course, they have the synchronised sheep panic at 8pm. Wait… what?
Although one of the lesser known phenomena (you might even say “un-herd” of), unexplained sheep panic caused quite a stir in Oxfordshire England in the late 19th century. On November 3, 1888, tens of thousands of sheep in a 200 square mile radius in Oxfordshire suddenly went bonkers at 8pm. It was as if some unseen terror had gripped them all simultaneously. Can you hear the X-files theme music playing?
The panicked sheep smashed through fences, jumped over stone walls, and tore up property as they stampeded uncontrollably. Later, the shepherds found the sheep panting and scattered under hedges and on roads, miles away from their usual grazing areas. What the heck had happened?
This bizarre phenomenon, known simply as the "Sheep Panic," naturally raised many questions, baffling both scientists and shepherds. Discussions and theories were published in a popular publication at the time, “Hardwicke's Science-Gossip: An Illustrated Medium of Interchange and Gossip for Students and Lovers of Nature”. Those publication titles never get old.
People speculated about various causes of the panic, including the possibility of an excessively dark night, a slight earthquake, or meteorological events. To be fair, that theory might have seemed plausible considering that a lot of weird stuff seemed to drop from the sky onto Oxfordshire, particularly in November. More X-files theme music.
For example, a meteor fell at Wantage in April 1628, another in November 1868 and another again in November 1887. The problem with the meteorological event theory, however, is that there wasn’t any evidence of anything falling from the sky. Back to the drawing board.
Some people sought to blame mischievous children for frightening the sheep, but that theory was quickly dismissed by the authors of Hardwicke's Science Gossip. The true cause of the sheep panic remained elusive (or shall we say el-ewe-sive.) To add another layer of mystery, this strange incident in 1888 wasn’t the last. The sheep panicked again in 1889 and again in 1893. WTF was happening??
Like us, you’re thinking the only possible explanation is an alien invasion, right? Or perhaps Elon Musk can travel back in time and that’s where he did the animal testing for Neuralink. Unfortunately, we have no evidence of alien visitation or 4th-dimensional Musks, but the prevailing theory for sheep panic published in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society was, wait for it… thick darkness.
You read that right. It wasn’t just darkness. It was THICK darkness. Biblical thick.
Witnesses from that evening in November 1888 reported an extraordinarily dark and heavy cloud moving from northwest to southeast, blocking out all sources of light. The theory was that the sheep, being highly sensitive prey animals, may have panicked and fled in terror due to this overwhelming darkness. Because of their flighty nature and innate flocking, it would have only taken one panicked sheep to create a ripple effect through the entire herd.
But that doesn’t explain how so many sheep from such a large area began to freak out all at once.
Another theory proposed that a rolling cloud, hanging low enough to almost touch the ground, had frightened the sheep. The heavy and oppressive atmosphere accompanying the thick darkness, combined with the sheep's nervous and timid natures, would have amplified their fear and led to the stampede.
Again, this theory doesn’t explain the sheep going simultaneously bonkers. Could it be possible that mass sheep panic was a murmuration? Maybe sheep have more in common with starlings than we realise.
Or maybe, the sheep panic WAS because of alien visitation and the shepherds were trying to pull the wool over everyone’s eyes.
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[00:00:00] Rod: murmurations aren't they fantastic so you know it's that particularly for starlings the way they move through the sky and they move as if they're controlled by one entity fascinating magical patterns
[00:00:14] Will: giant flock of birds what are we talking, how many a million? And they move like an organism
[00:00:20] Rod: it's mesmerizing and so they're kind of like a drone show these days but with no controlling obvious ultra entity
[00:00:27] Will: and made by evolution.
[00:00:28] Rod: Made by evolution. As Darwin put it, Evolution makes things. That's what he said.
[00:00:33] Will: We should put a sticker on everything. Made by evolution.
[00:00:35] Rod: Made by evolution. But is it only starlings or birds that do it? Fish seem to move.
[00:00:39] Will: Definitely. Particularly little tiny fish. And you see a predator fish move through and they move.
[00:00:43] Rod: But even without they kind of do these little columns and swirls. It's fucking fascinating. But what about less famously elegant and maybe more solidly terrestrial creatures?
[00:00:52] Will: Elephants. A murmuration of elephants. Is this what we're doing?
[00:00:55] Rod: Or sheep?
[00:01:03] Will: Welcome to the Wholesome Show, a podcast that's almost supernaturally synchronized with the whole of science. I'm Will Grant.
[00:01:09] Rod: I'm Rod Lamberts. So Oxfordshire, England, November 3rd, 1888. On or very close to 8pm. Tens of thousands of sheep went bat shit crazy. Scattered to the four winds.
[00:01:23] Will: But what is batshit crazy? They just moved.
[00:01:26] Rod: Smashed through fences like fucking crazy. And they did this, it would appear to be simultaneously. Over an area of about 200 square miles.
[00:01:36] Will: Oh, okay. So not one paddock or something like this. This is 200 square miles. I don't know how many sheep fit in a paddock. I kind of think a trillion sheep per paddock is the normal number.
[00:01:46] Rod: And this is more than one paddock.
[00:01:47] Will: We're Australians though. So, you know, we're big paddocks.
[00:01:49] Rod: So yeah, about 200 square miles, which is 128,000 acres. 51,800 hectares. 40 million bushels, 520 square kilometers. This is clearly not one flock. This was many sheep. Yeah. And they could not all see or hear each other. Like they weren't like within earshot. They weren't within eyeshot, no radios, none, none of your, what do you call it? Walkie talkies.
[00:02:12] Will: Okay. Okay. Something happened that made the sheep go mad. I don't know if this is a murmuration of sheep yet.
[00:02:17] Rod: So from, um, Hardwick's science gossip; an illustrated medium of interchange and gossip for students and lovers of nature.
[00:02:25] Will: Is this from the 1880s?
[00:02:27] Rod: This is a real publication.
[00:02:29] Will: An illustrated medium for students
[00:02:31] Rod: Hardwick's science gossip and it was popular.
[00:02:33] Will: Yeah. I have to say, if we were to reinvent ourselves as Hardwick science gossip,
[00:02:38] Rod: I don't see why we shouldn't. Announcing today
[00:02:41] Will: strong feeling I need to have a t shirt that has Hardwick science gossip.
[00:02:45] Rod: So the article, the sheep panic near Reading, so there's a bunch of quotes here. I'm sorry, but old school, but it's worth it. At a time as near eight o'clock as possible. How, how, what's possible?
[00:02:58] Will: Overwritten sentence.
[00:02:59] Rod: I know. Imagine that 1800s. Yeah. The tens of thousands of sheep folded and folded is a term for when they put them into smaller enclosures at night. So the panic, yeah. As near as possible to eight o'clock.
[00:03:11] Tens of thousands of sheep folded in a large sheep breeding districts, North, East and West of Reading. They were taken with a sudden fright. They jumped their hurdles. They escaped from the fields and they ran hither and thither.
[00:03:23] Will: Oh no, but you had to. You had to hither and thither.
[00:03:26] Rod: In the 1800s, if something was hither and thither, meltdown. And as I go on, in fact, there must have been for some time, a perfect stampede. Sheep were bursting through their pens, barreling through fences as if they were made of paper, the fences jumping over stone walls and tearing up property as they ran. So they went, they went metal, they went fully mental.
[00:03:46] And early on Sunday morning, the next day, the shepherds found the animals under hedges, in the roads, panting as if they were terror stricken. They freaked the fuck out and bolted. Some were miles away from the usual field, like miles, not, not down the road. Like they fucked off.
[00:04:01] Will: And we can tell these are the same sheep that like
[00:04:03] Rod: yeah, from the smell. The shepherds of the time knew their flock by their smell
[00:04:05] Will: they had barcodes or whatever, or a QR code?
[00:04:08] Rod: Okay. So what happened? So authors of their hardwicks size gossip article, they were not convinced by any of the rationales opined by local sheep people.
[00:04:16] Will: Why did the sheep go mad? So what, what were the, what were the explanations people gave?
[00:04:20] Rod: Here's one. The night was intensely dark.
[00:04:23] Will: Oh, it was too dark.
[00:04:24] Rod: Intensely dark. With occasional flashes of lightning.
[00:04:26] Will: First time that ever been a really dark night.
[00:04:28] Rod: the fuck? Where's the sun gone? Lucifer has come to earth.
[00:04:31] Will: No moon, no clouds. That's it.
[00:04:33] Rod: Armageddon, or as the sheep said, I'm getting out of here. Be here all week.
[00:04:38] Will: So, okay. One explanation, too dark.
[00:04:40] Rod: So they, they said, yeah, bollocks. That seems unlikely, especially for the widespread effect. They went on to say, we would suggest the probability of a slight earthquake, slight earthquake
[00:04:50] Will: any other animals or any other, uh, people?
[00:04:53] Rod: No, just the sheeps.
[00:04:57] Will: Again, mystery.
[00:04:58] Rod: I know, but then they go on to call on the readers in the article from Hardwick's Science Gossip. They call on their readers to Offer a more satisfactory explanation. So things were discussed like, even though the weather wasn't especially bad, meteorological events were still on the table. So maybe it was weather ish.
[00:05:17] Will: Okay. I know that this is worthy of comment. So it must've been an event that unusual. But had something like this happened before?
[00:05:26] Rod: In this area, maybe, but hard to tell.
[00:05:28] Will: Okay. Okay. It's just, it's just, you know, if it's just some dark night or some weather, we've had those before
[00:05:34] Rod: we have, and we'll probably have them again. So that, yeah, they, they, they postulated seismological events, maybe even astronomical like meteorites, but none of these were deemed convincing enough for the authors in, you know, Hardwick's Science Gossip. So, even though a number of contemporary natural scientists, though, are quick to point out that historically, a lot of weird stuff seemed to drop from the sky onto Oxfordshire, particularly in November.
[00:05:57] Will: November's the weird time.
[00:05:59] Rod: For sky stuff.
[00:06:00] Will: Yeah, sure.
[00:06:01] Rod: The other months, it could come from the land, the sea, underground, whatever. November. Look up. Always look up.
[00:06:07] Will: In fairness, it might be that moment when we're around the sun that we're hitting shit. It could actually be a thing.
[00:06:12] Rod: It could be. So there are examples of this, like a meteor at Wantage. April 9th, 1628. Another was a quote, undimensioned I assume meteorite November 3rd, 1868. So getting a lot closer and yet another on November 20th, 1887 year before. And then they added to this list. And then there was the sheep panic that we just talked about.
[00:06:35] Will: Maybe they take a year or so to panic.
[00:06:38] Rod: Well, they're slow, delicious, but slow.
[00:06:40] Will: Fuck, fuck. There was a meteorite a year ago.
[00:06:44] Rod: I've thought about it. I'm going to run. So it really seems they say as if residents in that district district in November have exceptional opportunities for meteorological research, according to the great Britain meteorological office in their magazine in 1888.
[00:06:59] So the shit loads of weather around there. How good is that? And it's not clear to me when they say meteor. Some of the sources, it sounds like maybe meteor referred to meteorology and some referred to rocks
[00:07:11] Will: of the sky
[00:07:11] Rod: and I could be wrong.
[00:07:12] Will: It all just means of the sky.
[00:07:13] Rod: Yeah, so it was a bit ambiguous. So just remember, let's talk about sheep. So look, they're prey animals. We know that
[00:07:20] Will: yeah, they're victims.
[00:07:21] Rod: They're used to being devoured.
[00:07:23] Will: They're nature's victims, but they got, they got a tough jumper around. It's hard. They do. It's hard for a wolf to get through that jumper.
[00:07:29] Rod: But they'll give it a good crack. So they're pretty much pre wired or at least evolutionary created to gather in flocks. To cluster. Yeah. Okay. Makes sense. You know, you just don't be on the edge. So this is why, as they go on to say a single person who look after a large flock of sheep because you just got to get a couple of them to go and the rest of them do it too. So one shepherd, many sheeps. Also, they will quite clearly and regularly follow each other one for whatever reason. murmuration like, if you will.
[00:07:55] Will: Yes. Gary and Janelle have said there's some danger over there. So I'll just turn left. Everyone else is turning. It's not, we're not that far away from that.
[00:08:04] Rod: We're not. Hence people, social media. Um, and there's a great example put in one of the sources from 2006 in Turkey to talk about how they'll follow each other. The quote is, around 400 sheep fell to their deaths after following one sheep that tried to cross a deep ravine. So there you go, science is a definite example.
[00:08:22] Will: You idiot sheep.
[00:08:23] Rod: Yeah, like, I'm going to cross a ravine. We are too!
[00:08:25] Will: I would have thought, I would have thought once, once the deaths were piling up.
[00:08:29] Rod: No, it was too quick. So with that in mind, let's think about this. An explanation reported in the Live Stock Journal of 1888. And I love about this, the way it's written down is, Live stock, not livestock. So from that journal, sheep panic, the case reported from Reading as to the whole of the flocks within one district being disturbed and escaping from their folds on one night at one hour has been paralleled by a similar outbreak in Norfolk.
[00:08:57] Will: Oh, same time? Different time?
[00:09:00] Rod: different time, but it has happened elsewhere as well. As we believe they go on, the panic is spread by, quote, hearing.
[00:09:08] Will: Yeah. Hearing what?
[00:09:09] Rod: Apparently sheep can hear. I didn't know that.
[00:09:11] Will: Yeah, but hearing what?
[00:09:12] Rod: So here's the explanation. This is good. This is really good psycom. Science communication.
[00:09:16] Will: What year is this explanation?
[00:09:17] Rod: 1888. The Live Stock Journal.
[00:09:19] Will: I'll take that with the grain of salt.
[00:09:21] Rod: The grain of delicious artisanal Himalayan salt. So here's how they say, flock M or N is frightened on a very dark night. Of course you'd go with M or N first, not A or B. At once L and O are disturbed. Cause again, why would you go with C and D?
[00:09:36] Will: Well, couldn't we have just gone flock A and then flock B?
[00:09:39] Rod: I agree. M or N. And at once L and O are disturbed and the sound of their excitement attracts the attention of K and P.
[00:09:48] Will: Yeah. Okay.
[00:09:49] Rod: I think you're getting the gist, right?
[00:09:51] Will: So one sheep goes wild and flock goes off, and the next one goes off and obviously every sheep in the world shits the bed.
[00:09:58] Rod: So yeah, we get to K and P who are simultaneously panic driven, the distress expanding from one center as the rings upon the surface of a pond expand from where the stone strikes.
[00:10:08] Will: To everywhere. And sorry, where does it stop? Like this theory is not a good theory because it says, you know, the instant some sheep is, is panicked, then all sheep in the world are panicked.
[00:10:19] Rod: The sheep averse is fucked.
[00:10:21] Will: As far as sheep can hear.
[00:10:23] Rod: Exactly. But the thing with this is it seems to have happened all at once. It wasn't a Mexican wave. It wasn't like a rolling. This seemed to be simultaneous.
[00:10:30] Will: Yeah. Not a network effect. It's, it's one intervention that has
[00:10:33] Rod: as close as possible to eight o'clock, whatever time that could be,
[00:10:36] Will: the sheep are fans of eight o'clock. That is an hour that they respect.
[00:10:40] Rod: Also, obviously it happened over a large area. So another theory was proposed, but quickly dismissed. And it was this, it was agreed that there was no possible way that the trouble that troublesome children, normally the guilty party when sheep have been scared.
[00:10:53] Will: I like that.
[00:10:54] Rod: We know how it is. Your kids are always out fucking with sheep, right? Scaring sheep is what I meant to say.
[00:10:59] Will: Yeah, well, phew.
[00:11:00] Rod: This theory there is children, you know, so they go on to say, how could children across several villages all rile the sheep up so much?
[00:11:06] Will: Social media.
[00:11:07] Rod: Yep, 1800s. The kids were all on the clacker phone.
[00:11:10] Will: And they said, get out there and tip over some sheep. You fuck em up. Fuck em up. That's what they said.
[00:11:16] Rod: And they also go on to say, malicious mischief was out of the question because a thousand men could not have frightened and released all these sheep.
[00:11:22] Will: No, but men ain't so good at frightening sheep as kids.
[00:11:24] Rod: Nah, yeah, kids are better. So regardless of why it happened, it happened again, 1889.
[00:11:28] Will: Wow. Is it the same date?
[00:11:30] Rod: No.
[00:11:31] Will: Oh, that would've been cool. Wouldn't it? I know you did last summer, you know, like I'll fuck you up next summer, even though it's November, like I'll come back.
[00:11:39] Rod: I know. And happened again in 1893.
[00:11:42] Will: Again, not a year later.
[00:11:43] Rod: No, this is four years later.
[00:11:45] Will: So we've got 1888, 1889, 1893.
[00:11:49] Rod: So what the fuck happened? The best bet, the best bet, quoting again, various causes for these panics have been suggested, but only one reasonable explanation has been satisfactorily adduced.
[00:11:59] They conclude, the 1893 panic was at the time fully investigated by Mr. O. V. Aplin, who was published in the Journal of the Royal Agricultural Society. And uh, the conclusions he drew from the existent evidence were collected. The conclusion he arrived at was that the cause of the panic was simply thick darkness.
[00:12:19] Will: Haha, Thanks fucker! thick darkness
[00:12:22] Rod: I know, and I read that and went, What's that?! There's some shit darkness there, And the sheeps be very frighten'd If you make the dark darker, the black blacker. So if you think about it, probably thick darkness.
[00:12:39] Will: That's fucking great. I love, I love that there's a publication where the conclusion is some thick darkness.
[00:12:45] Rod: More than one.
[00:12:47] Will: I would like to end all my papers with in conclusion, thick darkness.
[00:12:53] Rod: And you need something with a font that has that rise at the end. Thick darkness? So I thought, thick darkness, what are you talking about? So I sussed it out.
[00:13:03] Will: You Googled thick darkness?
[00:13:04] Rod: I did. Safe search off, not images. I didn't go images, I should have. So the first 800 ish bajillion hits, all biblical.
[00:13:12] Will: What?
[00:13:14] Rod: All biblical. I got very excited because I'm thinking, supernatural event, this is fucking fabulous. So I'm summarizing the eight bajillion hits. So 1 King's 8 12 and one Chronicles 6:1. You know, you know the ones, the Lord said that he would dwell in thick darkness.
[00:13:28] Will: I would dwell in thick darkness.
[00:13:31] Rod: He had reasons for this.
[00:13:32] Will: Well, you know, there's a time and a place like when you want a real afternoon nap, I will go for some thick darkness.
[00:13:39] Rod: I'm not against it.
[00:13:40] Will: Imagine how deep you sleep. When you're dwelling in your thick darkness, wife, I'm off to the thick darkness.
[00:13:47] Rod: So anyway, the Lord said he would dwell in thick darkness, this thick darkness. It refers to the darkness that envelops God's appearance. There's reasons for this. The darkness mentioned in verse 21 blocks God's glorious appearance from Moses
[00:14:02] Will: in fairness, like it's basically God's clothes, but God can't be wearing clothes
[00:14:06] Rod: beyond clothes. So God turns up to talk to Moses, but in thick dark.
[00:14:09] Will: Yeah. No, no, no. In fairness, God is not branded. Like God can't be wearing, he can't be selecting particular clothes.
[00:14:14] Rod: Gucci, versace, Uniqlo.
[00:14:15] Will: No, no. God can't choose. God's got to go like, I've got to go with thick darkness around.
[00:14:19] Rod: Cause otherwise it'll be racist.
[00:14:20] Will: No, I don't think that.
[00:14:22] Rod: Clothist.
[00:14:22] Will: Yes, it would be clothist. I can't be Gucci. I can't be your Levi's, your Versace, any of those, your Threadless, Nikkei, and none of those.
[00:14:33] Rod: So he goes on, he's cloaked for Moses. So he's covered himself in thick darkness because it reveals his caring towards Moses. In fact, no one would have lived if God utterly disclosed Himself. So if God just went, here I am.
[00:14:47] Will: Yeah. If he nuded up, everyone dies.
[00:14:49] Rod: Or, appeared at all in full glory at all. Even in a three piece suit, a tuxedo. Pair of thongs, shorts and a tank top. Boom.
[00:14:55] Will: Turns up the beach. Everyone's dead. Dead. Everyone's dead. He's too hot.
[00:14:58] Rod: So Exodus 33, 20. And I know you were gonna bring that up, but I'm gonna just for people listening, states that no sinful man living on earth can see God's face and live.
[00:15:07] Will: Oh, even his face now?
[00:15:08] Rod: not even the face. Ah, so imagine the whole body. So when he turns up to Moses
[00:15:13] Will: who had evidence for this?
[00:15:14] Rod: Yes. Moses. So, you know, the encyclopedia botanica, it's the same as the Bible. It's full of facts. Well researched. The majestic God uses the veil of darkness so, He could communicate with Moses.
[00:15:27] Will: So I'm calming things down. I'm putting myself on mute.
[00:15:30] Rod: So God did it.
[00:15:31] Will: Thanks God. Cool. How does this get back to the sheep?
[00:15:33] Rod: Well, so I did that. I read that article. It said thick darkness and I went off and looked at thick darkness. And then I thought, hang on, what if I read the rest of the article? Beyond thick darkness, I was feeling feisty. I thought, let's be a proper research and read the whole piece. So it goes on very few people probably have ever been out in a really dark night. Apparently, and it is impossible for anyone who has not experienced this to imagine what it is like and the sense of helplessness it causes. The thick darkness, not jesus darkness.
[00:16:03] Will: Like a true thing. Yeah you haven't been in that.
[00:16:05] Rod: No, you haven't. No, no one knows.
[00:16:08] Will: These are people as well. They're from pre LEDs. But they got a lantern that lights up like 10 centimeters around the lab.
[00:16:17] Rod: Beyond their toes. I can see my shoes
[00:16:20] Will: I can understand some thick darkness sucks the light out of the lantern.
[00:16:25] Rod: And so he goes on to say that a thick darkness of this kind was experienced in the early part of the night of the recent panic. This is proved by abundant evidence according to this author. So here's a couple of reports anyway, just brief ones. One witness said between 8 and 9pm, such a thick and heavy darkness came on that a man could not see his own hand.
[00:16:46] Another witness. A little before 8 o'clock, there was an extraordinary black cloud traveling from northwest to southeast, which appeared to be rolling along the ground. Okay. The darkness lasted for 30 or 40 minutes, and during that time, it was like being shut up in a dark room. Later in the night, after the panics, there were several flashes of lightning as well.
[00:17:06] So Aplin, the guy who was writing this stuff, says, Look, animals probably see perfectly well on ordinary dark nights. We can imagine a bewilderment coming over them when they find themselves overtaken by thick darkness in which they can see nothing. That's his speculation. Sorry, assertion. Assertion's a better word.
[00:17:22] Most of the panic sheep were in these folds that I talked about. So these apparently very snug. These pens, you really squashed in. They're feeding and watering troughs in there as well. So they're squished in and they have objects. So if one of the sheep went, yeah, they were banged to a trough or another sheep. Or a fence. Another sheep would go, Oh my God. Murmuration.
[00:17:44] Will: So the thick darkness. All right.
[00:17:46] Rod: Possibly, possibly. If one sheep spooked, they'd all carry on the quote goes on, then they would all make a rush and their terror and the momentarily recurring incentives to, and aggravations of, in the shape of collisions would only subside when the sheep had broken out of their
[00:18:02] Will: Why, why, why then suddenly is this happening? Okay. I get there's been starless nights, cloudy, no moon, no stars, the sheep are sitting in there in the dark. I get it. And there's, there's thicker versions. Super cloudy. And you go, I don't know what's different.
[00:18:16] Rod: They've done it before. I agree. So if this is the explanation of the panic, they say, then it's easy to understand why folded sheep in these little pens are much more likely to suffer than those in open fields. So the heavy oppressive atmosphere accompanying the thick darkness, the dispositions of sheep to atmospheric disturbance, and then nervous and timid natures would all tend to increase the fright the sheep experienced.
[00:18:42] The cause of the panic, therefore a rolling cloud that rolled so low to apparently touch the ground, freaked him out. And this guy's work was quoted even in a commentary in nature magazine in 1921, so decades later.
[00:18:57] Will: Okay. Sure.
[00:18:59] Rod: Yeah. You're like me. I'm skeptical. I'm still like, yeah, bullshit because a bunch of sources don't mention cloud at all or thick darkness. And finally, if the stampede's happened simultaneously, it doesn't make sense
[00:19:09] Will: Well it had to pop into existence.
[00:19:11] Rod: I agree. So I'm back to murmuration. I reckon sheep are like starlings without wool and wings. I think it was a murmuration.
[00:19:18] Will: I think it's aliens.
[00:19:19] Rod: So yes, the, the explanation is, mm
[00:19:22] Will: what? Are you setting this up? You're not giving me an answer?
[00:19:25] Rod: That's all I have because there nothing else to be discovered.
[00:19:27] Will: Oh my God. Solve the mystery for me.
[00:19:29] Rod: Do you know what it was? Something.
[00:19:32] Will: Stop it. You're freaking terrible.
[00:19:33] Rod: The Bible.
