'The Odyssey' Cryptids Extravaganza! Plus: OpenAI's Rogue Hack & an Epstein-Linked Death, With Chris Ryan

July 30, 2026

AI Summary

5 min read

“You’re in a room by the Adriatic, and there’s an eel cut open on the table in front of you. The eel is poverty food. … You are a medical student from Vienna named Sigmund Freud, and you’19 years old.” That is how this episode opens—not with a headline, but with a young Freud failing to find the male eel, a quest that had stumped naturalists since Aristotle. Freud eventually gave up, moved on, and became the father of psychoanalysis. The story sets the tone for a sprawling conversation about cryptids, rogue AI, suspicious deaths, and financial engineering, all held together by a single question: What happens when we can’t see clearly, and what stories do we tell to fill the gap?

The Odyssey’s Cryptids: Monsters, Misidentification, and the Limits of Vision

The hosts argue that many creatures in Homer’s Odyssey qualify as cryptids—animals or beings whose existence is suggested by folklore but unproven by science. The Cyclops, for instance, might just be a seven-foot-two guy who lost an eye in a bar fight. Odysseus, the hosts note, could have been five-foot-one and “full of shit.” The giants, the sirens, the six-headed Scylla—all could be exaggerated accounts of real but misunderstood phenomena.

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What you'll learn

1 (00:06) **Sigmund Freud and the Male Eel** - A vivid opening monologue about a 19-year-old Freud's failed quest to find the male eel, a mystery that persisted for centuries.
2 (02:11) **Welcome & The Odyssey Cryptid Question** - The hosts welcome back Chris Ryan and announce the episode's focus on cryptids, sparked by the new 'Odyssey' film.
3 (09:08) **Sirens, Seals, and Bad Eyesight** - A theory that ancient myths about Sirens may have originated from people with poor eyesight misidentifying seals.
4 (13:32) **Personal Cryptid Folklore** - The hosts share local cryptid stories from their own childhoods and family histories.
5 (16:23) **Real Cryptid News: Goblin Shark** - News of the first confirmed observation of a living Goblin Shark in the wild by a team from the University of Hawaii.
6 (20:57) **Unidentified Organism & The Barreleye Fish** - Reports on an organism filmed at 9,137 meters deep off Japan that cannot be assigned to any known phylum.
7 (24:22) **Loch Ness Monster & Cryptid Rankings** - A discussion of a new Loch Ness Monster sighting and a list of cryptids the hosts would like to have a beer with.

+ Full timestamped outline available in the app

Guests on this episode

Chris Ryan

Show Notes

Chris Ryan returns to help Jason and Tyler give the people what they want: cryptids! Inspired by Christopher Nolan’s ‘The Odyssey,’ they take a look at some of folklore’s most fantastical creatures.

In this episode:

(00:00) Intro

(3:31) Cryptids in ‘The Odyssey’

(16:26) The goblin shark

(19:55) The unidentified organism

(22:38) The barreleye fish

(23:20) New Loch Ness Monster sighting

(25:25) Cryptids that’d be the best hang

(40:19) Giant great white shark

(42:02) Stories we’re keeping tabs on

Hosts: Jason Concepcion and Tyler Parker

Guest: Chris Ryan

Producers: Donnie Beacham and Justin Sayles

Art direction: David Shoemaker

Motion graphics and animations: Chris Calleton

Engineering: Sarah Reddy

Set design: Hannah Leiken and Jonathan Ratliff

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