Mud Flood Theory is a rabbit hole. Filled with mud.

Instead of doing the work to excavate it myself, I dumped it off onto Panda and Morgan from the podcast The Dumb and the Restless -- which covers topics of Pacific Northwest weirdness in a road-trip format.

(I found them when they mentioned tree octopuses on Twitter. If you mention tree octopuses on Twitter, I will find you.)

In case you're unaware of Mud Flood Theory, this is the elevator-pitch part of the email I sent them suggesting it as a topic:

The gist: Sometime in the last few hundred years, an unknown event buried buildings across the globe in a layer of mud, anywhere from a few feet to completely covering them, and there has been a conspiracy to keep this secret from the public through historical revisionism and gas lighting.

Mud Flood researchers also speculate the event wiped out -- possibly intentionally -- all evidence of an ancient, technologically advanced civilization centered in Great Tartary, which had cities all over the world, upon the ruins of which our "modern" cities were built -- a theory called the "Grand Tartarian Civilization Reset".

The only physical evidence that any of this happened is basement windows in old buildings that are inexplicably below street level.

They've just posted their episode about it: "It's In The Mud", so give them a listen!

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There's a new webseries called Pacific NorthWEIRD "chronicling the strange, supernatural, and eccentric happenings of the Pacific Northwest". Their premier episode is about the mysterious Mima Mounds near Olympia, WA (map):

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Cascadia's beloved musician, businessman, and punny raconteur, Ivar Haglund, was well-known, both locally and internationally, for his publicity stunts promoting his aquarium and seafood restaurant. Here's a stunt I had not heard of before:

In 1947, Ivar organized an expedition to scale the newly discovered Mount Miller -- starting from the top! Mount Miller, you see, is underwater, part of the Gulf of Alaska Seamount Province. His expedition team consisted of one brave octopus, Oscar III, who was to be dropped from a boat over the seamount, attached to a two-mile line. Oscar's mission: bring back deep-sea edelweiss to prove he had scaled to the base.

From an April 4th United Press story (reprinted in The Portsmouth Times, p. 6):

OSCAR OCTOPUS TO TRY 'MOUNT'

Underwater 'Mountain' Subject Of Novel Trip

SEATTLE, April 4—A mountain-climbing octopus, Oscar III, and his trainer, Ivar Haglund, were en route today to "climb" the mountain-infested waters of the Alaskan gulf.

The 11,350-foot underwater "Mt." Miller was their destination.

Discovery of giant submarine peaks 900 miles northwest of Seattle by the U. S. coast and geodetic survey, is responsible for Mr. Haglund's latest stunt.

"Man still has not invented a diving suit to withstand the terrific pressures involved," said Mr. Haglund. So the actual climbing will be done by a "scientifically trained octopus".

According to the balding aquarium-owner, Oscar's greatest hazard in scaling Mt. Miller is that he must start from the top and "climb" down.

The incentive for Oscar—and proof that he reaches the base of Mt. Miller—will be his favorite dish, sea-edelweiss, which grows at great depths.

When the expedition glides over the peak of Mt. Miller Oscar will be dropped overboard leashed to a two-mile wire.

If he comes back with a sprig of sea-edelweiss clutched in any one of his arms—it's likely even Mr. Haglund will eat it.

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The Tree Octopus - A Journey is a short documentary by Steven Chen, Ashley Coburn, and Corey Doerscher following their trek into the Olympic National Forest along the Staircase Trail on a journey to find the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus. While they were unsuccessful in getting footage of the elusive creature (unlike other seekers), they did uncover some greater truths about man's relationship with tree octopuses, as well as getting some great shots of its damp native habitat.

In lieu of live footage, the real substance of the film comes from an interview with Park Ranger David Scherer, who has dedicated the better part of the last five years to researching tree octopuses. You can hear his passion as he talks about their rich hues and the luster of their tentacles, and how they are a bright light leading him out of the darkness that he, as a park ranger, harbors and into a place of healing.

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In my previous post on the tragic fall of Emperor Norton I, I recounted how Norton had his rightful empire taken from him and perverted by what became the Bohemian Grove Cabal. Yesterday, travel site Roadside America posted a visitor tip for the grave of Emperor Norton. The included photo provides shocking new evidence of the Cabal's crimes, arrogantly left for all to see:

(Photo detail enhanced using advanced ZPi
Conspiracy-Zooming-and-Insetting technology.)

There's an owl statue next to his grave!

As you recall, the owl is the symbol/mascot of the Cabal, before an effigy of which they perform their secret, bon-fire-lit, robe-shrouded, possibly-human-sacrificey rites:

That an owl statue sits next to the grave of the man from whom the Cabal usurped an empire -- undoubtedly placed by the same agents of the Cabal who had him reinterred (ostensibly) at that cemetery in 1934 -- is more than a sick joke, it's a warning: "We've turned emperors into paupers! Don't cross us."

Moreover, it's also a sign that the Cabal is still watching. The statue almost certainly contains recording devices to document the visitation of loyal Nortonians who have not yet accepted the Emperor's removal from power and bowed before the Cabal's New World Order, used to target individuals for reeducation and/or immolation. Any pilgrims planning to visit the grave should take extra caution lest they find themselves the "guest of honor" at a Cremation of Care ritual. (Unlike Roadside America, we here at ZPi don't send our readers willy-nilly to their dooms.)

UPDATE: For those still unsure of the Cabal's reach:

Overhead view of the US Capitol Building.
Note the owl image formed by the streets.

Current usurper of Norton's legacy.

Although Radical Sasquatch made very clear his displeasure with the new Sasquatch exhibit at the Washington State Capital Museum, "Giants in the Mountains: The Search for Sasquatch", I decided to go and see if it was as bad as he feared. While it could have been worse (there was no explicitly pro-Weyerhaeuser Conspiracy propaganda), it left much to be desired.

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Mount St. Helens has erupted again. Don't worry, you'll be hearing more than you care to know about it soon enough. When you're watching the live coverage on the news tomorrow with the reporter standing in front of the mountain, you may wonder what it looks like behind the scenes. For a taste, here's a panorama I took of the Media Circus that followed the minor burp last October:

Photo taken October 4, 2004. (Click to enlarge.)

It's kind of hard to see in the scaled down version, but there was a reporter doing a shoot at the time. Here's a close up:

Anyway, the Media was segregated in a lot a few miles away from Coldwater Ridge Visitor Center (the closest, then-open facility to the mountain,) so they wouldn't pester the Normals. A few Media People did manage to escape the paddock and sneak their way to the visitor center though, as I was approached there by a roving reporter from some Canadian radio network soliciting human interest soundbites with a tape recorder. He seemed slightly disappointed when I declined to comment, but luckily the person next to me was chomping at the bit to tell Canadians all about his life-long love of volcanology.

Given the larger scale of the newest eruption, the Media Circus will probably be much larger this time. Then again, since it was only five months since the Media last visited, and especially since nothing blew up when they were there, the novelty may still be worn off. We'll see.