Alright folks, today's rabbit hole started when my kid shoved his dinosaur book at me before school yelling "But were dragons REAL too?" Got me scratching my head. Grabbed my trusty notebook and started digging down this monster hole step by step.
The Skeptic Phase
First thing I did was raid the library - old mythology books stacked higher than my coffee table. Flip flip flipping through dusty pages thinking "This is all just campfire stories right?" But then pattern spotting kicked in. Saw the same dang water serpent tale popping up in 13 different cultures nowhere near each other. Random? Maybe. Weird? Definitely.
The Hands-On Stuff
Decided to test what could've started these legends:
- Dragon bones? Dug out my kids' chicken bones, bleached them, arranged them like a skeleton. Boom - instant "dragon" spine museum replica for my garage.
- Kraken tales? Took my fishing boat out during squid mating season. Saw fifty giant tentacles thrashing under moonlight and nearly capsized. Yep - that watery chaos looks straight up Lovecraftian.
- Chupacabra? Visited farmer Joe's goat pen after coyote attacks. Half-eaten carcasses look EXACTLY like those "blood drained" viral photos. Spoiler: poor photography.
The Brain-Explosion Moment
Found myself at 2am watching volcano documentaries. Magma plumes? They make exact smoke shapes like smoke demons ancient folks carved into temples. Electrical storms over mountains? Showed my wife - she goes "That's literally Zeus throwing lightning bolts." Ancient people weren't dumb - they documented what they saw with their understanding!
So are monsters real? In literal blood n' scales terms? Nah. But as explanations for natural chaos? Heck yes. My garage now holds the "evidence":
- Chicken bones posing as dragon relics
- Squid ink stains on my boat seats
- 300 mythology book tabs (RIP library fines)
That kids' question flipped into a whole dang thesis. Moral of the story? Next time you hear ghost stories - think earthquakes. Vampire legends? Rabies outbreaks. Our ancestors were basically proto-scientists with drama degrees.
