Goblins of Eastern Kentucky
Spooked
This episode explores the aftermath of the devastating 2022 floods in Eastern Kentucky, where displaced communities began reporting sightings of small, goblin-like creatures emerging
Key takeaways
- The 2022 floods killed 45 people across Eastern Kentucky, Virginia, and West Virginia, exposing land destabilized by decades of unchecked coal mining.
- Paramedic Beau Morgan encountered a small, grayish figure with large ears and long fingers while driving through mudslides post-flood, initially mistaking it for an injured child.
Main topics
- Eastern Kentucky floods
- Coal mining and land degradation
Notable quotes
"I really feel like they live in the mines... They probably got washed out of their caves."
Conclusion
The episode uses goblin sightings as a lens to examine how environment
Transcript preview
Speaker 4 (0:08) was a book of shadow once. Its pages showed the way so travelers through the secret lands could not be led astray. Big Bird. book of shadow because the mystery hates the light and those who ventured after kept unguarded through the night Speaker 4 (0:30) Until now. Speaker 4 (0:36) is your invitation. Speaker 4 (0:39) Field Guide to the Shadow. Speaker 4 (1:09) When I was little. My bedroom had laminated wood paneling. with the swirls and the rings like a real piece of wood. And if I squinted at this fake wood paneling in just such a way. I could make it out. Speaker 4 (1:28) The line there A nose. I could almost see faces and a kind of smile, a long stare. Speaker 4 (1:39) Dial them in just right. Speaker 4 (1:42) I heard voices. Speaker 4 (1:47) Words exactly, not full thoughts. Voices. Voices talking, I don't know exactly, but they are it. Speaker 4 (1:56) Understood. I was there. Speaker 4 (2:00) Listening. I knew of course to keep this my own little secret and later... Nassau. shades shadows surrounding certain people, certain places. I kept silent about that as well. Speaker 4 (2:19) sometimes. Speaker 4 (2:22) Those voices grew louder. Speaker 4 (2:26) Loud enough to wake me from a deep sleep. Loud enough for me to marvel that the whole house didn't hear. The whole neighborhood. I wanted it to stop. So I pretended that I didn't hear anything at all. Speaker 4 (2:41) It wasn't real. Speaker 4 (2:44) There was nothing to see that my parents and my pastor and my teachers were right. What are you looking at? They said. Speaker 4 (2:55) What is wrong with you? They say. Speaker 4 (3:00) E is wrong with me. Speaker 4 (3:04) I want it as well. Speaker 4 (3:06) Until... I hated me too. First for my mind playing tricks on me. than for pretending. For lying, I didn't see what I saw. Didn't hear what I heard, couldn't feel what I felt, so you have to understand. Speaker 4 (3:26) This day I'm leading a shuffling man into my grandmother's house through the living room. the kitchen out onto the back stoop like she told me and she sees me then staring Speaker 4 (3:49) buzzing about him, devouring him. She whispers to Speaker 4 (4:07) betrayal. Speaker 4 (4:09) Fury at- since staring at the squirrels on the wood panel. Told myself it was not real. Told myself I was crazy, was broken, was foolish, and now here, all this time later, casually. Catch me. Speaker 4 (4:27) She says. But I'm not. Speaker 4 (4:32) I never talked back to my granny. Never, ever, never. But now, finally, I scream. Why? Why didn't you tell me? Speaker 1 (4:42) Why? Speaker 4 (4:51) are yellow. Speaker 4 (4:56) She looks back at me with her yellow eyes. Speaker 4 (5:11) out there have wandered alone, questioning yourself, pretending what you know to be true is a lie. Speaker 4 (5:20) to be a lie. Speaker 4 (5:26) we proudly present the spooked field guide to the shadow. Speaker 4 (5:34) breadcrumbs through the void for those of us lost facing monsters. Speaker 4 (5:40) cannot to see. Speaker 4 (5:44) one. Speaker 4 (5:46) Mute guy through the shadow. STARS! Speaker 4 (6:45) Starting in the late 1800s, the mountains of eastern Kentucky were dug up and carved out for coal mines. For a lot of people who are from eastern Kentucky, mining is part of their story. It's how they put down roots. It's how they supported their families. There is a pride here. Speaker 4 (7:06) Loss of a cast. because to dig out these mines layers of protective rock and soil must be removed and for a while Speaker 4 (7:17) Scientists and climate activists have been trying to warn those in power about how mining has left the land vulnerable. To weather, to flooding. Speaker 4 (7:28) 2022. their worst predictions came true. Speaker 4 (7:34) The flooding that swept through the region caused massive destruction in eastern Kentucky and Virginia and West Virginia. 45 people lost their lives. Speaker 4 (7:45) My story begins. and the days directly after the flood. as members of the community come together in incredible ways. to care for each other. Speaker 3 (9:05) Bo Morgan and I'm a paramedic. I've been doing disaster relief work on and off since 2016. Speaker 3 (9:20) I was living here in Knoxville. I went up like the day after the floods hit to try and make contact with a co-worker's family that had gone missing. Speaker 3 (9:35) I left around 7 or 8 in the morning and would have left earlier, but it was so stormy. Speaker 3 (9:44) I brought clean drinking water. I brought a ton of medical supplies, baby diapers, formula. I ended up getting a bunch of oxygen tanks from some National Guardsmen to get up to the old miners who have emphysema and black lung, and they rely on oxygen tanks to get by. Speaker 3 (10:12) On the way up there, I saw... Not very many cars coming in the other direction. And I felt a bit on edge because I've driven into other disaster zones before where... It's a bad sign if people aren't able to flee. Speaker 3 (10:31) I started seeing some of the smaller mudslides along the side of the highway and where some of the tops of the mountains had come down through the forest. And there were almost like little snaking paths where the mud had cut. You can see the houses washed out and smashed into each other down in the gullies. Speaker 3 (10:54) A lot of those mines up there, you know, they don't get filled in properly and they don't replant trees or anything to hold the ground in place. So there were just tons of mudslides and water coming down off the mountains and it kind of just filled up eastern Kentucky like a bowl. Speaker 3 (11:16) And it was still raining so hard. My wipers were going as fast as they could. Speaker 3 (11:29) I've been driving on this road for a while. The rain had finally let up, but the roads were bad, and so I had been kind of driving slow. Speaker 3 (11:41) and I think I see something on the side of the road. Speaker 3 (11:54) I'm really looking at this thing, this little pile. Speaker 3 (11:59) and it's kind of taking shape. Speaker 3 (12:04) It looks like flesh. It looks, you know, it's got identifiable limbs. And, you know, my brain's just automatically like, this is a kid. Like, this is a little toddler in the ditch. Speaker 3 (12:20) I just feel immediately like I need to bear witness I guess to whatever it is. Speaker 3 (12:30) Because it's, you know, clearly not alive, but Speaker 4 (12:33) it's something that could have been. Speaker 3 (12:39) So I pulled over real quick. and got out of the truck. And I looked at this thing in the ditch about, I don't know, maybe like a foot and a half, a little bigger, not very big. Speaker 3 (13:00) had these like huge ears and these like long fingers. They're so long and skinny and its legs are real skinny. Speaker 3 (13:14) It kinda had like a bib thing on. like a baby bib, but it was kind of leathery. Speaker 3 (13:26) and my hair stands on end and I'm starting to feel a little freaked out. Speaker 3 (13:33) because I had never seen anything like that before. Speaker 1 (13:43) I did have the thought of like, this looks like... Speaker 3 (13:46) I'm not a big Harry Potter fan. Like, I don't care about that. But I was like, this looks just like Dobie from Harry Potter. Speaker 3 (13:56) And it really did. Like, it had little hairs in its big ears. But I don't really believe in stuff like that. Speaker 3 (14:06) And so I was really trying to rationalize it. Maybe it's like a baby deer that got mangled up in the floods. Speaker 3 (14:20) I was also just... kind of in that emergency mindset where you gray tag someone that has a non-survivable injury and you move on to the next situation and try and be of service there. Speaker 3 (14:37) And so I decide, like, I'm not going to mess with this. You know, I need to keep going. I was just drawn to getting to the folks that I was trying to help. Speaker 3 (14:50) But it was just too strange to stop thinking about. Speaker 3