Good night!

More doco news, as it comes.

Oh - while we’re on the topic of crypto - here in New Zealand myself and comedian/actor Rhys Darby have started a cryptozoologically-themed radio show, called The Cryptid Factor. Look, it’s even got its own fancy logo:

Darby is a big fan of this stuff, and we were both thrilled to meet each other: Basically just because we could both talk about “odd” stuf f with somebody else.. and not be judged for it!  And what better next step than to turn that talk into a radio show? It’s on every Saturday morning at 8am (NZ time) on George FM. It streams over at georgefm.co.nz. We’re into our 6th show this Saturday… join us!

Farrier out!

There are so many fascinating bits, but here’s a sample:

There have long been tales of enormous earthworms surfacing from time to time in various areas of Japan. One of the hotspots for such accounts is Hyogo prefecture, on Honshu Island, which has many historical accounts of worms in excess of 1.5 meters (5 feet) long. One such account dates from the year 1712, in what was then known as Tamba province (now part of Hyogo prefecture). The account describes a huge landslide that occurred in a village, after which 2 giant earthworms were found in the debris. One of these worms measured 1.5 meters (5 feet) in length, while the other was larger still, at 3 meters (10 feet) long. Another landslide that occurred in the same general vicinity allegedly unearthed a 4.5 meter (15 feet) long worm. A more modern report from Mikata-gun, which is located in the mountains of Hyogo prefecture, dates from 1996 when a farmer uncovered an earthworm 1 meter (3.3 feet) long and 2cm (0.8 inches) thick while planting a tree on his rural property. It was the first time the surprised farmer had ever encountered such a large worm in all his years in the area.

…

Perhaps the largest overall known species is the giant Gippsland earthworm (Megascolides australis) ~ seen above, which is found only in the Bass River valley of South Gippsland in Victoria, Australia. These huge worms regularly reach sizes of 3 meters (10 feet), and the longest specimen on record was measured at 4 meters (14 feet) long. These rare earthworms are so large that it is possible to hear the gurgling sound of their movement through the earth when they are disturbed.

In neighboring New Zealand, there is another large worm known as the North Auckland worm (Spencerilla gigantean), which reaches a length of 1.4 meters (4.5 feet). These worms have the added surprising, some might even say creepy, feature of glowing in the dark. By some accounts, the light the worms emit is said to be bright enough to read by.

The United States has its own giant worm as well. The Palouse earthworm (Driloleirus americanus) of the northwest can reach lengths of up to 1 meter (around 1.3 feet) long, perhaps even more. These worms have a historic range throughout the Palouse Prairie, which stretches out over southeastern Washington state and northern Idaho, and is sometimes even considered to encompass parts of Oregon and northwestern Montana as well. The Palouse earthworm is a striking white color, and is said to be able to spit defensively at those that provoke it. These large worms were thought to be extinct in the late 1980s however in the spring of 2005 a University of Idaho graduate student located a specimen by accident during a dig. Several other specimens or parts of specimens have been reported since.

Europe also has its giant worms. The Black Forest region of Germany is home to a 2 foot long worm known as the Giant Badish earthworm (Lumbricus badensis). Sardinia, Corsica, Italy, Sicily, and southern France are home to a species of the earthworm family Hormogaster that can get as long as 75cm (2.5 feet)…

And here’s the rest of the article.

Did they take any practical steps to try and ensnare the Death Worm?

“On one occasion we did set traps using a series of sunken buckets connected by mesh above ground level. The idea is that the creature crawling along bumps into the mesh and cannot carry on forwards, so runs along the mesh until it comes to the bucket and drops in. After a night of thunderstorms and heavy rain, we checked the buckets in the morning but they were empty.”

Click here for more of the article / interview.

At around 2pm I got a call from the NZPA who did a lovely story before we went. This time, they wanted to know what had gone on. It was a tricky phone call to get actually, as I hadn’t given “post-Mongolia interviews” too much thought. Of course I want to talk about Mongolia, the Death Worm and what we experienced - but as I said in the last post - I don’t want to give too much away.

Anyway, this is what they ended up running (which has popped up in the likes of the Otago Daily Times):

THE DOCUMENTARY IS DEFINITE.

There may not actually be solid evidence of an acid-spitting, lightning-throwing Mongolian deathworm living in the Gobi Desert but there will definitely be a documentary about it.

Journalist David Farrier and cameraman Christie Douglas have returned from Mongolia, where they spent about two weeks trying to verify the deathworm’s existence.

Some Mongolians say the Allghoi Khorkhoi, or “intestine worm”, resembles a 1.5m-long creature that jumps out of the sand and kills people by spitting concentrated acid or shooting lightning from its rectum over long distances.

Farrier would not say if the pair discovered evidence of the fantastical creature as they were not revealing too much until the documentary was complete.

People were welcome to assume they didn’t find anything, he said, however: “As far as telling the story about the deathworm I’d say we were pretty successful in what we came back with and we have definitely got a doco on our hands.”

They recorded about 30 hours of footage and spoke to people who said they had seen the worm.

“Because the sightings peaked during the 1950s a lot of these witnesses won’t be around for much longer, so I felt pretty lucky to get to some of them before they are actually dead.

“The story of creature hasn’t been told yet in any kind of factual way. It’s always been crazy people out with flashlights on their heads looking for it, no one has got any facts down about it and that’s what this is going to do.”

Farrier is hoping to produce a 90 minute documentary by the middle of next year, which could be shown at film festivals.

He would try to get it shown in Mongolia because the locals there were keen to see the results of the trip.

In the Mongolian capital Ulan Bator no one had even heard of the deathworm.

However, as they headed south towards the Gobi Desert more and more locals were aware of it.

Farrier said the whole expedition was a fantastic experience, despite experiencing increasingly unpleasant conditions in the Gobi Desert.

They didn’t wash for two weeks, and at one stage it was so dry they blew their noses and blood would come out, Farrier said.

Farrier said he believed the deathworm did exist and another trip to Mongolia isn’t out of the question.

“There are more leads that can be chased up as far as the deathworm goes, and there is also the Almas, which is their version of the Yeti, which comes down from Russia occasionally, and other creatures are calling from Mongolia.”

NZPA

Right - so that’s that.

Finally, I should add that shooter Christie Douglas has been uploading some still photo to his twitter account. They really are quite stunning, especially where Mongolia’s on-mass creatures are involved. Here are a couple:

More can be found here at TwitPic.

-Farrier

Top 10 Famous Mysterious Monsters

Also, thanks to the lovely people of the southern Gobi who kindly invited us into their homes and shared their time and stories. We wouldn’t have a doco without you.

The tricky thing now is that I can’t really say too much about what we did and didn’t find, because that would be a bit of a spoiler for the documentary. All I’ll say is that I’m stoked with what we got over there and I can’t wait to edit this thing together. The tale of the Mongolian Death Worm needs to be told!

Keep an eye here for updates on how the edit is going.. photos.. bits of video.. and other fun stuff as this thing comes together in post.

Cheers,

David (and Christie)

Which brings us to our next point: Christie Douglas and I are off. We’re going to have a quick sleep, then catch a plane for Korea - before jumping on Mongolian Airlines for, well, Mongolia.

We’re going to be concentrating our efforts for the next 3 weeks finding out about the Death Worm from the locals (from laymen to scientists) and - who knows - maybe we’ll find worm itself. Which means we won’t be on the website, twitter, facebook, cellphones - anything, really. We’re not even taking iPods.

We will touch base again when we’re back, but we’re gonna be pretty tight lipped about what we’ve found - or haven’t found. We’re out to make a doco, and there’s no point in doing this if you already know what to expect because it’s all been outlined here on deathworm2009.com. Whether we find it or not, we’re keeping our lips sealed.

But we’ll give you a tease, don’t worry.

See you on the other side.

Christie Douglas & David Farrier.

P.S. From the phrasebook: “I’ve been bitten by a snake!” Bi mogoid (neg shaivjing) khatguulchikhlaa

“ARMED with explosives, two men are heading to Mongolia’s Gobi Desert to find the fabled acid-spitting and lightning-throwing Mongolian death worm.

The worm has never been documented but some Mongolians are convinced it exists. They call it Allghoi Khorkhoi, or “intestine worm” because it resembles a cow’s intestine and is about 1.5m long.

The worm apparently jumps out of the sand and kills people by spitting concentrated acid or shooting lightning from its rectum over long distances, NZPA reports. (Seriously.)

New Zealand journalist David Farrier, who is organising the expedition, and cameraman Christie Douglas, leave this week to spend two weeks in the Gobi, trying to verify the worm’s existence and making a documentary about it.

Farrier said he had always been fascinated by cryptozoology, or the search for hidden creatures.

The expedition and documentary would take a serious look at the worm and what it was, Farrier said.

He said he was interested in the death worm because it was one of the most outrageous creatures that were rumoured to exist.

However, it was also one of the mythical creatures that had a better chance of being real.

Rumours could inflate the reputation of things such as the Loch Ness monster and Bigfoot, but sparsely populated Mongolia was not a place where rumours were going to propagate, Farrier said.

“If a Mongolian says they have seen a big worm-like creature out in the desert they haven’t really got any reason to lie,” he said.

A number of experts have dismissed the worm’s existence, putting it down as a rumour, but Farrier was not put off.

“I think it won’t be a worm, obviously a worm can’t survive in a desert. I’d say it would be some sort of snake that’s not meant to be there. It’s very out of place and a bit new.”

Farrier said there been up to four unsuccessful expeditions searching for the death worm in the last 100 years, the last two in 2003 and 2005, which had used night vision goggles to look for the worm.

However, the New Zealand team planned to bring the worm to the surface with explosives, as it is said to be attracted to tremors.

Farrier put his chances of finding the worm at between 5 and 15 per cent.

“They are high for a ridiculous creature like the death worm but the area I am going to is a very specific place in the southern Gobi where all the sightings have been.”

He only plans to capture the worm on film.

“I have no intention of grabbing it, capturing it, stuffing it, or anything like that. I just want to prove its existence and if I can get it on film, that’s all I need to do.”

They’ve just emailed in a song they’ve written to support this mission to find the Mongolian Death Worm. I really thought it fitted the vibe of the whole expedition, really, so here it is.

Death Worm Themesong

(or if that link is playing up, try here at ReverbNation)

Enjoy.

Farrier.