Transcript

Selects: Why Do Great Flood Myths Seem To Be Universal? | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW

From Stuff You Should Know · Episode page · Watch on YouTube

· 44 min · 7,789 words · 117 timestamped sections

This is the full, timestamped transcript of "Selects: Why Do Great Flood Myths Seem To Be Universal? | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW", an episode of Stuff You Should Know published February 9, 2026 (44 min, about 7,789 words). It mentions 64 people, works and ideas, including Flood Myth, Little Chuck, Exploring with Josh, Epic of Gilgamesh, Stuff You Should Know.

What this episode is about

The discussion explores the prevalence of great flood myths across various cultures, examining why such stories are universally shared and what they reveal about human experience and shared history. It highlights how these narratives, often taken for granted, contain deeper meanings and connections that resonate globally.

Key takeaways

  • Flood myths span cultures, hinting at shared human experiences—perhaps global disasters weren't so rare after all.
  • Noah's Ark parallels may stem from ancient echoes; even gods get fed up with human noise—talk about flood fatigue!
  • George Smith's revelation shows historical tales often recycle themes—storytelling, like life, loves a good reboot.
  • Myths serve as cultural mirrors; from wickedness to noise, humanity grapples with its flaws, one flood at a time.
  • Remarkably, the Epic of Gilgamesh predates the Bible by centuries, proving great stories weather the tides of time.

Who speaks in this episode?

What is discussed, and when

  1. – 5:00: Exploring with Josh, George Smith, Flood Myth, Little Chuck
  2. – 10:00: Old Testament, Epic of Gilgamesh, Christianity, Flood Myth
  3. – 15:00: Flood Myth, Christianity, South Pacific, Little Chuck
  4. – 20:00: Geomology, Little Chuck, Barry Manilow, Vegas
  5. – 25:00: China, Geomology, Paleobimetry, Paleohydrology
  6. – 30:00: Persian Gulf, Dodgerland, Doggerland, Mediterranean Sea
  7. – 35:00: Thunderbird and Whale, United States (states), Flood Myth, China
  8. – 40:00: Flood Myth, Giza Roim, Guru Repo, Zang Po Valley
  9. – 44:07: Stuff You Should Know, Stuff You Should Know 5K, Stuff You Should Know Army, Amanda Thompson

Notable quotes from "Selects: Why Do Great Flood Myths Seem To Be Universal? | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW"

  • Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio.
    about Stuff You Should Know · at
  • No, I really don't. So, yet another reason to quit smoking, everybody who's out there on the fence.
    about Exploring with Josh · at
  • Know, we've we've found after digging around and getting Ed to help us with this research that there are flood myths in not every culture, but a lot of cultures over the years. And we'll get into that, in lots of detail.
    about Flood Myth · at
  • A roof like the ocean below, and he will send you a rain of plenty. And George Smith said, Hey, this is strikingly familiar as the Christian/Jewish Old Testament Noah flood story, but this is several hundred years previous.
    about Epic of Gilgamesh · at
  • There was even if the Bible doesn't quite have it right? And by the way Noah's story also shows up in the Quran too. So it's in the Jewish Bible, the Old Testament and the Quran. And then there's the epic of Gilgamesh story.
    about Joakim Noah · at
  • Mhm. So, this kind of this field has emerged since I believe the 60s. And actually it was I was reading about this field of geomology is like still really trying to establish…
    about Geomology · at
  • Yeah there's also sometimes a warning I guess one of the warnings Chuck that came through I think we said earlier that the Chinese have like at least four flood myths. and one of the warnings that came through was to this brother and sister.
    about China · at
  • You got anything else? No, just be on the lookout next late summer, fall for news on the Army Facebook page.
    about Stuff You Should Know 5K · at

Who and what is mentioned in this episode?

People

  • Little Chuck — Person · Co-host / main speaker · 4 mentions · first at
    Co-host of Stuff You Should Know; co-narrates the episode, adds examples, and discusses research angles (e.g., missionaries, geomythology).
    Yeah. and I guess if we're talking about this particular cuz we've we've found after digging around and getting Ed to help us with this research that there are flood myths.
  • Exploring with Josh — Person · Host / main speaker · 3 mentions · first at
    Co-host of Stuff You Should Know; frames the episode topic (global flood myths) and guides the discussion and transitions.
  • Joakim Noah — Person · Referenced religious figure / narrative anchor · 3 mentions · first at
    Central reference point for comparing the Biblical flood narrative to earlier and cross-cultural flood myths (e.g., Gilgamesh).
  • George Smith — Person · Referenced researcher / historical discoverer · 4 mentions · first at
    Cited as the 1872 figure who recognized flood-story parallels in the Epic of Gilgamesh, supporting the idea that the Noah narrative has older antecedents.
    Break or if that's just apocryphal but supposedly on a lunch break went to a museum was reading cuneaiform and came across a story of the epic of Gilgamesh and read this quote…
  • Utnapishtim — Person · Character in the Epic of Gilgamesh · 1 mention
    Utnapishtim is a key figure in ancient flood myths, paralleling the story of Noah.
    Yeah. And instead of God telling Noah or an angel telling Noah, it's the God Enlil who's telling a guy named Utinapishim to build this boat. Noah is nowhere to be heard.
  • Walter Pitman — Person · Referenced scientist / hypothesis proponent · 1 mention · first at
    Named alongside William Ryan for the Black Sea flood hypothesis (Mediterranean breaching into the Black Sea), discussed as a plausible source for flood myths.
    That's right. This one in the '9s that became fairly popular that basically said there was a oceanographer named William Ryan and another guy named Walter Pitman. they were I…
  • William Ryan — Person · Referenced scientist / hypothesis proponent · 1 mention · first at
    Named as an oceanographer associated (with Pitman) with the Black Sea deluge hypothesis, offered as a candidate real event inspiring Near Eastern flood stories.
    That's right. This one in the '9s that became fairly popular that basically said there was a oceanographer named William Ryan and another guy named Walter Pitman. they were I…
  • Amanda Thompson — Person · Listener / community participant (5K winner) · 2 mentions · first at
    Listener mail author and winner (fastest woman’s 5K) used to spotlight the Stuff You Should Know 5K community event and encourage future participation.
    Feeling. so today I listened to Venus Fly Traps on the way home and came across a package addressed Stuff You Should Know 5K Champ Amanda Thompson and just about cried and got…
  • Paul F. Tompkins — Person · Referenced expert · 4 mentions
    Comedian and podcaster mentioned in passing during the episode.
    Talking about sneezing on stage and that had happened to him once in his career. And Paul is someone who spent lots and lots of time on stages. Mhm.
  • Enlil — Person · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at
    Mesopotamian deity associated with a flood myth in the Epic of Gilgamesh.
    Oh, yeah. So the reason that En Leil gave to Udon and Napishim was because the humans were too noisy and the gods were sick of humans. So they were going to flood the earth and kill.
  • Barry Manilow — Person · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at
    Musician mentioned in passing during the episode.
    Yeah. Well, thank you for setting me up to reminisce yet again about the time that you and I saw Barry Manalo front row center in Vegas.
  • Jeffrey – Merrit, Jerry — Person · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at
    Individual mentioned in passing during the episode.
    Captains of this here ship called Stuff You Should Know. And that's all there is to it. Although I do think we need to allow for the fact that Jerry is rear admirable.
  • Big Ed — Person · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at
    Individual mentioned in passing during the episode.
    Yeah. and I guess if we're talking about this particular cuz we've we've found after digging around and getting Ed to help us with this research that there are flood myths in…
  • Hoe and Quilluke — Person · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at
    Indigenous peoples mentioned in the context of flood myths.
    Northwest and they found out that their flood miss this was a little more recent. This was around 1700 AD. But the idea is that there was a like magnitude 9 earthquake that…
  • Guru Repo — Person · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at
    Figure mentioned in the context of a Bhutanese flood myth.
    In the form of like a savior like Emperor U. there's one in Bhutan. I believe there's a legend about Guru Repo in the Zang Po Valley. he shows up and basically drains a lake…
  • Giza Roim — Person · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at
    Hungarian psychoanalyst mentioned in the context of flood myth theories.
    Gotten a little weird over the years with trying to explain these away. there was a Hungarian psychoanalyst named Giza Roim in the 1930s that said, No, the reason why we have…
  • Aaron Miselle — Person · Referenced expert · 1 mention · first at
    Individual associated with the Stuff You Should Know 5K event.
    Should know army puts together every year now in a virtual way right now. but our buddy Aaron Miselle is one of the people who works on this.

Books & papers

  • Epic of Gilgamesh — Book · Referenced work · 5 mentions · first at
    Ancient text containing one of the earliest recorded flood myths, predating the Old Testament.
  • Old Testament — Book · Referenced work · 5 mentions · first at
    Religious text containing the Noah's flood story, discussed in relation to earlier flood myths.
    Send you a rain of plenty. And George Smith said, Hey, this is strikingly familiar as the Christian/Jewish Old Testament Noah flood story, but this is several hundred years previous.
  • Bible — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Religious text containing flood narratives, compared to other cultural flood myths.
    Historians. Because that would go a long way in Christianity if you could say, Hey, the Bible is an actual historical document. this stuff is really true. And in the 18th and…
  • Quran — Book · Referenced work · 1 mention · first at
    Religious text containing flood narratives, compared to other cultural flood myths.
    Quite have it right? And by the way Noah's story also shows up in the Quran too. So it's in the Jewish Bible, the Old Testament and the Quran. And then there's the epic of Gilgamesh story.

Companies & orgs

  • Stuff You Should Know — Company · Host · 8 mentions · first at
    The podcast hosting the discussion, a production of iHeart Radio.
  • Stuff You Should Know Army — Company · Community · 3 mentions · first at
    Fan community associated with the Stuff You Should Know podcast.
    Across a package addressed Stuff You Should Know 5K Champ Amanda Thompson and just about cried and got a handcrafted by Stuff You Should Know Army member metal rack for her efforts and it's really great.
  • iHeart Radio — Company · Producer · 2 mentions · first at
    The production company behind the Stuff You Should Know podcast.
    Stuff You Should Know is a production of iheartradio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
  • Facebook — Company · Community · 2 mentions · first at
    Social media platform where the Stuff You Should Know Army community is active.
    Hopefully going to happen. Again, no official registration, no entry fee. there's an event page, I guess, at the Stuff You Should Know Army Facebook site. And, I think people…
  • Apple Podcast — Company · Platform · 1 mention · first at
    Platform where the Stuff You Should Know podcast is available.
    Stuff You Should Know is a production of iheartradio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Products & tech

  • Stuff You Should Know 5K — Product · Community event / listener engagement segment · 4 mentions · first at
    A fan-organized virtual 5K discussed in listener mail; used to encourage participation next year and highlight community winners.
  • iHeart Radio app — Product · Distribution platform mention · 1 mention · first at
    Mentioned as one of the places to find more iHeartRadio podcasts; not promoted with pricing or a strong CTA beyond standard outro.
    Stuff You Should Know is a production of iheartradio. For more podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Concepts & topics

  • Flood Myth — Concept · Core topic · 12 mentions · first at
    Central theme of the episode, discussing the prevalence and origins of flood myths across cultures.
  • Geomology — Concept · Key argument · 6 mentions · first at
    Field of study examining the intersection of geology and mythology, particularly flood myths.
  • Dodgerland — Concept · Setting · 3 mentions · first at
    Ancient landmass now submerged, discussed in relation to flood myths and geological events.
    That, but instead of in the Persian Gulf, it's been in the North Sea. It was a patch of land that connected the British Isles to Scandinavia before until about 8,500 years ago.
  • Christianity — Concept · Key argument · 6 mentions · first at
    Religion whose flood narratives are compared to other cultural flood myths.
    Send you a rain of plenty. And George Smith said, Hey, this is strikingly familiar as the Christian/Jewish Old Testament Noah flood story, but this is several hundred years previous.
  • Thunderbird and Whale — Concept · Key argument · 2 mentions · first at
    Indigenous flood myth from the Pacific Northwest, linked to geological events.
    Yeah. It was the Hoe and the Quilluke people who had this legend of Thunderbird and Whale getting in a fight. And what's what's interesting is I mean there's all sorts of geological evidence. Apparently, there's.
  • Duvialism — Concept · Key argument · 1 mention · first at
    Historical geological theory suggesting the Earth was shaped by a great flood.
    Actual historical document. this stuff is really true. And in the 18th and 19th century, there was something called duvialism. Duvial meaning like relating to a great flood.…
  • Paleobimetry — Concept · Key argument · 1 mention · first at
    Study of ancient sea levels, relevant to understanding flood myths.
    The fact the kernel of truth behind these flood myths, you would be working with paleo hydraology or paleobimemetry, which is the study of ancient sea levels, like where they…
  • Paleohydrology — Concept · Key argument · 1 mention · first at
    Study of ancient water systems, relevant to understanding flood myths.
    The fact the kernel of truth behind these flood myths, you would be working with paleo hydraology or paleobimemetry, which is the study of ancient sea levels, like where they…

Places & events

  • China — Place · Setting · 2 mentions · first at
    Mentioned in the context of Chinese flood myths and geological studies.
  • Persian Gulf — Place · Setting · 4 mentions · first at
    Discussed as a potential site of ancient flooding events that influenced flood myths.
    Be a very nice river valley near the fertile crescent where people lived. And the thing here though that I don't quite get is that they haven't they haven't found any evidence of things underwater there, right?
  • South Pacific — Place · Setting · 2 mentions · first at
    Region discussed in the context of flood myths influenced by Christian missionaries.
    Well where these cultures will have their own kind of flood myth but it's always based on tsunamis but then the Christians come and go and all of a sudden it's a deluge where…
  • Doggerland — Place · Setting · 3 mentions · first at
    Ancient landmass now submerged, discussed in relation to flood myths and geological events.
    That, but instead of in the Persian Gulf, it's been in the North Sea. It was a patch of land that connected the British Isles to Scandinavia before until about 8,500 years ago.
  • British Isles — Place · Setting · 3 mentions · first at
    Region discussed in the context of flood myths and ancient land connections.
    More than just those. There were Chinese flood mists. There were flood mists in southern Canada in the British Isles. so there was one study that picked out 50 cultures and…
  • Mediterranean Sea — Place · Setting · 2 mentions · first at
    Body of water discussed in the context of ancient flood events.
    The early 2000s and they said that rising sea levels at one point caused the Mediterranean to burst through the Bosphorus Strait about 7,000 years ago and this was a like a…
  • Vegas — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    City mentioned in passing during the episode.
    Yeah. Well, thank you for setting me up to reminisce yet again about the time that you and I saw Barry Manalo front row center in Vegas.
  • Bosphorus Strait — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Site of a potential ancient flood event that may have influenced flood myths.
    The early 2000s and they said that rising sea levels at one point caused the Mediterranean to burst through the Bosphorus Strait about 7,000 years ago and this was a like a…
  • Vancouver Island — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Island mentioned in the context of tsunami events and flood myths.
    9 earthquake that caused a tsunami unleashing these big waves from basically sort of Vancouver Island all the way down to Northern California.
  • Japan — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Country mentioned in the context of tsunami records and flood myths.
    But the they there's a Japanese temple, a Buddhist temple that marked the date January 6th, 1700 because a tsunami wave made it all the way to Japan and they noted it. So be by.
  • United States (states) — Place · Setting · 2 mentions · first at
    Country mentioned in the context of indigenous flood myths.
    Culture like pre-science again making sense out of finding weird things like the Zouri people in the southwest of the United States obviously not back then they saw these ancient marine animals and sea.
  • 911 — Event · Referenced event · 1 mention · first at
    Historical event mentioned in passing during the episode.
    Remember back in the day you had like a three-month cold that one year.
  • Caucasus Mountains — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Mountain range mentioned in the context of ancient human migrations.
    Usually kind of pinpointed as the this flood happening to are the protoindo-uropeans who are known to have been around the I think the Caucus' mountains to start and then just spread out as far as the British Isles basically all.
  • Sub-Saharan Africa — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Region mentioned in the context of the absence of flood myths.
    Of languages developed out of this group. Yeah. And some more support for this is the fact that there aren't flood myths in subsaharan African cultures.
  • Manhattan — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    City mentioned in the context of comparing ancient flood volumes.
    Like a global type of thing. it created a waterfall a volume 200 times that of Niagara Falls and I think enough water in one day that could have flooded Manhattan by 3,000 ft. Yeah, that's quite that's a flood.
  • Black Sea — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Body of water mentioned in the context of ancient flood events.
    Settlements along the Bosperous straight on either side on the Mediterranean side and also on the Black Seaside that all this water poured into and it would have just…
  • Fertile Crescent — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Region mentioned in the context of ancient human settlements.
    The last ice age that what is now the Persian Gulf used to not be. It used to be a very nice river valley near the fertile crescent where people lived. And the thing here…
  • North Sea — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Body of water mentioned in the context of ancient flood events.
    Again. So, Doggerland and the idea of the Gulf being an underwater now submerged settlement. Doggerland's like that, but instead of in the Persian Gulf, it's been in the North…
  • Scandinavia — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Region mentioned in the context of ancient land connections.
    That, but instead of in the Persian Gulf, it's been in the North Sea. It was a patch of land that connected the British Isles to Scandinavia before until about 8,500 years ago.
  • Norway — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Country mentioned in the context of ancient landslide events.
    Know, slow steady sea level rise that flooded Doggerland. but they there was a massive landslide in I think Norway called the Stoga event that happened 8,500 years ago and it probably generated a massive tsunami.
  • Stoga event — Event · Key argument · 1 mention · first at
    Ancient landslide event potentially linked to flood myths.
    Know, slow steady sea level rise that flooded Doggerland. but they there was a massive landslide in I think Norway called the Stoga event that happened 8,500 years ago and it probably generated a massive tsunami.
  • Brittany — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Region mentioned in the context of flood myths.
    But there's a flood story from Britany around that area that says that a king's daughter was possessed by a demon and opened like the their country's floodgates and that was flooded, catastrophically. So it's are they talking.
  • Pacific Northwest — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Region discussed in the context of indigenous flood myths and geological events.
    But in the 1980s and 90s, they investigated flood myths of the indigenous peoples in the Pacific Northwest and they found out that their flood miss this was a little more recent. This was around 1700 AD. But the.
  • Northern California — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Region mentioned in the context of tsunami events and flood myths.
    Unleashing these big waves from basically sort of Vancouver Island all the way down to Northern California.
  • Southwest United States — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Region mentioned in the context of indigenous flood myths.
    Culture like pre-science again making sense out of finding weird things like the Zouri people in the southwest of the United States obviously not back then they saw these ancient marine animals and sea.
  • Zang Po Valley — Place · Setting · 1 mention · first at
    Region mentioned in the context of a Bhutanese flood myth.
    Bhutan. I believe there's a legend about Guru Repo in the Zang Po Valley. he shows up and basically drains a lake exposing all this fertile farmland where a village was then…

Media & podcasts

  • Admiral Baby — Media · Referenced media · 1 mention · first at
    TV show mentioned in passing during the episode.
    No. That sounds great. I think there was one The Simpsons did one called Admiral Baby.
  • The Simpsons — Media · Referenced media · 1 mention · first at
    TV show mentioned in passing during the episode.
    No. That sounds great. I think there was one The Simpsons did one called Admiral Baby.

Full transcript with timestamps

Hey everybody, it's Josh and I have one word to describe this week's select from 2021 on why there are so many myths about a great flood found in cultures around the world. And that word is fascinating, but I'll add a few more words. I guess this is one of those good oldfashioned stuff you should know episodes where we find out that a thing that everyone just kind of takes for granted actually has a lot more to it than it seems. And I love those episodes. And I love this episode, which is why I picked it. I hope you love it, too.

Welcome to Stuff You Should Know, a production of iHeart Radio. Ohoy, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and we're the captains of this here ship called Stuff You Should Know. And uh that's all there is to it. Although I do think we need to allow for the fact that Jerry is rear admirable. And by that of course I mean rear admiral. And by that of course I mean it's going to be a long episode.

Uh has there ever been a cutesy TV show called The Admirable Admiral? Uh no. That sounds great. I think there was one The Simpsons did one called Admiral Baby.

Oh. All right. Well, that counts. Yeah. I don't know if the baby was particularly admirable, though. Could have been like a terrible person.

Uh, so I have a cold, so I just want to apologize up front. Uh, just a head cold,

but I'm a little stuffy. So, I'm sorry if uh if it's coming across as unpoured.

I'm very proud of you for pushing through, Chuck, because a lesser podcasters would not. They they they might they might just be like, I can't I have a cold. People don't want to hear that. And you say, "The heck with that. I'm going forward with it.

Remember back in the day you had like a three-month cold that one year. Every year.

Every year for a little while. I used to get so sick. Yeah. I know. It was terrible. But we've gotten much better, haven't we?

Yeah. I think uh I don't know. Maybe quitting smoking had something to do with that.

Maybe just a touch. You don't get colds like that anymore. Good for you. No, I really don't. So, uh yet another reason to quit smoking, everybody who's out there on the fence.

That's right. Uh so, we're talking today. The reason I said that we're captains is because I was making a play on a story that it seems like every single person Chuck knows about. At the very least, I can say with almost 100% confidence that everyone that you and I have ever met, seen in passing, talked to, um, or been in the same like country with probably has heard of the story of Noah and the flood where Noah was told to go ahead and build a boat because the the earth was going to flood and everybody was going to be killed. And by the way, grab some animals, put them on board so that you and your wife and then the animals can all repopulate your respective species once the flood subsides. Right?

It's a classic story. Everybody loves it. We we we read it out loud just about every Saturday at dinnertime and it's just a great story, right? Everybody knows the story. But it turns out, Chuck, that um there's this idea that that actually happened that that there and it's long been an idea that the that what the Noah story is talking about happened in actuality that there was a point in time where the entire world flooded. And there's been a lot of scholarly research into this into how that's even possible.

Yeah. Uh, and you know, I guess if we're talking about this particular cuz you know, we've we've found after digging around and getting Ed to help us with this research that there are flood myths in not every culture, but a lot of cultures over the years. And we'll get into that, you know, in lots of detail. But as far as actual Noah's actual flood from the Old Testament, um there was a gentleman in 1872 named George Smith who was a hobbyist of all things Assyrian and an amateur sort of uh historical sleuth, but um a well educated one nonetheless because he could do things like readaform tablets.

Mhm. And he was doing that one day on uh I don't know if it was an actual lunch break or if that's just apocryphal but supposedly on a lunch break went to a museum was reading cuneaiform and came across a story of the epic of Gilgamesh and read this quote build a boat abandon wealth and seek survival spurn poverty save life take on board all living things seed animals the boat you will build her dimension shall be equal her length and breadth shall be the name. Uh it doesn't say anything about cubits, but it's inferred,

right? Uh cover her with a roof. Cover her with a roof like the ocean below, and he will send you a rain of plenty. And George Smith said, "Hey, this is strikingly familiar as the Christian/Jewish Old Testament Noah flood story, but this is several hundred years previous."

Yeah. And instead of um God telling Noah or an angel telling Noah, it's the God Enlil who's telling a guy named Utinapishim to build this boat. Noah is nowhere to be heard.

And for what reason? What do you mean? Well, I mean, wasn't this one of the ones where like Earth is being punished basically?

Oh, yeah. So um the reason that that uh En Leil gave to Udon and Napishim was because the humans were too noisy and the gods were sick of humans. So they were going to flood the earth and kill off all humans. Whereas in the Bible it was because humans had become too wicked to to live.

I think noisy and wicked are the same thing back then. I guess so. And it makes you wonder like did somebody misread the word and and they're like noisy? Okay. And just barreled on. They're like my lunch break is almost over. So George Smith just was like noisy. They said noisy, but the

there was also the idea of saving animals and there was also the idea that afterward uh birds were sent out to find dry land just as a no story,

right? And so uh you just kind of say whoops because um the epic of Gilgamesh predates the Old Testament by at least several hundred years depending on what part you're talking about. And um so you might say okay so the Noah story is adapted from this but that doesn't mean that it undermines the veracity. They don't undermine the veracity of one another. In fact if you stop and think about it the fact that one of the first things that was ever written down after the invention of writing Q&A was the first written system humans ever devised.

Yeah. and that the first literary work ever created, the Epic of Gilgamesh, contained this flood story. Um, it kind of suggests that something actually may have happened. Like it was a really important story that has stuck around for thousands and thousands of years. The Epic of Gilgamesh was written 3,400 years ago. Um, that that it suggests that there might be some some kernel of truth to it. Yeah. And over the years, a lot of people have tried to um prove whether scientifically or otherwise that the the Noah's flood really did take place. Uh Bible literalists. Is that what is that what we call them?

I think so. Okay. Bible literalists. Um Bible historians. Because that would uh that would go a long way uh in Christianity if you could say, "Hey, the Bible is an actual historical document. this stuff is really true. And in the 18th and 19th century, there was something called uh duvialism. Duvial meaning like relating to a great flood. But that was a big shaper of actual geology was basically saying, hey, this physical literally the physical world that we're living in came about after this flood. What kind of reset things

and then the the real geological record came along once science got serious and they proved that was not the case. And that kind of went the way of the dodo around, you know, the mid 1800s.

Yeah. They kind of did it backwards. They said the the Noah flood shaped the world as we see it. Go find proof. And when they found proof, they were like, it's not really adding up.

Yeah. So there's no evidence that there was a global flood that inundated the world. And in fact, the geological record that these geologists, the early ones and you know up to modern day ones have been putting together supports the exact opposite of that. That earth wasn't created in a deluge. It was created over incredibly long distances of time very very slowly layer by layer. Right.

That's right. But people still say, okay, well, number one, why have we been telling this flood story for so long? And then also why is it like you said the the idea of flood myth seems almost universal? Doesn't that like still strongly suggest that there was even if the Bible doesn't quite have it right? And by the way Noah's story also shows up in the Quran too. So it's in the Jewish Bible, the Old Testament and the Quran. And then there's the epic of Gilgamesh story. Like why is this important story still around? Doesn't that still support the idea that something happened? Why would there be universal flood myths from cultures that had never even heard of Christianity before? And there have been like some attempts to explain that that I think are much more satisfying than the idea that we're just missing all of the evidence for a great worldwide deluge that happened back in antiquity.

Yeah. And there were, you know, it's more than just those. There were Chinese flood mists. There were

uh flood mists in southern Canada in the British Isles. Uh, so there was one study that picked out 50 cultures and they all had their own flood myth and that it was related to some kind of punishment. So they started looking like you said of like why why is this happening and there's a bunch of reasons and they all kind of make sense to me if if I'm being honest. Um, one of them is that there there was a flood in these cultures but it wasn't a global flood. But if you're, you know, if if all you know is a certain area and you never get to leave that area

and it wipes out everything, you know, then the story that you pass along orally um through the years would sound like one that wiped out everything.

Yeah. And like uh the the whole idea is is that this flood actually did happen way far back to one group and then that group eventually kind of spread out and carried that flood myth with them. And so to those of us today historians, anthropologists looking at like all of these groups that are spread out all over the world all sharing basically the same story. It would make it seem like a flood had impacted all of these groups that were that far spread out. So, it must have been a really big flood. But this explanation says, "No, the flood was actually really localized. It was the group that it happened to that eventually spread out." That's one explanation. It makes a lot of sense.

And one of the um the groups that are usually um kind of pinpointed as the this flood happening to are the protoindo-uropeans who are known to have been around the the I think the Caucus' mountains to start and then just spread out as far as the British Isles um uh basically all over Europe, northwest, east, south um and that all of our languages like English, Germanic um just a whole slew of languages developed out of this group. Yeah. And some more support for this is the fact that there aren't flood myths in subsaharan African cultures.

And these were groups that when they left Africa, they didn't come back. So they would not have taken back with them uh a flood myth from protoindo-uropeans.

So it all kind of makes sense. Yeah. Exactly. There's another kind of related one too that um that says that there were floods just not a flood. That flooding is actually really common. So it happened to a lot of different groups. So it would make sense that all these different cultures would have flood myths.

Sure. And again, if you're if you live in your uh Riverside village and you don't get to travel very far from there and everything you know of gets destroyed,

again, it could be, you know, lend support to the idea that it gets translated as a worldwide flood. And if everyone's having these localized floods, which which happened, you know, there's always been floods,

then not necessarily of the 40 days and 40 nights variety, but when things are passed around orally and then they get rewritten, things get kind of mixed up.

Yeah. And it's our bad, those of us alive today who are mistaking or or laying our interpretation of the world word world onto like these cultures use of the word world. They're saying their world, which is much smaller than it is to those of us today. When we think the world, we think the whole globe, you know.

Yeah. And speaking of laying your things on other cultures, uh the third one is Christian missionaries. Uh and there is evidence of this happening. They would go and tell the story of Noah's great flood. Uh especially, you know, when colonization was happening, too. And between missionaries and colonization, all these other cultures picked up on that original biblical flood tale.

Uh or I don't know if we should call it a flood myth or flood tale at this point.

What should we call it? I I think most people call it flood myths or duvian myths.

Okay. Dolivian myth. That sounds a little more academic. Mhm. Uh so yeah, so Christian missionaries did this and I think this is um also evidence in the fact that uh the South Pacific didn't really have one until uh 1814 when they came into contact with with Christian missionaries and then all of a sudden they had the Mauy flood myth.

Yeah. So they actually had a flood myth before but apparently it was more tsunami based and then after contact with Christianity it became much more of like a deluge and it just bore some striking resemblances to the Noah flood myth of Christianity and apparently that happened all over the South Pacific as well where um these cultures will have their own kind of flood myth but it's always based on tsunamis but then the Christians come and go and all of a sudden it's a deluge where the water rose after like you know 40 days and 40 nights of rain and stuff. So that creates a lot of headaches for anthropologists, but it also at the same time explains why a universal flood myth or a flood myth would seem universal to those of us around today and why they seem to bear such a striking resemblance to one another. You know,

indeed. I think we should take a break and uh I'm going to go blow my nose, okay?

And then we'll come back and talk about geomology right after this. So, Chuck, that was nice of you to blow your nose at the break rather than during recording even though I still had to hear it.

It was thick. Uh, you know what's funny? I was listening to uh I don't know why I just thought of this, but I was listening to Paul Fmpkins stay homekins podcast he does with his wife Janie the other day and he was talking about sneezing on stage and that that had happened to him once

in his career. And Paul is someone who spent lots and lots and lots of time on stages. Mhm.

And I wonder if there's something to that of the body withholding things like sneezes cuz I've never seen anyone sneeze on stage. I've never sneezed on stage.

Yeah. Isn't that weird? Yeah. I'm sure it's related to adrenaline and fight or flight.

That's what I was thinking. I mean, there's got to be something to that. Yeah. Like your body's like, I don't have time to waste all that energy on sneezing. We got to get out of here. We got to put on a great show. It would be really weird to think about it if like I don't know Barry Manalow in Vegas was talking about setting up Mandy before he sings it and just lets out a big sneeze.

Yeah. Well, thank you for setting me up to reminisce yet again about the time that you and I saw Barry Manalo front row center in Vegas.

You would have been sneezed on with that big snaz. Yes, we actually would have been covered in his his sneeze.

Uh, all right. So, we promised talk of geomology. Here's the idea. Since science uh really got its act together, there have been a couple of different ways to look at things like flood myths

as either um this is a a a story about our cultural values and there there's a lot of religious metaphor involved or this was an actual historical event. And geomology came along to kind of say, hey man, it can kind of be both. like there could have been a real flood and it also took on metaphor and took on cultural values and was used as a as a story of uh I can't think of the word I'm trying to think of to teach you a lesson. What's that called?

Fable. Yeah, like a fable. Mhm. So, this kind of this field has emerged since um I believe the 60s. And actually it was I was reading about this field of geomology is like still really trying to establish itself in the field of geology and most most geomthologists are trained geologists. That's where you start out

who play D and D probably. But they they also are like, you know, they have to really defend what they're doing against their fellow geologists because they're they're basically saying all of these myths, all of these legends, all of this historic, they actually contain eyewitness accounts of natural disasters, of weird events in Earth, of uh early finds of fossils. And yeah, they've they've encloded them in the language of mythology and the terminology of mythology and monsters and weirdness and all this stuff that makes it just seem completely um legendary to us today. But um that's how these pre-scientific and often pre-iterate cultures um passed along really valuable information and like we've been kind of foolish to just discount them as as all nothing but legend as if there's no fact whatsoever in there.

Don't throw the baby out with the bath water. Exactly. And so that's what geomthology is doing. They're saying, "Wait a minute. Wait a minute. If you just look at this the right way, we are covered up in historical accounts just waiting for us to unravel if we learn how to to read these correctly and then also correlate with actual like known geological events that we've discovered through science.

Yeah. Like, hey, you see that story that uh seems completely crazy about a demon god who lives in a mountain and gets angry and spouts uh fire from its top.

Like, that's a volcano, bros. And like, just because it sounds crazy doesn't mean we shouldn't look at the fact that an actual volcano eruption might have happened then. And let's kind of marry these two things and let's just all get along,

right? And so like that that that legend about the volcano with the angry god that sometimes spews like scary stuff forth. And if you ever hear the mountain starting to to make rumbles, it means the god is waking up and you should run. Like um that's that is a way for a culture that is aware that this mountain's actually a volcano and that volcano can sit dormant for generations at a stretch. So those there will be people born in the future who aren't aware that that's a volcano and this is the way that the culture passes down over deep time this really important information. If the volcano ever makes a sound, run because you don't want the fiery breath of that god that's trapped inside. It makes

I love this stuff. Like before science came along, all humans did from the moment they they could sort of form thoughts was try and explain what was going on around them from

rain and thunder to volcanoes and floods. And I don't know. I think it's super interesting. It It's almost like

these proto early warning systems, right? Like nuclear didn't really know how to explain the science of it.

Exactly. Like nuclear semiotics. Remember we did an episode on that on how to tell people 10,000 years in the future about steering clear of nuclear waste, right? It's the same exact principle. It's just Chuck, somewhere along the way, we later generations became arrogant and just completely discounted any of that those pre-scientific traditions because they didn't appear scientific. But it is exactly like what you're saying. It was the way that they made sense of actual stuff. And so there's plenty of stuff to learn from those those accounts and those tales and those myths and legends.

We just have to basically kind of eat a little bit of crow and go back and be like, well, we've been ignoring this to our own detriment.

Yeah. And it's like you said earlier, it's it's it's a tough uh road to hoe though for scientists these days if they take this on because you know, you have mixed results when you go back and you look at these tales. Some of them may just be folk tales and legends

and some may have kernels of truth. Some may have a little more truth. So there's a lot to sort of parse through as a geologist these days if you're as you're if you're working as or with a geo mythologist,

right? Um and so when when you are laying this out and trying to figure out, okay, what what is this myth describing? You know, again, you're a trained geologist if you're a geomologist, but you're also working with um people from other scientific fields. Um as far as trying to uncover um the the the fact the kernel of truth behind these flood myths, you would be working with um paleo hydraology or paleobimemetry, which is the study of ancient sea levels, like where they were at in in the past. And um so you're going to take like the the findings from these fields and then say, "Okay, let me see if I can correlate it with a myth."

Or you find a myth and you say, "Okay, let me see if I can correlate it with paleobimemetry or paleo hydraology findings."

Um and they've actually turned up some really interesting stuff so far. Yeah, there was uh in 2016 there was a study that tied together one of the Chinese flood myths from about 4,000 years ago. uh basically that there was a great flood wiped out China. It lasted for a couple of decades and then this great man came along who had become emperor uh emperor U and tamed the water.

Mhm. So geologists went back and they said, "All right, there's an ancient landslide around that same time that damned up a river and a lake filled up behind it in about 6 months or so. And then that flooded uh that river got flooded, broke through the dam and there was this huge flood and they have found uh sediment that sort of tracks along these lines. Then they found that Emperor U actually, it turns out he may not have been, you know, magically tamed the water. he just had a knack for early engineering

and that he dredged the waters and it cleared up the river's flow, things returned to normal and he became emperor. But back then it gets, you know, told as a tale of this, you know, great soon to be emperor that tames the waters when he was just good at what he was doing,

right? But they I mean they found like evidence, geological evidence that backs all of this up that this whole series of events, the earthquake that triggered the landslide, the landslide, the dam, the lake filling up in six months, the lake breaking and flooding that all this happened within a single year. That is definitely the kind of thing that your culture is going to make note of and pass down over the years that this kind of thing can happen. And then not only that, this great person came along and freed us from the the burden of these flood waters that apparently stuck around for 20 years.

That's right. It's pretty cool. There's another one that is just beyond thrilling if you ask me that a lot of people say this is probably this is possibly and I think that's a that's a big reasons a lot of like mainstream geologists have problems with geomology is we we can't really see a course to getting to the point where we're saying this is the one this is this flood that we have evidence of is what gave rise to the epic of Gilgamesh and Noah's But you can say there's a really good chance that this this is the one. This fits the bill. And this one does kind of stick out like that.

That's right. This one uh in the '9s that became fairly popular that basically said there was a oceanographer named William Ryan and another guy named Walter Pitman. uh they were I think in the early 2000s and they said that rising sea levels at one point caused the Mediterranean to burst through uh the Bosphorus Strait about 7,000 years ago and this was a like a legit serious flood that I'm sure seemed like a flood like a global type of thing. Uh it created a waterfall a volume 200 times that of Niagara Falls and I think enough water in one day that could have flooded Manhattan by 3,000 ft. Yeah, that's quite that's a flood.

It's quite a bit. They also determined that the um the Mediterranean Sea moved inland, the coast moved inland by about a mile a day. Can you imagine seeing that happen before your eyes? Like you're just you'd almost lose your mind. Again, that would make a a really great story that you would pass along and and and explain it in whatever terms you could, but there would have been coastal settlements along the Bosperous uh straight on either side on the Mediterranean side and also on the the Black Seaside that all this water poured into and it would have just completely wiped those settlements out. So, the people who did survive would have been like something really bad happened here and this is how we're going to make sense of it. And the timing of it was just right. Um, it happened probably about 7,000 years ago. And as we'll see, there's a lot of stuff that happened around 7,7500 years ago around the world because the

end of that uh last glacial period started and the sea levels rose and and all sorts of crazy stuff happened as a result. But that's a that's one that people point to is like that may be the the flood that gave rise to the um Gilgamesh and Noah stories. No pun intended.

It gave rise. I think so. It really was. Yeah. Uh, another one about 7,500 years ago was the creation of the Persian Gulf. Kind of a similar kind of thing during the last ice age that what is now the Persian Gulf used to not be. It used to be a very nice river valley uh near the fertile crescent where people lived. And the thing here though that I don't quite get is that they haven't they haven't found any evidence of of things underwater there, right?

No, they haven't. They they the reason why they think this happened, Chuck, is because all of a sudden on the shores of the Gulf as we know it today, some like really wellestablished settlements with decorative pottery and well-built stone houses and all sorts of other things, domesticated animals just sprang up basically overnight.

So they were relocated essentially. Yeah, that's really the only explanation. you know, went from hunting settlements, hunting camps to all of a sudden these people are like an advanced society. So, the best explanation is that their original settlement is down there beneath the Persian Gulf. We just haven't found it yet.

What about Doggerland? So, Doggerland is another similar story. They both share what's called Aquaterara. Um, by the way, which is a a coin or a term that was coined in the '9s to describe these lands that were exposed for 150,000 years that humans were kind of developing and forming societies and then were lost just 7,7500 years ago when the sea levels rose again. So, Doggerland and the idea of the Gulf being um an underwater now submerged settlement. Doggerland's like that, but instead of in the Persian Gulf, it's been in the North Sea. It was a patch of land that connected the British Isles to Scandinavia before until about 8,500 years ago.

Right. And here they have actually found submerged traces of settlements under the sea.

Uh unlike the one in the Persian Gulf, right? Um and they actually think that it's possible. Some some people are saying no, it was probably just, you know, slow steady sea level rise that that flooded Doggerland. Um but they there was a um massive landslide in I think Norway called the Stoga event um that happened 8,500 years ago and and it probably generated a massive tsunami. Um, and it could have been big enough to have submerged Doggerland permanently after that. Apparently, that's how big that underwater landslide was.

Yeah, I was about to say underwater. You got to point that out. Yeah. But there's a a flood story um from Britany around that area that says that a king's daughter um was possessed by a demon and opened like the their their country's floodgates and that that was flooded, you know, catastrophically. So it's like, you know, are they talking about this event that happened 8,500 years ago that this is survived as this legend until today?

That's right. And yet another uh right here in the well and now the US of A. But in the 1980s and 90s, they investigated flood myths of the indigenous peoples in the Pacific Northwest and they found out that their flood miss uh this was a little more recent. This was around 1700 AD. But the idea is that there was a like magnitude 9 earthquake uh that caused a tsunami unleashing these big waves from basically sort of uh Vancouver Island all the way down to Northern California.

Yeah. It was the Hoe and the Quilluke people um who had this legend of Thunderbird and Whale getting in a fight. And um what's what's interesting is I mean there's all sorts of geological evidence. Apparently, there's still trees that are just not where they're they're just not growing back. They were wiped clean from the tsunami. Um, but the they there's a Japanese temple, a Buddhist temple that marked the date January 6th, 1700 because a tsunami wave made it all the way to Japan and they noted it. So be by basically cross-correlating that Japanese um noting of the date with the hoe and the quill's um story about Thunderbird and whale they've said this is this story is about this particular event which is pretty awesome

and then sometimes it's just uh a culture like pre-science again making sense out of finding weird things

uh like the Zouri people in the southwest of the United States uh obviously not back then they they saw these you know, ancient marine animals and sea shells in the fossils that they were finding and they said, "Well, this is part of our uh creation story there. There was a great flood and that's how this stuff got here."

Yeah. Here in the desert, which is I mean, that's how a pre-scientific culture would make sense of that kind of thing. Pretty cool.

Absolutely. So, um I say we take one more break and we're going to take talk about the other aspect of these myths, the mythology part of it. Right.

Right after this. Okay. So if you take um a myth and you strip the mythology off and you just look at the kernel of historicity and try to figure out, you know, what event it's actually describing. Um you don't want to just forget the myth part. You want to go back and also look at the myth part too because that reveals a lot about humans uh and who we are and how how we think spread out even across cultures throughout the world. Um and there's a lot of similarities that pop up from um from examining geomthology uh especially with flood myths even when you set aside the idea or I should say even when you um account for the idea of missionaries spreading the Noah flood too.

So yeah, you know, one of the things that's interesting to look at is how these things are how these myths are similar. And one way that a lot of these flood myths are similar is that uh and we've already seen a little bit in what we've talked about is often times it's a man and a woman uh usually a man and a wife who are charged with um gathering up the animals with repopulating the earth afterward u saving the species essentially. Um there's usually a warning um whether it's Noah's flood myth or all the others where uh you know someone comes along and says you know you better get your act together earth or tell everybody on earth you know you are the messenger to get their act together or else I will rain down rain upon you right

yeah um there's also sometimes a um a warning I guess one of the warnings Chuck that came through I I think we said earlier that the Chinese have like at least four flood myths. Um, and one of the warnings that that uh came through was to this brother and sister who freed a thunder god um from their father's I guess chicken coupe or whatever he their father had captured him. And so the the thunder god said, "Hey, thanks a lot, kids. By the way, the things are about to get serious around here. You might want to build a boat." Yeah, I think they built a boat.

Um, but they're one of those interesting stories where you said usually it's a man and wife who end up having to repopulate the earth. That put these two kids in the position of having to repopulate and um that was a taboo. Incest is a a basically the universal taboo one of um and that was the same in ancient China as well. So in different versions of the story either the brother and sister basically got a pass this time. Another version is that um the brother had to go through a huge series of physical challenges and couldn't and that somehow the earth became populated anyway. And the third version is that they just made everybody out of clay that they made themselves.

All right. Okay. Um but the the if you start really kind of looking at floods, there's like especially the purpose of the flood. That's the thing. Like it's very rare that the flood happens in a flood myth just for fun. Like there's almost always a reason. Like humans want there to be a reason. So we've come up with different reasons over the um over the years. And one of them is um basically the apocalypse that that humanity is being wiped out usually as as punishment. Uh and that we deserve to survive and we would have to survive or else we wouldn't be around to be passing the story along. So somebody had to survive.

So that's where those people who repopulate the earth come from. But the rest of us, we got wiped out because we displeased the gods.

That's right. Uh, another one is that we started out as an ocean uh, and nothing but ocean. So this is just a reset to that return to our original state here on planet Earth. And there are a lot of cultures around the world that basically thought that we started out as an ocean uh from ancient Egypt uh Norse I think in Japan as well.

And basically, you know, it's either returns us to a state of water or an island above an ocean.

Yeah. And that's I mean that's so closely related to the apocalyptic one, too. It's just that's we just happen to be returning to how things were before which is also related to another kind of theme as a reason for the flood which is purification like yes you're being punished and yes you're returning to this uh primordial state but the ultimate reason that say like God or the gods have is to purify things to get to rid the world of evil and just keep the good and start over with just the good basically that's another big one too and they're all kind of you know pretty tightly wound up together.

Yeah. Then there's just angry gods. And it might not have anything to do with you um doing anything wrong as a culture or getting your act together. It's just that the gods were angry. So they they kicked open the top of that mountain and it became a volcano. And sorry TS for you guys.

Yeah. Just happens. But that's still interesting that people that's a rationalization even in itself though, isn't it? It's just kind of like sometimes that happens even if you didn't do anything wrong.

I think so. So the there's another one too. Um that Emperor U myth is a good example of um industriousness, people working together, people controlling things um where the the earth has done something crazy. Maybe the gods were responsible, but humans manage to overcome it either in the the the form of like a a savior like Emperor U. Um there's one in Bhutan. I believe there's a legend about Guru Repo um in the Zang Po Valley. Um he shows up and basically drains a lake exposing all this fertile farmland where a village was then settled or the um and I apologize for this. I genuinely could not find a pronunciation for it, Chuck.

I really tried. But the gung gani gi aboriginal people guj i um they have one where um the tsunami keeps coming and coming and the sea levels are rising and rising so the people are organized and get together and start rolling boulders down into the sea and it actually prevents the sea levels from rising any further. So I think that's probably my favorite one, the industriousness and control ones.

It's good stuff. And then people have gotten a little weird over the years with trying to explain these away. Uh there was a Hungarian psychoanalyst named Giza Roim uh in the 1930s that said, "No, the reason why we have all these flood myths is because they're just from people's dreams and people in ancient times uh drank a lot of water and peed a lot at night and so they dreamt about floods and told stories about floods." Or maybe it is um the gods urinating urinating on people.

Mhm. Like literally, which and there are myths that literally talk about that uh that floods a result of gods peeing on earth. Um but I don't know about expanding that to like all the cultural flood myths all over the world for all time,

right? And there's others that explain it as like men's jealousy of not being able to give birth and that it's a reference to the bursting of the amniotic sack or something like that. Um, I feel like when when psychoanalysis gets involved, especially in this day and age, it's kind of like that was a nice try everybody. Let's just move on to geomology instead, you know?

I think so. That's where I'm putting my money, Chuck. Geomology. It's fantastic stuff. Uh, and also I should say I want to give a shout out to one of our past episodes. Was there a real Atlantis? We were doing geomthology without even realizing it.

That's right. Uh, if you want to know more about geomthology and flood myths, then just start searching the internet because there's a lot of interesting stuff out there about it. And since I said that, it's time for listener mail. This is a shout out to the uh one of the winners of the Stuff You Should Know 5K. Uh this is something that the stuff you should know army puts together uh every year now in a in a virtual way right now. Uh but our buddy Aaron Miselle is one of the people who works on this.

Um they're looking to do this again next year cuz here's the deal is they sent me this stuff afterward,

right? And I was like, well, we need to get this before. So I'm going to go ahead and say it now and then we'll see if we can remind people. But people voted to have this happen in late se September, early October. Uh, so 2022 is when it's hopefully going to happen. Again, uh, no official registration, no entry fee. Uh, there's an event page, I guess, at the Stuff You Should Know Army Facebook site. And, um, I think people had two weekends to participate this year and they had bike riders this year. So, regarding, you know, regardless of what your status as an athlete is, they're finding ways for you to get involved, which is really cool.

Yeah. So, this is from uh Amanda though, writing in to say that I'm a winner, baby. Uh you guys are the best. Been listening for years and I was happy to participate in the virtual stuff you should know 5K this year. It was a cool event that brought some really nice people uh together at our little corner of the internet. I'm not a particularly good or fast runner, but I get out there and I did the dang thing, and that's what counts. Uh the other participants in the 5K radiate that spirit and are so encouraging of each other. Don't ask me how, but somehow I achieved fastest 5K for a woman in this event. What a cool feeling. Uh, so today I listened to Venus Fly Traps on the way home and came across a package addressed Stuff You Should Know 5K Champ Amanda Thompson and just about cried and got a handcrafted uh by Stuff You Should Know Army member metal rack uh for her efforts and it's really great.

That's pretty great. She has to buy the her her own medal though. I don't think so.

That's fantastic, man. Congratulations, Amanda. That's wonderful news. And congratulations to everybody who participated and finished or even just started or even thought about doing it. Maybe you'll do it next year. Who knows?

That's right. Congratulations to everyone. Yeah. Uh and again, that is a very cool thing that Stuff You Should Know fans do and it makes us love you guys even more. Uh you got anything else? No, just be on the lookout next uh late summer, fall for news on the Army Facebook page.

Yeah, somebody please remind us ahead of time so we can tell everybody else. Uh and if you want to remind us of something, we would love to be reminded because that probably means we forgot and you can put that reminder in the form of an email which you can send to stuffodcast@ iheartradio.com.

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Questions about this episode

Who speaks in "Selects: Why Do Great Flood Myths Seem To Be Universal? | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW"?

Josh Clark (Host), Chuck Bryant (Host).

What is "Selects: Why Do Great Flood Myths Seem To Be Universal? | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW" about?

The discussion explores the prevalence of great flood myths across various cultures, examining why such stories are universally shared and what they reveal about human experience and shared history. It highlights how these narratives, often taken for granted, contain deeper meanings and connections that resonate globally.

What is mentioned in this Stuff You Should Know episode?

64 people, works and ideas are mentioned, including Flood Myth, Little Chuck, Exploring with Josh, Epic of Gilgamesh, Stuff You Should Know, Joakim Noah. Each one on this page links to its own page with every episode that mentions it.

How long is "Selects: Why Do Great Flood Myths Seem To Be Universal? | STUFF YOU SHOULD KNOW"?

The episode runs 44 min; the transcript is about 7,789 words in 117 timestamped sections.

More from Stuff You Should Know

About this transcript: the episode's spoken words as captioned on YouTube, split into timestamped sections. Reclip.Me locates every person, work and idea in the text, keeps the time it is first named, and quotes the words around it verbatim. Last updated February 9, 2026.