Afternoon Inquisition

AI: Dead or Alive?

In the latest episode of Monster Talk we interview Scott Crocker about his documentary Ghost Bird. This follows the search for the Ivory-Billed Woodpecker, a bird that became extinct in the 1940s, until a mistaken identity sighting in 2004 led to a $10 million search that unearthed nothing…

There were as many sightings of this bird as there are Elvis ‘sightings’.

What extinct animals would you like to see alive?

What monsters would you like to exist?

Where is Elvis?

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35 Comments

  1. I would love to see pygmy mammoths alive. They were a divergent species of wooly mammoth that evolved to smalle rsize on California’s channel islands.

    I would love for Bigfoot to be real because, hey, I’m an anthropologist, and it’s lonely being the only homonid on the block.

    Last time I saw Elvis, he was at a Rennaissance Fair. I think he went home after that.

  2. I’d like to see the velociraptor make a comeback. Hunting would truly be a sport if your odds of returning live were well less than 100%.

  3. Any dinosaurs would be great to have back. Jurassic Park 12: The Search for Tea Leoni’s carreer

    Having a Sphinx around would help me bone up on my riddle solving abilities.

    Elvis is a short order cook at a Waffle House in Apex, North Carolina

  4. I’d love to see the Thylacine (marsupial wolf/tasmanian tiger) come back. Some time back, there was a lot of excitement about cloning them – but it was just media hyping up recent research which extracted some small snippets of DNA from a 100-year old specimen. Still, it would be cool!

  5. It would be awesome to have trilobites still crawling around. They’re cute, they’re really old, and they can’t come back and kill us all.

    As for mythical creatures? Dragons. They are diverse, majestic, and just cool. But, they could definitely kill us all, so perhaps it’s just as well that they don’t exist.

  6. There is definitely a long list of what I’d like to see alive again and they’ve pretty much been covered. Dinosaurs and the Tasmanian tiger are at the top with Saber-tooth Tigers, Mammoths and pre-Regan Republicans a close follow.

    Monsters Inc. monsters of course! Nuff said…

    Elvis is with Andy Kaufman on the Moon receiving the best psychic surgery in our solar system.

  7. Giant Three Toed Sloth would be awesome!
    Or the dodo’s forgotten cousin, the Rodrigues solitaire.

    I’d quite like to see a phoenix.

    And Elvis has been living in a remote Irish castle with Micheal Jackson for a few months now.

  8. Really, who wouldn’t want to see mammoths walking around? Ents, that’s who. I’d pay good money for Mammoth vs Ent cage fight action.

    According to Google, Elvis is outside 7 Bulborne Road, Tring, Hertfordshire.
    http://maps.google.co.uk/maps?f=q&source=s_q&hl=en&geocode=&q=elvis&sll=53.800651,-4.064941&sspn=17.287903,46.538086&ie=UTF8&hq=elvis&hnear=&ll=51.807801,-0.657495&spn=0,313.461914&z=5&layer=c&cbll=51.807801,-0.657495&panoid=Invx_mStAbitFn7Wveq1Ww&cbp=12,178.79,,0,16.52

  9. Ammonites. Particularly, the ones that were 6feet + in size. A trilobite would also be cool to see.

    Dragons, plz.

    There’s a little bit of Elvis in each and every one of us.

  10. Neanderthal’s or any of the other hominids, if only to get a better comparison to us.

    I guess I should say Big Foot.

    He’s in our hearts!

  11. For extinct creatures I’d like to see some other hominids back, definitely some Neanderthals, probably some Hobbits and some X-Womans (X-Women?) and maybe some others. For “monsters” I’m going to have to go with Bigfoot and/or Yeit and some Elves and/or Fairies. All for the same reason I’d like to see how human cultures change and react to the presence of other more or less intelligent humanoids sharing our planet.

    And Elvis is relaxing in his giant pink spaceship after an exhausting set at The Domain of The King.

  12. Trilobites, an australopithecine, some moa (to feed opcnup’s Haast’s Eagle), and a newspaper which does solid investigative journalism, cares about checking its facts, and isn’t politically partisan.

    Elvis is an alien with a time machine and the ability to morph his body. He’s already come back as Michael Jackson, an undoubtedly is around now as someone else, but I haven’t spotted him yet. (Not that I’ve been looking hard – my definition of ‘contemporary music’ is sometime after 1970 – and usually before 1980.)

  13. I would like to see some woolly mammoths hanging around. There is another one I would want to see as well but I can’t remember what they’re called.. some kind of dog I think…

    I wish Pegasus existed. Dragons are cool too.

    Elvis- who knows?

  14. Any carniverous dinosaur would be totally cool to see…from a distance…telescopic distance…cause they could like, bite my face off.

    I would love to see a giant tarantula as big as a house. Then I want to see William Shatner fight it to death. http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0076271/

    Elvis? He’s worm food, forgetaboutit.

  15. Also, if we’re talking about fictional creatures coming to life, I would like to give Master Writer Larry Niven a nod and say I would give anything to meet a Chirpsithra…that would be just awesome.

  16. Those giant sloths that used to hang around North America would be cool to see.

    If there were such a thing as real Gryphons, I’d get one for a pet.

    I heard a rumor that Elvis is actually dead, but, of course, I don’t believe in THAT crazy theory!

  17. I would love to see either Ambulocetus, or any really neat extinct birds (I am a bird guy after all).

    I’d like to see a cheep (see my gravatar for a rough idea of what it looks like). It is part cheetah part big horn sheep creature that I came up with one day while I was extremely bored in class.

    The last postcard I got from Elvis said he was studying ice core samples in Antarctica.

  18. Australopithecus afarensis, so it could tell creationists that they’re full of crap.

    Gamara

    Elvis… his head is in liquid nitrogen here at my home. Bought it on ebay.

  19. Phororhacos. I would domesticate one and ride it everywhere. When you’re on a phororhacos, there is no such thing as traffic or rude drivers. Not for long, anyway.

    Mokele mbembe. Or Nessie, Champ and their cousins.

    Elvis is everywhere. Elvis is everything.

  20. Any prehistoric animal that wouldn’t regard me as lunch.

    Hmmm…Not much into monsters. Seems to me most of the carnivorous dinosaurs would qualify. I think intelligent dragons like Draco might be interesting. Smaug? No thanks. Too damned clever and evil for my taste. Aliens? Thranx, Vulcans, Trill, Larry Niven’s Bandersnatchi, Kdatylno or Moties…

    Funny, I heard Elvis is working at a 7-11 in Kalamazoo, Michigan…

  21. 1) Neanderthal Man… or Woman, ’cause, you know, this is probably the wrong forum for misogyny.

    2) Godzilla… not that I have anything against the Japanese. Some of my best friends are slanty-eyed Japs.

    3) In a shallow grave in the desert outside Las Vegas… oh, wait; did you mean “metaphysically”? Hang on. Didn’t Mojo Nixon tell us that Elvis is everywhere?

  22. @datajack: At least the Moties wouldn’t just eat me instead of talking to me…
    I KNOW better than to wager with a dragon.

  23. 1. Thylacines.

    2. ummmm… dragons. Or Grey Aliens, do they count?

    3. Working as the fry cook in the Domain of the King Bar and Grill, obviously.

  24. @Trillian: You sure he’s not tending bar at The Restaurant at the End of the Universe?

  25. I want to see the South American terror birds which used to terrorize all the small critters a few million years ago. That would be awesome.

  26. I’d like to see any type of dinosaur (preferrably carnivorous) or something a little later like the Giant Sloth, Brontotherium or those scary carnivorous kangaroo’s — oh, and a tiny dog-like horse would be fun too.

    As far as monsters I WISHED existed? I think Medusa or the Kraken would be cool (but that might have something to do with my excitement for Clash of the Titans)

    Elvis is in Bon Temps and Shreveport.

  27. I kinda want the Hooloovoo to exist, but a Babelfish would be more useful. If we’re limiting it to things actually called “monsters,” I’ll have to go with the Wild Things.

  28. Q) What extinct animals would you like to see alive?

    A) Cro-Magnon Man, or, really any of Modern Man’s actual evolutionary Cousins, (preferably evolved forward to a modern species but hopefully I’m not being to confusing). Having a second Intelligent Species and direct competitor to Homo-Sapien around would have made things much more interesting.

    Q) What monsters would you like to exist?

    A) Time-Lords, Djinn, Dragons, and the Sidhe. If I had to pick only one, then Dragons.

    Q) Where is Elvis?

    A) He asked me not to tell you. ;)

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