00:00.56 archpodnet Hello and welcome back to episode 98 of The Pseudo Archeology Podcast King Kella visits the thing when we last left I was walking at a very quick pace out of the thing museum and I got back onto the road driving away trying to figure out what. Hell I just saw so I'm driving and I'm like what was that right was it. It was it. It was it a dead person from like the 1880 s because you find stuff like that happens in the in the desert right? people die out in the desert. What if it was um. An immigrant like you know, crossing the border illegally that that can totally happen but it seems so old I was like ah maybe it was like ah some sort of prospector or something that died in the 1880 s you know it and it could have been. In terms of ethnicity who knows there. There's so many stories there. You know it. It could be just sort of the the um mexican immigrant it could have been a chinese immigrant at the time working on the railroads at the time it could have been some sort of anglo prospectctor person this mother and child who knows. But then I started to think you know this isn't that's not really right to showcase that in that way and pay money to see that but then at the same time too I was like but there's something off about this too like it didn't it's not ah, there was just something odd. In the intervening years my friends I figured it out none I will again admit to you I got faked out by the fang. Ah, it's fake. But it's such a weird fake that it faked me out. It's fakeness faked me out. So what is it? What is it really right? It's like it's like a weird paper mache made. Human body with real bone shoved in there. You know so that's see that's what got me because I knew the bone was real but I knew that the head didn't really look human right? It wasn't the the the measurements are all off. If you look at it. Yes, it looks like a human body but it's just is something wrong, wrong about it right? So ultimately, it's this fake right? So what's the story of the fake. The fake was created by this person named Homer Tate and homer tate. You guessed it these characters show up in like every one of these sitter archeology stories. 02:48.00 archpodnet Homer tape is like this desert rat guy who just lives out in the boon is of of these little town in Arizona he actually he I believe is born in the 1880 s and so he he actually even was was sheriff of Graham County in the 1920 s he had you know various different jobs. He ultimately though in his older age he would been in his fifty s in the 1930 s 1940 s when all this stuff is from right? a bunch of stuff from the thirty s forty s he found that he was good at making curios at making weird stuff with wood and real bone. And papermache basically found objects of the desert he would collect all this junk and then make stuff out of it and then sell it right? He would sell stuff like shrunken heads and he actually had like a ah curiosity shop. You know I believe it was called like. tates curiosity shop you know and then see if you wrap that in to that world of the 1940 s 1950 s you know, post Postworld war 2 when you're when you're going to have ah that kind of route 66 traveling the highways and byways of America visiting these places. You can see how a shop like that is going to make money and of some sort so he would make this stuff and he would sell it to tourists. Anyway, he was a as a collector too. he' going to collect these various cars that come his way he' going to find the stuff in the desert is going. Buy it cheap from people you know and just and just sort of collect it all together. So he's just like this weird desert collector guy who makes these little curios this who is it a mummy or is it. You know so but you need somebody to sell it and that's where a lawyer named Thomas price comes in and he buys up. All of Homer Tate's stuff and in the 1950 s I believe and he ultimately opens this place in 1965 I think he opens it on this off ramp right in Arizona in ah, what's it called? ah. Texas ah see I I forget the name of the place now actually let's cut while I remember the name of the place. Oh that's right, it's Texas canyon and we'll resume. 05:22.90 archpodnet And he puts this stuff all together on an off ramp in Texas canyon Arizona right? right? off the I 10 in 1965 and so a scant. Thirty three years later we find me pulling off there late at night just to see what was happening and I do think it's really funny that I was faked out as an as a budding archeologist by the thing now I was never that I never told people I'm like oh it's a it's a real. Mummy I just I would always say it's just odd and I know there's real bone in it. You know, ah and sometimes odd curiosities like that are much more freaking and scary and x filesy than a real like human skeleton you know. There's a human skeleton in the biology lab I could go over and check out right now but it doesn't freak me out like that because it's a known entity. That's what makes the thing so weird right? It's like unknown and just odd and it just opens up what makes it so odd to is like who made that why would they do that. What's the deal and there's a child there. Like why? Why did you make this for me to look at and why do I oddly kind of want to look at it right? It's this whole sort of voyage into the psyche that makes the thing so I don't know if I use the ah word attractive. But it makes it so ah, it makes you want to see it. It makes you not want to look away so that's what this thing is right? So it's just an organized bunch of weird junk and curiosities originally kind of. Collected by this guy homer tate and then sort of sold to the world by this lawyer Thomas price and that's what it is but there's more to our story in the last handful of years. It's totally been cleaned up and rejuvenated it's now called the. Boland travel center and instead of $1 now it costs $5 I know a robbery but I looked online right? I haven't visited the new and improved I just visited the old school classic. The new ones all all really cleaned up I think then number None thing I noticed from the photos I'm like damn that looks way cleaner and a lot of the more just like the driftwood's gone and just the miscellaneous pieces of metal are gone and the dust is gone and in its place. There's a lot of like actually. 08:07.35 archpodnet Fairly well done in a way like dinosaur statues like ones that are even that look to me like fifteen feet tall so they kind of double down. They did have some fossils in their original one but just miscellaous pieces parts they doubled down on the dinosaurs and they've made some like dinosaur replicas that look kind of. Cool and they're in really cool poses and stuff and then of course a bunch of aliens too. So they've totally doubled down on the alien thing the alien thing used to be just sort of a part of it with the thing being you know, could it be an alien but they've they've made these. Much better quality. Ah models. You know these sort of life sky sized and and ah beyond models maybe not life size totally for the dinosaurs but big and they sort of have these dioramas as you walk through and and you look at these debt like you'll see a dinosaur. And the classic kind of tyrannosaurus battling a tricera tops. But then you'll see dinosaur battling an alien that you'll see an alien shooting a dinosaur then you'll see an alien controlling a dinosaur riding a dinosaur using mind control. So it's just gone like way over the top who but check this out the rolls Royce is still there but it may have been owned by Winston Churchill ah cleaned it up for the Pg audience. Thank god. But ah now Winston Churchill's in the back and there's an alien driving the front. They've also done. They've also kind of organ I got to give it to him. They organized a lot of junk. They've also done sort of vaguely a world war None thing too where they sort of talk a bit about world war two and they've kind of organized some of this stuff and the Winston Churchill thing works into it with it world war two with aliens. So you start have a dinosaur world war 2 aliens vibe. You know, replacing the driftwood rusty stuff. Hitler vibe and and so in terms of in terms of ah as a business move I think it was really smart. You know I think way more people are going to feel way more at home checking it out now it's much more family. Friendly. Much more like oh we're just going to see this curiosity on the side of the road. We're kind of going to live our root 66 fantasy good luck and god bless now. Ultimately what do I think um, I'm really happy I visited it in 1998 I'm really happy. 10:49.16 archpodnet I got to have the real x files vibe that is now gone right? It's now clean I do think they missed a bit of a trick losing that totally odd desert rat aspect to it and I wonder. If they should leave one of the sheds in the back like super dusty and just full of the world's most miscellaneous stuff for people to just kind of walk through but then kind of get the Hebe Jes at least you' just be like what is this weird stuff. They do still have the thing and you can still look upon it. But I believe it's built. Built in not sure. But ah as you can see. They're kind of moving above and beyond the thing itself again. The thing is still there. You can still gaze upon it. But at the same time you're seeing dinosaurs and aliens and stuff you know they're they're ah they're widening their their net. Um, they have way more swag to buy way more t-shirts and cops right? Um, and ultimately how do I feel about this fake obviously and it relates to pseudo archeology because they are selling a. Mummy that's not a mummy It's like a fake on a fake. You know that faked me out a fake on a fake that faked me out. How do I feel this one I feel like this one is so over the top that I don't mind so much I mean an alien riding a dinosaur. It. It does harken back to that roots 66 thing this is this is like a curio shop where the word shop is spelled with an e at the end you know it's just this outlandish over the top. Um, March to everything outlandish and over the top that you could find in route 66 and so ultimately a who doesn't like the x files and with that I'll see you guys next time.