Long Live the Ray Cat with Emperor X and Matt Kielty

Long Live the Ray Cat with Emperor X and Matt Kielty

Reporter and Radiolab producer Matthew Kielty and musician Chad Matheny (AKA Emperor X) were both part of a 2014 episode of the 99% Invisible podcast called Ten Thousand Years that asked the same question we did in our Talking to the Future episode: how do we communicate warnings about nuclear waste to humans ten thousand years in the future when language, symbols, and familiar technologies have all fallen away? Matt was a contributor to the episode, helping bring the strange story to a much larger audience while Emperor X created a folk song containing lore about the Ray Cat (that biologically edited feline who would turn colors when getting too close to radiation). Could a catchy earworm stay stuck in the collective American head for ten thousand years to help warn future generations? We’ll discuss their experiences with nuclear semiotics, the rise of the Ray Cat and the associated public response, as well as how these thought experiments can be vital to imagining and creating a more hopeful future. Follow @EmperorX on Instagram or check out his website Follow Matthew Kielty on Twitter @Matt_Kielty Check out Ten Thousand Years from 99% Invisible Become a Patron to support our show and get early ad-free episodes and bonus content Or subscribe to American Hysteria on Apple Podcasts Head to americanhysteria.com to get merch and leave us a message on our Urban Legends Hotline Producer and Editor: Miranda Zickler Associate Producer: Riley Swedelius-Smith Hosted by Chelsey Weber-Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Episoder(292)

STARING AT THE SUN ON LSD with Sarah Marshall of 'You're Wrong About'

STARING AT THE SUN ON LSD with Sarah Marshall of 'You're Wrong About'

Have you ever heard the urban legend about the group of hippie college students that went blind while staring at the sun during an LSD trip? This tale became a very powerful anecdote in the 1960s as p...

7 Jul 20251h 22min

THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE with Sarah Marshall of 'You're Wrong About'

THE CALL IS COMING FROM INSIDE THE HOUSE with Sarah Marshall of 'You're Wrong About'

You've probably heard the urban legend called the Babysitter and the Man Upstairs or at least know the idiom it inspired: “The call is coming from inside the house.” Sarah Marshall of the podcasts You...

30 Jun 20251h 31min

THE HIPPIE BABYSITTER BABY ROAST

THE HIPPIE BABYSITTER BABY ROAST

Have you ever heard the urban legend about the babysitter who takes LSD and accidentally bakes a baby in the oven believing it to be a raw turkey? For this Urban Legends Hotline episode, we will explo...

23 Jun 202558min

Context Clues: Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's High

Context Clues: Don't Tell Mom the Babysitter's High

This episode will give some extra context for our upcoming urban legend episodes: The Hippie Babysitter and the Baby Roast, The Babysitter and the Man Upstairs, and the one where the college students...

16 Jun 202551min

GENDER REVEAL PARTIES: Pride Rewind

GENDER REVEAL PARTIES: Pride Rewind

Happy Pride month to all who observe! This is a rerelease of one of our favorite episodes. Over the last ten years, Gender Reveal Parties have exploded, figuratively and literally. Parents, communitie...

9 Jun 202542min

The Last Prison Rodeo with Journalist Adam Mahoney

The Last Prison Rodeo with Journalist Adam Mahoney

Since 1965, the Louisiana State Penitentiary, also known as Angola, has held an incredibly popular public event known as the Prison Rodeo where incarcerated men participate for cash prizes in contests...

2 Jun 202557min

Mayhem! at the Minecraft Movie with BJ Colangelo

Mayhem! at the Minecraft Movie with BJ Colangelo

Over the last couple months, groups of Minecraft fans have been making TikTok videos of themselves wrecking havoc in theaters across the nation when their favorite moment of the new Minecraft movie pl...

26 Mai 20251h 14min

Lost Boy Larry with Producer Miranda Zickler

Lost Boy Larry with Producer Miranda Zickler

In 1973, mysterious communications from a young boy came over CB radios in the Southwest, leading to a massive search and rescue mission that generated far more questions than answers. For this episod...

19 Mai 20251h 9min

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