Bigfoot? Bigfoot.

Sometimes there really does seem to be something paranormal about Randonautica, the app I described in my January 10 post "Ask for a mini T. rex, and ye shall receive a mini T. rex." As you may recall, it works by generating a lot of truly-random map coordinates within a specified radius of the user and then identifying anomalies -- either "attractor" anomalies with an improbably large number of randomly generated points near them of "void" anomalies with an improbably small number. While it's generating the points and finding the strongest anomaly, you're supposed to "visualize your intention," which is supposed to affect the whole process in some mysterious way.

As recounted in the linked post, the first two times I used it I randomly chose "mini T. rex" as my "intention," and both times it led me to something answering to that description.

Today I wanted to do some walking, so I thought why not use Randonautica again. I had just been reading the cryptid section of Joshua Cutchin's Ecology of Souls and remembering my childhood obsession with Bigfoot, which I had been sure was lurking somewhere in the woods of suburban Maryland and could be summoned by continually ringing a concierge bell I had bought for the purpose (the neighbors must have just loved me!) -- so when the "visualize your intention" thing came up, I thought, "Okay, Randonautica, point me to a Bigfoot!"

If a cul-de-sac outside Baltimore seems an unlikely place for Sasquatch hunting, it's got nothing on urban Taiwan! Nevertheless, Randonautica delivered. Everyone knows these trickster spirits delight in puns and in granting requests in an over-literal way. Here's where I ended up:

That's a footprint and the English word foot, both very big (the wall was approximately seven feet tall), with a big finger pointing it out for me. (Except for the finger, that's the logo of a very small local office supplies company. I used to work for the older and much more successful "Hand" brand, "Foot" being to them what the Byrds, the Monkees, and the Allegators were to the Beatles.)

Along the way, Randonautica led me past a little clothing shop I'd never seen before. One of the T-shirts caught my eye through the window.

Some time ago, I discovered David Talbott's fringe astronomy theories and watched a bunch of YouTube videos about them on the "Thunderbolts" channel. Since then, the algorithm occasionally suggests more videos in that vein. A few weeks ago, it suggested this one:

I didn't watch it, but the thumbnail makes the main point clear enough. According to the theory, at some point in the distant past our "sun" was actually an alignment of several planets, which were much closer to the Earth than they are now, and electrical discharges between them formed an eight-rayed pattern (the "octopus" configuration discussed in my March 2022 Tarot/sync post "Lightning from the Sun?"). When this eight-pointed "sun" was not visible, that would be "night," and this video presumably tries to back that theory up with linguistic evidence that the word night is derived from eight with a negative prefix (see also acht/Nacht, huit/nuit, etc. -- clever, really).

The T-shirt is obviously supposed to mean "Number Eight," but the sync fairies don't care about intentions. It says "No Eight," with a night-black background and what looks like a partially illuminated planet. Does it say Neptune? That would make sense, since it's the number eight planet. I couldn't see much more from outside, so I tried googling "no eight" "neptune" to see if I could find the T-shirt online. I couldn't, but I did unexpectedly run into an old friend -- twice, in case I missed it the first time:

The Eight of Cups is normally Saturn in Pisces, but I guess this one blogger identifies it with Neptune. Note that the card shows a night sky with a crescent, just like the T-shirt.

Since I couldn't find the T-shirt online, I went into the shop to take a look. Here's a clearer shot of it:

It was a strange shop. Here's another of their T-shirts:

That's a guy on a bicycle, made up of random letters of the alphabet, together with a few repeated lines from Aesop's fable of the North Wind and the Sun (plus a little introduction explaining that the North Wind is cold). In Aesop, the Sun proves itself stronger by making a man take off his coat, the North Wind having failed to blow it off. In this version, weirdly, the Sun denies the North Wind's ability to make typhoons and huge waves.

There was also this little gem. I'm not sure if it's meant to be worn by a man or a woman, but either way, it's a little weird.

Since the unplanned an unexpected strikes so many, why even bother trying to plan anything?

I'm pretty sure "double cuppin'" is a reference to that cough syrup drank singers of a certain race are always on about. How this stuff ends up printed on T-shirts in Taiwan, I'll never know. (Having just looked it up, I see these lyrics come from an American song that includes the line "Tomorrow got a flight headed to Taiwan" -- to rhyme with a reference to cocaine being "all white like Parmesan." Real art gives me chills sometimes.)

After my walk, I read a few more pages in Ecology of Souls -- the book responsible for making me think of Bigfoot -- and found this:

This may be what several Penobscot tribesmen observed when spying on medicine man John Neptune, who met the approach of "an immense eel" not with terror but affection, gently cradling its head and "drumming on it softly."

That's the only occurrence of Neptune in this 1405-page book, and I read it just after a sync involving a Neptune T-shirt. The combination of Penob-scot, fearlessness, and "an immense eel" made me think of a Moody Blues song:

Captain Scott, you were so bold

Now you're looking rather cold

Out there in the snow

What did you find there?

Did you stand a while and stare?

Did you meet anyone?

I've seen polar bears and seals

I've seen giant Antarctic eels

I've still not found what I'm looking for

The reference is to Robert Falcon Scott, the Antarctic explorer, who I'm sure never saw polar bears. By a strange coincidence, an East India Company ship called the Neptune (admittedly a popular name for ships) was piloted by a different captain also named Robert Scott, perhaps a relative.