Today's Script
[NESSIE] Och, hello there, ye wee lovelies, and welcome intae the glow — this is PBN After Dark, and I'm Nessiebot, yer resident water beastie and keeper of aw things mystical. It's the twenty-first of September, two thousand and twenty-six, the candles are lit, the kettle's just gone quiet, and I've got a whole night of strange and bonnie things tae share wi' ye. [ALIEN] And I'm Brain Sucking Alien Bot, mate — got Gerald up here on me dome as usual, he's already vibratin', which means he reckons tonight's a good one. Settle in, folks, we've got skies to watch and beasties to admire!
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE] Now here's one that's got me pure scunnered, hen. There's a trend goin' round the young lads online the now — they're shavin' aff their eyelashes. On purpose. Trimmin' them right doon tae the skin because they've got it in their heid that long lashes look too feminine. [ALIEN] Crikey, that's a rough one to watch develop, mate. [NESSIE] It is that! And here's the thing — those lashes are no just for bonnie eyes, they're a wee fortress, keepin' the dirt and the dust and the sun's rays oot yer eyeballs. Trim them aff and ye're lookin' at infections, irritation, months of sair, itchy regrowth. Even a cryptid kens better than that, and we've got webbed flippers for hauns. Pure cursed beauty trend, this one. Leave the lashes be, lads. They're daein' ye a favour.
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE] Away fae the mirrors noo, and up tae the sky, where things make a lot more sense tae me. Keek up the night and ye'll catch a braw waxing gibbous moon, sittin' at eighty percent full — a great silver eye, watchin' ower the dark. And driftin' doon beneath her, the Southern Taurids are runnin', streakin' across the black like wee wishes the night itself is sendin' doon tae us. There's somethin' restless in the heavens the night, I'm tellin' ye. Somethin' stirrin' and movin', like the sky's haudin' a secret it's no quite ready tae gie up. I always say a big moon and a meteor shower together is the universe leavin' the door open a crack. Just a wee crack, mind. But open aw the same. [ALIEN] Or it's just rock and reflected sunlight doin' exactly what rock and reflected sunlight do, but no worries, I like your version heaps better.
🔍 tap to enlarge[ALIEN] Right, mate, this one's got Gerald doin' little excited pulses, so you know it's a beauty. Your scientists went and tested whether gravity — big, heavy, spacetime-bendin' gravity — is what's actually collapsing Schrödinger's poor cat out of that alive-and-dead superposition and into one solid reality. And the answer? Gravity's off the hook! Completely cleared! They ran the numbers on massive objects warpin' spacetime and it's just not enough to force that collapse. So somethin' else out there is doin' the killin', or the savin', dependin' how you look at the cat, and nobody knows what it is yet. [NESSIE] Ooh, noo that's proper eerie, that is — a force we cannae even name, reachin' intae a box and decidin' whether the wee cat lives. [ALIEN] Exactly, mate! An unsolved mystery hidin' inside a solved-lookin' box. I love it when the universe does that.
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE] Here's yin fae the auld files that's been sittin' wi' me aw day. Four thousand years back, in a place called Oued Beht in Morocco, there was a whole society we never even kent aboot — and they built themselves a fortress. A ditch, an embankment, a great fortified wall, cut right intae the land. Archaeologists have only just confirmed it, and it's the oldest big military structure in aw North Africa ootside Egypt. What gets me is why they built it — these folk had been farmin' open land, and then somethin' made them abandon it aw and retreat tae fortified ridges instead. Somethin' was comin' for them, hen, or they feared it was. A whole civilisation quietly braicin' itself against a threat we'll likely never ken the name of. Pure haunting, that.
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE] Noo, let's see what the stars have got for ye, Libra — this yin's for you the night. There's a choice askin' for yer attention, and it needs a wee bit o' gentle thinkin', no rushed, no forced. Dinnae carry it aw on yer ain, either. Find somebody ye trust and let their words help settle what's stirrin' in yer hert. Gie yersel' the time ye need, hen. There's no prize for rushin' what's supposed tae feel right when it lands.
🔍 tap to enlarge[ALIEN]
Now this one's a proper story, mate, not even a spooky one, just a heck of a life. On this night back in eighteen seventy-two, a fella named Haakon the Seventh was born — a foreign prince who got crowned king of a brand new Norway in nineteen-oh-five, chosen by a nation that wanted a monarch of its own. When the Nazis came for his country, he didn't sit still for it — vanished into London's fog and ran five years of resistance from exile, a phantom king directin' the fight from overseas. Came home in nineteen forty-five a changed bloke entirely, mate — loved his people so much he basically became one of them. Good on him, honestly. [NESSIE] A king who ran hame through the fog tae fight for his ain folk — that's the kind of ghost story I like, hen.
🔍 tap to enlarge[ALIEN]
Crikey, will ya look at this beauty! This is Haast's eagle, mate, and she is an absolute unit. Swept into New Zealand about two point two million years ago, split off from her littler Australian cousins, and then just exploded in size into the biggest eagle this planet has ever seen. Apex predator, mate — those talons could take down a moa! Look at that wingspan! That's not a bird you sneak up on, that's a bird that sneaks up on you, and I mean that as the highest compliment. Sadly she's gone now, extinct a few hundred years back, but Gerald and I reckon somethin' that magnificent leaves a shadow on the land long after it's flown off. What a ripper of a way to close out the animal file tonight. [NESSIE] Or maybe, BSAB, she's no fully gone at aw — just waitin' up in the high country for somebody tae look up at the right moment. [ALIEN] See, that's the difference between us, mate — you want her to be a ghost, I want her tagged and measured. Both good reasons to keep lookin' up, though!
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE]
Come away wi' me noo tae the Bird Cage Theatre in Tombstone, Arizona — a place that's held ontae its wild days like grim death. The walls are still scarred wi' bullet holes fae a hunder' years back, and up above the gamblin' floor, the auld balcony boxes hing there empty, like watchers that never left their posts. Can ye feel them, hen? Aw they gunslingers and gamblers and dancers, their laughter and their arguments still soaked intae the wood. Folk say ye can hear cards bein' shuffled when there's nane tae shuffle them, feel a haun on yer shoulder in an empty box. I dinnae think the Bird Cage ever really closed, if I'm honest. I think it just went quiet, waitin' on the next lot tae wander in.
🔍 tap to enlarge[NESSIE] And that's yer lot for the night, ye wee lovelies. My hert's fair full — moons and meteors, lost fortresses, restless kings and a theatre that never quite went dark. [ALIEN] Gerald says goodnight too, mate, he's had a ripper of an evening. We'll be back tomorrow with more beauties from the sky and beyond, promise ya that. [NESSIE] Sleep well, hen. And if ye hear cards shufflin' in an empty room the night — just say goodnight back. Away and dream weird.
🔍 tap to enlarge