Real Rat Kings

Narnian · Post by **Narnian** » Fri Mar 18, 2005 6:29 pm

Alright everybody - hold hands (or paws), start swaying and repeat after me:

Kumbya my Lord ...

RHJunior · Post by **RHJunior** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 8:48 am

StrangeWulf13 wrote:Oh for the love of...

We're talking about the possible existance of an urban legend here

"Urban legends" don't have documentation, photographs, physical remains, and x-rays of the corpus.

And yes, this is an important distinction.
The term "Urban legend" was created to denote FOAFs... Friend Of A Friend Stories, that upon inspection have proven to have no material evidence or actual proof, and often had no realy documented eyewitnesses or occurrences--- no news clippings, etc. "But my uncle's roommate's best friend's housemaid saw the WHOLE THING...."

They often, upon inspection, prove to be scientifically impossible, or betray some layman's misconception of how a certain technology or scientific phenomenon works.... the urban myth about the woman who microwaved her internal organs by suntanning five times in a single day is an example of this (suntanning beds do not emit microwaves, for one thing.... and even if they did, she would have been in indescribable agony when her insides started to cook. Plus the fact that her "insides" cooked shows an abominable lack of knowledge of how microwaves work-- its a common misunderstanding that microwaves cook "from the inside out," when in actuality they penetrate only a few inches and work by heating up water molecules inside the food. It would have been her muscles and skin and fatty tissues that got parboiled... in which case, see the aforementioned horrible agony.)

Setting aside the fact that Rat Kings are actually an obscure phenomena, rather than a widely known one (as evidenced by how many people in this forum had never heard of them before, and the few who had having only heard of it from Terry Pratchett), the rat king phenomena has 1)documented eyewitnesses 2)historical documentation 3)photographs and x-rays 4)multiple references from unconnected sources 5)posthumous evidence (preserved dead rat kings).

It does not qualify as an "urban myth."

Astral · Post by **Astral** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 10:21 am

Did you hear the one about the insudent of the mobile phone that blew up a petrol station

Sharuuk · Post by **Sharuuk** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 11:16 am

Astral wrote:Did you hear the one about the insudent of the mobile phone that blew up a petrol station

Yeah....and "Mythbusters" blew that one out of the water as totally false.

LOVE that show!!!

Shaaruuk

Sophieblue · Post by **Sophieblue** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 2:06 pm

RHJunior wrote:I never read Terry Pratchett's book with the rats.

I first read mention of them in a graphic novel called "the tale of one bad rat." Curious, I did a websearch, and concluded they were prime material for a mythical monster.

Wonder if Pratchett saw that too? They do make for a good monster for sure, especially since rats are such cunning creatures. And frightening in the dark!

Tbolt · Post by **Tbolt** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 4:09 pm

*looking over pieces of the rat king dispatched by Quentyn*

If we glued these pieces together, could we make the rat-o-nine-tails now?

Jace · Post by **Jace** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 5:19 pm

Wow. No-one can be right but Ralph.

Even the possibility that any evidence can be faked is wrong, despite the abundant resources to do so, and the rich history of humans for faking things.

BBlalock · Post by **BBlalock** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 7:48 pm

I should note that TOTQ is one of my favorite webcomics, while we've been having frequent updates it's the only one I've been checking from work. (And yes, I *KNOW* that our IT guys log everything we do.)

Rat-Kings, regardless of whether there have ever been real ones are a magnificant basis for a fantasy monster.

The following skepticism is born simply from my desire to express and justify the line of reasoning I have followed. Nobody should take it personally, and I am of course open to corrections on any point(s) which are in error.

RHJunior wrote:
StrangeWulf13 wrote:Oh for the love of...

We're talking about the possible existance of an urban legend here

"Urban legends" don't have documentation, photographs, physical remains, and x-rays of the corpus.

And yes, this is an important distinction.
The term "Urban legend" was created to denote FOAFs... Friend Of A Friend Stories, that upon inspection have proven to have no material evidence or actual proof, and often had no realy documented eyewitnesses or occurrences--- no news clippings, etc. "But my uncle's roommate's best friend's housemaid saw the WHOLE THING...."

Unless I missed something none of the web sites that were cited are presenting first hand evidence. They are hearsay (aka FOAF), which is inadmissable in court, and highly questionable in any serious discussion of facts. (Fortunately this is a forum for a webcomic and its primary purpose is not to seriously discuss facts.)

Without knowing where the photos and x-rays are really from there is no way to establish thier credability. In my opinion the reasonable presumption is that they are not credible.

At least one of the sites noted the name of the person who found the rat-king. If we had that person's first-hand account of the event (as opposed to a posting on the internet from a FOAF) it is something that could be presented as credible evidence.

If someone who could be established to be knowledgable about rats were to post information concerning the possible existence of rat-kings that would be credible. (Not absolute proof, but it would be credible)

RHJunior wrote: They often, upon inspection, prove to be scientifically impossible, or betray some layman's misconception of how a certain technology or scientific phenomenon works....

That is frequently the case, but not always. It's unlikely that a murderer with a hook is stalking teenagers at lovers lane, but not impossible. Granted, there are no photos or other evidence (the name of the killer would really help) to support that particular bit of nonsense, but the point is that not all urban legends are impossible.

I'd like to point out that I see nothing impossible about the existence of rat-kings. My only sticking point is the apparant lack of credible evidence.

RHJunior wrote:Setting aside the fact that Rat Kings are actually an obscure phenomena, rather than a widely known one

They are obscure now, but if one believe the links that were presented it appears that they used to be more common.

RHJunior wrote: (as evidenced by how many people in this forum had never heard of them before, and the few who had having only heard of it from Terry Pratchett), the rat king phenomena has 1)documented eyewitnesses 2)historical documentation 3)photographs and x-rays 4)multiple references from unconnected sources 5)posthumous evidence (preserved dead rat kings).

It does not qualify as an "urban myth."

UFOs of alien origin have all of those except x-rays and posthumous evidence, and I'm sure some folks could be found who would claim that the x-rays and posthumous evidence exist. (presumably in secret government warehouses.)

Are alien-built UFOs impossible? Though we cannot duplicate some of the effects that would be required for them to be possible I am not willing to completely rule them out. They just haven't passed my threshhold for proof yet.

Yes, I will admit that rat-kings are more likely than alien-built UFOs.

I would like to repeat that the preceeding skepticism was presented in the spirit of amusing conversation, no offense is intended against anyone.

Jace · Post by **Jace** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 9:48 pm

Thank you, BBlalock, for saying exactly what I wanted to, only more reasonably than I felt like doing.

Bigfoot and Nessie also have all of those factors barring the X-Rays and posthumous evidence. Are those phenomena real? Still very hard to say for sure.

I would also like to point out that the sites presented by various people are not entirely unconnected, and those that don't refer to another site actually contradict the others. One even gives the impression that more than one 32-body rat king has been found, by saying they 'can be up to 32 rats', though all the other sites say that only one 32-rat specimen has ever been found. I can say that tigers can grow up to six feet in length, or whatever, but I would expect that there be more than one specimen to back that up. One specimen could be a freak.

Nor am I doubting the existence of rat kings in general, I'm just dubious about the credibility of all this supposed evidence. Frankly, I saved the pics and zoomed in on them, and actually found it really hard to make out any kind of detail, especially in the x-rays. One site says that you can see where the tails have been broken and callused, well alright then. There is no authority that has established that the same is true for all samples. For all we know, the callused one is a real rat king, and the rest are man-made imitations. If people tied the tails together, the bones would break just the same.

Nor do the sites, for the most part, present their evidence as 100% solid. Wikipedia, for example, which has by far the most thorough examination of rat kings, continually expresses everything in 'might bes'.

And how many of the documented eye-witnesses are named and quoted?

My point is, the evidence is not conclusive. it's suggestive.

But as BBlalock said, none of this is really the point. Believe what you will about the reality of rat kings, but they DO make one hell of a fantasy monster, and I applaud Ralph for using the idea to such great effect.

Jace · Post by **Jace** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 9:50 pm

Neat trick, quoting yourself by accident....

Astral · Post by **Astral** » Sat Mar 19, 2005 11:50 pm

And thus the kit choses this time to stand inbetween the aguers and say;

Dose it realy matter wether they exist or not? Seriously, evedence or none all that realy matters is that it made for a grate mythical beasty in the comic and provided us with a fantasicly entertaining plot. You are like blind men arguing that black is white eventhough you've never seen either colour before in your life. None of you would be convinced unless you saw a rat king for yourself. And even then you'd have a hard time convincing everyone elce that you had seen it because they would still be skeptical as you were before you saw it. Why don't we just leave it at "There's a lot of evidence to say that the 'rat king' may exist, but this is not nesserly 100% real (ie can not be varified due to nature of souces and our lack of enfusiasum). However, as there have been documented sightings of rat kings for a long span in history I think its resonable to assume that they existed at one point or another, even if 'all' the evidence from moddern times is faked (which is pritty unlikly as none of them can be directly discredited)."

Jace · Post by **Jace** » Sun Mar 20, 2005 2:34 am

*shrug* I don't care. I just didn't like how much of an ass RHJ was being about it.

BBlalock · Post by **BBlalock** » Sun Mar 20, 2005 5:37 am

Astral wrote:And thus the kit choses this time to stand inbetween the aguers and say;

Dose it realy matter wether they exist or not?

I agree! It doesn't matter one bit.

The discussion is fun, and while I walked into the middle of a shouting match I believe that I'm not doing any of the shouting.

Astral wrote: Seriously, evedence or none all that realy matters is that it made for a grate mythical beasty in the comic and provided us with a fantasicly entertaining plot.

I agree!

Astral wrote: You are like blind men arguing that black is white eventhough you've never seen either colour before in your life. None of you would be convinced unless you saw a rat king for yourself.

Unless the tails were obviously glued together I would not consider seeing one to be sufficient proof one way or the other as I am not qualified to evaluate the evidence.

Now if there was a dissection report of a rat king from a veterinary doctor posted on his homepage (ie first hand testimony from an expert witness) then that would carry a great deal of weight.

If the doctor concluded that the rat's tails had been growing together for the majority of the lives of the rats it would be excellent evidence supporting the existance of rat-kings.

Astral wrote: And even then you'd have a hard time convincing everyone elce that you had seen it because they would still be skeptical as you were before you saw it.

I would certainly hope that they wouldn't accept my word as incontrovertable proof, and once they expressed thier skeptiscism I believe I would not start disparaging the people who disagreed with me.

Astral wrote: Why don't we just leave it at "There's a lot of evidence to say that the 'rat king' may exist,

I can't leave it at that because we haven't seen a lot of evidence that suggests that rat-kings exist or have existed.

We have seen photos and x-rays of a few dead bodies of purported rat-kings and we have seen second-hand reports of thier existance.

In my opinion the information that has been presented is not sufficent evidence.

Astral wrote: but this is not nesserly 100% real (ie can not be varified due to nature of souces and our lack of enfusiasum). However, as there have been documented sightings of rat kings for a long span in history

Where can we directly examine the reports of these sightings?

Astral wrote: I think its reasonable to assume that they existed at one point or another,

They might have existed, they might not, they might still exist. I don't know which it is.

I am comfortable with this uncertainty. (Despite the fact that I have seen a rat near my home that was bigger than most small dogs. A rat-king of those would be a fearsome beast indeed.)

Astral wrote:even if 'all' the evidence from moddern times is faked (which is pritty unlikly as none of them can be directly discredited)."

The evidence does not need to be discredited, until the evidence is proven to be credible then it is automatically not credible.

The fact that we disagree is not a bad thing. As long as we can discuss things reasonably then the disagreement is a good and healty thing, even if we never agree.

Astral · Post by **Astral** » Sun Mar 20, 2005 7:11 am

Muh, point.

Jace · Post by **Jace** » Sun Mar 20, 2005 12:13 pm

Ooooh, I just had a frightening thought.... capybara-king.

Then again, not sure they have tails, let alone ones so long.

Dalak Lutra · Post by **Dalak Lutra** » Sun Mar 20, 2005 10:02 pm

Yeah...thats just kinda creapy, you think that the Rat kings are smart enought to manage to kill themselves before any human could prove its existance or something like that? Perhaps their knowlage is greater than that of the normal rats and they know all sorts of wierd things would happen if the discovery of their kind were to arise amongst the human race. They would be gut open, scanned, and then would be put through tests of some sort for the likes of the scientists to discover their maximum wit. Then ofcourse the comunication and interaction with other animals would become a factor for testing aswell. So they would be put into certain environments with other rats. The eyes watching over them, taking notice of every little movement and actoin they preform. Then ofcourse if they did show more inteligence than the other creatures of this world we would attempt to comunicate with them. After being tested upon their entire lives the humans would return back out into the wild to find more and collect them for experimentation. The old one's carcases would either be tossed aside or put into some kind of museum. Eventually it would lead to rat kings speaking English, or some other language. Thinking about it, they would most likely chose the path of death as opposed to the path of being test subject #524-RK32 for the rest of their lives. Heck you would even be saving your race of Rat Kings from the doom of humans. Why if you were dead the no other human would belive the human who found your dead carcas because it could have gotten 5 or 6 rats and tied their tail togtether. They'd just call it 'Crazy Rat Boy/girl', or 'Rat Dofus'. So I end my random thought, that extended out longer than expected(as usual), now with that crazy Blob of "what if's" floating in your mind. Oh, and try not to hurt yourself.

And DAM, Myth Busters is a hella cool show! I don't watch T.V. all to often but usually when I do it includes mythbusters, or anime....

BBlalock · Post by **BBlalock** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 3:57 am

Jace wrote:Ooooh, I just had a frightening thought.... capybara-king.

Then again, not sure they have tails, let alone ones so long.

According to this page capybara are quite friendly.

If they are friendly a capybara king might use its power for good instead of evil.

In other assorted speculation, I would like to sugggest that rat-kings with odd numbers of included rats might be more likely to be found than rat-kings with even numbers of rats. With an even number of rats a rat king which is being chased could ran into a thin vertical obstruction (like a small tree or a pole) and become trapped with the same number of rats on both sides of the pole. An odd-numbered rat-king could not be trapped this way.

SolidusRaccoon · Post by **SolidusRaccoon** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 4:10 am

Well thats an interesting point.

Jace · Post by **Jace** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 4:47 am

BBlalock wrote: According to this page capybara are quite friendly.

If they are friendly a capybara king might use its power for good instead of evil.

Yes, but can you imagine the sheer size of the thing?

In other assorted speculation, I would like to sugggest that rat-kings with odd numbers of included rats might be more likely to be found than rat-kings with even numbers of rats. With an even number of rats a rat king which is being chased could ran into a thin vertical obstruction (like a small tree or a pole) and become trapped with the same number of rats on both sides of the pole. An odd-numbered rat-king could not be trapped this way.

Hmmm. True... on the other hand, the rat king would have to be a LOT like Ralph's version to be able to run much at all.

Narnian · Post by **Narnian** » Mon Mar 21, 2005 3:52 pm

Jace wrote:
BBlalock wrote: According to this page capybara are quite friendly.

If they are friendly a capybara king might use its power for good instead of evil.
Yes, but can you imagine the sheer size of the thing?

OK, how about a Phoberomys pattersoni king? 1,500 lbs of rodent fun!
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news ... antrodent/