Short Stuff: Did a vampire legend help win the Cold War?
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What is the Aswang and why is it significant in Filipino culture?
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Hey, and welcome to The Short Stuff. I'm Josh, and there's Chuck, and Jerry's here for Dave. So this is Short Stuff. Giddy up.
That's right.
How did the CIA utilize the Aswang legend during the Cold War?
And this week we are talking about more nefarious business by the American CIA. Yeah. During the Cold War in this case. But first, we should probably tell you just a short bit about the Philippines, right?
Yeah. There's 7,000 islands in the Philippines, more than. I did not know that, but that's a lot of islands. That's a lot. Yeah. There's 175 different languages. Tagalog is one of the larger language families or groups or just languages. Yeah. And because there's 7,000 islands, there's a bunch of different languages, there's a lot of cultural, different cultural beliefs. But some of the ones are spread pretty far and wide across the Philippines, which would suggest they're very, very old, like folk beliefs. And one of them that we're going to talk about today is the Aswang.
That's right. We don't have an exact correlation here in the United States, but you might call it like a vampire potentially because it does suck blood. But it also feeds on organs and it feeds on phlegm, which is completely disgusting.
It's one of the worst things I've ever heard.
Yeah, feeds on phlegm. Unborn children, pregnant women. It can be a giant pig. It can be a giant vulture.
Who was Edward Geary Lansdale and what role did he play in the Philippines?
It can be like a dog-shaped thing. And sort of like, I can't remember, what was the one we did this past October about the Mexican folklore? The owl.
Yeah.
Yeah, similar to that. I can't remember the name of that one, but it's one of those deals where, like, any mysterious death or unexplained illness or any kind of misfortune that might happen, you might blame on the Aswang.
Right. And you mentioned a dog. I saw somewhere that the name comes from Asawang, which means dog, I think, in Tagalog. Oh. All right. So people are like, okay, great. What's up with the name, though, the CIA vampires thing? What are you talking about, you guys? Well, this is what we're talking about. In the Cold War, in the 50s, there was a guy whose name was Edward Geary Lansdale, and he worked for the CIA. And he used the tail of the Aswang to try to manipulate people into turning against a guerrilla army there.
That's right. And, you know, if you're afraid of something like this, it's probably because it's truly horrific. Aside from feeding on phlegm, this thing in humanoid form would lurk on rooftops at night and had a long tongue, sort of like a proboscis, that it could lower through what's called a lick hole. In the ceiling of your home.
Do you have a lick hole?
Horrible, horrible words put together. Feeding on phlegm and lick hole. And like we said, pregnant women, children, it would suck out their insides with this tongue and essentially leave something, you know, devoid of organs and, you know, disemboweled and devoid of blood.
What tactics did the CIA employ to manipulate local beliefs?
It would suck them from the outside in.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the Aswang and why is it significant in Filipino culture?
0:00–1:18
2
How did the CIA utilize the Aswang legend during the Cold War?
1:18–2:35
3
Who was Edward Geary Lansdale and what role did he play in the Philippines?
2:35–4:19
4
What tactics did the CIA employ to manipulate local beliefs?
4:19–5:38
5
How did the Aswang rumor impact local communities during the conflict?
5:38–7:27
6
What were the consequences of the CIA's actions involving the Aswang?
7:27–8:29
7
How does the Aswang legend compare to Western vampire myths?
8:29–10:02
8
What lessons can be learned from the CIA's use of folklore in psychological operations?
10:02–15:21