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Two people claim to know everything about something, but only one knows anything.
Isaac F. Roosevelt wore an anti-gravity belt.
Dinosaurs had two brains.
Lucky kids live on Mars and go to school in flying cars.
Or at least they will one day.
Believe me, I'm a historian.
An astronaut or driver, DeLorean.
Would I lie?
It's hard to say.
Some pigs can fly.
But if you ask me why, can you trust the answer?
From Summit, New Jersey, this is The Big Fib.
And now here's your host, Debra Goldstein.
Welcome to The Big Fib, the game show where kids choose between the ancient, majestically panoramic ranges of truth and the imposingly jagged volcanic eruptions of lies.
I'm your host, Debra Goldstein, and in the studio today is our sound effects robot Lisa, whose name is an acronym that stands for Live In Studio Audience.
Made it!
Yeah, you made it for a minute.
I thought we were going to have to reschedule today's episode.
Oh, same.
Same, Debra.
Sorry about that.
My buddies and I were in an escape room and we couldn't get out.
Oh, you were doing one of those games where you have to find clues and solve puzzles to get out of a room.
That's the one.
There were riddles, audio clues ciphers, but I didn't want my friends to feel like I had all the answers, so I really took a backseat and let them try to figure it all out.
But then, time started running out, and we hadn't escaped with 30 seconds left on the clock.
Wow, so you jumped in and solved all the puzzles?
No!
No!
I broke through the wall.
Oh, by the way, you might be getting a rather hefty bill for wall repairs.
Oh, what?
Lisa, I'm going to have to pay for.
Hey, look at that.
It's a listener question.
We're going to talk about this later.
Yep, sure.
Unless I escape the room.
Hi, Lisa.
I have a question for you.
Did you go to school when you were a kid?
And if so, what was your favorite subject?
Oh, yeah, sure.
I went to robot school.
I really liked CE class, which is like a human's PE class physical education but ours stood for charging and energy efficiency.
We had to learn how to maximize battery life by using as little physical exertion as possible.
I really missed that.
My other favorite class was probably, let's see, robot musicology.
I got an A in that, of course, after I did some bite boxing for my final.
Oh, you mean beat boxing?
No, I mean bite boxing.
B-Y-T-E, as in a series of bits used in, well, bite boxing.
Allow me to demonstrate.
Fantastic.
Yeah, I see why you did so well in the class.
Yes, I've always been musically inclined, as you know.
Yes, I do know.
And I also know that you're very good at explaining how our game works.
Oh, sure.
I can even throw in some bike boxing.
Every week, we bring on two grown-ups.
Hubba hubba hubba.
One is an expert.
The other, oh, hubba, is a liar.
And it's the job of a human child to help us figure out who is who.
Hubba hubba hubba.
Because no one can spot a liar better than a kid.
What are we lying about today, Debra?
Wack wack, wicka wicka wack.
Pardon me.
We are lying about mountains, landforms that rise high above their surrounding area.
And we're going to learn all about mountains along with our contestant today.
Who might that be, Lisa?
Our human child contestant is an 11-year-old who loves shoes.
Arthur Westman.
Hi, Arthur.
How are you?
Good.
Excellent.
Tell me, what kind of shoes do you love?
Every kind.
I just love shoes.
Hiking shoes, soccer shoes, basketball shoes.
Do you like soup-making shoes?
That's not a thing.
No.
You put on these shoes and you make soup.
They're soup making shoes.
No, I don't think so.
Do you have a favorite pair of shoes?
Not really.
No?
What makes a good pair of shoes?
Are you looking for comfort or style or something else?
Mostly comfort.
I also like running, so running shoes.
Yeah, you need a good pair of shoes for running.
I love it.
Well, I like shoes too.
But we're going to get on with the shoe by learning some more about you, Arthur.
And we're going to do that by playing two truths and a lie.
Arthur is going to tell us two truths and one lie, but we will not know which is which.
We have to listen closely for clues and sort fact from fiction.
Arthur, in no particular order, please tell us your two truths and one lie.
First one is I have a snake.
Second one is I have climbed 26 peaks, which are the top of mountains.
And third is I jumped off a cruise boat.
Whoa.
Wow.
There's a lot of adventure in all of these.
It's difficult to believe he jumped off a cruise ship.
Don't you think, Lisa?
Yeah.
Not for me, no.
No?
Okay.
Yeah, the clear lie is I have climbed 26 peaks.
The reason is he has a snake and when he got the snake he was so scared of it he jumped off a cruise ship.
Oh, I see, which has nothing to do with peaks.
Yeah, so those two are connected.
That was one day.
That was like two minutes.
Oh, I see, as if you were there.
Yeah, he got a snake.
He was scared of it.
He jumped off a ship.
I see.
I see.
Okay.
Interesting assumption there.
Let's see which of those things is actually a lie.
Arthur, which one of those is a lie?
I do not have a snake.
He doesn't have a snake.
That changes everything.
Oh, that's right.
He probably left it on the boat when he jumped off.
Yeah.
But that does mean that you jumped off a cruise boat.
What does that mean?
Like on purpose?
Yeah.
Everybody on the cruise boat was like, we're going to jump off the cruise boat.
Do you want to do it?
And my dad went to like the top level, but I went to like the second to the top level.
It wasn't as scary as it seemed.
It sounds scary, but also climbing up peaks, you have a thing for heights, I would imagine.
May I say here experts, look out, we have a peak climber.
If that is true, so we might know something about mountains.
Is that true?
Yeah, I've loved climbing mountains.
I mostly do them with my mom and my dad, and some of them I do with my brother, too.
So nice.
And do you have special shoes for climbing peaks?
Yeah, I do.
Yeah, of course you do.
Very good.
Well, watch out, experts.
I think we have a ringer.
But we're going to welcome them now.
So, Lisa, can we get some welcome music for our mountain experts?
Yes.
Thank you.
Oh, you can climb a hill.
You can climb a car.
You can climb a mountain.
And there you are on top of a mountain.
And you're like, why am I here?
I should have stayed in the car.
Come on in.
One of my faves.
That was really good.
I thought so too, Arthur.
Classic Willie Nelson.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Our first expert is Stella Wisham.
Stella, please introduce yourself to Arthur.
Hi, Arthur.
I'm Stella Wisham.
I'm an alpine researcher and conservationist with the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation.
Okay.
Our second expert is Roger Fu.
Roger, please introduce yourself to Arthur.
Hi, Arthur.
I'm Roger Fu.
I'm a geologist.
That means I study rocks of all kinds, especially those on mountains.
Okay.
Thank you very much.
Tell us about those sounds you're rocking, Lisa.
I'm rocking the sounds of hot seat time.
Yes, it is hot seat time, and that's when we put our experts on the hot seat while they answer Arthur's questions.
Lisa, whom should we put on the hot seat first?
Stella, wish ham, because I also wish I had some ham.
I see.
Very good, I suppose.
Sure, we'll take it.
Or wish bacon.
Stella, wish bacon.
I want bacon.
Deborah, give me bacon.
Bacon.
Well, let's see how the day goes.
All right.
Arthur, what is your first question for Stella?
What does your normal workday look like?
It is a good question.
As a member of the Mountain Protection Commission, a lot of my days are spent doing outreach to mountaineering communities, people that enjoy mountaineering, and raising awareness about how fragile the mountain ecosystems are.
So a lot of research on different mountain areas around the country is.
I typically sift through some incident reports to keep up to date with what's going on on the trails and send that information to the people actively on the trails to keep them safe.
And on occasion I get to go out into the field and do my own research, doing some mountaineering, collecting samples and making sure that I ensure the safety of the climbers out there, as well as the plants and animals in those areas as they pass through.
Cool.
Roger, what is the scariest thing that happened at your job?
So my job is almost like two in one.
So most of the year I'm at my university, I'm in the lab doing lab work and on my computer.
But I think the most dramatic part of my job is when we go out in the field for maybe a few months a year.
That's probably where the scariest thing happened.
I think maybe this one time, it was actually in northern Chile.
We were going up and down the Slot Canyon and one of our field assistants stayed behind to take some more samples.
And they were supposed to meet us back at camp, but they didn't.
So we ended up walking out at midnight up the Slot Canyon, trying to find him.
Fortunately, it was fine.
Nothing happened.
In the wild, people can get lost and things can be scary.
Yeah, agreed.
I'd also like to ask Stella, what is the scariest thing that happened at your job?
Early on in my career, we were on a trip, a climb at the Great Gaborim Trailhead in Colorado.
And we were in base camp eating breakfast set off for our next climb for the day.
And a moose charged into our camp and nearly trampled me.
I didn't see him coming, but I managed to get to a safe distance away from him.
And eventually he fled, but...
I didn't know that they got very territorial.
I was still learning the ropes, but all of our supplies were okay.
And the climb went off without a hitch.
It was very scary.
That's why we don't allow moose in the studio.
That's exactly why.
Yes, that's correct.
Back to you, Arthur.
This is a question for both Roger and Stella.
I live in Utah and we climbed the Rocky Mountains.
Can you tell me anything interesting about the Rocky Mountains?
Whoa.
Okay.
Who would like to take a Rocky Mountain question first?
I could take it first.
The Rocky Mountains are the second longest range of mountains in the world.
Oh, good fun fact.
Okay.
How about you, Roger?
You got one?
Sure.
The Rocky Mountains is the result of the collision between the North American plate and what's called the Farallon plate, which is a oceanic plate that has, since the collision, gone under our continent.
Wow.
I got one too.
The Rocky Mountains, they were named after the guy Rocky from that movie because they're boxers.
They're the only mountains that box other mountains.
Clearly not one of the experts.
Go ahead, Arthur.
That could be a lie.
We'll see.
We'll see at the end.
Nicely done, Arthur.
Yes.
Okay.
Next question, Arthur.
Roger, what does your normal workday look like?
It depends on whether I'm in my office or in the field.
In the office, I'm on my computer sometimes.
I do some lab work as well.
We have rocks that we process in the lab.
We measure them, put them on microscopes.
And of course, part of the year, I got to go get those rocks.
So we're out in the field.
And it's honestly, it's like camping for work, which is sort of what I wanted to do ever since I was a kid.
So we camp, we choose most interesting rocks around us to sample.
We walk around to just map them and take notes and decide what to actually sample.
And after a few weeks, hopefully we have a bunch of samples to take home.
Yeah, that sounds fun.
Yeah, agreed.
Roger...
What would you tell me if I wanted to do your job?
He's coming for your job.
Yeah, I'm very afraid.
I think I would tell an aspiring geologist or earth science person, it's a wonderful job.
The main reason is that you don't have to decide exactly one thing to be good at.
You can do some physics, do some math, do some biology, do some chemistry.
It all comes together in studying the earth.
And that's probably my favorite part about it.
Cool.
Do you have a role model who inspires you?
I have a few role models.
I think there are many people who do my job and I look up to.
Probably the one that I look up most to is the professor who taught the professor who taught me.
He is just such a brilliant mind and is filled with creativity.
His first career was in magnetic particles and different shellfish.
And then now he's studying magnetic particles in human brains and how humans might perceive magnetism.
Whoa.
So just being able to completely shift your focus and understand a new field and keep learning when you're getting older, I think is just really inspiring.
Wow.
Cool.
Stella, what would you tell me if I wanted to do your job?
Well, first off, I would say to continue climbing peaks.
It seems that you have a very good experience-based knowledge of being around mountains, and I would keep that up.
In the Federation that I'm a part of, there are a lot of volunteer opportunities that are available not only to adults but to teenagers, and mentorship opportunities as well to get into the field and start trying different areas of the ways you'd like to interact with the Mountaineering Federation and with taking care of our mountains and of climate.
The thing I tend to say when speaking to mentees or people looking to have my job someday is not to rush into wanting to climb or get out there and camp, but take the time to familiarize yourself with flora and fauna and foraging, understanding the wildlife of the mountains in your backyard, the place around you.
What was really helpful to me was I have a background in climate science and staying up with that was really helpful in my path.
Nice.
Stella, do you have a role model who inspires you?
I do.
My idol is Roberta Flack.
She was the first African-American woman to climb Mount Fuji in under seven hours.
And she committed her entire life to living and climbing in the Smoky Mountains to keep track of and relate data back to the Federation about changes in climate.
And the work that she committed her life to is what we use as a basis to understand the changes that are impacting the environment in these mountain ranges.
And she's the reason that I started volunteering in the first place.
Here's a question for both of you.
Is there anything new and exciting that I should know about mountains?
Now all the mountains have Wi-Fi.
I think that'd be nice.
One of the most exciting things for me in terms of our knowledge of mountains is that, thanks to new spacefaring technologies, we have sent space probes to Venus and Mercury and Mars and even things farther out in the solar system.
And we see that there are mountains on all of these different planets.
And they probably have very different origins than the Earth.
And there's so much we don't understand yet.
And I think that's very exciting.
Cool.
Cool.
Because of my particular area of focus.
Formerly, the Smoky Mountains were the capital in the world for salamanders.
There were over 30 different species of salamander that lived in the Smoky Mountains.
But since Hurricane Helene and all of the flooding in the Appalachian Mountains, they have now surpassed The Smoky Mountains in their salamander population and the diversity of that population.
Those were great questions.
I hope you got some good information from our experts.
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It's time for the shorts on fire round when our experts have to answer as many questions as they can before time runs out.
Lisa will set a timer for the first expert, and then Arthur will ask questions until Lisa's timer sounds.
Then Lisa resets the timer for our next expert to do the same.
Experts, you're going to have to rush more than usual.
All right, Arthur, you can start with Stella and ask your shorts-on-fire questions now.
What kind of mountain climbing involves climbing steep, snowy peaks?
Alpine climate.
What are the pieces of the Earth's surface called that crash into each other and squeeze rocks upward to form mountains?
Nomadic crust.
Who was the first woman to climb Mount Everest?
That was Lucy Liu.
What is the longest mountain range on land?
The Andes mountain range.
What happens to the atmosphere as you go up a mountain?
It retains more pressure the higher you get in elevation.
Which fancy pen is named after the highest mountain in the Alps?
Mont Blanc.
Fact or fib?
The slow erosion of mountains by rain and snow is good for the Earth.
Fib.
According to legend, which serpent saved all of humanity?
By making a mountain rise up with all the people on it.
I don't know.
Bobby.
That was Bobby the Serpent.
Name one of the eight training categories offered by the International Climbing and Mountaineering Federation.
Sport climbing.
In the children's song, the bear went over the mountain.
Why did the bear go over the mountain?
I don't know.
And that is time.
All the time, sorry.
Very good.
All right, Lisa, can you please reset the timer?
Oh, Deborah, fine.
Reset the timer.
Reset.
Much appreciated.
All right, Arthur, you ready?
Yep.
You're going to ask Roger your shorts on fire questions now.
Name a valley that was formed by glaciers flowing down a mountain.
Yosemite Valley.
What is the name of the biggest mountain in the solar system?
Olympus Mons.
What kind of mountains are the Black Hills Mountains?
Volcanic Necks.
According to the phrase that warns us not to make a big deal out of something small.
What should we not make mountains out of?
Ooh, I had to pass.
Name one of the United States presidents carved into Mount Rushmore.
George Washington.
Which mountains in Africa are called the Mountains of the Moon?
The Rwenzori Range.
Factor fib.
There are mountains under the ocean.
What do you call the tops of mountains, where more plants and animals can live on the top of a mountain than in the deserts at the bottom?
Sky islands.
And that is time.
Goodbye time done.
Goodbye time.
Arthur, well done with the questions.
Very good questions.
Very good asking.
Very good delivering.
We'll see about our answers from our experts, however.
All right, it's decision time.
Arthur must think about everything he's heard today and sum it all up with a name.
Arthur, who is our mountain fibber?
I think it's Stella.
Why do you think Stella is our fibber?
I honestly didn't know a lot of those questions, but I knew some of them and I feel like Roger got them all right.
So I think it's like a 50-50.
Process of elimination.
You know that you have confidence in Roger.
Therefore, you're not sure about the answers that Stella gave.
Yeah.
Interesting logic.
I like it.
All right.
Let's discover who our expert is.
Will our mountains expert please say, I am the mountains expert.
I'm the mountains expert.
You got it, Arthur.
You were correct.
Roger Fu is a geology professor at Harvard University, and he loves geology because it lets him do science and be in nature at the same time.
Plus, it has gotten him lots of free trips to beautiful places on all seven continents.
That's what you get for studying geology, everyone.
Study mountains and see the world.
Very good.
Well, it sounds like you were definitely on the same page as Roger, but let's just make sure that no one leaves this episode knowing incorrect information.
So let's do some fact checking.
Roger, what did Stella tell us that was absolutely false?
A couple that I picked up, I think the different parts of the Earth's surface that move around.
They're just called tectonic plates, not pneumatic.
Nice.
There's less pressure as you go up a mountain, and that's what gives you altitude sickness.
When there is erosion of the mountains, that tends to stabilize climate over very long timescales.
Oh, so it's a good thing.
I think overall it's a good thing.
Nice.
It might not be good for people who might live in eroded areas, but in the long run I think it makes the earth more livable.
Good.
Usually natural disasters tend to, at least in the short term, decrease biodiversity.
So I think the salamanders probably haven't taken over after Hurricane Helene yet.
That's a good lie, though.
All right, well, let's ask Stella to share too.
Stella, tell us what you shared to belay the truth.
When asked about the first woman to climb Mount Everest, I said that her name was Lucy Liu.
And Lucy Liu is a famous actress.
Yes, it was actually Junko Tabe, who was the first woman to climb Mount Everest in 1975.
I also said that Roberta Flack was the first African-American woman to climb Mount Fuji.
Roberta Flack is an R&B singer who wrote Killing Me Softly.
True.
So a good name to know, but not necessarily in the world of mountains.
Yes.
Yes.
I honestly thought that Lucy Liu was the first one to climb Mount Everest.
Oh, you bought that one.
Yeah.
Well, I'm glad that didn't trip you up.
You knew enough to ignore that particular one, which was good.
I just wanted to add that in the children's song The Bear Went Over the Mountain.
The bear went over the mountain to see what he could see.
I don't know if you're familiar with that song, but that's how the song goes.
Very true.
OK, and let me just ask too, Roger do you know this legend about the serpent that saved all of humanity by making a mountain rise up with all the people on it?
Yeah, I think you might be referring to the legend of Tren Tren.
It's from South America.
Cool.
So that is a legend that actually exists.
And the name of that serpent is Tren Tren.
Fascinating.
Love it.
Well, it is time to dismount from this episode.
Thanks to Arthur who provided a peak performance today.
Thank you to our expert and liar, Roger and Stella.
And thanks to Lisa, our talented, though occasionally high mountainous, sound effects robot.
And, of course, many thanks to listeners tuning into The Big Fib, where we are repelled by lies, while our pursuit of truth does not ever rest.
The Big Fib is a production of Gen Z Media.
For more great shows, visit gzmshows.com.
While you're there, you can find out how you can become a contestant on The Big Fib or send questions for me to answer on the show.
And follow us on social media at The Big Fib Podcast for behind-the-scenes photos and more true facts.
And now, Debra and I are going to climb a mountain together.
Come on, Debra.
I don't want to.
Oh, I don't want to either.
Let's take a nap.
I'm better.
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