The Midnight Train Podcast

The Banana Massacre - Yep, bananas. Happy Thanksgiving 2021

So we're gonna get into something a bit different this week. Not really truecrime, not unsolved, but definitely crazy. This is another one we got from a listener that we had no clue ever happened. While the official death toll of this incident is usually put at around 45, some estimates say it could be up to 2000. Those bodies are said to either have been dumped in the sea or buried in mass graves. So what was the incident about you ask? Well, long story very short… Bananas. We're gonna dive into what is simply known as the Banana massacre,  a crazy tale of a government squashing a banana strike with excessive force and what came after. Buckle up guys, here we go!

 

Before we start, I want to acknowledge the great sources of info for this episode. 90% of the information on this week's episode came from two amazing sources that had tons of info that we couldn't find anywhere else. First a paper by Jorge Enrique Elias Caro and Antonino Vidal Ortega on the website scielo.org was our source for the actual massacre info while an article called Rotten Fruit by Peter Chapman on the Financial Times website was our source for the company history. 

So, let's start by talking about a fruit company. United Fruit company to be exact. United Fruit began life in the 1870s when Minor Cooper Keith, a wealthy young New Yorker, started growing bananas as a business sideline, alongside a railway line he was building in Costa Rica. Both ventures took off, and by 1890 he was married to the daughter of a former president of Costa Rica and owned vast banana plantations on land given to him by the state. The bananas were shipped to New Orleans and Boston, where demand soon began to outstrip supply.Keith teamed up with Andrew Preston, a Boston importer, and in 1899 they formed United Fruit. Bananas sold well for their tropical cachet: they were exotic, a luxury only affordable to the rich. But the rapidly rising output of United Fruit’s plantations brought down prices. The company created a mass market in the industrial cities of the US north-east and Midwest. The once bourgeois banana became positively proletarian.

 

By the 1920s, United Fruit’s empire had spread across Central America. It also included Jamaica, Cuba and the Dominican Republic. In South America the company owned chunks of Colombia and Ecuador. It came to dominate the European as well as the US banana markets with the help of its Great White Fleet of 100 refrigerated ships, the largest private navy in the world.

 

There are more than 300 varieties of banana, but United Fruit grew only one: the Gros Michel or ”Big Mike”. This variety suited most tastes; it was not too big or too small, too yellow or too sweet - if anything, it was a little bland. This was the forerunner of the transnational products we have today.

 

        But mass production took its toll. In 1903, disease hit United Fruit’s plantations in Panama. An array of pathogens kept up the attack, and the banana was discovered to have a genetic weakness. Its seeds are ill equipped for reproduction, so growers take cuttings from one plant to create another. The banana is a clone, with each inbred generation less resilient. 

 

Although the banana was diseased, United Fruit marketed it as a product that exemplified good health. Banana diseases did not affect humans, and the fruit was said to be the cure for many ills: obesity, blood pressure, constipation - even depression. In 1929, United Fruit set up its own ”education department”, which supplied US schools with teaching kits extolling the benefits of the banana and the good works of the company. Meanwhile, United Fruit’s ”home economics” department showered housewives with banana recipes.

 

One of United Fruit’s most successful advertising campaigns began in 1944, designed to boost the banana’s profile after its scarcity during the war. It featured Senorita Chiquita Banana, a cartoon banana who danced and sang in an exuberant Latin style. Senorita Chiquita bore a close resemblance to Carmen Miranda, the Brazilian entertainer who, in her ”tutti-frutti” hat, wowed Hollywood at the time. Sales soon regained prewar levels.

 

By the 1960s, the banana had become an inseparable accompaniment to the morning cereal of most American children. And today, in countries such as the US and Britain, it has ousted the apple as the most popular fruit. In the UK, figures indicate that more than 95 per cent of households buy bananas each week, and that more money is spent on them than on any other supermarket item, apart from petrol and lottery tickets. 

 

Soooo sounds like a pretty typical big business rise to power by providing a wholesome treat to the people right? Wrong… There was more going on than almost everybody knew. 

 

Over the years, United Fruit fought hard for low taxes and light regulation. By the beginning of the 20th century, troublesome anti-trust laws had been passed in the US to crack down on business behaviour such as price-fixing and other monopolistic practices. Taxes on large corporations were increased to fund welfare benefits in the US and fully fledged welfare states in Europe. But, with a centre of operations far from the lawmakers of Washington DC, United Fruit largely avoided all this.

 

The company also gained a reputation as being ruthless when crossed, and acted to remove governments that did not comply with its wishes. United Fruit had first shown its tough nature in the invasion of Honduras in 1911, which was planned by Sam ”The Banana Man” Zemurray, a business partner of United Fruit who later headed the company. Efforts by Zemurray and United Fruit to set up production in Honduras had been blocked by the Honduran government, which was fearful of the power it might wield. United Fruit was not so easily deterred. Zemurray financed an invasion, led by such enterprising types as ”General” (self-appointed) Lee Christmas and freelance trouble-shooter Guy ”Machine Gun” Molony. Thanks to United Fruit, many more exercises in ”regime change” were carried out in the name of the banana.

 

In 1941, the company hired a new consultant, Sigmund Freud’s nephew, Edward Bernays, who had adapted the early disciplines of psychoanalysis to the marketplace. Bernays is known as the ”father of public relations” following his seminal 1928 book, Propaganda, in which he argued that it was the duty of the ”intelligent minority” of society to manipulate the unthinking ”group mind”. This, Bernays asserted, was for the sake of freedom and democracy.

 

United Fruit had become concerned about its image. In Central America, it was commonly known as el pulpo (the octopus) - its tentacles everywhere. In the US, United Fruit’s territories were seen as troubled and forbidding. Under Bernays’ guidance, the company began issuing a steady flow of information to the media about its work, rebranding the region as ”Middle America”.

 

America”.

 

In 1954, Bernays exercised his manipulative powers to get rid of the Guatemalan government. Democratically elected, it had taken some of United Fruit’s large areas of unused land to give to peasant farmers. Bernays’ response was to call newspaper contacts who might be amenable to the company view. Journalists were sent on ”fact finding” missions to Central America and, in particular, Guatemala, where they chased false stories of gunfire and bombs. In dispatches home, Guatemala became a place gripped by ”communist terror”.

 

The company looked, too, to friends in high places, both in the corridors of power and in the offices where the big decisions were made. During the Guatemalan crisis, John Foster Dulles, one of the world’s most esteemed statesmen, was secretary of state. His brother, Allen Dulles, was head of the CIA. Both were former legal advisers to United Fruit. Together, the Dulles brothers orchestrated the coup that overthrew Guatemala’s government in 1954.

 

Despite its ugly reputation, United Fruit often made philanthropic gestures.  Eli Black, chief executive of the United Fruit Company, played a part in coining the term ”corporate social responsibility” when, in reference to earthquake relief sent to Nicaragua in 1972, he extolled the company’s deeds as ”our social responsibility”.  And in the 1930s, Sam Zemurray donated part of his fortune to a children’s clinic in New Orleans. He later gave $1m to the city’s Tulane University to finance ”Middle American'' research; he also funded a Harvard professorship for women. Philanthropy, however, did not prevent United Fruit’s abuses, and, in the 1950s, the US government decided it had to act. The company’s activities had caused such anti-US feeling in Latin America that leftwing revolutionaries such as Fidel Castro and Che Guevara had prospered. And so Washington began to take away some of United Fruit’s land.

 

Ironically, Castro had benefited from the presence of United Fruit in Cuba. His father, a sugar planter, leased land from the company, and had made enough money to afford a good upbringing for his children. Guevara had fought both United Fruit and the CIA during the Guatemalan coup; he maintained thereafter that Latin America had no choice but ”armed struggle”. At New Year 1959, Castro and Guevara seized power in Cuba and kicked out the US-supported regime of Fulgencio Batista.

 

Like an ailing dictator, United Fruit lashed out - and nearly took the world with it. In 1961, it lent part of its Great White Fleet to the CIA and Cuban exiles in the US who were plotting to overthrow Castro. When the Bay of Pigs invasion failed, Castro, fearing another attack, ushered in armaments from the Soviet Union, prompting the missile crisis of 1962.

 

United Fruit battled on through the 1960s, its product ever more the victim of disease. Big Mike flagged, died and gave way to the dessert banana most of the developed world eats today, the Cavendish. It was said to be ”disease resistant”. Now that’s dying, too.

 

Eli Black took over the company in 1970, imagining he could turn it back into the colossus it once was. The early 1970s, however, were a terrible period for the image of multinational corporations. Chief among them, oil companies made huge profits from the crisis after the 1973 Middle East war, to the inflationary ruin of rich and poor countries alike. United Fruit became an embarrassment. It was weak where others, such as the oil moguls, remained strong. When its stock market value crashed and regulators moved in, it looked like natural selection.

 

Early on Monday February 3 1975, a man threw himself out of his office window, 44 floors above Park Avenue, New York. He had used his briefcase to smash the window, and then thrown it out before he leapt, scattering papers for blocks around. Glass fell on to the rush-hour traffic, but amazingly no one else was hurt. The body landed away from the road, near a postal service office. Postmen helped emergency workers clear up the mess so the day’s business could carry on. 

 

This jumper was quickly identified as Eli Black, chief executive of the United Fruit Company.

 

It emerged that Black, a devout family man, had bribed the Honduran president, Oswaldo Lopez Arellano, with $1.25m to encourage him to pull out of a banana cartel which opposed United Fruit. The story was about to come out in the US press. United Fruit’s Central American plantations were also struggling with hurricane damage and a new banana disease. Facing disgrace and failure, Black took his own life. His death was shocking, not least because he had the reputation of a highly moral man. Wall Street was outraged, the company’s shares crashed and regulators seized its books to prevent ”its further violation of the law”. The company subsequently disappeared from public view and was seemingly erased from the collective mind.

 

After the fall of the Berlin Wall, in 1989, in a born-again spirit of globalisation, the world’s main banana companies picked up the free-market banner once carried by United Fruit. The companies - Chiquita, Del Monte and Dole from the US, and Noboa from Ecuador - did not have anything like the force of United Fruit individually, but they were still a formidable presence. Together they were known to their critics, if not to themselves, as the ”Wild Bunch”.

 

In the 1990s, the US took its case to the World Trade Organisation, the new high court of globalisation. The companies protested that west European countries unfairly protected the producers of so-called ”Fairtrade” bananas in former European colonies through a complex system of quotas and licences. The Wild Bunch characterised this as revamped colonialism and outmoded welfare state-ism and, instead, promoted their own ”Free Trade” bananas.

 

In the new millennium, after what had become a general trade war, the Europeans backed down and agreed to concessions. They did so with some rancour, protesting that Washington had again allowed itself to be manipulated by narrow interests. Some spoke of a return of the ”old and dark forces”. They were thinking of United Fruit.

 

Ok so that's kind of a basic history of United Fruit company to get us going in the right direction to talk about one of the most brutal things they carried out on their workers. You've seen the connection they had and the power they had.. Pretty nuts for a fucking banana company. 

 

On the evening of October 5, 1928, the delegates for Colombia’s banana workers in Magdalena gathered to discuss their grievances. Among their concerns were their long hours and low pay; one worker, Aristides López Rojano, remembered: “We worked from six in the morning until eleven and then from one in the afternoon until six.... The contractor paid the salary and reserved up to thirty percent for himself.” Erasmo Coronel (the one wearing the bowtie in the group portrait) spoke in favor of a strike, and the others agreed. At around five in the morning on October 6, 1928, the workers issued the United Fruit Company a list of nine demands.

 

Stop their practice of hiring through sub-contractors

 

Mandatory collective insurance

 

Compensation for work accidents

 

Hygienic dormitories and 6 day work weeks

 

Increase in daily pay for workers who earned less than 100 pesos per month

 

Weekly wage

 

Abolition of office stores

 

Abolition of payment through coupons rather than money

 

Improvement of hospital services

 

The strike turned into the largest labor movement ever witnessed in the country until then. Radical members of the Liberal Party, as well as members of the Socialist and Communist Parties, participated.

 

The workers wanted to be recognized as employees, and demanded the implementation of the Colombian legal framework of the 1920s.

 

After U.S. officials in Colombia and United Fruit representatives portrayed the workers' strike as "communist" with a "subversive tendency" in telegrams to Frank B. Kellogg, the United States Secretary of State, the United States government threatened to invade with the U.S. Marine Corps if the Colombian government did not act to protect United Fruit’s interests. The Colombian government was also compelled to work for the interests of the company, considering they could cut off trade of Colombian bananas with significant markets such as the United States and Europe.

 

As there was no agreement the Government militarized the zone. The newspaper "La Prensa" published the following:

 

"MORE TROOPS FOR THE BANANERA REGION. We have been informed that the leaving of the Commissioner sent by the Industry Ministry due to the existing conflict between the workers and the company has turned the situation critical. For this reason, the War Ministry ordered the concentration of more troops in Ciénaga. Therefore, yesterday night, a numerous contingent was dispatched from here on a special ship"

 

By the end of November the Magdalena Agriculture Society tried to find a solution to the situation. They named a Commission and along with the Chief of the Work Office and the workers' delegates would have a meeting with the UFC since the conflict was affecting everyone's interests. The multinational rejected meeting the Commission stating that the workers were out of the law. The representatives of the workers left for Ciénaga with the aim of convincing their fellow workers to abandon the region. They also demanded the arbitration as a last legal resort.

 

Social Party (PSR) founded in 1927 in Bogotá. The strike was also supported by the national and departmental union leaders ascribed to the Magdalena Workers Federation, the Magdalena Worker Union and the General Union of Workers of the Union Society (popularly known as the Yellow Union which integrated railway, port and construction workers of Santa Marta).

 

The first week of December everything was at a standstill, without a solution. The company hired a steamboat and brought 200 military men and took over the town hall without the mayor's authorization. To this respect the Ciénaga newspaper "Diario del Córdoba" noted:

 

"We do not know who ordered changing the town house into a campsite of troops, but we are certain that the municipality spokesman was not consulted for this illegal occupation. He would have certainly opposed it since there was no alteration of public order according to the norms in force. We see that the procedures here are "manu militari", without any consideration under the obvious alarm of these peoples, panic in society and business."

 

Military roadblocks were displayed. Trains were searched and the army prevented strikers from using them33. Tension increased and temporary workers started to return to their hometowns. Military pressure blocked the communication systems and the mail, telephones, telegraph and even the press stopped working. The strikers seized the train from Ciénaga to the plantations and they prevented its exit during the day.

 

On December 3rd, the press was conscious of the extreme situation: The situation of the Banana Strike is worse than ever. Especially because of the uneasiness caused by the Governor's Office for having called the Army. Any kind of meeting was banned, as it was assumed that they questioned the state legitimacy and stability and the government decisions. This measure outraged workers, because some detentions took place in Ciénaga and they were justified by the police since some documents of an apparently communist campaign were confiscated.

 

From this moment on, American Diplomats started to worry for the security of the American employees up to the point that the Government of the United States sent a ship to Santa Marta for the protection of their citizens as was stated by the US ambassador in Bogotá. He made clear that it was not a war cruise. Anyhow, it was possible to confirm that in the ports of Ciénaga and Santa Marta war ships docked with the aim of reinforcing troops. 

 

To break the strike, on December 2nd, a military contingent of 300 men arrived in Ciénaga from the interior of the country. The major of the zone considered that these soldiers would be better at facing the situation than those native of the region. At the same time that same day some municipalities protested against the disposition of the governor's office. The workers exodus continued, the general situation of commerce aggravated, many commercial houses closed and some of them stopped paying their debts alleging the scarce security conditions and low sales. Similarly occurred with the stores of the UFC which closed due to lack of business activity. There was a total lack of supplies of basic products in the banana zone.

 

With the excuse that in Ciénaga the strikers were committing all kinds of outrages, the army seized the train to mobilize troops to the different towns, preventing normal circulation; this information proved false and the train returned to Cienaga during the first hours of the next day. The community remained isolated and without the possibility to use the train as a transportation means. The train was used by the militaries for the surveillance of plantations.

 

A State of Siege declaration was expected and this increased tension among strikers who organized collective bodies in different locations to prevent the work of producers. Detentions continued. The train detention by the military and the impossibility to take bananas out due to the positions of the strikers and small landowners, the harvested fruit began to rot.

 

The Workers Union used the newspaper Vanguardia Obrera and other pasquinades to inform about their position and to keep public opinion updated. On December 5th, alleging that the strikers had managed to get weapons, the government decreed the State of Siege. This was not made public to the workers and for this reason they became more exacerbated.

 

A pressure mechanism used to obtain the support of merchants was the fact of creating solidarity to boycott the public market stores and other commercial firms if the transaction was not authorized by the Workers Union. This way, merchants could not sell if they did not have the "permission". To accomplish this policy the union had 5.000 workers acting as vigilantes. This situation led the UFC to ask the government if the State was in condition to protect its interests. The State response was dubious. In its effort to reach an equilibrium between the pressure of the company and that of the workers, it submitted a communication where it stated that it would analyse the situation and would take the corresponding steps.

 

The workers' unrest for not feeling the State support led them to radicalization of their protest and since that moment, seizures of banana farms took place in different municipalities. There were confrontations between land owners, the military and the workers. It is worth mentioning the events in Sevilla, where workers detained a group of soldiers.

 

As the tension increased with this last event the Ministry Council declared general alteration of public order on December 5th, and gave special faculties to Minister Arrazola to act as a mediator between the parties and positioned General Cortés Vargas as Civil and Military Chief. This intervention was justified by the economic losses of the socio-economic and political system of the nation because it had been estimated that up to that moment the losses exceeded one million dollars and given the fact that the fierce position of the workers had stopped communications and transportations and even there had been seizures in several localities and there was fear concerning the situation of Santa Marta.

 

The government sent information to the United Press as follows: "The government has decreed the State of Siege in the Province of Santa Marta where the workers of the United Fruit Company maintain a strike lasting several days. General Carlos Cortés Vargas has been appointed Civil and Military Chief". On the other hand, the national press and especially that of the capital announced: " there has never been a longer and more numerous strike in the country than this of the workers of Magdalena. Thirty-two thousand workers have been in total inactivity for more than thirty days in the banana region, there are no signs that this situation will have a favourable solution"

 

Events reached their peak in Ciénaga. The workers had concentrated for a pacific demonstration in the evening of the 5th of December. The Governor Nuñez Roca decreed the dispersion of the demonstration. The workers did not receive this well; they declared that authorities had taken this decision with the support of the UFC and the militaries without the presence of workers' representatives. This made clear to them that authorities were defending the interests of the Company and the local "bananacracy"and not theirs as Colombian workers. The concentration ended in a protest.

 

The militaries obeyed the orders of the Governor and it was authorized to follow orders and demand the workers to dissolve the demonstration as it was not authorized.

 

The text was read in the square and at the same time the troop took positions. There were approximately 1.500 strikers in the square.

 

The army gave the strikers 15 minutes to disperse and the workers' answer was a the massive agitation of the Colombian flags and shouts related to the workers movement. The army responded with drumbeats and the menace to repel the strikers. Three bugle warnings were given, but nevertheless the strikers remained in their positions. A deep silence reigned in the square and the menace of the army became an unfortunate reality when the shout "Shoot" was uttered. Rifles and machine guns were discharged against the defenceless and unarmed demonstrators. In minutes the ground of the square was tinted with blood.

 

Once the attack of the army against their own fellow citizens ended, the sight was dantesque. The cadavers, the wounded and their relatives were troubling scenes. These events took place at the dawn of December 6th: a brutal aggression against a workers' demonstration.

 

The news invaded the media and the first chronicles appeared with living information about the tragic balance of the events. The first report on the newspaper "La Prensa" from Barranquilla informed of 8 people killed and 20 wounded. After a week, the same newspaper mentioned 100 dead and 238 wounded. Meanwhile official sources and diplomatic communications signalled the number of people killed as being 1.000. This number, and along with other kind of testimonies collected, agree that the number of killings was over a thousand and that the militaries loaded the trains with the corpses and buried them in mass graves in inaccessible areas and up to the present times they have not been localized.

 

This repression caused a massive exodus of the terrified population. They abandoned the zone and migrated to different parts of the country for fear of military persecution and arrestment. Many of them left their scarce possessions behind.

 

National and international media widely covered this event. Both the UFC and the government tried to manipulate the information to protect their image. The press echoed and broadcasted the sometimes biased news, informing about "combats" between the army troops and the "revolutionaries" and that as a result of these combats, 8 "bandits" were killed and 20 were wounded. The War Ministry insisted that "in Magdalena there was no strike, but a revolution".

 

Other newspapers such as "La Prensa" from Barranquilla, issued their edition of December 8th in red characters as a reference to this event that brought mourning to the entire country and as a symbolic commemorative act.

 

Referring to a communication sent to the United Press, the War Ministry informed officially that in the attack of the strikers against the troops there had been 8 dead and 20 wounded and that in order to control the revolutionary outbreaks against state order, the immediate mobilization of more troops had been ordered. They would arrive from cities of the interior of the country. It also emphasised the position of the government that the workers' situation in Magdalena was delicate and that vigorous decisions had to be taken in order to solve this issue. It also informed that beside Ciénaga, other localities had to be intervened.

 

The Times from New York informed in a biased and extended way that the turmoil in the Colombian Banana Region was provoked by Mexican incendiaries, who had led the process of the Mexican Revolution, two decades earlier. It also gave details about the aspects of the banana strike that were consequences of the expiration of the Barco Concession .

 

At the same time the UFC issued a press communication to the New York agencies and the worldwide correspondents declaring: "the difficult situation experienced during the past days in the Colombian banana region, where the company has valuable interests, has quite improved in the last 24 hours and the dispatches sent from the scene, give rise to expectations for a prompt solution of the conflict surged between the workers and the company which ended in an extended strike of revolutionary nature".

 

While the American press provided biased information, trying to defend the multinational interests and that of their government, the national press analysed the situation with greater objectivity. The daily newspaper "El Tiempo" from Bogotá commented in an extended note that most of the claims of the strikers were righteous improvement of working conditions. Nevertheless, due to its conservative position, the editorial stated that they did not agree with the strike since they considered that the workers had a bad leadership and they made the leaders responsible for what had happened. They reminded the authorities that force is not the supreme reason as the only system to solve a conflict since violence is not a valid option to impose certain vindications.

 

In response to these events and as a protest for the massacre, several offices of the United Fruit and the railway were set on fire and destroyed. The hard situation caused by the army repression and the lack of jobs led to the assault of the company's stores where people seized food. 

 

"It is not about fixing anyhow a difficult situation, it is about avoiding more critical events in the immediate future. Therefore we need a wise, prudent, political Colombian, who does not forget the circumstances regarding the conflict. Someone who does not forget how the United Fruit Company manipulates the political and civil life of Magdalena and who does not think it indispensable to send troops for hunting workers as animals. Someone who will not be hard and inflexible with them and subordinated and honey mouthed with the company agents"

 

After the massacre, the workers who managed to escape emigrated to other areas of the region and new versions of the events started to become public. It was the version of the defeated. This version informed the public opinion about the concentration in the Ciénaga square and not in farms as had been informed by authorities to justify the fact of not being able to notify the exact number of deaths.

 

On December 10th after a convulsed weekend, the headings announced "the revolutionaries' flee in stampede to the Sierra Nevada," "government troops completely defeated the strikers "; the War Minister informs that there were more deaths during the last combats". In general, the press informed about a revolutionary movement which confronted the military forces and that the army was responding with rigor, but that there had not been any excess on their part. The banana zone was returning to normal, as well as the train service between Ciénaga and Santa Marta and the steam boat service between Ciénaga and Barranquilla. They also informed that since public order had been reestablished, businesses had already opened and that the exodus of the population had ended.

 

General Cortés Vargas issued a decree through which the revolutionaries of Magdalena were declared a gang of outlaws. The decree consisted of three articles and in one section, as a justification, it was stated that the rebel strikers committed all kinds of outrages: arson in public and private property, pillage, interruption of telegraphic and telephonic communications, destruction of railways, assault of citizens who did not agree with their communist and anarchist doctrine. This was the justification for decreeing martial law to give security to citizens and to re-establish public order. On the other hand the workers' leaders and accessories should be prosecuted to face their responsibilities. And to finish, the public force was authorized to use their guns.

 

At the same time troops were sent to avoid the surviving strikers' flee to the Sierra Nevada and the Departament of Atlántico. To accomplish this all the towns neighbouring the banana zone were alerted. Numerous detentions occurred and the prisoners were sent to Ciénaga to be judged by a Martial Court.

 

Wow…. Fucking bananas caused all this shit… Well obviously not than JUST bananas but holy shit man. 

 

So the crazy thing is United Fruit company continued to operate did so long after this incident until eventually after the the suicide of Eli Black things unraveled and the company went away. Or did it? Well it did not. In fact the company is now still a huge banana company called… Chiquita! But at least all that bullshit is on the past… Oh wait wait… No it's not! 

 

While Chiquita is not actively massacring people, in 2007, it admitted to paying $1.7 million to the United Self-Defense Forces of Columbia (A.U.C.), a far-right paramilitary group responsible for thousands of killings and some of the worst massacres in Colombia. The A.U.C. was designated by the United States as a terrorist group at the time and Chiquita was forced to pay $25 million for violating counterterrorism laws. In particular, the A.U.C. targeted labor leaders, liquidated problem employees, and removed people from lands needed for cultivation.

 

“They are so bad that in 2001, even the Bush administration was forced to designate them as a terrorist organization,” said Terry Collingsworth, a Labor and Human Rights Attorney. He proceeds to say that multinational corporations had automatically aligned with the A.U.C. “They’ve made it safe for business here. That’s what they do.” Collingsworth states, from his and his associates’ reporting, that Chiquita likely paid much more than $1.7 million to the A.U.C.

 

Over much of the 20th century, banana companies like United Fruit effectively took over governments in countries like Guatemala and Honduras, leading to the countries’ model being known as “banana republics”. A banana republic would describe politically unstable countries economically dependent on bananas as a sole export and product, and it has been diversified to include other limited-resource products. The CIA would strong-arm these governments to protect the business interests of banana companies at the expense of workers and people who lived in those countries, often propping up repressive regimes.

With a historic priority of keeping the costs of bananas low, banana companies were willing to do whatever it took to keep prices low, from stifling labor movements, keeping wages low, and strong-arming governments. The United Fruit Company did it then, and Chiquita Brands does it now.

 

In 1999, President Clinton apologized to Guatemala, saying that “support for military forces and intelligence units which engaged in violence and widespread repression was wrong, and the United States must not repeat that mistake.”

Movies:

 

Horror movies about killer food

 

https://screenrant.com/funniest-horror-b-movies-murderous-food/

Unsolved: The Springfield Three

Tonight we are taking the train back to true-crimeville. Unsolved as per the usual, the case, or cases if you will, also has a crazy connection to one of our own here in the midnight train family. First we are going to talk about the Springfield 3. The Springfield 3 is an unsolved missing persons case that began on June 7, 1992, when friends Suzanne "Suzie" Streeter and Stacy McCall, and Streeter's mother, Sherrill Levitt, went missing from Levitt's home in Springfield, Missouri. Then we are going to roll into a talk about a giant hunk of shit named Larry Dewayne Hall. And in our discussion of Mr. Hall we shall get to the personal connection to us at the train! So without further ado… Let’s get into today's episode!

 

29 years ago Suzie Streeter, 19, her mother Sherill Levitt, 47, and her friend Stacy McCall, 18 disappeared without a trace from their central Springfield home. Authorities have gathered many theories to explain what could have happened. Some people have even gone as far as blaming alien abduction and the rapture. Can't we go a single unsolved true crime episode without an alien abduction theory? 

 

Anyways, the day before the three went missing, the two girls were celebrating. They had graduated from highschool that day and were planning on going to a friend's house for a party later that day. The two initially intended to head to their friend Janelle Kirby's house, but it was too crowded, and instead, they went back to the home Streeter shared with her mother, Sherrill Levitt. The next day the girls were supposed to meet up with Kirby and her boyfriend to go to a water park. They did not show up at Kirby's house so Kirby and her boyfriend went to the girl's house to see what was going on. They assumed the girls had just overslept.  When they got to the house the girls were not there and there was no sign of the mother either. When they arrived at the home, Kirby found the front door unlocked and entered the house to find it empty despite the women's cars still being outside. The family dog, however, was present and was described as agitated. Kirby also noticed that the porch light was smashed and there was glass everywhere. She decided to go ahead and clean up and unfortunately, not realizing it, may have destroyed some evidence while cleaning the mess. Kirby and her boyfriend started to look around the house and the phone rang. Kirby answered the phone call and said that the call was full of "sexual innuendo". She hung up and then another call came through and it was basically the same as the first. A few hours later, McCall's mother arrived at the property after she failed to reach her daughter on the phone. She noted Suzie's clothes, purse and cigarettes were still in the house and decided to call the police. While doing so, she noticed there was a message on the answering machine. Listening to it, she later described it as "strange" but inadvertently deleted it. Police believe the message may have contained evidence and it was unconnected to the sexual calls made when Kirby was present, which are largely dismissed as a prank. 

 

It was now 16 hours since the two girls had been confirmed to have been seen. The mother had been last heard from at 11:15 the night before when she had called a friend of hers. When Kirby first accessed the property at 9 a.m., more and more friends and relatives came looking for their loved ones, with up to 20 people walking through the house. The crime scene became utterly compromised, and, needing a warrant, police were unable to enter until June 8. By June 9, they had called the FBI. 

 

"The only thing unusual about this house was that three women were missing from it," retired Springfield Police Capt. Tony Glenn told News-Leader in 2006. "You had this feeling as you looked around that something was missing, that something had to be missing. But there wasn't. Just them."

 

Regardless, there was very little evidence at the property, with no signs of a struggle or blood present. All three women owned a car, and all three vehicles were still present; Levitt's blue Corsica was in the carport, Streeter's red Ford Escort and McCall's Toyota Corolla were in the circle drive. The keys were all in the house. Their purses were at the bottom of the stairs, and an inviting graduation cake was waiting in the fridge.

 

Meanwhile, Levitt's bed had been slept in, and her book was even turned over on the nightstand, ready to be resumed. The two young women had also certainly gotten prepared for bed, washing their make-up off and leaving their jewelry by the basin. McCall left her shorts and placed them by Streeter's waterbed, and given that no other clothing appeared to be missing, she is likely to have vanished in just a t-shirt and underpants. The only sign of any disturbance at all was the shattered porch light. The possibility exists that the light was deliberately broken to draw Levitt, Streeter and McCall out of the house just after the two young women arrived home, or another deception was used to the same effect, yet that can only be speculation.

 

Thousands of posters went up throughout Springfield. Police logged 5,200 tips in the case and gave polygraphs to numerous people. They searched woods and fields throughout the Ozark area and made inquiries in 21 states. All to little avail.

 

One potential piece of evidence was a letter left at a News-Leader rack at Smitty's. The letter had a drawing of the Bolivar Road Apartments with the phrase "use Ruse of Gas Man checking for Leak" written on. What it may have meant is unknown.

 

An image of a transient man in the area was distributed, as was a photo of a retouched dodge van seen by the home on June 7. The van is seemingly crucial to the case as an eyewitness claims to have seen Streeter driving a green Dodge later in the day on June 7 and, apparently under duress, a male voice telling her not to do anything stupid. Another witness reported seeing the van with a blonde female driver at a local grocery store and was suspicious enough to write down the license plate on a newspaper. Unfortunately, he threw the newspaper away before contacting authorities.

 

The hunt for the three women was relentless, with police logging 1,632 hours of overtime on the case over ten days, theorizing the transient might have been involved or the answer lay in the background of Sherrill Levitt.

 

A new lead appeared on June 24 when a waitress came forward to say the three missing women had been at George's Steakhouse between 1 a.m., and 3 a.m., with earlier evidence on the timing of the younger women's movements suggesting this is likely to have been near the end of that window. The witness said Streeter appeared to be drunk, and her mother tried to calm her. The sighting has never been confirmed.

 

Going nowhere, the investigation was featured on the Dec. 31 edition of "America's Most Wanted" and produced 29 calls. One stood out above the others when a caller claimed he had information about the three disappearances. However, attempts to link the caller with investigators failed, as he became spooked and hung up. Police appealed for him to get in touch again, but he never did, and his identity remains a mystery.

 

Another program, "48 Hours," shadowed police for weeks as they investigated the case, showing pictures from the search and officers sifting through the many leads. Nothing led to a workable angle, and the case went cold. Five years later, Springfield police announced it could no longer justify the money spent on the matter, officially shutting the case down.

 

Ok so that's fucking odd… Three women just disappeared. No signs of a struggle… No robbery… No blood.. everything left in place. Maybe it was aliens!

 

No you may be asking yourself...but guys… There's gotta be a suspect or something, well we found a couple.

 

Here's what we found:

 

Gerald Carnahan: A businessman, he was convicted in the 1985 killing of Jackie Johns 25 years after it happened. He has ties to Springfield and a long history of legal troubles including:

Jan. 13, 1994, second-degree burglary of a business, two-year prison sentence;

 

-- Jan. 13, 1994, stealing from that business, four-year prison sentence;

 

-- Jan. 13, 1994, arson at that business, three-year prison sentence;

 

-- Jan. 10, 1994, attempted kidnapping of a girl in Springfield in 1993;

 

-- June 1, 1994, assault of a law enforcement officer, 11 months in county jail;

 

-- June 1, 1994, unlawful use of a weapon, one-year prison sentence; and

 

-- other prison sentences for attempted kidnapping and tampering with evidence.

So, he’s an all around, grade A butthole

 

Then there’s Dustin Recla, Michael Clay and Joseph Riedel: Recla is the ex-boyfriend of Streeter who told police he wanted her dead because she gave officers a statement about the men, who were charged with the felony institutional vandalism of a cemetery in February 1992. Which seems a bit excessive to want to kill someone over.

Riedel is accused of breaking into a mausoleum at Springfield’s Maple Park Cemetery on Feb. 21 1992 and stealing a skull and some bones. Police have said Dustin Recla sold 26 grams of gold teeth fillings from the skull at a Springfield pawn shop for $30. So, these jerks were working together, breaking into graves and stealing their gold fillings. In the early 90s. 

 

Steven Garrison:

 

Garrison told police a friend had confessed to killing the three women during a drunken party. He told police information unknown to the public that led investigators to serve three search warrants at two sites in western Webster County; that info was that they would find the women’s bodies and clues about their abduction and deaths. He also said a moss green van believed used to take the women would be found about 12 miles away, south of Fordland.

 

The property searched was the same site where in 1990 LE searched for two of three missing Springfieldians. Property owner Francis Lee Robb Sr. pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder in a case authorities said at the time they believed involve a drug deal gone awry.

 

Garrison was believed enough that a gag order concerning the three search warrants was issued by a judge.“…certain aspects of the information we received fit with other (private) aspects of the case,” Springfield Police Capt. Todd Whitson said. Whitson said the gag order was rare, but he could not say why it was issued,“other than to say there is such an order, and it governs the operation and everything related to the operation out here.” Added Webster County Sheriff C.E. Wells:“We can’t tell you anything about it until the order’s lifted.”

 

Garrison is serving 40 years in prison for raping, sodomizing and terrorizing a female Springfield college student in the summer of 1993.

 

After tracking him and several associates almost exclusively for more than a year, police have since backed off Garrison. But not all the way off. They last approached him last summer. Six months ago, investigators looked to Colorado for information on Garrison, who is in a Missouri prison.

 

"They've never let up on me," Garrison says.

 

But even with all these buttholes on the list, there is one main suspect that the police and many others like in this case, Robert Craig Cox. It's always about Cox on this fucking show…

 

In 1995, Cox was arrested for holding a gun on a 12-year-old girl in Decatur, Texas. He is presently serving a life sentence for that robbery and a consecutive 15-year federal sentence.

 

 Robert Craig Cox was convicted of killing a 19-year-old Florida woman who was somehow intercepted while driving home from work at Disney World one night in 1978. Cox - who lived in Springfield the summer of 1992 - walked away from death row in 1989 after the Florida Supreme Court said the jury didn't have enough evidence to convict him.

 

Through the years, Cox has toyed with Springfield police - saying he knows the women are dead and that they're buried near the city. Having discovered that Cox lied about his alibi on the morning of June 7, 1992, officials are skeptical about his claims.

Cox declined to be interviewed by the News-Leader, but in recent letters to the newspaper, he acknowledges police consider him a suspect and that years ago he worked as a utility locator in south-central Springfield. Get that? Remember the “gas ruse” note??

 

Robert Craig Cox was convicted in 1988, of first degree murder, in the 1978 beating death of Sharon Zellers, 19, an employee of Walt Disney World.  The case was weak, and Cox was not charged until eight years after the murder. Cox and his family were staying at a motel in Orlando where the victim’s body was found. He had a cut on his tongue, and hair and blood samples found near the victim were compatible with his. Cox testified he bit through his tongue during a fight.

 

The Florida Supreme Court reversed Cox’s conviction, ruling that, at best, the evidence created “only a suspicion” of guilt. The court ordered his acquittal and release from death row in1990

 

 He was immediately taken into custody to complete a prison sentence in California for an unrelated 1985 kidnapping. Then he returned to his boyhood home of Springfield, Mo., where he came under suspicion — but was never charged — in the 1992 disappearance of the three females. Texas police also questioned him about an abduction in Plano. In 1995, Cox was arrested for holding a gun on a 12-year-old girl during a robbery in Decatur, Texas. He is serving a life sentence for that robbery and is not eligible for parole until 2025.

 A couple years After being sent to prison in 1995, Cox claimed he knew what happened to the three women. Cox claimed all three had been murdered and buried, taunting that their bodies would never be found. Cox was living in Springfield at the time of the murders and didn't claim to be the killer, saying he was in church that morning as corroborated by his girlfriend.

 

However, that would not discount his involvement earlier in the morning, and in any case, the girlfriend later recanted her statement and said Cox asked her to lie for him. Cox said he was at his parents' home when asked where he was earlier, which was again corroborated.

 

Police remain uncertain as to Cox's involvement with the crimes, observing that he only ever tells them enough for them to believe he knows something but never enough to incriminate himself. Some believe Cox is merely seeking infamy through a false confession. For his part, Cox said he will reveal the truth once his mother dies, but the bodies are buried somewhere around Springfield. wow what a stand up fella. Someone kill that old lady! I’m kidding… Can we at least fake her death??

 

Also one more interesting tidbit. In 2007, investigators revealed they'd received a tip that the bodies were buried in the foundations of the Cox Hospital parking lot. (yay more Cox) That same year, crime reporter Kathee Baird had a corner of the parking lot scanned with ground-penetrating radar and found three anomalies. However, it remains doubtful that the site is the burial location as construction didn't begin there until September 1993, over a year after the disappearances. Equally, the tip came not from anyone connected with a burial but somebody professing psychic abilities. So there's that…

 

While the claims of Cox possibly have merit, there is no evidence to say for sure. Despite 50,000 tips from the public, the case remains unsolved, and with nearly 30 years having now passed, the case of the Springfield Three may never actually be resolved.

 

Ok so by now you may have forgotten that there is a personal connection to this case. You're kind of getting a twofer today. 

 

Let's talk about another fine upstanding citizen, scratch that, a huge giant hunk of shit, Larry DeWayne Hall. Larry DeWayne Hall was born on December 11th 1962 in Wabash, Indiana, US. He was born 2nd of 2 children and raised by both parents. He was raised as a youngest child and had one older (by a few seconds) twin brother, Gary Hall. His father, Robert Hall, was an abusive alcoholic. His mother, a homemaker. His father abused alcohol and/or drugs. He had a speech defect. During his education he had academic, social or discipline problems, including being teased or picked on. Larry DeWayne Hall was physically and psychologically abused at some point of his life. Sound like the makings of a serial killer, what say ye passengers!

 

Police believe that Hall, 54, may have killed 30 to 40 women. He’s confessed to rapes, murders and abductions of women all over the Midwest to reporters, book authors and police investigators. He was convicted in federal court of abducting and raping a 15-year-old Illinois girl.

 

But he’s never been convicted of murder.

 

Hall is serving a life sentence in federal prison in North Carolina for the 1993 kidnapping of school girl Jessica Roach, whose ravaged body was found in a cornfield. She had been out riding her bicycle. In Hall’s confession, which was read to the jury, he admitted that he raped Jessica and strangled her with a belt, the ends of which he held from behind a tree where the child was forced to sit so he wouldn’t have to see her face. He was not tried for murder because the teenager’s remains were mangled by a farmer’s combine to the extent that a cause of death could not be determined. HOLY HELL!! That's a new and extremely disturbing one on this show, folks. 

Without a cause of death, the case was transferred to federal court and Hall was charged with bringing a minor across state lines for purposes of sex.

 

However, in 1996, the federal Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled that Hall should be given a new trial because the trial judge erred by not allowing the testimony of a psychologist that Hall’s mental condition led him to falsely confess, to please police. He was convicted again at a second trial and sentenced to life without parole.

 

Hall also confessed to police to killing 20-year-old Laurie Depies after abducting her in Menasha in northern Wisconsin. But he was never charged in connection with her 1992 disappearance, even though he said he killed her and scraps of paper were found in his van on which he had written “Lori” and “Fox River Mall,” where Depies worked. Authorities said they could not corroborate his confession, a legal requirement to bring murder charges.

 

The strange, 30-year odyssey of Larry Hall, a twin who once lived in an Indiana cemetery and wandered the Midwest in a van, involved occasionally attending Civil War re-enactments dressed as a Union soldier, and toying with police despite a low IQ of 85, according to a police report. Hall sent a letter to author Christopher H. Martin, who is from Hall’s hometown of Wabash, Indiana. Martin wrote a book about Hall’s alleged murderous sprees titled, “Urges: A Chronicle of Serial Killer Larry Hall.”

 

On page 39 of the book, Paulette Webster, 19, is listed as a victim. She was walking to a local bowling alley to meet a friend when she disappeared. Hall’s letter to Martin was taunting, noting that, “If I did it, I would have put her in a river or in a field.”

 

Eulalia “Lolly” Chavez was found in a field near Summerfield.

 

Paulette’s mother, Mary Webster, 68, said she and her husband William first learned about Hall when Martin visited them, around 2010. Martin had the letter from Hall, but Mary Webster declined to look at it.

 

Hall also confessed to a television reporter that he killed and sexually mutilated Chavez, who was known for years as the Summerfield Jane Doe until her exhumation in 2008 led to her identification. He later recanted.

 

St. Clair County Sheriff Rick Watson recently revived an investigation involving Hall and the murder of Chavez, which happened 31 years ago.

 

So where are we going with this? Well well tell you. 

 

Larry was also a suspect in the Springfield 3 disappearances after his twin brother, who people claim looked exactly like Larry, said his brother claimed to have murdered the three women. They were in the area for a civil war reenactment at the time of the disappearances. Twin brothers that traveled around the country doing Civil War Reenactments, known serial killers. Larry claims his brother Gary was stalking one of the teens that night. There are many that believe both men were involved as it would have been hard for one man to subdue and kidnap and murder three women at once. The disappearances fit Larry's mo. And he's a giant piece of shit that's definitely capable. So that brings us full circle to the disappearance of Tricia Reitler. The following details of her disappearance we're taken from the Charley project. Org website:

 

 Reitler was a freshman psychology major at Indiana Wesleyan University in Marion, Indiana in 1993. She was a good student with a high grade point average. She was last seen at approximately 8:00 p.m. on March 29, 1993.

 

Reitler was writing a term paper that evening, and decided to take a break. She walked to Marsh Supermarket, which was approximately half a mile from the university's campus. She purchased a soda and a magazine and left the store, intent on returning to her dormitory in Bowman Hall.

 

She never made it there and has never been seen or heard from again. Reitler's bloodstained jeans, shirt and shoes were discovered in a field near Seybold Pool and Center Elementary School, which is located between Marsh's Supermarket and the campus.

 

Investigators said six or seven unidentified people were playing basketball in the Center School playground adjacent to the pool at the time Reitler disappeared, but none of the possible witnesses have come forward with information regarding her case. Authorities believe that Reitler was taken against her will while walking back to campus. Foul play is suspected in her disappearance.

 

Donald W. Grenier was considered a possible suspect in Reitler's case at one time. Grenier was arrested in 1999 and charged with the abduction and molestation of a young girl from the Marion area. His home was searched for evidence connecting him to Reitler's case and the 1987 Indiana disappearance of Wendy Felton, which seemed to share common traits.

 

Nothing was discovered in the search and Grenier has since been cleared of involvement in both Reitler and Felton's cases. Grenier has always maintained his innocence in both cases.

 

Tony R. Searcy, a habitual criminal offender, has also long been considered a possible suspect in Reitler's case. He has denied all involvement and authorities have never arrested Searcy in connection with Reitler's disappearance.

 

Another possible suspect emerged when authorities discovered materials related to Reitler's case in a van owned by Larry DeWayne Hall several months after her 1993 disappearance. Hall resided with his parents in the 300 block of Grant Street in Wabash, Indiana at the time.

 

Investigators found maps, ether, photos and newspaper articles concerning Reitler inside Hall's vehicle. A photograph of him is posted with this case summary. He was arrested in December 1994 and charged with abducting Jessica Roach, a teenager whose remains were discovered in an Indiana cornfield in 1993.

 

Hall signed a statement confessing to Reitler's kidnapping and murder, but he later recanted and was never charged in connection with her disappearance due to a lack of evidence. Investigators searched an area of Grant County, Indiana near the Mississinewa Reservoir for Reitler's body. Hall led them to the scene, saying he'd buried her body there, but no evidence was located.

 

Hall is presently incarcerated in a psychiatric prison in North Carolina, serving a life sentence for Roach's kidnapping. He is still considered a suspect in Reitler's presumed abduction. He confessed to the murder of Laurie Depies, who disappeared from Wisconsin in 1988, and implied he was involved in the 1988 disappearance of Paulette Webster from Illinois. Police believe he may have killed thirty to forty women, but he hasn't been charged in any cases besides Roach's.

 

Reitler's case remains open and unsolved. She has never been located. Her family lived in Olmsted Township, Ohio, southwest of Cleveland, at the time she disappeared. She is the oldest of four children in a conservative Christian family. Her parents believe she is deceased. 

 

Now you may say to yourself… Olmsted falls? That sounds awfully familiar.. Well friends that's because that's where the train station is located and where both I and Logan live. And now the crazy connection to the case and today's episode? Tricia was Grace, my wife’s, babysitter! (Jon take over and give more back story)

Movies:

 

Horror movies involving planes… Cus why not

 

https://www.ranker.com/list/best-horror-movies-about-airplanes/ranker-film

Cursed Movies

 In a world, where the midnight train podcast is at the top of the podcast game, one thing has the power to destroy everything they have worked for. This week their world will come crumbling down as everything they've achieved will be tested and possibly destroyed due to the madness that is (dun dun duuuuuuuunnnnn) cursed Movies!!!

Tonight on the midnight train we are combining two of our favorite things…. This podcast and lots and lots of beer…YEAH! Oh wait, we do that every week… Oh, that's right, it’s this podcast and….moooovies!! But… In true midnight train fashion, we can't just talk about movies…. We're gonna talk about cursed movies!!! That's right we are going to look at movies that for one reason or another have led to tragedy during and after the movies were made! Everything is on the table from health issues like cancer, accidental deaths while filming, people going crazy after filming, and just about everything else you can think of. Should be a fun and creepy ride discussing all these movies with you passengers and, in case you're wondering, yes we're still going to have a movies list at the end. 

 

Ok so let's get into this and see what we have as far as cursed movies!

 

We're gonna start it with a big one since we just covered the subject matter of the film! The first cursed movie on our list is the exorcist. The filming of THE EXORCIST was done over nine months. The main set, a reproduction of the Georgetown home, was built in a warehouse in New York. During the filming, several curious incidents and accidents took place on the set and plagued those involved with the production. In addition, the budget of the film rose from $5 million to more than twice that amount. Obviously, any film production that lasts for more than a month or so will see its share of accidents and mishaps, but THE EXORCIST seems to have been particularly affected by unforeseeable calamities. Coincidence? Perhaps, but it left the cast and crew rightfully shaken. 

 

The first incident occurred around 2:30 a.m. one Sunday morning when a fire broke out on the set. There was only one security guard at the Ceco 54th Street Studios when the McNeil house set caught fire and burned. The fire was the result of a bad electrical circuit, but it shut down filming for six weeks while the set was reconstructed from scratch. Ironically, as soon as the new set was ready, the sprinkler system broke down, causing an additional two-week delay. 

 

Few of the actors in the film escaped personal troubles during the shoot. Just as Max Von Sydow (who played Father Merrin) touched down in New York to film his first scenes, he received a phone call saying that his brother died unexpectedly in Sweden. Von Sydow himself later became very ill during the filming. Irish actor Jack MacGowran (who played Burke Dennings) died only one week after his character was killed by the demon in the movie. Jason Miller (who played Father Karras) was stunned when his young son, Jordan, was struck down on an empty beach by a motorcyclist who appeared out of nowhere. The boy ALMOST died. THAT'S GOOD NEWS! Ellen Burstyn (who played Chris McNeill) wrenched her back badly during one scene when she was slapped by the possessed girl. The stunt went badly awry and she was laid up in bed for several weeks afterward, causing more delays in the filming. They had a rig attached to her where a guy offscreen would pull a rope that was tied to her to get that “smacked hard as shit and launched across the room” look the director wanted. Apparently, the director didn’t like the first take or two and told the guy with the rope to yoke the living piss out of her. He got his shot. She screwed up her back. 

 

In New York, one of the carpenters accidentally cut off his thumb on the set and one of the lighting technicians lost a toe. This was all over the news at the time due to the mixup at the hospital where they put the wrong appendages on the wrong patients. Yep, they switched the toe for the thumb. And if you believed that, well… I’m not sorry even a little bit. Anyway, The exorcist's location trip to Iraq was delayed from the spring, which is relatively cool, to July, the hottest part of the summer, when the temperature rose to 130 degrees and higher. Out of the eighteen-man crew that was sent there, Friedkin lost the services of nine of them, at one time or another, due to dysentery (which is super shitty) or sunstroke. To make matters worse, the bronze statue of the neo-Assyrian winged demon Pazazu, which was packed in a ten-foot crate, got lost in an air shipment from Los Angeles and ended up in Hong Kong, which caused another two-week delay. 

 

"I don't know if it was a jinx, really," actress Ellen Burstyn later said. "But there were some really strange goings-on during the making of the film. We were dealing with some really heavy material and you don't fool around with that kind of material without it manifesting in some way. There were many deaths in the film. Linda's grandfather died, the assistant cameraman's wife had a baby that died, the man who refrigerated the set died, the janitor who took care of the building was shot and killed … I think overall there were nine deaths during the course of the film, which is an incredible amount… it was scary." Unholy shit, batman!

 

Things got so bad that William Friedkin took some drastic measures. Father Thomas Bermingham, S.J., from the Jesuit community at Fordham University, had been hired as a technical advisor for the film, along with Father John Nicola, who, while not a Jesuit, had been taught by Jesuit theologians at St. Mary of the Lake Seminary in Mundelein, Illinois. Friedkin came to Bermingham and asked him to exorcise the set. The priest was unable to perform an actual exorcism, but he did give a solemn blessing in a ceremony that was attended by everyone then on the set, from Max Von Sydow to the technicians and grips. "Nothing else happened on the set after the blessing,” Bermingham stated, "but around that time, there was a fire in the Jesuit residence set in Georgetown."

And while nothing else tragic occurred on the set, strange events and odd coincidences were reported during the post-production work on the film. "There were strange images and visions that showed up on film that were never planned," Friedkin later claimed. "There are double exposures in the little girl's face at the end of one reel that are unbelievable."

 

As we talked about in previous episodes, The film opened on December 26, 1973, to massive crowds. Within weeks of the first public screenings of the film, stories started to make the rounds that audience members were fainting and vomiting in the theaters. There were also reports of disturbing nightmares and reportedly, several theater ushers had to be placed under a doctor’s care, or quit their jobs, after experiencing successive showings of the movie. In numerous cities that were checked after THE EXORCIST had run for several weeks, reporters found that every major hospital had been forced to deal with patients who reported, after seeing the film, severe cases of vomiting and hallucinations. There were also reports of people being carried out of theaters in stretchers. What do you think, passengers? Mere publicity stunts, or was this the real thing? 

 

The info for this cursed movie came from a great article on americanhauntingsink.com check them out!

 

Next up we're gonna dive into a sweet little movie about a tree, a child’s toy, and REAL SKELETONS IN THE SWIMMING POOL! Yep, you guessed it, poltergeist! The curse of Poltergeist spawned many theories about why the movie and its sequels were cursed with so much tragedy, with one suggesting the use of real-life human bones in the original film caused the hauntings.

 

Actress JoBeth Williams - who played the mother, Diane Freeling - is seen dropping into a pool of skeletons in one spooky scene and she later reveals the bones were real. She told TVLand: "In my innocence and naiveté, I assumed that these were not real skeletons.

 

"I assumed that they were prop skeletons made out of plastic or rubber . . . I found out, as did the crew, that they were using real skeletons, because it’s far too expensive to make fake skeletons out of rubber."

 

Just four months after the film's release, tragedy struck with actress Dominique Dunne, who played the family's eldest daughter Dana, who became the victim of a grisly murder. On the day before Halloween in 1982, the actress, 22, was strangled by her ex-boyfriend John Thomas Sweeney outside their home in West Hollywood.

She survived the attack but was left in a coma. She never regained consciousness and died five days later. Sweeney was later convicted of voluntary manslaughter and spent three and half years of a six-year sentence behind bars for the killing. He changed his name to John Maura so if you want to let him know what a twat he is, I mean… we can’t stop you.

 

In the years after the film's release movie bosses plowed ahead with plans for a sequel and Poltergeist II: The Other Side hit cinemas in 1986. Among the cast was Will Sampson, best known for playing Chief Bromden in One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest opposite Jack Nicholson. The actor - cast as shaman Taylor in the movie - was concerned about the use of real skeletons in the first film and offered to perform a real-life exorcism. He's believed to have conducted the ceremony alone and in the middle of the night, but the cast reportedly felt relieved afterward. However, less than a year after the film's release - the curse had claimed another victim.

Sampson had long-term health problems as he suffered from a degenerative condition called scleroderma, which affected his heart and lungs. He underwent a heart and lung transplant in the summer of 1987 but died of post-operative kidney failure on June 3. 

 

Ok, this one is sad and you’ve probably heard of it. The most famous victim of the Poltergeist curse was Heather O'Rourke. She appeared as Carol Anne in the first two films as well as the third installment, Poltergeist III, which hit cinemas in 1988. She died just four months before the movie's release at only 12 years of age. In January 1988, Heather fell ill with what appeared to be flu-like symptoms. She collapsed at home the following day and was rushed to the hospital. She suffered a cardiac arrest but doctors were able to revive her and they diagnosed her with intestinal stenosis - a partial obstruction of the intestine. She underwent surgery, but went into cardiac arrest again in recovery and doctors were unable to save her. She passed away in February 1988, just weeks after her 12th birthday, and it was later reported she died from congenital stenosis and septic shock. Absolutely heartbreaking.

 

Character actor Lou Perryman became the second cast member to fall victim to murder. He played Pugsley in the original movie and suffered a brutal end in 1992 when he was hacked to death with an ax aged 67. A convict recently released from prison, Seth Christopher Tatum, confessed he had killed Perryman at his home after coming off his medication and going on a drinking binge. Tatum pleaded guilty to his murder in 2011 and was sentenced to life in prison.

 

Actor Richard Lawson played one of the parapsychologists, Ryan, in the original film (not the guy who ate the chicken with the maggots… you’re welcome) and he came close to becoming another victim of the curse in 1992. He was involved in a terrifying plane crash in 1992 when the USAir Flight 405 crashed into New York City's Flushing Bay on route to guess where? Cleveland friggin Ohio. The crash claimed the lives of 27 of the 51 passengers, but Lawson was among the survivors.

He put his lucky escape down to a last-minute seat change that saved his life. Lawson went on to be part of showbiz royalty when he married Beyonce's mother, Tina Knowles in 2015.

 

Info for this movie was taken from mirror.co.uk. 

 

Next up how about… Hmm…. Oh, I know… The omen! The 2976 version of course. Obviously, Moody is a time traveler and saw the upcoming remake, 955 friggin years in the future! No! It was 1976! Of all the world's cursed film productions, The Omen is considered to have one of the worst movie curses of all time. The 1976 film tells the story of a man who accidentally adopts Damien the Antichrist as his son and the movie remains one of horror's most successful franchises. But what was so odious about the set that led producers to believe the devil was punishing them for making the movie? Is The Omen really cursed? The Omen film set haunting includes death, injury, and lots of lightning bolts: after all, the creator himself warned the cast and crew that Satan wasn't going to like what they were doing. Here's what happened behind the scenes of The Omen movie and why, despite its several sequels and a 2006 remake, it remains one of history's movies that indeed may have angered Satan himself!

 

In June 1975, Gregory Peck's son, Jonathan Peck, killed himself with a bullet to the head, two months before filming was to start. Several strange events then surrounded the production.

 

For protection on the set of "The Omen," Bernhard wore a Coptic cross. In an interview, Bernhard spoke about the production's eerie events, which included the death of an animal trainer.

 

Precisely one day after they shot the sequence involving the baboons at the animal center, Bernhard said that a tiger seized the animal trainer by the head, causing his death immediately. Whhhaat the fuuuuuck?

 

One of the most haunting stories surrounding The Omen didn't happen during the shoot, but during the production of the World War II epic A Bridge Too Far. John Richardson, who did special effects on The Omen, was involved in a head-on collision that beheaded his girlfriend, eerily mirroring the decapitation scene with David Warner. Supposedly, after the crash, Richardson saw a street sign that said, "Ommen, 66.6 km." This accident occurred after The Omen had wrapped production, but many of course linked it to the evil aura of the film.

 

Several planes were also set ablaze, including the plane carrying Peck and screenwriter David Seltzer. Meanwhile, Bernhard said they had to land in Nova Scotia after flying back from England. He added:

 

"We had the film on board... Dick [Donner] and I were very, very nervous."

IRA bombs ripped through a hotel, in which executive producer Mace Neufeld and his wife stayed, and another in which prominent executives and stars, including Peck, were to have dinner.

 

Once word got back to Fox about all the terrible incidents that plagued production, the studio saw it as a great way to drum up a ton of publicity and add to the film's ominous aura. They also put a great tagline into the film's ad campaign:

 

                     You have been warned. If something frightening happens to you today, think about it. It may be The Omen.

 

As Donner recalled in The Omen: Curse or Coincidence, "If we had been making a comedy, you would have recalled all the funny, great, ridiculous, silly moments that happened in that film. if you were doing a love story, you'd remember all the times somebody left their wife, fell in love... You're doing The Omen, anything that happens on that film, you don't tell about the jokes, you don't talk about the love stories, you don't even think about them. You think about things that coincidentally could have been something to do with The Omen. We had lots of them."

 

Creepy stuff right there my friends.

 

Next up we have one of my personal all-time favorites, the crow! The Crow began filming in Wilmington, North Carolina, in 1993. Cursed Films revealed that before production got underway, a mysterious caller left a voicemail message warning the crew not to shoot the movie because bad things would happen. Eerily, two on-set electricians were involved in an accident in which their truck hit a live wire. One of the men experienced second and third-degree burns and lost both ears.

 

Disaster also struck the entire production when a hurricane destroyed the movie set. That is when the “curse of The Crow” rumors began circulating in Hollywood. The star of The Crow, Brandon Lee, was the son of martial arts legend, Bruce Lee. The elder Lee died during the production of his final film. Some fans speculated that the Chinese mafia had placed a hit on the actor for betraying martial arts secrets. Others suspected that he had been struck by an insidious death blow at an earlier time.

 

The most popular theory about The Dragon’s death is that he was a victim of the Lee Family Curse. His older brother had died, and Lee’s parents believed there was a demon targeting the males in the Lee family.

 

Like his father, Brandon Lee died before he finished filming The Crow. In a fluke accident, the performer was shot while completing an action sequence, as described in Cursed Films. The crew used what are called ‘dummy rounds,’ for the scene, but there was something in the barrel of the gun that acted as a lethal projectile, killing Lee. 

 

To complete the final photography for The Crow, the man who had been working as Lee’s stunt double wore a mask in his image.

 

Crazy stuff!

 

How about some of our patented quick hitters! 

 

The Conqueror" is a whitewashed 1956 film with John Wayne as Genghis Khan. The film was shot at a location downwind from a nuclear testing site, causing dozens of crew members to eventually die of cancer. so maybe not so much a curse as a poor choice of locations.

 

Apocalypse Now"

 

The horror! Francis Ford Coppola was tempting fate when he decided to film "Apocalypse Now" during monsoon season. Big mistake. The monsoon destroyed multiple sets, Martin Sheen suffered a heart attack during filming, and Coppola was so stressed that he suffered a seizure, according to The Independent. "Apocalypse Now" (1979) turned out to be a masterpiece anyway, but the documentary "Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse" about its making is just as engrossing. 

 

"Fitzcarraldo" 

 

Dysentery. Injuries. Fights among the crew. Nothing seemed to go right during the filming of 1982's "Fitzcarraldo." The story concerns hauling a boat over a hill, which the crew literally accomplished, but not without the same nightmarish difficulty as is depicted in the film. And in the end, director Werner Herzog looked as mad and overly driven as its hero. Check out the documentary "Burden of Dreams" for more.

 

The Superman Curse 

 

Comic book movie fans may know about the "Superman Curse," which is said to afflict multiple actors involved in Superman films. Christopher Reeve was paralyzed following a horse accident. And Margot Kidder, who played Lois opposite Reeve, suffered from bipolar disorder, according to TCM. Also, the original Superman, George Reeves, supposedly committed suicide. His death at age 45 from a gunshot remains a controversial subject; the official finding was suicide, but some believe that he was murdered or the victim of an accidental shooting.

 

"The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" 

 

Bad luck ran amok in Middle Earth during the filming of 2002's "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers." DVD interviews revealed that multiple actors and stuntmen suffered injuries while shooting the film's elaborate fight sequences. The worst was Viggo Mortensen, who broke his toe and chipped his tooth while filming.

 

The Exorcism of Emily rose

 

Dexter star Jennifer Carpenter reported that during the making of The Exorcism of Emily Rose — in which she played a big-screen version of German woman Anneliese Michel, whose poor health and subsequent death was blamed on a failed exorcism — her radio would mysteriously turn on and off. From an interview with Dread Central:

 

Q: A common question when making a film like this; did anything weird happen during filming?

 

JC: I thought about that when it happened, and two or three times when I was going to sleep my radio came on by itself. The only time it scared me was once because it was really loud and it was Pearl Jam’s “Alive” (laughs). Laura’s TV came on a couple of times.

 

Q: At 3:00 a.m.?

 

JC: Mine wasn’t 3:00 a.m. I was born at 3:00 a.m. but it hasn’t happened to me. I did check.

 

We’ll totally do an episode on Analiese one of these days

 

Psycho

Myra Jones (aka Myra Davis) was the uncredited body double/stand-in for Psycho star Janet Leigh during the making of Hitchcock’s 1960 film. A handyman named Kenneth Dean Hunt, who was supposedly a Hitchcock “obsessive,” murdered her.

 

The Conjuring

 

Real-life ghost hunters Ed and Lorraine Warren, who aided the real-life Amityville Horror case, investigated the haunting of the Perron family home — a farmhouse plagued by generations of death, disaster, and a possessed doll. The case inspired James Wan’s supernatural film, which left some audiences in the Philippines with such a fright there were priests available at screenings to bless viewers and provide counseling. On and off-set paranormal incidents — including strange claw marks on star Vera Farmiga’s computer, Wan’s tormented dog growling at invisible intruders, a strange wind (that apparently put Carolyn Perron in the hospital), and fire — were reported.

 

The Innkeepers

 

Filmed at the reportedly haunted hotel the Yankee Pedlar Inn in Torrington, Connecticut, The Innkeepers director Ti West was skeptical about the strange occurrences during the making of his movie. Still, creepy stories from the set became the focus in the press. From an interview with West:

 

I’m a skeptic so I don’t really buy it. But I’ve definitely seen doors close by themselves; I’ve seen a TV turn off and on by itself; lights would always burn out in my room. Everyone on the crew has very vivid dreams every night, which is really strange.

 

The one story that is the most intriguing to me — In the film, the most haunted room is the Honeymoon Suite. That’s where the ghost stuff started in the hotel. The only reason I picked the room that I picked to shoot in, was because it was big enough to do a dolly shot. No more thought went into it other than pure technical reasons. So when we’re finishing the movie, I find out that the most haunted room in real life is the room I picked to be the haunted room in the movie. It could be a coincidence. It’s weird that it happened that way. . . . [Star] Sara Paxton would wake up in the middle of the night thinking someone was in the room with her. Everyone has stories, but I was too busy saying, “Let’s shoot this! We have 17 days!

 

Atuk" 

 

"Atuk" is a movie so cursed that it never got made. The project, based on a 1963 Mordecai Richler novel about an Eskimo in New York, had four different men attached to play the lead while in development hell through the 1970s and '80s: John Belushi, Sam Kinison, John Candy, and Chris Farley. All four died shortly after entering negotiations to be in the film. Holy shit! 

 

Ok how about twilight zone the movie. The 1983 film 'Twilight Zone: The Movie' directed by John Landis and Steven Spielberg gained publicity pre-release because of the deaths of lead actor Vic Morrow and two child extras during the filming of the helicopter crash scene. The children were illegally hired to play the role in this scene, as Landis would go on to reveal in the subsequent trial. It was also prohibited to make children work after a certain hour in the evening. However, Landis insisted that the scene would have to entail a late-night setting to seem more authentic. This was the last scene in the film. It also included explosions as a helicopter flew over the village while Morrow would run across the street to save the Vietnamese children from the explosion. Testing for the scene sparked concerns when the helicopter seemed to vigorously rock at the explosion but despite this, Landis' need to capture the explosion took priority. He reportedly said, "You think that was big? You ain't seen nothing yet." At the controls of this helicopter was a Vietnam War veteran named Dorcey Wingo, who had just joined the movie business. When the cameras began filming, the pyrotechnic fireball that had been fired as part of the explosion hit the helicopter, engulfing it in flames. The helicopter then crashed into the river where the actors were standing — Morrow, 6-year-old Renee Chen, and 7-year-old Myca Dinh Le. Almost a hundred people were present when the tragedy occurred. The helicopter skidded right onto Renee, crushing her to death and when it toppled over, the main blade sliced through Morrow and Myca.

 

Rosemary's baby is next up on the list. Over the years, the myth surrounding Roman Polanski’s 1968 film Rosemary’s Baby has only grown in stature. The film is based on the 1967 novel of the same name by American novelist Ira Levin. He came up with the idea for the book in 1965, drawing inspiration from his wife who was pregnant at the time, his New York apartment, and the anxiety of being a parent.

 

The struggling writer imagined a world where there was no God and the devil was allowed to reign freely. This is evident in the iconic ending where Rosemary finds out that her husband sold her womb to Satan and that her child is the Antichrist. Levin was catapulted into the highest echelons of the literary world due to the success of his novel and a year later, a European auteur who was looking for his own Hollywood break decided to direct the film adaptation of his novel.

 

However, not everyone was pleased with Levin’s attacks on religion. He faced severe backlash from the Catholic Church for his “blasphemy” and his wife left him the year the film was released. He was never the same man again, growing increasingly paranoid over the years. Levin repeatedly had to make public statements denouncing Satanism and told Dick Cavett that he had become “terrified” as he grew older. 30 years after the release of the film, Levin came up with a sequel titled Son of Rosemary but it tanked.

 

William Castle was the man who first recognized the potential of Levin’s work and secured the rights to make a film adaptation. Best known for his work on B-grade horror films, Castle wanted to direct it initially but Paramount Pictures executive Robert Evans agreed to go ahead with the project only if Castle worked as a producer. In April of 1969, Castle was hospitalized because of severe kidney stones. He was already under a lot of stress due to the sheer volume of hate mail he received, a terrible consequence of being attached to Rosemary’s Baby. In his autobiography, he claimed that he began to hallucinate scenes from the film during his surgery and even shouted, “Rosemary, for God’s sake drop that knife!” Although Castle recovered, he never reached that level of success again.

 

Producer Robert Evans was not exempt from this alleged curse either. He had risen to the top with major hits like Rosemary’s Baby and The Godfather. However, he was convicted of cocaine trafficking in 1980 and got a suspended prison sentence. As a part of his plea bargain, Evans had to make an anti-drug commercial. Three years later, the producer would get caught up in the high-profile murder of Roy Radin which has come to be known as the “Cotton Club murder”. Despite two witnesses testifying that Evans was involved in the case, he was later cleared of the charges. In 1993, he told The New York Times, “I had 10 years of a horrific life, Kafkaesque. There were nights I cried myself to sleep.”

 

This is arguably the most renowned story that is related to Rosemary’s Baby. In autumn of 1968, composer Krzysztof Komeda, who worked on the film, fell off a rocky escarpment while partying and went into a four-month coma. Coincidentally, this affliction is exactly what the witches in Levin’s book subject Rosemary’s suspicious friend to. Komeda never came out of the coma and died in Poland the following year.

 

John Lennon was assassinated outside The Dakota in 1980, the famous building where they filmed Rosemary’s Baby. Producer Robert Evans claimed that the whole time he was on set at the apartment building he felt a “distinctly eerie feeling”. Lennon was gunned down by alleged “fan” Mark David Chapman who was influenced by Salinger’s novel The Catcher in the Rye and the loneliness of protagonist Holden Caulfield. However, the fleeting association with the film has led fans of the film to link Lennon’s assassination with the “curse” of the film. It can be said that the primary reason why the myth of the curse came about was the brutal murder of Polanski’s wife, actress Sharon Tate. Polanski even wanted to cast Tate as Rosemary but Evans was adamant about Mia Farrow’s involvement. A year after the film’s release, Tate and her friends were stabbed to death by followers of cult leader Charles Manson. Tate was eight-and-a-half months pregnant at the time of her demise. The members of the Manson Family delivered around 100 stab wounds to the four victims and wrote “Helter Skelter” on the wall in blood.

 

After his wife and unborn son were killed, Polanski indulged in substance abuse to cope with things but he ended up exemplifying human depravity. While guest editing the French edition of Vogue in 1977, the director preyed upon a 13-year old girl and persuaded her to participate in multiple photoshoots. During the second shoot at Jack Nicholson’s house, he incapacitated the minor with champagne and half a Quaalude before sexually violating her multiple times.

 

Although he was arrested for the felony and spent 42 days in jail, Polanski became a fugitive and fled to France to avoid facing charges. Since then, he has lived the life of a criminal and has avoided traveling to countries where he can be extradited back to the US.

 

Ok, let's round things out with the wizard of oz. Despite its commercial success, The Wizard of Oz is seen by some as cursed. There were so many serious accidents onset that those Oscar-nominated special effects almost cost cast members their lives, from the two actors playing winged monkeys crashing to the ground when the wires that hoisted them up in the air broke, to the Wicked Witch of the West’s stunt double Betty Danko injuring her left leg when the broomstick exploded.

 

Buddy Ebsen was originally cast in the role of the Tin Woodman, a.k.a. the Tin Man, but he was essentially poisoned by the makeup, which was made of pure aluminum dust. Nine days after filming started he was hospitalized, sitting under an oxygen tent. When he was not getting better fast enough, the filmmakers hired Jack Haley to be the Tin Man instead. This time, instead of applying the aluminum powder, the makeup artists mixed it into a paste and painted it on him. He did develop an infection in his right eye that needed medical attention, but it ended up being treatable.

 

Margaret Hamilton — who played the Wicked Witch of the West and was the one tipped who Harmetz off to the turmoil on set more than three decades later for her 1977 book — got burns, and the makeup artists had to rush to remove her copper makeup so that it wouldn’t seep through her wounds and become toxic. Unlike Ebsen, she didn’t get fired because they could live without her on the set for several more weeks.

 

An actor playing one of the Wicked Witch of the West’s soldiers accidentally jumped on top of Dorothy’s Toto, Carl Spitz, the dog trainer on set, told Harmetz. The dog (a female Cairn terrier named Terry) sprained its foot, and Spitz had to get a canine double. Terry did recover and returned to the set a few weeks later.

 

In a memoir by Judy Garland’s third husband, Sid Luft, published posthumously in 2017, he writes that, after bar-hopping in Culver City, the actors who played the munchkins “would make Judy’s life miserable by putting their hands under her dress.” Harmetz says it’s true that the actors would go drinking near the Culver City hotel where they stayed, but she says their interactions with Garland did not rise to the level of what Luft described. “Nobody on the movie ever saw her or heard of a munchkin assaulting her,” said one worker on the film. Garland did say the drinking was annoying in an interview with talk-show host Jack Paar, but experts on Garland’s life say that her rant about being scarred by the rowdy behavior on set may have been a deflection from the real damage she suffered during that time, at the hands of the studio. Garland was only 16 when she made The Wizard of Oz, and her struggles with depression and disordered eating started at an early age and continued for the rest of her life. She claimed that the studio executives gave her uppers and sleeping pills so she could keep up with the demanding pace of show business. She struggled with drug addiction and attempted suicide several times before she died of an accidental overdose on June 22, 1969, at just 47 years old.

 

The film went through four different producers by the time it was through.

 

Richard Thorpe, the first director, insisted that Judy Garland wear a blonde wig and thick makeup to depict Dorothy. When Buddy Epsen got sick from his Tin Man makeup and filming shut down for two weeks, the studio fired Thorpe and replaced him with George Cukor of My Fair Lady fame. Cukor encouraged Garland to wear natural makeup and play Dorothy less cartoonish and more natural. Cukor later left the film to work on Gone with the Wind instead and Viktor Fleming took his place. However, Cukor came back a few weeks later after getting fired from Gone With the Wind by Clark Gable (supposedly he was fired when Gable found out he was homosexual).

 

Director King Vidor was responsible for most of the sepia sequences and also helped Mervyn LeRoy with editing in post-production.

 

Not only did the public think former kindergarten teacher Margaret Hamilton was really evil following the first airing of The Wizard of Oz — she also suffered physically for the role. Hamilton received second and third-degree burns all over her body when the green copper makeup she was wearing got too hot during the fire scene. Her stunt double spent months in the hospital after a prop broom exploded — they were using a double because Hamilton got injured on an earlier take.

 

Stage makeup and prosthetics in 1939 were nowhere near what they are today. Ray Bolger’s Scarecrow makeup left deeply embedded marks in his skin that didn’t disappear for more than a year after the movie wrapped up filming. Luckily, this would never happen today.

 

How bout that hanging munchkin… Well, sorry folks. That seems to be fake. In a scene where Dorothy, the Scarecrow (Ray Bolger), and the Tin Man (Jack Haley) are skipping down the Yellow Brick Road, singing “we’re off to see the wizard, the wonderful Wizard of Oz,” some think the dark, moving figure hanging from a tree in the background is an actor who hanged himself on set. More likely, it’s one of the exotic birds that the filmmakers borrowed from the Los Angeles Zoo to create a wilderness setting. The rumor has been circulating since around 1989, the time of the 50th anniversary of the film’s release.

Alright, there you have it… Cursed movies!!! 

Obscure 90s horror movies you need to see

 

https://www.ranker.com/list/obscure-1990s-horror-movies/christopher-myers

Creepy Antarctica

Grab your parkas, put on those winter boots, don't forget those big ol mittens and hang out with us tonight as we head to the place where the coldest temperature on earth has ever been recorded, a mild -89.2°C (-128.6°F). Maybe we should bring swim trunks instead, eh? Well, aside from the coldest temps known anywhere, there is also possibly Nazis, maybe a hole to the center of the earth, a blood waterfall, and giant sea spiders with legs ranging up to 70cm, and for those of you who aren't sure if that's big or not cus we’re a bunch of archaic buttholes that don't do metric… It's big.. Like close to 28 inches big… oh and how could we forget… the Penguins!! Lots of penguins! Well, if you haven't figured it out yet, we're heading to Antarctica! We're going to be discussing the continent and find out a little about it and then we'll talk about some creepy natural things going on and of course creepy conspiracies. It should be a fun one so let's get going!!!

 

So let's learn a little about Antarctica first off. Antarctica, on average, is the coldest, driest, and windiest continent, and has the highest average elevation of all the continents. Most of Antarctica is a polar desert, with annual precipitation of 200 mm (8 in) along the coast and far less inland; yet 80% of the world's freshwater reserves are stored there, enough to raise global sea levels by about 60 metres (200 ft) if all of it were to melt. The temperature in Antarctica has dropped to −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F) (or even −94.7 °C or −138.5 °F, as measured from space), although the average for the third quarter (the coldest part of the year) is −63 °C (−81 °F). Organisms native to Antarctica include many types of algae, bacteria, fungi, plants, protista, and certain animals, such as mites, nematodes, penguins, seals and tardigrades. Vegetation, where it occurs, is tundra. Wanna know some fun facts… Well, tough shit negative Nancy, we're gonna tell ya anyways. 

 

1. Antarctica holds most of the world’s fresh water

An incredible 60-90% of the world’s freshwater is locked in Antarctica’s vast ice sheet. The Antarctic ice sheet is the largest on Earth, covering an incredible 14 million km² (5.4 million square miles) of Antarctic mountain ranges, valleys and plateaus. This leaves only 1% of Antarctica permanently ice-free. Some areas are ice-free in the summer, including many of the areas we visit on the Antarctic Peninsula.

 

At its deepest, Antarctica’s ice is 4.5km (2.7 miles) thick – that’s half the height of Mt Everest! Again, If it all melted, global sea levels would rise about 60 m (200 ft).

 

2. As mentioned, Antarctica is a desert

With all of that fresh water held in the ice sheet, how could Antarctica be a desert?

 

When most of us think of deserts we think of sand dunes, cactuses and sizzling temperatures, but technically a desert doesn’t have to be hot or sandy, it’s more about how much precipitation the area receives as rain, snow, mist or fog. A desert is any region that receives very little annual precipitation.

 

The average annual rainfall at the South Pole over the past 30 years was just over 10 mm (0.4 in). Although there is more precipitation towards the coast, the average across the continent is low enough to classify Antarctica as a polar desert.

 

So, while Antarctica may be covered in ice, it has taken an incredible 45 million years to grow to its current thickness, because so little rain falls there.

 

As well as being one of the driest continents on Earth, Antarctica is also the coldest, windiest and highest.

 

3. Antarctica used to be as warm as Melbourne Australia!

Given that the coldest ever land temperature was recorded in Antarctica of -89.2°C (-128.6°F), it can be hard to imagine Antarctica as a warm, temperate paradise. But Antarctica hasn’t always been an icy land locked in the grip of a massive ice sheet. In fact, Antarctica was once almost as warm as Melbourne is today.

 

Researchers have estimated that 40-50 million years ago, temperatures across Antarctica reached up to 17°C (62.6°F). Scientists have also found fossils showing that Antarctica was once covered with verdant green forests and inhabited by dinosaurs!

 

4. The Antarctic Peninsula is one of the most rapidly warming areas on Earth

The Antarctic Peninsula is warming more quickly than many other areas on Earth. In fact, it is one of the most rapidly warming areas on the planet. Over the past 50 years, average temperatures across the Antarctic Peninsula have increased by 3°C (37.4°F), five times the average increase on Earth.

 

This has led to some changes, for example where and when penguins form colonies and sea ice forms. It also means that the lush mosses of the Antarctic Peninsula have a slightly longer growing season.

 

5. There is no Antarctic time zone

The question of time in Antarctica is a tricky one. At the South Pole the lines of longitude, which give us different time zones around the globe, all meet at a single point. Most of Antarctica experiences 6 months of constant daylight in summer and 6 months of darkness in winter. Time starts to feel a little different without the normal markers for day and night.

 

Scientists working in Antarctica generally stay in the time zone of the country they departed from, but this can cause some issues. For example, on the Antarctic Peninsula you can find stations from Chile, China, Russia, the UK and many other countries. You can imagine that if all of these neighbouring stations keep to their home time zones it could get a little confusing trying to share data and resources without accidentally waking one another up in the middle of the night!

 

For travellers with Aurora Expeditions, they generally stay on Ushuaia time – unless they’re travelling to the Falkland Islands and South Georgia. Then they adjust to their local times, changing as they travel.

 

6. Every way is north!

If you stand at the South Pole, you are at the southernmost point on Earth. It doesn’t matter which way you look, every direction is north. So why do we talk about the Antarctic Peninsula as being in West Antarctica, and the section directly south of Australia as East Antarctica?

 

It’s based on the prime meridian, an imaginary line which passes through Greenwich in the UK at 0 degrees of longitude. If you stand at the South Pole and face towards Greenwich, everything to your left is west Antarctica and everything to your right is east Antarctica. Got that?

 

7. Antarctica has active volcanoes

Antarctica is home to several volcanoes and two of them are active. Mount Erebus, the second-highest volcano in Antarctica, is the southernmost active volcano on Earth. Located on Ross Island, this icebound volcano has some unique features such as ice fumaroles and twisted ice statues that form around gases that seep from vents near the volcanic crater.

 

The first ascent of Mt Erebus was made in 1908, when a team led by Australian scientist Edgeworth David, and including Douglas Mawson, completed an arduous and very chilly five day climb to the steaming crater.

 

The second active volcano is on Deception Island, a volcanic caldera in the South Shetland Islands. Once home to a thriving whaling station and later a scientific station, it was abandoned after the most recent eruption in 1969, and today it is a fascinating place that we visit on some of our Antarctic Peninsula voyages.

 

8. Antarctica has its own Treaty

When humans caught their first glimpse of Antarctica in 1820, it was the only continent without an indigenous population. Several nations quickly made claims to the continent, which led to significant tension. While some countries argued that Antarctica was rightfully theirs, others heartily disagreed.

 

As tension mounted, everyone agreed on the need for a peaceful resolution. In December 1959, 12 countries signed the Antarctic Treaty, an unprecedented international agreement to govern the continent together as a reserve for peace and science. Since then, 41 other countries have signed the Treaty and participate in annual meetings, where decisions are made about how human activity in Antarctica is managed. All decisions made within the Antarctic Treaty System are made by consensus, with collaboration and agreement as the central pillars. Today, the Antarctic Treaty System has expanded to include strict guidelines for commercial fishing, sealing, and a complete ban on mining and mineral exploration. 

 

We got those fun facts  from Aurora expeditions. Com

 

So let's look at some of the weird natural phenomena that goes on in Antarctica. 

 

You guys like weird sounds? Well we got weird sounds for you. Scientists and researchers at the Ross ice shelf have recorded a slow seismic hum being generated by wind whipping across the Antarctic ice shelves. The scientists also discovered that the frequency of the vibrations changed in response to changing weather conditions on the shelf — when the temperature rose or fell, for instance, and when storms resculpted the shelf's snow dunes. The firn was "alive with vibration," Douglas MacAyeal, a glaciologist at the University of Chicago, said in a written commentary that accompanied the paper. "This vibration was found to be driven by the wind blowing across the firn layer and interacting with the intrinsic roughness of the surface called sastrugi." MacAyeal also offered a more poetic description of the sound, comparing it to "the buzz produced by thousands of cicada bugs when they overrun the tree canopy and grasses in late summer."

 

Julien Chaput, a geophysicist and mathematician at Colorado State University in Fort Collins and the leader of the research, told NBC News MACH in an email that the sound was "a little like yodeling, except with 10 people all singing in dissonance. It's a little eerie." But the singing ice is more than a sonic curiosity. Chaput and his colleagues argue in their paper that it might be possible to tap into seismic data to help monitor the health of ice shelves, which have been thinning in response to global warming — and causing sea levels to rise around the world. so that's all pretty crazy. Antarctica is singing to us. (Play sound)

 

Ever hear of a solar pillar? Well you're about to. The air in Antarctica is frequently very dry. The low temperatures mean that little or no water vapour is held in the air, instead it freezes and falls out, or builds up on surfaces as frost. Sometimes however, depending on the particular atmospheric conditions, the frozen water vapour remains in the air as suspended ice crystals. In these conditions the crystals can reflect sunlight in a variety of ways forming atmospheric phenomena of different types.

 

One of these phenomena is the "Solar Pillar" in the picture. The sun is reflected very strongly off tiny suspended flat ice crystals in the air which are oriented at or almost horizontally, so that the reflection is almost as bright as the sun itself. Like a rainbow, this sight depends on the viewing angle, where the light is coming from and where the observer is standing. The pillar appears to move when the observer moves, but always remains directly below the sun because the ice crystals are found throughout the air but only act as mirrors for the sun at the correct viewing angle.

 

Most of you have heard of the northern lights, but did you know there are southern lights? The Southern Lights, commonly known as the Aurora Australis, is one of the world’s greatest wonders. The Southern lights are much more elusive than their Northern Hemisphere counterpart-Aurora Borealis. There is significantly less land mass in the Southern Hemisphere and fewer ideal viewing spots to see the Aurora. However, the Southern Lights are just as, if not more, impressive. Boasting a breathtaking colour palette that goes beyond the green and blues commonly seen at the Northern Lights, to include pinks, purples, oranges and golds.

 

Here's a little nerdy science for ya: The Aurora Australis phenomenon occurs when charged particles from solar winds bombard the Earth’s atmosphere and interact with gases in our planet.

 

These highly energised particles are emitted from the sun and smash into the Earth’s magnetic field at more than 6 million kilometres per hour.

 

For the most part, Earth is protected from solar winds by the magnetosphere, which sounds like Magneto from the X-Men franchise’s bachelor pad. The magnetosphere is a region of space that surrounds the Earth's magnetic field and has a primary purpose of preventing cosmic rays, such as solar winds from entering Earth’s atmosphere. However, occasionally, at particular times of the year, a few charged particles from solar winds make their way through the magnetosphere into our atmosphere. The charged particles move along the Earth's magnetic field lines towards the south and north pole. When they reach the each pole, they collide with atoms in the atmosphere, particularly nitrogen and oxygen, and become increasingly charged. Once the electrons settle back down to their normal level of excitement they glow, creating the magnificent light display, we know as an Aurora.

 

One more fun natural thing for you guys and probably the creepiest. BLOOD FALLS! THIS FIVE-STORY, BLOOD-RED WATERFALL POURS very slowly out of the Taylor Glacier in Antarctica’s McMurdo Dry Valleys. When geologists first discovered the frozen waterfall in 1911, they thought the red color came from algae, but it's true nature turned out to be much more spectacular.

 

Roughly two million years ago, the Taylor Glacier sealed beneath it a small body of water which contained an ancient community of microbes. Trapped below a thick layer of ice, they have remained there ever since, isolated inside a natural time capsule. Evolving independently of the rest of the living world, these microbes exist in a place with no light or free oxygen and little heat, and are essentially the definition of “primordial ooze.” The trapped lake has very high salinity and is rich in iron, which gives the waterfall its red color. A fissure in the glacier allows the subglacial lake to flow out, forming the falls without contaminating the ecosystem within. If you've never seen the falls it's pretty awesome and metal. We'll post pics for sure.

 

Ok so enough of the sciency and nerdy stuff let's get into the crazy shit. 

 

The first one is a fun one. In 2020 a clip from Google Earth was loaded onto youtube showing what appears to be an ice ship! So what exactly is it? Well friends, it depends on what you want to believe. The video sparked a conversation of epic conspiracy proportions! Some think that the "ship" is something connected to a secret Nazi base, which we’ll get to later. Others claim ties to the secret elite and illuminati. 

 

“I was told a couple of years ago that there are ships built underground somewhere on upper east coast (like the ones in the movie 2012) to save the rich and powerful when canary islands get hit with massive earthquake that will take out east coast,” one commenter wrote. 

 

Other theory's range from military and government cover ups to some claiming it to be Noah's ark. The mundane exfoliation is that it's our minds playing a trick on us… but that’s fucking lame and we’re going with the fact that it's something creepy and crazy!!

 

Another fun thing found by Google Earth is a giant mountain sized alien face. Yes you heard right. And if you don't think this is leading to crazy talk… You are seriously mistaken. 

 

Conspiracy theorists Blake and Brett Cousins – of YouTube channel thirdphaseofmoon – shared their thoughts on the Google Earth image.

 

"It appears to be a massive, ancient structure of some kind of face that is being revealed for the first time on Google Earth,” Blake said in his video.

 

"I would have to concur that whatever we’re looking at resembles some sort of megastructure."

 

Brett added: "Could this be something that was left behind by the ancient civilisations of Antarctica?

 

"Ice melting could be revealing structures that would baffle the world." 

 

There it is folks, a giant alien face structure hiding a civilization under Antarctica. Can't argue with the facts. I mean I guess you could say that it's just a case of pareidolia but that's not really that fun so… You know… Alien civilization it is. 

 

Speaking of aliens, A video posted to an “alien" sub-section on Reddit shows how zooming in on a certain area of South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands reveals a mysterious vast section of disturbed snow. It shows what looks like something that crashed into the snow and skidded some 3000ft. Of course that brought out the nut jobs, and moody, claiming that it is a ufo crash site. 

 

Reddit user Hey-man-Shabozi captioned the post: "What’s over 200ft long, casts a shadow of 50ft, and appears to have crashed on an antarctic  island, moving so fast that it slid over 3,000ft?”

 

The island, located near Antarctica, has a strange snow formation in the area near Mount Carse.

 

It looks very similar to an avalanche but the video posted on Reddit goes into detail about how it could be more than what it seems. The main point of contention for the Reddit user is that there appears to be a long thin object that has created a lengthy straight track away from the disrupted area as if it crashed at speed. The Reddit user estimated that the tracks were more than 3,000 feet long.

 

He also claims to have worked out that the object responsible was 200 feet long.

 

Let's be honest… If you can't trust a reddit user… Who can you trust these days? Of course most people will say “oh it was just a big rock falling during an avalanche”, but everyone else who actually knows… They know it's a ufo. And they all know that the claims of a rock falling during an avalanche is just another global cover up to hide the fact that there are aliens. 

Another one comes thanks to a visual grab from Google Earth, which seems to suggest that there might actually be a tall building standing on the ice in Antarctica. These findings have been uploaded to YouTube Channel MrMBB33 (who coincidentally was also responsible for finding the ice ship we discussed earlier) and the conspiracy theorist who runs this channel suggests that this structure is as much as 2,000 feet in height and the width spans six football fields. Viewers are clearly interested in what they are seeing. “Strange that all countries want to take over land but no country claims Antarctica. I think there is something they know that we don’t," comments a user Lorrie Battistoni. Another user suggested that something on the lines of the Project Iceworm was active in Antarctica—the Project Iceworm was a then top-secret project of the United States Army which attempted to build a network of tunnel based and mobile nuclear missile launch sites under the ice sheet in Greenland. Equally, there are sceptics who suggest this is nothing more than a block of ice, albeit with a slightly different shape. 

 

 Since we brought up tunnels, there's supposedly an air vent on top of a “metallic shield” in a no-fly zone on the icy continent. Estimates are that the area is over 150 feet wide — based on measurements using Google Earth tools. Its two distinctive features: a pitch-black “opening” and a metal-like “shield.”

 

"That looks like some sort of vent, a thermal vent that goes underground. You can tell that the snow is darker than any other snow in the surrounding area,” one person said “That would imply to me that there is heat transfer going on” and suggests the top section is some metal or metal alloy man-made structure “over an opening that goes underground.

 

Someone else points out there is no volcanic activity nearby: “It is just there all by itself.”

 

So what is it? Just a cave? A man made structure hiding a secret underground base? Should we just go back to aliens for this one? What do you guys think?

Ok how about Hitler and the Nazis? Well since people believe there are Nazis and maybe even Hitler himself still hiding out in Antarctica. This theory originates from a story about a Nazi expedition to Antarctica.  The story says that while exploring and mapping the area, they uncovered a multitude of underground caves and rivers.  One of the caves was particularly large and was turned into a large city that would be home to both Nazi’s and other powerful groups, like the illuminati.  Along the way, the Germans either came across alien technology or made contact with the aliens.  The Germans learned how to use the technology and were able to build a number of weapons.  This belief is extraordinary because there is no evidence that the Nazis ever did, or were even capable of building such a base.  Geologist and Oceanographer, Colin Summerhayes, partnered with journalist and historian, Peter Beeching, to examine evidence about Antarctica and the Nazis. In  support of this claim is the fact that the Nazis did at one point carry out an expedition to Antarctica in 1938.  Many conspiracy theorists claim that this was a large-scale expedition, with militarized and scientific ships. Another bit of evidence for this theory is about the Nazi’s agreeing to The Antarctic treaty.  The treaty makes Antarctica a research zone and states that Antarctica cannot be targeted in any way by bombs or missiles.  Conspiracy theorists jump on this and say why would Nazi Germany sign this agreement?  The claim is that they signed this agreement to deter other nations from visiting Antarctica and stumbling upon their base and the research being done there.  There has been no evidence found to corroborate that point.  Additionally, some claim that Hitler himself is actually in Antarctica.  The evidence for this idea is based on the claim that a German ship arrived at an Argentinian base located in Antarctica after the war ended.  Another popular conspiracy theory is that Hitler escaped to Argentina at the end of the war, and so therefore he was picked up by a German ship, and sent to Antarctica to live at the secret bunker.  However there is no evidence that Hitler ever made it to Argentina or that the supposed German boat ever went to Argentina’s Antarctic base… At least that's what they want you to believe! Since there have been other strange military activity there such as supposed German boats coming or the U.S. project “Operation Highjump”, since people really think that this is a feasible thing. Of course These strange events, and the lack of information around them, often lead people to conclude that it must be because there is something going on there that the government doesn’t want us to know about.  Many of these beliefs actually come from Flat Earth.  Flat Earthers often propose that it is illegal to go to Antarctica and has a constant military presence, that’s why none of them can go investigate if the ice wall is out there.  There is a subgroup of flat earth who believes that part of the reason you “can’t go” to Antarctica is because of the Nazi base there. So think about that one...flat earthers believing there are Nazis bases in Antarctica… Good Lord. In 1978, Miguel Serrano, a Chilean diplomat and Nazi sympathizer, published El Cordón Dorado: Hitlerismo Esotérico [The Golden Thread: Esoteric Hitlerism] (in Spanish), in which he claimed that Adolf Hitler was an Avatar of Vishnu and was, at that time, communing with Hyperborean gods in an underground Antarctic base in New Swabia. Serrano predicted that Hitler would lead a fleet of UFOs from the base to establish the Fourth Reich. In popular culture, this alleged UFO fleet is referred to as the Nazi flying saucers from Antarctica. Oh boy. We really gotta figure out if the Nazis are on the moon or in Antarctica!

 

How about pyramids… You like pyramids? We got pyramids… maybe.

THE oldest pyramids on Earth are hidden away under the deep cold snow of Antarctica, conspiracy theorists have shockingly claimed . Ancient alien theorists who are certain secret pyramids are concealed all around the globe, think some may be hidden on Antarctica. Conspiracy theorists, in particular, point to a pyramid-like structure near the Shackleton mountain range on the icy continent. The “pyramid” in question, when viewed on satellite imagery, does appear to have four steep sides much like the Great Pyramid of Giza. Conspiracy theory author David Childress told Ancient Aliens there is a distinct possibility the Shackleton pyramid is the oldest of its kind on Earth.

 

He said: “If this gigantic pyramid in Antarctica is an artificial structure, it would probably be the oldest pyramid on the planet and in fact, it might be the master pyramid that all the other pyramids on planet Earth were designed to look like.” Another conspiracy theorist agreed, saying: "All the way around the world we find evidence of pyramid structures.

 

"We should start looking at the possibility there was habitation on Antarctica.

 

"Was it a lost civilization? Could it be ancient astronauts?

 

"And just maybe, the earliest monuments of our own civilization came from Antarctica.” 

 

But the theory was challenged by Dr Michael Salla, author of Exopolitics Political Implications of the Extraterrestrial Presence. The alien expert argued the Antarctic pyramid is just one node in a global network of power-generating pyramids strategically placed around Earth.

 

A popular pyramid conspiracy claims the triangular structures act as power generators of sorts, built for the purpose of transiting vast amounts of energy wirelessly.

 

Dr Salla said: “There has been extensive research done on pyramids throughout the world, in terms of their structure and what they really are.

 

“One of the theories is that pyramids are power generators and so if you have these pyramids strategically placed around the world generating a charge, it’s possible to create a general standing wave around the world that is a wireless transmission of energy.”

 

Also There is a claim that the British set up a base called Maudheim-1 (there are no records) in Dronning Maud Land during the war to observe the apparent Nazi base, this was supposedly attacked by the Nazis in July 1945 followed by SAS led (failed) retaliatory attacks from October to December that year.

 

How about a couple quick hits:

 

 Some think that the remains of a  Motte and Bailey castle were uncovered. Motte-and-bailey castle is a European fortification with a wooden or stone keep situated on a raised area of ground called a motte, accompanied by a walled courtyard, or bailey, surrounded by a protective ditch and palisade. Relatively easy to build with unskilled labour, but still militarily formidable, these castles were built across northern Europe from the 10th century onwards, spreading from Normandy and Anjou in France, into the Holy Roman Empire in the 11th century. The Normans introduced the design into England and Wales. Motte-and-bailey castles were adopted in Scotland, Ireland, the Low Countries and Denmark in the 12th and 13th centuries. 

 

The structure is about 120m across which makes it of the appropriate size range and has two sort-of circles, though the whole thing appears to be more or less completely flat rather than having any significant raised earthworks which in part define a Motte and Bailey castle, the mounds of such castles in towns, cities and in the countryside in Europe are particularly enduring across the centuries. There's a scientific explanation for it but that doesn't stop people from believing what they want. 

 

Then of course you have the flat earthers . There is a weird conspiracy theory that Antarctica and the South Pole do not exist. This belief is most common among flat-earthers who claim that our planet is flat. Flat-earthers believe that the North Pole is at the center of the world while the South Pole surrounds the Earth. According to flat-earthers, Antarctica is actually a thick wall about 30 to 60 meters (100 to 200 ft.) high that surrounds our planet. The wall stops everything from falling over the edge of the Earth. Flat-earthers say we cannot confirm the existence of the wall because world governments and the United Nations have strict no-fly and no-sail zones around Antarctica. Conspiracy theorists believe that the British Captain Cook is one of the few humans to have ever seen the wall apart from government agents. Supposedly, Captain Cook reported seeing the huge wall during the three voyages he made to Antarctica. The wall covered the entire coastline, and he could not land anywhere because it was just too tall to climb.

 

Speaking if stupid, we touched on this not long ago so we'll just mention it in passing… But apparently there's a hole at the south pole that is the entrance to the hollow earth...I mean… Come On people… Is this where we are as a society??

 

Going along with this theory of a hole at the pole, there are people that think the world is hiding that fact with a fake south pole. So when people go to the spot that is thought to be the south pole is actually an arbitrary random spot chosen by the powers of the world to throw everyone off the trail of hollow earth. 

 

Some people also believe that there is actually a tropical region that is  hidden in Antarctica. Yes, a tropical region. Some say it is in the no fly zone that is also attributed to the spot where the hole to hollow earth is… we think these guys should fight it out. To the death. Like, no survivors. On the other hand there is recent evidence that there used to be rain forests on the continent so maybe the believers aren't as crazy as we think. Just kidding. They’re nuttier than squirrel turds.

 

Some other crackpots also really believe Antarctica is the Land of The Ancient Race of Super-Beings With Big Angular Heads. Some of them tried to leave many years ago and made it to Easter Island where their enormous weight made them sink into the ground and a simple common bacterial infection turned them to stone. The bacterium cannot live in Antarctica so they continue their highly sophisticated secret society under the ice, dude we can't make this stuff up. Maybe it was Medusa… see, we can make shit up, too!

 

And finally… Is Antarctica really the lost city of atlantis? The theory that Antarctica is Atlantis is a relatively new one, dating back to the mid 20th Century.

 

According to Charles Hapgood's 1958 book 'Earth's Shifting Crust',  the continent of Antarctica was in fact originally much further north than its current position. Due to the shifting of the Earth's crust, the continent was displaced, and the climate of the continent, which had been mild, plummeted to below freezing.

 

This shift in location and temperature has led some to argue that an ancient Civilisation existed on the continent, which was subsequently destroyed by this monumental geographical realignment.

 

In 2016, faint credence was given to this claim with the revelation that remains of a human settlement had been found under the Antarctic ice.

 

One report claimed, 'the pictures, taken using remote sensing photography for NASA's Operation IceBridge mission to Antarctica, show what online sleuths believe could be a city.'

Ranker list of best winter thriller movies

https://www.ranker.com/list/thriller-movies-set-in-snow/ranker-film

The Exorcism of Roland Doe. Halloween 2021

Happy Halloween you beautiful bastards… Well… in a couple of days, but this is our Halloween episode so keep it or leave it. We've got some pretty crazy and creepy stuff going on today. Let's get into it!

 

Do you guys believe in demons? Possession? Are you afraid that at some point in your life a being from hell or possibly another plane of existence could enter your body and wreak havoc on your body, mind, and soul? That they could possibly even kill you or cause injury or death to someone you know? What must it be like to not be in control of your own being? Well, we're gonna discuss all of that today while talking about perhaps the most famous possession incident out there. The one that inspired what many think it's one of, if not the, scariest horror movies ever. Today we are discussing the possession and Exorcism of Roland Doe, also sometimes referred to as Robbie Manheim. While there are many versions of what happened, we will try to stay as close to what is thought to be the actual events.  "Robbie Mannheim" was Allen's alias for the 13-year-old boy at the center of the exorcism story; the Catholic Church referred to him as "Roland Doe." None of the eyewitnesses publicly revealed the boy's true identity, and it was never disclosed  from the unedited diary of Raymond Bishop that was used by Thomas B Allen to write the book "Possession: The True Story Of An Exorcism, which is thought to be the closest account to what actually happened. 

 

From here on out we will be referring to the boy as Roland since that was the name given to him by the Catholic Church and we don't want to cause any confusion by switching names during the show. 

 

In January of 1949 strange things started to happen in the house where Roland lived in maryland. Roland was born into a Lutheran family and was an only child. He spent a lot of time with his Aunt Harriet. Most accounts of the story day that when Aunt Harriet died that's when the whole ordeal began. You see it seems that Roland took an interest in the… Wait for it… Ouija board!!! Oh yeah the good old wholesome family entertainment known as the Ouija board. Well Aunt Harriet decided to help Roland learn the ways of the Ouija board when he showed interest and when she died the family thought that the things they were experiencing were caused by the deceased Aunt and things having to do with the Ouija board.  So what types of things are the family experiencing you ask? Well we're not going to tell you. Goodnight everyone!!! Anyways… started with the usual small stuff. There were scratching sounds coming from the walls. They claimed to hear dripping water but couldn't locate a source of the sound. They claimed that objects around the house would levitate or move on their own when Roland was around. They claim they witnessed his mattress moving on it's own. The family was understandably concerned. They began to seek the opinions of physicians and psychiatrists who predictably couldn't really find anything wrong with the boy. They also sought advice from a minister from their local Lutheran Church. They go to Rev. Luther Miles Schulze, a Lutheran minister who happened to be greatly interested in the paranormal, as it was called at that time, and he said, 'Go to a Catholic priest; the Catholics know about this kind of thing. well thanks for nothing I guess! 

 

Interestingly enough, later on Rev. Schulze spoke at a meeting of a Washington, D.C., branch of the Society for Parapsychology about this case. That information made its way to the press, and the published Schulze interview led to the leaking of the exorcism story by Catholic sources. Studying at Georgetown at that time, William Peter Blatty read the story in the Washington Post and years later used it as inspiration for The Exorcist. 

 

On Schulze's advice, the family went to a local priest, Father E. Albert Hughes, who "gave them a bottle of holy water and candles and sent them on their way. 

 

Unfortunately the holy water and candles didn't really do the trick. Things kept happening and things kept getting worse. Roland was getting more violent but it only seemed to come out at night. According to witnesses in the evening Roland would put on his pajamas and get in bed and that's when the trouble would start. He seemed to come into a trance-like state. He would claim to have no recollection of the night's events the following morning. 

 

Come February things were getting a little more intense. Around February 26 scratches started to appear randomly on Roland's body. Several nights later words supposedly began to appear on his body either scratched or "branded" on him.  At this point around Feb 28th, it seems Roland's first Exorcism took place at Georgetown hospital. Que the return of father Hughes. Hughes asked the arch­bishop of Washington, D.C., for permission to perform an exorcism on the boy. This was the first time that something major seemed to have taken place. During the Exorcism Roland supposedly broke of a piece of a bedspring from the mattress he was on and slashed the good father from his shoulder to his wrist although Later when the case was looked at a little more in depth there was no evidence that this event ever actually happened but will get to that later. 

 

At this point Roland's mother thought that maybe a change of scenery would be good. She began thinking about moving back to where she used to live...St. Louis. Now low and behold weird had it that after they discussed the move, the word Louis magically appeared scratched onto Roland.  Mama took this as a sign and they packed up and headed to St Louis sometime around March 4 or 5th. The boy ended up staying in a house with a relative who had attended Saint Louis University. One of her professors was Father Bishop, who became one of sev­eral Jesuits to participate in the exorcism and kept the day-by-day account on which Allen's book is based. Bishop talked to his friend William Bowdern, S.J. After both men consulted with Paul Reinert, S.J., then president of Saint Louis University, and St. Louis Archbishop Joseph Ritter, all agreed that an exorcism would be performed according to the Roman Ritual. It was something that Bowdern, who was chosen to be the lead exorcist, knew little about.

 

"Father Halloran said the first thing Bowdern did was hit the books," Allen, who wrote the book about the incident, said. "He would have learned something about it while becoming a Jesuit, but there isn't much call for exorcism to the modern-day priest. But Bowdern was a veteran of World War II, he'd been in combat -- so he was a combination of a religious man who was very tough." 

 

The process ended up taking more than a month, during which Bowdern fasted. Several priests, Alexian Brothers and family members participated in or witnessed the rite, which  always began in the evening.

 

"The pattern was that the boy would act normally during the day, and then he would put on his pajamas and go to bed, and go into a trance and start screaming and yelling and acting wild," Allen said. In the morning, the boy apparently never remem­bered what transpired the night before.

 

Many things were related to have happened during these weeks of Exorcism including the mattress moving as it did before, objects levitating and moving on their own during the rites, Roland speaking in latin and other random languages, more scratches appearing on the boys body and road beginning more angry and violent during the rites. 

 

Halloran stated that during this scene words such as "evil" and "hell", along with other various marks, appeared on the teenager's body. Allegedly, during the Litany of the Saints portion of the exorcism ritual, the boy's mattress began to shake. 

 

A Jesuit priest named John Walsh, a friend of Bowdern's, talked about the Roman numeral X that appeared on the boy's chest. It was believed that 10 demons were involved, Walsh said.

 

A voice coming from the boy supposedly told an attending Jesuit, who was assisting Bowdern, that he would die in 10 years and would burn in hell. The Jesuit had a fondness for strong drink, and the voice so unnerved him that he stopped drinking, for a time. 

 

Another incident supposedly written about in the diary was when One night, sitting on the bed beside the boy, Bowdern watched a tiny, nearly invisible pitchfork, or lines, move from under the boy's upper thigh all the way to the ankle. Droplets of blood occurred. Bowdern was only a foot away, and there were the usual four or five witnesses.

 

Often, according to the priests, he had to be forcibly restrained. In one of these incidents, he broke the nose of  Walter Halloran. He said of the incident

 

          ''I got in on the business with the prayers of exorcism, and the little boy would go into a seizure and get quite violent. So Father Bowdern asked me to hold him.'' (Halloran is a former high school football player.) ''Yes, he did break my nose.''

 

Halloran said he observed the streaks and arrows and words like ''hell'' that would rise on the child's skin. ''That happened a number of times. And it wasn't a case of taking a pin and scratching himself. It just appeared, and with quite a bit of pain.

 

''On Holy Thursday that year, this phenomenon started occurring as I was reading the prayers. 'Don't talk about it anymore, this hurts too much, ' the kid said. The markings were most visible, and there were many obscenities. He was a nice little kid.''

 

Throughout the ordeal, Bowdern fasted on bread and water. ''He looked terrible, '' said his brother, Dr. Edward H. Bowdern of St. Louis. He looked thin and wasted, and developed styes and boils, Dr. Bowdern said.

 

Other accounts attributed a frightening degree of strength to young Roland, and claimed that he spoke in perfect Latin, though the boy was unschooled in the language. Some sources state that at least one of these exorcisms was observed by no less than 48 people, nine of them Jesuits.

 

After all of this craziness took place...a miracle of sorts happened. At 11:00pm on 18 April 1949, while wearing saint medals and holding a crucifix, Roland screamed, “Satan! Satan! I am St. Michael! I command you, Satan, and the other evil spirits to leave this body, in the name of Dominus, immediately! Now! Now! Now!” After a final spasm, Roland fell quiet and proclaimed that “He is gone.”   and with that the Exorcism was finished and Road seemed to well again. Following the final exorcism, Roland claimed to experience a vision of St. Michael slaying a dragon. Believing it was a sign that his ordeal was over, the family returned home from Missouri 12 days later. The strange behavior ceased and Hunkeler returned to school. After this not many people know what happened to Roland but a few people did keep tabs on him and the results are that the boy went on to live a normal life and eventually married and had a son he named Michael after St. Michael. 

 

The following is a timeline of events that took place according to the diary that was kept. There are a few extras details about dinner if the effects as well and it's a pretty good summary. 

15 January 1949

 

A dripping noise was heard in his grandmother’s bedroom by the boy and his grandmother.

 A picture of Christ on the wall shook and scratching noises were heard under the floorboards.

Scratching was heard every night from 7 p.m. until midnight for 10 days. This was attributed to a rodent at the time

 

26 January 1949

 

Aunt “Tillie”/Harriet dies of multiple sclerosis in St. Louis.

Waves of air reportedly strike the grandmother

3 knocks are heard on the floor. Roland's mom asks, “If you are Harriet, tell me positively by knocking four times.” Four knocks were heard.

Scratchings on Hunkeler’s mattress.

 

28 January 1949

 

After 3 days of silence, nighttime “squeaking shoes" on rolands bed heard for 6 nights

 

17 February 1949

 Roland spends the night with Lutheran minister Schulze.

Reportedly Schulze heard scratching noises, and witnessed:

bed vibrations;

a chair in which Roland sat tipping over;

and, the movements of a pallet of blankets.

Schulze's family take Roland to the Mental Hygiene Clinic of the University of Maryland for testing.

After two rounds of testing, nothing abnormal was discovered.

Schulze also contacted J.B. Rhine, the founder of the parapsychology laboratory at Duke University. Rhine and wife, Louisa Rhine, drove up from North Carolina to evaluate the boy but saw no activity.

 

26 February 1949

 

Scratches or markings appeared on the boy’s body for 4 consecutive nights.

Circa

 

27 February 1949

 

Words began to appear on the boy’s body and seemed to be scratched by claws.

Father Edward Albert Hughes of St. James Catholic Church in Mount Rainier is called upon to review the case. Hughes suggested the family use blessed candles, holy water, and special prayers.

Hughes reportedly witnessed:

Unassisted movements of a telephone and other objects in his office.

Roland make obscene and blasphemous remarks at him in a strange, diabolical voice.

And the room became unexplainably cold.

 Father Hughes was convinced that Roland was possessed and requested Cardinal Patrick A O’Boyle at authorize exorcism.

 

28 February 1949

 

 Until

 

3 March 1949

 

Roland is a patient at Georgetown University Hospital.

This is the point that the alleged first exorcism took place.

Mother sees the bloody word “Louis” scratched on Roland. When the boy is asked if word “Louis” means “St. Louis.” The word “Yes” is said to appear.

Family departs for Normandy, Missouri, near St. Louis to stay at the home of an aunt.

 

8 March 1949

 

The shaking of the mattress and scratching resumed at aunt’s home in Normandy.

9 March 1949

 

Father Raymond J. Bishop of St. Louis University sees Roland for the first time.

Bishop  witnesses the scratching of the boy’s body as well as the motion of the mattress.

 

11 March 1949

 

Father William S. Bowdern of St. Francis Xavier Church asked to meet Roland.

Father Bowdern read the Novena prayer of St. Francis Xavier, blessed the boy with a relic and placed a crucifix under the boy’s pillow.

After everyone has left the room, a loud noise was heard and, reportedly, a large book case had moved about. A bench was turned over and the crucifix had been moved to the edge of the bed.

The mattress was also reported to shake.

 

16 March 1949

 

Archbishop Joseph E. Ritter gave Father Bowdern permission to begin the formal rite of exorcism.

The first of the second series of exorcisms is performed at the Normandy, Missouri home.

A number of priest were in attendance including:

Bowdern as chief exorcist,

Rev. Walter Halloran as the assistant exorcist (but he was removed before the final exorcism)

Father Lawrence Kenny

And Father Charles O'Hara of Marquette University.

During the exorcism:

Roland becomes violent, spits at the priests, with howls and growls.

The bed shakes.

Allegedly, word such as “Satan” and “devil” appear on chest as scratches.

Proving too violent for the exorcisms to be performed in home, the exorcisms were moved to the rectory at St. Francis Xavier Church.

When this proves to be too dangerous, Roland is transferred to the Alexian Brothers Hospital and placed in the psychiatric ward.

Exorcisms continue at the hospital.

1 April 1949

 

Roland is baptized Catholic.

4 April 1949

 

In brief trip back to Maryland by train, Roland becomes violent and attacks Father Bowdern, kicking him in the testicles.

9 April 1949

 

Roland is returned to St. Louis and briefly stays at “White House,” a Jesuit retreat along the Mississippi near St. Louis. Roland attempts to commit suicide by throwing himself over the bluff into the river but is prevented from doing so by Halloran.

 Roland is then returned to the Alexian Brothers Hospital and placed in the psychiatric ward where he is restrained.

Communion was refused.

Easter

 

18 April 1949

 

Final exorcism

 

So who was Roland? Well most people seem to think it's a man named Ronald Edwin Hunkeler. And there are many that believe he was never actually possessed. According to one report Hunkeler was nothing more than a bully and a brat looking for attention. 

 

The identity of Ronald Edwin Hunkeler was confirmed by T. Weston Scott Jr., a Cottage City resident since 1919 and a lifelong member of the Cottage City-Colmar Manor Fire Department. Having served as the local fire chief for over twenty years, Scott stated:

 

The boy involved was [Ronald Edwin Hunkeler] and he lived at 3807 40th Avenue… I knew the boy but I didn’t know too much about what was going on to be frank. They kept it quiet at the time and later on there was a lot of stuff about it. The Hunkelers lived there since the thirties and they stayed in that house for about 20 years. I think most of the older neighbors who were around at the time knew about it. Most of them are gone now, though.

One of Ronald Edwin Hunkeler’s contemporaries and neighborhood friends submitted himself to an interview with Opsasnick to discuss the case under the grant of animity.  JC, as he is referred to by Opsasnick, stated:

 

No, I don’t think he was ever possessed. I think it was psychological. As far as any real possession or anything like that, I don’t think so. There are some interesting psychological aspects to it. They were German Lutherans and he was an only child and I think the grandmother is actually the central figure. She played a very influential role in all of this. You had this old world religion superstition and the mother got caught up in it and the father just kind of stayed in the background—I think he could see what was going on which is why he is never mentioned. The true story is much more intriguing from a psychological point of view. The basis of the real thing could be a damn good story, no doubt about it in my mind. The rest of it I can run a parallel. You had these two mischief makers that had a strong tendency to take advantage of people who were weaker than themselves. They were a pair of connivers and they had their act down. In pairs like that they compete with each other and they don’t get along well and they have to keep doing something to retain their relationship and all the time this is mischief in one form or another. They were trying to outdo each other.

JC’s brother, called BC in the interview, was for many years the best friend of Ronald Edwin Hunkeler. In discussions with BC, Ronald Edwin Hunkeler was described as being submerged in a household with a fanatically religious mother and grandmother that embraced spiritualism. Hunkeler was hated by his classmates and prone to tantrums. He frequently showed violent tendencies and exhibited sadistic behavior to animals and people around him. In short, may of the traits used to describe the possessed boy had been a fundamental part of his character. JC summed up Hunkeler’s personality with “People ask what he was like back then and I can tell you that he was never what you would call a normal child. He was an only child and kind of spoiled and he was a mean bastard. We were together all the time and we used to fight all the time.”

JC did recall Hunkeler’s last day in class during the 1948-1949 school year:

 

We were in a class together at Bladensburg Junior High. He was sitting in a chair and it was one of those deals with one arm attached and it looked like he was shaking the desk—the desk was shaking and vibrating extremely fast and I remember the teacher yelling at him to stop it and I remember he kind of yelled “I’m not doing it” and they took him out of class and that was the last I ever saw of him in school. The desk certainly did not move around the room like that book [Possessed] said, it was just shaking. I don’t know if he was doing it or what was doing it because I just can’t clear it in my mind.

JC summarized Hunkeler’s character with his own story about life with Hunkeler:

 

There was this dog that ran around the neighborhood at that time…. It was half-red cocker spaniel and it looked like it was half-chow. This dog was mean and nobody ever knew who owned it. It just came out of nowhere. Well, [Ron] basically adopted that dog. That dog was really his best friend, not me. That dog hated everyone and everything and would bite anyone in sight but he loved [Ron]. [Ron] would feed it and bring it in the house with him. One time he called me up and told me to come over and I never really trusted him because he was sneaky and a real mean little bastard. I was going over there and he was looking out from the basement window and when I got to his house I heard the back porch door slam and I knew right away what he’d done. He’d done this sort of thing many times before to different kids. I started running like hell because he’d sicked that dog on me. When I got home he called me up and was laughing like hell. That’s what kind of person he was. He did that all the time.

 

So it seemed like little Roland may not have been the good kid everyone claimed him to be. But did that mean he was crazy enough to fake a possession? 

 

There have been several investigations into the exorcisms. So what did they find?  Well one came up with dinner interesting stuff. According to various reports, Father Edward Albert Hughes (?-1980), was the first priest to attempt an exorcism on Ronald Edwin Hunkeler. The claim is that after an initial session with the boy, Hughes had the boy sent to the Georgetown University Hospital where three days of exorcisms were performed and that Hughes was injured in the process. However, Opsasnick suggests there is no evidence to suggest Hughes ever visited Hunkeler in his Cottage City home or at Georgetown University Hospital. Instead, there seems evidence to suggest Mrs. Hunkeler took her son to a single consultation in February 1949 with Hughes at St. James Church in Mount Rainier, Maryland where he was assigned as assistant pastor. There is also no evidence to suggest that Hughes was ever attacked. On the other hand, Father William Sauders, writing for the Catholic Herald in 1998, asserts firmly that Hughes did conduct the exorcism at the Georgetown University Hospital.

Hughes’s assistant pastor, Frank Bober confirmed that most likely it was Mrs. Hunkeler that initiated the interested of the clergy. According to Bober, “Father Hughes never went to the boy’s home… Basically it was the mother that brought the kid to the rectory and the thing is she’s the one who gave Father Hughes all the information. Everything that I know of that he shared with me took place in the rectory, not at the house.” Bober also stated that Father Hughes had described the Hunkeler boy as having a “dark stare, almost as if there were nothing behind the eyes”. Bober further claims that Hughes experienced an unseen force pressing him against the wall.

 

In an effort to clarify the events surrounding the exorcisms back in 1949, one of the few witnesses willing to go on record was Father Walter Halloran, who was called by Father William Bowdern to assist in the exorcism. When asked if Hunkeler was possessed, Halloran said “I can’t go on record… I never made an absolute statement about the things because I didn’t feel I was qualified. I hadn’t studied the phenomena and that sort of thing. All I did was report the things that I saw and whether I would make a statement one way or another wouldn’t make any difference…” When questioned about reports of the boy speaking other languages, Halloran stated, “Just Latin… I think he mimicked us.” Halloran said there were no demonic changes in the boy’s voice and that when the boy struck him it wasn’t with extraordinary strength.

 

In his 1993 book Possessed: The True Story of an Exorcism, author Thomas B. Allen offered "the consensus of today's experts" that "Robbie was just a deeply disturbed boy, nothing supernatural about him".

 

Author Mark Opsasnick[1] questioned many of the supernatural claims associated with the story, proposing that "Roland Doe" was simply a spoiled, disturbed bully who threw deliberate tantrums to get attention or to get out of school. Opsasnick reports that Halloran, who was present at the exorcism, never heard the boy's voice change, and he thought the boy merely mimicked Latin words he heard clergymen say, rather than gaining a sudden ability to speak Latin. Opsasnick reported that when marks were found on the boy's body, Halloran failed to check the boy's fingernails to see if he had made the marks himself. Opsasnick also questioned the story of Hughes' attempts to exorcise the boy and his subsequent injury, saying he could find no evidence that such an episode had actually occurred.

 

During his investigation Opsasnick discovered:

 

The exorcism did not take place at 3210 Bunker Hill Road in Mount Rainier, Maryland

The boy never lived in Mount Rainier

The boy's home was in Cottage City, Maryland

Much of the commonly accepted information about this story is based on hearsay, is not documented, and was never fact-checked

There is no evidence Father E. Albert Hughes visited the boy's home, had him admitted to Georgetown Hospital, requested that the boy be restrained at the hospital, attempted an exorcism of the boy at Georgetown Hospital, or was injured by the boy during an exorcism (or at any other time)

There is ample evidence refuting claims that Father Hughes suffered an emotional breakdown and disappeared from the Cottage City community

According to Opsasnick, individuals connected to the incident were influenced by their own specializations:

 

To psychiatrists, Rob Doe suffered from mental illness. To priests this was a case of demonic possession. To writers and film/video producers this was a great story to exploit for profit. Those involved saw what they were trained to see. Each purported to look at the facts but just the opposite was true — in actuality they manipulated the facts and emphasized information that fit their own agendas

 

Opsasnik wrote that after he located and spoke with neighbors and childhood friends of the boy (most of whom he only referenced by initials) he concluded that "the boy had been a very clever trickster, who had pulled pranks to frighten his mother and to fool children in the neighborhood".

 

Skeptic Joe Nickell[8] wrote that there was "simply no credible evidence to suggest the boy was possessed by demons or evil spirits" and maintains that the symptoms of possession can be "childishly simple" to fake. Nickell dismissed suggestions that supernatural forces made scratches or markings or caused words to appear on the teenager's body in unreachable places, saying, "A determined youth, probably even without a wall mirror, could easily have managed such a feat - if it actually occurred. Although the scratched messages proliferated, they never again appeared on a difficult-to-reach portion of the boy's anatomy." On one occasion the boy was reportedly seen scratching the words "hell" and "christ" on his chest by using his own fingernails.[8] According to Nickell:

 

Nothing that was reliably reported in the case was beyond the abilities of a teenager to produce. The tantrums, "trances", moved furniture, hurled objects, automatic writing, superficial scratches, and other phenomena were just the kinds of things someone of R's age could accomplish, just as others have done before and since. Indeed, the elements of "poltergeist phenomena", "spirit communication", and "demonic possession"—taken both separately and, especially, together, as one progressed to the other—suggest nothing so much as role-playing involving trickery.

 

Nickell also dismissed stories of the boy's prodigious strength, saying he showed "nothing more than what could be summoned by an agitated teenager" and criticized popular accounts of the exorcism for what he termed a "stereotypical storybook portrayal" of the Devilm

 

Two Christian academics, Terry D. Cooper, a professor of psychology, and Cindy K. Epperson, a professor of sociology, wrote that advocates of possession believe that "although they are not frequent, exorcisms are necessary for casting out the demonic" and "cases of genuine possession cannot be explained by psychiatry". Cooper and Epperson devoted a chapter of their book Evil: Satan, Sin, and Psychology to the case and dismissed natural explanations in favor of a supernatural perspective regarding the nature of evil. 

 

Ok so after all that what are we thinking out there? Possession? Jerk kid? Is the exorcist that scary of a movie? This case spawned a ton of movies and stories and tv shows and documentaries and everything else. Honestly it's crazy because not a huge amount is known about what exactly took place. Only a few people truly knew what went down and they are all gone now. No one is sure if Hunkeler is still alive… He'd be in his 90s today if he was still alive. With all of the media that was produced around this case it will most likely never go away but we may never actually know what happened.

 

To possession movies

 

https://www.ranker.com/list/best-demonic-posession-movies/ranker-horror

http://www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com

The Bedlam Asylum... um...Bethlem Royal Hospital. OLD AF.

Today we are taking the train to a wonderful little building… Actually scratch that… This place was once so crazy( no pun intended) that its nickname became a common word.  The definition of the word is "A place or situation of chaotic uproar, and where confusion prevails. " The word is Bedlam. The place is Bethlehem Royal Hospital. The hospital is considered the first lunatic asylum. The word "bedlam" is derived from the hospital's nickname. Bedlam is a bastardization of the word bethlem, which in turn was a corruption of the name Bethlehem. Although the hospital became a modern psychiatric facility, historically it was representative of the worst excesses of asylums in the era of lunacy reform. We're gonna get into all that craziness tonight and see what kind of "Bedlam" actually went on there. 

 

Bethlem Royal Hospital's origins are unlike any other psychiatric hospital in the western world. As a formal organization, it can be traced to its foundation in 1247, during the reign of King Henry III, as a Roman Catholic Monastery for the Priory of the 'New Order of St Mary of Bethlem' in the city of London proper. It was established by the Italian Bishop of Bethlehem, Goffredo de Prefetti, following a donation of personal property by the London Alderman and former City-Sheriff, the Norman, Simon FitzMary. It bears its name after its primary patron and original overseer. The initial location of the priory was in the parish of Saint Botolph, in Bishopsgate's ward, just beyond London's wall and where the south-east corner of Liverpool Street station now stands. Bethlem was not initially intended as a hospital, much less as a specialist institution for the mentally ill. Rather, its purpose was tied to the function of the English Church; the ostensible purpose of the priory was to function as a centre for the collection of alms to support the Crusaders, and to link England to the Holy Land. Bishop De Prefetti's need to generate income for the Crusaders, and restore the financial fortunes of his apostolic see was occasioned by two misfortunes: his bishopric had suffered significant losses following the destructive conquest of the town of Bethlehem by the Khwarazmian Turks in 1244; and the immediate predecessor to his post had further impoverished his cathedral chapter through the alienation of a considerable amount of its property. The new London priory, obedient to the Church of Bethlehem, would also house the poor, disabled and abandoned; and, if visited, provide hospitality to the Bishop, canons and brothers of Bethlehem. The subordination of the priory's religious order to the bishops of Bethlehem was further underlined in the foundational charter which stipulated that Bethlems's prior, canons and male and female inmates were to wear a star upon their cloaks and capes to symbolize their obedience to the church of Bethlehem.

 

During the 13th and 14th centuries, with its activities underwritten by episcopal and papal indulgences, Bethlem's role as a center for the collection of alms for the poor continued. However, over time, its link to the mendicant Order of Bethlehem increasingly devolved, putting its purpose and patronage in severe doubt. In 1346 the Prior of Bethlem, a position at that time granted to the most senior of London's monastic brethren, applied to the city authorities seeking protection; thereafter metropolitan office-holders claimed power to oversee the appointment of prios, and demanded in return an annual payment of 40 shillings from the coffers of the order. It is doubtful whether the City of London ever provided substantial protection, and much less that the priorship fell within their patronage, but dating from the 1346 petition, it played a role in the management of Bethlem's organization and finances.

 

By this time the crusader bishops of Bethlehem had relocated to Clamecy, France under the surety of the Avignon papacy. This was significant as, throughout the reign of King Edward III (1327–77), the English monarchy had extended its patronage over ecclesiastical positions through the seizure of alien priories, mainly French. These were religious institutions that were under the control of non-English religious houses. As a dependent house of the Order of Saint Bethlehem in Clamecy, Bethlem was vulnerable to seizure by the English crown, and this occurred in the 1370s when Edward III took control of all English hospitals. The purpose of this appropriation was to prevent funds raised by the hospital from enriching the French monarchy, via the papal court, and thus supporting the French war effort. After this event, the Head Masters of the hospital, semi-autonomous figures in charge of its day-to-day management, were crown appointees, and Bethlem became an increasingly secularized institution. The memory of Bethlem's foundation became muddled. In 1381 the royal candidate for the post of master claimed that from its beginnings the hospital had been superintended by an order of knights, and he confused the identity of its founder, Goffredo de Prefetti, with that of the Frankish crusader, Godfrey de Bouillon, the King of Jerusalem. The removal of the last symbolic link to the mendicant order was confirmed in 1403 when it was reported that master and inmates no longer wore the symbol of their order, the star of Bethlehem. This was exclusively a political move on the part of the hospital administrators, as the insane were perceived as unclean or possessed by daemons, and not permitted to reside on consecrated soil.

 

From 1330 Bethlehm was routinely referred to as a "hospital" does not necessarily indicate a change in its primary role from alms collection – the word hospital could as likely have been used to denote a lodging for travellers, equivalent to a hostel, and would have been a perfectly apt term to describe an institution acting as a centre and providing accommodation for Bethlem's peregrinating alms-seekers or questores. It is unknown from what exact date it began to specialise in the care and control of the insane. Despite this fact it has been frequently asserted that Bethlem was first used for the insane from 1377. This rather precise date is derived from the unsubstantiated conjecture of the Reverend Edward Geoffrey O'Donoghue, chaplain to the hospital, who published a monograph on its history in 1914. While it is possible that Bethlem was receiving the insane during the late fourteenth-century, the first definitive record of their presence in the hospital is provided from the details of a visitation of the Charity Commissioners in 1403. This recorded that amongst other patients then in the hospital there were six male inmates who were "mente capti", a Latin term indicating insanity. The report of the 1403 visitation also noted the presence of four pairs of manacles, eleven chains, six locks and two pairs of stocks although it is not clear if any or all of these items were for the restraint of the inmates. Thus, while mechanical restraint and solitary confinement are likely to have been used for those regarded as dangerous, little else is known of the actual treatment of the insane in Bethlem for much of the medieval period. The presence of a small number of insane patients in 1403 marks Bethlem's gradual transition from a diminutive general hospital into a specialist institution for the confinement of the insane; this process was largely completed by 1460. In 1546, the Lord-Mayor of London, Sir John Gresham, petitioned the crown to grant Bethlem to the city properly. This petition was partially successful, and King Henry VIII reluctantly ceded to the City of London "the custody, order and governance" of the hospital and of its "occupants and revenues". This charter came into effect in 1547. Under this formulation, the crown retained possession of the hospital, while its administration fell to the city authorities. Following a brief interval when Bethlem was placed under the management of the Governors of Christ's Hospital, from 1557 it was administered by the Governors of the city Bridewell, a prototype House of Correction at Blackfriars. Having been thus one of the few metropolitan hospitals to have survived the dissolution of the monasteries physically intact, this joint administration continued, not without interference by both the crown and city, until Bethlem's incorporation into the National Health Service (NHS) took place in 1948. 

 

In 1546, the Lord-Mayor of London, Sir John Gresham, petitioned the crown to grant Bethlem to the city properly. This petition was partially successful, and King Henry VIII reluctantly ceded to the City of London "the custody, order and governance" of the hospital and of its "occupants and revenues". This charter came into effect in 1547. Under this formulation, the crown retained possession of the hospital, while its administration fell to the city authorities. Following a brief interval when Bethlem was placed under the management of the Governors of Christ's Hospital, from 1557 it was administered by the Governors of the city Bridewell, a prototype House of Correction at Blackfriars. Having been thus one of the few metropolitan hospitals to have survived the dissolution of the monasteries physically intact, this joint administration continued, not without interference by both the crown and city, until Bethlem's incorporation into the National Health Service (NHS) took place in 1948.

 

The position of master was a sinecure largely regarded by its occupants as means of profiting at the expense of the poor in their charge. The appointment of the early masters of the hospital, later known as keepers, had lain within the patronage of the crown until 1547. Thereafter, the city, through the Court of Aldermen, took control of these appointments where, as with the King's appointees, the office was used to reward loyal servants and friends. However, compared to the masters placed by the monarch, those who gained the position through the city were of much more modest status. Thus in 1561, the Lord Mayor succeeded in having his former porter, Richard Munnes, a draper by trade, appointed to the position. The sole qualifications of his successor in 1565 appears to have been his occupation as a grocer. The Bridewell Governors largely interpreted the role of keeper as that of a house-manager and this is clearly reflected in the occupations of most appointees during this period as they tended to be inn-keepers, victualers or brewers and the like. When patients were sent to Bethlem by the Governors of the Bridewell the keeper was paid from hospital funds. For the remainder, keepers were paid either by the families and friends of inmates or by the parish authorities. It is possible that keepers negotiated their fees for these latter categories of patients.

 

In 1598 the long-term keeper, Roland Sleford, a London cloth-maker, left his post, apparently of his own volition, after a nineteen-year tenure. Two months later, the Bridewell Governors, who had until then shown little interest in the management of Bethlem beyond the appointment of keepers, conducted an inspection of the hospital and a census of its inhabitants for the first time in over forty years. Their express purpose was to "to view and p[er]use the defaultes and want of rep[ar]ac[i]ons". They found that during the period of Sleford's keepership the hospital buildings had fallen into a deplorable condition with the roof caving in, the kitchen sink blocked up and reported that: "...it is not fitt for anye man to dwell in wch was left by the Keeper for that it is so loathsomly filthely kept not fitt for anye man to come into the sayd howse".

 

The 1598 committee of inspection found twenty-one inmates then resident with only two of these having been admitted during the previous twelve months. Of the remainder, six, at least, had been resident for a minimum of eight years and one inmate had been there for around twenty-five years. Three were from outside London, six were charitable cases paid for out of the hospital's resources, one was supported by a parochial authority, while the rest were provided for by family, friends, benefactors or, in one instance, out of their funds. The precise reason for the Governors' new-found interest in Bethlem is unknown but it may have been connected to the increased scrutiny the hospital was coming under with the passing of poor law legislation in 1598 and to the decision by the Governors to increase hospital revenues by opening it up to general visitors as a spectacle. After this inspection, the Bridewell Governors initiated some repairs and visited the hospital at more frequent intervals. During one such visit in 1607 they ordered the purchase of clothing and eating vessels for the inmates, presumably indicating the lack of such basic items. 

 

The year 1634 is typically interpreted as denoting the divide between the mediaeval and early modern administration of Bethlem. 

 

Although Bethlem had been enlarged by 1667 to accommodate 59 patients, the Court of Governors of Bethlem and Bridewell observed at the start of 1674 that "the Hospital House of Bethlem is very olde, weake & ruinous and to[o] small and straight for keeping the greater numb[e]r of lunaticks therein att p[re]sent". With the increasing demand for admission and the inadequate and dilapidated state of the building it was decided to rebuild the hospital in Moorfields, just north of the city proper and one of the largest open spaces in London. The architect chosen for the new hospital, which was built rapidly and at great expense between 1675 and 1676, was the natural philosopher and City Surveyor Robert Hooke. He constructed an edifice that was monumental in scale at over 500 feet (150 m) wide and some 40 feet (12 m) deep. The surrounding walls were some 680 feet (210 m) long and 70 feet (21 m) deep while the south face at the rear was effectively screened by a 714-foot (218 m) stretch of London's ancient wall projecting westward from nearby Moorgate. At the rear and containing the courtyards where patients exercised and took the air, the walls rose to 14 feet (4.3 m) high. The front walls were only 8 feet (2.4 m) high but this was deemed sufficient as it was determined that "Lunatikes... are not to [be] permitted to walk in the yard to be situate[d] betweene the said intended new Building and the Wall aforesaid." It was also hoped that by keeping these walls relatively low the splendour of the new building would not be overly obscured. This concern to maximise the building's visibility led to the addition of six gated openings 10 feet (3.0 m) wide which punctuated the front wall at regular intervals, enabling views of the facade. Functioning as both advertisement and warning of what lay within, the stone pillars enclosing the entrance gates were capped by the figures of "Melancholy" and "Raving Madness" carved in Portland stone by the Danish-born sculptor Caius Gabriel Cibber.

 

At the instigation of the Bridewell Governors and to make a grander architectural statement of "charitable munificence", the hospital was designed as a single- rather than double-pile building,  accommodating initially 120 patients. Having cells and chambers on only one side of the building facilitated the dimensions of the great galleries, essentially long and capacious corridors, 13 feet (4.0 m) high and 16 feet (4.9 m) wide, which ran the length of both floors to a total span of 1,179 feet (359 m). Such was their scale that Roger L'Estrange remarked in a 1676 text eulogising the new Bethlem that their "Vast Length ... wearies the travelling eyes' of Strangers". The galleries were constructed more for public display than for the care of patients as, at least initially, inmates were prohibited from them lest "such persons that come to see the said Lunatickes may goe in Danger of their Lives"

 

The architectural design of the new Bethlem was primarily intended to project an image of the hospital and its governors consonant with contemporary notions of charity and benevolence. 

 

By the end of the 18th century the hospital was in severe disrepair. At this point it was rebuilt again on another site.  As the new facility was being built attempts were made to rehouse patients at local hospitals and admissions to Bethlem, sections of which were deemed uninhabitable, were significantly curtailed such that the patient population fell from 266 in 1800 to 119 in 1814. The Governors engaged in protracted negotiations with the City  for another municipally owned location at St. George's Fields in Southwark, south of the Thames.

 

The deal was concluded in 1810 and provided the Governors with a 12 acres site in a swamp-like, impoverished, highly populated, and industrialised area where the Dog and Duck tavern and St George's Spa had been.

 

A competition was held to design the new hospital at Southwark in which the noted Bethlem patient James Tilly Matthews was an unsuccessful entrant. Completed after three years in 1815, it was constructed during the first wave of county asylum building in England under the County Asylum Act ("Wynn's Act") of 1808. Female patients occupied the west wing and males the east, the cells were located off galleries that traversed each wing. Each gallery contained only one toilet, a sink and cold baths. Incontinent patients were kept on beds of straw in cells in the basement gallery; this space also contained rooms with fireplaces for attendants. A wing for the criminally insane – a legal category newly minted in the wake of the trial of a delusional James Hadfield for attempted regicide – was completed in 1816. Problems with the building were soon noted as the steam heating did not function properly, the basement galleries were damp and the windows of the upper storeys were unglazed "so that the sleeping cells were either exposed to the full blast of cold air or were completely darkened". Faced with increased admissions and overcrowding, new buildings, designed by the architect Sydney Smirke, were added from the 1830s. The wing for criminal lunatics was increased to accommodate a further 30 men while additions to the east and west wings, extending the building's facade, provided space for an additional 166 inmates and a dome was added to the hospital chapel. At the end of this period of expansion Bethlem had a capacity for 364 patients. In 1930, the hospital moved to the suburbs of Croydon,[211] on the site of Monks Orchard House between Eden Park, Beckenham, West Wickham and Shirley. The old hospital and its grounds were bought by Lord Rothermere and presented to the London County Council for use as a park; the central part of the building was retained and became home to the Imperial War Museum in 1936. The hospital was absorbed into the National Health Service in 1948. 1997 the hospital started planning celebrations of its 750th anniversary. The service user's perspective was not to be included, however, and members of the psychiatric survivors movement saw nothing to celebrate in either the original Bedlam or in the current practices of mental health professionals towards those in Mneed of care. A campaign called "Reclaim Bedlam" was launched by Pete Shaughnessy, supported by hundreds of patients and ex-patients and widely reported in the media. A sit-in was held outside the earlier Bedlam site at the Imperial War Museum. The historian Roy Porter called the Bethlem Hospital "a symbol for man's inhumanity to man, for callousness and cruelty." 

The hospital continues to operate to this day in this location. 

 

Ok so with that history out of the way let's drive into what really transpired to give this hospital it reputation and that drove Bedlam to strain it's current meaning in our lexicon. 

 

Early on Sanitation was poor and the patients were malnourished. Most of the patients were able to move about freely, but those who were considered dangerous were kept chained to the walls. Patients’ families often dumped unwell family members in the asylum and disowned them. We've discussed other asylums and things dealing with them so we won't get into the fact that most of the patients were horribly misdiagnosed due to little to no understanding of mental health until relatively recently. Some of the treatments used ranged from barbaric and esoteric to just plain crazy. 

 

One of those crazy ass ones was called rotational therapy. Charles Darwin’s grandfather, Erasmus Darwin, began using “rotational therapy”, which involved spinning a patient around and around on a chair or swing for up to an hour. They would sometimes be spun over 100 times per minute. Obviously this would create issues for the patient. Many would get sick and vomit. Most would become very upset and distraught while becoming severely disoriented. The vomiting was seen as a good thing and progress in the treatment. Doctor Joseph Mason Cox was a doctor who actually picked up this type of treatment later on. The time spent spinning, and the speed of the spin, were to be determined by the good doctor. Considering the fact that the common side effect was fear, extreme pallor, vomiting, and voiding the bowels and bladder, the doctor evidently commonly overdid it. Of course he didn’t think so at the time. He wrote happily that, “after a few circumvolutions, I have witnessed the soothing lulling effects, when the mind has become tranquillized and the body quiescent.” It’s true that after being spun until fluid leaves the body via every available orifice, most people have had the fight taken out of them and are ready for a nap. There is one positive side effect of this kind of rampant torture of the insane. Scientists started noticing that vertigo has visual effects, and used the chairs to study them. These rotating chairs mark the beginning of a lot of visual and mental experiments done on perception.

The early 1800s were a particularly grim time, and many patients were chained to the walls naked or almost naked, as the medical director felt that it was necessary to break each person’s will. 

 

Some of the more barbaric and esoteric treatments included bloodletting, leeches and good old fashioned starvation and beatings.  Ice baths would often be used to try and calm down hysterical patients. 

 

At the time, bloodletting was believed to be a completely acceptable and normal way to cure a patient of a variety of mental and physical ailments. Doctors thought that they could literally bleed a sickness out of a patient, which not only doesn't work, it extra-double doesn't work on mental illnesses. Many of the patients were forced to undergo treatment with leeches and the induction of blisters, which mostly just sounds unpleasant, but it often proved fatal. Reportedly, the physicians at the time at least understood that everyone needs blood, so only patients who were deemed strong enough to undergo treatment were allowed to have this "cure." 

 

Here's another fun one. A doctor named William Black wrote that patients were placed in straitjackets and given laxatives, which was seen at Bethlem as one of the "principal remedies." Hearing voices? Some explosive diarrhea oughta clear that up. Seizures? One diarrhea for you. Diarrhea for everyone!

 

We all know the best thing for someone who may not be in their right mind is to be left alone… in the dark… for long periods of time… Like really long periods of time. Well we may know that's probably NOT the best, but Bedlam never got the message. Some patients were left alone in solitary for days, weeks, even months at a time. Seems very counterproductive. 

 

One of the worst ones was the example of the inhumane conditions was that of James Norris. Norris, an American Marine, had been sent to Bethlem on the 1st of February 1800. Her was kept in Bethlem’s “incurable wing,” Norris’ arms were pinned to his sides by iron bars. He was also kept chained to the wall by his neck. This fifty-five-year-old man had been continuously kept in this position for “more than twelve years.”

 

The apathy of families abandoning their relatives to a hellish existence in Bethlem led to a new form of exploitation. From the 1700s to the 1800s, there was a marked increase in the dissection of bodies to learn more about human anatomy. In the 1790s, Bethlem’s chief surgeon was Bryan Crowther, a man who saw opportunity in the search for corpses to study. Crowther would dissect Bethlem’s dead patients in the name of medical science, believing that he would be able to find a difference in the brains of his mentally ill patients, compared to “normal” people. Of course, he did these operations without any kind of consent or legal right.

 

One of the best ways to sum up the reasoning behind this torture is to let you know from the man who was behind the worst of it. John Haslam was one of the most sinister figures in the history of Bethlem, and it was while he was the head of management that the institution sunk to a new low in depravity. While Bryan Crowther was conducting illegal dissections as chief surgeon, Haslam used various tortures against the patients. He was adamant that the first step to curing the patients was breaking their wills first. So ya… They figured fuck em… Break their will and they'll be fine… Wow.

Oftentimes patients would lack even basic amenities for living. That includes proper clothing and food. 

 

To make things even worse for the patients, from approximately the early 1600s until 1770, the public was able to go for a wander through Bedlam. Money was collected as entrance fees, and it was hoped that seeing the crazy people would make people feel sufficiently compassionate that they would donate funds to the hospital. Another reason for this is that they hoped it would attract the families of these patients and that they would bring those patients food and clothing and other things they needed so the hospital would not have to provide them. 

 

Oh if that's not bad enough, how about the mass graves. Modern-day construction of the London Underground unearthed mass graves on the grounds of Bethlem, created specifically to get rid of the corpses of those who didn't survive the hospital's care. Discovered in 2013, the mass graves dating back to 1569, and there are somewhere close to 20,000 people buried in them. Amazingly, authorities have managed to identify some of the deceased, but many others will likely never get a face and name.

 

Anything about any of these areas being haunted? Yup we got that too. Although the first few sites have long been transformed into other things, the girls that happened there could have left tons of negative juju. We found this cool story. 

 

        "The Liverpool Street Underground Station was opened in February of 1874 on the site of the original Bedlem Hospital. Former patients haunt this busy section of the London Underground. 

 

One compelling sighting happened in the summer of 2000. A Line Controller spotted something strange on the CCTV camera that he was monitoring that showed the Liverpool Station. It was 2:00 am in the morning and the station was closed for the night. This witness saw a figure wearing white overalls in an eastbound tunnel. He became concerned since he knew no contractors worked the station this late at night. He called his Station Supervisor to report what he was seeing on the screen.

 

The Supervisor went to investigate. The Line Controller watched as his Supervisor stood nearby the mysterious figure. So he was confused when his Supervisor called to say he had not seen any figure. The Line Controller told his boss that the figure had stood so close to him that he could have reached out and touched it. Hearing this the Supervisor continued to search for the figure.

 

Again the Line Controller saw the figure walk right passed his boss on his screen, but again his boss did not see the figure. The Supervisor finally giving up went to leave the station but as he did so he spotted white overalls placed on a bench that he had passed before. He stated that they could not have been placed there without him seeing who did it.

 

Even before the Liverpool Station was built the area where the hospital stood was considered haunted. Between 1750 and 1812 many witnesses reported hearing a female voice crying and screaming. It is believed that this is a former patient from Bedlam. 

 

Rebecca Griffins was buried in the area. While alive she always frantically clutched a coin in her hand. Witnesses state they hear her asking where her ha' penny is."

 

Fun stuff!

 

The following comes from the old building that was turned into the imperial war museum. 

 

It is said that  to this day  the spectres of those who suffered in Bedlam still roam the hallways and rattle their chains in remembered anguish.

 

During the Second World War, a detachment of the Women’s Auxiliary Air Force was stationed inside the Imperial War Museum with barrage balloons. Much of the museum has parts that date back to Bedlam and it isn’t hard to imagine them as cells full of the damned inmates. Many of the young girls who were garrisoned inside had never heard of the buildings sordid past, so had no reason to fear it. Yet soon complaints began to flood in as during the night many found they couldn’t sleep, kept up by strange moaning and the rattling of chains. The long passed inmates of Bedlam made their displeasure well known. Eventually the complaints became so bad the entire detachment had to be rehoused nearby.

 

Possibly the most famous ghost of Bedlam is the sad spectre of poor Rebecca. At a merchant’s house by London Bridge lived a lovely young girl by the name of Rebecca. She fell head over heels in love with a handsome young Indian man who had come to lodge with the family. So besotted was she that when he packed up his bags to return to India she was shocked that he hadn’t loved her quite nearly as much as she’d loved him. She helped him to pack his things, hoping all the while that he would change his mind and agree to stay. But all she received was a gold sovereign that he slipped into her hand before leaving forever.

 

The grief of her spurning was too much for her mind to handle and she snapped, soon being admitted to Bedlam Hospital. The golden sovereign he had given her was gripped firmly in her fist for the remainder of her short life, the final token from her lost love, never to be given up. When she finally wasted away into death it didn’t go unnoticed by one of the guards who prised the coin from her hand and then buried her without her most prized possession. It was after that the guards, inmates and visitors all began to report a strange sight indeed. A wan and ghostly figure began to roam the halls of Bedlam, searching for her lost love token, her spirit refusing to be put to rest until she had it back in her hand. It is said that she still wanders the halls to this day, looking for that stolen coin to make her whole once more.

 

Well… There you have it, the history and craziness of Bedlam Asylum! 

 

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The British Columbia Foot Problem

Today on the train we're switching up gears a bit. Tonight we are discussing British Columbia's foot problems. Did you know that the most common foot problem in British Columbia and actually the world is athlete's foot? Well it's true! The feet are made of up 26 bones each, making them one of the most intricate areas of the body. Nevertheless, according to the College of Podiatry, a person will walk an estimated 150,000 miles in their lifetime, roughly the equivalent of walking around the world six times. Improper footwear, diabetes, and aging are some of the chief contributors to foot problems. Bunions are another of the biggest four problems. Bunions are abnormalities of the feet that cause a bump to develop on the large toe joint. This can cause the big toe to turn slightly inward. Doctors call bunions “hallux valgus.”

 

Women are more likely to have bunions due to increased pressures from narrow footwear. Wait...I think I got the wrong notes… What are we talking about? Oh… Shit… Yes, the British Columbia foot problem… Sorry, it had nothing so with actual foot problems. If you know it's… It is much stranger and a bit more macabre than bunions… Maybe… Bunions are gross. 

 

So the British Columbia foot problem… What exactly is it? Well when most people go to the beach they are on the lookout for cool shells, maybe some crabs or other animals, good looking ladies and gents, but on the shores of the Salish sea, in the Pacific northwest, people are on the lookout for something else… Human feet. Yep… Human feet. 

 

On August 20, 2007, a 12-year-old girl spotted a lone blue-and-white running shoe—a men’s size 12—on a beach of British Columbia’s Jedediah Island. She looked inside, and found a sock. She looked inside the sock, and found a foot. That in and of itself, while kinda gross, isn't necessarily a really strange thing. But Six days later on nearby Gabriola Island, a Vancouver couple enjoying a seaside hike came across a black-and-white Reebok. Inside it was another decomposing foot. It, too, was a men’s size 12. The two feet clearly didn’t belong to the same person; not only were the shoes themselves different, but they both contained right feet.

 

Police were stunned. “Two being found in such a short period of time is quite suspicious,” Garry Cox of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police told the Vancouver Sun. “Finding one foot is like a million to one odds, but to find two is crazy. I’ve heard of dancers with two left feet, but come on.”

 

So now we've got something weird going on right… Well maybe but let's not jump the gun….ok let's jump the gun. In the following year, 2008, five more feet were found on the shores of the islands of British Columbia in the Salish Sea. 

 

Needless to say people started freaking out. Speculation came from everyone. Ranging from plane crashes and ship wrecks to serial killers, to aliens. Moody thinks it was all people who pissed off sasquatch. 

 

All in all as of January 1st 2019, 21 feet have been found in total. So what is going on up there? Well let's take a look at the first and see if that helps. 

 

The ass says before the first four was found in Augusta 2007. According to an article on the Vancouver Sun,  a girl visiting from Washington picked up a size 12 Adidas shoe and opened the sock to find a man's right foot. What a vacation! They ended up finding out that The remains were those of a missing man suffering from depression. There's not much known about the man other than that. The family never revealed much. 

 

Within a week, on August 26, 2007, another foot was found. A man's right foot, discovered by a couple, also disarticulated due to decay. It was waterlogged and appeared to have been taken ashore by an animal. It probably floated ashore from the south. According to the Vancouver Sun again. This foot was found in a size 12 Reebok shoe. It was obviously a different person due to the site you're and the fact it was another right foot. 

 

February 8, 2008, number 3 popped up. It was another right foot belonging to a man. This time on a size 11 Nike. 

May 22, 2008 number 4. This time it was a woman's foot that was found. And yes we're 4 for 4 on the right feet. CBS news reported The fourth foot was discovered on an island in the Fraser Delta between Richmond and Delta, British Columbia. It was also wearing a sock and sneaker. the shoe was a new balance. It is thought to have washed down the Fraser River, having nothing to do with the ones found in the Gulf Islands. According to our friends at the Vancouver sun.

 

June 16th, 2008 two hikers came across number five. CBS news reported that it was a man's  left foot. It was found floating in the water in Delta. According to cbs, It has been confirmed that the left foot found on June 16 on Westham Island and the right foot found February 8 on Valdes Island belonged to the same man. We have a match!!!

 

So number 3 and number 5 are a match!

 

Number six showed up on August 1, 2008. This was the first one not found in British Columbia, it was found near Pysht, Washington. According to CTV news, it was confirmed that the foot was human. Police say the large black-top, size 11 athletic shoe for a right foot contains bones and flesh.The RCMP and Clallam County Sheriff's Department agreed on August 5 that the foot could have been carried south from Canadian waters.

 

November 11, 2008, number 7. a

A shoe that was found floating in the Fraser River in Richmond.The shoe was described as a small New Balance running shoe, possibly a woman's shoe. New balance eh? Sound familiar? A woman's new balance. Well it should because the foot was linked via DNA testing to foot number 4. They belonged to the same woman. Eventually it would be known that this woman jumped from the Pattullo Bridge in New Westminster in April 2004. This one was seemingly a suicide. 

 

Number 8 come on down, your the next contestant on Who's Foot Is This! October 27, 2009A right foot in a size 8½ Nike running shoe on a beach in Richmond. The remains were identified as a Vancouver-area man who was reported missing in January 2008. The Vancouver Sun gave us this info… shocker we know. 

 

Number 9. A woman's or child's right foot was found on Whidbey island on August 27 2010, without a shoe or sock. This foot was determined to have been in the water for two months. Detective Ed Wallace of the Island County Sheriff's Office released a statement saying the foot would be tested for DNA. However, there was no match found in the national DNA database. Guess where we got this info from...WRONG… CBS news.. Hahaha got ya bitches!

 

On December 5th 2010 we reach#10. Ten fucking feet found.. only two matching pairs. 

 

This was another one found outside, but near British Columbia. It was found in the tidal flats in Tacoma Washington. Sadly this one likely belonged to a young boy. The boot was a boys size 6 hiking boot. Thanks Vancouver Sun.

 

Hey Vancouver Sun any info on number 11? Oh you do? Well let's hear it.  On August 30, 2011, in a man's size 9 running shoe. It was a blue and white shoe. It was found floating next to the Plaza of Nations marina, attached to the lower leg bones. Yuck. Investigators said that there wasn't any sign of foul play though and the leg was naturally disarticulated due to decomposition in the water. The sex of this victim was not determined. 

 

Hey guys, guess what, there's more.. Shall we press on? 

 

November 4, 2011 number 12 is found. A man's right foot inside a size 12 hiking boot was discovered by a group of campers in a pool of fresh water at Sasamat Lake near Port Moody. Fucking Moody. A year later this foot was identified by the B.C. Coroner's Service as that of Stefan Zahorujko, a local fisherman who went missing in 1987. Again foul play was not expected as chickens are generally not able to remove the feet of humans. 

 

Lucky number 13, well not so lucky in this case. This one brings us back to the states. Lake Union in Seattle to be more specific. Human leg bone and foot in a black plastic bag under the Ship Canal Bridge. As of January 2, 2012, the medical examiner had not found a cause of death or identified the body. This one sounds nice and shady. Also where the fuck were you on this one Vancouver Sun, we had to get this info from the Seattle times.. Jeeze.

 

Anyway, back to Vancouver. January 26, 2012 number 14 is found. According to, of course, the Vancouver Sun, On January 26, 2012, the remains of "what appears to be human bones inside a boot" were found in the sand along the water line at the dog park near the Maritime Museum at the foot of Arbutus Street, in Vancouver. This one doesn't show up in some of the stories about this issue only because it seems that they never confirmed it was human. At least not that we could find, which is strange. But… Whatever.

 

According to fox news "Adding to one of the great mysteries of the Pacific Northwest, a human foot still in a tennis shoe was found near Seattle's Pier 86 Tuesday." Tuesday was may 6 2014, and this was number 15. "It could be debris from Japan. It could be debris from the airplane that had crashed into the water. I wouldn't be surprised,” resident Karen Klett said. Volunteers cleaning up trash made the discovery and immediately called police.A local expert on tides told Q13 Fox News the feet could be local or they could come into the Sound by way of the Strait of Georgia in Canada or the Strait of Juan de Fuca here at home. The New Balance model 622 athletic shoe was white with blue trim, size men's 10½. It was A left foot. 

 

Ladies, do you remember your sweet sixteen? Was it memorable? Did you get a car?  Big party? Severed foot? Wait… What? Well number 16 was found February 7, 2016. Hikers on Botanical Beach, near Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island, found a foot in a sock and running shoe. We could not find any information on if this one was ever identified.

 

She's only 17...SEVENTEEN! Only five days after number 26 was found… Number 17 popped up. On February 12, 2016 A foot washed up near Port Renfrew on Vancouver Island. This foot was found to match the one that washed up 5 days before. 

 

Now to number 18. Almost there folks! The discovery was made by a man walking his dogs along the beach at around 8 a.m. along the Jordan river again on Vancouver Island. One of the dogs found the foot. 

 

Number 19 was found May 6, 2018 on gabriola Island in British Columbia. Around noon, a man walking along the shore near South Road found a foot inside a hiking boot stuck in a logjam.

 

Number 20. September 20, 2018. The foot was found  within a light grey Nike Free RN shoe on the shore near the 30th Street beach access point in West Vancouver.

 

The size 9.5 shoe was manufactured between February 1 and April 17, 2017, and has a white base and a black Nike swoosh. The foot was in a blue sock. The test revealed that the foot belonged to a male.

 

The B.C. Coroners Service's identification specialist believes that the foot belonged to a man under the age of 50, based on its bone structure.

 

According to the West Vancouver Police Department, there is no evidence of a death from foul play at this point. DNA testing would eventually link this to a male who went missing in 2018.  

 

Number 21 was another one that was found in the US. January 1, 2019 it was found on jetty Island in Everett Washington. The foot was found in a bit and DNA later linked it to Antonio Neill. At the time of the identification officials shockingly attenuated that Neill was presumed dead. His mother Jenny Neill believes someone harmed her son.

 

“We are no closer to finding what happened to him,” she said Tuesday. “We have had a lot of leads that are just rumors. We feel that someone is responsible for this, and we need help finding whoever did this.” He’d been staying in his car or on couches in 2016. Around the time he went missing, his car was stolen. Antonio was 22 when he went missing. His mother has seen no evidence confirming he was alive after December 2016.

 

Ok so those are the feet that have been found. We will post a picture that shows locations, and another with a little more info on the people they may have belonged to. Many of the get have been linked to missing people, and a couple to suicide. But aside from those suicides, what happened to those linked to missing people. 

 

Theories range far and wide. From plane crashes, to human trafficking, aliens, and yes… Bigfoot. 

 

One early suggestion was the quadra Island plane crash.

The locations each of the first give feet were found in the first year seems to indicate they were from the similar sources (via body decomposition) and the time of discovery Oceanographists determined no known currents could have contributed to the spread. Detectives at the time had theorized the feet came from the 5 person fatality Quadra Island plane crash that occurred approximately 60–90 miles northwest in 2005 . The image below shows the locations of the five feet found in 2007–2008 with the location of the Quadra Island plane crash in Blue. It is likely that some of the feet originate from this plane crash, but there is no proof to date that this is the case; four bodies remain unrecovered.

At first, the Quadra Island plane crash makes sense regarding the origin of said feet, but later DNA testing showed one of the feet was female, with the plane crash victims (5 total) were all men. 

 

Other theorists believe the coastline is being used as a body dump for organized crime activity; a third scenario is a serial killer is at work.

 

In the past few years, more than 20 men in the Vancouver area have gone missing. Their disappearances have never been accounted for despite pleas from families for information. 

 

There is a faction of the public who believe that many of these discoveries are due to alien abduction and that of course the fact is being covered up. There may be some evidence to back up this claim! Ufology Research, an organization  in Canada,  has collected and analyzed Canadian UFO report data since 1989. Their 2017 survey showed that a total of 1,101 sightings were reported across the country, at a rate of roughly three per day — the fifth highest number since the group began collecting data in 1989. The survey also showed that there was an average of two witnesses per UFO sighting and that the sightings lasted about 15 minutes each. Many witnesses were police officers, pilots and other people with keen observational skills. In 2017 British Columbia had the third most reported UFO sightings in Canada. Hmmm maybe… Just maybe there's something to this.

 

Then again maybe not. 10 out of the 15 feet have been identified as belonging to people who died either accidentally—by falling off a boat or being swept away by a large wave—or by suicide. but what about the rest?  

 

The location of the feet washing up isn't that that strange actually. Given the tidal currents of the area it actually makes sense that the feet are collecting in the area. It's seems the bigger mystery is what happened to all of those other people but identified?

…..

……

…...

 

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The Oakland County Child Killer AKA The Babysitter Killer

Today's episode is taking us back to the world of unsolved true crime. This episode deals with pretty tough stuff so consider this your trigger warning as the episode does talk about the killings of young children. 

 

We are heading to the state of Michigan for this one. Oakland county to be exact. Oakland county is part of the metropolitan Detroit area, located northwest of the city. As of the 2020 Census, its population was 1,274,395, making it the second-most populous county in Michigan, behind neighboring Wayne County. The county seat is Pontiac. The county was founded in 1819 and organized in 1820. Oakland County is among the ten highest income counties in the United States with populations over one million people. The county's knowledge-based economic initiative, coined "Automation Alley", has developed one of the largest employment centers for engineering and related occupations in the United States. This county would spawn a serial killer. From February 1976 to March 1977 four children were abducted and murdered with their bodies left in various locations within or just outside Oakland County.

 

There were at least two other murder cases that investigators believe may have been victims of the “Oakland County Child Killer” or “The Babysitter Killer,” as some called him.

 

The ensuing murder investigation was the largest of its kind in U.S. history at the time. One suspect was even from our neck of the woods! We'll check out the victims and then get into the suspects. Again, this is definitely a touchy episode for some so if you're uncomfortable with this sort of thing, you might want to skip this episode.

 

Still with us? Ok so here we go.

 

Every 40 seconds, a child goes missing or is abducted in the United States. Approximately 840,000 people are reported missing each year in the United States and the F.B.I. estimates that between 85 and 90 percent of these are children. On a positive note, More than 99 percent of children reported missing in America in recent years have come home alive. 

 

According to the Washington State Attorney General’s Child Abduction Murder Research:

In 74 percent of the missing children homicide cases studied, the child murder victim was female and the average age was 11 years old.

In 44 percent of the cases studied, the victims and killers were strangers, but in 42 percent of the cases, the victims and killers were friends or acquaintances.

Only about 14 percent of the cases studied involved parents or intimates killing the child.

Almost two-thirds of the killers in these cases have prior arrests for violent crimes, with slightly more than half of those prior crimes committed against children.

The primary motive for the child abduction killer in the cases studied was sexual assault.

In nearly 60 percent of the cases studied, more than two hours passed between the time someone realized the child was missing and the time police were notified.

In 76 percent of the missing children homicide cases studied, the child was dead within three hours of the abduction–and in  88.5 percent of the cases the child was dead within 24 hours.

 

Pay attention to your kids, folks. Be that parent. The one who annoys them constantly by asking where they are and knowing who they’re with. Protect the fuck out of them with every last fiber of your being. THAT is your number one job as a parent.

 

The First victim was 12 year old Mark Stebbins. Mark was from Ferndale Michigan and was last seen at 1:30 pm on Feb. 15 1976. His body was found three days later in Ferndale. He was sexually assaulted and suffocated to death. 

Mark was last seen and heard from at 1:30 p.m. Feb. 15. He talked to his mother on the phone. He was letting her know that he was leaving the American Legion Hall to head home. He never made it and at 11 p.m. that night Mark’s mother called the Ferndale Police Department to report Mark missing.

 

At about 11:45 a.m. Feb. 19, 1976, a businessman named Mark Boetigheimer left his office building and headed toward a drug store located inside the New Orleans mall at 10 Mile and Greenfield roads. On his way something caught his eye in the northeast corner of the parking lot. He saw what looked like a mannequin dressed in a blue jacket and jeans. But as he got closer he knew he stumbled into a situation much more grim. It was a body, a human body. It was the lifeless body of 12-year-old Mark Stebbins. 

 

Another person told police that they walked their dog around that parking lot, just so it could get some exercise. That was around 9:30 a.m. the same morning the body was found. The man said his dog was on a 20-foot leash and they walked that part of the lot. He said if that body was there at the time, his dog would have found it. If that’s true, Mark’s body wasn’t there at 9:30 a.m. But it was at 11:45 a.m. when Mark Boetigheimer found him. That means there was a 2-hour-and-15-minute window in which someone or some people dumped Mark’s body in the area.

 

Mark was a 7th-grader at Lincoln Junior High School. He stood 4 feet 8 inches and weighed about 100 pounds. He had strawberry-blond hair.  The autopsy showed the cause of death as asphyxia by way of smothering, but the report also showed rope burns on his neck, wrists and ankles. It appeared that Mark was also sexually assaulted.

 

1. Brooks Patterson, who was the Oakland County prosecutor at the time, said Mark’s body was washed by an autopsy team, washing away any fingerprints.

 

The second victim was also 12 years old. Jill Robinson was from Royal oak Michigan. 

 

Karol Robinson had three daughters and was recently divorced. She and her oldest, Jill, would butt heads and on one occasion in December of 1976 they did just that. It was an argument that led to Jill running away from home. She was last seen at a hobby shop on Woodward Avenue, then the Donut Depot on Maple Road between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. Dec. 23. According to Karol, Jill’s mother, the two were arguing about biscuits. Jill was asked to help make them for dinner, she refused. Sometime after a heated back-and-forth, Karol told her to leave until she became part of the family. Jill went to her room, packed up her clothes and a plaid blanket into a denim bag. Before she left she dressed herself in blue jeans, a shirt, an orange winter coat and a blue knit cap with a yellow design on it, and then she would leave, just like her mother asked her to. She rode her bike away from her mother and her home.

 

Jill would later be seen by a family friend at a hobby shop on Woodward Avenue, just four and 1/2 blocks away from her mother’s home. The next morning, two witnesses said they saw her in the Donut Depot on Maple Road -- this was between 6 a.m. and 7 a.m.

 

Jill’s father, Thomas Robinson, made a call to police at 11:30 p.m. the day she left. Jill was found on the side of I-75, north of Big Beaver Road. She was laying on her back, fully clothed, not bound in any way, but a ring of deep dark red surrounded her head. The killer had transported her here, then shot her at close range in the head with a shotgun. It was later decided that Jill was fed and cared after for at least three days. She seemed to be washed, clean and with no signs of sexual abuse at all.

 

The third victim was 10 year old Kristine Mihelich. Kristine was from Berkley Michigan. She was last seen on January 2nd, 1977. Her Body was found on Jan. 21, 1977 -- she was missing for 19 days -- she was found in a snowbank along Bruce Road in Franklin Village, Mich. The cause of death was suffocation -- she was not sexually assaulted.

 

Police said there were no signs of violence and that she was in the same clothes she was last seen in. Her body was on its back, knees drawn up. That’s when a Franklin Village mailman, Jerry Wozny, saw her. He saw her blue jacket in the snow on the same route he’d been driving for eight years. State police Sgt. Robert Robertson supervised the removal of the girl’s body. Thirty-five officers from nine different departments made a task force that Prosecutor Patterson called “the strongest effort I’ve ever seen in this county.” The task force was headquartered in Southfield. Police Sgt. Joseph Krease was charged with tracking down Kristine’s abductor.

 

Kristine’s mother, Deborah Ascroft said “people keep talking about the Royal Oak girl (Jill Robinson) but I’m just not even going to think about that.” Ascroft said that in an interview on Jan. 5, 1977. At the time, Kristine had two younger brothers and according to her mother they kept asking “when is she coming home?”

 

Shortly after Kristine’s disappearance, a child from the elementary school she attended was missing, which set off a panic at the school. A frantic search went on for about 20 minutes and the child eventually was found on school grounds. Tensions were at an all-time high.

 

Parents at Pattengill Elementary School were lined up outside school to pick up their children -- many of them used to walk home, but not now. When Kristine’s body was found in a snowbank at the end of a dead end street in Franklin Village, it was so frozen officials had to wait until the following day to perform an autopsy, because of the body’s frozen state.

 

Wozny -- the mail carrier who found her -- said: “I saw a hand ... It scared the hell out of me.” 

 

Kristine was the fifth young person from Oakland County to die within the year. As of late January 1977, Patterson had no evidence to link Mark and Kristine’s deaths.

11 year old Timothy King was the fourth victim. He was last seen on March 16, 1977 and his body was found on March 23, 1977 in a ditch along Gill Road, about 300 feet south of 8 Mile Road in Livonia -- He was missing for seven days. The cause of death was again suffocation -- he also was sexually assaulted. 

 

Timothy King left his Birmingham home with 30 cents he borrowed from his older sister, Catherine, and headed to the corner store. He wanted some candy and it wasn’t rare for him to make this trip of about three blocks. He left with his skateboard and football, headed toward the Hunter-Maple Pharmacy.

 

Tim’s older brothers -- he had two -- were not around. One was babysitting a neighbor’s kids while the other was rehearsing for a school play. Tim’s parents were out to dinner at a nearby Birmingham restaurant.

 

A clerk, Amy Walters, said she sold Tim candy and he left through the back door into a dark parking lot around 8:30 p.m.. Birmingham Police Chief Jerry Tobin said “whatever happened to Tim happened between the time he left the store and before he got home. It doesn’t look particularly good at this time.”

 

This was now the seventh child that had gone missing in the area. The six prior to Timothy had been found -- murdered. Tim was only the second boy. The hysteria was at an all-time high. According to Catherine, Tim’s sister, Tim asked that she leave the front door ajar, so when he got back from the store he could get back in easily.

 

Catherine also left for the night. It would have been the first time little Timmy would be home alone at night for any period of time. Timothy’s parents got back to the house around 9 p.m. to find the door ajar, but there was no sign of Tim.

 

The King family searched everywhere for Tim. They called his friends, searched the neighborhood and surrounding area. By 9:15 a.m. the next day, Chief Tobin called on the task force, requesting their full involvement. By the afternoon -- the day after Timmy went missing -- headquarters were established in the Adams Fire House, just a few blocks from the King family home. Door-to-door searches were conducted and classmates questioned.

 

Tim was abducted on a Wednesday. By Thursday, 100 lawmen from Oakland County, volunteers, Oakland County Sheriff’s investigators, the county helicopter and the special Oakland County Task Force all were scouring the area. That Thursday the Kings stayed behind closed doors most of the day, but did say “we very much want Tim to come home.” That was Barry, Tim’s father.

 

“We love him very much. He had a basketball game Saturday and missed practice today (Thursday). He’s active in a school play. He’s an achiever and a participator. We just love Tim and want him to come home.” Barry said.

 

Barry told reporters that the week before Tim told his mother that he wouldn’t speak to strangers, that “he’d run away from them.”

 

“It’s awful,” said a neighbor of the King family who also had an 11-year-old daughter. “When it happens to other people, you feel sympathy. When it strikes your neighborhood, you’re scared.”

 

Other possible victims

 

Cynthia Rae Cadieux was 16 years old from Roseville Michigan. Last seen: 8:20 p.m. Jan. 15, 1976

Body found: 1:05 a.m. Jan. 16, 1976 in Bloomfield Township, Mich.

 

Cynthia Cadieux lived with her mother and stepfather. She attended Roseville High School, which was within walking distance from her home. Even though the school was close, one of her friends, Rose DeStesafano, offered to give her a ride home. On a cold January day in 1976, Rose offered Cynthia a ride.

 

“Cynthia refused, just like she always does,” said DeStesafano.

 

That decision may have been a fatal mistake.

 

The date was Jan. 15, 1976, and Cynthia walked, not to her mother and stepfather’s home, but to a girlfriend’s house. It was a planned visit. In fact, her parents thought Cynthia was spending the night there, but the girls didn’t think so. Cynthia planned to go home that Thursday night. Police were able to verify that she’d made it to the friend’s house that evening. They were also able to figure out she’d left her friend's home around 8 p.m., presumably heading back to her home. Her body would later be found that night -- technically morning in Bloomfield Township, which is about 26 miles away.

 

At 1:05 a.m. Jan. 16, a driver noticed something on the side of the road. What the person saw was the naked, lifeless body of Cynthia Rae Cadieux. It appeared that her skull was crushed by a blunt instrument. Police revealed Cynthia was raped and sodomized -- possibly by more than one person.

 

This case was looked at under a proverbial microscope that was designed to find the link or links between several other dead children in the Oakland County area.

 

Sheila Srock was 14 years old and from Birmingham Michigan. Last seen: 8:20 p.m. Jan. 19, 1976

Body found: Jan. 19, 1976

 

Birmingham is “the place” most consider to be the model community in southeastern Michigan. It’s a place everyone wanted to live, but most couldn’t afford. Those who knew of Birmingham would never have associated it with violence or crime, but that would change Jan. 19, 1976.

 

January in Michigan is a cold time and place, usually snow-covered. That’s why a resident on Villa Street was shoveling snow from his roof a little after 8 p.m. Monday. While he was up there, he saw something through a neighbor’s window -- something horrible.

 

Inside the next house over was 14-year-old Shiela Srock. She was babysitting her brother’s baby while he was out. Shiela and the baby were upstairs, likely playing. At the same time a dark figure slithered in and out of homes in the neighborhood, stealing anything and everything he could. Eventually this intruder found himself on the doorstep of Shiela’s brother’s house. He rang the doorbell, and there was no answer. From there he popped the lock open and made his way in. The neighbor was able to see him as he ran into Shiela, gun drawn. The robber was upset that he didn’t find anything of value and that now he’d been seen. According to police, the robber had Shiela remove her clothing. He then raped her, sodomized her and ultimately killed her.

 

The neighbor apparently saw most or all of these horrible actions. Obviously, he didn’t have a cell phone in 1976, so he couldn’t call for help right away since he was on the roof.

 

The assailant was described as a thin, white man between 18 and 25 years old, who stood about 6 feet tall. He had a prominent nose and a pointed chin, according to witnesses. The attacker’s car also was identified. He drove away in a 1967 Cadillac. People at the crime scene said the killer mingled and chatted with onlookers. He asked questions about what was going on as he subtly fit into the crowd.

 

Eventually a man did admit to this killing. In March 1976, Oliver Rhodes Andrews confessed to and later was convicted of the murder of Srock. He is serving a life sentence in prison. According to a March 4, 1976 report from the Ludington Daily News, Andrews was wanted for questioning “in some 200 burglaries in several states.”

 

“(He) admitted in a four-hour confession late Monday that he raped the girl and shot her five times when the babysitter surprised him as Andrews broke into a home he thought was empty,” reads the report.

 

Jane Louise Allan was a 14-year-old girl from Royal Oak. She was considered a runaway because she had done so five times before. She was last seen hitchhiking along I-75 in Pontiac on Aug. 7, 1976. Her body was found in a lake in Miamisburg, Ohio five days later. Police said she died from carbon monoxide poisoning after being kept in the trunk of a car.

 

The information about the victims was taken from a great article on clickondetroit.com.

 

Ok so now you're asking yourselves, well there must be suspects right? The answer is… Yes there are… And we're gonna talk about em.

 

Let's talk about the profile the police came up with. 

 

All related killings happened on days that it snowed. All children were last seen within a mile of Woodward Avenue between 9 Mile and 15 Mile roads. All children were fed and cared for.

 

The killer(s) either bathed them or made them bathe. Both male victims had rope burns on his wrists and ankles.

 

A psychological profile created by police described the killer as fanatically clean, smart and sexually abnormal. The big lead police had -- even as of March 24, 1977 -- was the witness who saw TimothyKing speaking with a man inside a blue AMC Gremlin.

 

Speaking of the gremlin… Let's run through that real quick.

Eventually a woman came forward with some vital information. She said she saw Tim talking to a man in the pharmacy parking lot. She said Tim and the man were about two car-lengths away from her. She was able to describe the man she saw talking to the boy, whom she believed to be Timothy King. This witness also described the vehicle she believed the man to be driving; a dark-blue AMC Gremlin with a white stripe on its side, she called it a “hockey stick” stripe.

 

    Police say the man described by witnesses was between 25 and 35 years old, white, with a dark brown hair cut in a shag style. He had muttonchop sideburns, a fair complexion and a husky build. He was driving a late model blue AMC Gremlin with whitewall tires.

 

Police also said they suspected Tim was abducted by one or possibly two men, and that person -- or people -- could have been involved in the other six cases of murdered children from the area.

 

The Oakland County Task Force released the following suspect profile on March 16, 1977:

 

Male

20-30 years old

Above average education

Above average intelligence

Caucasian

Ability and capacity to store child for at least 18 days

Homosexual

Plus mental problems

Compulsively clean -- fanatically so

No substance abuse involving drugs or alcohol

Different (stranger ranger)

Work -- schedule

December-January, vacation off work

Clean car, clean house

Single dwelling -- attached garage, cost above $30,000

Prior contact with police

Seeing psychiatrist

White collar job, 9-5 schedule

Area of southern Oakland County

Wants bodies found

 

A few weeks after King's murder, a psychiatrist who worked with the task force received a letter, riddled with spelling errors, written by an anonymous author ("Allen") claiming to be a sadomasochist slave of the killer ("Frank").[12] "Allen" wrote that they had both served in the Vietnam War, that "Frank" was traumatized by having killed children, and that "Frank" had taken revenge on more affluent citizens, such as the residents of Birmingham, for sending forces to Vietnam.[12] "Allen" expressed fear and remorse in his letter, saying he was losing his sanity and was endangered and suicidal, and admitted to having accompanied "Frank" as the latter sought boys to kill.[13] He instructed the psychiatrist to respond by printing the code words "weather bureau says trees to bloom in three weeks" in that Sunday's edition of the Detroit Free Press,[12] before offering to provide photographic evidence in exchange for immunity from prosecution. The psychiatrist arranged to meet "Allen" at a bar, but "Allen" did not show up and was never heard from again.

 

Suspects:

 

Ted Lamborgine

 

Ted Lamborgine, a retired auto worker believed to have been involved in a child pornography ring in the 1970s, was arrested in parma heights Ohio. Ted had  transferred from Detroit to the Ford plant in Brook Park Ohio around the time the killings stopped. Before his arrest he moved from apartment to apartment like a man trying to escape creditors. Sometimes he'd stay for only a few months. Once he moved from an apartment in one tower of a complex to an identical apartment in another tower, for no apparent reason.

 

Even when he was in one place, he couldn't sit still. A neighbor who lived next to Ted in an Olmsted Township trailer park says he constantly moved his furnishings around. And he never once used his kitchen, eating out every day, even for breakfast.

 

Ted tried the stable life. He bought a little lemon-colored home in Slavic Village that had a tiny patch of front yard. His elderly mother and his sister even drove down from Detroit to see the place on a rare visit. It didn't last long though and he sold there house and moved again. He was running from his last in Michigan Theodore Lamborgine and his partner in crime, Richard Lawson, were part of a 1970s sex ring that preyed on young boys in Detroit’s Cass Corridor. According to Lawson,Cass Corridor was a six-block section of dope dealers, hookers, bars, and poverty. Big families had moved from the South to work the auto plants. Hundreds of kids ran wild in the streets. It was a pedophile's paradise. Those poor kids from the neighborhood had nothing. So the men put money in their pockets and food in their bellies. In some cases the men even helped the mothers out, taking care of those gas bills to get families through the cold northern winters. Back at their homes, in motel rooms, and in the greasy basement of a neighborhood bike shop, the men used the boys -- some as young as nine -- to enact their darkest fantasies. Lawson said they tried not to be too rough. After all, they wanted the boys to come back the next time they cruised up with a crisp 10-spot. And so the boys came back, some of them for years. Sometimes, though, Ted got a little carried away. On special occasions he'd bring kids from the hood up to mossy suburbs like Royal Oak for "parties" at other pedophiles' homes. Police suspect there may have been hundreds of men involved, networking like members of a book club. The parties were potluck orgies: Everyone brought a kid to share, and things were known to get wild. Kids were sodomized, photographed, then thrown in a bathtub and hosed off.

 

Then there was the time Ted scared even Lawson. They were at the apartment of Bob Moore, owner of the bike shop, when Ted whipped out a photo album Moore kept of their little sweethearts. Ted pointed to one picture of a little boy with a wing-cut and a cute, dimpled chin. The kid wasn't one of the Cass hood-rats the men usually settled for. This was a kid from the other side of 8 Mile Road, the dividing line between the dust and crumble of the city and the bird's nest of suburbs in northern Detroit. This kid was clean and had nice clothes. "Looks like the King boy, doesn't it?" Ted had said, winking.  Lawson never forgot the moment.  Out of the five men involved in their Lamborgine and Lawson were the only two living members of that ring when they were charged in 2006. Lamborgine faced 19 counts of sexually assaulting children, while Lawson faced 28 similar charges.

 

Lawson, who was already serving a life sentence for murder, told WDIV in 2006 that he knows who the Oakland County Child Killer is. WDIV later obtained documents detailing molestations of many children in the 70s and 80s. Three new names of suspects in the investigation were listed and one of those names matched the one Lawson gave as the Oakland County Child Killer. The name Lawson gave was Bobby Moore, one of the deceased members of the sex ring. Investigators said they were looking into all of those people.

 

Investigators also said they did not believe Lamborgine or Lawson to be the killer, but they did think the men had valuable information that could help solve the case.

 

Lamborgine is serving a life sentence at Kinross Correctional Facility in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

 

Many people believe that Ted was the killer dealer investigators believing it was somebody else. At the very least it's send that Ted could have been involved in some way. 

 

Archibald Edward Sloan:

 

In July 2012, Prosecutor Cooper discussed Archibald Edward Sloan and his 1966 Pontiac Bonneville. A hair found in the car is a DNA match to evidence at two of the crime scenes -- Mark Stebbins’ and Timothy King’s. The hair is not his but police believe it belongs to an acquaintance.

 

Sloan is reportedly the owner of the car where the hair was found. Prosecutors were considering him an accomplice to the suspect. He could be a direct link to whoever the killer is, prosecutors said.

 

It is believed Sloan worked at a garage or gas station near 10 Mile and Middlebelt roads during the time of the Oakland County Child Killer murders. Seven years after the death of Timothy King, Sloan was arrested again. He was charged with two counts of first-degree criminal sexual conduct. The offense took place in October 1983. He was sentenced to life in prison in January 1985. In February 2019, the Investigation Discovery channel aired a two-part, four-hour documentary about the killings. At this same time, WXYZ-TV investigative reporter Heather Catallo announced that Arch Edward Sloan had failed a polygraph test when he was interviewed by the Oakland County Child Killer Task Force in 2010 and 2012.

 

Sloan, 77, is serving his life sentence at the Gus Harrison Correctional Facility in Adrian, Mich. 

 

James Vincent Gunnels:

 

At one point investigators said James Vincent Gunnels was the best lead in the decades-old serial killer mystery. His DNA is a mitochondrial DNA match to a hair found on the body of victim Kristine Mihelich. A mitochondrial match means the hair belongs to Gunnels or a male relative on his mother’s side.

 

In 2012 Gunnels told WDIV that he had nothing to do with the child killings.

 

“I’m not guilty. There it is there. But at the same time, I know how the state police twist words to their advantage,” Gunnels said. “My heart goes out to those families. It really really, really does. I don’t feel that they were served justice through any of this.”

 

After WDIV spoke with Gunnels, he decided he wanted to speak to the victim’s family face-to-face. He reached out to the King family.

 

“When the request first came in, I was hesitant to go,” said Chris King. “I felt it would be too hard to be in the same room as a suspect in this case. It’s clearly theoretically possible that he somehow aided in (Kristine Mihelich’s) abduction, or killing.”

 

The King family contacted police who have questioned Gunnels on several occasions. According to police records, Gunnels failed a lie detector test. They wondered what Gunnels might say to the family.

 

“We weren’t sure what to expect,” Chris King said. “But we had just been told to ask open-ended questions, see what he says, listen to his story. Um, who knows. He might be able to shed some light on, or tell us something he hadn’t before.”

 

It wouldn’t be easy. Chris King took his father Barry King along with him to the meeting with Gunnels.

 

“It was grueling,” Chris King said. “My dad is a lot tougher than I am. I found it exhausting, you know, mentally and physically.”

 

Barry King said Gunnels’ story wasn’t off-the-wall, but not exactly promising.

 

“I believe that the story he told Chris and I was believable,” Barry King said. “But it was contradicted by previous stories that he has told other people.”

 

Gunnels told the Kings that Bush was a child predator who lived in Oakland County at the time.

 

“It seems clear that he must have had at least some knowledge of the crimes,” Chris King said.

 

However, Gunnels denied knowing anything about the Oakland County Child Killings.

 

“I say right now I have no idea what that man did to anyone else,” Gunnels said.

 

Chris King asked him about two polygraph tests.

 

“My questions for him were, you know it’s hard to understand you tried to cheat on one polygraph exam and failed a second polygraph exam,” Chris King said. “So, if you had absolutely no involvement or knowledge of these crimes, why would you feel that you had to cheat in the first place and then why would you fail the second one? It doesn’t make sense.”

 

Gunnels told the Kings that he felt terrible.

 

“I couldn’t imagine having that happen and not knowing all those years,” Gunnels said. “I really really couldn’t.”

 

Chris and Barry King have been going the extra mile to try and solve the case, not knowing if they have done any good.

 

“It was kind of a long shot that it would help,” Chris King said. “But law enforcement said, ‘Who knows. Sometimes these guys have remorse and they end up telling you things.’ So, we went with that hope.”

 

Christopher Busch:

 

Christopher Busch was a convicted pedophile who lived in Bloomfield Hills and killed himself in 1978. For decades, victims’ family members had believed Busch could have been the killer.

In 1977, Gregory Greene, 27, was arrested on child sexual assault charges. Greene led investigators to 26-year-old Busch, telling them Busch killed Stebbins. However, Busch and Green both passed polygraph examinations. Greene was convicted and sentenced to life in prison for sexually assaulting young boys. Busch first got probation for the same charges before ultimately killing himself.

 

However, in 2012 it was revealed that there is zero evidence suggesting Busch is the Oakland County Child Killer. His DNA does not match the physical evidence that investigators have.

 

“Whatever evidence that may or may not exist does not come back to Busch,” said Oakland County Prosecutor Jessica Cooper.

 

Police sources had told WDIV that Busch’s suicide scene was suspicious and may have been a murder. They know he had a drawing of a tortured boy that closely resembled victim Mark Stebbins. Ropes were found in his closest. He had a blue Vega car which looked like the infamous blue Gremlin spotted at one of the abductions.

It was later revealed by investigators that Busch was in custody while police investigated the killings and admitted he was a pedophile. Investigators wanted to keep him in jail but he was let go after he agreed to a plea deal.

 

However, none of that matters now after investigators said Busch did not commit the murders.

 

“There isn’t a piece of evidence that we can point to and say Mr. Bush killed Timothy King, Jill Robinson, Kristine Mihelich or Mark Stebbins,” said Paul Walton, chief assistant Oakland County prosecutor.

 

Chis King, Timothy King’s brother, said he thought Busch was involved because the suicide scene photos show potential evidence linked to the cases. One photograph shows the drawing that was pinned on Busch’s wall, which closely resembles Stebbins. 

 

The photographs also show ropes that appear to have blood on them and a shotgun shell. However, the shotgun shell in Busch’s room cannot be matched with the caliber used to kill Jill Robinson.

 

“They even took it to NASA to try and see if they could get an identification of the caliber and there was no way in which they could do that,” said Cooper.

 

Prosecutors also said they tracked down the scientist who analyzed the ropes found at the home of suspect Busch.

 

“He conclusively told us that he was aware of these facts and that had there been any blood on that rope or ligature he would have sent it on to the evidence unit,” said Walton.

 

So there's the main suspects in the case. What do you guys think? Was it one of these guys? Did one of these guys have at least some involvement? We may never know. 

Oh and one other quick note, John Wayne Gacy makes an appearance in this story briefly. One witness described two men he claimed to have seen abducting King. One of those men's descriptions bite a striking resemblance to John Wayne Gacy. Gacy was rumored to have been in Michigan at the time of the killings. It was found that gacy's DNA did not match DNA found on the victims however, and that was the end of that. But who knows… There's plenty of people that think there were multiple people involved, could he have been one?

 

Well that's almost everything, there were a few things that we found from around 2013 but they were just small nuggets that we could not find anything to really update the situations with. So we have left those out as well. There is also a side plot, if you will, involving a man using the alias Jeff claiming that he was part of an investigative team putting over 10,000 hours into their own investigations. They claim to know the identity of the killer but would not divulge the name unless they were able to set the information the police had to confirm the person's identity. The police would not share the info. There were lawsuits and other crap and the whole thing  seems kind of ridiculous. You can check it out on your own if you'd like though. 

 

So there you have it! What do you guys think? 

To horror movies of the 70s

 

https://www.ranker.com/list/scariest-70s-horror-movies/ranker-horror

 

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Creepy Germany

Guten abend meine freunde! Heute machen wir eine reise nach deutschland. Welche Seiten werden wir sehen? wen werden wir treffen? Wird Jon das lesen können? Ich denke, wir werden es herausfinden!

 

Anyways, for those of you that don't speak German… Well you'll never know what we said there, and for those of you that do, Moody's German is rusty and we're sure Google's help in translating was probably off, so hopefully it wasn't too ridiculous. At any rate, today on the train we are back to our creepy series, and if you're remotely intuitive, you'll already know we are heading to the great country of Germany! The country that gave us some amazing inventions like the hole punch, the mp3, the coffee filter, and everyone's favorite...Fanta...and all the other crazy and cool shit they've given the world!  All of that cool stuff aside, we are looking at some other stuff that Germany is giving to the world… Creepy shit! So without further ado, let's get into it! 

 

Let's start with a cryptid legend! First up we have the Nachtkrapp. The origins of the Nachtkrapp legends are still unknown, but a connection possibly exists to rook infestations in Central Europe. Already feared due to their black feathers and NoNscavenging diet, the mass gatherings quickly became an existential threat to farmers and gave rooks and crows their place in folklore as all-devouring monsters. Several versions of the Nachtkrapp exist. In most legends, the Nachtkrapp is described as a giant, nocturnal raven-like bird.

The most popular (and hideous) of the legends claim that the Nachtkrapp leaves its hiding place at night to hunt. If it is seen by little children, it will abduct them. The giant bird then flies to its nest whereby it grossly devours the child by first ripping off their limbs and then picking out their heart.

There are of course, other legends, in which the Nachtkrap will merely abduct children by placing them in his bag (how he holds this bag I do not yet know) and take them 'away'.

There is also the Wütender Nachtkrapp (German, lit. Angry Night Raven).  Despite its name, this appears to be a tamer version of the Nachtkrapp; instead of abducting children, it simply crows loudly and flutters its wings, until the children have been terrorized into silence.

 

Then, there is the Guter Nachtkrapp (German, lit. Good Night Raven) This scary sumbitch is a benevolent version of the Nachtkrapp. This bird enters the children's room and gently sings them to sleep. Creepy shit for sure

 

Let's stick with cryptid legends for a second. We're gonna throw the Aufhocker in here real quick too. The word Aufhocker literally means to 'lean upon'. It is a creature that  is said to jump on the back or shoulders of lone wanderers at night, its attack instilling such horror in their victims that they collapse in fright. Although some myths state that the individual collapses not from fright but because once the Aufhocker attaches to a victim it grows dramatically in size/weight. 

 

The Aufhocker statue in Hildesheim Germany has depicted the Aufhocker as a human in shape. However  the actual form and nature of this mythological creature is quite unclear. Interestingly, many stories apparently describe the Aufhocker as a shapeshifter, who may appear in the guise of a dog or a sad old lady (personally the sad old lady guise would be the scariest). However, the link with the dog shape-shifter is interesting because in Belgium there is a  hell hound called the Kludde, whose modus operandi is remarkably similar to the Aufhocker, in that it stalks lonely roads at night, and jumps on the back of travellers ripping their throats out.

However, there are other descriptions of the Aufhocker as a type of zombie (corporal undead), or kobold (type of Germanic imp) or as some type of vampire or werewolf.

According to some reports the Aufhocker is "considered to be a very dangerous theriomorph that tears the throats out of humans. The connection to attacking victims in the throat is what links the aufhocker to vampirism."

(A theriomorph is: a creature (usually a deity) capable of taking the form of an animal)

 

According to myth, the aufhocker can not be killed. However, as the Aufhocker seems to have been blended with vampirism, lycanthropy and hell-hound mythology throughout the ages, it is said that they can be driven off by prayer, church bells, dawn or profuse swearing which should be no problem for us.

 

Ok those sound pretty crazy. Let's go visit a creepy place now. The Bärenquell Brewery East Berlin Germany

 

The fall of the Berlin Wall impacted Germany, Europe, and the world in oh so many different ways. It changed the entire world. But it also changed the world of one of our favorite things... beer. It was known among all of the Germans that the West side made much better beer than the East side. The construction of this humongous beer factory started in 1882 when the first building was constructed, the official residence of the brewery. Over the next forty years or so ten more buildings were added on the premises around the official residence. One was the administrative building with its tower in neo-Renaissance style, built in 1888. Three years later the bottle bearing building was added to the lo, sketched up and built in the Gothic revival architectural style. Just a year afterward (1902) another neo-Gothic wing was added to it. This one would function as a barrel factory and a storage room. In 1906 the main four-stories central brewery building was constructed in the same Gothic style with a castle-like appearance. After the central building was done, business was booming, and the brewery was doing nicely. What was left was to construct the other small but necessary facilities. Like a horse stable with a water tower in 1910, and the beer bottling cellar with a loading station that was used as a smaller warehouse as well. A couple more smaller warehouse buildings were built in 1920. As time moved forward some of the machinery needed repairs and the solution was very simple. They constructed a workshop building in 1927, this time diverging from the usual Gothic style the workshop was done in the style of Expressionism. The architects behind all of the buildings were Emil Holland, Robert Buntzel, and H.O.Obrikat. Sadly today only two of them remain standing, the official residence building from 1882 and the Renaissance administrative building of the Director that was added in 1888. Under Socialist rule, the Bärenquell Brewery had operated as a state-owned Volkseigenen enterprise. During the Treuhandanstalt programme of privatizing these businesses at the end of this era, the brewery was bought in 1990 by the Henniger brewery. The last Berliner Pilsener Spezial beer was bottled on 1st of April 1994 when Bärenquell beer production was moved to Kassel. Since the beer was no longer brewed in Berlin, they changed the name from Berliner Pilsener Spezial to Original Pilsener Spezial. The brand changed hands one more time. However, Bärenquell beer ceased to be brewed in 2009. After the brewery was closed some of the buildings remained to function as rental warehouses. Others were rented for different private business and small-time production factories. After a while all of them left the premises and every single building was abandoned. The place became closed to the public but that never stopped urban explorers and graffiti artist. It was also a place where young local people hung out and ironically drank beer. The buildings days are not over and even though it is heavily damaged it just may be saved and renovated. As of 2014, Bärenquell Brauerei has a new owner, a firm that owns a chain of furniture shops has the papers for the property. The plan most likely is to open another mega furniture store on the premises. Some of the brewery’s smaller buildings have already been torn down to open place for the new shopping mall structure. There's not a ton of stories about hauntings here but there are a few and that's enough for us… Because it's a brewery and fuck it we can do what we want, you don't like it… Get your own podcast. Most of the things we found about hauntings here involve creepy sounds and a few shadow people stories. People claim to hear disembodied voices late at night and many report hearing sounds like things being thrown out, dropped, and banging and clanging noises. There's also been reports from kids hanging out in the brewery at night of strange shadows and possible apparitions, but to be fair… They were most likely under the influence. 

 

Ok now that we got our obligatory alcohol reference into the episode let's see what else we can find.

 

Well let's take a nice hike… How's that sound? We could hike through the Black Forest, that could be fun… Or could it…

This forest is surrounded by castles, monasteries, and ruins. The wilderness of this site has many tales to its name, making it one of the most haunted sites in Munich. Based on local folklore, ghosts, witches, werewolves and even the devil are believed to haunt this forest. One of the more well known tales from the black Forest is that of Der Grossman! Der Großmann (der Grossman), or “The Tall Man”/ "The Great Man", is a supposed mythical creature associated with woodcuts carved by an unknown artist in 16th century Germany. Said woodcuts portrayed it as a tall, disfigured man with white spheres where his eyes should be, similar in appearance to the Slender Man. Der Großmann was commonly described as a fairy of the Black Forest who abducted bad children that entered the forest at night, and would stalk them until they confessed their wrongdoings to a parent. We found A supposedly translated account from 1702 describes an alleged incident involving Der Großmann:

 

My child, my Lars… he is gone. Taken from his bed. The only thing that we found was a scrap of black clothing. It feels like cotton, but it is softer… thicker.

 

Lars came into my bedroom yesterday, screaming at the top of his lungs that "The angel is outside!" I asked him what he was talking about, and he told me some nonsense fairy story about Der Großmann. He said he went into the groves by our village and found one of my cows dead, hanging from a tree.

 

I thought nothing of it at first…But now, he is gone. We must find Lars, and my family must leave before we are killed. I am sorry, my son… I should have listened. May God forgive me.

 

Wow… Well that's unsettling. We also found a story involving a haunted hostel in the black Forest. 

            

              "When I was 12 years old I went on a school trip to the Black Forest in Germany. The hostel we were staying at seemed relatively normal to begin with but each night we were more and more convinced that there was a ghostly presence.

 

I was in a shared dormitory with 3 of my friends. It started on the first night when I was the first to fall asleep. When I awoke the next morning they asked if I had heard someone come and stand outside our bedroom door at 1am in the morning. I was asleep so I had not heard anything, so it didn't really occur to me it was anything scary. The second night we all sat up talking and at 1am we heard someone come up the stairs and stand outside our dormitory. My friend nervously laughed and the person must have heard us because they ran down the stairs so fast it left us speechless.

 

The third night we all went to sleep quite early hoping we would sleep past 1am, however this time we awoke to one of the girls in our dorm screaming and crying. When we turned the lamp on and calmed her down she said she had turned over and saw a man sitting on the end of my bed.

 

After that nothing happened. We sat up each night and waited until 1am but the person never came back. The day I came back from Germany I went for a nap because I was exhausted from the long journey. My mum came into my room to get my suitcase when apparently I shot upright in bed, eyes wide open, deeply breathing.

 

My mum said she had never seen me do anything like that before and she had to lie me back down and wait for me to go back to sleep. I have no recollection of this. Since then nothing has happened but I definitely know something traumatised us in that hostel."

 

What else can you find in the black Forest, well let us tell you. There are stories of Water nymphs that are supposed to live in the dark depths of the Mummel Lake at the foot of Hornisgrinde at Buhl, Baden. Then there's the Legend of Fremersberg Mountain

A small cloister of Franciscans had a monastery on the southern slope of Fremersberg Mountain from 1426 until 1826. It was named Kloesterle. The monks were not only concerned with the spiritual health of the people, they also concerned themselves with their earthly peace. For instance, when ghosts raising a ruckus on the mountain, raised fear and anxiety among the villagers with their rumblings, the monks caught the troublemakers, put them in sacks, and carried them to poltergeist graves, where they remain banned once and for all. So the story goes.....

 

How about the Legends of Yberg Castle

Myths of this ancient castle tell of fair ladies who appear in the night; of unusual Bowling games on the first Monday of every month and of a mysterious vault, that no one could find, filled with delicious wines.

 

Or you could go with the Myth of the Village of Ittersbach

In 1232 Herman, Margrave of Baden, gave his villages of Utilspur (today called Ittersbach) and Wolmerspur to the convent St. Gallen. As a settlement Wolmerspur disappeared, but the cause is unknown whether war, plague or famine. According to myth, at midnight during Advent a headless horseman on a white steed rides in the cemetery over the terrain of the destroyed village of Wolmerspur.

 

Then there's The Legend of Hex Von Dasenstein

In the village of Kappelrodeck (Kreis Ortenau) there is an old legend surrounding the town's namesake family. High on a hill sits Rodeck Castle that was, for centuries, the seat of this aristocratic family. Centuries ago, legend has it, that a beautiful daughter of the family fell in love with a peasant boy. Her powerful father forbid her to marry the boy. The girl ran away to the other side of the valley and took up life as a hermit in a huge outcrop of rocks in the middle of the mountainside vineyards. The outcropping was known as Dasenstein. Over the years, the townsfolk came to believe that the girl was a powerful and good witch who watched over their blessed grape crops. The local wine cooperative goes by the name, Hex von Dasenstein (Witch of Dasenstein). Its wines are renown throughout Europe and in 1982, its spatburgunder (pinot noir) was named best wine in Europe and served to President Reagan during his ill fated visit to Bitburg.

 

The Mummelsee The Mummelsee is a 17-metre-deep (about 55ft) lake at the western mountainside of the Hornisgrinde in the Northern Black Forest of Germany. The Mummelsee has a legend of a king who lived beneath the water and dragged down women to his kingdom under the water many years ago.

 

I mean we could go on, sometimes you get a twofer… This was like a 7fer

 

 This forest is on pretty much every list of the most haunted forests in the world, sounds like for good reason! You can find all sorts of stories from the area that will make you think twice before hanging around. 

 

It seems in our travels that religious sites are usually good for some creepiness and it's no different here. We're gonna check out the Wessobrunn Monastery. Wessobrunn Abbey (Kloster Wessobrunn) was a Benedictine monastery near Weilheim in Bavaria, Germany. According to tradition, it was founded in 753 by Duke Tassilo III, but its origins probably are associated with the important Huosi family, founders of benediktbeuern. It soon became an imperial abbey. In the 9th century, when it colonized the wastelands between the Ammer and Lech Rivers, a monk wrote the famous Wessobrunn Prayer, one of the oldest and best examples of Old High German literature. In 955 Hungarians destroyed the monastery, whose lands were ruled by provosts until 1065, when Benedictines returned from sankt emmeram in Regensburg and established a double monastery. One of the nuns, Diemud, c. 1150 excelled as a poet and calligrapher (45 MSS). Romanesque stone sculpture of the 12th–13th century discovered in Wessobrunn belongs among the German masterpieces of the period. The abbey joined the reforms of hirsau and melk (1438). In 1414 Abbot Ulrich Höhenkirchner was mitered. Under Leonhard Weiss (1671–96) began a period of glory, as Wessobrunn became a center of scholarship and baroque art with its famous school of stucco artists and painters. In the 18th century 30 monks taught at Salzburg University and at other Benedictine schools of higher learning. Wessobrunn monks compiled a Bible concordance that became a standard exegetic work. Three-fourths of the buildings, including the Romanesque church, were demolished after suppression of the abbey in 1803. Only the hostelry, with stuccoed and painted floors and halls, still stands. The grounds are owned by the archabbey of St. Ottilien; the buildings of Wessobrunn are occupied by the Missionary Benedictine Sisters of Tutzing. The monastery is also known as one of the haunted sites in Germany. Based on an event in the 12th century, a sister in the monastery went into hiding in the underground tunnel because she broke her vows. She was locked inside and reported to have died of starvation. This resulted in the tale that the sister’s spirit is never at rest and still roams the areas of this monastery. Many many people have reported seeing an apparition roaming the halls and grounds. There are also many reports of people hearing a lady weeping and crying. 

 

Sticking with the religious places, let's check out Kloster Unterzell. The Kloster cell was a former convent of the Premonstratensians in Zell am Main in Würzburg in Bavaria in the diocese of Wuerzburg. A dark chapter in the history of the Unterzell Monastery is the fate of the superior Maria Renata Singer von Mossau , who was sentenced to death and executed in 1749 during the witch persecution in the Würzburg monastery. This story is where the Hauntings are believed to come from. Locals and visitors to the monastery have reported witnessing her spirit passing through the corridors of the Kloster Unterzell. They say you can also see her lurking in shadows and just outside of your field of vision but disappearing when you look. You can find some stories on different reddit type sites that'll creep you out for sure. 

 

There are tons of creepy haunted castles in Germany and most of them are pretty fucking awesome to see. We've got a few for you here! We'll start with Hohenzollern Castle.

 

The White Lady of Hohenzollern

Around 500 years ago, the prince-elector of Brandenburg, Joachim II, took a mistress called Anna Sydow after his second wife, Hedwig Jagiellon of Poland, suffered a severe injury. The injury put a great strain on his marriage and the elector grew very close to Anna, putting her up in the Jagdschloss Grunewald, a Renaissance-style castle in Berlin.

 

Joachim grew so fond of Anna that he was even seen in public with her, which disgruntled the public. They had several children together and Joachim even bestowed the title of Countess von Arneberg on his daughter, Magdalene. The years passed and one day, Joachim made his son, Johann Georg, swear an oath to protect Anna after his death. He made his son swear the oath again a year later and, a year before his death, arranged for Magdalene to be placed in the care of Johann.

 

Despite his promises, Johann reneged on his oath and imprisoned Anna in Spandau Citadel, almost immediately after his father died. Johann then married Magdalene to a court pension clerk. Anna remained in the prison for four years until she died.

 

Johann continued his life as elector of Brandenburg, imposing taxes on the poor and exiling the Jewish people from Brandenburg. He thought he had seen the last of Anna Sydow, but he was wrong. Eight days before his death, Anna appeared as a ghastly apparition; the White Woman.

 

Sightings of the White Woman have persisted since that time, particularly before the death of one of the Hohenzollern Kings of Prussia. In the mid-1800s, King Frederick William IV of Prussia, stopped by Pillnitz Castle to visit his cousins, the King and Queen of Saxony.

 

That night, everything was still. The air was cold and crisp, and it was silent as a strange fog descended on the castle. Reports by on-duty sentries from that night tell of five ghastly spectral figures walking through the castle walls and towards the King’s chambers. One figure, a White Woman, led the other four, headless men carrying a casket. Inside the casket, another man lay, a crown where his head was supposed to be.

 

The next day, King Frederick William began to suffer from terrible symptoms, which would continue for three months. He suffered a haemorrhagic stroke which would leave him incapacitated. He remained this way for three years, until he finally died.

 

The White Woman has all but disappeared, mainly due to the German monarchy being abolished, as the House of Hohenzollern had no more kings in its line. It is said, however, that she might appear to the forsaken few who wander around the Berlin Schloss or the Spandau Citadel.

 

Well that is a fun story… Let's check out another!

 

Burg Eltz is a picturesque medieval castle, tucked away in the hills in the west of Germany, between Koblenz and Trier. It is one of Germany’s more famous castles and has never been destroyed or taken in battle. Since its construction, and even to this day, the castle has been owned by the Eltz family.

 

The castle is also said to be haunted by the forlorn ghost of Agnes, daughter of a fifteenth-century earl from the noble Eltz family. Agnes’ hand in marriage was promised to the squire of Braunsburg when they were both just children. Years passed and as the two passed into adulthood, their engagement day drew close. Their families arranged for them to finally meet for the first time, just days before the engagement took place.

 

Upon meeting the young squire, Agnes was shocked at how rude and callous he was. Agnes begged her father to call off the engagement, but he refused - the marriage had been sealed years ago and had to be honoured. Negotiations concerning dowry and heritage began between the two families. In the final meeting, when everything had been agreed, the squire turned to kiss his soon-to-be bride. Agnes refused to kiss her betrothed and he responded angrily, swearing vehemently at her.

 

Tensions rose and the squire’s family were expelled from the castle. The Braunsberg squire raised his forces and laid siege. The Eltzer guards were tricked into leaving the castle and chasing an expeditionary force, allowing the squire to sneak in with his heavily armoured bodyguard one night. They began massacring the Eltzer residents, servants and the few guards that were left behind.

 

Agnes awoke to the sound of murder and upon seeing the slaughter from the window of her tower, rushed to the castle armoury. She took her brother’s ornate breastplate and sword and rushed into battle, ferociously hacking back the attackers. Her courage inspired the few remaining defenders to slowly turn the tide of the battle. The attackers seemed all but beaten until an arrow struck and pierced Agnes’ armour, fatally wounding her.

 

Upon seeing her fall, the Eltzer defenders rushed the squire, hacking him down and driving off the attackers. The castle was saved but Agnes succumbed to her wounds, her spirit forever cursed to haunt the very castle she fought to defend.

 

And what tour of creepy castles would be complete without…. Fucking Frankenstein's castle. 

 

On a hilltop in the Odenwald mountain range, overlooking the German city of Darmstadt, are the crumbling remains of the real-life Frankenstein Castle. The stone structure has stood upon the hilltop since the mid-13th century. Some say that the castle’s dark legend made its way to a young Mary Shelley, providing inspiration for her great novel. While “Frankenstein” conjures thoughts of mad scientists and lumbering monsters, the phrase is in fact a fairly normal phrase for castles in southern Germany. The term “Frank” refers to the ancient Germanic tribe, while “stein” means stone. “Frankenstein” means “Stone of the Franks.” Lord Conrad II Reiz of Breuberg constructed the castle sometime around 1250. He christened the structure Frankenstein Castle, and afterward adopted the name “von und zu Frankenstein.” As founder of the free imperial Barony of Frankenstein, Lord Conrad held power over nearby Darmstadt, Ockstadt, Nieder-Beerbach, Wetterau, and Hesse.

 

As for the castle’s dark legend, that can be traced back to alchemist Johann Conrad Dippel, who was born in the castle in 1673. It is suggested that Dippel influenced Mary Shelley's fantasy when she wrote her Frankenstein novel, though there is no mention of the castle in Shelley's journals from the time. However, it is known that in 1814, prior to writing the famous novel, Shelley took a journey on the river Rhine. She spent a few hours in the town of Gernsheim, which is located about 16 kilometres (10 miles) from the castle. Several nonfiction books on the life of Mary Shelley claim Dippel as a possible influence. Dippel created an elixir known as Dippel’s Oil. Derived from pulverized animal bones, the dark, viscous oil was used as late as World War II, as a chemical warfare agent that rendered wells undrinkable without actually making the water poisonous. Rumors surrounding Dippel hold that, during his time at Frankenstein Castle, he practiced anatomy as well as alchemy, even going so far as to exhume corpses and perform medical experiments on them. There are some reports claiming that Dippel actually created a monster that was brought to life by a bolt of lightning—though it seems most likely that Shelley’s tale inspired these stories, and not the other way around. Rumours about Dippel appear to be modern inventions, too. For example, he is said to have performed experiments with cadavers, in which he attempted to transfer the soul of one cadaver into another. Soul-transference with cadavers was a common experiment among alchemists at the time and was a theory that Dippel supported in his writings, thus making it possible that Dippel pursued similar objectives, but there is no direct evidence to link him to these specific acts. There is also no evidence to the rumour that he was driven out of town when word of his activities reached the ears of the townspeople — though he was often banned from countries, notably Sweden and Russia, for his controversial theological positions. He also eventually had to flee to Giessen after killing a man in a duel.

 

An intriguing local legend tells of a Lord Georg of Frankenstein, who lived in the castle and fought a dragon that lurked at a nearby well. The legend goes that the lord was stung by the dragon’s poison tail during the skirmish, and died after making his way back to the castle. The supposed tomb of Lord Georg can still be visited in the church in the nearby village of Nieder Beerbach.

 

The forest near the castle is also home to a particularly eerie natural anomaly. Due to magnetic stone formations within the mountains, there are places near Frankenstein Castle where compasses cease to work properly. Legends say that witches used these areas for their sabbaths on Walpurgisnacht.

 

In 2008, the SyFy show Ghost Hunters International dedicated an entire episode to Frankenstein Castle. While there, the investigators met with a Frankenstein expert and claimed that the castle held “significant paranormal activity.” Sounds were recorded in the castle’s chapel and entrance tower, including a recording of what some believe was a voice speaking in Old German saying, “Arbo is here.” 

 

Also, Hidden behind the herb garden of the castle, there is a fountain of youth. Legend has it that on the first full-moon after Walpurgis Night, old women from the nearby villages had to undergo tests of courage. The one who succeeded became rejuvenated to the age she had been on the night of her wedding. It is not known if this tradition is still being practiced these days. 

 

Sounds like a fun place!

 

This next one isn't necessarily a haunted spot but we found the story and thought it was cool. It's about a "devil's bridge". One of the most famous Devil's bridges in the world is the Steinerne Brücke (Stone Bridge) in Regensburg, Germany. The legend behind the Stone Bridge is quite the amazing tale. The story involves a race between two builders, the mentor versus his protégé. The mentor was building a cathedral while his protégé was constructing a bridge—the two of them made a bet, and the bet was to see who could finish their structure first.

 

Eager to beat his mentor, the protégé made a deal with the Devil. In this pact, the Devil would receive the first three souls to cross the bridge. With the Devil's help the protégé won the bet. Filled with regret, the protégé guarded the bridge, refusing to let anyone cross. He was later visited by his mentor who was concerned by his behavior. The protégé broke down and confessed to his mentor of the deal he made with the Devil. The mentor came to the young man's aid, sending a rooster, a hen and a dog over the bridge. The Devil was so enraged that he was tricked by the cunning mentor, he attempted to destroy the bridge, but it was too strong to be ruined. However, the Devil's attempt did leave a bump in the middle of the bridge that is still there to this day.

 

Awesome story.

 

Next up we headed back to school… Wait no fuck that. We’ll just talk about a school haunted by… Well.. Nazis of course. Bitburg school is no ordinary school. It's an American school for children of service members. The school is also taught by military servicemen, which means that people who see ghosts here have military connections. Back before Bitburg became a United States military base, it was a Nazi military zone. In the interwar years, Bitburg, like most of the Eifel region, was impoverished and comparatively backward. Economic growth began after the Nazi Seizure of Power and the Nazi regime's introduction of employment-boosting public works projects, including infrastructure for war, particularly the Westwall; new armed forces barracks; and the development of the Kyll Valley railway. It is said that the building now used as the post office at Bitburg Annex (what is left of Bitburg Air Base) was the headquarters for Adolf Hitler when he was in the city.

 

In late December 1944, Bitburg was 85 percent destroyed by Allied bombing attacks, and later officially designated by the U.S. military as a "dead city." Subsequently, the town was occupied by Luxembourg soldiers, who were replaced by French forces in 1955. 

 

As you can imagine… Some pretty fucked up things probably went on in the area which would most likely lead to some crazy hauntings. Most of them seem to be focused at the bitburg middle school. There are many reports from reputable military individuals about the strange goings on at the school. Many people have their lights flickering on and off throughout the school. It's apparently a pretty common occurrence. People also report that at night the sounds of people screaming at the top of their lungs can be heard. Are these the voices of people that were tortured or killed in the area? There are a few stories about people seeing shadows and apparitions as well.

 

Damn maybe we would have actually liked going to school if our school was like this!

 

Lastly for this episode we're gonna visit Osnabrück Hünenbetten. This place used to be a major pagan temple and gravesite. When Charlemagne set out on a tirade to convert the inhabitants of the region to Christianity, a bloody massacre took place here. Now massacres, as we all know, are not a pleasant thing and this one led to the deaths of many pagan priests. The troops destroyed the largest altar stone to prove the supremacy of the Christian God over paganism. So it's no surprise that there are some crazy tales that come from this place. Take for instance the stories of how people see bloodstains appear on the rocks at the site, especially on the winter and summer equinox. There are reports of poltergeist activity as well. It's also said that on quiet nights you can hear the screens of the people who were massacred. There's also reports of strange lights and orbs being seen at the site as well. 

 

Okay, meine Freunde, das ist alles, was wir für diese Episode haben. wir hoffen, euch hat unsere Zugfahrt im gruseligen Deutschland gefallen. 

 

For those of you who don't speak German, you'll never know what I've just said. And for those that do speak German, well you're probably laughing at the translation and ALSO still probably never know what we actually were saying. And in saying that, it's time for … DIE FILME!!!

 

https://www.ranker.com/list/best-horror-movies-about-castles/ranker-film

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Hollow Earth Shenanigans

Hollow Earth Theory

 

Well hello there passengers, and welcome to yet another exciting day aboard the MidnightTrain. Today we delve deep into the mysterious, creepy, possibly conspiratorial world that is our own. What do I mean by that? Well we are digging our way to the center of truth! Today, we learn about Hollow Earth… and for the flat earthers out there… you’re gonna wanna hang out for a minute before you dip outta here… also fuck you.

 

(Cinematic trailer voice) In a World where there exists people who think the world is a flat piece of paper with trees growing out of it and a big guy who flips the piece of paper over to switch between day and night. One man wants to change that idea. His name… is Edmund Halley. Yes that Halley. The one known for the comet he discovered. But before we explore more about him and his findings, let's discuss what led us to this revolutionary hypothesis.

 

So besides idiots who believe the earth is flat, I mean stupid-endous personalities, there are other more interesting characters that believe the earth is completely hollow; or at least a large part of it. This is what we call the Hollow Earth Theory. Now where did this all come from? Well, nobody cares, Moody. That's the show folks!

 

Ok, ok, ok… fine. Since the early times many cultures, religions, and folklore believed that there was something below our feet. Whether it’s the lovely and tropical Christian Hell, the Jungle-esque Greek Underworld, the balmy Nordic Svartálfaheim, or the temperate Jewish Sheol; there is a name for one simple idea. These cultures believed it to be where we either come from or where we go when we die. This may hold some truth, or not. Guess we will know more when the time comes.

 

The idea of a subterranean realm is also mentioned in Tibetan Buddhist belief. According to one story from Tibetan Buddhist tradition, there is an ancient city called Shamballa which is located inside the Earth.

According to the Ancient Greeks, there were caverns under the surface which were entrances leading to the underworld, some of which were the caverns at Tainaron in Lakonia, at Troezen in Argolis, at Ephya in Thesprotia, at Herakleia in Pontos, and in Ermioni. In Thracian and Dacian legends, it is said that there are caverns occupied by an ancient god called Zalmoxis. In Mesopotamian religion there is a story of a man who, after traveling through the darkness of a tunnel in the mountain of "Mashu", entered a subterranean garden. Sounds lovely. 

In Celtic mythology there is a legend of a cave called "Cruachan", also known as "Ireland's gate to Hell", a mythical and ancient cave from which according to legend strange creatures would emerge and be seen on the surface of the Earth.​​ They are said to be bald, taller than most with blue eyes and a big, bushy beard… fucking Moody. There are also stories of medieval knights and saints who went on pilgrimages to a cave located in Station Island, County Donegal in Ireland, where they made journeys inside the Earth into a place of purgatory. You guys know purgatory, that place or state of suffering inhabited by the souls of sinners who are shedding their sins before going to heaven. In County Down, Northern Ireland there is a myth which says tunnels lead to the land of the subterranean Tuatha Dé Danann, who are supposedly a group of people who are believed to have introduced Druidism to Ireland, and then they said fuck it and went back underground.

In Hindu mythology, the underworld is referred to as Patala. In the Bengali version of the Hindu epic Ramayana, it has been depicted how Rama and Lakshmana were taken by the king of the underworld Ahiravan, brother of the demon king Ravana. Later on they were rescued by Hanuman. Got all that?

The Angami Naga tribes of India claim that their ancestors emerged in ancient times from a subterranean land inside the Earth. The Taino from Cuba believe their ancestors emerged in ancient times from two caves in a mountain underground.

Natives of the Trobriand Islands believe that their ancestors had come from a subterranean land through a cavern hole called "Obukula". Mexican folklore also tells of a cave in a mountain five miles south of Ojinaga, and that Mexico is possessed by devilish creatures who came from inside the Earth. Maybe THAT’S where the Chupacabra came from!

In the middle ages, an ancient German myth held that some mountains located between Eisenach and Gotha hold a portal to the inner Earth. A Russian legend says the Samoyeds, an ancient Siberian tribe, traveled to a cavern city to live inside the Earth. Luckily, they had plenty of space rope to make it back out.  The Italian writer Dante describes a hollow earth in his well-known 14th-century work Inferno, in which the fall of Lucifer from heaven caused an enormous funnel to appear in a previously solid and spherical earth, as well as an enormous mountain opposite it, "Purgatory". There’s that place, again.

In Native American mythology, they believed that the ancestors of the Mandan people in ancient times emerged from a subterranean land through a cave at the north side of the Missouri River. There is also a tale about a tunnel in the San Carlos Apache Indian Reservation in Arizona near Cedar Creek which is said to lead inside the Earth to a land inhabited by a mysterious tribe. It is also the belief of the tribes of the Iroquois that their ancient ancestors emerged from a subterranean world inside the Earth. The elders of the Hopi people believe that a Sipapu entrance in the Grand Canyon exists which leads to the underworld.

Brazilian Indians, who live alongside the Parima River in Brazil, claim that their forefathers emerged in ancient times from an underground land, and that many of their ancestors still remained inside the Earth. Ancestors of the Inca supposedly came from caves which are located east of Cuzco, Peru. So, this is something that has been floating around a shit ton of ancient mythos for a long ass time. Well, ya know… before that silly thing called SCIENCE. Moving on.

Now to circle back to our friend Edmund. He was born in 1656, in Haggerston in Middlesex (not to be confused with uppersex or its ill-informed cousin the powerbottomsex). He was an English astronomer, geophysicist, mathematician, meteorologist, and physicist; because what else was there to do in the 1600’s but be a know-it-all? He was known to work with Sir Isaac Newton among other notable (but not gonna note them here) proponents to science. 

In 1692 he proffered the idea that the earth was indeed hollow and had a shell about 500 miles thick with two inner concentric (having a common center, as circles or spheres… hear that flat earthers??) shells and an inner core. He proposed that the atmospheres separated the shells and that they also had their own magnetic poles and that the shells moved at different speeds. This idea was used to elucidate(shed light upon… yes pun intended) anomalous(ih-nom-uh-luhs) compass readings. He conceptualized that the inner region had its own atmosphere and possibly luminous with plausible inhabitants. MOLE PEOPLE!! He also thought that escaping gases from the inner earth caused what is now known as the Northern Lights.

 

Now another early ambassador to this idea was Le Clerc Milfort. Jean-Antoine Le Clerc, or known by a simpler name, Louis Milfort. Monsieur Milfort was a higher ranking French military officer who offered his services during the late 1700’s. He is most notably known for leading Creek Indian warriors during the American Revolutionary War as allies of the British. I guess having a common enemy here would make sense as to why he chose this group to lead. He emigrated in 1775 to what was then known as the British Colonies of North America. But we all know there is nothing Bri’ish about us. 

 

Now why would a higher ranking French military Officer want to emigrate from his home to a place of turmoil? Great question Moody! I knew you were paying attention. Well, a little about this French saboteur.

 

He was known by many aliases, but we will just stick with Louis (Louie) for all intents and purposes. Louis was born in Thin-le-Moutier, near Mezieres, France. He served in the French Military from 1764 to 1774. Now this is according to his memoir that was dated in 1802. He left France after he ended up killing a servant of the king’s household in a duel. Apparently, the king’s servant loved the king. So much so that when Louis read aloud a poem that he had written that included the king, the servant jumped up, tore off his glove and slapped Louis across the face not once, but 4 fucking times! This is obviously something that Louis could not just let happen, so he challenged the servant to a duel. Not just any duel, mind you. He challenged him to a duel of what was then known as a “mort de coupes de papier.” The servant died an excruciating death and Louis fled. Here is the poem that started the feud. 

There’s a place in France

Where the naked ladies dance

There’s a hole in the wall

Where the men can see it all

But the men don’t care

Cause they lost their underwear

And the cops never shoot

Cause they think it’s kind of cute

There a place in France

Where the alligators dance

If you give them a glance

They could bite you in the pants

There’s a place on Mars

Where the ladies smoke cigars

Every puff she makes

Is enough to kill the snakes

When the snakes all die

They put diamonds in their eye

When the diamonds break

The dancing makes them ache

When the diamonds shine

They really look so fine

The king and the queen

Have a rubber ding-a-ling

All the girls in France

Have ants in their pants

Yes, this is 100% bullshit… but, you’ll have that shit stuck in your head for days.

Now as much as we tried to find ACTUAL information as to why there was duel and why it was with a servant of the king, we couldn't find much. But after digging up some more information on Louis we found out that he ended up going back to France to be a part of the Sacred Society of Sophisians. 

 

This group is also known as the secret society of Napoleon's Sorcerers… This may have to be a bonus episode so stay tuned for more!

 

Now back to the “Core” of our episode. The Creek Indians who are originally from the Muscogee [məskóɡəlɡi](Thank wikipedia) area which is southeast united states which roughly translates to the areas around Tennessee, Alabama, western Georgia and Northern Florida. Louis adapted their customs and assimilated into their Tribe.  He even married the sister of the Chief.

 

Now after Louis and the rest of the people in the American Revolutionary War lost to the U.S. he decided to lead the Creek Tribe on an expedition in 1781 because, well, they had nothing else to do. On this expedition they were searching for caverns where allegedly the Creek Indians ancestors had emerged from. Maybe even the Origin of Bigfoot.

 

Yes, the Creek Indians had believed that their ancestors lived below the earth and lived in caverns along the Red River junction of the Mississippi River. Now during the expedition they did come across these caverns which they suspected could hold 20,000 of their family in. That's pretty much all they found. They didn't have video cameras back then otherwise, I'm pretty sure they would have found footage of bigfoot though.

 

Another advocate was Leonhard Euler, yes, you heard right. Buehler… Buehler… No Leonard Euler. A great 18th century mathematician; or not so great if you didn't enjoy math in school unlike moody who was the biggest nerd when it came to math. 

 

Euler founded the study of graph theory and topology. No moody, not on-top-ology. Mind always in the gutter. Euler influenced many other discoveries such as analytic number theory, complex analysis, and the coolest subject ever; Infinitesimal Calculus. Which is Latin for BULLSHIT.

 

But anyways I digress. This guy knew his stuff BUT he did think with all his “infinite” wisdom that the earth was in fact hollow and had no inner shells but instead had a six hundred mile diameter sun in the center. The most intriguing and plausible theory he had within this whole idea was that you could enter into this interior from the northern and southern poles. Let’s hold to that cool hypothesis for right now and move along with our next Interesting goon of the hollow earth community.

 

With Halley’s spheres and Eulers’s Holes came another great man with another great theory. Captain John Symmes! Yes you know Captain Symmes. HE was a hero in the war of 1812 after being sent with his Regiment to Canada and providing relief to American forces at the battle of Lundy’s Lane. He was well known as a trader and lecturer after he left the army. 

 

In 1818 Symmes announced his theory on Hollow Earth to the World! With his publication of his Circular No. 1.

 

“I declare the earth is hollow, and habitable within; containing a number of solid concentric spheres, one within the other, and that it is open at the poles 12 or 16 degrees; I pledge my life in support of this truth, and am ready to explore the hollow, if the world will support and aid me in the undertaking.”— John Cleves Symmes Jr., Symmes' Circular No. 1 

While there were few people who would consider Symmes as the “Newton of the West”, most of the world was less than impressed. Although his theory wasn't as popular as one would expect, you gotta admire the confidence he had.

 

Symmes sent this declaration at a rather hefty cost to himself to “each notable foreign government, reigning prince, legislature, city, college, and philosophical societies, throughout the union, and to individual members of our National Legislature, as far as the five hundred copies would go.”15]

 

Symmes would then be followed by an exorbitant amount of ridicule for his proclamation, as many intellectuals were back then. This ridicule would later influence a rather bold move, Cotton. We’ll touch on this later. 

 

What was so special about his theory that got 98% of the world not on the edge of their seats? Well, to start he believed the Earth had five concentric spheres with where we live to be the largest  of the spheres. He also believed that the crust was 1000 miles thick with an arctic opening about 4000 miles wide and an antarctic opening around 6000 miles wide.

He argued that because of the centrifugal force of the Earth’s rotation that the poles would be flattened which would cause such a gradual gradation that you would travel into the Hollow Earth without even knowing you even did it.

 

Eventually he refined his theory because of such ridicule and criticism. Now his theory consists of just a single hollow sphere instead of five concentric spheres. So, now that we know all about symmes and his theory, why don't we talk about what he decided to do with his theory? 

 

What do you think, Moody? You think he created a cult so he could be ostracized? Or do you think he gave up and realized he was silly? Hate to be the bearer of bad news here but he decided to take his theory and convince the U.S. congress to fund and organize an expedition to the south pole to enter the inner earth. 

 

Good news and bad news folks. Good news, congress back then actually had some people with heads on their shoulders as opposed to those today and they said fuck that noise and denied funding for his expedition. Hamilton, Ohio even has a monument to him and his ideas. Fuckin’ Ohio.

Next up on our list of “what the fuck were they thinking?” We have Jeremiah Reynolds. He also delivered lectures on the "Hollow Earth" and argued for an expedition. I guess back in those days people just up and went to the far reaches of the earth just to prove a point. Reynolds said “look what I can do” and went on an expedition to Antarctica himself but missed joining the Great U.S. Exploring Expedition of 1838–1842, even though that venture was a result of his craziness, I MEAN “INTEREST”.

He gained support from marine and scientific societies and, in 1828, successfully lobbied the House of Representatives to pass a resolution asking then-President John Quincy Adams to deploy a research vessel to the Pacific.

The president, for his part, had first mentioned Reynolds in his November 4, 1826, diary entry, writing:

“Mr Reynolds is a man who has been lecturing about the Country, in support of Captain John Cleves Symmes’s theory that the Earth is a hollow Sphere, open at the Poles— His Lectures are said to have been well attended, and much approved as exhibitions of genius and of Science— But the Theory itself has been so much ridiculed, and is in truth so visionary, that Reynolds has now varied his purpose to the proposition of fitting out a voyage of circumnavigation to the Southern Ocean— He has obtained numerous signatures in Baltimore to a Memorial to Congress for this object, which he says will otherwise be very powerfully supported— It will however have no support in Congress. That day will come, but not yet nor in my time. May it be my fortune, and my praise to accelerate its approach.” 

Adams’ words proved prophetic. Though his administration opted to fund Reynolds’ expedition, the voyage was waylaid by the 1828 presidential election, which found Adams roundly defeated by Andrew Jackson. The newly elected president canceled the expedition, leaving Reynolds to fund his trip through other sources. (The privately supported venture set sail in 1829 but ended in disaster, with the crew mutinying and leaving Reynolds’ ass on shore.) Per Boston 1775, the U.S. Exploring Expedition only received the green light under the country’s eighth president, Martin Van Buren.

As Howard Dorre explains on his Plodding Through the Presidents blog, multiple media outlets (including Smithsonian, in an earlier version of this article) erroneously interpreted Adams’ description of Reynolds’ ideas as “visionary” as a sign of his support for the hollow earth theory. In fact, notes Bell in a separate Boston 1775 blog post, the term’s connotations at the time were largely negative. In the words of 18th-century English writer Samuel Johnson, a visionary was “one whose imagination is disturbed.”

The president, adds Dorre, only agreed to support the polar expedition “after Reynolds abandoned the hollow earth idea.”  I had always heard that he was a believer in mole people and hollow earth, turns out his words were just misinterpreted. Hmm… I wonder if there are any other books out there where the overall ideas and verbage could and have been misinterpreted causing insane amounts of disingenuous beliefs? Nah!

 

Though Symmes himself never wrote a book about his ideas, several authors published works discussing his ideas. McBride wrote Symmes' Theory of Concentric Spheres in 1826. It appears that Reynolds has an article that appeared as a separate booklet in 1827: Remarks of Symmes' Theory Which Appeared in the American Quarterly Review. In 1868, a professor W.F. Lyons published The Hollow Globe which put forth a Symmes-like Hollow Earth hypothesis, but failed to mention Symmes himself. Because fuck that guy, right? Symmes's son Americus then published The Symmes' Theory of Concentric Spheres in 1878 to set the record straight. I think the duel would have been a better idea.

Sir John Leslie proposed a hollow Earth in his 1829 Elements of Natural Philosophy (pp. 449–53).

In 1864, in Journey to the Center of the Earth, Jules Verne described a hollow Earth containing two rotating binary stars, named Pluto and Proserpine. Ok… fiction. We get it.

William Fairfield Warren, in his book Paradise Found–The Cradle of the Human Race at the North Pole, (1885) presented his belief that humanity originated on a continent in the Arctic called Hyperborea. This influenced some early Hollow Earth proponents. According to Marshall Gardner, both the Eskimo and Mongolian peoples had come from the interior of the Earth through an entrance at the North Pole. I wonder if they knew that. 

 

NEQUA or The Problem of the Ages, first serialized in a newspaper printed in Topeka, Kansas in 1900 and considered an early feminist utopian novel, mentions John Cleves Symmes' theory to explain its setting in a hollow Earth.

An early 20th-century proponent of hollow Earth, William Reed, wrote Phantom of the Poles in 1906. He supported the idea of a hollow Earth, but without interior shells or inner sun. Ok, no sun. Got it.

The spiritualist writer Walburga, Lady Paget in her book Colloquies with an unseen friend (1907) was an early writer to mention the hollow Earth hypothesis. She claimed that cities exist beneath a desert, which is where the people of Atlantis moved. Mmmk. Deserts and Atlantis. Check. She said an entrance to the subterranean kingdom will be discovered in the 21st century. Pretty broad brush she’s painting with there.

Next up we're gonna talk a little about Admiral Richard E. Byrd. According to Hollow Earth theorists, Byrd met an ancient race underground in the South Pole. According to Byrd’s “diary,” the government ordered Byrd to remain silent for what he witnessed during his Arctic assignment:

             March 11, 1947

“I have just attended a Staff Meeting at the Pentagon. I have stated fully my discovery and the message from the Master. All is duly recorded. The President has been advised. I am now detained for several hours (six hours, thirty- nine minutes, to be exact.) I am interviewed intently by Top Security Forces and a Medical Team. It was an ordeal!!!! I am placed under strict control via the National Security provisions of this United States of America. I am ORDERED TO REMAIN SILENT IN REGARD TO ALL THAT I HAVE LEARNED, ON THE BEHALF OF HUMANITY!!! Incredible! I am reminded that I am a Military Man and I must obey orders.”

After many polar accomplishments, Byrd organized Operation Highjump in 1947. The objective: construct an American training and research facility in the South Pole. Highjump was a significant illustration of the state of the world and the cold war thinking at the time. The nuclear age had just begun, and the real fears were that the Soviet Union would attack the United States over the North Pole. The Navy had done a training exercise there in the summer of 1946 and felt it needed to do more. The northern winter was coming, and Highjump was a quickly planned exercise to move the whole thing to the South Pole. Politically, the orders were that the Navy should do all it could to establish a basis for a [land] claim in Antarctica. That was classified at the time.Now Operation High jump could probably be its own episode, or is at minimum a bonus. But we'll get some of the important details on how it pertains to this episode. Some say the American government sent their troops to the South Pole for any evidence of the rumored German Base 211.

Nazis were fascinated with anything regarding the Aryan race. They traveled all over the world including Antarctica to learn more of alleged origins.

The Germans did make their mark in the South Pole. However, what they have discovered doesn’t compared to what Byrd recorded in his diary. the time. The nuclear age had just begun, and the real fears were that the Soviet Union would attack the United States over the North Pole. The Navy had done a training exerci but was that all it was

 

“For thousands of years, people all over the world have written legends about Agartha (sometimes called Agarta or Agarthi), the underground city. Agartha (sometimes Agartta, Agharti, Agarath, Agarta or Agarttha) is a legendary kingdom that is said to be located in the Earth's core. Agartha is frequently associated or confused with Shambhala which figures prominently in Vajrayana Buddhism and Tibetan Kalachakra teachings and revived in the West by Madame Blavatsky and the Theosophical Society. Theosophists in particular regard Agarthi as a vast complex of caves underneath Tibet inhabited by demi-gods, called asuras. Helena and Nicholas Roerich, whose teachings closely parallel theosophy, see Shambhala's existence as both spiritual and physical. Did Byrd find it?

He claims to have met “The Master,” the city’s leader, who told him of his concerns about the surface world:

“Our interest rightly begins just after your Race exploded the first atomic bombs over Hiroshima and Nagasaki, Japan. It was that alarming time we sent our flying machines, the ‘Flugelrads’ to your surface world to investigate what your Race had done…You see, we have never interfered before in your Race’s wars and barbarity. But now we must, for you have learned to tamper with a certain power that is not for your Man, mainly that of atomic energy. Our emissaries have already delivered messages to the power of your World, and yet they do not heed.”

Apparently, the government knew about Agartha before Byrd.

Marshall Gardner wrote A Journey to the Earth's Interior in 1913 and published an expanded edition in 1920. He placed an interior sun in the Earth (ah ha! The Sun’s back!) and built a working model of the Hollow Earth which he actually fucking patented (U.S. Patent 1,096,102). Gardner made no mention of Reed, but did criticize Symmes for his ideas. DUEL TIME! Around the same time, Vladimir Obruchev wrote a novel titled Plutonia, in which the Hollow Earth possessed an inner Sun and was inhabited by prehistoric species. The interior was connected with the surface by an opening in the Arctic.

The explorer Ferdynand Ossendowski wrote a book in 1922 titled Beasts, Men and Gods. Ossendowski said he was told about a subterranean kingdom that exists inside the Earth. It was known to Buddhists as Agharti.

George Papashvily in his Anything Can Happen (1940) claimed the discovery in the Caucasus mountains of a cavern containing human skeletons "with heads as big as bushel baskets" and an ancient tunnel leading to the center of the Earth. One man entered the tunnel and never returned. This dude was a sniper with the Imperial Russian Army during World War I

Moody is going to love these next examples. 

Novelist Lobsang Rampa in his book The Cave of the Ancients said an underground chamber system exists beneath the Himalayas of Tibet, filled with ancient machinery, records and treasure. Michael Grumley, a cryptozoologist, has linked Bigfoot and other hominid cryptids to ancient tunnel systems underground.

According to the ancient astronaut writer Peter Kolosimo a robot was seen entering a tunnel below a monastery in Mongolia. Kolosimo also claimed a light was seen from underground in Azerbaijan. Kolosimo and other ancient astronaut writers such as Robert Charroux linked these activities to DUN DUN DUNNNN….UFOs.

A book by a "Dr. Raymond Bernard" which appeared in 1964, The Hollow Earth, exemplifies the idea of UFOs coming from inside the Earth, and adds the idea that the Ring Nebula proves the existence of hollow worlds, as well as speculation on the fate of Atlantis and the origin of flying saucers. An article by Martin Gardner revealed that Walter Siegmeister used the pseudonym "Bernard", but not until the 1989 publishing of Walter Kafton-Minkel's Subterranean Worlds: 100,000 Years of Dragons, Dwarfs, the Dead, Lost Races & UFOs from Inside the Earth did the full story of Bernard/Siegmeister become well-known. Holy fucking book title, Batman!

 

The science fiction pulp magazine Amazing Stories promoted one such idea from 1945 to 1949 as "The Shaver Mystery". The magazine's editor, Ray Palmer, ran a series of stories by Richard Sharpe Shaver, claiming that a superior pre-historic race had built a honeycomb of caves in the Earth, and that their degenerate descendants, known as "Dero", live there TO THIS DAY, using the fantastic machines abandoned by the ancient races to torment those of us living on the surface. As one characteristic of this torment, Shaver described "voices" that purportedly came from no explainable source. Thousands of readers wrote to affirm that they, too, had heard the fiendish voices from inside the Earth. The writer David Hatcher Childress authored Lost Continents and the Hollow Earth(1998) in which he reprinted the stories of Palmer and defended the Hollow Earth idea based on alleged (cough… “alleged”) tunnel systems beneath South America and Central Asia.

Hollow Earth proponents have claimed a number of different locations for the entrances which lead inside the Earth. Other than the North and South poles, entrances in locations which have been cited include: Paris in France, Staffordshire in England, Montreal in Canada, Hangchow in China, and The Amazon Rain Forest.

 

Ok, have you two gents heard of the Concave Hollow Earth Theory?

It doesn’t matter, we’re still going to talk about this lunacy.

Instead of saying that humans live on the outside surface of a hollow planet—sometimes called a "convex" Hollow Earth hypothesis—some whackamuffins have claimed humans live on the inside surface of a hollow spherical world, so that our universe itself lies in that world's interior. This has been called the "concave" Hollow Earth hypothesis or skycentrism.

Cyrus Teed, a doctor from upstate New York, proposed such a concave Hollow Earth in 1869, calling his scheme "Cellular Cosmogony". He might as well have called it Goobery Kabooblenuts. See, I can make up words, too. Anyway, Teed founded a group called the Koreshan Unity based on this notion, which he called Koreshanity. Which sounds like insanity and would make far more sense. The main colony survives as a preserved Florida state historic site, at Estero, Florida, but all of Teed's followers have now died. Probably from eating Tide Pods. Teed's followers claimed to have experimentally verified the concavity of the Earth's curvature, through surveys of the Florida coastline making use of "rectilineator" equipment. Which sounds like something you use to clean out your colon.

 

Several 20th-century German writers, including Peter Bender, Johannes Lang, Karl Neupert, and Fritz Braut, published works advocating the Hollow Earth hypothesis, or Hohlweltlehre. It has even been reported, although apparently without historical documentation, that Adolf Hitler was influenced by concave Hollow Earth ideas and sent an expedition in an unsuccessful attempt to spy on the British fleet by pointing infrared cameras up at the sky. Oh boy.

The Egyptian mathematician Mostafa “Admiral Akbar” Abdelkader wrote several scholarly papers working out a detailed mapping of the Concave Earth model

In one chapter of his book On the Wild Side (1992), Martin Gardner discusses the Hollow Earth model articulated by Abdelkader. According to Gardner, this hypothesis posits that light rays travel in circular paths, and slow as they approach the center of the spherical star-filled cavern. No energy can reach the center of the cavern, which corresponds to no point a finite distance away from Earth in the widely accepted scientific cosmology. A drill, Gardner says, would lengthen as it traveled away from the cavern and eventually pass through the "point at infinity" corresponding to the center of the Earth in the widely accepted scientific cosmology. Supposedly no experiment can distinguish between the two cosmologies. Christ, my head hurts.

Gardner notes that "most mathematicians believe that an inside-out universe, with properly adjusted physical laws, is empirically irrefutable". Gardner rejects the concave Hollow Earth hypothesis on the basis of Occam's razor. Occam’s razor is the problem-solving principle that "entities should not be multiplied beyond necessity", sometimes inaccurately paraphrased as "the simplest explanation is usually the best one."

Purportedly verifiable hypotheses of a Concave Hollow Earth need to be distinguished from a thought experiment which defines a coordinate transformation such that the interior of the Earth becomes "exterior" and the exterior becomes "interior". (For example, in spherical coordinates, let radius r go to R2/r where R is the Earth's radius; see inversive geometry.) The transformation entails corresponding changes to the forms of physical laws. This is not a hypothesis but an illustration of the fact that any description of the physical world can be equivalently expressed in more than one way.

 

Contrary evidence

 

Seismic

The picture of the structure of the Earth that has been arrived at through the study of seismic waves[52] is quite different from a fully hollow Earth. The time it takes for seismic waves to travel through and around the Earth directly contradicts a fully hollow sphere. The evidence indicates the Earth is mostly filled with solid rock (mantle and crust), liquid nickel-iron alloy (outer core), and solid nickel-iron (inner core).[53]

 

Gravity

Main articles: Schiehallion experiment and Cavendish experiment

Another set of scientific arguments against a Hollow Earth or any hollow planet comes from gravity. Massive objects tend to clump together gravitationally, creating non-hollow spherical objects such as stars and planets. The solid spheroid is the best way in which to minimize the gravitational potential energy of a rotating physical object; having hollowness is unfavorable in the energetic sense. In addition, ordinary matter is not strong enough to support a hollow shape of planetary size against the force of gravity; a planet-sized hollow shell with the known, observed thickness of the Earth's crust would not be able to achieve hydrostatic equilibrium with its own mass and would collapse.

 

Based upon the size of the Earth and the force of gravity on its surface, the average density of the planet Earth is 5.515 g/cm3, and typical densities of surface rocks are only half that (about 2.75 g/cm3). If any significant portion of the Earth were hollow, the average density would be much lower than that of surface rocks. The only way for Earth to have the force of gravity that it does is for much more dense material to make up a large part of the interior. Nickel-iron alloy under the conditions expected in a non-hollow Earth would have densities ranging from about 10 to 13 g/cm3, which brings the average density of Earth to its observed value.

 

Direct observation

Drilling holes does not provide direct evidence against the hypothesis. The deepest hole drilled to date is the Kola Superdeep Borehole,[54] with a true vertical drill-depth of more than 7.5 miles (12 kilometers). However, the distance to the center of the Earth is nearly 4,000 miles (6,400 kilometers). Oil wells with longer depths are not vertical wells; the total depths quoted are measured depth (MD) or equivalently, along-hole depth (AHD) as these wells are deviated to horizontal. Their true vertical depth (TVD) is typically less than 2.5 miles (4 kilometers).

 

Ok, then let’s discuss what actual scientists, like ALL OF THEM, believe the earth is actually composed of.

The inner core

This solid metal ball has a radius of 1,220 kilometers (758 miles), or about three-quarters that of the moon. It’s located some 6,400 to 5,180 kilometers (4,000 to 3,220 miles) beneath Earth’s surface. Extremely dense, it’s made mostly of iron and nickel. The inner core spins a bit faster than the rest of the planet. It’s also intensely hot: Temperatures sizzle at 5,400° Celsius (9,800° Fahrenheit). That’s almost as hot as the surface of the sun. Pressures here are immense: well over 3 million times greater than on Earth’s surface. Some research suggests there may also be an inner, inner core. It would likely consist almost entirely of iron.

 

The outer core

 

This part of the core is also made from iron and nickel, just in liquid form. It sits some 5,180 to 2,880 kilometers (3,220 to 1,790 miles) below the surface. Heated largely by the radioactive decay of the elements uranium and thorium, this liquid churns in huge, turbulent currents. That motion generates electrical currents. They, in turn, generate Earth’s magnetic field. For reasons somehow related to the outer core, Earth’s magnetic field reverses about every 200,000 to 300,000 years. Scientists are still working to understand how that happens.

 

The mantle

 

At close to 3,000 kilometers (1,865 miles) thick, this is Earth’s thickest layer. It starts a mere 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) beneath the surface. Made mostly of iron, magnesium and silicon, it is dense, hot and semi-solid (think caramel candy). Like the layer below it, this one also circulates. It just does so far more slowly.

Near its upper edges, somewhere between about 100 and 200 kilometers (62 to 124 miles) underground, the mantle’s temperature reaches the melting point of rock. Indeed, it forms a layer of partially melted rock known as the asthenosphere (As-THEEN-oh-sfeer). Geologists believe this weak, hot, slippery part of the mantle is what Earth’s tectonic plates ride upon and slide across.

 

Diamonds are tiny pieces of the mantle we can actually touch. Most form at depths above 200 kilometers (124 miles). But rare “super-deep” diamonds may have formed as far down as 700 kilometers (435 miles) below the surface. These crystals are then brought to the surface in volcanic rock known as kimberlite.

 

The mantle’s outermost zone is relatively cool and rigid. It behaves more like the crust above it. Together, this uppermost part of the mantle layer and the crust are known as the lithosphere.

The crust

 

Earth’s crust is like the shell of a hard-boiled egg. It is extremely thin, cold and brittle compared to what lies below it. The crust is made of relatively light elements, especially silica, aluminum and oxygen. It’s also highly variable in its thickness. Under the oceans (and Hawaiian Islands), it may be as little as 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) thick. Beneath the continents, the crust may be 30 to 70 kilometers (18.6 to 43.5 miles) thick.

 

Along with the upper zone of the mantle, the crust is broken into big pieces, like a gigantic jigsaw puzzle. These are known as tectonic plates. These move slowly — at just 3 to 5 centimeters (1.2 to 2 inches) per year. What drives the motion of tectonic plates is still not fully understood. It may be related to heat-driven convection currents in the mantle below. Some scientists think it’s caused by the tug from slabs of crust of different densities, something called “slab pull.” In time, these plates will converge, pull apart or slide past each other. Those actions cause most earthquakes and volcanoes. It’s a slow ride, but it makes for exciting times right here on Earth’s surface.

 

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls003260126/?sort=user_rating,desc&st_dt=&mode=detail&page=1

 

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