Listener Mail: Mysterious Handprints, the death of Winston Smith, Ghost Stories

Published Oct 14, 2021, 9:45 PM

Nick asks his fellow Conspiracy Realists for help explaining mysterious handprints. Becky asks why more people aren't talking about the death of Winston Smith. Ben continues his obsession with your ghost stories, and, in a rare personal moment, shares the story of a bizarre encounter somewhere in the rural Gulf Coast. All this and more in this week's Listener Mail.

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From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A production of I Heart Radio. Hello, and welcome back to the show. My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer Paul Mission controlled decade. Most importantly, you are you. You are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't want you to know. It's Thursday if you're listening to this down the day it comes out, which means it is time for listener mail. When you're not hearing us on the show. Folks, imagine Matt, Noel and myself the whole stuff they don't want you to know. A team assiduously digging through correspondence. We're searching the corners of the Internet. We're we're finding all those old messages from social media. We're reading wonderful letters from the very best part of the show, you and your fellow listeners, and at least once a week we like to share them with you. So we're gonna get a little spooky with it. A little spooky as as the kids say, these days and it's yeah, and we hope, we hope you enjoy it because we've been receiving so many wonderful stories about things that can't be explained. If you don't want to call them paranormal, that's fine. If you don't want to say ghost, that's fine too. But it turns out a lot of people, even people who consider those hells die hard skeptics, have found themselves in Twilight Zone esque situations. So with that in mind, what better way to start that? Uh, A haunted apartment? Yes, and we really have to give Nick a hand for sending us this voicemail and you will understand why we are doing that mo entarily. Hi, guys, this is Nick and an Arbor, Michigan. I wanted to give a call with a story of my own. A couple of years ago, my wife and I moved into an apartment in downtown Chicago. It was an historic building about a hundred years old. UM, really a lot of history in the building, a really neat building. UM had a normal, you know kind of life there. Uh. What happened one night was we we went to bed with the bedroom door open. We woke up in the morning the bedroom door was closed, and on the inside of the bedroom door was a large handprint in like a black ash, very large. It had to be seven or eight inches long, and when I touched it, the ash kind of fell to the ground, much like ash room, a chimney or something like that. It was truly like a black ash. Immediately we called the maintenance. There was on site maintenance and an on site kind of concierge. We called them and and asked, you know, had anyone been to our apartment. We had no idea if there's an emergency or something, and we completely missed something going on. They told us no, no one had in the apartment. There was nothing scheduled, No maintenance people have been in there. We told them what had happened. They were blown away by it. They sent maintenance up, meaning it's looked at this large handprint, you know. I said, they didn't know what it was, and they left. We kind of left it alone. I would say about two months later, we woke up, We're getting ready in the morning, and on one of the hallways of our apartment, towards the front door, was truly like a child size handprint in this same black ash. And again like when I touched it, it it would kind of fall off the wall. We called maintenance right away again to find out what could possibly be an explanation for this. I truly thought at this point maybe a maintenance person came up with their kid and their kid got dirty when they were doing some kind of where got I had no idea. You're kind of like reaching for answers at that point. They had no explanation. They told us to put a safety bar on the inside of the door that kind of goes under the door knob. They said, no one had been in the building, uh so, and not rather in our apartment, So we did that. Um. Then what happened a couple of months later, I would say two months later, we were on winter vacation in Florida. We got a call from our cat sitter who had gone over to the building and uh to to pete our cat, And he said, have you guys been up here or have you had any friends here? Uh that have come to your partner? I said no, Why? He said, well, all of your your kitchen cabinets are open, and your lights are on, including your microwave and your refrigerator and freezer, and you know, obviously the cat can't do that. I had them send any pictures. My wife and I were out eating in Florida and we were just terrified. We talked to the cat sit we couldn't figure out who have been in the apartment. Uh. You know. Eventually we moved from that apartment and I haven't had anything like that happened since. However, over the past year, I'd say I've seen two or three different uh friends and acquaintance of mine on social media who have posted very very similar experiences with these kind of Ashley handprints on the walls. One was some friends from high school but I haven't seen in years, and they posted on Instagram that they had moved into a new house. They're painting the walls, and after they painted the walls, Uh, these these Ashley handprints appeared. They posted pictures of these prints. They looked the exact same is what we experienced. Uh. Then we had another friend what the exact same thing happened and they moved into an older home and had that happened. So I'm just curious if you've ever heard of anything like that happening. Um, I've never seen anything like it. I still don't have an explanation for it. Can't figure it out. But I'm just so curious because I saw that other people I knew were having the same experience. So just curious if you've all had that experience, or if anyone you know has, or maybe anybody who listened to it, because to this day it really blows me away. I don't get what that could have been. All right, thank you so much, by wow oh man, thank you. Yes. First, as to paraphrase Michael Jackson, you were not alone, right, that was Michael Jackson, right, yeah, stuff, so right to paraphrase Jackson, Nick, this is not a unique thing. In fact, you may be surprised by how many people have reported something similar. Now it's not always a hand they see, and indeed, in some cases, uh, someone might interpret one of these marks as looking like a hand, but it can get a little indistinct. As you've noticed when you touched it, there definitely was something physical there because you know your touch affected it. Uh. Let's say, I don't know, Matt Nol. What do you think you want to go through the the boring stuff first or do you want to you want to get right? These are demons, These are definitely let's get to them. Come on, come on, Fritz, you've joined the dark brotherhood French Skyrim unintentionally. Uh. You know. The good news, Nick is, of course this is something like this has happened to a lot of people and they feel that they cannot explain it. At times, people have people are seeking more spiritual solution, might do something like, uh, scrubbing the house or cleansing it by burning sage. May have a religious ceremony of some sort, or spiritual ceremony, whether that's you know, a seance, or you have a priest or a holy figure come to bless or even exercise the house. Those are right, right. And the thing that might surprise you is that the world of just straight up interior repair and maintenance is also familiar with this. There's a term called ghosting, and in the world of building and painting house painting, ghosting usually refers to these dark streaks or patches on walls or ceilings or even carpets, and for most people they are unexplained. Where did this come from? You know what I mean? Especially in an older building, people may have very valid concerns about contaminants rights they're lead paint, Is there is best? And so on? Yeah, the at least in the world of the construction, right, what a builder painters sees when they're talking about ghosting, they're talking about these streaks. They're talking about something that's caused by the slow build up of dust and sometimes mold and soot over time. But this, I posit doesn't sound like exactly the same thing, because it sounds as though these handprints just appeared, right yeah, and they're on the surface of the latest code of paint. Right So this I mean the one in the hallway as well as the one that was on the door in the bedroom. Uh, let me tell you, guys, just really quickly. I don't mean to jump in here with my own story, but here I go. So I had this experience not long ago. Actually, I'm doing a lot of work on my home, and a lot of work on the exterior of my house, and a lot of that has me digging in soil, digging in stuff that is uh it's mulch that stained black. So I'm using several sets of gloves to do all this work. And just to give you an idea of my house, I've got an exterior room that has my laundry stuff in it, you know, my washer and dryer, and also in that room there are shelves where I keep my gloves in work equipment. Right. So, one night, very recently actually, which is why this struck me, Nick, I went out to go do my laundry, took my basket out there again, I have to leave my house, go outside, go into this other room. There is a huge black, ashy handprint, just a handprint on the wall and I it had five fingers, and I started to freak out a little bit. But then I thought back, Oh, wait, I put mulch down a couple of days ago. I must have come in this room and just touched the wall and didn't think about it, and it must have been all over my glove, and I just didn't see it when it happened, I hope, But I just I I visually could see this, Nick, because I just had that experience. But what what? What did it? How did it hit you when you first experienced it? Obviously that rational explanation took a second to seep in. Your initial thought. Was it like like hairs on the back of your neck stood up and you truly felt you were having a brush with something, um bizarre? I think it was very similar to Nick's reaction who the hell was in my laundry room, or in his case, like, who the hell was in my bedroom while I was sleeping and shut my door and left their hand for it. I'll tell the super quick version of because I know I've told the story before, but I had to. I just have to mention it because it's so kind of in line with this. I was once sitting in a car with the girl that I dated for a long time when she was in college, and we were both in college rather and it was really cold night, and a good friend of ours had just passed away, had died in a car accident, and she was waiting for me after class, and I walked up, had in her card. She was in tears, and she didn't say anything, and she just kind of blew on the inside of her windshield and the signature of this girl, this friend of ours um was there clear as day on the inside of the windshield, and I just started like crying. It like hit me, like, oh my god, this is a paranormal experience. I am witnessing something from beyond reaching out and trying to, you know, give us a message of some kind. And then you know, the rational part of my brain set in. Might have even taken a day and realized that's the exactly the kind of thing you know, um teenage or early twenties girls do because they write their names on you know, condensation on the inside of window. I mean, hell, anybody does it. But you know, there's oils on your finger and probably was just lingered there. I mean, you didn't see it unless you blew on it because of the condensation, but it was. It hit me in a very real way, and I was fully on board with this being a supernatural experience. But then I kind of explained it away, which is kind of sad, but you know, it doesn't diminish the power of that experience. Uh, this is I think these two stories also show Nick that you're your experience, well's is distinct and unique. Is not like there's nothing Well it's it's abnormal, right, But is it paranormal? Like you're first off, dude, you're not crazy. The majority of people in the US, according to a poll, do believe that they have had some kind of encounter with what they perceive as a ghost, and that number has actually risen over recent years. Uh and as far back as like what's another semi recent one that still counts as twenty as recent. Back in a few research polls showed that only eighteen percent of folks had thought they had seen a ghost, but twenty nine percent say they have felt, in some inexplicable way in touch with someone who has passed beyond this mortal veil. And when you hear people tell these stories like you can you're you know, uh, Matt Noll, you guys walk through this with critical thinking, and you're saying, okay, well, we have to do the job of seeing if whether there is a mundane explanation, and sometimes there's simply isn't one that can explain all the factors, like the process of mold or soot slowly accreeding over time, maybe due to an old ac event or something like that. Because he said, it's a very old building. That can explain some stuff, but it can't explain everything. Otherwise there wouldn't be so many people who believe that they have had some sort of encounter with something inexplicable. And what better time of the year to talk about these stories? You know, I, without going into detail, I've been in in some situations. Yeah, that defy explanation, and I think the majority of people will at some point in their lives. I'd be very surprised if there's anybody on their deathbed who says I can explain that. Yeah, I know, everything made sense. Nothing weird happened to me for you know, eighty years or something. But I'd be interested to see what other people in the building thing. You know, I'd be interested to learn the history of the building, because Chicago has his storied history of supposedly haunted locations. M Yeah, no, you're right, and we're talking about a hundred year old buildings, so who knows. Uh. The other thing that I wanted to mention as a rational rational like, everything's okay, this is just something that happens. I cleaned the top. You know, you guys can't see and hear if you're watching the video. But I've got two like large I don't know, just clause. They're not closet standalone closets like wardrobes that are right next to where I record. And I cleaned the top the other day, and again it was a situation where I just the way I found out about it being so dirty as I touched the top of it and I got just dust caked on my hand, and I touched my wall when I went outside of my room, and I didn't notice that I had touched the wall until I came in, cleaned the thing, and then went back out. Uh. Not saying that's what happened, Nick, just saying that's the kind of thing that maybe we do throughout the day or happens every once in a while. I wouldn't rule out the cat. The cat, the cat, just like, but what did it do? I also, you know, I wouldn't rule out the supernatural. I mean, I'm not that that's why. I just I have a hard time believing that there aren't things beyond the realm of our you know, understanding that exists. Like I'm not a religious person. I would consider myself, I guess an agnostic, but I have a really hard time believing that it's what you see is what you get, and that's all there is to it. I just I A. I think that would be really boring and be based on you know, things like the Drake equation, you know, the existence potential for the existence of you know, extraterrestrial life. I feel like that appluged all this stuff too. And I feel like, you know, we exist like as energy and the idea of a soul. Like I I've often done the thought experiment of like what does it feel like to not exist? And I can't fathom that. I think many of us have probably done that. Therefore, I'd really truly like to believe that souls go somewhere and do something. I don't know if they can, like knock over vases or anything. But also, just to wrap this up on my end, if you haven't seen this show and you're looking for a kind of a lighthearted supernatural type experience, there's a lovely British show called Ghosts that is a comedy about like a haunted house. I've never heard of it until a friend of mine posting about it on Facebook. So if anyone's looking for a little lighthearted supernatural stuff that's also very heartwarming and sort of ask some of these same questions that we're talking about, I would highly recommend checking that out. I would also advance to to that point, which is something we're I think we're pretty adamant about the history of this show. To that point is they're not something fundamentally arrogant about assuming that all things can be explained by human beings with the current track record of civilization. Time crystals what they're not real? I had I had a discussion with a friend about this. There's no way that time crystals are real. We don't understand them, right, So, I mean, the story of civilization is is inspiring, or the story of human civilization and should say is overall inspiring. But we have to remember, despite all of the innovations the species has made, the reality of the reality of the state of existence for humans is a lot like being a single guttery candle right flickering in this immense, unknowable, vast dark space. People don't know everything, and that's a tough thing to accept, you know. I I think it's easy and it's comforting to believe that everything can be explained, and perhaps everything can, but that doesn't mean people are the ones capable of reaching that explanation. I'd also love to see some pictures, Nick, if you want to email his conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. We we definitely love to check him out. I mean, Matt, you're a you're a pro at some digital forensics have always been impressed. So let's see what Let's see what the hand looks like. Oh yeah, I'll send it over to Quantico. See we can come up with nick. Well, we'll figure it out. We uh, you know, we we talked about extraterrestrials a lot as a possibility when it comes to things like this, y'all. You know this, guys, we can't sleep on those extra dimensional entities. Come on, if we're imagining a demon somehow coming up from someplace that's very warm, very very warm, and has ash involved at things that are burning, what if they just flifted through that dimension somehow opened a door that we can't see or taste or touch. Don't don't taste doors. Well, it depends unless they've got like less let's have got Snarlsberry wallpapers. Don't know the handling credil situation. That's the problem with food buildings. You and and and and on this topic, one last televisual wreck. Um. I don't know if you guys have seen this, but there's a new show on Netflix called Midnight Mass that is about just such interdimensional beings, uh, from that warm place that get mistaken for other things. It's really good. Highly recommend it. Yeah I did too. I really thought it was something very special about it. I wasn't crazy about the ending, but it's it's every step of the way is just fabulous. Highly recommend And we will be right back with more listener mail right after this. And we're back with more listener mail. UM, I have to admit this listener, Becky, I'll just leave it at back. Key um hipped me to a story that I am saddened to say that I was not even up on. Uh. There have been so many police shootings of unarmed black men, UM, that it's almost easy for some of these stories to get lost in the shuffle. And I was not aware of the story of Winston Smith. UM. So here's here's a letter from Becky Winston. This is Becky's opinion. Winston Smith was assassinated by a cohort of undercover Minneapolis p D, the Sheriff's office, and the U. S. Marshals four months ago. All the footage from the parking garage where it happened are missing, and his girlfriend, who was in the car at the time, has yet to testify. During the vigil for Smith, a protester named Dianna Marie was struck by a drunk driver with links to White supremacist organizations and killed. To this day, neighborhood businesses have hired private security services equipped with long guns and sonic devices have patrolled the spot where the protests took place. Has been a major event in local grassroots political activism in the wake of the Minneapolis uprising, but has received no national media attention. I agree. I I don't know if you guys started anything about this. I know we all probably read the same letter, but I knew nothing of the killing of of Winston Smith, who was a comedian, an outspoken you know, kind of YouTuber Instagram kind of content creator. Not hugely popular, like, not gazillions of followers, but someone who clearly was well liked locally, like in the Minneapolis area, made like lots of kind of funny videos. Um. That then started to become a little more politically charged, you know, after the killing of George Floyd. UM, with Minneapolis kind of having become sort of a ground zero for a lot of this Black Lives Matter protests around of Floyd's killing. Um, but there's some very fishy things about this case, I mean truly. Uh. For example, UM, he was on a date with a woman when when he was killed Um. He had a warrant out for his arrest for failing to appear for a sentencing, uh hearing for a parole violation stemming from a gun possession. UM. And you know that's that is what it is in and of itself. UM. But the U. S. Marshals came for him, and they claimed that he pulled a gun and fired first and that's what caused them to kill him. Um. The woman he was with said that he did not have a gun. Um. They claimed they confiscated a gun from the scene, including shell casings. UM. And that is being disputed, you know, by witnesses. Also, it's true, whether the video is missing or not, quote unquote, there is no video to be bad of the of the incident, of of the shooting. UM. And that uh death of the protester was at the hand of a multiple d Y possessing I guess individual um. And I haven't dug deep enough to to find the you know, the ties to any white supremacist groups. So I just want to Yeah, but Ben, did you did you hear anything about any of those ties or any further kind of conspiratorial stuff around the killing of the protester? Yes? So I I want to be very clear. Winston Boogee Smith was only thirty two years old, and there are three kids who are never going to see their father again. And the way that this sort of stuff gets reported can be so inhumane and dirty. You know, like when you see when you see someone who is the victim of injustice or crime, and the reporting just hinges on previous action. Yeah that they weren't perfect. Uh, you met a perfect person anyhow, This it's really it's dicey man, because first, yes, it lead to the decision to have more body cameras, right, but there was no footage. Becky. First off, thank you so much for this letter. There there is no surveillance video that disappeared. There are also questions about like how was reported when they first when the local news first reported it, I think they called the guy just a murder suspect. That's exactly right. Yeah, and that's they attracted it in a tweet and apologized. But but yeah, and then they also there was also in fighting with the law enforcement organizations like the county sheriff. This took place in place called Ramsey County. A guy named Bob Fletcher. He went public and accused the U S Marshals of being misleading when they talked about their policies regarding body cameras, and he said, you know, here at the Sheriff's office, we repeatedly asked to use body cameras, but we always get denied. Now this, of course, if it's true, and it's unfortunate it didn't get widely reported in the national news for some reason. The public conversation found one face and put one face on a systemic problem, right, and they in doing so, they dehumanized all the other very real, very human victims. And I know, I think it was June seven, right after this, when the d o J announced that federal agents would now be required to wear body cameras for searches, for warranted arrest and stuff like that. That was just four days after Winston Smith was murdered. It was on June three. And if you look at the story as it's unfolding now, you will you will see a lot of sketchy stuff, you know, conflicting statements from authorities, things that don't match, Strange corrections like the idea of how many cartridge cases were recovered from a vehicle, which is how you know how many times an officer may have fired. It's a story that's not over, you know. And the problem is that for people who don't want these investigations to continue, or for people who don't want these to make the news, it's unfortunately very easy for these stories to get buried unless the public stays on it, you know, and actively pursues it themselves. Agreed. I'm just reading about this for the first time, you guys, I'm sorry, it's a lot. It's um, I'm looking through NPR and NBC and just trying to see, like what all has been said. I'm just putting out here that I like they were having the conversation about body cameras and even the desire for officers and people who run police departments do have those things, like you. For me, it's always and assumed, well, police officers don't want those body cameras. But um, I think that's a complete misthink on my part. Um, Well, I mean it's certainly. I mean, it depends on their intention, you know. If they don't want them, that probably meets there up to no good or they plan on being up to do good. And there's plenty of police officers that have nothing but the best of intentions and the best of adherence to protocol and all that. So they would be the ones to be like, well, I've got nothing to hide, so body cam me all day long. You know. I guess I'm just imagining. It's extra scrutiny right on, no matter what you're doing, whether it's good or bad. It's like having a home or you know, somebody wanting to protect you. It should be scrutiny to protect you if you've not done anything wrong. I would be all for that. If I'm out there just doing what I'm supposed to do it, even if you make a mistake, the body cameras will show what happened, you know. I mean, there's friendly fire incidents all the time. For example, a let's say you accidentally shot and undercover police officer, you know, because they didn't identify themselves properly. The body emeral will show that you did not act with malice. I just don't think there's anybody that would if if they have, you know, their hearts in the right place, that they would be against having body cameras well. If if you'd like to learn more about this, if this is your first time hearing of this case, fellow conspiracy realists. Um I I would recommend checking out m PR news the killing Winston Smith. That's in as in Mother Public Radio, not in PR as in Nobel Prize. They've got a good right up here. You can also see some excellent reporting by Vox about this that goes into much more detail. Also, I believe the names of the officers involved have yet to be released to the public because they were apparently working under cover at the time, pursuing something different. By the way, when they got word of uh Smith's location, they did not I d themselves. They just surrounded the guy's car with guns drawn. That's that's what we're seeing reported. Dude, if you have a gun in the car, doesn't matter what the legality is. If you've got a gun in your car and there are people surrounding your car with guns who were like not police officers at first plans saying I'm a police officer. Why would you not try and defend yourself if you could. I don't know, whatever it's all, I don't know. It could just be a series of bad decisions and miscommunications. But that's why I think it's you know, uh, the idea of he was assassinated, you know, for speaking out against police violence. I think that may be a stretch. I don't know. I just don't know. It's there's so much of this, it's just really starting to be just exhausting and it really just takes it just kind of sucks the like out of you. After a while, it's like, well, why does it keep happening? Um, but I don't know where. Was he targeted and actually assassinated for a reason, or was it just another example of police not being properly trained, or how having biases that lead them to making these stupid, stupid, knee jerk reaction decisions. This is I mean, these are important questions, and there are questions that will continue because we're talking about a systemic problem here. And I appreciate you pointed out the website Winston Smith was assassinated NOL. This site is up now you can get more information. The Vox article again, what we know about the police killing Winston Smith, highly recommended. The one of the big takeaways if you've never heard about this case is to ask yourself, how many other ones have I not heard about? How many other things didn't didn't make it? You know, to the national news because I assure you there are multiple instances and there will be in the future. It's a statistical certitude. Unfortunately, it's a it's a sad started to um breaks my heart every time we hear about more and I just don't see the end in sight. But I don't know. I just get so frustrated because there's there's been what feels like forward movement for momentum with these you know, to protests and people kind of during COVID, like all of these kind of ground swells support for this, and then it just kind of feels like it blipped, you know. It almost felt like it was like a fad that a lot of people just kind of try it on for size, and then now they've kind of moved on. I don't know, it does I'm not I'm sorry. I don't mean to sound totally despondent here, but it really is heartbreaking, and I hope that we can see another ground swell like that where where it feels that's say, that same feeling of coming together and not putting up with this kind of stuff happened again. Um, But for now, we're gonna take a break here from a sponsor and then come back with more messages from you, and we have returned. We're going to do something special for the month of October, which has been verified numerous times by us to be the best month of the year due to also having the best holiday of the year, as verified again by us, which is Halloween. So Paul hit us with that music cue perfect, let's get spooky. Earlier, we'd asked for stories, stories like the one Nick just shared with all of us, and I was astonished by how many people responded directly. A lot of spooky stuff has happened, right because peek behind the curtain. I'll ask for stuff and sometimes there's crickets and sometimes, as in this case, it's an avalanche ghostly paranormal stories. So what we're going to do at the end of Listener Mail for the rest of October is share some of your stories, and then Matt Noel and yours truly are gonna talk a little bit more about them. But we want to see, just like Nick asked, we want to see if any of these stories touch accord with you. Some are going to be shorter, some are gonna be longer, but we hope at least a few really spook you out. So settled down, Grab a glass of whatever you like to drink. Uh, turned the lights down low. Stop answering that email, and let's do this. Join us by the fire, Hi, guys, says Kate. When I was a teenager, I moved in with my grandmother, who lives within a clearing in the Oa Chita National Forest. While unpacking the car, a radio suddenly turned on, and no matter which way I turned any dial or pushed a button, it continued to blare at full volume. I often woke with cuts and scratches on my body and swollen and bruised limbs. Knick knacks would move around the house. It was just the two of us, and she swears it wasn't her. And plenty of other crazy things occurred. Since I moved out. My uncle has torn her house down and built her a log happen and now residents and visitors alike, even the dogs, can hear steps across the porch. I could have been sleepwalking and the footsteps could be bears. I guess, so I feel like a bear would sound pretty different on the back porch. All I know is when I named the ghost Jim Bob and said good night every night, I stopped waking up with injuries. That's our first make friends with your ghost, you know. I I think that's pretty okay. So, first of all, bears on the porch. I don't know if anyone knows this. They always tiptoe and they do it on purpose. Uh. So it's always on two legs and tiptoeing when bears are on your porch. So if you ever hear that gentle pit or pattern, just remember it's probably a bear. Is that true? No? Okay, be like, are these are these circus bears trained to like balance on balls? They're bear spies. They're bear spies for the bear government. Yeah, this is This is fast and because it contains something else, which is corroboration, which is other people saying they experienced something. And I thought this was I thought Kate, especially the line at the end where you say you've named your ghost. I think that's an approach that other people have tried. And however, you want to explain what those folks are experiencing. Uh. Sometimes they feel like they have made peace with something. And that's a very old idea, especially in the world of folklore. Right, you have some kind of creature and you leave it in offering, actually paying offerings to otherworldly entities is as old as human civilization, the idea of it, and there's nothing wrong with doing that. What about learning the name? Yeah, learning the name. Names have power right in folkloric and occult traditions, and if you know an entity's true name, then in some ways you can control it. That's the idea at least. And Kate, we'd love to hear more about the further adventures of Jim Bob the last time you interacted, uh, last time you saw a bear spy on the porch, and maybe a little bit of history about that location, because every place has a past before it waxed to poetic. Let's go to one more ghost story. This comes from Mandy. Mandy says, first, love the show and love you guys, Thank you so much. I just finished listening to your latest listener mail, where you finished up by asking for listeners to share their true haunted stories. So I thought i'd share mine. This happened when I was seventeen during my first semester of college in n I lived in an apartment complex that was meant for college students, so I shared an apartment with three other students while living there, a bunch of crazy, weird stuff happened. Editorializing here. But I get it. It's college anyway, man, he says. But I'm I'm just going to share a couple of those things with you. The first incident I'm going to share was the time when a room of people all saw my double only seconds before the actual me entered the room. The way the apartment was set up, both my bedroom and the bathroom were directly off the living room and in full view from my perspective. I walked out of my bedroom about to head to the bathroom, and when I walked out of my bedroom, everyone in the living room had a look of shock on their face. Everyone that was in that room said they had just seen me walk out of my bedroom and go into the bathroom. Once the bathroom door closed, this is when the actual me came out of my bedroom. Of course, we checked the bathroom and it was empty. There were a total of six people that were in that living room that all saw the same thing. Since then, I have seen tons of stuff online where other people are telling stories similar to mine. I'm not sure what's up with this phenomenon, but it seems I am not alone with this kind of experience, and Mandy goes on to say, you know, to this day, I can't make sense of everything that happened there. So what do you guys think? Have you heard the ideas of doubles or a glitch in the matrix as it's popularly called. Dude, I I actually have. I just had a conversation about doppelgangers not long ago at all, and a personal experience of somebody that I met on clubhouse and she said, I won't I won't, I won't recount her story here, but she had some very similar experiences in her home where she like people saw her doing something and then she was on the other side of the house and then emerged from the other side of the house. Uh, give me goose bumps. I met somebody at a wedding this weekend who's from South Korea and was just taken by me in an interesting way where she was looking at me from across the room and we finally spoke and I was like, what's going on? Do you recognize me or somebody? She goes, you just look exactly like this person I know in Korea, like down to the shape of your eyes and your nose. I was like, cool, I guess I have a Korean doppelganger. I like that idea and I'm into it. Yeah too. And it's it's true that there are there are people who look incredibly similar. As a matter of fact, some people listening today have probably seeing this happened to me. You see a photo and you think, oh, is that me? When was I? When was I there? My case may be a little bit different, but I think it's something a lot of folks have experience. Also, what sticks to me about this story, guys, is again, six people all claimed they saw the same thing happened. It sounds like it happened quickly enough that they didn't get together and prank her. But if they did prank you, Mandy, those are great friends just based on that prank. That is amazing and you should stick with them because they're hilarious. But but how do you how do you explain what appears to be a glitch in the matrix? We know memory is treacherous. Memory is sort of the the Judas of cognitive processes. But they all were claiming the same thing at the same time, and they haven't changed their stories, and the story hasn't been embellished. It's fascinating because they would have been if if somehow, maybe you yourself had just like us, accidental slip you forgot that you had walked into somewhere earlier. That happens a lot with people. If you had thought that, then they would have corrected you. But instead we see the opposite, where they feel like they are correcting you on a different, wilder version of reality. And it's it's not impossible for people to have folks who look very much like them, but according to what we know about the world around us, which is not very much, obviously, it is impossible for those people to disappear unless they are like a supernatural doppel ganger where they're traveling through time, they're going to be physical entities. So I'd love to hear more stories about people's doppel gangers. It's fascinating and stuff. And you know, be because we've done this show for so long, I've been accused of being people's double angers all the time. And that's something weird. Like if who's the main character at that point in your life? Is it you or you like the are you like the B version? Are you the other color palette? You know, like in a fighting game like Street Fighter, Teken or whatever, where you can change the color palette of a character totally. I always hate when there's only like two, very very basic options. I really like to you know, customize like individually, like in the RPGs. Do you guys have any favorite doppelganger based movies or anything in pop culture that you're a fan of. I'm a big fan of the Denny villa Eneuve film, Um, what's it called Enemy Enemy with Jay Gillenhall. Really really cool, creepy, lynchy doupeleganger movie. But there's definitely a bunch Oh yeah, it is because it goes to a fundamental question of one's self identity, does it not. I I would like to hear more about this. More doppel gangers stories bonus points if you can't explain them, you know, because this gets into some cool territory. Maybe we can do a full episode on doppel gangers in the future, all the science behind it and all this spooky stuff too. Surely there's a Twilight Zone episode involving a doppelganger that I'm yeah, I'm almost I love this Twilight Man Rod Sterling, if a ghost comes back, if there's a ghost listening to this show, and you know how to get in contact with Rod Sterling and tell me I'd love to I'd love to chat with him. Yeah, just conjure him right on up, we'll hang for sure. Um, my favorite movie about doppelgangers is Us. Remember this movie? It came out that long ago. God, Yes, of course, Um yeah, Jordan Peel. Yes. And second of all, if you were that person that I was referencing earlier, send us your doppelganger story so we can compare it to what we just talked about. Thank you. If that's the person from Clubhouse, right, yes, the uble ganger. Yeah, we're around Clubhouse in in and out of conversations, so don't be surprised if you run into a familiar face or voice. One last thing before we wrap up this the Halloween part of this show. Joey sent us a really cool screenshot. I'm not sure if this is true, but I wanted to share it with everyone because I think it's a funny story. So this takes place in San Antonio and Joey. Joey was writing a little bit about how San Antonio is known for being haunted. As a matter of fact, when our producer Paul and I went to San Antonio to make fake commercials for Potato Chips, which is a true story. Paul stayed in the most haunted hotel, not just in the town, but I think it's like top three in the US. And though I will not tell the story without his permission, I believe Paul had some strange happenings he was staying there. But anyway, Joe sens this. Here's the headline. The Devil impressed San Antonio women with his dancing. Back in the seventies, Back in Halloween, many locals said a handsome man dressed all in white showed up to l Camononcito nightclub. Legend says the man was an excellent dancer and wooed plenty of women that night. As the night wore on, one of the women looked down at the man's feet and discovered his shoes and transformed into Claude chicken's feet. Others it was goats hooves. Either way, people said it was the Devil. Attendee say he fled the scene to the bathroom, where he escaped through the window and left a cloud of smoke as well as a sulfuric smell. That wasn't I liked that he went out the window, he stuck off to the bathroom. Anybody had to leave because he bombed that place into a blivion. He might have just he might have just committed a I'm against decency in the restroom. Yeah, thank Yeah, those stories happen too, I mean throughout throughout history, but it's weird to hear one as recently as the nineteen seventies, isn't it. Oh yeah, this feels like crossroads kind of thing. But in this case it's hell Cameron Cito. And that made me think, what's the weirdest encounter you've had with a stranger. It doesn't have to be something that felt overtly supernatural to you. It could just be something really weird, Like one time I was in Um. I was traveling in the Gulf Coast area and I had to get gas. I came upon this gas station and I walked inside. All the lights were off, and that Dwight Yoakum song A Thousand Miles from Nowhere was playing, and it was like towards the end of the song and then it just started again. So I was playing on repeat and this guy came out just like an overalls without a shirt, and he was eating chicken and he said, are you him? And I said, uh, just trying to get some gas. And then he said, all right, he's coming though, right, And I said, I don't. I don't know. I mean, it'd be a better story if I got more involved, but I just like bought gas and he said, do you want some chicken? I make it fresh and it's just the gas please, And then I to get adult. I was not this wasn't a David Lynch movie. It felt like it its weirder, weirder. I got him. This is the girl. I mean, oh my good disgracious, that's incredible. Ben, he is right, it's it's true. I should have done more, but I I honestly was. I don't get shook too often, but that was that's weird, right, Yeah, okay, that's not just meat, all right. I love I just love I want to see that though, in a scene where guys just eating chicken and his over his shirtless overall us and just looks up, oh you him. Yeah, I love that. I want to see that. And uh, you know, it wasn't threatening to but the stories like that is what we're saying. And I know Noel Matt without putting you guys on the spot that you have, you have also had some bizarre encounters with strangers. They're the spice of life. So we want to hear your stories. Thank you Nick, thank you Becky, thank you Kate, thank you Joe, thank you Mancy, and thanks to everybody else who wrote in contacted us somehow, and thanks for learning to share your stories with your fellow conspiracy realists. If you want to take a page from their book, from their necronomic con since we're going toward Halloween, yeah, then please do reach out to us. We try to be easy to find online. That's right. You can find us on the Internet and the usual social media locations of note, Facebook, Twitter, Andy, YouTube, where we are conspiracy stuff? Were conspiracy stuff show on Instagram? Yes? And Instagram and Facebook are working again, so as What's app. Congratulations to everyone came back from the dead. Yes, yes, came back from the dead. They've been resurrected. Oh I thought I was gonna die, you know without it. It brought me right back to life. I mean I was like literally checking the app knowing that it wasn't working. But just by roads. It made me feel like a total junkie. There you go. You know what you are, and so yes. If you don't want to use social media, please give us a phone call, use your mouth, talk to us. It's crazy. One eight three three st d w y t K. Leave a message. You've got three minutes. Those are three minutes of yours. You do whatever you want with them. Please give yourself a cool nickname. And if you cannot fit everything you want to say in that three minutes, please please please send us a good old fashioned email. We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. M H. Stuff they Don't want you to know is a production of I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

Stuff They Don't Want You To Know

From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies, history is riddled with unexplained events. 
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