transcript
Speaker 1:
[00:00] 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 IHeart Radio.
Speaker 2:
[00:26] Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt.
Speaker 3:
[00:29] My name is Noel.
Speaker 4:
[00:30] They called me Ben. We're joined with our super producer, Max the Freight Train Williams, off camera right there.
Speaker 2:
[00:37] We see him though, he's over there.
Speaker 4:
[00:38] Most importantly, you are you, you are here. That makes this, the Stuff They Dont Want You To Know. So thanks for tuning in on Netflix. Thanks for tuning in on Podcast Platforms of Choice. Longtime listeners, you may notice something a little bit different. The guys dragged me out during the daytime, and we're not even in the United States right now.
Speaker 2:
[01:02] Yeah, it's kind of weird. I've noticed we're wearing shorts and it looked like we're going to the beach. You've got a full suit on, Ben.
Speaker 4:
[01:11] It's a regular suit, you guys, we are.
Speaker 2:
[01:14] I can't help but notice, it seems like we're in a beach setting.
Speaker 4:
[01:17] Yeah, we are.
Speaker 3:
[01:18] Yeah, I wish you guys could see out the window here. It's like Jurassic Park out there, right before the S hits the F. There's foliage, there are water parks, velociraptors open in doors.
Speaker 2:
[01:28] Yeah.
Speaker 4:
[01:29] There are flamingos, that one's for you, bud.
Speaker 3:
[01:31] Which are very velociraptor-esque. Oh, sure.
Speaker 4:
[01:34] Yeah. Evolutionarily speaking. Guys, let's reveal it. We are in Bahamar. We teased it a little bit.
Speaker 2:
[01:41] Bahamar. What is that?
Speaker 3:
[01:45] It's a magical place.
Speaker 2:
[01:46] Okay.
Speaker 3:
[01:47] Where flamingos roam free.
Speaker 2:
[01:50] What?
Speaker 4:
[01:50] I would say it's a state of mind.
Speaker 3:
[01:52] There's wave pools and other fine attractions, waterslides.
Speaker 4:
[01:57] Sure.
Speaker 2:
[01:57] With exciting names.
Speaker 3:
[01:58] Looking forward to trying some of those out.
Speaker 2:
[02:00] But is there a casino?
Speaker 3:
[02:01] You know there's a casino, Matt. Okay.
Speaker 2:
[02:03] Well, then my money is there.
Speaker 4:
[02:04] That's sort of, we could also say life is a casino. Yeah. That's true.
Speaker 3:
[02:09] The roll of the dice. No, it's true.
Speaker 4:
[02:11] We're here.
Speaker 3:
[02:11] And the Bahamas of Bahamar is really cool. Thanks to the fine folks at Bahamar for having us out. And they got this incredible podcast studio that we are privileged to be joining you from. Absolutely.
Speaker 4:
[02:23] And thank you for joining us, folks. As you can tell, we are having a great time. You can also find us recording here for additional shows like Ridiculous History. It's going to feature our returning special guest, Mr. Matt Frederick. So, Matt, thanks for agreeing to that one.
Speaker 2:
[02:39] That's the rumor.
Speaker 3:
[02:40] We're going to talk about Kooky Pirates.
Speaker 4:
[02:43] Yes.
Speaker 2:
[02:43] Yes.
Speaker 4:
[02:43] Things that are ridiculous about pirates. And also, just because he hates it, you guys, just because he hates certain celebrations, can we say happy birthday to Max the Freight Train William?
Speaker 3:
[02:56] Absolutely not. I won't do it.
Speaker 4:
[02:58] Happy birthday, Max.
Speaker 2:
[03:00] He's in his 30s, I'm pretty sure. Somewhere halfway.
Speaker 3:
[03:05] I think he's one past mid. Inching closer and closer, creeping closer and closer towards death.
Speaker 4:
[03:11] Max, you were never mid in my book, bro.
Speaker 3:
[03:13] You know what happens. So, Matt is, Max is tops. Definitely not. Definitely not.
Speaker 4:
[03:19] Max is top of the pops and folks, while we've been hanging out here, we are still on our continuing mission to explore the strange, the unexplained and this one, since we've been spending so much time outdoors, is for our fellow lovers of the outdoors, is for the campers, this is for the hikers, this is for the explorers, this is especially for a different natural wonder, the estimated 17 million visitors to the Appalachian Trail every single year. Have you guys ever walked the trail?
Speaker 3:
[03:53] I've never walked the trail. I do like trail mix, though I could do without the raisins. I like a trail mix that's light on raisins, heavy on M&Ms.
Speaker 4:
[04:02] You guys can't fight about raisins again.
Speaker 3:
[04:04] Why? I'll die on this trail.
Speaker 2:
[04:06] Why are you calling it trail mix if it doesn't have raisins in it, bro?
Speaker 3:
[04:10] I said light on raisins. I didn't say none raisins.
Speaker 2:
[04:12] Raisins or craisins.
Speaker 3:
[04:15] Craisins are my dried fruit of a choice. I haven't hiked or walked the trail. You know there's that thing, right, where you get the stick and then you get a little badge on your stick, depending on which leg of the trail you have completed. And the completists out there have a stick full of badges.
Speaker 2:
[04:31] My only argument here, Ben, is that I think it's not just for people on the trail. It's also for people who just end up camping at a campsite anywhere along that whole eastern side of the US.
Speaker 3:
[04:41] One of those scenic overlooks, perhaps?
Speaker 2:
[04:43] People renting a cabin, maybe, with a family for a vacation, which I recently did. Not exactly in this area we're going to talk about, but pretty close. But just there is something to the environment. For any reason you find yourself there. Even if you're driving through, and let's say you're cutting across the Appalachian Mountains, and your car is running out of gas or something, or you have car trouble. No, I'm just saying, if you find yourself there, everything we're going to talk about today is for you.
Speaker 4:
[05:12] You get in a situation, right? People get in situations, and that reminds me, what you were saying, Matt, about one of my favorite pieces of advice. Old Scoutmaster, really weird ex-military kind of guy. What he would say to us was, what's the first thing you do if you wake up and you find yourself in the woods?
Speaker 3:
[05:34] You hang your groceries and garbage in a tree.
Speaker 4:
[05:39] It's a trick question. The first thing you do is ask yourself how you got in that situation.
Speaker 3:
[05:44] Hey, how did I get in these woods? Right.
Speaker 4:
[05:47] How did I get here? This is not my beautiful house and so on. So we know that a lot of people are unprepared for the wild. That's going to be a thing that we go back to this. The Appalachian Trail in particular though, the reason we're asking about whether you've hiked it or not, folks, is because it is world famous. It has stunning natural beauty and it's also genuinely wild. So you will be potentially in situations that you wouldn't run into in a city. You have to be prepared. I mean, there are the natural dangers of the elements or forest creatures, or of course, human beings who might be dirtbags. Yeah, up there with the mosquito, but there are ravines.
Speaker 2:
[06:33] And there are tallera sometimes that is not good for you to be around.
Speaker 3:
[06:38] You guys dare we say, I take care.
Speaker 4:
[06:39] The ghosts? Well, that's the thing. That's according to some people, you don't have to worry about just those mundane challenges. You have to worry about another kind of danger. And the old story goes that if you are walking the Appalachian Trail, or really anywhere in Appalachia, and you hear a voice in the woods calling your name, you should run.
Speaker 3:
[07:03] Away from the voice though, not towards it. That was a sunglasses.
Speaker 4:
[07:06] That's why I did it. It paid off.
Speaker 2:
[07:08] No, we're going to get into it.
Speaker 3:
[07:10] Just to be clear though, again, away from the voice. Don't go into the light.
Speaker 4:
[07:14] Or go towards it. That was a good move.
Speaker 2:
[07:17] Look, we don't know. That was a fantastic move, Ben. I have also heard that instead of just running away, one of the things you're supposed to do, again, these are all rumors. These are all things. You'll find them on TikTok videos. They're so popular right now.
Speaker 3:
[07:31] What is this TikTok?
Speaker 2:
[07:32] It's like somebody giving you advice about what to do in Appalachia.
Speaker 3:
[07:35] Is this online?
Speaker 2:
[07:36] In the woods.
Speaker 4:
[07:37] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[07:37] It's everywhere.
Speaker 4:
[07:38] You slice your hand open, let the blood fall on the ground, and then say, imagine what I'll do to you.
Speaker 2:
[07:44] Okay. Well, no. A lot of people do say what you should do is plainly state your purpose for being in the woods at that time of night, where you're going, just state it as fact, this is what's happening, don't want any trouble, and then just continue on.
Speaker 3:
[07:59] What is this? Is this voice like a cop? What are we talking about?
Speaker 2:
[08:03] Like a spirit?
Speaker 3:
[08:04] Excuse me, officer. Hey, listen.
Speaker 2:
[08:07] I think we're going to get into the haints and all the things that potentially could be. But ultimately, if somebody is calling your name in the woods at night, unless you're hiking with some people or you got some really fun jokester friends, you should probably not pay much mind to it.
Speaker 3:
[08:22] Well, and if they pop out of the trees and they look like your dead grandmother, that's not your granny.
Speaker 4:
[08:30] So again, if you hear someone calling out to you in the woods, run. We'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Here are the facts. Okay, we gotta set the scene, right? We gotta talk about the Appalachian Trail. This little bit of history, it's very cool, weird stuff. Guys, did you know that the Appalachian Trail was not like a national park service thing at first? It was the idea, it's the brainchild of a forester and social activist named Benton McKay.
Speaker 3:
[09:10] Strong name.
Speaker 4:
[09:11] It's pretty strong.
Speaker 3:
[09:11] Benton McKay.
Speaker 4:
[09:13] It does, it sounds like, can you shake your fist? Benton McKay.
Speaker 3:
[09:19] I'll have a toss to that name.
Speaker 4:
[09:20] Yeah, this guy is nuts though. I think a lot of people don't know this. We certainly didn't until we started researching it. He first pitched the idea of a, I don't know if I can curse like this, first pitch the idea of a cartoonishly long trail. He did an article called An Appalachian Trail, A Project in Regional Planning. It's kind of like Walt Disney with Epcot. Originally, Epcot was supposed to be the city of the future. Then it became a theme park instead. But his idea was-
Speaker 3:
[09:57] It's an ugly future-coded.
Speaker 4:
[09:59] Yeah, they got some sick rides. They've got Buckminster Fuller type of fear.
Speaker 3:
[10:06] Buckminster Fullerine.
Speaker 4:
[10:08] Sorry, please. Coded. This guy's original plan was to make a blueprint for a comprehensive reassessment of American society, because he was seeing the divide between the urban and the rural populations.
Speaker 3:
[10:27] That was a cool trick, Ben.
Speaker 2:
[10:29] Thank you. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 4:
[10:31] Stage magic.
Speaker 2:
[10:32] That makes sense, because in this area, looking at older maps of what is considered the Appalachian mountains area, and you can definitely see where it's a lot of rural areas that go all the way from New York down into Alabama.
Speaker 4:
[10:47] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[10:48] I imagine that folks living in those hills, on those mountains, at least the folks that I've encountered and the times that I've been out there living, it feels like a completely different world. Much like Bahamar, right? This is not normal for us.
Speaker 3:
[11:04] That was a really good organic tie-in you did there, huh?
Speaker 2:
[11:08] It's less organic when you call it that. But in the mountains, there are a couple cities that are along this area, but not the big metropolitan areas, and it's because it's really difficult to do that.
Speaker 3:
[11:24] And practically like villages, you know, what we would think of as villages.
Speaker 2:
[11:28] Or individual families that have been living there for hundreds, hundred, 200 years, let's say, maybe.
Speaker 3:
[11:34] Indigenous communities. I'm still a little more 200.
Speaker 2:
[11:38] A lot of the native populations, the indigenous peoples were pushed out of here. I mean, we've learned about the Trail of Tears and all that stuff and where indigenous people were pushed to, but many families, like you said, are there for long.
Speaker 4:
[11:49] Yeah. Oh, I don't know if I... I think I may have mentioned it to you guys, but having roots deep in the hollers of Appalachia, there is an HBO documentary that is kind of about my family.
Speaker 3:
[12:05] Nice.
Speaker 2:
[12:05] Is it called The Holler?
Speaker 4:
[12:07] It's called American Hollow.
Speaker 2:
[12:09] Yay.
Speaker 3:
[12:09] Dude, on my list.
Speaker 2:
[12:10] American Hollow?
Speaker 4:
[12:12] Hollow, Holler, I think we could mention that.
Speaker 2:
[12:15] With the Bolins?
Speaker 4:
[12:16] Yeah. Spelled slightly differently because of the illiteracy of the time for a while. Watched it partway through for the first time many years ago and felt bad and didn't know what was going on. I was like, why does this all seem familiar? Why does it happen? There's a kid who wants to get off the ridge or off the holler. And at one pivotal moment in this documentary, which again is a phenomenal one, he is yelling at his parents, right? And he's saying, I forget you guys, I'm going to get out of here. I'm going to get out of this strange world, right? And I'm going to go move to the city and still don't know these people from a can of paint until one guy, I think it's a dad, he's an older guy. He leans back and he says, you won't get out of here. Ain't a Bowlin, make it off the ridge.
Speaker 2:
[13:12] Ain't a Bowlin, make it off the ridge.
Speaker 4:
[13:14] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[13:15] Interesting.
Speaker 4:
[13:16] Well, it's a weird tangent. I'm glad to hear it's an interesting aside because it shows us how isolated these places can be, right? Geography is more than just physical distance, right? Geography can be cultural, it can be folkloric.
Speaker 2:
[13:33] It can be altitude.
Speaker 4:
[13:34] It can be altitude as well. Yes, it can also go up and down. Nice. So, this guy, McCabe, Benton McCabe, shake your fist, Noel. There we go. Benton McCabe.
Speaker 3:
[13:45] I was looking up something about this dancing outlaw guy from Appalachia. We'll get to that in a little bit.
Speaker 4:
[13:50] We'll get to the dancing outlaw. A lot of characters and Benton McCabe is definitely one because he says, look, we need to reconcile these two very different worlds, right? Industrial progress is a puric victory because we are as a civilization, we're making great new things, right? We've got the automobile, we've got mass production, but we also are experiencing the consequences of that, right? We've got disgusting amounts of pollution, you know? We have rural brain drain, right? We have communities shattered because their traditional ways of life are ruined. So hiking in the Appalachian Trail, the original pitch, it's kind of an incidental thing. It's kind of like when someone's selling you a car and they say, oh, we can also give you a little net for the trunk.
Speaker 3:
[14:44] Throw in some floor mats.
Speaker 2:
[14:45] Hot take, y'all.
Speaker 3:
[14:47] Floor mats don't always come with the car.
Speaker 2:
[14:48] What?
Speaker 3:
[14:49] Sometimes we have to buy them separately.
Speaker 2:
[14:51] I didn't know that.
Speaker 3:
[14:51] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[14:52] I thought they always had a generic version or something. And they try and upsell you or something? Maybe it's with used cars.
Speaker 3:
[14:58] I bought a used Honda Fit long ago and it did not come with floor mats. And I was very upset to find that out. Yeah.
Speaker 4:
[15:03] They were chintzy on the floor.
Speaker 3:
[15:04] They really were.
Speaker 2:
[15:05] Did you have to go to O'Reilly Auto Parts, Better Parts, Better Pizza?
Speaker 4:
[15:10] O'Reilly?
Speaker 1:
[15:12] Yeah.
Speaker 4:
[15:13] Wow. Can I jump in here, guys?
Speaker 3:
[15:15] Yes.
Speaker 4:
[15:15] But yell. Guys, this is birthday boy Max Luce.
Speaker 3:
[15:18] You don't have to yell that much. You got it. This is Cary. It's good.
Speaker 4:
[15:22] Goldilocks. Yeah. So, my Honda CR-V, 2002 Honda CR-V, has a folding picnic table in its trunk. Wow. Incredible.
Speaker 3:
[15:31] Incredible.
Speaker 4:
[15:31] What?
Speaker 3:
[15:32] You should take it on the Appalachian Trail.
Speaker 4:
[15:34] Yeah. Should. But no chairs?
Speaker 3:
[15:37] No chairs.
Speaker 4:
[15:37] All right. Take it to the trail.
Speaker 2:
[15:39] Where we're going? We don't need chairs.
Speaker 4:
[15:41] Yeah. We have ground. That's right. So, okay. So we've got this pitch, right? And like any big plan, it starts really ambitious. He says, our guy, Benton McKay, I love a fish shape. He says, we're going to make a trail from the highest point in the northern East Coast, Mount Washington, New Hampshire, to the highest point in the south, Mount Mitchell, North Carolina. And this is, again, his opinion. And people have been talking about this idea of a super duper trail, like a final form Pokemon kind of trail for a while. So McKay's plan gets a lot of support from the political class. People are, even in divided times, people are coming together just on this idea. They're like, we can't agree about anything, right? We still don't agree about the Civil War, but trails are kind of cool. And then McKay is like, yeah, trail is part of my idea. And they're like, yeah, you trail guy, trail mix guy.
Speaker 3:
[16:44] So these are pre-existing trails that he is hoping to combine or to connect.
Speaker 2:
[16:50] Yeah. It is so cool to me that this predates the interstate highway system by like several years.
Speaker 3:
[16:57] Yes.
Speaker 4:
[16:58] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[16:58] I would have thought this was an idea that would have been spawned by this concept of the interstate highway system.
Speaker 3:
[17:05] And it makes me ask the question, was this more than recreation? It was, right? He was thinking of this as more like, this is how we connect these civilizations together, right?
Speaker 4:
[17:15] It is an astonishing public works project. And I love the comparison to the interstate highway system because of this scale. And the interstate highway system, shout out to Eisenhower, really only occurred because it was seen as a matter of national defense. Right. It wasn't that.
Speaker 3:
[17:34] We talked about this the other day for some reason.
Speaker 4:
[17:36] Yeah. So this is like, OK, we got to set this part up. The trail, Appalachian Trail, is one of the top 10 most visited parks in the country. It didn't end up being everything Benton McKay wanted. But at least part of the reason it is, I think it's like number nine right now. One of the reasons it's a top 10 park is really just because it's so, again, cartoonishly long. Like we can't, this is like, what, 3,540 kilometers that equates to 2,197.9 freedom units.
Speaker 3:
[18:16] Oh.
Speaker 4:
[18:16] That's what I'm calling miles now.
Speaker 3:
[18:18] Okay. I like that.
Speaker 4:
[18:20] I like it. Great, yeah, that's like gonna be off putting in the Bahamas.
Speaker 2:
[18:25] It makes me think about the boys in those freedom camps that they set up.
Speaker 3:
[18:30] Oh, yeah.
Speaker 4:
[18:31] Shout out to Voughts, excuse me. Yeah. This, okay, so now it doesn't, it stretches from Springer Mountain in Georgia, as we know.
Speaker 3:
[18:39] Yeah, known for their chicken.
Speaker 4:
[18:41] Yes, that is true.
Speaker 2:
[18:43] Wait, is this originally, it goes from Springer Mountain in Georgia?
Speaker 4:
[18:46] Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[18:47] Okay, okay.
Speaker 4:
[18:48] And it passes through 14 states on the way to Maine. It also interacts with a bunch of other extensions of the trail, right? So it's a franchise.
Speaker 2:
[19:02] Because you can go out, like not just in a straight line. You can go down towards the other bigger populated areas.
Speaker 4:
[19:08] Yeah, and you can go up to Canada, you know what I mean? But really, you can walk anywhere, I guess. So it's managed by the Forest Service. It's managed by the Appalachian Trail Conservancy.
Speaker 3:
[19:21] RIP the Forest Service, by the way.
Speaker 4:
[19:23] Oh, my gosh.
Speaker 2:
[19:23] Is it gone?
Speaker 3:
[19:24] Well, I believe it was being dismantled in a pretty significant fashion.
Speaker 2:
[19:28] Kind of like NASA?
Speaker 1:
[19:29] Sure.
Speaker 3:
[19:30] NASA is at least on the moon again.
Speaker 4:
[19:31] The EPA or, gosh, pretty much anything.
Speaker 3:
[19:35] The Forest Service was in the news recently about a specific new effort to jam up the Forest Service. And of course, like you said, Ben, do things with the parks.
Speaker 1:
[19:44] Yeah, it's weird.
Speaker 3:
[19:46] Not in the best interest of Parkdom.
Speaker 2:
[19:47] If only we had a project for the year 2025.
Speaker 3:
[19:51] Matt, you, my little devil, you.
Speaker 1:
[19:53] I'm over it.
Speaker 4:
[19:54] You know, I think it's time for us to start projecting 2035.
Speaker 2:
[19:58] Into it.
Speaker 4:
[19:58] Into it.
Speaker 3:
[19:59] Be the change.
Speaker 2:
[20:00] Look ahead.
Speaker 4:
[20:01] Oh, my gosh, 2035. Max, how old are you going to be in 2035? Older. All right. No, technically true. So this is a big...
Speaker 3:
[20:13] Ten freedom years older.
Speaker 4:
[20:14] Ten freedom years, ten freedom units older. So, okay, a few people do manage to hike the entirety of the trail around 3000 attempts every year. Only about one out of four of those succeed. So if you have done this, congratulations, and we have to hear your weird story. Because statistically, something... Beep me again here, Max. Something very f***ing strange happened to you while you were hiking that long.
Speaker 2:
[20:42] We have known several people who have actually kind of decided not to go all the way. But go for a long period of time on the Appalachian Trail, usually starting in Georgia because I've lived in Georgia my whole life. I know mostly Georgia folks, but they start there and they go up, but a lot of them don't always get to Maine. A lot of them get north, like New York area up there, but not as far as it'll go.
Speaker 3:
[21:07] Well, they get that trail madness.
Speaker 2:
[21:08] Well, I think it's just more like, okay, we did this thing. This feels good. I could say I hiked the Appalachia Trail quite a bit.
Speaker 3:
[21:15] But they're not complete as they don't get all the badges. They do not get all the badges.
Speaker 4:
[21:19] And they also, the reason we're saying, you probably have a weird story statistically, it's because there is a dark side. Just to the length of the trail, right? Just to the size of the Appalachian region in general, things happen on the trail. So as of 2021, there have been 10 officially acknowledged homicides on the trail, and that number just goes from 1974, right? Up to the present day.
Speaker 2:
[21:50] Which is just statistically is almost zero, right?
Speaker 4:
[21:52] Right.
Speaker 2:
[21:52] If you think about it.
Speaker 4:
[21:53] But that's the other issue, because we also have to think about the fact that the National Park Service statistically has never kept track of disappearances. Right. True.
Speaker 3:
[22:04] What was it? Oh, gosh. The guy that wrote the book about all of the missing in the state parks.
Speaker 4:
[22:09] It's not Paul Atreides. It was missing 411. Paulides.
Speaker 3:
[22:13] There you go. David. Yeah.
Speaker 4:
[22:15] But not Paul Atreides.
Speaker 3:
[22:16] The whole deal with that was... The whole deal with... That's correct.
Speaker 4:
[22:19] Paul Atreides.
Speaker 3:
[22:19] Yes. Maudib, I believe. Yes. But the whole deal with that guy's research was the lack of reporting as well, and that there are likely more.
Speaker 4:
[22:28] Yeah. There are no real databases there.
Speaker 2:
[22:30] And he wouldn't say Bigfoot.
Speaker 4:
[22:32] He would not.
Speaker 2:
[22:33] He would recently.
Speaker 4:
[22:34] Listen to our earlier episode.
Speaker 2:
[22:36] David Paulides had... Look up David Paulides. It looks like Paulides. And then search for Bigfoot. There is a whole other thing. There's a new thing.
Speaker 3:
[22:44] Oh, a new thing. Yes.
Speaker 2:
[22:45] We should get him on. Yeah. We should actually get him on again.
Speaker 3:
[22:48] I think he would do it.
Speaker 4:
[22:49] We had a great conversation in our previous interview segment with him. But this is true. Like what you're saying, Matt, about statistically that being pretty low is true. And what I'm saying about the database lack or the lack of accountability in a very real way is also true. So if we did the math, that averages like 0.217 murders a year, 0.217.
Speaker 3:
[23:18] And the thing is, how does one do a fraction of a murder?
Speaker 4:
[23:24] One day at a time, one day at a time.
Speaker 3:
[23:26] And we're like, slice, tiny slice. One day at a thousand tiny slices. Yes.
Speaker 4:
[23:31] Yeah. Yeah. No, I got married once.
Speaker 3:
[23:34] Oh, yeah. Same.
Speaker 2:
[23:34] Hey, Bahama, everybody.
Speaker 4:
[23:39] So, OK, people do disappear in the Appalachian Trail. And the reasons for the disappearances are varied. You could have people purposely ghosting. You could have accidents. You could have unacknowledged homicides. It feels weird to say that on such a nice day.
Speaker 3:
[23:57] God, I wish you could see it. So pretty.
Speaker 4:
[23:59] Right out this window.
Speaker 3:
[24:00] Perhaps mountain lions carrying people away to their dens.
Speaker 4:
[24:04] Yeah. This is all old beans, right? To America's seasoned hikers. But with any foray away from civilization, you got to prioritize safety over everything. There's this other thing that's haunting some of the best hikers in the United States. It's the idea that the dangers here are not mundane crimes or not all accidents, that there is a supernatural factor at play. That's right. We're getting to it. You spend enough time talking with experienced hikers, just like we asked you to send us messages, and you were going to be surprised folks. There are a lot of people who tell you that they've heard inexplicable sounds in the woods, voices sometimes, calling them by name.
Speaker 3:
[24:51] No, thank you.
Speaker 4:
[24:54] We'll be back after a word from our sponsors.
Speaker 1:
[25:02] Here's where it gets crazy.
Speaker 2:
[25:04] Can I just say, just returning from the Tennessee Hills out there.
Speaker 3:
[25:10] Yeah, them hills, them hollers.
Speaker 2:
[25:11] And as a guy who's pretty experienced in cabining and in camping and hiking.
Speaker 3:
[25:17] Cabinetry. Woodworking.
Speaker 2:
[25:18] In the Appalachian Mountains in northern Georgia, there are some very weird sounds that you can hear, especially if you're higher up in elevation and you're, let's say there's like a bit of a valley kind of down where you're looking at.
Speaker 3:
[25:32] I mean, just the sonics of it, just like the way sound moves and bounces.
Speaker 2:
[25:37] That's exactly what I want to get into really quickly.
Speaker 4:
[25:39] I love it.
Speaker 3:
[25:40] You know I'm here for this.
Speaker 2:
[25:41] The way sound functions in that environment is different. And it's weird, especially if you're used to a place that has a lot of sharp angles, right angles.
Speaker 4:
[25:49] Tall buildings.
Speaker 2:
[25:51] Places where audio reflects differently. When you're out there, it can be the smallest, and even a squirrel rummaging through leaves. Sounds terrifying if it's the right time of day or night. And if there are two squirrels, oh, good lord, watch out. I'm serious.
Speaker 4:
[26:10] That's a pastel of squirrels, yeah.
Speaker 2:
[26:12] The sound is tremendous. And if you can't see the squirrel making the sound.
Speaker 4:
[26:17] Right. That's, yeah, yeah. Also, we should mention the parts of Tennessee that we hang out in, weirdly enough, the squirrels all have Jersey accents. So it's very strange, you know, when you're having a nice night out in the woods, and all of a sudden, you hear this guy's voice. I'm going to keep doing the joke. You hear a voice going, hey, I'm walking here.
Speaker 2:
[26:40] Wow.
Speaker 4:
[26:41] Hey, where's my nuts?
Speaker 2:
[26:43] Yeah, I'm gathering over here, trying to look for a hiding spot.
Speaker 3:
[26:46] Bro, they're in your cheeks. Come on.
Speaker 2:
[26:48] There are a lot of squirrels that come down from that part of the United States to Georgia, because it's so much nicer in Tennessee, Georgia, and the South. It's just so nice.
Speaker 3:
[26:55] They got to get away from the hustle and bustle of the big city.
Speaker 4:
[26:58] This episode is brought to you by Baja Mar and the Squirrel Tourism Board.
Speaker 2:
[27:03] Just to put this out there, before we even get into the weirder stuff, there are even creatures like cranes that will come through and you will hear a crane sound. When you're in the mountains, hearing a crane that you associate more with an ocean environment, for me it's Florida, I associate them with that. Hearing them in the mountains, your brain does not go to that type of water birds.
Speaker 4:
[27:29] It's an unexpected thing. It's anomalous.
Speaker 2:
[27:32] Yes.
Speaker 4:
[27:32] This is where, like, okay, so to set the scene in the folklore, this is the Appalachian mimic voice. That's what we're talking about. It's disturbing because it's similar to the old myths about sirens, right? Where you hear, you know, you hear or you see what appears to be a beautiful lady singing a beautiful song and tempting sailors, right, to their deaths. This is kind of a land-based version of that in folklore, right?
Speaker 3:
[28:03] Yeah. Yeah. I mean, geez, guys, the Appalachian Trail and just, like, the mountainous areas that I think we've all hung out at, the cabin type stuff, they're very Tolkien-coded. Like the Misty Mountains, they're very, like, Led Zeppelin-ified. There's something mystical and spooky and beautiful, but also a little scary, just about the vibes out there and what you're describing here. It just kind of fits right in with that.
Speaker 4:
[28:27] There's something beautiful and haunting about it. You know what I mean? Like a good acoustic song.
Speaker 3:
[28:33] Just so. Just so.
Speaker 2:
[28:34] But if you hear someone talking out in the middle of the woods, and you know, it is so interesting talking about the difference between daytime and nighttime. Because I think in the daytime and you heard voices in the woods, you're going to immediately initially think, oh, there's somebody else out there. Some hikers, somebody else is staying over there.
Speaker 4:
[28:51] Predator prey instinct doesn't kick in as quickly.
Speaker 2:
[28:53] But if you're in the dark, like the dark of the woods in the mountains at night, that's a whole different situation.
Speaker 4:
[29:00] And also consider how weird it is, folks, in the Appalachian Mimic Voice folklore, the voice that calls to you doesn't appear to be a stranger, right? It sounds like someone else, it sounds like you.
Speaker 3:
[29:15] It's your granny.
Speaker 4:
[29:16] Right?
Speaker 3:
[29:16] It could be your long-past-granny.
Speaker 2:
[29:18] Right. Doesn't the folklore also say it's mostly going to be your name that's being called?
Speaker 4:
[29:23] It's calling your name and it's doing so in the cadence, in the tonality of a loved one, a family member, a neighbor, right? Or someone perhaps that you lost earlier in life. So the people hearing these voices, the pickle of it is that long-lost relative is died or is hundreds of miles away. There's nobody else around that they're aware of. These voices seem to occur far away from any permanent human habitation. And I want to point out that those are actual children.
Speaker 3:
[30:01] Yes, totally.
Speaker 4:
[30:02] Yeah, that is true. We're not doing a bit.
Speaker 2:
[30:04] There are people all around this place. Baha Amar said it's too beautiful on that side, so you're not allowed to see on that side. It's too beautiful. Don't look over there. But over here, you can kind of see shadows passing by, maybe.
Speaker 3:
[30:14] We can't open the curtains, because then there'd be like glare. It'd be bad for video.
Speaker 4:
[30:18] Yeah, when you hear children laughing as we're talking about Look, mommy, look at the podcast men. those are actual children. They're having a great time.
Speaker 3:
[30:28] We are zoo animals right now. We are the flamingos.
Speaker 4:
[30:32] You've got to be the petting zoo you wish to see in the world.
Speaker 3:
[30:35] No touching.
Speaker 2:
[30:35] Should we do some yoga in here, like mid-podcast, kind of like they do with the flamingos?
Speaker 3:
[30:39] I don't know if we have the space, man. I'm not doing that. You know I'm a yoga guy, but I will not do yoga with a flamingo. I don't know if I'm even going to get close enough.
Speaker 2:
[30:46] In four cameras, are you sure?
Speaker 4:
[30:48] So the other thing, I want to go back to what you were saying that the, you were saying specifically earlier, the idea that forested slopes or changes in geography may lead to acoustic shenanigans. And this phenomenon, the Appalachian Mimic, Dare we say anomalies? Anomalies, yes. This, I could say, this occurs on forested slopes in what we call the hollers, right? The deep gullies and valleys, especially apparently during late spring and early summer, which is another clue for us, because then that might be maybe a seasonal migration, maybe something as simple as the foliage. The voices also seem to respond to your movements. So if you guys are...
Speaker 3:
[31:38] That's because you're changing the space. You're changing the way, I mean, like you are a part of the sonic equation.
Speaker 2:
[31:45] Yeah, maybe just moving your head a little bit can make a big...
Speaker 3:
[31:48] Coming near here, man. It's fascinating how these little differences can make such a huge effect, have such a huge effect on the way you perceive sound. And think about just like shouting in a parking garage, how cool and weird and echoey that can be. Blow that up by all of these different surfaces and curving, sloping areas, and the way that sound will travel and echo and bounce, it becomes like a delay, you know? Like literally the way is a repeated kind of echo that then takes on a whole other sonic characteristic.
Speaker 2:
[32:20] Can I tell you something really quickly that happened while we were in Tennessee recently? So the house we were staying at was at the top of a mountain, and there was a deck that went out on the back where you could look out into one of these haulers that Ben is describing. Can you describe it a little bit?
Speaker 3:
[32:37] Because it's not exactly the same as like out west, the canyon, right?
Speaker 2:
[32:41] Sure. We're at the top of a mountain, and then it slopes down to where you can see a highway way in the distance, and then another mountain rolls up. So that's what you're looking at. Then there's mountains that go to the right and to the left when you're looking out at this kind of valley area. Ben, I love how almost like statuesque you are right now.
Speaker 1:
[33:01] I've awakened my posture.
Speaker 2:
[33:03] It's just amazing. You were so still. So we're looking out here at night. We've been looking at the stars with these binoculars. Yeah, binocs? Yeah, these binoculars are designed to look at the stars. They're incredible.
Speaker 3:
[33:16] So didn't you give us a go at those at your place? Yes, when we were looking at them. Yeah, incredible. That lives out in a wonderfully un-light polluted part of our fair metropolis, and it's wonderful out there.
Speaker 2:
[33:29] I would say it's so cool.
Speaker 4:
[33:30] Okay, so there we are.
Speaker 2:
[33:32] We're looking up at the stars, and then all of a sudden, and what you're hearing out there is nature. You can hear, we all know the hum of a highway in the distance, but it is, imagine just the whisper of a highway out in the distance, mostly silent, and you can hear some, it's not really birds, you just hear just the wind moving through all the trees, because when we're talking about these mounds, they're covered with trees.
Speaker 4:
[33:56] Orchid of insects.
Speaker 2:
[33:58] But the insects are not even that loud at this point. I would say the most distinct thing though is the wind as it is moving through all of these trees, because you can hear it coming and you can hear it going, and sometimes you'll get crosswinds because of the topography there, and it has a hiss to it. They're human. They're very human. They're in a way...
Speaker 4:
[34:22] Suceristic.
Speaker 2:
[34:24] And then we heard dogs or... It was some kind of canine animal that began howling, and you could hear it begin to the right side, and it begins howling, and then the howls... It sounds like they're growing and they're getting closer, but it's because they're exactly... There are other animals doing the same thing, and then it went across the mountain. And it was one of the creviest things. I knew what it was in here, but there was still something to it that activated the more lizard parts of my brain, right? Those parts of our brain where fear responses occur.
Speaker 4:
[35:01] Predator prey, especially at night. We can see a lot of anecdotal evidence for this, but despite the many accounts of this phenomenon, it seems no person who encountered the Appalachian Mimic voice ever found the source of the audio apparition. The people who think it's weird, the people who think they've encountered a human entity or human-like entity, they've never actually found that thing. That's what we're saying. They've never found the person. Nobody went off the trail, also never go off the trail. Nobody went off the trail and found some guy like hiding behind a bush going, Nah, you got me.
Speaker 2:
[35:47] Yeah.
Speaker 4:
[35:47] Oh, you got me. No one's found that yet.
Speaker 2:
[35:51] But there's an interesting thing because if you grow up in these areas, you're told often by your parents some of these pieces of folklore, and not even the full folklore, you're just told things like, if you hear your name being called in the woods, ignore it, pretend like it's not there, continue on with your business, right? Like that's a thing that is told to kids, and it is a cautionary tale, right? Ultimately, that's a cautionary tale that's told to kids. So if you grow up there, you're not too worried about the woods, probably. You're like, oh yeah, I'm not supposed to check it out and get curious if my name is called. But people who live in the city or something, they're on TikTok watching all these videos. You're like, oh snap, if I go in the woods and somebody calls my name, I shouldn't go check it out. I do wonder if it snowballs for people who have no idea what it's like to actually be there and live there.
Speaker 4:
[36:42] Right. Yeah. We're talking about people being primed for an experience, right? Part of the folklore, and I'm glad we're bringing up that point. Part of the folklore is rooted in much older oral traditions that existed centuries before the trail was a thing. There are also the old Appalachia, what we call Appalachia today, was a region of intermixing myths and legends, some of which date back to pre-European contact, Native Americans, right? Some are carried across the world by European and African migrants, people arriving to this land. This is a place of haints and spirits, H-A-I-N-T-S. This is a place where Christianity is technically your dominant religion, but it's a different version thereof. You know what I mean? I think we all know a lot of vestiges of pre-Christian belief that persists in Appalachia. So the mimic voice exists before this. We've already talked about how folklore serves a specific purpose, right? In making legends real. I can't wait to get into more of the mimic voice.
Speaker 3:
[37:53] Well, yeah. I mean, should we take a quick break and then come back and talk about the spooky ghosts and monsters of it all?
Speaker 2:
[38:00] Yes.
Speaker 3:
[38:00] Perfect. Let's do that thing.
Speaker 4:
[38:08] And we have returned. So going back to this folklore point, yeah, we said in previous episodes, this serves an important social function, right? Keep the kids out of the woods. But we also have to realize that when people are primed to expect a thing, their perception of reality sort of morphs to satisfy that desire or that expectation. Without getting into the psychology, we can see this all throughout the fascinating tapestry that is Appalachian folklore, is folklore in general. The idea of strange creatures in the woods or strange entities is universally, off mic earlier, we were talking about the Wendigo.
Speaker 3:
[38:58] The Wendigo, it's been on my mind lately because of the Stephen King adaptation, welcome to Derry. Pennywise, the Clown isn't a Wendigo exactly, but he's very Wendigo-esque and the way they've elaborated on the lore of Pennywise, it is more tied to Native American culture in the prequels. It wasn't really stuff that was directly addressed in the novel or in the films. I quite enjoyed it. I thought it was a little hit or miss in places, but I did really dig that Native American angle. And it, in Pennywise, is a shape-shifter, which is a mimic, right?
Speaker 2:
[39:34] Yes.
Speaker 3:
[39:34] And the Wendigo is also something that's used in other Stephen King novels, specifically Pet Sematary. It isn't really addressed in the film, but in the book, the Wendigo is this shape-shifting, totemic demon that dwells in the forest.
Speaker 2:
[39:52] Deer-like, isn't it?
Speaker 3:
[39:52] Deer-like, and also can take on the voice of your loved ones, and beckon you near, and then, you know, and then drag you in the sky. Drag you to hell, or the sky.
Speaker 2:
[40:04] Let's start with that, because I think there's something to that mimic thing, and to the Wendigo, like a shape-shifting creature, because I think, and maybe I'm wrong here, but I think the concept is that it could be anything.
Speaker 3:
[40:15] Yes.
Speaker 2:
[40:16] If it's a mimic, it could be anything. If you're trying to warn a child, let's say, stranger danger, man. Stranger danger. But it's not even about humans.
Speaker 3:
[40:26] It's worse than stranger danger, too, because it could be someone you know. Sorry, please continue.
Speaker 2:
[40:30] Or it could be any of the dangers that are represented by living in a mountainous area that is heavily forested.
Speaker 3:
[40:37] If it had been a snake, it would have bit you, and it will bite you, so stay away.
Speaker 2:
[40:40] Yes, yes. A snake, a coyote, a bear, anything that is out there that potentially is dangerous to you, it could be anything that is tempting you to get curious and go check it out.
Speaker 4:
[40:52] Right. That goes back. That's the pitch for the mimic voice. It's old as civilization, right? It's tail is old as time. It is sometimes portrayed as testing people, right? So the idea is that this thing will reward you for being wise, right? Or, as so many scholars have said, for first stating your purpose or for calmly proceeding, and it will punish the unwise, right? Who run toward the voice. Yeah. So this is sometimes portrayed in moralistic terms, but those moralistic terms we have to realize are ultimately just an awesome suit jacket over the survival terms. The moralism is ultimately going to be how to survive in the woods.
Speaker 3:
[41:44] Yeah.
Speaker 4:
[41:44] Sure.
Speaker 3:
[41:45] It's packaged in the story telling.
Speaker 4:
[41:47] Right. Yeah. Just so, right?
Speaker 2:
[41:48] It's almost as awesome as the current suit jacket Ben Bowlin is currently wearing.
Speaker 4:
[41:53] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[41:53] I think that was the implication, Matt.
Speaker 4:
[41:54] Yep. And your shirt's awesome too. You guys are looking great. Are you having a good time?
Speaker 3:
[41:58] I'm so fine. Really excited to get out in them wave pools.
Speaker 4:
[42:01] Oh yeah. All right. Yeah. Listen, if you hear a voice calling to you from the wave pool.
Speaker 3:
[42:06] Shall I swim towards it?
Speaker 4:
[42:09] Stand up loudly and say, declare your purpose.
Speaker 3:
[42:11] I shall declare my purpose. It's fun in the sun. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[42:14] I don't think we mentioned whistling. Whistling in the woods, voices goes to there's...
Speaker 3:
[42:18] Well, the whistling will.
Speaker 4:
[42:20] We've got to get to it. Yeah. That's the acoustic phenomenon, right? Because we've been talking, perfect point, we've been talking about voice exchanges, right, or what appears to be voice exchanges. But we also should mention other incongruous sounds that appear to be responding to you.
Speaker 2:
[42:38] Yeah, or just general whistling. Whistling in general is often seen as a very negative thing, especially at night in the Appalachian Mountains area. Really?
Speaker 4:
[42:46] Even like a tuneful whistle?
Speaker 2:
[42:48] Yes.
Speaker 4:
[42:49] Even like Edward, the Magnetic Zeros guy?
Speaker 2:
[42:53] Guys, I'm pretty sure that's really good. Or the Luminers, or just name your group that came out around that time that does this a lot. Hey!
Speaker 4:
[43:04] Whistling.
Speaker 2:
[43:06] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[43:06] The millennial yelp.
Speaker 2:
[43:08] Okay, but whistling is considered another thing. Again, I think Appalachian folklore is very anti-curiosity and very pro don't mess with stuff.
Speaker 3:
[43:19] That makes a lot of sense, again, as a cautionary tale when you're out and about amongst all of these things that can kill you, maybe curiosity isn't your friend.
Speaker 4:
[43:28] Do you guys have a lot of family in Appalachia?
Speaker 3:
[43:32] No, none. Just the cabin times for me.
Speaker 2:
[43:34] Yeah, it's a personal experience for me. But the thing with whistling is very interesting because it's the same concept as the voices. If the whistling is coming at you or it's happening out there, you just don't respond to it like with a whistle to mimic it. Or you don't pay any attention. You don't pay no mind. Because if you do, that's when you get in trouble, at least according to folklore.
Speaker 4:
[43:57] Yeah. People have different takes because we have to remember this is active folklore too. So I could go out to Johnson City or some other place in East Tennessee and ask two people at a Waffle House about this and they would disagree.
Speaker 2:
[44:15] Yeah.
Speaker 4:
[44:16] Because they would have their own takes and they would say, you know, well, the whistling thing is BS. But my buddy from when I was in the Vietnam War just talked to me last night. They said, well, what did you do? He said, I kept walking. I hate George.
Speaker 2:
[44:34] Well, there's a spoiler alert. The mountains whistle. Some of those trees make weird sounds when they rub together. Like that is a thing. So especially pines and specific conifers and trees like that. When those, when some of those things move together, you get a weird high pitch sounds.
Speaker 3:
[44:52] Conifers are the ones that drop seed pods. Correct, Matt?
Speaker 2:
[44:56] I have no idea. I don't even know if I'm using the correct term there. I might be wrong. I'm probably wrong. Pine trees, that's what I know. Pine trees are weird. Those things make weird sounds when they move together. Sure.
Speaker 4:
[45:07] Do trees in general are weird? I wish more people talked about it. They're awesome, but what a bizarre life form. I'm looking around off-camera.
Speaker 2:
[45:16] I don't even know which one.
Speaker 4:
[45:21] This brings us to the acoustic phenomenon, right? If we attempt to explain it, as we sort of tease or alluded to earlier, certain hollows, certain geographic features are going to amplify and reflect sound in ways that you might be unfamiliar with if you don't spend a lot of time in those areas. If you've played with acoustic anomalies, just like we're talking about with move in the head or cup in the ear, then you already know a microcosmic version of this. So at least in some cases, it is possible people found themselves in specific areas of the trail that cross through existing geographic features. Valleys, hollers, water and caves, which is another weird one. This may have created something sounding to them like a distorted human voice. This could have, depending on the person, it's like doing hallucinogenic drugs. It's seen in setting, depending on the person's mood, depending on their extant relationships at the time, they may unconsciously be primed to encounter these sounds in a different way. There are issues with that explanation though. It can answer a few tales of the mimic voice. But the main issue is that geography is relatively static. Mountains do move a little bit, a little bit of time, over a long time.
Speaker 3:
[46:55] Yeah, they're sloper. Not to mention the wind and the weathering effects, but again, that takes a long time too. That is part of the terrain and how it changes over time. But guys, do you mind if we talk a little bit about spearfinger?
Speaker 4:
[47:09] What? Real quick though, we got to say this though. This is the point. We got to say this. We got to spearfinger. Let's spearfing with it.
Speaker 3:
[47:18] I'm gonna spear elbow.
Speaker 4:
[47:20] The thing is, the reason I'm bringing up the geography is because if there were certain spots, certain geographical features or geographic features, then multiple people would be saying, hey, mile three of the trail, right? This is where the ghost resides.
Speaker 3:
[47:42] But it's the confluence of those factors, like sort of focusing on that one area, repeating, making a repeatable phenomenon.
Speaker 4:
[47:48] Well, people don't really have that. I guess, yeah.
Speaker 3:
[47:51] We'll explain further.
Speaker 4:
[47:52] Well, because there's not like... There are sites that are infamous.
Speaker 3:
[47:56] You're saying that this is not... I got you, I got you, I got you.
Speaker 4:
[47:58] But it doesn't seem to be reproducible. And if it was geography, then we could go and measure it. Because we're sound nerds, we could bring the right equipment.
Speaker 3:
[48:06] Can we also maybe talk a little bit too before we get to spearfinger? Yeah. The human element of memory and mourning and all of that stuff, that why do we keep hearing people talking about hearing the voices of their dead loved ones?
Speaker 4:
[48:23] Right, because it's on your mind.
Speaker 3:
[48:24] It's on your mind, maybe or maybe not. But it is interesting that that's the repeated claim.
Speaker 4:
[48:30] Yeah, people are never really...
Speaker 3:
[48:32] It's very human, is all I'm saying, you know?
Speaker 4:
[48:34] Well, the scientific explanation, like, let's fast forward past the murderers, this happened. There have been cases where people have been stalked in Appalachia on the trail.
Speaker 3:
[48:45] By hill people.
Speaker 4:
[48:47] As a hill entity. Hills have eyes. What's that?
Speaker 3:
[48:52] The hills have eyes. As do the hollers.
Speaker 4:
[48:56] Dude, what a weird time to linger and look at the camera. So we could get past that. We know that animals, we know that we know that animals, geography and just natural sound, right? Can change or can behave in ways that you wouldn't expect unless you're very familiar with the wilderness. But we haven't talked about the need to perceive patterns. I think that is the most likely scientific explanation, auditory periodeleia, peridelia. So Noel, before we get to spear finger, okay, so ready, we're teasing it, you know, before we get to spear finger, and that would be confused with spirit fingers, different fingers, that's different, different fingers. So before we get to that, I think that, I think it's the most plausible scientific explanation for most of the folklore, without sounding dismissive, it is your brain's tendency to interpret random ambiguous things as meaningful patterns. So, you know, you ever, like the reason that cars look like faces, right? The reason they have two headlights.
Speaker 3:
[50:13] There's a name for that too.
Speaker 4:
[50:15] Yeah, it's Paradelius.
Speaker 3:
[50:16] Oh, it is. Cool, cool, cool. Glad we're on the same page.
Speaker 4:
[50:19] We're on the same page.
Speaker 2:
[50:21] Could have sworn it was Mothman.
Speaker 4:
[50:22] Oh, right.
Speaker 3:
[50:23] Boy, the abs on that guy.
Speaker 4:
[50:24] Cut.
Speaker 3:
[50:25] Cut out of marble.
Speaker 4:
[50:27] Go to the statue and look at it from the back.
Speaker 3:
[50:29] Too many abs.
Speaker 4:
[50:30] You're 12 pack.
Speaker 3:
[50:31] Yeah, no, it's true. Well, guys, do we have, is it one more ad break we have?
Speaker 4:
[50:35] No.
Speaker 3:
[50:36] Oh my gosh.
Speaker 4:
[50:37] So, look, so, okay, what do we think? Have you guys seen something, another, a fun example of this would be for people who go out during the daytime looking at clouds and seeing shapes in the clouds. Yeah. So we see-
Speaker 3:
[50:50] Dragons and such.
Speaker 4:
[50:51] Yeah, Flight of Dragons. So we see patterns. Flight of Dragons is an awesome film. Everybody should watch it.
Speaker 3:
[50:57] Yeah. So you say, I'm excited to see it.
Speaker 4:
[51:00] I will watch it with you.
Speaker 3:
[51:01] Oh, let's do it.
Speaker 4:
[51:01] I will go to your house and have a Flight of Dragons watch party.
Speaker 3:
[51:04] We'll make the popcorn.
Speaker 2:
[51:06] Let's project it onto a mountainside.
Speaker 4:
[51:09] There we go. Let's do it. Let's do it big if we're doing it. So have you guys encountered this periodolia before? Have you seen things that appear to be patterns without, I don't want to sound dismissive, but do we think it's possible that people are in maybe unfamiliar situations? They're thinking about things just like Daddy Frayer, and they have a moment where a sound transforms in their perspective. Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[51:42] I just watched a dove. It's crazy cool on this side. You guys can't see it on the side of the camera. I just watched a dove.
Speaker 4:
[51:49] Let's keep telling everybody how cool this stuff you can't see is.
Speaker 2:
[51:52] This is an example though. A dove just fluttered down. You can see its wings flapping and it landed on a table out here on the side of the camera. Now, I can see that dove. I can see it doing it and I'm on the other side of glass, so that doesn't bother me at all.
Speaker 4:
[52:07] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[52:07] But if it was pitch black here and I was sitting on one of those tables and I felt and heard the flutter of a dove's wings come down onto a table and then the clink of claws landing on that table and then fluttering off, I'm not going to know what the hell that was and that might be terrifying.
Speaker 3:
[52:26] Well, not to mention all of the sound emphasis and distortion caused by some of these various different circuses and all of that stuff.
Speaker 4:
[52:35] I mean, even the most innocuous sound, if you're not expecting it, can be very upsetting, unsettling. You're walking in the woods and all of a sudden, right behind your left ear, you just hear, it's not a threatening noise, but also, beep me here again. What the f***?
Speaker 3:
[52:54] Yep, well, not to mention that that, I can't do it, it was horrible, so sorry. I apologize. You got it. From a distance, then refracted and reflected and bounced around, it can then take on a whole nother quality and become deeper and much more amplified. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2:
[53:13] But there is something to the wind in the area too, because the wind has, I was gonna say a howl, but it's not the right word, a whistle to it, as it flows through those trees in particular. And I'm imagining hollowed out trees, some of the stone that is out there. If you find a stone face where if wind cuts across that, I bet it makes tone. And I've never sat there with a microphone and tried to listen to it, but I guarantee it does, at least partially. And we're talking about parodele of this, this concept of hearing other things. The human voice, there's such range to it, right? When you hear the voice and if you hear tones kind of shifting up and down, even if they're not forming words, right? There's no enunciation of words. Your brain is going to try as hard as heck to make words out of what you're hearing.
Speaker 3:
[54:09] Well, that's so funny that you say forming because I'm just to put on my sound nerd hat for a minute. There is a term in sound design and in sound analysis called formants, F-O-R-M-A-N-T-S. It refers to an effect that's achieved by filtering using a filter which basically cuts off or emphasize a certain frequencies. If you boost what's called the resonance of the filter, certain frequencies, any sound can start to take on this formant quality, this human quality.
Speaker 4:
[54:39] Wow, wow, wow, wow, wow.
Speaker 3:
[54:40] That's what a formant is. We're talking about also formants as a unit of human speech. But when you're talking about it in terms of the way a sound can take on qualities of having formants, that is what we're talking about here. What is the environment and the world and the way surfaces move if not a big old filter? This is sound filter.
Speaker 4:
[54:59] So well said. That sounds like audio alchemy to me. It is.
Speaker 3:
[55:04] That's why I'm such a nerd for these modular synthesizers and sound design because it is magic to me. It's wonderful and allows you to manipulate it in a way that is super effective. That's why with film and cinema, sound design is more than 50 percent of the equation. You know what I mean? It's like we know how effective good quality sound design is. There's this film that's out now that I haven't seen yet, but it's actually about all about the audio podcasts, about the spooky podcast. Gosh, what's it called?
Speaker 4:
[55:34] I'm trying to remember.
Speaker 3:
[55:35] Undertone. Yes. No, I haven't seen it yet, but apparently the sound design is worth the price of admission.
Speaker 4:
[55:42] Jordan Peele said that the only difference between comedy and horror is the soundtrack.
Speaker 3:
[55:48] I can remember that.
Speaker 4:
[55:49] That's 100% true.
Speaker 3:
[55:51] Guys, can we talk about spirit fingers now?
Speaker 4:
[55:53] Spirit fingers.
Speaker 3:
[55:54] Ah, damn it.
Speaker 2:
[55:55] There's one last thing.
Speaker 3:
[55:56] Here we go.
Speaker 2:
[55:58] We talked a long time ago of something we had learned about schizophrenia and some of the other issues with hearing voices. And one of the things, because I'm thinking about what you were talking about with forming those sounds. Try it right now.
Speaker 3:
[56:13] Just cut up your ear and move it around a little bit and you will start to hear some of those formants happening.
Speaker 2:
[56:18] I bet especially with wind or if you've got a constant sound or a tone going.
Speaker 3:
[56:22] You can shape it.
Speaker 2:
[56:23] Like turn on a bathroom fan.
Speaker 4:
[56:24] You can shape a white noise of any sort.
Speaker 2:
[56:26] Turn a bathroom fan on if you got one near you and do that. Every time I put a bathroom fan on, I always sing a song.
Speaker 3:
[56:32] It's like listening to a shell. If we're Bahamari, you know.
Speaker 2:
[56:36] That's exactly what it is.
Speaker 3:
[56:38] Pass the conch. Matt, you have the conch.
Speaker 2:
[56:40] There's this other thing. Specifically with schizophrenia, we learned about a study that had to do with jaw bones and clenching of the jaw and what it does to your ear canal. What it changes your ear canal. They found that some folks who were studying that were suffering from schizophrenia were able to, or they weren't able, maybe it was an accident. They weren't aware that they were shaping and forming words by tiny micro movements with their jaw.
Speaker 3:
[57:09] Makes sense.
Speaker 2:
[57:10] And it was causing the background noise to form what their mind, like in combination with what their mind is thinking and what their ear is hearing.
Speaker 3:
[57:18] Makes perfect sense.
Speaker 2:
[57:19] Things that are being said to them and they can audibly hear them.
Speaker 4:
[57:23] Sub-vocalization.
Speaker 3:
[57:24] Yes.
Speaker 4:
[57:24] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[57:25] But they don't real it. They're not actually saying anything. They are just shaping the way the ear is taking in white noise.
Speaker 4:
[57:32] Yeah.
Speaker 2:
[57:32] That was so fascinating to me to know that that's possible to even occur.
Speaker 3:
[57:35] Incredibly cool. You're kind of freaky.
Speaker 4:
[57:38] All right. The time has come. Noel Brown. Oh, spearfinger.
Speaker 2:
[57:41] I'm getting ready.
Speaker 3:
[57:41] So it's when you're doing a cheer.
Speaker 2:
[57:47] That's it.
Speaker 4:
[57:47] That's it.
Speaker 2:
[57:48] Amen.
Speaker 4:
[57:48] Thank you. That's different from spirit finger.
Speaker 3:
[57:51] Oh, no.
Speaker 4:
[57:51] I'm sorry.
Speaker 3:
[57:52] Spearfinger. Spearfinger is a Cherokee cryptid that is very much spoken of in the same breath as we're talking about these mimics. Yeah. And it's so cool because again, in that it, Welcome to Derry, there's all this like stuff about like obsidian, like weapons and these like, you know, forged kind of obsidian, like daggers that function as a gate, that function in some way as the way you can defeat the big bad, you know, because it's sort of you're using a part of what brought it here. Yes. Like it's like a piece of the meteorite or whatever that brought it to Derry. But spear finger is this like cryptid that essentially it's like made of almost like made of stone made of this really hard armored obsidian material and is described as having a long obsidian like forefinger. Oh, forefinger.
Speaker 4:
[58:48] Okay. I didn't know what it was. Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[58:49] Forefinger. Right. Exactly.
Speaker 2:
[58:50] Wait, what is a forefinger?
Speaker 3:
[58:52] This guy.
Speaker 2:
[58:52] This one. A pointer?
Speaker 3:
[58:54] A pointer.
Speaker 2:
[58:55] Okay.
Speaker 3:
[58:55] And it's used to cut out to-
Speaker 4:
[58:56] Which is weird because it should be like this one.
Speaker 3:
[59:00] Unless the ring.
Speaker 4:
[59:01] Oh, no, that makes sense if you count from that way.
Speaker 3:
[59:03] Okay. Well, it's the forefinger. Yeah. And it's designed to cut out human livers.
Speaker 4:
[59:08] What?
Speaker 3:
[59:09] Yeah.
Speaker 4:
[59:09] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[59:11] You also know that's good.
Speaker 4:
[59:12] You get in situations. That's all I'm saying.
Speaker 3:
[59:14] It's definitely probably comes in handy from a survival standpoint. But it is often described, this crypt did, as the stone terror of the Smokies. And Max, stone demon, baby.
Speaker 4:
[59:24] Stone?
Speaker 3:
[59:25] Stone demon is the most recent, what is it? Bounty pack for Borderlands 4.
Speaker 4:
[59:30] I'm going to pretend that that is another one of our super producer street names.
Speaker 3:
[59:35] That's also a good one. But now this is a female cryptid, as described, and it's often described as being a witch, a sort of like a spooky witch that has these stone-like adaptations. So it's kind of giving Medusa a little bit and then to the point of the way folklore functions. It already has so many resonances of other witches and legendary demonic creatures that can kind of use that siren song to beckon you in and then cut out your liver with their pointy sharp finger.
Speaker 4:
[60:07] Yeah. And there's so much.
Speaker 3:
[60:10] And it's also a shapeshifter, by the way.
Speaker 4:
[60:11] It's also a shapeshifter.
Speaker 2:
[60:13] But the finger always stays the same, right?
Speaker 3:
[60:15] That's how you can tell. He just looks at you like, that's the dead giveaway. The single long spindly pointy finger.
Speaker 4:
[60:23] We've had a great time hanging out. Hey, can I see your right hand?
Speaker 2:
[60:26] Yeah.
Speaker 4:
[60:28] No. I don't know if I'm ready for that. Maybe the second date. We have a second date here with Bahamar. We're going to be recording more in the future. There's so much more to get to.
Speaker 3:
[60:38] Matt's going to be with us as well.
Speaker 2:
[60:39] Yeah. Yes. But before we leave, really quick, can I throw some things out so people can look up?
Speaker 3:
[60:45] Oh, gosh. I was going to say too, if you want to read more about Spearfinger, there's a really cool thread on Reddit for Knoxville, Tennessee, that has a lot of really good information about Spearfinger and the Cherokee legends of this ogres slash witch.
Speaker 4:
[61:02] All right. Let's do it, guys. Let's throw out some read mores.
Speaker 2:
[61:04] Oh, yeah. We'll read more about the Moon-Eyed People. That is a very interesting almost, I don't know, almost Dwarven, almost Elven.
Speaker 3:
[61:13] How do we not talk about this? Can we just talk about the Moon-Eyed People now? I don't know about the Moon-Eyed People.
Speaker 2:
[61:17] I think it's one of those, Ben, I think we've done a lot of folklore. You know, we talk a lot about a lot of different folklore creatures and cryptos and things like that. Moon-Eyed People feels like it could be one, but I don't know if there's enough material on it. There's just these small little bearded, moon-eyed folks that exist allegedly, that are nocturnal, they do everything at night, they're out in the woods. You don't want to mess with them, you don't want to mess with what they do.
Speaker 4:
[61:42] Semi-subterranean.
Speaker 2:
[61:43] Yeah. Again, that's why it's so important.
Speaker 3:
[61:46] They're like chuds. Kind of.
Speaker 4:
[61:48] Kind of, but the...
Speaker 2:
[61:50] But it's one of the things that people point to is if you hear whispering or if you're whistling or your name, maybe it's the moon-eyed people, just don't mess with the moon-eyed people and they won't mess with you kind of thing.
Speaker 4:
[62:00] That's always the question, too. It's like respect for nature. Don't mess with the thing. Yeah. Leave no trace. I wouldn't call it necessarily... Yeah, leave no trace. I wouldn't call it necessarily anti-curiosity, though it is kind of, and I see that perspective. It's much more... It seems much more, as we said, survival-rooted. And the interesting tease we'll leave you with, folks, is it turns out, at least in what we call the United States, there is a surprising amount of stories about not-quite-human creatures or hidden populations that do turn out to have more than a grain of truth to them. Check out our previous episode, A La Citeca, which is about giants that existed.
Speaker 3:
[62:46] Shout out to the Blair Witch Project.
Speaker 2:
[62:48] What?
Speaker 3:
[62:49] Just saying. I mean, that is sort of a film that weaponizes, you know, the spooky voices in the woods luring you to your demise, you know.
Speaker 4:
[62:57] And shout out to East Tennessee. As a region, we're big fans. I'm legally required to say that.
Speaker 3:
[63:04] Yeah, that is, as a human, is sponsored by their tourism board.
Speaker 2:
[63:08] Yes.
Speaker 4:
[63:09] Oh, boy.
Speaker 2:
[63:10] Shout out to not realizing one of your buttons was undone the entire time this video has been rolling. And now you're going to have to go back and realize, oh, wow, it was me. Shout out to Tim Carmichael of Echoes of Appalachia. Echoes of Appalachia, Tim Carmichael. Huge shout out to him. And actually, that whole website is really interesting. And also, weirdly enough, shout out to Torrance High School. The Torrance News Torch had a really cool write up on specifics about some of these bloggers or vloggers or TikTokers that are out there right now in the past couple of years talking about this stuff. TikToking about this stuff? Yes, but again, it's high schoolers that are finding these videos.
Speaker 3:
[63:53] Torrance, California.
Speaker 2:
[63:55] Yes, exactly. But finding these things and then digging deeper and not, you know, choosing to not just take what the TikTok video says at face value, but doing some research. So awesome job.
Speaker 3:
[64:04] Love that. In our era, like the mega shortest form of content. You got to dig a little deeper.
Speaker 4:
[64:09] And shout out as well to things that were invaluable in our outline, our research for this episode, appalachiantrail.org, thetrek.co. And weirdly enough, there were a lot of cool things like usfolktales.com about the Appalachian Mimic Voice, if you want to learn more about that. And most importantly, shout out to the national parks. Shout out to keeping the natural beauty of the world alive and allowing us to encounter it. It makes me think of how beautiful the ocean is out here by Bahamar, you know, and it makes me think of Leslie Knope. It makes me think of Leslie Knope.
Speaker 2:
[64:50] And Lagavulin.
Speaker 3:
[64:52] We will have some of that later and I'm going to get in that ocean. I'm going to put my toe in that ocean. Ben.
Speaker 4:
[64:56] You should put your whole spear finger in.
Speaker 3:
[64:58] We'll see about it. We'll see. One toe at a time.
Speaker 2:
[65:00] I'm going to put my spear finger in.
Speaker 4:
[65:02] All right. Matt did a wink. And I checked the wrong.
Speaker 3:
[65:06] I don't like that one, Ben.
Speaker 4:
[65:07] I checked the wrong button. We were having the button conversation. Thank you so much for tuning in, folks. We're going to be returning with more episodes, including paranormal stuff, including government coverups. But for now, inspired by the story of the Appalachian Mimic Voice, we are going to encounter the natural beauty of Bahamar.
Speaker 2:
[65:30] Here's a little baby that came by. Sorry. I had to smile.
Speaker 4:
[65:32] There's the kid who's still hunting the dove. Oh, my God. That's a cute one. We can't wait to hear your stories again. Please tell us your experience on the Appalachian Trail. Please tell us the strangest things you have found in the forest. Thank you so much for tuning in, everybody. Oh, and shout out to this kid.
Speaker 2:
[65:49] What's up, dude?
Speaker 3:
[65:50] Hey, man.
Speaker 2:
[65:51] You won't know this, but we're talking about you on Netflix right now.
Speaker 4:
[65:55] Yeah.
Speaker 3:
[65:56] Mom's like, don't look at those strange men. Don't look. Stop looking at those strange men.
Speaker 4:
[66:01] I had to take my sunglasses off and give a thumbs up to the dad just to let him know. Yeah. So anyway, we can't wait to hear from you folks. Big thanks and again, a happy birthday to our super producer, Mr. Max.
Speaker 1:
[66:13] Happy birthday.
Speaker 4:
[66:14] Free train, Stone Demon, Williams. And big shout out to you folks. Big shout out to Bahamar. We will be back.
Speaker 3:
[66:22] This may be the most shout outs we've ever done.
Speaker 2:
[66:23] There's a lot. I'm so sorry.
Speaker 3:
[66:25] Yeah, why are you sorry?
Speaker 2:
[66:26] I just wanted to keep shouting. I wanted to do that.
Speaker 4:
[66:28] Oh, so you're blaming me.
Speaker 2:
[66:29] Oh, I'm blaming the universe.
Speaker 3:
[66:32] I didn't say it was bad. I thought it was just making an observation.
Speaker 4:
[66:35] You figured the spear, man.
Speaker 3:
[66:36] I was making an observation.
Speaker 4:
[66:38] Well, I think the shout out is good positive energy. Noel, how would you shout out people who want to find us on the line?
Speaker 3:
[66:44] My goodness, Ben, I'll tell you. You can find us in a couple of ways. If you're online, you can look up the handles, Conspiracy Stuff or Conspiracy Stuff Show, depending on your social media platform of choice. Matt, I think there's another slightly more old school way.
Speaker 2:
[66:57] Oh, there is. If you want to go fully old school, just rent it. You can probably find it here on Netflix somewhere.
Speaker 3:
[67:04] We're talking about the video film.
Speaker 2:
[67:05] Oh, yes, the video film, Old School. We're going to the Quad. You remember that? You remember that whole thing? We're going to go to the Depot, maybe? I don't know if we're going to have enough time. Blue? Anyone remember blue? No. Okay. Shout out to blue. Like the color? Yeah. Yeah, old blue. Shout out to old blue. Wrestling was a whole wrestling mishap. Anyway, okay, you can call 1-833-STD-WYTK. That's our phone number. It's a voicemail system. You'll hear Ben and some music. Might sound familiar. Give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if we can use your name and message on one of our listener mail episodes that you can only find on the audio version of the podcast currently. It's true. But you may find them there. If you want to send us an email, you can do that too.
Speaker 4:
[67:45] We are the entities that read each piece of correspondence we receive. Be well aware, yet unafraid. Sometimes the void writes back. Send us a random fact, we will send one in return. Tell us a spooky story. Join us out here in the dark. I don't know why I'm trying to stand up. Conspiracy at iheartradio.com.
Speaker 2:
[68:22] Stuff They Dont Want You To Know is a production of IHeartRadio. For more podcasts from IHeartRadio, visit the IHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.