Episode Transcript: 21, The Missing Politicians

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Transcript: The Missing Politicians

[theme music plays, fades out: Me and the Man in the Moon]

Liz: You're listening to Ouija Broads. This is Liz.

 Devon: This is Devon.

 Liz: Devon, would you rather have a story about a kidnapped lieutenant governor or a ghostly mayor?

 Devon: Oh my gosh.

 Liz: I should say, which one do you want first? Because you're going to get both.

 Devon: I get both, don't I? I want to hear about the kidnapping, and I'm going to save the ghost for second.

 Liz: Okay, that's your dessert, ghost dessert.

 Devon: That's my dessert! That's exactly what I was thinking.

 Liz: Okay, this is a story from 1929. This is a story of William B. Kinne, K-I-N-N-E, who was the lieutenant governor of Idaho.

 Devon: Okay.

 Liz: And he was driving along from Lewiston to Orofino. I just realized normally we talk about what political party somebody is when we talk about them being a congressman or a governor. But I have no idea.

 Devon: Huh.

 Liz: I guess it's not tremendously pertinent here. It wasn't a political kidnapping.

 Devon: Going to the same place, my friends.

 Liz: [laughs] So he's driving along the, the Snake River Highway from Lewiston to Orofino when four guys with guns step into the road and he slams on the brakes, just like we were talking about with the Rathdrum Witches. No! bowl them over!

 Devon: Or like you said, you set the world record for traveling backwards in a car.

 Liz: Yeah, yeah. But he stops and they hijack the car.

 Devon: Idiot. All right.

 Liz: That's why he's not governor. He's just a lieutenant governor.

 Devon: Yes, you're just a little governor idiot. Fucking easy-ass job.

 Liz: I like that you channeled Napoleon Dynamite for an Idaho topic. That fits.

 Devon: [Napoleon Dynamite voice] "God, Lieutenant Governor, come get some ham."

 Liz: [Napoleon Dynamite voice] "Come get some ham, William B. Kinne!"

 Devon: [Napoleon Dynamite voice] Dangit!

 Liz: "What are you going to do today, William B Kinne?" [Napoleon Dynamite voice] "Whatever I want, jeez!"

 Devon: [Napoleon Dynamite voice] "Whatever I feel like! Gosh!"

 Liz: Okay, so he's driving along and they drag him out from behind the steering wheel. They force him into the back seat and onto the floor and they drive away at high speed, which, you know, it's 1929. So that means sixty miles an hour.

 Devon: 16, one six miles an hour.

 Liz: No, they're going about sixty is the estimate. So a mile a minute. I was reading a memoir of bootlegging in Washington where it didn't have any specific stories that really would fit the show, but he did talk a lot about how the tires back then were not good and the roads back then were not good. So, like, most of what you were trying to do is not blow out your stupid tires all the time.

 Devon: [laughing]

 Liz: Which I bring up, because during this kidnaping, the front tire blows out.

 Devon: Oh, yeah.

 Liz: And they end up in a ditch, which is not what you want to do when you're stealing somebody's car with a politician inside. So they wreck the car and, uh, two people roll up. There's um, a lumberman and a building and loan association officer. There's Warren and there's Paul.

 Devon: Okay.

 Liz: And Warren and Paul stop because they're like, "Oh no, this car is wrecked. What are we going to do?" Now the Lieutenant Governor and the kidnappers have already gotten out of the wrecked car and they're standing in the field. And when Warren and Paul walk up, the kidnappers are like, "We're taking your car now."

 Devon: Buttholes!

 Liz: Because never help anyone, apparently.

 Devon: Never help anyone.

 Liz: And so they resist. And there's a struggle and there's... You know, people are shot.

 Devon: Oh!

 Liz: They hit poor Paul in the legs and they beat them and they knock them unconscious and steal their car. Rude.

 Devon: Rude! I feel bad for Paul, he was probably the loan officer, too. This is little milquetoast of a man, just the first time he got his, y'know, big boy pants on and he was going to square off, and the man gets just run through the wringer.

 Liz: Yeah! Yeah. So now they have three victims and they load them into the car.

 Devon: Wait, all of them?

 Liz: Yeah, all of them. They have seven people in one car.

 Devon: [laughing] This is how we got to and from drama rehearsals in high school.

 Liz: Exactly! It's very like, "I don't know, just take him with us I guess?" [increasingly distressed voice] "I guess! I don't know!"

 Devon: One of them's unconscious! Just knock them both unconscious and leave them in the wrecked car, you dingbats.

 Liz: Yeah, people... The police will pull together that story and you'll have more time. But no, they were like, "I guess take them with us. They're an asset at this point." They're like doing some 1929 video game where they're like, "This might come in handy later. Who knows?"

 Devon: Just like the Oregon Trail.

 Liz: Yeah.

 Devon: Just skin all of them, skin even the squirrels. We don't know when we'll need those.

 Liz: [laughing] "You were only able to bring back 400 pounds of hostage to your car."

 Devon: Thank God, Paul was a skinny little twerp.

 Liz: So they, um... [laughs] They apparently think better of this as they're going along because they pull off into the foothills after a certain point and they tie all three of them to a tree and drive away, leaving somebody standing guard over them. And, uh..

 Devon: Wait, they tied up all three hostages.

 Liz: Yes.

 Devon: What? Okay.

 Liz: They tie them all to a tree and they leave somebody guarding there. And the rest of them, they're going... someplace.

 Devon: [giggling]

 Liz: After about four hours, they come back and they're like, "if you try to escape, we're going to kill you." And then all of them get in the car and drive away.

 Devon: I'd be like, "Dude, just shoot me. This is the most tedious kidnapping ever. I've been tied to a fucking tree for four hours."

 Liz: I mean, do you not feel like you just go, "You guys don't know what you're doing, would you like some input? Can I recommend something here?"

 Devon: "What is this, Fargo? You're like the kidnappers in a Coen Brothers film."

 Liz: "Are you open to some constructive criticism? I don't think you're very good at this." So they steal 14 dollars from the Lieutenant Governor. They steal 200 dollars from, let's see, from Warren. But what they don't notice is that Warren has a penknife in his pocket.

 Devon: All right.

 Liz: Because they're so good at this.

 Devon: They're so good at it.

 Liz: Which means that they can, um, cut themselves free. And because these guys are criminal masterminds, while they were with their hostages, they discussed the fact that they were going to Pierce in order to rob a bank and they needed a getaway vehicle.

 Devon: Oh, my God.

 Liz: Yeah.

 Devon: Oh, my God. Yeah, do your big super villain speech right now while you're back to the door of your lair.

 Liz: Right? So the hostages were like, "Okay, I guess we'll go pass this information on."

 Devon: Yeah.

 Liz: And promptly they then-- Everyone's informed in... In Washington, Oregon, Idaho, in Montana, everybody hears about what's been going on and they're told what car to look out for. You know, they get the description of the car--

 Devon: Yeah.

 Liz: They say that they're... "The kidnappers are 18 to 25 years old. They're very desperate, and they're armed." I don't know if it said, "and not that bright."

 Devon: "And not that bright" is implied, right?

 Liz: Yep! And everybody gets really into this. They're really excited. And I don't know whether it's because the lieutenant governor was involved or it was... There was just not a lot happening in June of 1929 that was that entertaining? But they're-- basically everybody becomes part of this search effort.

 Devon: Oh my gosh.

 Liz: Including, they fly in a pack of bloodhounds to participate in this.

 Devon: [laughing]

 Liz: And they're searching the entire area, thousands of people searching. And I don't know why they can't find these chucklefucks, frankly.

 Devon: [laughing]

 Liz: So finally, um, the Latah County deputy is searching by the railroad tracks two days later and see some people sleeping by there. And he's like, "All right, get out of here." And he identifies them and is like, "Ah ha, they matched the description." And I have to tell you so there's one guy has bright red hair and his name is Edward Fliss, but his alias is Frank Red Lane. Okay, very creative. He's 24. Then we've got the other guy. Oh man, can I get through this without laughing?

 Devon: Nope.

 Liz: He's tall and blonde. He's 20 years old-- nope, I'm losing it-- [starts to laugh, pulls it together] --and his name is Engolf Snortland.

 Devon: What?! [laughing]

 Liz: Engolf Snortland!

 Devon: His parents are the worst. No wonder he went to a life of crime.

 Liz: Isn't that awful? Engolf.

 Devon: Engolf.

 Liz: "Get over here, Engolf." "Mr. Snortland."

 Devon: Mr. Snortland could have been a hog farmer. He could have sold pillows or sleep apnea masks. I don't know what Engolf could have done other than-- he should have been a firefighter, probably.

 Liz: Yes, there you go. But then, some farm boys find another one of the gang members, and when he calls the, the sheriff, they find the fourth guy. So they've now arrested everybody. They rounded up the gang.

 Devon: Engulfed them all.

 Liz: They've engulfed them.

 Liz: They've got, um, Albert Reynolds, who's 24, and they've got-- [laughs] they follow this up on a tip. So there's, technically there's four kidnappers, but there was a fifth guy who kind of masterminded it.

 Devon: All right.

 Liz: So they found Robert Livingston, who's 19, and "Seattle George" Norman. "Seattle George" is his nickname. Well known to the police, apparently, Seattle Georgia. Because there was a guy who owned a dairy who says, "Yeah, just after 6:00 a.m., I sold some milk and bread and jam to some scruffy guys. And I don't trust them." And that's how... So they find these guys because they got sleepy and hungry and--

 Devon: [sympathetic noise]

 Liz: They've had enough. This did not work out well. They certainly didn't rob a bank. They did never get around to that. Everything fell apart well before that. So Seattle George Norman, Seattle George is like the, the ringleader of this. But um, the uh... Warren and Lieutenant Governor show up at the jail and they're like, "Yeah, it's these guys. That's the guy who shot Paul in the legs. This is the guy who guarded us."

 Liz: Livingston... [to self] What did they call him? Oh, they called him the Baby Bandit because he was 19.

 Devon: Little guy! Okay.

 Liz: And it says he broke down immediately when they questioned him.

 Devon: Oh, honey.

 Liz: Then he made a full confession. And they all back this up! Where-- He was like, "The plan was, we were going to get a getaway car and do a bank robbery and we were not actually trying to kidnap anybody."

 Devon: Oh, man.

 Liz: But after they found themselves suddenly in possession of three hostages, apparently sometime in that four hour window was a lot of discussion about what to do. And they got cold feet and they called it off.

 Devon: Yeah...

 Liz: And they, y'know, picked up Seattle George, and drove around for a while and then got nervous about driving this car that they had stolen. So they all got out and started walking around and that's when they got sleepy and hungry.

 Devon: And then they just, they just wanted some toast and jam.

 Liz: They were done.

 Devon: Which would kind of make an adorable, y'know, Peter Rabbit-esque story.

 Liz: it feels like a Coen Brothers thing still.

 Devon: Yeah, it does. It does.

 Liz: It's a very O Brother, Where Art Thou? kind of moment.

 Devon: Isn't it? Oh, man. They all sound about like Delmer.

 Liz: So they're taken to court. They're going to the Nez Perce County District Court. And so the guy who did the shooting of the legs gets 12 to 25 years, the other guys get 11 to 25, 10 to 25. The Baby Bandit gets 1 to 25 and a stern lecture from the judge.

 Devon: Yeah. Little guy.

 Liz: Yeah. And George Norman pled guilty to being an accessory after the fact because much like Manson, like, he wasn't actually there. So the sentence you can give him is different.

 Devon: Yeah.

 Liz: But here's what the judge said that I liked. "The only crime you may be charged with is being an accessory after the fact on which the maximum punishment is two years. Thus you are escaping with a light sentence while your tools get a heavier one." Tools, that's rude.

 Devon: Yeah, it's really rude.

 Liz: "If you ever appear before me again, you will get the maximum sentence for whatever crime you are charged with. We haven't room in this country for men of your type."

 Devon: [gasps] Judge Hardnose! My goodness.

 Liz: Rough, yeah! So, to postscript to this, so some of them serve some of their time in Boise in the Idaho State Pen. Kinne doesn't live that much longer. He has, uh, um, his appendix goes and they don't get him to the hospital in time.

 Devon: Aw.

 Liz: Edward Fliss, who's the redheaded guy, he gets a full pardon. I don't know why, but the governor pardons him. Maybe the governor didn't like the lieutenant governor very much.

 Devon: There you go.

 Liz: And he actually is now getting prepared to star in another story. I'll do it some time. Have you ever heard of the Weyerhauser Kidnapping?

 Devon: No.

 Liz: So in 35, they kidnap a nine year old heir to a fortune.

 Devon: Oh, wow!

 Liz: Because he met up with some guys in the pen and I imagine they were like, "What are you in for?" And he was like, "Well, kidnapping by accident."[laughs] They're like, "would you like to make some actual money at this?"

 Liz: But we'll get to that later. And but the point is, when he is in this trial for the second kidnapping, he's talking about his past crimes. And he says "The kidnapping of the lieutenant governor wasn't a real kidnapping. We just forced him to ride with us for a couple hours. And when they found out who he was, we let him go."

 Devon: [laughing]

 Liz: "There was no ransom money involved."

 Devon: That's really just making really good friends really quickly.

 Liz: Yeah, I'm like... if being in a car, going someplace you didn't want to go is kidnapping, we've all been victims of that.

 Devon: [laughing] Isn't that the truth.

 Liz: Seriously, I want to give credit on this. This is mostly drawn from an article by somebody named Darryl S. McLeary who posted it on History Link.org.

 Devon: Good job, Darryl.

 Liz: And I looked into some other resources, but his was the best. So thank you, Darryl for that excellent write up of a very strange episode.

 Devon: Yeah, what a weird non-crime. I mean, crime, but gentle, all things considered. I mean, the guy gets the guy got shot and knocked out and everything. But I guess it's just the fact that they fell asleep with full bellies and one of them was the baby bandit that I'm kind of willing to go, [tsks maternally] "aww!"

 Liz: It was one of those things where you kind of imagine what it must have been like from Seattle George's perspective>

 Devon: Yeah.

 Liz: Where he gets these young men and he's like, "Here's what you're going to do. You're going to steal a car, you're going to rob a bank, and then we're going to all have a bunch of money." And he then is waiting for this plan to get executed and they pull up and they're like, "Well, the good news is we do have a car. The bad news is we have three extra people and no plan." Y'know? Like...

 Devon: Also 218 dollars.

 Liz: Yes, two hundred and eighteen dollars, which none of them manage to keep. It was just in the car when they ditched the car. They didn't take it with them.

 Devon: Little babies.

 Liz: Not the best. Not the best. But I love the idea of a Baby Bandit, I think that's very cute.

 Devon: I think that's really sweet, yeah.

 Liz: And I like how ridiculous it is too that, like, one of them is 20 and one of them is 19. So that one's the baby.

 Devon: That's the baby. There's really no difference, however.

 Liz: So that's the story of when they kidnapped Lieutenant Governor.

 Devon: All right.

 Liz: There was just no political intent whatsoever.

 Devon: Well...

 Liz: Just happened to grab him. Whoops!

 Devon: Whoops. I mean, I think that statistically that's going to happen, is you're going to do a random kidnapping and at some point you're going to get someone who's noteworthy.

 Liz: I wonder if there's some famous kidnapping that went down like that where they were like, "Oh no, that's not what we were trying to do at all!"

 Devon: "I just wanted a random child, not the Lindbergh baby."

 Liz: "Oh, crap!"

 Devon: "Damn it!"

 Devon: Mmm, that's a sad one, too.

 Liz: It's a different kind of baby bandit.

 Devon: Oh.

 Liz: Mmm, too soon?

 Devon: Boom!

 Liz: Boom. [deep breath] Okay, so one kidnapping.

 Devon: Okay.

 Liz: One ridiculous, Manito-level-competence kidnapping.

 Devon: Oh, man.

 Liz: And then a story of a missing mayor that is a little darker, a little more serious, a little sadder. Uh...

 Devon: I'll stop smiling.

 Liz: So it's also a ghost story--

 Devon: I'm just, I'm really excited, but I'm grinning.

 Liz: Calm down, ghosts come from sad things, okay?

 Devon: [laughing] I can't stop laughing now. You made me seem so insensitive.

 Liz: [whispering in an over-the-top serious voice] Devon! Devon, don't laugh!

 Devon: [laughing] Stop it.

 Liz: [same voice] Stop! Stop laughing!

 Devon: [laughing] You're an ass. I love you.

 Liz: [same voice] What's wrong with you? [starts to laugh, returns to normal voice] Oh, I lost it.

 Devon: You did, thank God!

 Liz: I had it for a minute there.

 Devon: Oh my God. [adopting the same extra-serious voice] Liz, tell me it's really sad. A sad story, oh, Liz..

 Liz: [laughing] We're going to hell, Devon. Oh, no..

 Devon: Yeah, we are. [changes voice to something that is presumably supposed to be serious but is kinda sensual] This tragic thing that happened...

 Liz: But you're making it too sexy.

 Devon: [goes over-the-top sexy] Mmm, the most tragic thing happened, Liz. Tell me all about it.

 Liz: [laughing] Okay, so--

 Devon: [normal voice] No, I'm not done. I'm not done with this voice.

 Liz: Shh! Zip it!

 Devon: Go ahead.

 Liz: These two stories are connected because they're politician stories.

 Devon: [crosstalk] Talk!

 Liz: I'm just going to talk over you because I can delete you later. I have powers.

 Devon: I was so wrong to let you be the editor.

 Liz: Yeah, exactly. So an excellent nineteen teens...

 Devon: [laughing] Start over, start over, sorry.

 Liz: In the tradition of excellent 1900s names. We are talking about somebody whose name is Grover R. Percival. Isn't that good?

 Devon: Wow!

 Liz: Guess how good a mustache he had. It was pretty awesome.

 Devon: Was it walrus levels of good?

 Liz: It's pretty good. It's pretty good.

 Liz: So he was the mayor of Vancouver-- Vancouver, Washington, not British Columbia-- which is right across the river from Portland.

 Devon: Gotcha.

 Liz: So he was the mayor of Vancouver and he had done one term and he was good. So it was going to be the very last day that he was mayor. And the next day, um, John P. Keegans, I guess, was taking over as mayor.

 Devon: All right.

 Liz: The thing is, that last day of his term as a mayor, he's seen walking around. There-- they'd just opened the Interstate 5 bridge. It was called the Interstate Bridge back then.

 Devon: Okay.

 Liz: This was it-- had just opened a couple of years before, and he had supported the project. He had, uh, been a city councilor and supported the bridge. It caused controversy then, just like any big construction project causes controversy.

 Devon: Sure.

 Liz: But this was something that was sort of an emblem of his, y'know, his time as a politician. It was a good thing that had been done. It was put in place so that a hundred years later, Liz could accidentally drive over the border from Oregon to Washington.

 Devon: Oh man, how many times did you do that?

 Liz: Freakin' A...

 Devon: More than once.

 Liz: [laughs] It's... yeah. They have the Interstate 5 bridge, it's new. He is seen walking in Vancouver and onto the bridge, right?

 Devon: Headed toward Portland. Is that correct?

 Liz: Headed toward Portland. Then they see him wander back across...

 Devon: Okay.

 Liz: And then later that day they see him on 26th Street, which, I don't know how that relates to where the bridge is.

 Devon: Okay.

 Liz: But basically he's seen on this last day wandering around town. His last day as mayor of Vancouver, he's wandering around and he's spotted on the bridge.

 Devon: Okay.

 Liz: After that, nobody sees him.

 Devon: No way.

 Liz: He disappears and the new mayor takes over... Because, you know, at least they've got a new guy so they don't have to try to find a replacement. But they start to worry. So on October 17th, 1920 is when he disappears. October 18th, they close all the stores downtown and hundreds of people from Vancouver divide into search parties and they go looking for him. And there's various people who have said, you know, "I saw him around here. I saw him around there." There's a lot of false leads and they're not able to turn him up until November 22. When there's a Portland person who's shortcutting through the wilderness and finds the mayor's body hanging from a tree.

 Devon: [disappointed] Aw.

 Liz: Now, what contemporary reports say is that there's every reason to believe that he took his own life, right? Like he's still... He hasn't been robbed. He still has his watch and cufflinks and he still has his money.

 Devon: Yeah.

 Liz: But some people say, "What if he didn't?" Because the night before he vanished, he seemed nervous and he had attended a Port Commission meeting. So he was clearly, he's a political guy. He's involved in decisions. Any time a politician disappears like that, you're a little concerned. But, given that he wasn't going to run again, you're like, well... This was the last day he would have had any power to wield. So I'm not really sure what to make of that.

 Devon: Yeah.

 Liz: And I certainly don't buy all the... You know how it is when somebody takes their own life. "Well, he had no reason to die. He had--" You know, "He had money and he had family. He wasn't depressed about the election." It's like, yeah, that's not how depression works. Yeah, that's not how depression or suicide works. Right. So they bury him in Park Hill Cemetery. They never had an inquest. They said, "Okay, this is obviously suicide." And now--

 Devon: I'm just so surprised because, he was... He was still sitting there, presumably he was hanged. And also, you said that there were opponents to the big thing he did during his term, so...

 Liz: Right, right, and then he disappears across the bridge. He-- he walks away from the town he's mayor of across the bridge that he championed and is found dead.

 Devon: Yeah!

 Liz: That's really something. So...

 Devon: I would have had it [inaudible]

 Liz: Now... Yeah! Now people drive across the bridge at night and they see the tall, slender man with the black overcoat and the felt hat walking south across the bridge.

 Devon: Oh dude. Oh dude, can we take a road trip? I mean, a morbid reason for a road trip, there. I'm all about it.

 Liz: Well, apparently it's always on fall nights and it's always on the old parts of the bridge. And like you're always talking about the energy and the residual stuff, well, is he repeating his last walk? Is he spending time on the thing that was important to him and that's his legacy? Or is he replaying where he was when he died and he was attacked maybe?

 Devon: Yeah. Shoot, dude. Could be all-

 Liz: Isn't that weird?

 Devon: Oh, that's so weird!

 Liz: Yeah!

 Devon: That's so weird. But I, I love it. Of course I love it, I mean it's a ghost, so that was a stupid thing to say but... Oh, man.

 Liz: It's just a weird one to me that he would wrap up his term and with no indication, just walk across the bridge and kill himself. That's just a weird one.

 Devon: I don't-- I mean...

 Liz: It's not impossible.

 Devon: No, I've heard, what, eight minutes of this story, but I don't buy it. I would have said foul play all the way. I don't think--

 Liz: Yeah! You know, people see him walking around. He's in a, he seems to be in a good mood. Not that that means anything. Sometimes people get in a good mood before they take their own lives--

 Devon: Yeah, right?

 Liz: Because they're feeling relieved. But it's just... odd. It's just an odd one. And now there's this ghost that people say they see.

 Devon: Wow. I wonder if anybody's seen it on foot or if it's always when they're driving, you know?

 Liz: That's a good question, yeah. Can you walk over that part of the bridge, do you know? I don't know.

 Devon: I don't know. Is it-- I mean, that's not the same as the Bridge of the Gods, is it?

 Liz: No, I don't think so.

 Devon: I don't know that area very well at all, apparently.

[awkward pause as both try to think]

 Liz: So it goes! I don't know.

 Devon: I don't know either. Oh, how cool, though, how cool.

 Liz: Yeah, it was weird. There were, yeah, rumors of foul play for political purposes, and that's all we know.

 Devon: Okay.

 Liz: Well, if--

 Devon: It's a mysterious one to kind of end an episode on because it's just the right amount of... spooky.

 Liz: Yeah, if it... One thing actually, there is... I have never heard of Kalama [pronounced 'kal-AM-a'] or Kalama [pronounced KAL-a-ma']? I don't know if this place still exists or if it got renamed. Let me check real quick, actually.

 Devon: I've heard of, like, Calamas...

 Liz: This is... Oh, I guess it exists. It's a really tiny logging town with about 2300 people in Cowlitz County. Okay! Now I know a thing! But so his son was trying to find him and was asking around and apparently there was a barber in Kalama who was almost certain that he had given the mayor a shave Tuesday after his disappearance. So he's last seen Sunday, they start looking Monday, and this guy says that he, he gave him a hot towel shave on Tuesday.

 Devon: A hot towel shave? Well see, and then that starts to make me... If he really saw the mayor, then I would have said, "Okay well, then he did commit suicide." Because why else would you just up and disappear and leave? Clearly, he had a son, you know. He had family, so... He wasn't met with foul play on the eve of his, um... leaving office.

 Liz: Yeah, but I guess, from what I gathered... Hang on. It said that he was found kind of by Hayden Island, Oregon, so why would he go get shaved at a different town, you know? Why would he not get a hot shave at, in Vancouver?

 Devon: Yeah.

 Liz: ...if it happened at all. I don't know.

 Devon: No, my thought is: that wasn't him was a different guy. The bar-- [catches self] "The bartender?" How about--

 Liz: Could be both. Small town.

 Devon: I think you do more than one job in a small town. The barber didn't know who he was talking about and, uh... Poor mayor was killed by someone. That's my... I'm going to just totally throw out that piece of evidence because it doesn't fit my narrative.

 Liz: Okay, that's fair. [laughs]

 Devon: Making decisions!

 Liz: Well, and you know, it is right by Portland, so if you see somebody going along acting weird in a top hat, that's not really that out of character.

 Devon: I mean, there's probably people who have seen many a dude in a long coat and a top hat on that bridge who were completely alive at the time.

 Liz: With a handlebar mustache!

 Devon: Right? Right?

 Liz: It's like, was he shaking up a really elaborate cocktail that involved a shrub kind of drink? Like, was it handcrafted?

 Devon: Did it have to come in like, an artisan copper mug?

 Liz: Were there pickled strawberries in it, or something equally exhausting?

 Devon: Oh, God. Just, why would you pickle a fruit? You're ruining two good things, pickles and fruit. Screw you. I'm not into it, dude.

 Liz: [laughing] Well, there's your ghost story.

 Devon: I like it.

 Liz: That's what I got for you.

 Devon: That's a good ghost story. Those are some really good, um, political figure stories. I like them all.

 Liz: I like it. That's my ghostly story. You've been listening to Ouija Broads. You can find us on iTunes, Podbean, Ouijabroads.com, Instagram, Twitter. What else? Facebook?

 Devon: Facebook!

 Liz: That's right. And if you can rate review and subscribe, it's very helpful for us to reach other listeners. And certainly if you have links for our episodes that you want to share, we always love to see people, especially when they've got an episode that they're really excited about and they're tagging people they know. I find that's so good.

 Liz: And yeah, we would like you to live weird.

 Devon: Die weird.

 Liz: And stay weird. Thanks for listening.

 Devon: Thank you for listening.

 Liz: Don't be mad at us. Portland.

 Devon: Oh man. We love you, Portland.

 Liz: We love you, Portland.

Episode Transcript: 46, Forrest Fenn's Treasure

You can read the transcript in its entirety below, or download it here.

[theme music plays, fades out: The House is Haunted]

Liz: You're listening to Ouija Broads, this is Liz.

Devon: And this is Devon.

Liz: First of all, Devon, you need to know, another foot washed up in Vancouver.

Devon: Oh, God, that's so gross. That's so gross!

Liz: [singing for no reason] They keep coming: more feet!

Devon: No! Noooo... God damn it. Okay, and then what are the, what are the main theories again? About why these feet are washing up? They're in shoes that float?

Liz: Yeah. And if you look at like a scan of a cadaver or even a live body that's wearing clothes and you look at it in terms of gas? You can really see like all the air is on the feet. It's all in those running shoes.

Devon: [unhappy high-pitched noise]

Liz: But we have to also accept that at least one of the feet that's washed up was in a hiking boot.

Devon: Yes.

Liz: Yeah. So that's one of them, is that they will disarticulate, and then, y'know, animals aren't going to chew through all the stuff at the foot. So they-- at the shoe. So they're going to, like... They'll take-- the one that washed up looked like straight-up Looney Tunes, like a shoe and then two beautiful bones coming out of it.

Devon: Oh my God. Oh my God. That's how I draw them. You know, when I need to draw, you know, skeletons wearin' shoes.

Liz: Exactly, yeah. And then I guess the guy-- No, it was it was a dog who found it. I remember it. Let me see, what was what was the dog's name?

Devon: What was the dog's name?

Liz: This is important. Breaking news. Ouija Broads is here for you with this information. I know I tweeted about it so I'm going to dig back and find it.

Devon: [telegraphs going over wires/breaking news sound] Dee-dee-dee-dee-dee!

Liz: [telegraphs going over wires/breaking news sound] Dee-dee-dee-dee-dee! Okay. And it's great because in the picture, the Rottweiler is like bouncing up. Taz!

Devon: [laughs]

Liz: The dog's name is Taz and she's a girl and I love her. She's a beautiful baby.

Devon: Beautiful baby. Yeah.

Liz: She's six.

Devon: Awww.

Liz: And she ran over and found this, and her owner went and found this, uh, tibia and fibula attached to a left foot with a white sock in a black shoe. And what's was great is, Mr. John - Taz's dad - called the police and then he used a stick to pick up the foot.

Devon: All right.

Liz: And carried it back to his property and locked in his greenhouse because he was afraid that a bear or an eagle would get it, or it would wash back into the water.

Devon: Those are all valid concerns.

Liz: Yup. And uh... they said, you know, "FYI... You do not need to do that." [laughs] If you find one...

Devon: You can just let it sit. Well, Liz, I've solved the case. This person was clearly a fashion victim.

Liz: [laughs]

Devon: [talking to herself] That's so disrespectful, Devon, why would you say that?

Liz: Because it's great. It's good. But yeah, the, um... It's unclear. I don't know what's happening, but I love that it's still happening. I mean, we know why a lot of these people died is they, is they jumped into the water themselves.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Or were boating accidents. But why it's feet... I don't know if it's the running shoes thing, or...

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: ...things happening in the tides or maybe we're just really tuned into it and maybe... Maybe our dogs are getting smarter.

Devon: [laughs] Our dogs are getting smarter? I would consider my dog smart if it knew to not bring me dead feet.

Liz: You got to consider all the possibilities. You got to consider your alternative hypotheses.

Devon: [laughing] I don't know what the alternative is.

Liz: That's-- that's the foot update, I don't have any Sasquatch updates.

Devon: [quietly to self] Sasq-watch.

Liz: Okay. Once upon a time, Devon...

Devon: Yes...

Liz: There was a boy named Forrest Fenn and--

Devon: Okay.

Liz: And when Forrest was a little boy, his father and he lived in central Texas and they would go out into the desert and hunt for arrowheads.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: That's something I would do.

Liz: Yeah! And Forrest found his first one at the age of nine and he became hooked for life.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: Forrest is the topic of this and you'll understand why soon. It's not all in Texas. So, Forrest became a fishing guide when he was about 13 and, like, a hiking guide.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: He was an experienced hiker, and he was an explorer. And then in 1950, he joined the Air Force.

Devon: Oh!

Liz: Not only was this really good for an adrenaline junkie--

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: --but it also gave him an excuse to travel all over the world. So he went to Vietnam, where he was shot down twice.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: He went to Pompeii, where he was kicked out three times, and he explored Libya. He explored the Sahara, which he said he loved because you could see, like, 2000-year-old structures next to a downed German plane from World War Two.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: But his favorite place to explore was Arizona, of all places.

Devon: Oh!

Liz: It is an archeological gem because it's been occupied for so many centuries. They estimated that there are at least five hundred thousand graves in Arizona.

Devon: Are you kidding me?

Liz: No.

Devon: Dang, dude. Half a million graves in Arizona.

Liz: Yeah! Continuously inhabited by humans for many centuries.

Devon: All right.

Liz: Yeah. So Arizona was his jam and he... Well, I'll tell you what he says about himself. "In my mind," he says, "I've always been the best in the world at collecting cool things."

Devon:  I want to learn at his feet, because you know how I feel about collecting things that I find on the ground.

Liz: Yes, exactly. Well, his father had a, a saying, which is, "Grab all the bananas."

Devon: [laughs]

Liz: Apparently when Forrest was little he was like, "What does-- what does that mean, Dad?" And he was like, "So life is a train and you're on the train and the train is going to go past the banana tree and you've got to grab all the bananas because you're never going to be back. Every banana you leave on the tree is a banana and you don't have. Grab all the bananas."

Devon: [startled laugh] That's not healthy.

Liz: [negative] Mmhmm. But it will explain a lot about Forrest Fenn.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: [laughs] On this week's episode of Hoarders...

Devon: Yes, exactly. This is a bad idol for me.

Liz: Yes, he's a... He's, he's a complicated character like so many of the people that we discuss.

Devon: Yes.

Liz: Forrest loved exploring Arizona. He dealt with antiquities and artifacts and cool stuff from all over the world. And he actually, in 1972, moved to New Mexico so he'd be close to Arizona. But this was right when the big wave of Southwestern art and interior decor started to show. He's in Santa Fe right as this huge wave hits and he's got connections to all kinds of Indian artists, all kinds of people like Georgia O'Keeffe.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: You know, work in that kind of area. And he has a ton of antiquities. So he can sell you your, you know, legit carving or whatever. He can sell you antiques that are going to go so well, and sell you the turquoise necklace and everything.

Devon: Oh, my God,

Liz: And he becomes a celebrity.

Devon: Really.

Liz: Yeah!

Devon: Okay, all right.

Liz: So Forrest became a celebrity. He sold art and antiquities to celebrities--

Devon: Okay.

Liz: Like Steven Spielberg, like Steve Martin, like John Wayne, like Jackie Kennedy and like Cher, because, you know, Cher's vibe--

Devon: Oh!

Liz: --was like, psychedelic.... [singing in Cher impression] "Half breed--"

Devon: Oh, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yeah. We're in the war bonnets and the fringe and whatever else, she could-- Oh, go for it. Cher, I can't fault ya.

Liz: Yeah, that was Cher's deal.

Devon: That was a good Cher impression!

Liz: Thank you. I usually do terrible impressions. I'm glad I got away with one for a second.

Devon: No, you did it very well.

Liz: So not only was he in the right place at the right time to really capitalize on this trend, but he was just such a larger-than-life person that working with him and buying from him was this, like, full-body fucking experience.

Devon: Oh, really?

Liz: So you would fly in and he would, like, pick you up in a limo. He would put you up in a guest house with, like, gold fixtures.

Devon: What?!

Liz: And you'd come visit his house that was full of beautiful antiquities. That's basically, like, more beautiful than any museum anyway. And--

Devon: Wow.

Liz: He was, you know, a great storyteller, hilarious, a million life experiences... At this point, he had a pet alligator named Beowulf that he used to feed by hand.

Devon: Feed *a* hand.

Liz: Feed *a* hand, yeah. [laughs] Put yourself back in like the 70s and 80s and you're, like, blowin' coke out of a clamshell-- [starts to laugh]

Devon: Yeah, yeah. They did so much coke, dude.

Liz: Yeah. Like, all of this just makes a lot of sense.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: So this is his life through the 70s and 80s and he becomes a very, very rich man and a very well-known man, too like, you know, national celebrity... People... There was a book written about him called... Oh, what the heck was it...? The Codex, which has actually been optioned twice for a movie but never made into it.

Devon: Huh!

Liz: So... Because he has this kind of Indiana Jones thing going on.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Where it's not just... He's not just this dry, dusty guy showing you stuff that's organized in this very particular way.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: He's got a story for every item--

Devon: Yeah!

Liz: And this great energy.

Devon: Okay, I'm going to say that it gets picked up in the next seven years and Leonardo DiCaprio stars as the titular character.

Liz: Interesting. Okay, now you're on record having said that.

Devon: Yup. Done it.

Liz: Well, so here's, here's the second act thing. So we have all the part with Leo's going to be toasting with champagne and hanging out with actresses being Cher and Jackie Kennedy and stuff.

Devon: Yup.

Liz: And then in 1987, his father died.

Devon: Oh.

Liz: So Mr. Grab-All-The-Bananas had pancreatic cancer.

Devon: [sympathetic] Yeah.

Liz: He took a heavy dose of sleeping pills because he was like, I'm out.

Devon: Okay, that's fair.

Liz: That was 1987. In 1988. Forrest himself was diagnosed with kidney cancer and they gave him  little chance of survival. So he actually beat the cancer. Forrest is still alive today, but those two things so close together got him thinking about what he wanted his legacy to be.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: So one thing he came up with was burying bronze bells that contain his life story inside them. So he's done that. He's put eight of them in the ground so far.

Devon: Uhhh... as surprises for people to find?

Liz: I think so. I only found this bit in, in one, uh, article about him. Maybe if I had gotten his book, I would know more.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: But you can kind of see how he got there of like, you know, "I spent all my time looking at stuff from people who are long dead. What are people going to find when I'm long dead?"

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: So this is where he comes up with the idea to bury a hidden treasure.

Devon: Oh, cool.

Liz: So he takes an old bronze chest and he puts in gold nuggets, antique coins, pre-Colombian jewelry, rare gems and a copy of his autobiography, of course. And when he thought he was dying, his original plan was he and the treasure would both be in the same place. So anyone who found the treasure would find his bones, too.

Devon: Ugh.

Liz: But he outlived the cancer. So the treasure chest just like sat around in his house for twenty years, but it's not over. Around 2010, he started feeling his mortality again. So he's in his 80s at this point...

Devon: Okay.

Liz: And he goes out and buries the treasure chest somewhere in the Rocky Mountains.

Devon: Oh, my gosh.

Liz: Then he publishes a book called The Thrill of the Chase, which tells about his life and also includes a poem with nine clues to the location of the treasure.

Devon: [excited gasp] Are you kidding me?

Liz: I am not. [laughs]

Devon: I'm going to find it now. Oh, my God.

Liz: Here's-- here's the poem so that you can get started.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: And it's not the best poem we've ever read on the show, but less racist than most of them.

Devon: Well... low bar.

Liz: I know.

Devon: It is.

Liz: [laughs] "As I have gone alone in there and with my treasures bold /  I can keep my secret where and hint of riches, new and old / Begin it where warm waters halt and take it in the canyon down / Not far but too far to walk, put in below the home of Brown." And Brown is capitalized from there. "It is no place for the meek /  the end is drawing ever nigh / there will be no paddle up your creek / just heavy loads and water high. If you've been wise and found the blaze / look quickly down, your quest to seize / But tarry scant with marvel gaze / just take the chest and go in peace / so why is it that I must go / and leave my trove for all to seek? / The answers I already know  / I've done it tired and now I'm weak / so hear me all and listen good / your effort will be worth the cold / if you are brave and in the wood / I give you title to the gold."

Devon: I have chills.

Liz: Yes! He wrote a poem, there's nine clues in there, and he's given a couple of additional clues over the years because this was about seven years ago.

Devon: Right.

Liz: Okay, what we know is it's somewhere in New Mexico, Colorado, Wyoming or Montana. So it's in our Ouija Broads area.

Devon: Okay

Liz: It's above five thousand feet in elevation, but below ten thousand two hundred feet.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: It's in an area with pine trees. It's not in a graveyard, a mine or another manmade structure. It's not in close proximity to a human trail and it's not a place an 80 year old man couldn't go. So... [laughs]

Devon: Wow!

Liz: That's part of his hint is he's like, "I was 80 when I planted this 40 pound box. Work backward from there." And he certainly knows the area very well, but it's probably not you know, you've got a free climb up a sheer cliff face or something.

Devon: Right. Right. Okay.

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: Ooh.

Liz: And thousands of people have gone hunting for the treasure.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: None of them successfully. Nobody has found it so far. He estimates about sixty-five thousand people.

Devon: No fucking way.

Liz: Yeah, it's a hugely lively thing on the Internet, obviously. Tons of forums, tons of people who when you're like, "Okay, I'm going to try to solve it," they're like, "All right, well, we already figured all this out. So don't do that. Don't do this."

Devon: Okay.

Liz: "We've tried this. We've tried that."

Devon: Okay.

Liz: Insider knowledge. Everybody is convinced they have the solution and everybody else is wrong, obviously.

Devon: Right.

Liz: And then, you know, everybody goes out and they try... [laughs] They try it, they try their solution and they don't find it. And people are interested in this all over the world, too. So there were people who would--

Devon: Oh!

Liz: Make their solve and then fly from England and fly from Japan to try to find the treasure.

Devon: Wow.

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: Wow, okay.

Liz: He says one of the reasons why he hid it in 2010 is because it was the Great Recession?

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: He wanted to cheer people up and get them off their couches and going outside.

Devon: Oh my God, it's like Pokémon Go!

Liz: Yes! [laughs]

Devon: "The world's going to shit, get outside right now and play a game!" [excited gasp] Oh my gosh. Okay, so do you... Thinking of these, these clues, do you have any ideas? I mean honestly, I don't know those areas well enough. You know, it's a little more South-Western.

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: Than-- yeah. I mean like if-- "The home of Brown. Okay, well, there-- there's got to be a town, or there was an explorer named Brown that settled there or there's Mount Brown or something, but like it's not Washington or Oregon, so I can't come up with it off the top of my head

Liz: Yeah. Well, one of the solves for that actually is that people speculate he might be talking about Leadville, Colorado, which is where the unsinkable Molly Brown was from.

Devon: Oh, okay.

Liz: But of course, there's a million interpretations for every one of these.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: One of the things we do know is he's like, "This is something that a bright kid could solve." This is not, like numerology or a cipher. Like clues are the clues.

Devon: The clues are what they are. Okay.

Liz: Yeah. So he's still around...

Devon: Okay.

Liz: He is 86 and he has a home full of treasure. So among the things he owns right now are Sitting Bull's peace pipe.

Devon: Oh wow.

Liz: And a mummified falcon from King Tut's tomb.

Devon: What the fuck?

Liz: So, maybe we should talk a little bit about the shady part.

Devon: Mmmm.

Liz: I've got to do the shady part.

Devon: Yeah, we do.

Liz: So he is currently under investigation by the FBI for grave robbing.

Devon: Yeah, I bet he is.

Liz: Yeah, it's been going on for a couple of years. Neither party will really comment on it. He was not the only one they targeted, but an undercover agent walked through his house and got the tour and then they opened a case on him.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Yup. The reason he got kicked out of Pompei three times was he was stealing artifacts.

Devon: You know, I bet he was

Liz: So one of the things that makes it a little bit of a gray area is a lot of his early collecting was done in the days before it was explicitly illegal to do some of this stuff?

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Like, it's been illegal to remove stuff from public lands for a while.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: But this was not in the time when we understood or, y'know-- "we." This was not the time when white folks legally understood how appalling it was to pillage Native ruins.

Devon: Yeah, there you go.

Liz: Yeah. So I can't prove any of that. I think he certainly has told plenty of stories to plenty of people about his escapades.

Devon: Oh, yeah.

Liz: Shady, iffy stuff. And he certainly has a lot around him that might be of questionable provenance. And that always happens to a certain degree when you're an archeological collector, I think, is, uh... the black market is very lively.

Devon: Yes, absolutely it is.

Liz: Yeah, so I can't prove any of that. But what I do know is, he actually owns his own Arizona ruin. An archaeological National Historic Landmark.

Devon: Oh, wow!

Liz: I don't know you could do that in the U.S., but you can if you're rich enough.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: That... That quote really could go anywhere.

Devon: Couldn't it?

Liz: "I didn't know you could do that in the U.S., but you can if you're rich enough." He owns the San Lazaro Pueblo, which is 65 hectares in the Galisteo Basin south of Santa Fe that has a prehistoric pueblo site that the Tanno tribe, or Taino tribe settled about seven hundred years ago. So it was a pueblo that grew to more than two thousand rooms.

Devon: Damn!

Liz: And about three hundred years ago, the European army showed up-- [catches self, repeats sarcastically] "the European army," but like, Europeans showed up.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Specifically, I think it was the Spanish at the time and people left. So it's almost like a Marie Celeste thing, like they left a lot of their stuff because they left in such a hurry.

Devon: Oh, okay.

Liz: And he owns it, and he's been excavating it.

Devon: This is a cultural heritage site that a private citizen owns and is excavating!

Liz: Yep. It's a national historic landmark that he's going through bit by bit.

Devon: Not going to end poorly at all.

Liz: Nope. Well, he's turned up ancient gaming pieces, jewelry, and a plaster mask

Devon: Okay.

Liz: And cool things like that. He says it's kind of a retreat for him, like it's a place for him to get away? But you know, he loves to dig. He loves the treasure hunt.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: So he found, you know, old arrows and a shattered mission bell and all kinds of stuff like that.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: And he basically said-- there's a state archeologist for New Mexico who has been invited there and has seen him doing his stuff, and he says it is like a drug high for this guy.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Like, he does not know how to *not* do this.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: But even here, it's hard to tell whether this has crossed any legal lines. So 22 years ago, New Mexico said you've been disturbing graves on the pueblo.

Devon: Yes.

Liz: There are human remains that are piled and scattered around.

Devon: Oh, yeah.

Liz: Because if people have been living in an area for seven hundred years, they've been dying in an area for seven hundred years.

Devon: Yes.

Liz: But the complaint got thrown out because they trespassed to collect that evidence.

Devon: [disgusted] Oh..  Mark Fuhrman-ing it. Jesus Christ.

Liz: Fruit of the poisonous tree!

Devon: Yeah, yeah!

Liz: Yeah. So here's Fenn's logic. "The key word in the law is discover. We found bones that might have been human, but we didn't discover that they were. So we covered them up and moved someplace else."

Devon: [skeptical] Mmmm...

Liz: Do you detect that distinction? I didn't.

Devon: [still skeptical] Mmmm... Wow. All right.

Liz: Yeah. So, uh [laughs] One of the reporters who went out and visited him said, you know, there's basically there's his property and there's a barbed wire fence and then there's federal property on the other side.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: So, you know, they went through the pueblo and picked up, you know, bone pieces and beads and turquoise and all this kind of stuff.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And the reporter pointed over to the stuff on the other side of the fence and he said, "What's the difference between here and there?" And Fenn said, "18 months in jail and a ten thousand dollar fine."

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: So I don't think he's in any, uh, ambiguity about whether what he's doing is considered illegal if he did it someplace else?

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: But I think he feels like he's figured out where he can do this legally enough.

Devon: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Liz: You know, he's still under investigation by the FBI for other stuff.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Or possibly for this, I'm not sure because the FBI won't comment on it.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: So among the things that are happening because of his involvement with the San Lazaro Pueblo, descendants of the people who used to live there, pray for him because the head of the National Congress of the American Indian said that collectors like him are cursed.

Devon: [gasps]

Liz: You gotta have a curse!

Devon: Oh, you've got to have a curse.

Liz: Exactly. This story has it all. Buried treasure, curses...

Devon: Yeah!

Liz: Yeah. So is he cursed? I don't know. He got cancer, but he survived cancer.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: His dad died. But, you know, that unfortunately comes to most of us unless we go first. He's rich. He's pretty famous.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: He's lived to his 80s. He looks pretty healthy from the photos I saw of him.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: I can't tell if it's just how he is, but he's got a little bit of that Kenny Rogers tightness to his face.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: But you know... yeah.

Devon: That sun-weathered old man. Is it plastic surgery or is it just leather skin?

Liz: He looks a little taut, he looks a little shiny.

Devon: Gotcha.

Liz: Yeah, but not everybody around him has been so lucky. So two people who have been targeted in the same case as him actually have committed suicide and Fenn says that the FBI is responsible for that.

Devon: Ooh.

Liz: Because they've been targeted by this and two people, possibly three, have died searching for the treasure.

Devon: Really.

Liz: I say possibly three, because no body has been found.

Devon: Oh, shit.

Liz: You know, the person was out there looking for the treasure, and then they disappeared, and they haven't been heard from since.

Devon: Oh...

Liz: Not great.

Devon: No... He dead.

Liz: Yeah. So some people have said, "You've got to cancel the hunt, man. Like, this is irresponsible. People are going out there, they're getting hurt. They're dying. This is-- you're creating an attractive nuisance, basically endangering people's lives." And what he points out is more people die at the Grand Canyon every year, like...

Devon: Yup.

Liz: Yeah. So twelve people-- I looked this up. Annually on average., twelve people die at the Grand Canyon every year. And in the seven years, almost eight that this has been going, maybe three people died.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: I think it's not bad for something that it brings sixty five thousand people into the mountains. That-- mountains are serious business, you know!

Devon: Yeah. Presumably--

Liz: Not infinitely forgiving. It's not Disneyland. Probably more people die at Disneyland.

Devon: Probably more people do die of, like, heatstroke and whatever. I mean, if you-- I know he's an 80 year old man and he said, like, "How far could an 80 year old dude get in the woods?" But he also said he was away from-- didn't he say it was away from a major road? That it was--

Liz: Yeah, he said it wasn't by a human trail.

Devon: Human trail. Okay, so still, you know... He's hiking maximum, I assume, two days. I figure it's less than 15 miles from a human trail. Could be right off a game trail, I guess, like...

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: But it's still enough of a, of a journey, it's enough of a hardship that you figure the people that are doing this at least kind of know what they're doing, and if they decide, if they decide to take that risk, they take that risk.

Liz: Right. It's not like it's a radio stunt promotion or something.

Devon: Yeah

Liz: Where you, like, drink a bunch of stuff and you just spur of the moment decided to do this.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Like, you really need to plan! Especially-- One of the things he said is that, if he were where the treasure was, he talked about, you know, "I'd be smelling sagebrush and pine," I think is what he said?

Devon: Okay.

Liz: But people also know the treasure was wet. So sometimes people are looking under waterfalls or in creeks or rivers or--

Devon: Okay.

Liz: Or diving for it, because you know, what's to say he didn't dive?

Devon: [dubious hum] I don't... You know, he says... I pulled up the, I pulled up the poem, so, you know, "begin it where the warm waters halt." And he talks later about a creek. But he says "there'll be no paddle up your creek, just heavy loads and water high." So I assume it's like a dry creek bed.

Liz: Could be--

Devon: Under...

Liz: Or one that you can't paddle.

Devon: So like a, a shallow one

Liz: Shallow or too narrow or too rocky or something.

Devon: Okay, okay. So I could see that

Liz: Maybe it's not a creek at all.

Devon: Yeah. I don't think he's-- I don't think he dove. That's my thought.

Liz: But everything is too, you know... You can interpret it a lot of ways.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Is "where warm waters halt," does that mean where the water gets cold or does it mean that, like, it's where all the warm water is and that's where the water stays? Or is it something to do with weather?

Devon: Mmhmm.

Liz: And what is the blaze? Why is Brown capitalized?

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: I don't know.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Everybody's got it figured out, and so far nobody's got it figured it out. There's been a lot of confident people out there.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: I mean, one other thing that I'll point out about the whole death thing is at least one person, Fenn says, contacted him and said "I was suicidal and this treasure hunt gave me a reason to live."

Devon: Oh, wow.

Liz: I bet they're not the only one, too.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: That would be... If you had nothing else going on in your life, really, I could see this being a fantastic thing to do.

Devon: Absolutely, right?

Liz: Go out there and, like, study it and get involved and, I don't know... It gets you out of the house!

Devon: It gets you out of the house! I mean, like I said, just like Pokémon Go, man. Like it's going to get you out. It's going to get you movin'. It's going to get you seeing nature. It's going to get your brain working in interesting ways.

Liz: Yeah! One of the reasons why I like it relative to, for instance, a lot of the treasures that are lost that we put on our Lost Things of Washington map-- available on Etsy.

Devon: Yes. Good plug.

Liz: [laughs] A lot of those are from like, one hundred years ago, one hundred thirty years ago. So whatever landmarks were in place then have been changed by human development and erosion and...

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Plants growing, plants disappearing. This is like... He's around and he's clarifying, and he's like, "Yeah, I didn't mean that. Yes, I did mean something like this. No, it's not a numerical code."

Devon: Wow.

Liz: All this kind of stuff. So he doesn't really give out a ton of hints, but he does occasionally give out clues. If you just e-mail him and ask for a clue, he won't give you anything.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: And he'll call 911 if you show up to his house.

Devon: Good man. You're supposed to do that.

Liz: Yeah, but he's pretty engaged in this whole treasure hunt. And I kind of love that. Like, I think it's... You've got to set aside the whole sketchy provenance of probably most or some of his treasure, including probably some of what's in the treasure chest.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: But if we put a pin in that and say, yes, okay, that's not all right... But, man, a treasure hunt, a legit treasure hunt!

Devon: A legit modern treasure hunt with the equivalent of a map.

Liz: Yeah. And a poem. A, a confusing allegorical poem.

Devon: That's fantastic. Oh, wow.

Liz: That's what people should do.

Devon: God, right?

Liz: Don't put it in bonds or whatever.

Devon: No! Boring!

Liz: Another gold toilet!

Devon: You don't need that! Boring!

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: I'm-- I'm super interested in his, in his Native American artifacts, because, of course, NAGPRA is now such a big deal, and that's the area of museum studies that I actually really wanted to specialize in, but couldn't, couldn't find the schooling that I wanted at the time. And it's kind of a sensitive subject. I mean, the majority of folks in museums who are working for NAGPRA reasons--  and NAGPRA is the Native American Graves [Protection and] Repatriation Act--

Liz: Thank you, I was about to ask.

Devon: It's since-- I think it was like 1990 was when this was started. It's fairly recent, but it means that any items in America that are in possession of museums or that are found now and they are certain ceremonial objects or they are human remains or related to a grave? So it could be a fetish that was buried specifically with a dead person. You know, you don't find the remains, but you find this totem. It has to go back to the graves. And there are certain ways that you repatriate it. The biggest one that people will know, of course, is Kennewick Man, how he was...

Liz: I was going to say, do you want to talk about Kennewick Man on this episode?

Devon: Yeah, I could talk a little bit about it. I don't know a ton about it, but I think it's really fascinating that it was such a... It was such a contentious thing and I kind of, I kind of, I mean, I get it, but I also don't get it. There's-- I'm really split on my thoughts on, on The Ancient One, as he's known now, as opposed to Kennewick Man.

Devon: But I... [sighs] I understand the importance of having funerary items from various cultures on display, but I also do think that if you have an existing culture, that you have items from, that their thoughts on your display or interpretation are probably paramount.

Liz: Yep.

Devon: The Burke Museum is Washington State's museum, and that's the one that, [I] did a little bit of work for like my my collections internship? My collections class was through them? So I helped catalog one of their really boring collections, you know, just one of the thousands that they have that some white guy in the 70s was like, "Cool, here's all my archaeological stuff. All this is important. Yay!" And luckily, he was one of the guys that took really good notes. So you have the the provenance and provenience of these items.

Liz: Say those two words again?

Devon: Yeah, they're different. Provenance and provenience. And because I'm on air, I'm having a super senior moment. And one of them is the... One of them is like, the detailed history. Where was it found, and where has it been in every moment of time from the point it was found to now? And what's the history of it?

Liz: Ohhh.

Devon: And then the other one is just like, where was it found?

Liz: Okay.

Devon: And I forget the distinction, and I should know that because I had to take a test on that.

Liz: That makes a lot of sense to me. Let's kind of fill in a little background for people who aren't familiar, because I remember when they found Kennewick Man.

Devon: Yeah!

Liz: It was, yeah, after we moved out here, but there were two guys... I should call him The Ancient One, huh?

Devon: Well, yeah. I mean, I guess because that's the Native American preference and he's now been proven to be of Native American ancestry. So I would say The Ancient One.

Liz: Okay.

Devon: But people know what you mean when they say Kennewick Man.

Liz: Yeah. Wikipedia thinks he's Kennewick Man.

Devon: Wikipedia sure does.

Liz: But there were these guys who were near the Columbia River and about 10 feet from shore. They found part of a human skull, which is... At least it wasn't a foot. But people dug into it and they found this nearly complete, really old skeleton.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And one of the reasons why it became more famous than other sets of ancient remains is that one archaeologist said, "I think these might not be Native American bones."

Devon: Yes.

Liz: "They might be Caucasian bones."

Devon: Yes.

Liz: Which, given that these were older than nine thousand years old, would really rewrite our understanding of who was where, when.

Devon: Yes.

Liz: As it turned out, once people actually sequenced the DNA... No, this was an ancient Native American man. But it was also, you know, in the middle of this tension and this discussion that was heating u p from, you know... So NAGPRA passed in 1990, right?  So it was pretty fresh. And what the scientists were arguing is that you can't prove that this is related to any modern day tribe.

Devon: Correct.

Liz: Like in the 90s, we're not sequencing genomes.

Devon: Correct.

Liz: And it went all the way to the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals and they said, "Look, we can't establish that these are Native American remains. We just know these are remains." So it went and was at the Burke Museum, right?

Devon: Yes. Yes.

Liz: And they did scientific study on it.

Devon: Well, they-- the scientific study they could do was extremely limited because the Native Americans, when they were doing this lawsuit to try to get control of the remains, had, had put... They made it so that the court, like, this lawsuit made it so that you couldn't really touch the remains. Burke wasn't necessarily doing the studies? They were just-- They're the Washington State repository. So it was, they were kind of like they were kind of like... You know, in divorce where like a lawyer will be like "Not the husband or the wife gets the car. Right now, the car goes to a third party and it sits and no one fucking drives it until I figure out which one of you gets it in the divorce." So that's what the Burke did. They held onto it. And if they had court orders that said the Native Americans got to come visit him, which they did, you know, the Burke tried very hard. There was... I mean, in the early years, there was bad blood, man, and I get it. But they did try in later years to be very accommodating and let the tribe come in and do ceremonies and, and, you know, visit The Ancient One. And... But at the same time, if you've got a court order saying this group of scientists gets to come in and take, you know, this centimeter square of fabric sample, they have to honor that as well because it's not theirs. They're just holding it. They're the pawn shop that's keeping care of it as best as they can until the courts decide.

Liz: It says here they never displayed him, either. It was private...

Devon: No, no. He was never displayed. Mmhmm.

Liz: Yeah. So, wow. Yeah. It looks like he was kind of a, a test case in some ways and really established stuff.

Devon: Yeah, definitely.

Liz: He didn't go home until this year, it looks like, right?

Devon: Uh, yeah, so he was, yeah, reburied in... It was 2016 or 2017, he was turned over to the tribes.

Liz: Yeah, they signed... Uh, Patty Murray and Denny Heck did legislation to return him to the tribe once it was proven that he was Native American and they signed that-- [corrects self] no, Obama signed that on December 16th, 2016. Um... [quietly] God, it's been a long year.

Devon: It's been a long year

Liz: Oh, my God.

Devon: So long, dude...

Liz: Today's December 18th.

Devon: Oh, my God.

Liz: Of 2017.

Devon: I know, right? Right. Yes, it was. And it was. You're right, it was this year. It was, it was around my birthday this year. It was just this year. Oh, my God. It was ten months ago that he was handed over to a delegation from, like, the Yakama and Nez Perce and a couple other tribes that now call this area home, which, if I recall, was also, you know-- And like the Colville and stuff like that. And if I recall, that was also really a point of, of people who wanted to keep The Ancient One as Kennewick Man and do scientific studies were super like, [annoying voice] "Well, he's not even related to those tribes because like, those were Oklahoman Indians and they got put on the reservation out here in Washington. So he's not like even really--" I don't know why it's a valley girl now all of a sudden. But it was it was people that were saying, "Like, okay, so, fine. he's, he's related to Native American tribes. But how do you know which one? Because those people were originally from the Midwest and then they got relocated out here." And it's like, are you fucking serious? Like, we still have a Salish population. We still have a Yakama population, we still have a Colville. And, and just because those tribes were forcibly integrated into reservations doesn't mean they don't have a claim to him, you know?

Liz: Yeah. I mean, I can kind of see the argument with the Nez Perce, given that they were, you know, pretty much just shuffled west and north until they're on the rez...

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: But...

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: I don't know why "We done fucked up real bad a while ago" is good logic for "Let's continue to fuck up real bad right now."

Devon: Right?

Liz: That one is on us. I'm sure they would prefer to be like, "Yes, in fact we have lived here for seven hundred years."

Devon: Yes.

Liz: And we can prove that that's... yeah.

Devon: Yes.

Liz: Sometimes only your only options are to move forward with a little more compassion and dignity than you had the day before.

Devon: Right? Oh, my God. That's all you can do. I definitely wish... I think we could have learned a lot from the Ancient One's further study? And I wish that there had been a better relationship from the beginning. [sighs] But I don't think you could have even had the best relationship possible between the Native Americans and the Army Corps of Engineers, which is who he, I guess 'belonged to' when he was discovered, technically, like they they claim it, you know, as a, as an ancient discovery on these lands? Native American funerary rites for at least those tribes means, you know, you, you don't... doesn't matter how old he is, you don't dissect him. Doesn't matter how old he is, you don't take fabric samples. You, you re-inter the bones or you, you do whatever the burial process is again and you let it be.

Liz: Mmhmm.

Devon: And so my-- I don't know. I remember when he was found and before he was considered Native American, like I was definitely, "Oh, my God. Like, let's just learn what we can about him and then do a ceremony," which is... I mean, I'm, I'm thinking those thoughts from a place of privilege, but also that's how I feel about my own bones, you know? Where I'm just like, "I don't care. Take whatever you need. Give the organs to people, kind of chop up the other little bits, if that's helpful. And then the rest, I don't know, feed it to a tree."

Liz: Yeah, but it's interesting because I think we're both from a culture that doesn't prioritize ancestors very much?

Devon: Yeah

Liz: Unless they, like, did something cool--

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Or memorable. We're just kinda like, "I don't know."

Liz: Yeah, I was in an argument with Matt the other day and I don't remember what I was arguing about, but I said, "Matt, no woman in my family has ever admitted she was wrong for 20 generations and that's why they burned us as witches."

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: And he said, is that true? And I said, "No, she was hanged."

Devon: [cackling happily]

Liz: It did happen!

Devon: You walked into it!

Liz: He walked straight into it! But I do know, like, yes, I had an ancestor who was burned-- no, hanged as a witch--

Devon: Hanged as a witch.

Liz: My grandma found that out when she got super into genealogy. But, like, that's all I know about it, right?

Devon: That's amazing.

Liz: I don't have a, um, you know, any kind of tablet with her name. I'm not responsible for that. Or what the heck is the day of the dead Mexican thing? It's on the tip of my tongue. The... ofrenda!

Devon: Yes. Si. La ofrenda.

Liz: The ofrenda. I don't have an ofrenda or anything. Did you see Coco?

Devon: No, is it worth seeing?

Liz: [noncommittal] Eh... see it on a plane.

Devon: Yeah, there you go. I'll watch it on a plane.

Liz: It's fine.

Devon: I got a five hour plane ride tomorrow, friends. I'll watch it on the plane.

Liz: But with the whole bones thing, um... I'm glad I really took control of the conversation, so I could say "um" so firmly.

Devon: Yeah, I'm glad you did.

Liz: Yeah. With the whole bones thing, I think we can't do it without context. And I think Kennewick Man was all of 100 years away from us putting Indians in zoos.

Devon: Yes.

Liz: And on display at expositions.

Devon: Yes.

Liz: So let's err on the side of not being dicks, which is like, hey, do we turn these remains over to a state in an area where they still have smoke-shop Indians outside of stores? Or do we give it back to people more closely related to him who would really like to just put him back in the ground peacefully and say "Thanks for surviving and passing on your genetics so that we could be here today?"

Liz: Right. Because, is there a line in archeology-- you're more likely to know this-- of like, when remains... When does it stop being grave robbing?

Devon: Right? When does it stop being grave robbing? And I don't know. And that's why everybody should take a museum ethics class, which I couldn't take because my schedule didn't agree with it. I also couldn't take the legal issues in museums class, which would have been fascinating, and that's where you talk about like Elgin Marbles and all that shit.

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: But yeah, it's like, "Vintage is seventy five years old, antique is one hundred to one hundred and fifty years old, depending on if it's furniture or textiles." And then yeah. Like when... Like you said, when am I doing science and when am I doing illegals.

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: I guess they're not mutually exclusive, but exactly--

Liz: Well...

Devon: Like you said, when is grave-robbing and when is it excavation?

Liz: Of any two hosts of a show that we're actually-- because, like, I consider myself a scientist--

Devon: Mmhmm.

Liz: And I have not done, like, direct biomedical research on people.

Devon: Right.

Liz: But I have had to learn a lot about the ethics of human experimentation.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And I think when a society is going off the rails, a lot of times it justifies what it's doing with science--

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: --and we've got a pretty bad track record about that.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: We like to justify that we're doing a lot of things for science. And although I love science, science is real, science is important... Science is not inherently ethical.

Devon: No, God no.

Liz: Nor is it apolitical. So--

Devon: Nope!

Liz: So, I think we need to be considerate, and when we're trying to promote justice... One of the principles of justice in ethics is that burdens and benefits aren't disproportionately allocated.

Devon: Mmhmm.

Liz: I think Kennewick Man and/or the Ancient One is a pretty clear case of all, the harm was going one direction and all the benefit was going a different direction.

Devon: Absolutely. What fucking benefit were the tribes going to see from any fucking experiment we did with him? I mean, like in general? Sure. Maybe there's something that we find out that, I don't know, we rediscover penicillin or some bullshit like that. and then the, y'know, the the water table for everyone rises. That's great. We all benefit. But no, I definitely think we did the right thing by repatriating those remains. You were talking-- and I'm not trying to change the subject, but you were talking about Mr. Fenn having stuff from Egypt, and that's another really cool story about the Burke that I'm pretty sure I'm able to share, so I'm going to. So, sorry, Burke if I wasn't supposed to. But it's-- I mean, it's kind of common knowledge that the Burke has an Egyptian mummy and the Egyptian mummy was displayed in the early days of the Burke because back in the 1900s they had a wealthy benefactor that-- Any museum's benefactor that was wealthy, their big thing was like, "You aren't a real museum unless you have an Egyptian mummy."

Liz: Oh, yeah!

Devon: Yeah! Dudeguy went over to Africa, went to Egypt, went, "I like that sarcophagus. I like that mummy, but fuck, it's missing its feet. So take the feet from that mummy over there that's broken. Put it together, these three disparate things. Pack them up, ship them to the Burke." The Burke had it, they put it on display for a while and then they went, "You know, this actually isn't in keeping with our mission, vision and values anymore. We are for... By and for Washington State. We don't need these human remains on display or anything." So the mummy is in... I've seen it. It's in a very beautiful climate-controlled display case. The mummy is kept separate, uh, from the sarcophagus because those two things, human remains and wood, need different kinds of environments. Amazing, isn't it? They need different microclimates. So they're kept. And every ten years or so, the Burke tries to repatriate these human remains to Egypt. And the Egyptian government goes, "You know, we've got so many mummies over here... Just keep it. We're not worried."

Liz: [laughs]

Devon: And the Burke is like, "Okay, you don't understand. Like, we need to deaccession this, we need... But we can't just... You don't just deaccession a mummy! You... We really need to give this back to you so that you can bury it properly? So that you can have it? For you guys? It's not right for our country to have this dead person that-- well, two dead people, part of one part of the other."

Liz: Oh!

Devon: There's where your feet are coming from.

Liz: Feet! [unintelligible]

Devon: It all ties together, folks.

Liz: The mummy is searching for her feet.

Devon: She's trying to find them. The part of the museum, the part of the collections where I worked. Which is where? Other funerary objects and remains and things like that are kept, it's in the the anthropological collection area, there are some people who are very willing to talk about that area and others who were just like, fuck you, I don't want to talk about it at all. But there are there was one woman that worked there the year before I was, who couldn't go in that room because whenever she went in, there would fall. You'd hear stuff in cabinets, topple over boxes, would pop open like just fall and pop open. And they were all like, okay, well, we can explain it, you know, that it wasn't secured. But she felt like the ghosts in that room that these objects didn't like her and she had, you know, bad juju as far as they were concerned. And so she didn't go in that room anymore because every time she did, shit acted up.

 

That makes sense to me that are in a room anymore, if that's what happened. Oh, man. And it was all underground. I mean, the Burke is in there doing their great rebuild. They're going to have open collections spaces, visible collection spaces, and some of it, which I think is fascinating. But right now, it's all underground in a building that was built, you know what, 50 years ago, 70 years ago. It's creepy as fuck down there in collections.

Liz: Oh, I bet, yeah. It's got to be like the end of Raiders or whatever.

Devon: Oh, yeah!

Liz: Where...

Devon: Yeah, yeah.

Liz: It's just boxes and crap.

Devon: But with lower ceilings and fluorescent lights.

Liz: Delightful.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Oh my God.

Devon: Yeah.

 

You always-- you end up working cooler places.

Devon: I want to get back into working for a museum where I feel like I'm doing that, so bad. I love my museum right now but we have no collection.

Liz: Mm.

Devon: Y'know, the building is the collection which is cool but like, I want treasures. Liz, I love treasures. I'm so glad you brought me this story because I love treasures.

Liz: [unintelligible] treasure. All we have where I work is... There are cadavers on campus.

Devon: Mmhmm!

Liz: And I won't put them on Front Street, but I'll just say there's one building that has elevators that are a lot bigger than the elevators in the other buildings. And if you picture a gurney, you can understand--

Devon: Yup.

Liz: And there's actually in another building, there's animal testing that goes on, and I think they keep that on the down-low a lot.

Devon: I bet they do.

Liz: But there's also a building-- [suddenly hushed voice] Secrets of WSU Spokane!

Devon: [spooky voice] Secrets!

Liz: There's a building that does fire drills without the sound because the sound is upsetting to the little micies or whatever.

Devon: The little research animals?

Liz: Yeah!

Devon: Oh, gosh.

Liz: Yeah,  they don't want to stress them out.

Devon: Oh, gosh.

Liz: So they just come around and say, "We're having a fire drill."

Devon: Gently, they gently--

Liz: [in background] Woop... woop... woop... it's the sound of the police.

Devon: [laughing] It's some guy's job to go through and quietly play Mozart. And that's your fire drill signal.

Liz: Oh my God. Now it just makes me think of one of the Jack the Ripper victims. I think it was Mary Eddings who had been arrested earlier in the evening for being drunk and disorderly and impersonating a fire engine.

Devon: [laughing ruefully] That's why he killed her. "No! Annoying!"

Liz: "Annoying! Rude! I'm trying to do my animal experiments over here!"

Devon: "Rude, damn it!"

Liz: "[I'm trying to] make them push a lever and get a pellet... Now, all they're doing is listening to you."

Devon: "I've had enough of you, Mary!"

Liz: Oh, my God. That's-- Yeah, that's the treasure story I wanted to bring to you because it had lots of nice juicy details.

Devon: Oh, my God.

Liz: And a curse and all that kind of good stuff. Not just what we've got with some of the ones on the map, which basically what we've put in the text of the map is what we know, which is: There some gold. There's a lost mine. There's-- I do like the Old Spaniard's Mine one, which is-- He was the one where he would ride into town on his mule and then he would put the shoes on the mule backward, so you couldn't follow his tracks.

Devon: God bless him.

Liz: I think you illustrated that one with a little horseshoe.

Devon: I did. I did. Just follow him backward. Just go the other direct-- I don't get it. It's not hard.

Liz: Just mule-jack him with a gun and say, "Hey, José, knock that shit off. Take me to where the gold is."

Devon: "Tell me right now, you and your backwards mule." I like mule-jacking as a euphemism. I'm not going to tell you what it's a euphemism for.

Liz: Oh, Lord. I'm terrified.

Devon: It sounds great, doesn't it?

Liz: Yeah. Well, that's when you tell an old Spanish miner that you've had enough of this Inspector Gadget--

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: --Scooby Doo situation that you're using to hide your gold.

Devon: [laughing] Like when Doctor Venture... "I call them sneakies!"

Liz: [laughing]

Devon: "Shoes where the sole spins around so the Russians can't follow ya!"

Liz: [happy sigh] That's the story of Fenn's treasure, and I will definitely tell people, I'll tell you on the show and everybody who listens.. If anybody finds it-- they still could! Somebody is going to find it. Maybe it'll be 9000 years from now.

Devon: It's going to be me, because this is my new obsession.

Liz: All right. Well, get on it. And don't-- don't tell us your solve, because then everybody's going to rush out and do it.

Devon: I'll tell you my solve, because this is how we're going to pay to continue Ouija Broads into the future.

Liz: Cool! All right. Well, until that comes into play, I would suggest that people go over to our Patreon at patreon.com/ouijabroads.

Devon: Yes, please.

Liz: Did you like that transition?

Devon: It's really good. Did I set that up for you, or did I set that up for you?

Liz: That's how you like it.

Devon: That is how I like it.

Liz: That's beautiful. I am very grateful for the supporters that we have so far. And if you do join us over there, you're going to get to see some cool stuff. We just today taped ourselves playing the Oregon Trail game. It was really fun.

Devon: That was great. Shout out to patron Lucille, who got to be one of our characters.

Liz: Yeah, you can get the séance. You can get all our outtakes and our lists and our thoughts and our-- whatever is going into the world, you will find it on our Patreon. That got way off track, sorry.

Devon: Yeah, I love it.

Liz: You can also join us on Instagram, Facebook or Twitter...

Devon: Yes.

Liz: ...at Ouija Broads. And of course, we have our website at ouijabroads.com...

Devon: Yes.

Liz: ...where we will put all our show notes. So if you want to follow these links and learn about The Ancient One or about the treasure so that you can go,  you know, look at the map and look at the, you know, compass north and all this crap, and what people have already figured out... You get on the case.

Devon: Do it. Do it.

Liz: Do it.

Devon: If you want the thrill of the chase...

Liz: Mmhmm?

Devon: To get on the case... You go to the place... Where the Broads never erase their data. That was my poem.

Liz: That was so beautiful. I can solve the riddle, and the riddle is that they should rate, review and subscribe on iTunes and Podbean. Um, we're now, I believe, also on Google Play. Or wherever you like getting podcasts.

Devon: Heyooo! Liz put us on the YouTube as well.

Liz: I also put us on YouTube. Yes. I just find a image that either Devon took or is public domain free to use. And I put all our audio on there. And then I know some people like to listen to podcasts on YouTube, and I support you in your journey.

Devon: Oh, you weirdo's. We love you.

Liz: Yup, we do. We want you to live weird--

Devon: Die weird--

Liz: And stay weird. Thank you so much for listening. Go find some treasure.

Devon: Find some treasure and tell me about it. I don't even need to have it. I just want to touch it for a minute.

Liz: You wanna see it! You want to put it in your mouth.

Devon: That's what she said.

[theme music fades in, plays to end]

Episode Transcript: 13, Our Friend the Cadborosaurus

You can read the transcript in its entirety below, or download it here.

[theme music plays, fades out: The House is Haunted, Roy Fox, 1934]

Devon:  You are listening to Ouija Broads, this is Devon…

Liz: ...this is Liz.

Devon: Liz, what do sea monsters eat?

Liz: Kelp? Fish?

Devon: Fish and ships.

[both laughing]

Devon: This is a good one, right?

Liz: That's a very good one.

Devon: I didn't make it up. I found it, but I thought it was pretty great.

Liz: I like it anyway.

Devon: It's such a good segue because I want to talk to you about sea monsters today.

Liz: Yay!

Devon: Yeah. Can you name any famous sea monsters?

Liz: There's the Loch Ness Monster.

Devon: Absolutely.

Liz: There's Champy, the Lake Champlain Monster.

Devon: I knew you'd know that one since you were born in New York.

Liz: [faking irritation] Woman!

Devon: [laughs mischievously]

Liz: Uhhhh... I know that we've had a lot of sea monsters around the Northwest because I tend to see them. But-- in terms of like, when I'm doing research, not when I'm driving around in boats and shit. But I tend to leave them for you because I just really feel like this is so your territory for some reason.

Devon: God, I love them. I love them. Well, you know how into cryptids I am, and how into the ocean I am, and how I don't mind touching gross slimy stuff, which is a huge part of sea monsters according to the research that I've done today.

Liz: [laughs] Well, there's different kinds because there's like, sea serpents-- I had a whole book about this: there's sea serpents, and then there's globsters and blobsters. Like, we just get a big lump of stuff?

Devon: Yup!

Liz: You know, and everybody pokes it and takes pictures.

Devon: Mmmhmm. They're like "What was that? And most of the times it was a basking shark, but nobody believes the scientist and they say "No, it's totally, totally a plesiosaur or whatever."

Liz: Oh, definitely. And then there's um... There's krakens and multi-armed creatures of various sorts.

Devon: Well, so you mentioned, you mentioned Champ, who's from Lake Champlain in New York, Vermont and Quebec in North America. There's also Chessie up in Chesapeake Bay... or I guess, down in Chesapeake Bay? Is Maryland and Virginia down from Washington or is it lateral?

Liz: I don't know, actually.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: I think it's south. It's gotta be south, right? In terms of [saying these words very carefully] lat-it-ude and long-it-ude? Yeah, ah, we're... good at geography.

Devon: Oh, God, we're good at geology. So good at it.

Both

[laughing]

Devon: And um, in terms of North America, there's two others that I was going to tell you about today. Ogopogo...

Liz: [as 21 from Venture bros] "'Ogopogo."

Devon: [starting to laugh] "He's a fucking plesiosaur!' I can't see that name without thinking of Venture Brothers.

Liz: Exactly.

Devon: Ogopogo is up in Okanagan Lake in British Columbia, which I found out is exactly five and a half hours away from you in Spokane and five and a half hours away from me in Seattle.

Liz: Yeah, that's not far, because we've got an Okanogan County in Washington.

Devon: We do have an Okanogan County in Washington. But I'm thinking, you know, if you and I ever want to meet in the middle of the state and go, "Oh, boo, there's nothing here," we just go five and a half hours north and and middle for each of us. And we can go see a sea monster at the same time. Let's hook it up.

Liz: Excellent.

Devon: How good is that? So Ogopogo lives just a little bit above us, but then.... Caddy, the [pronounced cad-bree-o-saurus] cadborosaurus of Cadbury Bay over here on my side of the state is the one I really want to talk to you about, because that's the one I found a ton of information about.

Liz: It's a cad-BORO-saurus or it's a cad-BREE-o-saurus?

Devon: Uh, well, it's spelled c-a-d-b-o-r-o? So cad-BORO-saurus? I've heard cadbriosaurus, but I've also been told I pronounce things incorrectly on many occasions by... I won't name names. But you know... by Liz Blodgett. [Note: I'll put the first pronunciation as Cadborosaurus and the second as Cadbriosaurus for the rest of the transcript.]

Liz: [giggling] You pronounce certain things incorrectly, such as my last name. [Note: She pronounced "Blodgett" correctly but I'm giving her a hard time for not remembering that I changed it.]

Devon: What are you talking about? Your last name is pronounced "Butt," isn't it?

Liz: I mean, you nailed it.

Devon: Yup. "Liz Butt."

Liz: Most importantly, it's not a Cadbury-saurus made of delicious chocolate.

Devon: I'm so sorry, it's not. I think that the Loch Ness monster should be a Cadbury-saurus because he's up there in the English area. [hears what she just said, repeats it derisively] "The English area."

Liz: "You know!"

Devon: Jesus Christ, Devon, get it together.

Liz: Listen, the accuracy of our geography decreases proportionally to how far away from Washington it is.

Devon: Oh, man! If I can't touch it, if I can't stretch out my arms and touch it, it might as well be twelve miles away. I don't know where it's at.

Liz: A whole twelve miles?!

Devon: A whole twelve miles, Liz:.

Liz: Wow.

Devon:  I'm so done with you.

Liz: [laughs]

Devon: Cadboro Bay is near the southern tip of Vancouver Island, which is north and east of Victoria. I mean, Victoria was my-- because I've been to Victoria. I knew that as a, as a, like, a map pin to orient from? So maybe that doesn't mean anything to you.

Liz: But it's, like, part of the [Puget] Sound?

Devon: It's part of the Sound. It's really close. You could get to it, you know, if you took the hour ferry, uh, from Anacortes up to Victoria, then it's like less than an hour drive and it's right there. So it's part of the Sound. Cadboro Bay is between the Washington coast and the Vancouver Island coast. So it's definitely a protected Sound area, but that is the area where Caddy is reported to live most of the time. You talked earlier about the different kinds of sea monsters, and I thought that was really super smart because unlike a plesiosaur, which is what I always think of when I think of sea monster, you know, like a brontosaurus, but with flippers?

Liz: Mmhmm.

Devon: A-- Caddy is supposed to resemble a serpent with a horse-like head. So it's got the vertical coils or humps that undulate like a serpent would, but then it's got this kind of weird horse-ish head and front flippers. Throughout the last two hundred years or so of documented Caddy sightings, some people--

Liz: Two hundred years?!

Devon: Two hundred years are the most recent Caddy sightings, but it's been in Native American lore for thousands of years.

Liz: Wow.

Devon: But I was looking into the last about two hundred years because they've got, you know, written records.

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: Depending on who you talk to, it's either got small little hind flippers or it's got a tail that has a, a fan-like tail on it that does propulsion. So it's either got one of those flipper tail things, like you'd see on, what, a dolphin?

Liz: Mmhmm.

Devon: Or little, little feet flippers.

Liz: Okay.

Devon: Yeah. So it's this, it's this long serpenty dude with a funky head and he's just all flapping about in the water using his dumb little flippers to get by.

Liz: Yeah, the hump-back thing is kind of strange to me when I think about creatures like this, because I know it's so, the classic sea monster look>

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: But like, water snakes don't get around like that.

Devon: They don't, no.

Liz: They go side to side.

Devon: Exactly, exactly. So that's a really bizarre point for me as well, because why would you come... Why would you breach the surface of the water and do this bizarre, like jumping hump motion when, like you said, a sea snake would go side to side undulating?

Liz: Yeah. [quietly] That's not efficient.

Devon: But still-- It's not efficient, damn it! That's still one of the, I guess hallmarks of Caddy sightings? Or a lot of sea monster sightings? Are those weird looking humps. Every time I've drawn one, I make sure to draw those in, even though they don't make any sense.

Liz: Right.

Devon: But he's supposed to be about 15 to 20 meters long.

Liz: Whoa, that's big!

Devon: Huge, right? And he's really similar in appearance to how Ogopogo is described up in the Okanagan, like in B.C. I told you that I looked at maybe about 200 years of history, but of course, I mean, just like with Sasquatch, right? The Native American-- whatever region we're in, however they call the people who lived here a long time before white folks were coming in and like Instagramming sea creatures, they are in lore for a super long time and he's got all kinds of names. So he's-- he was named Cadbriosaurus because the bay was named Cadboro Bay after the first European vessel went into that bay.

Liz: Okay.

Devon: But he's got a ton of different names, depending on what tribe you're talking to. The-- this creature, or a creature that's similar to it, has actually been seen up and down the Pacific coast from Alaska all the way down to Canada-- or-- pfft-- [starts to laugh]

Liz: "All the way down to Canada!"

Devon: How about Alaska, all the way down to California?

Liz: Oh!

Devon: They're-- in the 60s, there were, uh, reported sightings of-- I mean, and they called it Caddy as well. People in California said that they were seeing Caddy and other sea creatures playing in San Francisco Bay.

Liz: Oh, it has friends.

Devon: He has some friends, Liz. He's got some little buddies. There's actually a reported sighting of a daughter of Cadbriosaurus and his mate, which I will tell you about.

Liz: [unnecessarily sassy] Why can't it be Cadborosaurus and her husband, Devon: ?

Devon: Because the people in the 1930s, my friend? Were not progressive, even a little bit.

Liz: What's the point of being a sea monster if you can't even escape the patriarchy?

Devon: Oh man. You-- [laughs]

Liz: I'm drinking, okay?

Devon: Getting  political! What are you drinking?

Liz: [laughing] I'm drinking Washington Cherry Hard Cider. Where is this from. Washington Gold Cider...

Devon: Probably Washington.

Liz: Yeah, probably Washington. Definitely Washington. "Made from the best apples in the world." Correct. From the Lake Chelan Trading Company.

Devon: Yeah, but it--

Liz: It's good!

Devon: It sounds good.

Liz: [laughing] It's made out of sass and political feelings.

Devon: God, dude, you don't need help with sass and political feelings. You have those in spades. So talk to me. You said it was made out of apples, but you also said cherry was in the name. I don't understand beer. So tell me--

Liz: There's apple-- well, it's a cider. It's a hard cider. There's apples and cherries in the mix.

Devon: Ooh.

Liz: They mix it all up and they let it get all fucked up and it gets you fucked up. That's my understanding of how you make cider.

Devon: It's a fruit salad that fucks you up.

Liz: Yeah! You know!

Devon: Maybe I'm going to start drinking because it sounds pretty damn good.

Liz: It is good. [laughs] I always like to drink Washington stuff. I like to drink stuff of wherever I was. When I was in North Carolina, it was North Carolina stuff. But we have such good microbreweries, good wine, good cider. Don't overthink it. Buy local.

Devon: Whatev--

Liz:  Except if it's Starbucks. Did you see the thing I posted on Twitter?

Devon: No. What did you post on Twitter. What are you doing?

Liz: [laughing] It was at Albertson's. And it had Starbucks labeled as a local product.

Devon: [laughs] It is local!

Liz: I mean, yeah? But---

Devon: Don't hate on them just because they went global, friendo.

Liz: "I'm going to support local businesses, like Starbucks."

Devon: [laughing] "You know, like Microsoft!

Liz: Yeah, or Boeing.

Devon: Amazon's a local business.

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: I support them almost every day.

Liz: A lot of people never think about Washington State, but you all sure use a lot of our stuff.

Devon: Damn right, you do. We're full of smart people and sea monsters, I tell you what.

Liz: Yeah! Smart sea monsters!

Devon: Smart sea monsters! Super smart sea monsters! But well, I don't know if they're that smart because according to some people, they keep showing up dead on our shores. and I don't know how smart you are if you're dead.

Liz: It's the only game in town, my friend.

Devon: It's the only game in town. I know it's crooked.

Liz: [giggles]

Devon: When the supposed Cadbriosaurus carcasses wash up on shores, there are almost always [sic] another explanation as to what that carcass belongs to, other than an unidentified giant sea lizard… with a massive--

Liz: Science ruins things.

Devon: Science ruins things. I read an article from 1934 about the, well, it was called the.. Oh, goodness, I'm getting there. The Prince Edward? Prince Albert? Let me find my notes.

Liz: No, keep guessing. Prince Charlie!

Devon: Prince Rupert!

Liz: Prince Tedward!

Devon: Prince Shut The Fuck Up!

Liz: [cackles]

Devon: In 1934, there was a, a carcass that washed up on-- near Prince Rupert, and it was called the Prince Rupert Sea Serpent. And the newspaper... When a scientist said, "Uh, no, guys, it's not a sea serpent, it's a basking shark." They called him a "joy killer."

Liz: That's correct.

Devon: He's a joy killer! Poor dude.

Liz: [laughs] Don't be a joy killer. Oh, people...

Devon: Oh, man. Basking sharks are kind of the scapegoat, not the scapegoat. Basking sharks are kind of the... Can I say red herring? But that's not right. It's just a pun that I wanted to make. But it's not the right use of that word. Basking sharks are... When people find out--

Liz: [crosstalk, unintelligible]

Devon: Fucking basking sharks, man. It's like lupus. It's always lupus. It's always basking sharks. When people are like, "Dude, I found this really weird looking creature and it's dead and it's on the beach. And I'm positive nobody's ever seen it before." It is almost always a basking shark carcass. Have you seen a basking shark picture? I mean, they're weird looking alive.

Liz: Yeah. They're not... they're not all the way right, to me.

Devon: They're not all the way right, no. They've got the real big mouths, you know, and then their tiny little butts and they just come and they scoop up all of the stuff on the surface and you can see all their, like, ribby gill things when they open their mouth. I don't know. I'm gesturing with my hand in these wild arcs and you can't see that, but I know what I mean.

Liz: I'm picturing it. No, those sharks... Sharks with big mouths and whales with big mouths kind of distress me?

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Because I know people are like, "Oh, they don't eat people, they eat plankton." But I think they would probably just go for it.

Devon: I think if you were in the way of the plankton, they're not going to strain you out, right?

Liz: Yeah!

Devon: It's not me picking around a tomato in a salad here.

Liz: Yeah. Did you ever see that video of, like, there's these predatory fish that are gathering these little prey fish into a ball and then there's these birds.

Devon: [gasps]

Liz: I showed you this, right?

Devon: [affirmative] Mmm-hmm!

Liz: They're picking at it from above and they got all the fish panicking in a big ball. And this big whale just comes up and eats, like, prey fish, predator fish, and the birds.

Devon: And the birds!

Liz: [gulping/scooping noise]

Devon: Outta nowhere! Just done. One and done, my friend.

Liz: The photographer made the ocean a little bit warmer just then, when he saw that.

Devon: I think he was reconsidering his profession after that. I know I would have. Jeez, Louise. Well, they're freaky looking alive. They're freaky looking dead.

Liz: And they rot weirdly, right?

Devon: They rot weirdly, yeah.

Liz: Because the cartilage hangs out.

Devon: Exactly.

Liz: And it makes it look like the original creature was a totally different shape than basking sharks actually are.

Devon: Yeah, indeed. I would not I mean... I wouldn't even have told you that was a fish--

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: --when I can see their carcasses. I also would have thought, "Oh, bizarre alien lizard things swimming around in the water and hanging out in Alaska and San Francisco and doing all kinds of shit."

Liz: "Sounds legit."

Devon: "I believe that for sure."

Liz: I mean, creatures that we know about that live in the ocean in that area definitely go from Alaska to California and beyond.

Devon: Oh, yeah, yeah. You have all kinds of whales doing that.

Liz: That part sounds reasonable.

Devon: I don't think that range is unreasonable at all. I did think it was funny that one of the places I was researching on was saying that it's, you know, postulated that they come up to, or they come down to the warmer waters of Vancouver. And I'm like, "Well, I guess compared to Alaska."

Liz: [skeptical sound]

Devon: But I have been in the ocean around here and I would not say it was warmer than anything.

Liz: Yeah, you could keep going and improve on that.

Devon: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Maybe hit up California, maybe hit up Baja. Maybe... I'm just going to keep going to the equator and hang out there.

Liz: Yeah!

Devon: Well, so we've got basking sharks, right?

Liz: Mmhmm.

Devon: Another, uh, 1943 sighting was really promising. It was these two police officers. They saw what looked like this huge undulating sea serpent with a horselike head in the Georgia Strait up there near the island. And it was doing that, you know, the thing that we were talking about is so weird with sea monster sightings where they kind of hop out of the water in these big humps and these cops were like, "Bam, dude, nailed it. We know what this is." They pulled out the binoculars and they saw it was a giant bull sea lion leading six other sea lions?

Liz: Haha!

Devon: And their movement and being in a line was what was creating what looked like humps.

Liz: Oh, okay.

Devon: And that undulating--

Liz: All jumping out of the water at different times.

Devon: Yeah. Isn't that weird?

Liz: Yeah, okay!

Devon: It's pretty cool. So sea lions have also been misidentified as sea creatures. Giant oarfish are also called the King of Herrings and they're another one like basking sharks--

Liz: I thought herrings were more of a Democratic people.

Devon: [laughing away from mic] I don't even know where to go. I can't make a pun or anything, I just love it.

Liz: I don't like oarfish, man. They freak me the hell out.

Devon: Tell me-- tell me why?

Liz: Because they, they… instead of being horizontal like a fish, they're vertical, like something that makes no sense.

Devon: Yup, just like something that makes no sense. Did you know the oarfish can be up to 17 meters long and the largest--

Liz: [firmly] Not on my watch.

Devon: [laughing] Oh, it can! It's like fifty something feet dude.

Liz: No, they may not.

Devon: They're found worldwide. You can't escape them.

Liz: They can't escape me, more like. Swim horizontally, like a real fucking fish! Get it together!

Devon: While we're at it, can we talk about halibut and how stupid it is that their eyes are on one side?

Liz: Is that what halibut do?!

Devon: Yeah, because they're this stupid flat fish and they swim like a pancake. It's just floating through the water with their eyes on one side.

Liz: Listen, when I got enough money to take a year off, I'm just going to have to take it a tour and set a lot of fish straight. "Listen, Mola Mola, stop looking like half a giant fish. Stop having freaky dead eyes."

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: "Hey, sunfish, get it together while you're at it."

Devon: "Yeah, you look like a Mola Mola"

Liz: "Don't care for that. Not one bit. Unacceptable. Shape up."

Devon: [laughing] Oh, my God....

Liz: "Salmon! Stop turning into zombies when you're trying to make more salmon."

Devon: Exactly. Aren't they so gross, dude? [laughs] Eels. That's enough out of you.

Liz: "Enough out of you, eels!"

Devon: "Tired of this!"

Liz: "Pipe down!"

Devon: Speaking of pipes, pipe fish are also sometimes pointed to as possible sea creature sightings, so...

Liz: Pipe fish... Okay, what are pipe fish?

Devon: They're long and thin and they've got really funny looking pipe-y snouts. It's like if you stretched out a seahorse I feel.

Liz: Oh a little trumpety nose?

Devon: A little trumpety nose.

Liz: Oh yeah, okay so speaking of: pike and muskelunge? Get your dental situation under control.

Devon: Can we talk about how gross pike are and how upset I am that they are in the world in freshwater where I expect to be able to step without being eaten by a fish?

Liz: Not allowed, not allowed.

Devon: Can we also disallow barracuda?

Liz: Mmhmm. They're really covered under this whole dental situation ruling. However, clown fish that live in anemones and, like, float around real cute? Keep it up.

Devon: Dude, you're just plugging Dory for your kiddo.

Liz: Yeah?

Devon: You're just trying to get free Dory shit from Disney for your child.

Liz: I want to go to the aquarium, because I want to see... No, it's cool. We went to Petco and I mean--

Devon: That's close.

Liz: Yeah. [laughs] Petco, the Spokane Aquarium!

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: It's just like Northwest Seed and Pet, the Spokane Zoo. When you want your kid to see sickly breeder farm puppies.

Devon: Oh, yeah. You want to know what parvo looks like up close? Boom! Handled. Oh, that's so sad, my friend.

Liz: Mm.

Devon: What's the name-- what's the name of that, it's an extinct--- I hope it's extinct... It was a shark or something, but it's got that lower jaw that goes in like a spiral and--

Liz: Helicoprion!

Devon: How did you do that?

Liz: I think about sharks a lot!

Devon: Yeah, you do. I was the one that wouldn't go in the Atlantic Ocean when I was with you because I was pretty sure that the sharks were going to eat me in about four inches of water. How do you know this and I don't?

Liz: Because I think about sharks a lot!

Devon: Uh huh.

Liz: Like, there was a point when I was swimming in the Atlantic Ocean and I was just having a grand old time. And then all of a sudden a bunch of little fish swam past me real fast in a panic. And I was like, "Oh, no. I'm getting out of here before..."

Devon: You got out real quick?

Liz: Yeah, I got out real quick. I didn't want to encounter whatever those fish were concerned about.

Devon: Probably a giant oarfish.

Liz: [unhappy grumble]

Devon: King of the herrings come to subjugate you.

Liz: [negating grumbles]

Devon: That's what it was.

Liz: So these are all the things that people think Cadborosaurus is, or they think are Cadborosauruses and they get confused, but like...

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Tell me-- don't be a joy killer, man.

Devon: I won't be a joy killer

Liz: Tell me some Cadboro stories.

Devon: Yeah, I'll tell you some good stuff. You want to hear about some notable sightings?

Liz: You know I do.

Devon: Yeah, you do. I mentioned the Prince Rupert Sea Serpent, that one of the biologists was a killjoy for it. But I just loved this. I read an article that actually appeared in the Galveston Daily News in Texas. I don't know why I didn't find a Seattle newspaper about this, but the Galveston Daily News in Texas reported on the decomposed remains of a creature that washed up on Henry Island that, like I said, was called the Prince Rupert Sea Serpent. The locals had named it Jorda because there was the Jordan River nearby and the locals said it, quote, "Must be the daughter of--" I'm going to butcher this name, but I'm going to try it. "It must be the daughter of Hiaschuckalick Cadbriosaurus, the 80 foot serpent in these waters, and his mate Penda, who is a 60 foot monster, both who have been reportedly seen by hundreds of persons between 1932 and 1934."

Liz: They sound extremely familiar with these creatures. They know their names!

Devon: --I couldn't find--

Liz: And how long they are!

Devon: Yeah, I couldn't find any other information about [carefully] Hiaschuckalick and Penda but---

Liz: [confidently, in order to be a butt] Hiaschuckalick and Penda and Jorda!

Devon: And Jorda! But they felt like this creature that was washed up was their daughter Jorda.

Liz: [whispering] How'd they know it was a girl, Devon: ?

Devon: I don't know how they knew it was a girl! I don't know how they knew it was anything other than this bizarre blobby mess. The picture of it that I found looks... Oh, buddy. It looks an awful lot like that fake Ballard Sea Monster that you posted a while back.

Liz: Oh! The one that's just a piece of driftwood they put a face on?

Devon: Just a piece-- yeah, exactly. I mean, this isn't driftwood. It looks... It looks like a 20 foot submarine sandwich just laid out on a plank. There are these little kids in the photo and they're holding their nose because it stinks. There's a dog in the picture who I think wants a bite of the sandwich and its little, y'know, 1930 grainy photographed faces looks like this weird deflated hippo-y thing.

Liz: Oh, dear.

Devon: So poor little Jorda. Jorda was examined by Dr. Neil Carter, who was the director of the Dominion Fisheries Experimental Station, whatever that is? But--

Liz: Sounds cool.

Devon: It sounds like--

Liz: Sounds like fish experiments.

Devon: Badass job. He's probably attaching lasers to eels and stuff.

Liz: Good.

Devon: He described it as sinewy and serpentine and thought it had been dead for about two months. And he said, quote, "Seagulls had been feeding upon the flesh, and about all that was left was skin, sinew, hair and quills and a somewhat elevated backbone."

Liz: Hair?! Quills?!

Devon: Hair and quills.

Liz: Hair and quills!

Devon: You know, one thing that people find on a lot of sea monster carcasses-- I'm doing air quotes around 'sea monster'-- is that they look hairy. And I've seen that when whales decompose, that's what their baleen looks like it looks hairy.

Liz: Mmm.

Devon: And that when their skin starts to come across, the muscle tissues and fibers also look hairy. So that's what I assume he's looking at. One of the things that people think-- or, one of the reasons why people think giant oarfish could be being confused as sea monsters is because they almost have a mane around their head? They've got some red hairlike things.

Liz: Ohhh.

Devon: So if this was an oarfish, maybe that's the hair he's talking about? I don't see any hair in this photo, my friend. I see a floppy, long Subway sandwich.

Liz: Do they have any suspects in the murder of Jorda?

Devon: Well, yeah. I mean, Dr. Killjoy here said it was a basking shark...

Liz: But what killed the basking shark? That's the real question.

Devon: Yeah, right?

Liz: Or not.

Devon: Or not. Dr. Carter says it was a basking shark, but other sources say the newspaper, The Galveston Daily News said Dr. Carter said it was a basking shark. Other...

Liz: Swamp gas!

Devon: Swamp gas! Other sources have said that there was an interview in which he said it was an unidentified creature, that he thought that it was definitely not a fish, that it was of the Mammalia class.

Liz: Okay.

Devon: He thought it was a deep sea dweller and that he thought that there were four fins or flapper-like projections on the cartilaginous material off of the body.

Liz: Hmm.

Devon: There we go.

Liz: Okay.

Devon: That-- when it's described that way, it reminded me a lot of a... I think it's called a... I mean, this sounds stupid. I think it's called like a basileosaurus or something? It's a, an extinct dinosaur, an extinct sea dinosaur that kind of looked like a big angry pointy fish that had little flappers on it. Because he said that's where--

Liz: [starts to interrupt, stops] Oh, go ahead.

Devon: I was gonna say, he said that two of the flappers were about four feet from the head and the other were 20 feet lower. And that's how this dinosaur, um... I remember it looking-- Y'know, it didn't like have a neck like a plesiosaur.

Liz: Mmhmm.

Devon: It was just a whole bunch of teeth and then little flippery, uh... Little flippery guys right there.

Liz: Yeah. I think I'm picturing the thing you're talking about.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Well... here's the thing that's hard for me because I'm not a biologist, like my actual expertise in life is never coming in handy on the show at all, but--

Devon: We'll get there.

Liz: [laughing] "We'll get there," she says. [in spooky voice] "The Seeeecrets of Meeeeedicare!"

Devon: Ooooooh.

Liz: What-- you don't see a lot of mammals with cartilage frameworks. We tend to have the bones.

Devon: "Have the bones" is important, I thought. Yeah, I don't understand why he said that it was of the class Mammalia when he really still thought that it was-- I mean, like, lizards aren't of the Mammalia class. Right? I'm also not a biologist.

Liz: No, they're not mammals.

Devon: Yeah. I mean I knew that. I knew they weren't mammals, sorry. Um... Yeah. Yeah, I don't I don't know what he meant.

Liz: Is it possible that the category of scientists who's willing to come out and look at your rotting Subway sandwich is not maybe the guy that you wish was coming out to look at this in 1934?

Devon: I would buy that if you were selling it.

Liz: Mm hmm.

Devon: I would say...

Liz: Well, I'm going with what he's doing, though... especially with our new house? Anytime we see anything, we don't know what it is, Matt will be like, "Is that the knob and tube wiring?" I'll be like, "No, it's a basking shark."

Devon: It's a basking shark is exactly what it was.

Liz: "Is that the hot water shutoff?" "No, it's a basking shark."

Devon: It's a basking shark.

Liz: Are basking sharks real?

Devon: Basking sharks are so real.

Liz: Okay.

Devon: So real. Like for legit. I know it sounds really insincere right now, but they're so fucking real.

Liz: It'd be really funny if it went the opposite direction: that there's actually all these cryptids, but they just all happen to decompose in a way that causes scientists to believe that there are such creatures as basking sharks.

Devon: That'd be so fucking funny. That would make me so happy. Dude, that's hilarious. But no, we've seen we've seen real life basking sharks. They're the second largest, second largest, um, thing in the oceans. You got whale shark and then you got basking shark. So there you go.

Liz: Thing, or fish? Aren't, aren't--

Devon: Did I say--

Liz: Blue whales are bigger--

Devon: Blue whales are bigger than that. They're [basking sharks] the second largest *fish.*

Liz: Okay.

Devon: And they're-- They're cartilaginous fish, they're not bony fish because the largest bony fish is the oarfish, whom you hate.

Liz: I don't hate, I just need it to shape up.

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: I need it to straighten out its act and act right.

Devon: You don't get straighter than an oarfish, Liz, they're a line.

Liz: No, it's perpendicular. It's a perpen-dick-ular fish.

Devon: [through laughter] I fucking love you. Mmm! "I don't need any more of your latitude, fish!"

Liz: [cackles like a witch]

Devon: Mmm, so good. Little sass-burger!

Liz: Yeah!

Devon: Another... Another supposed Cadbriosaurus that you'll like, because people got real ornery about this one, my friend...

Liz: Yeah!

Devon: It was only three years later. It was in 1937, a whaling ship in Naden Harbor caught a sperm whale. And when they opened it up, they found what they called, quote, "a juvenile Caddy," quote, in its stomach. They said it was a, quote, "odd creature," like... No shit, right? "The odd creature the odd creature had a camel-like head fins and a ten foot body." That's why they thought it was just a juvenile Caddy, because it was only 10 feet long.

Liz: Okay.

Devon: And the dudes that found it, they took photographs and they had tissue samples taken.

Liz: Wow, good job!

Devon: Right? So they were, they were thinking about it. They sent it to the British Columbia Provincial Museum. And the director of that, Francis... someone or other... identified--

Liz: [as though familiar] Mmhmm, Francis.

Devon: [chuckles] Francis.

Liz: You know, Francis!

Devon: Director Francis... His last name is, mmm.... my notes say Kermode [pronounced ker-mode] or Kermode [pronounced ker-mode-ee]. K-E-R-M-O-D-E. I'm just gonna call him Francis.

Liz: Francis Commode.

Devon: Yeah. [starts to laugh]  Old Frank Toilet identified this as a fetal baleen whale. He thought...

Liz: The Dr. Joy Killer title is a hotly contested honor.

Devon: [laughing] People were so mad at Francis, people were pissed at Frank over here.

Liz: Mmhmm.

Devon: They said the tissue samples that were sent to Nanaimo, which was a different agency they were sending tissue samples to, vanished. And the samples that were sent to Victoria, to Dr. Frank were wrongly identified by curator Francis Kermode as belonging to a fetal baleen whale and no one knows what happened to them after Kermode examined them. So the only tangible proof of the existence of heretofore previously legendary animals was lost forever.

Liz: Wow.

Devon: Pissed! Pissed that this guy was like "Um, not a Cadbriosaurus. This is probably, like, a dead little whale baby.

Liz: Wait, so it was a baleen whale-- it was a fetal baleen whale?

Devon:  Yeah.

Liz: And they found it inside what?

Devon: Inside of a sperm whale.

Liz: How'd the sperm whale get a fetal baleen whale inside it?

Devon: Presumably the fetal baleen whale miscarried, is my thought. Or it died and it ate the baby out of it. I don't know.

Liz: [dubious] Mmmm...

Devon: We didn't, uh... I'm going to go with my miscarried thing and that it ate it.

Liz: I've chosen to believe in Cadborosaurus, even though I didn't know anything about it before this.

Devon: You just like it because it sounds like Cadbury. That's the only reason you're going to go with it, because you want to find one and then hope that it has that runny little egg yolk center.

Liz: Yeah, the old kind, before they started making them at Hershey's factories.

Devon: My favorite, favorite Caddy sighting was in 1991.

Liz: Wow, okay. Contemporary.

Devon: In 1991, Phyllis Harsh, who was a resident of Johns Island in the San Juan Islands, says she helped return a stranded baby dinosaur to the water.

Liz: [gasps] Who did you say this was?

Devon: Her name is Phyllis Harsh.

Liz: Phyllis!

Devon: Phyllis, my new friend.

Liz: Good job, Phyllis!

Devon: She said that he had become, become beached and she used a tree branch to lift him back into the sea where he was able to make his way back into deep water

Liz: Awww.

Devon: I love Phyllis, but for the record, she also says that she found a dinosaur skeleton beneath an eagle's nest and has also seen a full size Caddy in John's Island passage.

Liz: Phyllis is the woman on the spot. Phyllis knows what's up.

Devon: Phyllis is our boots on the ground.

Liz: Yeah!

Devon: Reporting on all the bizarre-ass dinosaur activity happening in the islands.

Liz: She's on it, dude.

Devon: So if there are Cadbriosauruses, I assume they are endangered. And if they're endangered, then we have Phyllis to thank for putting one back in the wild so that it continue to breed and eat whatever it is they eat. Probably Cadbury eggs.

Liz: [as though it is obvious] Fish and ships, Devon.

Devon: [laughs]

Liz: You told me this.

Devon: [still laughing]

Liz: I pay attention.

Devon: I'm hoisted on my own petard!

[both laughing]

Devon: What good recall. I don't think we can wrap up an episode any better than that.

Liz: [laughs] Let's not try.

Devon: I don't think we can. You've been listening to Ouija Broads. You can find us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter at the Ouija Broads. We would love it if you would follow us on iTunes and review and subscribe there. [pauses] I don't remember what else we say at the end of this, but Liz will chime in here in a moment and correct me.

Liz: Mm-hm. Mm-hmm

Devon: [waits]

Liz: Oh! We say "live weird."

Devon: Live weird--

Liz: Die weird--

Liz: Stay weird. Thank you for listening.

Devon: I knew you were going to say thank you. I told you!

Liz: That's what I do!

Devon: That's what you do.

[theme music fades in, plays to end]

Episode Transcript: 125, Forrest Fenn Treasure Update

This transcript can be read below or downloaded here.

Ouija Broads: Forrest Fenn Treasure Update!

[theme music plays, fades out: Me and the Man in the Moon]
Liz:
You're listening to Ouija Broads, this is Liz.

Devon: This is Devon.

Liz: We're back, back, back again. I have a whole passel of patrons to thank. And just like we ended the last episode saying we're going to make everybody rich with treasure, this is also a treasure episode. So hang on through all these patrons because there's a treasure at the other end.

Liz: All right. I would like to welcome Amy, Kylie, Fleen, Emma, and Heather Rose. Thank you, everybody.

Devon: Thank you guys so much.

Liz: This is very pertinent because Emma, on her birthday this year... It was a very special day, not just because of Emma, because Forrest Fenn's treasure was found.

Devon: [angrily] Wasn't by me.

Liz: No. And if you're frustrated now, wait an hour, because there is a lot and most of it is frustrating. But we're going to jump right into it. But first of all, I want to thank the new patrons--

Devon: Thank you, patrons.

Liz: --and our existing patrons.

Devon: Yes.

Liz: Thank you, patrons, for your ongoing support, your new support, and thank you to all of our listeners. Now, that sounded like the end. That sounded like I was sending them off.

Devon: Are you on PBS?

Liz: Isn't it?

Devon: Is that after a charity drive?

Liz: They say that's why you're not supposed to-- that's why they, in Hollywood, don't say goodbye on the phone because they say the audience tunes out when they hear goodbye.

Devon: Are you kidding me?

Liz: Now I've said it a bunch of times. That's probably an urban legend.

Devon: That's one of my mom's pet peeves in TV or movies--

Liz: Yeah!

Devon: When people hang up without saying goodbye. She's like, "You would never fucking do that in real life," except for she's my mom, so she didn't swear. But "You would never do that in real life."

Liz: No. I always get mad at the: [dramatic voice] "You've got to come down here and see this." Just explain! You fucking drama queen.

Devon: [excited agreement sounds]

Liz: Especially when it's like, "Hi, we're spaceship guys, and we're in the premier starship of the whole Earth space fleet. You should come down here, Captain." Be more specific.

Devon: Exactly.

Liz: You're not in charge of whether I should come down here. This feels like when Lydia's like, "Come look at this!" And I'm like, "Maybe! Sell me on it."

Devon: It's entirely possible. I don't want to come into your tent, which is a hot box of farts to look at some crayons that I bought you.

Liz: Yes. Let me be the judge of that. How about you sum it up quickly? How about that something that we teach in officer school in Starfleet is situation summarizing?

Devon: [laughing] Well, I want to know.

Liz: At least: "The warp core's fucked."

Devon: Totally.

Liz: Like, okay, you can cuss.

Devon: Totally.

Liz: He's got to run there with his own little two legs and take your space elevators. God. Okay, we're not getting anywhere with this.

Devon: [laughs]

Liz: We overshot the energy. Let's talk about Forrest Fenn's treasure.

Devon: Let's do it.

Liz: Which we did originally as an episode way, way back somewhere in the '50s, I think. Let me give you an outline of the episode, actually. Forrest Fenn is an interesting individual. We dug more into his life story in that original episode. For the purposes of this, what you need to know is that he is in his eighties.  

Devon: Mmm-hmm.

Liz: And when he was in his late '70s, he decided to hide a chest full of treasure somewhere in the Rocky Mountains. I approve--

Devon: Yes.

Liz: --on the general principle. I think the Forrest Fenn episode was one where we went real hard about NAGPRA and a lot of opinions about his whole general approach to treasure, which is going to also circle back around as we get to this.

Liz: But the essence we always go for, like, no pun intended, the nugget of the story is that he had a near-death experience with, I believe, liver cancer, no, kidney cancer.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: When he recovered, he said, I want to make a mark on the world. So he had been an antiquities collector, slash grave robber--

Devon: Right.

Liz: Slash dealer in illegal antiquities, probably was mixed up in the Hobby Lobby thing. I'm just calling it from here.

Devon: [laughs]

Liz: Under investigation by the FBI for inappropriate purchase and obtainment, I don't even know, of artifacts. He has a huge collection and some of it was shadily acquired, can't nail down what proportion that would be.

Devon: Sure.

Liz: Okay, so he took some of his goodies that he had collected and he put them in a chest, which was also a goodie. It was like from the 12th century, beautiful, classic, everything that we were looking for with our pirate treasure last episode and didn't get.

Devon: Uh-huh.

Liz: This is a legit thing. It's actual treasure.

Liz: So at first, when he had the kidney cancer, he's like, I'll be buried next to it. Then he recovered. And he said, well, I still have this treasure box. So he toted it out and hid it in the mountains and wrote a life story in which he put a poem that is supposed to contain nine clues to the treasure.

Liz: So over the ten years that followed, thousands of people looked for this. More, probably, but it's not like there's an official register. It was estimated basically that there's a million dollars worth of stuff in the box and the box itself is worth a million.

Liz: Although, of course, you don't know what's in there, because he doesn't say. He hints at it. We know the stuff he has. It's not like Superman number one or something.

Devon: Right.

Liz: It's going to be gold and tribal artifacts he shouldn't have probably.

Devon: Right, you know that it was material metal goods for the most part, so gold, silver, platinum, whatever, as opposed-- And in addition to that, the funerary, and grave, and cultural goods, like you just said.

Liz: Yup. Yeah. So he's said over the years that it had precious jewels, it had diamonds, it had gold. The estimated number, according to Forrest, is that about 350,000 people have searched for the treasure. And I don't have the citation on that. So I don't know if that means everybody who's thought about it, everybody who actually got in the car and went someplace.

Devon: Right.

Liz: I don't know. But would you like to hear the poem?

Devon: Oh, yes, I, I-- Please do. I know I've read it and I don't remember it. And there's all kinds of really cool allusions in there.

Liz: "As I have gone alone in there and with my treasures bold / I can keep my secret where and hint of riches new and old." So I think that in itself seems, I don't know how the actual hard core people feel about it, but to me, that feels like a preamble. He's just saying, I had treasure. I went there. And it's a secret. And there's riches.

Liz: Okay: "Begin it where warm waters halt and take it in the canyon down / not far but too far to walk. Put in below the home of Brown. / From there, it's no place for the meek. The end is ever drawing nigh / There will be no paddle up your creek, just heavy loads and water high."

Liz: So of course, thousands, hundreds of thousands, millions of words written about what any of that could mean.

Devon: Right, and the--

Liz: Brown is capitalized.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: "If you've been wise and found the blaze, look quickly down your quest to cease / But tarry scant with marvel gaze, just take the chest and go in peace / So why is it that I must go and leave my trove for all to seek? / The answers I already know. I've done it tired and now I'm weak / So hear me all and listen good. Your effort will be worth the cold / If you are brave and in the wood, I give you title to the gold."

Liz: It got a little shaky in the middle because I think he had to actually put clues in, but I'm like, okay, you've painted a really cool, eerie picture of your geriatric ass hauling 42 pounds--

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: --of equipment. So it is a 42 pound package. And he did two trips, basically, but he was in his 70s.

Devon: Oh, my.

Liz: So that's always been a factor, is... You know, it's the Rockies. You're presumably limited to places where somebody his age and health could go. So with that said, out of the 350,000 or so, there have been five deaths of people who were searching for that treasure.

Devon: Oh, that many?

Liz: That many. So first is Randy Bilyeu. He went missing in January 2016. He was found dead in July. This is straight from Wikipedia.

Devon: Mm-hmm.

Liz: They don't know exactly what happened to him, but they know he was looking for the treasure. But, you know... That was a lot of months.

Devon: Yeah. Yeah.  

Liz: Jeff Murphy found dead in Yellowstone in 2017, so about a month before they found Randy. He fell down a steep slope. And so when Murphy's wife originally called authorities, she said he's looking for the treasure. Pastor Paris Wallace said, "I'm going to go look for the treasure." He doesn't show up, again in June 2017. I guess it was really heating up that... Was that Pokémon GO summer? Maybe that was Pokémon GO Summer.

Devon: Maybe Pokémon GO Summer, right? And you're like, okay, well, I get GPS out here, but they're apparently not in any Pokestops, but I want to hatch those fucking eggs, man.

Liz: Yeah. Man, you can tell I'm like, "I'm uncomfortable talking about all these people dying!" Okay, so they found his car and then eventually they found his body along the Rio Grande same as Randy. Eric Ashby was found dead in the Arkansas River. He moved, apparently, according to his friends, to Colorado specifically to look for the treasure and was last seen, again, in that June rafting on the river and then was found in July of 2017.

Devon: Oh, my gosh.

Liz: So most of these in one year. That was a really deadly year.

Devon: Well, and, I'm sorry, when did Fenn hide it? When did he bury it or release the poem? What year?

Liz: 2010.

Devon: Oh, wow. Okay, so it took people seven years before they started dying for this.

Liz: I think so. I think so. Michael Sexton was found in March 2020 alongside an unnamed male adult companion. The companion recovered, which is why his name is not given.

Devon: I see.

Liz: But Michael passed. They were discovered near the Dinosaur National Monument along the Utah-Colorado border. I don't have a map of where all these guys were, but it sounds like a lot of the attention as of at least 2017 was focusing on Colorado, specifically.

Devon: Yeah. I mean, Rio Grande is shoot, U-C-A-N. Okay, so Colorado and, and Mexico border each other, but with the Rio. Okay, I was trying to place that, too. So you're right. That's Colorado. We're good. I know my geography.

Liz: I'm impressed! So what's happened, of course-- and I understand it better now that I understand how quick those deaths came in succession... I think I was a little more frustrated with it when we talked about it the first time, is people have said, "Forrest, you've got to call this off. People are dying."

Devon: Yeah.  

Liz: And we went into it originally that proportionate to, like, people just going outside, this is not that bad.

Devon: Sure.

Liz: This is not an excess mortality rate I would be concerned about, although I'm sure it's very, very different when it's your loved one who took risks that you don't feel like they would have taken if the treasure hadn't been there.

Devon: Mm-hmm.  

Liz: But what Forrest says about all this, and he does have a way with words, is "People are falling in the pool and drowning. Our job is not to close the pool. Our job is to teach them to swim."

Devon: Oh, Forrest. I love you.

Liz: And I'm like, [impressed tone] "Well, okay! Spit that cowboy truth at us."

Devon: Absolutely. Yes.

Liz: I get it, like yeah, a lot of people die in Yellowstone--

Devon: Right.

Liz: A lot of people die in natural settings. I feel bad for these folks and I feel bad for their families. But I don't think that there's a theory of law that really connects Forrest to this stuff. I don't know. It becomes a philosophical question. If I were going to prosecute Forrest for something, it would not be this, you know?

Devon: It sounds like he's got many other actionable reasons to prosecute.

Liz: That's the human toll, which I did want to acknowledge. As of early June, 2020, rumors start to fly that the treasure has been found. And Forrest is saying this. People are saying they've heard Forrest saying this. And then June 7th, a post appears on a website that's basically Forrest's informal website. It's very weird, clearly handmade. It's not him, but it's somebody who knows him--

Devon: Okay.

Liz: And that's involved with the treasure who runs it for him. So here's what was posted. "Has the treasure been found? Yes, Forrest has confirmed that the treasure has been found. And here's his note. The search is over. It was under a canopy of stars in the lush, forested vegetation of the Rocky Mountains and had not moved from the spot where I hid it more than ten years ago."

Liz: So I said 2010 really confidently. What we know is he published the poem and the autobiography in 2010.

Devon: Mmm, okay.

Liz: It's possible he hid it earlier. But I don't know why. "I do not know the person who found it. But the poem in my book led him to the precise spot. I congratulate the thousands of people who participated in the search and hope they will continue to be drawn by the promise of other discoveries. So the search is over. Look for more information and photos in the coming days." So that's the note. What information is not in that note that you would be curious about, even as somebody who has not been searching for this?

Devon: Give me the actual exact coordinates!

Liz: Yeah! Where was it?

Devon: Tell me where it was. Yeah. Yeah.

Liz: What are the clues? What is the place of Brown? What do you mean if you're brave and in the wood? What was any of it? Who found it? How'd they figure it out? How do they contact you? No, all we get is, it was a guy who found it from the Eastern United States and the way that he knows it was found is the guy sent him a photograph.

Devon: Huh.

Liz: So we don't know who this is. We don't know where it was. We haven't seen the photograph. This is not a satisfactory outcome.

Devon: Oh, no, that's total blue balls right there, man. I would rather you not tell me it was found and wait until you're able to divulge all the information, because, gosh, dang, this just makes me angry. It's not a wonderful tease. It's a frustrating tease.

Liz: No, people felt a lot of kinds of way about this. But I recover some of the major responses because we are not even halfway through my notes, my friend. The treasure has been found, but the party keeps rocking.

Devon: Oh, my goodness. Well, and I know there's got to be some conspiracy theory angles that you're going to cover, because one of the first things that I thought was, it wasn't found. You just pulled it because you had some heat. There was going to be a lawsuit over one of these deaths aimed at you if you didn't pull it.

Liz: Oh, we got a whole dim sum menu-

Devon: I can't wait.

Liz: --of conspiracy theories.

Devon: Give me the buffet.

Liz: And we'll go over some of them and then we'll just take the tastiest morsels.

 

Devon: Oh, marvelous.

Liz: So one initial response is exactly like you said: "No, you didn't." But this actually was an interesting one. This goes a step further. So this is Linda Bilyeu, whose name you might recognize--

Devon: No.

Liz: As the former wife of Randy, who's one of the people who died.

Devon: Oh, right.

Liz: She said, as of, mmm, a couple of days after the announcement, she thought the whole thing was a hoax.

Devon: [gasp]

Liz: She said, "He never hid the treasure. He needed attention. And this is how he got it. That's why he said the treasure was found and didn't give any proof or information."

Devon: Linda, oh my.

Liz: So that's a big swing. That's big swing. Because I'm like, it's not like somebody who has no reason to be in the woods or have treasure.

Devon: Uh-huh.

Liz: Means, motive and opportunity, but... Interesting. I have not seen follow up stuff from her on this.

Devon: But dang.

Liz: But what Fenn did in response was posting three pictures on that same fan blog, where there's one where it shows him sorting through the chest. There's a picture of what was in the chest. And it's captioned, "Removing objects from the chest. It is darker than it was 10 years ago when I left it on the ground and walked away." Which is wild, so he's saying it wasn't buried. It wasn't in a cave. He just left it on the ground and walked away.

Devon: Just hanging out.

Liz: Yeah, so another photo shows the treasure, it's captioned, "Not long after it was discovered." So sort of implicitly, this is a picture-- this is maybe the picture that the finder took of it? In the place where it was? And then there's a third picture where he's wearing a silver bracelet with turquoise in it that's tarnished black.  

Devon: Hmm.  

Liz: So are you satisfied?

Devon: No! Of course not! No, and that doesn't prove-- that still doesn't prove that you put it out in the woods 10 years ago and that it's been there since. That tells me that you at some point had a chest. You took some photos of all of your doubloons in said chest and then had the photos. That doesn't--

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: --prove anything further than evidence of, okay, you had this at one point.

Liz: Exactly. Dude with-- Dude with Scrooge McDuck level of treasure in your house?

Devon: Absolutely. Oh, I'm sorry, you--

Liz: It's like asking us to, like, take a picture with Ouija merchandise.

Devon: Yeah, do you want--

Liz: Or Bigfoot?

Devon: Right?

Liz: I turned slightly in my chair. Oh, there we go.

Devon: Mmhmm!

Liz: And so for him it's like, yeah, those are our treasures and these are his. He could have faked that so easily because nobody knew what it fucking looked like.

Devon: No, of course not.

Liz: I'm sure you've got another chest lying around or a tarnished turquoise bracelet.

Devon: Mmhmm.

Liz: Mmhmm!

Devon: Little bootblack will tarnish that up real nice for photos, Forrest.

Liz: So some people-- not, in this case, Linda. I haven't seen a follow up from her. I think this is probably an unpleasant time for her and she doesn't want to [unintelligible] everybody.

Devon: Totally.

Liz: But other people are like, no, that's a hoax. The-- the hoax-disproving pictures are themselves a hoax.

Devon: Gotcha.

Liz: According to, for instance, an anchor from CBS This Morning named Tony Dokoupil, who says--

Devon: That's a real name.

Liz: "I think the treasure's a hundred percent real. I don't, however, think it's been found." So that's an exciting take--

Devon: All right.

Liz: Of, the treasure is real, but that wasn't it. Which is a bold strategy, Cotton.

Devon: There's still hope for me to find it!

Liz: Mmhmm! I think that's, uh, driving a little of this. Tony-- Tony boy-

Devon: Yeah, Tony.

Liz: -- points out the same things that you did, right? Which is there's no time stamp. There's no date stamp. We don't know where he is.

Devon: Right.

Liz: The pictures that are actually-- have Forrest in them, you can tell he's in his 80s, he's clearly not in his 40s or something.

Devon: Yeah.

Devon: But that doesn't tell you anything.

Devon: Hell, no.

Liz: It could easily just been like, if he took two pictures before he buried the treasure and he's aged well. Or he took pictures of some other treasure. That's not great proof. So what Dokoupil says is that he spent time... How long was it? Nearly a week with Fenn at the compound in 2012.

Devon: At the compound?

Liz: Yeah, you know, he has his compound?

Devon: David Koresh?

Liz: Remember, with all the skeletons and stuff? You remember this. This guy went out there and basically was, like, terrified the entire time that they were going to trip over a skull and he'll have to watch Forrest decide whether to do anything with it.

Devon: Oh, yeah, that's right. Okay.

Liz: Weird vibe. He said that the publicity was what was important to Forrest. "At the time, he'd written the book The Thrill of the Chase, two years prior. The only people who had mentioned it were little publications or an airline magazine and he had no credibility as somebody who actually had a lot of collectible items, a.k.a. treasure, and who would do something as crazy as invite people to find it."

Liz: So Newsweek-- the article that this guy did, was when it really blew up--

Devon: Okay.

Liz: And people started looking for it and it became a national spotlight thing. But what this guy says, the guy who brought him to such prominence is- "The real reason why I don't think the treasure has really been found, is because Forrest told me that his plan was to entomb himself along with the treasure. I think the treasure is in a location where an older man can still get to it and crawl or insert himself in and alongside the chest. I mean, that's how it was explained to me. You have a guy who's been collecting archeology his whole life--" Which is quite a phrase. He's been collecting archeology by the bucketful, I guess.

Devon: Uh, yeah. Buy one get one free.

Liz: Yeah. "--is so in love with it he's hatched a plan to make himself part of that record for all time and invite the public in to try to find it and his bones," he continued. "I am confident it is not a hoax. Forrest wants to be remembered for thousands of years and this is his way of doing so." So that's an exciting psychological aspect of this.

Devon: I'm just baffled. Yes, that he thinks that this guy wants to be like Pharaoh 2.0 and then go to his grave with all of his treasures and then someone finds him that's part of the--

Liz: That's part of the treasure. [crosstalk, inaudible]

Devon: He is the treasure himself.

Liz: Yeah, he's the treasure? I don't know. This seems like... I get that his original plan was, "I will bury the treasure and die next to it." He thought he was dying of kidney cancer. But man, you lived 10 more years into your late '80s. You're less mobile, in general, than you were. And I think you also probably get a better perspective of how much warning you get that you're going to die. And if you're going to die... Nobody dies like that.

Devon: No.

Liz: "Well, I have exactly enough energy to to get to the plot point. I get to my save point and lie down next to it, and then I guess I'm done."

Devon: Unless he had like a cyanide tooth or something that he could bite on like a spy and just be like, "Awesome, I'm super ready." But I could never do that, because I'd be like, as soon as I bite down on the tooth, I remember I left the oven on. It would never work.

Liz: Well, and with Forrest, too, you're like... I think he likes the publicity. So if picture this guy who... I've been on some of the forums, they can say confidently "Forrest has never been to this part of the state" or whatever. They have tracked him so intensely--

Devon: No, creepy.

Liz: -- over the time period. Oh, yeah. No, this is wild. The shit gets wild. You think that that guy could just die? He could just walk away? He could ricket his ass back to the Rocky Mountains? He could leave his, his compound, drive to where this thing is, get out and climb in, and nobody would watch this happen?

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: Or nobody would be like, "He died! There won't be a burial, we're not sure where he went." Like, no!

Devon: "We're still collecting the Social Security checks, though. Don't worry." I was thinking, how many people have trail cams at places that they're like, "Forrest could be out here." And they're just waiting for a notification on their phone like fucking doorbell but for the back 40, that's saying, "Oh, yeah, there's dude hanging out here. Oh, no, this one was just a cougar. False alarm. Raccoon was last week."

Liz: Yeah. Like, you don't-- you don't return to the scene of the crime for something like this to lie down and die, that is just-- I mean, I'm not saying that nobody would ever make a plan like that? But it does not seem like a well thought through plan. And I will give Forrest this. He does seem to think this stuff through, right?

Devon: Well, I mean, if you think it's not a well thought through plan, then I guess there goes my plan. I'm not doing it now. I mean, I was all on board until you just pooh-poohed it.

Liz: [condescending] Oh, no, honey, it's different if you do it.

Devon: Yeah, sure. That's got a great personality, too. What other pretty lies you wanna feed me?

Liz: So there's another take on this. There's two different people who are suing him or suing somebody else. So one is.. You know what, I'm just gonna not include her name because I don't want to deal with it. But there's this attorney, and I'm using that very loosely. The only cases she's really prosecuted are ones of her suing people, which is not a typical approach--

Devon: Not usually, no.

Liz: --to being an attorney. She [exasperated sigh]. She filed a suit in Santa Fe with Fenn and the finder of the treasure as the defendants. So what she says basically is, she got very into this hunt a couple of years ago during a divorce. She made about 20 trips from Chicago to Santa Fe trying to get the treasure, which she says she was going to either donate or sell off and use the proceeds to start a charity.

Devon: Mmmkay.  

Liz: Sure. She's like, oh, I thought it would be fun. I'd write a book. And she's actually says "A funny follow-up book." And I'm like, "Dang, you're good at this. Just, like, slide in the fact that you already have a book available. Nice plug."

Devon: Yeah, well done, lady.

Liz: So she feels very cheated, because she says, and I was not able to get a hold of the actual filing and frankly not going to worry about it--

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: That somebody was texting her obscene things over the past couple months. And somehow in a way that is unclear from any of the articles, he got her solve and got to the treasure before her.

Devon: I see.

Liz: Yeah, so what she says is, "All this time I've invested the money, the car shot to heck, and then some guy comes out of nowhere and just follows you and grabs it." So that is one thing that she's saying is that he basically stalked her--

Devon: Okay.

Liz: And that is what happened. I don't know where Fenn comes into this.

Devon: Yeah, I was like, why is he a defendant?

Liz: Because to be honest, I'm too over reading frivolous lawsuits at this point.

Devon: I bet you are.

Liz: Because I think this is a pretty frivolous lawsuit. You cannot do this. Although this was exactly what people were saying right after-- in the couple days after the solve-- or, not the solve, but after he said "It's been found." There are a lot of people saying, "I wouldn't announce it if it were me, because everybody's going to come after you."

Devon: Yes.  

Liz: And say, you know... I mean, people share their work. There's communities of thousands of people who are like, "Here's my theory about this. And I was looking at this little corner of this map."

Devon: Yes, yes.

Liz: Like, it's a big community. So it is not like most of these treasure hunters are completely free of having ever put a hint out there that may have been correct. So if you were the person who found it, I mean, they can't say, hey, I posted that it was this, and that's where it was, and you stole my idea, but they can sure waste your time because now they know you're rich.

Devon: Exactly. You've got the money to go defend yourself.

Liz: Yeah, you painted a huge target on your back for other reasons as well that we'll get into in a little bit.

Devon: Oh, I see.

Liz: So I'm not worried about her. Now, there's an exciting other lawsuit happening with a family, who were originally from Florida, they live in Wyoming, and what they say is that on June 5th, they called Forrest. They presented him with this information. So I guess they don't know if it was a phone call or what it was.

Liz: Okay, yes. No, we called him and said, "Sir, we're calling bluff." So basically they have been in contact with him. They've been searching for a long time. For years. For years, they've been searching. And they said that this winter they talked to him, and he said, "Let the snow melt and the mud dry before you go after the treasure." Which is maybe just a nice thing to say.

Devon: Just common sense.

Liz: I mean, I feel like they're trying to imply that it means that he was like, "You're on the right track, but be careful." Or he's just saying, "Please be careful."

Devon: Right. Yeah, exactly.

Liz: Yeah, so what they say is that they called him on June 5th and said, here's our solution, and that they had narrowed it down to one 12 foot by 12 foot area on a blueprint. And then two days later, he says the treasure has been found. So what they say happened is that he basically had somebody pull it, that he didn't want them to get it. So as soon as they sent him the solve, he had somebody go out there and get it. So they're saying the treasure was real, but the solve was not, of the person who was getting the credit. So complicated, right?

Devon: Oh, my gosh.

Liz: And that actually would be fucked up.

Devon: Oh, they'd be so shady. That's so not cool. But also, like, guys, I'm sorry, were you, like, teacher's pet trying to show off? Like, "I solved the riddle." Just go find it. Show-- deeds, not words, you dicks.

Liz: I'm like, look, a lot of people have solved a lot of problems from their couch.

Devon: Uh-huh!

Liz: But if you're going to actually go there... If you think you've actually solved it, do it. Otherwise, you're just asking the teacher, well, is it A? Okay, well, is it B? Okay, he want you to get your asses out there.

Devon: Yeah.  

Liz: So these guys are frustrated. And they're saying, look, I don't want to sue him. He's our idol. He's not handling this right. And they think he just basically took it and put it in the bank. And I'm like... mmm... I think it sounds like you guys were not ready for it to be done. Now, if they did do that, then if they can have maybe any evidence that this June 5th phone call happened, I would be more won to their side. Because I'm not saying Forrest isn't shady, because this dude is incredibly shady.

Devon: But also, I mean, come on now. What was in it? Alexander Graham Bell and the guy that we don't know about telephones went to try to patent telephones on the same date. You can have inspiration strike the same time it's striking another dude. And he was just two minutes ahead of you guys.

Liz: Yeah. Yeah. Because we're all seething in the same cultural reference pool. They presumably are all reading the same forums. So maybe there were two things that two different people posted that everybody made the connection with, or maybe they weren't actually that close, but they're exaggerating because nobody can prove it.

Liz: So he's been sued before. A couple people have, let's see, Bryan-- well, you know what, I won't name him.

Devon: That's good.

Liz: Somebody has sued him saying it was a written contract, basically, that the poem is a contract. And that means that if I've solved the poem, you have to give me the treasure.

Devon: [laughs]

Liz: And that didn't work.

Devon: Imagine!

Liz: And then another guy sued him and said, "You gave conflicting and misleading clues in order to deliberately misdirect me away from the treasure." So if you are hardcore into this lifestyle... I don't even know what to call it. If you're hardcore into Forrest Fenn treasure life twenty-four sev', then you are not just looking at the poem. You're looking at the book. You are looking at everything else he's ever said, ever done, every photo he's ever posted. The lady who's suing him is kind of infamous for having gone off her solve based on some mildew on a hat in a picture that he posted.

Devon: What?

Liz: Which she said was shaped like a certain state, I think.

Devon: What?

Liz: I'm probably butchering it, but I'm probably not making it weirder.

Devon: I bet you're not making it weirder. Oh, my goodness.

Liz: A lot of legal stuff happening here in terms of, uhhhhh... People trying to use civil courts to shake this out. And of course, we also have the criminal aspect of the people who are falling to their death, say the people who are turning on each other, all this kind of stuff. But what Fenn said at the time, along with the swimming thing is, he said, "Look, I've been there, where there's been hundreds of thousands of people that have invested time, money, heart, soul, blood, sweat, and tears. It's unfair if I call it off now. It's unfair if I pull it." And I'm like, yeah, okay, I see that.

Devon: It does make the five confirmed deaths kinda meaningless to me?

Liz: If the treasure was pulled?

Devon: If the treasure's pulled, yes. And I don't mean that to sound callous.

Liz: Yeah, that's not what they'd want.

Devon: No, I don't know. Yeah, like you said, it's not my loved one, so I don't want to be flippant and say "They died doing what they love." That doesn't bring back a person. But yeah, I would think that if I had died trying to find Forrest Fenn's treasure, I would want him to keep the treasure growing.

Liz: Yeah, I would want it to be solved properly. I do not want him to just be like, "Oh, it's all over. Don't worry about it. Nobody else go out there."

Devon: Right, right.

Liz: No, that would be very disappointing. I will cover a few more pieces and then I'll open it up to discussion, but I think I'll let you get a word in.

Devon: Oh, totally. Well, yeah, one thing I was going to say about the, the whole people going off on these tangents based on his entire life ephemera, not just the poem, but looking for these very specific clues or very, um, what's the word, like, esoteric? Clues just makes, dude, like... If you toast enough pieces of bread, you'll find one that looks like Virgin Mary. So if you look at enough photos, you're going to find some mold that looks like Mississippi, if that's what you're looking for. I just can't-- As someone who's not a treasure hunter at all and also doesn't decode ciphers even a little bit, I still think that I would look at the poem itself and not assume that these other facets of his life... I guess, maybe they could provide additional information, but I don't think you have to fit all of them together to see the whole picture. I think it's just within the poem.

Liz: Yeah, I feel like if he did something really unusual or always used a certain phrase, I might start to think about it. But he's-- Not even Kubrick was actually like that. It's just that human brains love patterns.

Devon: Totally.

Liz: They love patterns, we've said this a million times. And you want to be able to solve it. We want to solve it. That's what so frustrating about this is not getting the solve.

Devon: No, you don't get the solve, yea.

Liz: A treasure is nice, but I want to know what the answer is. And I would like it even more if I'd been working on it forever. So with that in mind, let's talk about how the treasure hunters feel, or what were you going to say?

Devon: I was going to say that it's not even like a magic trick, where a magician never reveals his secrets and that does take the fun out of it once you know. There are some tricks where you're left going, "Okay, don't actually tell me. I don't really want to know." But there are some things where you just-- you need to know the solve, because it's not, it's not about the trick anymore. It wasn't about the illusion. It's about I want to see how this whole thing fits together. I've been thinking about this one levitating woman for 20 years. Just tell me how you effing do it.

Liz: Yeah. Yeah. I'm not enjoying the mystery. There's no enjoyment here.

Devon: Yeah. Yeah. The mystery is not part, yeah.

Liz: Okay, so the treasure hunters in general, besides the ones that are tied up in litigation.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: An estimate by at least one of them has said that a third think it's a hoax, a third think it was never found, and the rest think "It's great, someone found it, let's move on with our lives." And that's from somebody who estimates she's taken 300 trips looking for the treasure.

Devon: Oh, my gosh.

Liz: And she has an interesting perspective. She's gotten very, very positive about this to a degree that I wouldn't have been able to. But here's what she says is, "It's better not to know where it was, because what if you are a hundred percent right and you just missed it?"

Liz: "Or what if you were a hundred percent wrong, and you've been working on this for years, and you weren't even close."

Devon: You're right. Different ballpark.

Liz: "And you wasted so much time." Or yeah, if you were 99 percent of the way there, you still wasted your time. So what she says is "As long as we don't know the location, we can each be right in our own minds."

Devon: That's so sweet.

Liz: And you're like, well, that's interesting, because you can keep trying to solve it because you still don't know where it is. You still don't know if your interpretation of "warm waters" or mine is correct. So you could keep arguing about it.

Devon: Oh, good. And that's what I love to do is argue on the Internet with strangers.

Liz: Well, they're not strangers, though.

Devon: That's right.

Liz: They're a family.

Devon: A family.

Liz: And that came out kinda sarcastically, but any shared interests like that you get to know people. There's people who are saying like, "Look, the treasure hunter's like, I lost my home in a fire and they organized a fundraiser for me." Or they have a thing called Fenn-boree--

Devon: [laughs] Fenn-boree!

Liz: Which sadly this year was cancelled, of course, because of the whole COVID situation. But they're hoping to get together at least one more time in person and swap war stories and enjoy each other's company.

Devon: Sure.

Liz: I mean, that's sweet. That's nice.

Devon: That is, but I mean, hell, even Juggalo fans call themselves family. So like you said, you find your weird thing. You find weird people who like your weird thing and you are chosen family.

Liz: Yeah, you can't say fairer than that. So there's the perspective of, like, "Cool, all right, that was fun. I'm moving on to the next thing." There's people who are like, "Can you just give us something so we know if we were close, because I have no closure? This is so frustrating."

Devon: No closure, right? And he's said before that there have been people who were within how many yards was it. He has said people were tantalizingly close, could have seen it if their eyeballs had just landed in the right part of the forest.

Liz: Yeah, oh, the thing about that, too, is it's not like he published this and then disappeared. He'll talk to you. He'll pick up the phone, apparently, if you're really into this.

Devon: Oh, my gosh.

Liz: So that's got to be its own thing, too. Where you're like, do I have information that nobody else does? Or yknow, maybe that's why they called him as they thought he would be like, "Oh, yeah, you're within a hundred yards" or something. And then they'd plan the trip.

Devon: For sure.

Liz: And instead, all of a sudden he's like, "No, treasure's gone."

Devon: "Sorry, I'm out. No more treasure."

Liz: So how Forrest feels is mixed. He says, "I feel halfway kind of glad, halfway kind of sad, because the chase is over." Okay, yeah.

Devon: All right.

Liz: I can-- I can see that, but also you're getting a lot of publicity. And I'm sure that it hurts so bad.

Devon: Oh, you poor baby. You multimillionaire, full of all of your stolen artifacts, who's getting a whole lot of the attention that you crave? You're kind of sad. Oh, buddy.  

Liz: Hide another one! Start another one!

Devon: Start another one is right!

Liz: You've had ten years to come with your sequel to this! What's your sophomore album, man?

Devon: Exactly.

Liz: Lay it on us! When's it dropping?

Devon: Yeah!

Liz: Okay, there's one person in this who we have not talked about how they feel. We've talked about how people who think they almost got it feel. How other hunters feel. How Forrest feels. The person who found it.

Devon: Mmmhmm?

Liz: How do they feel? So we don't know, but we can guess that they are smarter than the average bear, by which I mean, this was not a case of somebody stumbling on it.

Devon: Yeah.  

Liz: This is not a case of somebody who decided to get into it for a weekend thing, because here's the complication about this treasure. It varies by state. But in general, when you find treasure on private property, it's not yours.

Devon: Mmhmm.

Liz: It belongs to the person whose private property it is. On federal land, you need a permit if you're going to keep anything you find. And even then, as this article points out, you're going to need lawyers. Because treasure is a legal category.

Devon: I see.

Liz: There is a legal definition of a treasure. There is a legal definition of lost treasure, and Forrest's treasure isn't lost. It wasn't misplaced. It wasn't abandoned. He knows exactly where it was.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Hidden is a different thing. It's not from antiquity. It's not like-- there are laws to deal with, you know, what if you find a shipwreck from three hundred years ago, whose is that? Who has rights to it? There's laws about this stuff. So if the owner is known, then the property is supposed to go back to them, which is complicated given that some of his stuff probably should be going back to the people who made it.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Now, another thing that a lawyer points out here, Ben Costello, who's a board member of the 1715 Fleet Society, which researches and documents the recovery of shipwrecks.

Devon: Oh, cool.

Liz: And I got to say, I'm like, "Okay, that's cool. I don't want to participate, but I do want to, like, get you guys drunk sometime."

Devon: Absolutely.

Liz: I just want to hear the dirt for one long sangria-laden in the evening. And then you go your way and I'll go mine. Because I bet the dirt is great, and the rest is super dry.

Devon: Totally.

Liz: But thank you for doing this. But he points out, we don't really have laws about who it belongs to if you know who the gold belongs to, but he doesn't want it. That's not usually a situation that comes up, where somebody is like, "No, okay, no, you're right. That is my gold in the sense that I put it there and I know where it is, but I don't want it." What are you supposed to do with that?

Devon: Is it considered abandoned property at that point? Yeah. Okay, so my thing, and I'm not trying to jump the gun here because I bet you do touch on this, but my whole thing was, if I ever found that treasure, it's just like if I won the lottery, I'd keep my damn mouth shut. I don't want to pay capital gains tax on all these doubloons. Are you kidding me? No, I'm not telling anybody. I'm just going to change them at a rare coin dealer once every decade.

Liz: A little bit at a time? Yeah, you have completely nailed it. So we have a tax attorney in Portland, Oregon, Larry Brant, who says, "I saw the announcement that someone found Fenn's million dollar treasure. And I thought, do they know they're about to pay $450,000 or so in income taxes?"

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: Yeah, so that's exciting.

Devon: Good point, Larry. Oh, man.

Liz: The moment you find it, you owe taxes on it. Treasure is income!

Devon: Oh, man.

Liz: Treasure is income as far as the IRS is concerned.

Devon: Oh, man.

Liz: So you owe taxes on it. And so if, for instance, you were a very dedicated hunter who wanted to just keep it and enjoy it? Fuck you.

Devon: Oh, totally.

Liz: You can't do that.

Devon: Big Daddy IRA's getting his piece.  

Liz: What?

Devon: Big Daddy IRA is getting his piece!

Liz: Big Daddy IRA.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Yeah, getting the piece. Just like if you won the lottery, just if you were an NBA player who has to file income taxes every place you play, you have to do it. If it's in New Mexico, there's an extra proportion off the top. If you.. let's see, so you probably are going to do about half of it in taxes. And then what's left, you still need to deal with all the lawsuits. You have to sort out the claim to the property, to sort out whether you're allowed to be there in the first place. This is, as they put it, "It all adds up to an income to headache ratio that doesn't look so good."

Devon: Right.

Liz: Fair.

Devon: Super fair, guys.

Liz: I didn't realize treasure was this complicated. Over the years, the guy who runs the Fenn Treasure website, the guy who posts this stuff, his initial reaction when he got the message from Forrest that was like, "Hey, post this." He's like, "Oh, my God, somebody's spoofing Forrest's email. This is a fake."

Devon: Got you.

Liz: "This isn't actually happening." But he says a couple things. He says, one is that he wants Forrest to put closure on it because people need to know if they were close. The guess that a lot of people have in the community right now is that Forrest is sorting out the legal implications of what he's allowed to say and not say. Because if there's anybody who's very, very used to having everything he says incredibly, tightly scrutinized, and picked apart, it's this guy, right?

Devon: Totally.

Liz: So he may be in a situation, where there's some kind of settlement or deal between him and the finder of like, look, "I'm going to, you know, give you this back. Or I'm going too-- if you reveal this information, you're revealing my identity and putting me at risk and then I'm going to sue you, or I'll take you to court some other way."

Devon: Okay.

Liz: The theory as to why he said, "Hey, I'm going to give you more information" and then didn't, is because the lawyers got involved.

Devon: Sure.

Liz: This guy who does the blog has an idea that I really like. And he says one of the ideas that people on the blog kept circling back to... The treasure hunters who really love this hunt... Is that if they found it, they would take a little something out for themselves, keep it quiet, and put the treasure back without ever saying anything.

Devon: Really?

Liz: Isn't that the best idea?

Devon: Oh, it's like a geocache, but with actual money. That's really cool. Oh, I love that.

Liz: Yeah, because what that means is the hunt is over, but the game can go on.

Devon: Yes.

Liz: So you know! You know you solved it. You know you figured it out. Maybe you even called Forrest. You're like, hey, man, it's down one doubloon.

Devon: Yeah, exactly.

Liz: That was a good time. Catch you on the next go around, whatever you want to say. But other people can still find it. And then also you don't have the tax situation. You don't have the publicity situation. You haven't killed the hunt for everyone else--

Devon: Totally.

Liz: --and made your own life a living hell. You just are like, I have a coin. I have one thing.

Devon: Oh, I love that. I really, really like that.

Liz: I took a picture of me with it. I got a sweet selfie and then went about my way. Now, would I be able to do that as a person who's not already a millionaire? That might be a little challenging.

Devon: No, because a hundred thousand dollars to me, even if $900,000 of it was paid to the government in taxes, is still a hundred thousand dollars more than I have right now.

Liz: Yeah, you're like, it's money I didn't have. I'm not gonna--

Devon: Yup.

Liz: I don't know. So I think the, the spiritual, the ethical, the trueness to the spirit of the game reflected in just taking a piece is very appealing.

Devon: That's really nice.

Liz: The pragmatist in me doesn't love it. There's also a rumor, and this was like blowing up when I first started researching this episode and then has been drifting away, there was a rumor basically that somebody solved it and then sold the solve at auction for two million dollars.

Devon: Like, on the dark web?

Liz: Well, I could see it, so no. They just put up a website, were basically like: "I solved it. I'm taking closed bids." That would, I think, be the worst one. Because then you're like, the treasure... Now, it is a good one for the person who did the solve, because they get cash.

Devon: Yup.

Liz: And they don't have to put their name out there. They don't have to call Forrest. They don't have to log any doubloons out of anywhere. They can just live their life with their crisp American bills. But that's so unsatisfying that somebody would just pay their way to it, isn't it?  

Devon: Absolutely. That's back when I used to buy gold in World of Warcraft. You know? Yeah, it was cool. I got to buy my new mount, but I didn't really earn it. I didn't work for it.

Liz: It doesn't feel the same. It doesn't hit the same.

Devon: No, it's like why you won't play Sims with money cheat sometimes.

Liz: Yeah. I like being able to, to work within the restrictions. It makes more interesting outcomes sometimes, and sometimes I just cheat. But, yeah. So I personally feel like we haven't heard the end of this.

Devon: Yes.

Liz: I do think that it's probably never going to be the big satisfactory, "Here's the annotated poem. Here's all the pictures so you can see what the blaze was and what it meant by don't go too fast or whatever." It's never going to be that "Everybody gather in the parlor, we're revealing the murderer thing."

Devon: Mmhmm.  

Liz: I don't think we're going to get that.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: We will get more. And I think it's become clear I have some strong personal preferences about what fits the spirit of the treasure hunt better. But I want to get your take.

Devon: Yes. Oh, absolutely. I mean, the spirit of the treasure hunt when you were talking about everybody, you take a piece you haven't solved and you leave it for the next person, where like, I said, it's a very expensive. It's a very posh geocache I absolutely adore. I think that is so cool. And that would be my favorite outcome. I hate the idea that somebody could have sold the solution. That's just poor sportsmanship, poor form, Smee, all around, absolutely unacceptable. I don't know one way or another whether or not someone actually found it or if Fenn pulled it. But for sure, I mean, I truly would not tell a fucking soul other than, I guess the guy I live with, because we're, like, kind of married and shit. But I wouldn't tell anyone if I found it. I really don't think I would have. Although... I mean, I realize now, I guess that's stealing, since there are laws around treasure hunting and treasure finding and stuff like that. So I guess call the cops, arrest me, I would have committed thoughtcrime in my heart. I wouldn't say shit, though. What about you?

Liz: [laughing] Sorry, I was just along for the ride, and then I just spun at the end like I'd come out of a water slide into the pool. I'm just thinking about all the things you said. I have a problem with the theory that Fenn pulled it because they called him. Because if Fenn was going to chicken out, then he should have done it five years earlier, or seven years earlier, or something. I feel like the way that he's portrayed, how he feels about it, there has to be a real treasure. This is a guy who believes in real treasure, right?

Devon: Yeah, he seems to.

Liz: And so if you were like, "You know what, I don't want people to have it," why would you not just pull it the day that occurred to you?

Devon: Yeah, exactly.

Liz: You wouldn't leave it out there.

Devon: No.

Liz: You wouldn't-- Why? And that's not to say that greedy people don't stay greedy. They do. But that seems like such a wet fart of an outcome to this project that's 10 years of his life. I don't think he likes this ending. I don't feel like he does. So I don't think he would have just pulled it. I mean, this is like a father and son team who are saying that he pulled it and they spent 15 years looking for it. That's a good story. I feel like Forrest would like that story.

Devon: You would think so. You would think so. Yeah.

Liz: Yeah. My hope is that at some point either he'll be allowed to talk about it or Freedom of Information Act or something will at least confirm the premise of, it was sold or somebody solved it and paid taxes on it or whatever. I hope we get enough to at least rule out some of the things that are on the table, like he never had it out there in the first place. But I guess this is the reality of a treasure hunt, right?

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Which is that this has so much going for it that so many of the other treasures don't, where they're so fantastical and they're so vague. This was a real treasure in a real spot. I do believe that. I don't know if it was there June 6th, but I think that he put a real treasure out there. I don't think it vibes for me with how he approaches life that he would not have done that. A lot of people looked for it, had a good time. Five people died. That's unfortunate.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: I think that it reveals that this is always so much more complicated than the stories we want to tell ourselves. That-- hmm. I know I come back to this a lot, but it really made an impression on me the first time. I feel like I don't know how old I was when I saw one of those hippie dippy T-shirt that says, like, "You can't throw things away. There is no away." And it just shows the Earth. Oh, there really isn't. No, there's no away. And this is a, there's no start. There's no-- there's no once upon a time to the story--

Devon: Okay, yes.

Liz: Because it's happening with us. We can't say once upon a time there was a man who had some treasure, because once upon a time there were other people who owned those things.

Devon: Oh.

Liz: And then a man who had other ideas about it ended up with them. So it makes the story complicated on both ends, because you're like, well, who's the hero of this? Who's the protagonist? Who's-- What's the moral of the story and who's the bad guy? And it doesn't shake out so neatly, because I admire that Forrest came up with this way to make the world a little weirder and get people out there. I like treasure hunts. And I like puzzles and mysteries, and escape rooms, and all this kind of stuff. That's really fun. I think it's good to do that. I want to do something like that. But he's a complicated person. And people got really intense about it.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: I mean, I wonder if he could have gotten the same effect if it were worth $10,000. Because that's the thing is at a certain point, you would have to go, hey, if my loved one died looking for this and I know that we were living paycheck to paycheck, would my loved one have been out there, if it were $25,000 worth of treasure or $5,000?

Devon: Right. You start to do this cost-benefit analysis for yourself and for your people.

Liz: Yeah, there's a tipping point where you're like, what's the amount, and this is something that I deal with in research a lot, what's the amount where it's-- I'm rewarding you for doing it, but I'm not coercing you?

Devon: Got you. Yeah. Oh.

Liz: That's really tricky to find. right.?

Devon: It would be. Yeah. Very situational and very specific to each person I'm sure.

Liz: Yeah. Yeah, it was a ride. I don't think we're going to have a whole episodes worth of update if more stuff comes out about this, but if it really gets exciting, we will. But I hope this was informative, because it's been exciting, even though there was not a new treasure. It's been exciting to pull at all the threads of, what went into this, and what did we expect, and what did we get instead.

Devon: Right. That's also a, um-- I mean, if you want to come up with a moral to it or something like that, you can talk about the... Look how many people became friends because of this or met new like-minded souls. Look how many people got out into the woods. It was like Pokémon GO and Michelle Obama happening at the same time, being like, get your fucking exercise in, you need your steps. Also, does it inspire the next person to do some treasure or something that gets a whole bunch of people moving and sparking dialogue and imagination together?

Liz: Yeah, the dialogue and imagination part of it really counts with me. I mean, obviously, we have a lot to say about all the folks on the forums over the years at their Fenn-borees and stuff. It's fun. It's fun when you're really interested in something and somebody else is. That's all you need in life sometimes.  

Devon: Oh, yeah!

Liz: Sometimes it's just like, "I just want to think about this and not the rest of everything else." I feel-- like I worry about some of the treasure hunters because I feel like this was probably a coping mechanism.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And it's really unfortunate that that got taken away during a time when a lot of rough stuff is going on.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: So that part is rough. I hope they're able to find something else that works. But also like, I mean, there's worse hobbies. What if you didn't find the treasure? Can you imagine sitting down next to somebody at a dinner party and you're like, "What do you do for fun?" And they're like, "I hunt treasure. I look for buried treasure."

Devon: How marvelous would that be.

Liz: "Goddamn! Jackpot!"

Devon: Right? Right? I feel like that's when we start talking about our podcast to people, and they're just like, no fucking way. Here is the haunted house tour I went on when I visited this city. And then you just... Kindred spirits, man. Absolutely.

Liz: Yeah, that's what having a Bigfoot sticker on my wallet is like. I've never gotten - well, I won't say never. It's rare to get a boring response to how people feel about Bigfoot.

Devon: For sure.

Liz: People aren't usually tepid about that.

Devon: For sure.

Liz: So it's interesting.

Devon: We have a metal plaque that I got from, oh, gosh, the name of the shop just now escaped me. But they're really cool. But anyway, it's a beware of dog plaque, but it says "Beware of the ghosts."

Liz: Yeah, you sent me one.

Devon: I sent you one.

Liz: I have one on my wall.

Devon: It makes me incredibly happy. I have it out on the front-- right by the front door where you would have a "Beware of dog." And that is something that every single new person comes comments on. And not a single person has been like, "Oh, that's cool." But half of them have said, "Do you really have ghosts? Are there really ghosts in there?"

Liz: I'm gonna put mine outside, too!

Devon: Oh, man.

Liz: It's hard with the vinyl siding.

Devon: Today was really cute, because the guy goes, "Is that your last name?" And I was like, "Is what my last name?" And he goes, "Ghost." And I was like, "What, beware of the ghosts? This is like, beware of the Kelleys. No, baby boy. This is not..."

Liz: "You can't come in. We're ghosts." What?

Devon: Yeah, I love that. I'm going to change my last name to it immediately. Thank you for the thought, but that is the most random, wild first impression to that door plaque I have received.

Liz: But always good. Always good.

Devon: Always good. Yeah, like you said.

Liz: It reminds me of this ad that I've seen on Facebook for David Sedaris doing something. And I don't remember if it was about writing or whatever, but he said that he had a question that he always asked people because he always got an interesting response, which was, "When was the last time you touched a monkey?"

Liz: And he went into a story about a woman who her response was, "Why, can you smell it on me?" Dang, that conversation alone paid for every time you asked that question.

Devon: Absolutely, it did.

Liz: That's amazing.

Devon: Very much.

Liz: So I guess the moral of the story for me is that if you're having fun with something and you're being a good sport, like that woman who was like, "Good for them, I had a blast. I'm glad you solved it." Even the people who are like, "Hey, this was really fun. I could do with some closure. That would be nice. You don't owe me anything, but that would be nice." I feel for them, because I'm like, yeah, you know what? You engaged your mind. You made friends. You got out there. You did something creative and interesting. And I know that I personally should spend less time on the couch watching Youtube. And every minute that you spent dealing with with this treasure hunt was engaging in your world in a way that not a lot of people have. So good for all the treasure hunters, I guess, is what I have to say and just sidestep all the stuff about the legality of the origins. Good for treasure hunting, good for seeking something and setting yourself to a task and letting your happy little monkey brain have a puzzle to play with.

Devon: Oh, that's... Absolutely.  

Liz: Self care.

Devon: Self care, for sure. That is a way that I self care, looking for treasure, give your little monkey brain something to go find in the woods, and you are going to find so many wonderful things.

Liz: That's a really good note to end on, so I'm going to wrap us up if that's okay.

Devon: Oh, okay, please do.

Liz: All right, you can come find the treasures that we are at Twitter, Facebook.

Devon: Oh!

Liz: Yeah, I was waiting for you, actually.

Devon: Oh, my!

Liz: Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. We are on Ouijabroads.com as ever during this, what is it the thing they're always saying the emails? "In this unprecedented time."

Devon: "We're innovating and reimagining ways to reach out to you."

Liz: You may notice that sometimes you get an episode every two weeks and sometimes every three weeks. And I really appreciate you bearing with us for that. Particularly, I'd also want to thank the patrons for their support at this time, patreon.com/ouijabroads.

Devon: Yes.  

Liz: I don't know. Do you have any episodes that you're thinking about doing? I don't know why I suddenly decided to throw that to you.

Devon: No, my goodness. Well, there is my lawyer buddy, James wants me to look into the $10,000 rock. And he and I emailed some city officials to try to find a little bit more information and have not heard back from them. So, James, if you're listening, I haven't forgotten about it. It's just that we might have to do the $10,000 rock episode without big government telling me the answer to some questions that he and I had. Other than that, you know I am always looking for ways to introduce you to weird, wonderful animals that we share this Earth with.

Liz: That's right. That's right. The Gopher Corporation! What's it called?

Devon: A Gopher Corporation, like the Trans-Alaskan Gopher... Yeah, I can't remember and I'm not going to butcher it by guessing.

Liz: Right, because I said a thing and that's now sitting in the brain place where the actual thing is.

Devon: Where the actual thing is. Yes, so that's another one that I want to tell. What about you? What else are you thinking about?

Liz: I have been reading Trying Home, which is a book about the anarchist utopia in Puget Sound. And I think that's the main one that's on my radar now that we've got Forrest updated, because we've had a fair amount of treasure back to back. Yes, I think that's where I'm vibing. It's probably the next one or two for me will be about interesting historical people or communities or things like that.

Devon: Oh, surprise, surprise. Interesting historical people or communities, not like that is your wheelhouse, my darling. You are so good at it.

Liz: [laughs] I hope that you enjoyed this update. I hope that the next update I can bring you is on D. B. Cooper, or Raleigh Faulkner, or something, because apparently they're just-- they're wrapping up all the, all the plots. They ran out of episodes for whatever we're doing here. And everything's just kinda getting squared away.

Devon: Well, that, my darlings, means that you need to go out and create new content for us. And I'm not saying do something illegal or it's going to get your block knocked off, because, gosh, dang it, I can't afford it if you lawsuit me. But you could make some new fodder if the old stories get... What am I trying to say? Get solved, if the old stories get solved.

Liz: If too much gets solved, our weird levels will drop below appropriate meters.

Devon: Oh, my gosh.

Liz: Or our metrics, our target metric, so we really got to keep this in mind.

Devon: Yeah, please.

Liz: All right, well, folks, with that in mind, here's what I'm going to need you to do to keep our metrics up is you've got to live weird-

Devon: If you're going to do it, you've got to die weird.

Liz: And stay weird. Thank you for listening.

Devon: Thank you for listening.

Liz: That was fun.

Devon: Oh, that was so good.

[theme music fades in, plays to end]

Episode Transcript: 105, Alaska's Silent City

This transcript can be read below or downloaded here.

Ouija Broads, Alaska’s Silent City

[theme music plays and fades out Me and the Man in the Moon]

Liz:
You are listening to Ouija Broads, this is Liz.

Devon: This is Devon.

Liz: Sometimes I get a momentary panic when I start the intro that I'm going to forget my name or say your name.

Devon: Oh, my God. do you remember when I used to say your name for my name to catch you?

Liz: [in a double entendre sort of voice] Oh, I remember you saying my name. [in normal voice] No, it's like when you were in, in school and people would be calling attendance--

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And you'd like be thinking really hard about like, "okay, uh... uh... HERE!" This isn't a high-pressure situation. Why did I get so overwhelmed?

Devon: Too eager, Blodgett! Too eager!

Liz: [distressed] Oh. Oh. Anxiety. That's what's going on.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: This is Ouija Broads, we're back. I also have an Alaska story for you.

Devon: Oh, my goodness. Okay!

Liz: Yeah! Now, you requested a ghost..

Devon: Mm-hmm!

Liz: Because even though I gave you a ghost or two in the last one and they scared you--

Devon: Too spooky!

Liz: You still wanted more ghosts.

Devon: [laughing] It's a controlled fear, Liz. This is-- I'm able to take a calculated risk.

Liz: Sure.

Devon: This is-- It's important to my development.

Liz: Okay, I'm glad, yes. We'll keep the sort of circle of trust in the zone of resilience and you can go out and explore and then come back and I'll be here.

Devon: Thank you.

Liz: If things get too spooky, I'll, I'll get skeptical and just turn into the Tin Man or whatever going, "I do believe in spooks!" Or--

Devon: Exactly. Super Cowardly Lion there.

Liz: I had such a crush on the Tin Man. He looked better with the metal jaw on though, like, Jack Haley himself was not that good looking.

Devon: Oh, I thought you were just in it for the codpiece.

Liz: Nice. [sighs] Buns of steel. That's the joke.

Devon: Exactly. Well, that's the one from the Todrick Hall, uh... Get Low song.

Liz: Okay. All right, so what are some kinds of ghosts we've had on the show?

Devon: Oooh!

Liz: So we've had some people ghosts--

Devon: Oh, I thought you were asking me, and I was ready.

Liz: I wanted to shape it, though, so I didn't want you to be like "We've had women and children and whatever."

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: But we've had ghosts that were people...

Devon: Okay.

Liz: ...tell me more.

Devon: Have we had ghosts yet that are animals?

Liz: We have a ghost herd in the Bob.

Devon: We did. You're right. That ghost herd that, yeah, that the cowboy saw. Okay, some...

Liz: I feel like there's probably ghost animals, right? But I can't remember. Ghost pets?

Devon: Ghost pets maybe. I don't know. I'm thinking specifically of like, Rue in the Heceta Head lighthouse, or Mr. Davenport at the Davenport Hotel.

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: So that's-- that's too specific though, you're thinking of-- oh have we had ghost trains?

Liz: Yes, ghost trains. So, trains that run on tracks that are long gone--

Devon: Yeah!

Liz: --and can pass straight through other trains. So that's interesting, right? Because it's not just that it's a person flying along--

Devon: Yeah!

Liz: Like Wonder Woman in her invisible jet.

Devon: Oh, yeah.

Liz: It's an entire ghost train.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: On ghost tracks. So, we did do an episode that was called Ghost Town. Ghost Town,--

Devon: Mmhmm!

Liz: But that was about a ghost town in the sense of... It's abandoned. It's also a town that was full of ghosts.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: But today I wanted to tell you about a ghost city.

Devon: Oh, no-- wait, like a city that comes and goes?

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: [indescribable excited noise] It's a city that comes and ghosts?!

Both [laughing]

Devon: I just did a Peewee Herman laugh, I'm so sorry.

Liz: Yeah, it, like-- it stops texting you after a while, it just ghosts you.

Devon: It just ghosts you! "It's not you, it's me."

Liz: So in The New York Times on October 31st, 1889, and I don't believe this was a weird Halloween [inaudible as Devon says "Okay", probably "prank"] but I'm not sure. The New York Times reports the experience of a traveler whose name is L. B. French. And in Glacier Bay, what French has seen is this: "At about five o'clock in the afternoon of an early July day, we suddenly perceived rising above the glacier over in the direction of Mount Fairweather, what at first appeared to be a thin, misty cloud."

Liz: "It soon became clearer and we saw a distinct specter city moving towards us. We could plainly see houses, streets and well-defined trees. Here and there rose tall spires over huge buildings, which appeared to be ancient mosques or cathedrals. It was a large city, one that would include at least a hundred thousand residents. I have seen Milwaukee mirage over Lake Michigan, and this city appeared considerably larger than that. It did not look like a modern city, more like an ancient European city. I noticed particularly the immense height of the spires."

Liz: Therefore, I am bringing to you the story of the silent city of Alaska.

Devon: Oh, my God. Oh, my God.

Liz: Where's your head at so far?

Devon: I want you to say it as though you are in a... [sighs] I want you to say it as though you are Tim Curry in Congo and it's "The lost city of Zinj." I want you to--

Liz: [laughing] Now I'm just thinking about that terrible full-motion video game.

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: "SPACE!"

Devon: Yes! I am all over the place! So, it's a city that not only appeared to be, y'know, anachronistic, but anachro... graphic? Anachro- whatever it is, where it's not geographically correct either. It was out of place and time.

Liz: Out of place and time in the sky. They can't hear it.

Devon: Wow!

Liz: But they see all these great details of this huge city.

Devon: And it moved! So it wasn't like they came upon it. It moved toward them.

Liz: Yes, it appeared and moved toward them.

Devon: What?!

Liz: And at first, they thought it was just mist.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: So at this point, three times is a trend? That if I bring you an Alaska story, I feel obligated to bring you some terrible poetry.

Devon: [laughing] So you do.

Liz: So there's a very strange collection called The Prairie Poems by F. T. Dibbell.

Devon: No.

Liz: That's from nineteen hundred--

Devon: Stupid name.

Liz: And he has this very strange story about Horatio Marston and his wife: "And he is a man of Western notion / and hates a greenhorn tenderfoot / as he hates a snake or coyote / as he'd hate a prairie coyote." I'm like-- "you can't rhyme coyote with coyote [pronounced "kai-oat"] or with coyote [pronounced "kai-o-tee] with--"

Devon: No.

Liz: Or... What. What are you trying to do.

Devon: Yeah. What do you-- you don't do that. That's not how it goes.

Liz: Yes. But! He says: "Tales so weird can he tell you / that you scarcely would believe them / but you cannot even doubt them / when you see the man and know him. / He has seen the silent city / with its death-white streets and empty / with its towers and domes and minarets / with no sign of life whatever. / Pictured far above the mountain / deserted, silent in the sky--" That goes on for a while and alludes to the fact that other people have seen it...

Devon: I'm mad that parts of that rhyme and parts of it don't rhyme.

Liz: I know, I know.

Devon: Pick one convention and stick with it.

Liz: So according to this: "Tell the Indians tales mysterious / how in ancient days a nation / built a city in the far north / which no man has ever reached / nor from whence hath soul returned"-- He flips back and forth between "has" and "hath," depending on how old-timey he's feeling.

Devon: Yeah, totally.

Liz: "Why this city is deserted / reflected silent in the sky. / No one answers, no one ventures. / Alaska's mystery of the sky." Again, rhyming "sky" with "sky"... C minus.

Devon: [muttering] You don't rhyme "sky" with "sky!"

Liz: So this is an apparition that was reported multiple times over the decade preceding this New York Times report.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: Summer is when it would always show up.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: And it is pretty consistent of, it is this white cityscape with these tall buildings. It is strange. It is silent. You know, other people can see it.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: It's like, it's-- It's not like one of those things where you call somebody over and they don't get what you're looking at. Other people are like, "Holy shit, that's a city in the sky, what are you talking about?!"

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: So there's a lot of different theories at the time about what they are seeing. So, what a lot of people want to think is that they're seeing the reflection of a European city or a Russian city.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: From miles and miles-- you know, thousands of miles away.

Devon: Yeah! Yeah. That it's some kind of strange, uh... Strange atmospheric phenomenon projecting this image, like how you can make a pinhole camera image, but in a room.

Liz: Yes.

Devon: If you block out all of the windows except for a pinhole of light, it'll project the outside on the opposite wall.

Liz: You have nailed it and you are going to be advanced in this, because you understand photography, whereas I don't understand anything about physics. And this is, I think... Or at least the explanation that I read and bought is this is a fata morgana.

Devon: Okay?

Liz: This is a kind of tremendously advanced mirage.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: I've seen mirages before in my life, right? Like there's the mirage that you get on like a hot day--

Devon: On a hot-- yeah.

Liz: When you're driving and you see, basically, the sky refracts onto the road and it looks like there's water, right?

Devon: Yes. Yes.

Liz: So there's that, where the hot air is above the ground, and then there's the normal air that's just above it and the reflection happens. That's a simple mirage.

Devon: Yes.

Liz: Then, uh, there's a different kind of mirage that works when you've got the cold ground and hot air.

Devon: Oh!

Liz: Remember how this always shows up at like the end of June?

Devon: Yeah, okay.

Liz: And it basically flips it. It does-- it flips the image multiple times and almost becomes like a computer glitch where it takes, like, a slice--

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: --a horizontal slice of what, what it's reflecting and doubles and triples it, sometimes flips it? And the effect is that it looks like a city, or it looks like a structure--

Devon: Ohhhh.

Liz: Because it goes out and in at regular intervals and makes these tall columns. So even something like a cliff or a mountain will look like a city or towers and buildings like that.

Devon: Cool!

Liz: And I've seen, like, seven images where somebody used MS Paint to try to show how you can get basically... The image that you can't-- or the object you actually can't see-- the way that the light rays are getting bounced around by this strange situation. Specifically when the sea is a lot colder, the atmosphere above it, you get this boundary layer that stuff is bouncing off, and then you've got-- The layers above will also form several boundaries.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: So you get this very complex mirage because the light's getting sliced and diced all these different ways. So it doesn't look like a ship or a mountain or anything, anymore. It looks something, like something very, very different. There are some areas that are really well known for these mirages. The Straits of Messina are one and the Arctic is another.

Devon: Oh!

Liz: Because the Arctic has a lot of temperature extremes, a lot of water, a lot of weird things that light can do.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: There's this guy named C.W. Thornton, who was one of the first people to summit Mount St. Elias, which was the second highest peak in Alaska.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: He was, you know, he talked to Popular Science and he said, "Yes, I've seen it. You didn't have to imagine it." Well, let me read exactly what he said. "It required no effort of the imagination to liken it to a city. It was so distinct that it required faith to believe that it was not really a city."

Devon: Oh, cool. It was so convincing. You had to convince yourself that, no, this is mirage.

Liz: Yes. "I'm actually not seeing this." A thing I saw-- I looked into it and there's actually a lot of strange mirages that happen in Alaska and the Arctic.

Devon: Really. Okay.

Liz: They have, let's see, there's the fog ring, which is kind of like a halo. And then they have sun dogs where, like, the sun will reflect off parts of the fog ring. They get the green flash--

Devon: Oh, do they?

Liz: When the sun is going down, yeah, and I might do a separate episode on that sometime.

Devon: I was--

Liz: All the legends associated are pretty interesting.

Devon: Oh, I was fascinated to learn-- because they mentioned it in Pirates of the Caribbean--

Liz: Yeah!

Devon: I was fascinated to learn that that was a real thing. Sun dogs are a real thing I see all the time here in Seattle.

Liz: Because of all the moisture in the air?

Devon: Because of all that moisture in the air, yeah. You get sun dogs a lot.

Liz: That makes sense. Is there a superstition around them, or are they just kind of a thing?

Devon: Well, I wonder. I hear more superstitions around the moon equivalent, you know.

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: Because I think the moon brings out more superstitions than, than the sun.

Liz: Yeah, that makes sense.

Devon: Yeah. I'm just-- I'm always really excited by them because I mean, they look kind of cool. They're like little tiny sky gems.

Liz: Yeah, and I always feel very alert when I'm actually paying attention to what's happening in the sky.

Devon: Right. Right. "Oh, wait. I actually looked up today. That's awesome. Good job, me. So glad you noticed it."

Liz: There's another story which is not explicitly in our territory, but it's so linked to this that I want to talk about it a little bit.

Liz: Do it! A bit, which was... In 1906, the American explorer Robert E. Peary was looking through what, to us, is east of here, you know, but it's basically the far northern reaches of Canada.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: So west of Greenland, but not as far west as we are.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: He's up there exploring and he sees a vast stretch of land and says, "Aha, I will name this Crocker Land after this guy who gives me money sometimes."

Devon: [snorts]

Liz: And they fund an expedition a decade later, y'know, go out over the ice pack. Because up here, where they are, it's a bunch of, like, frozen sea.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And actual land is exciting.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And he's like, "Oh, I have actual land."

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And so this expedition gets together and goes out to find Crocker Land. And as they're going along-- so it's sponsored by, y'know, among others, the American Museum of Natural History.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: It takes a while because Crocker stops funding Arctic expeditions and starts giving his money to survivors of the San Francisco earthquake. So, life is interesting like that.

Devon: Yeah, weird to think about all this happening in the same time span.

Liz: Yes, I kind of like that because it's one of those, like, if fate had turned slightly differently...

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: This whole thing, this is like the, the Ada Blackjack expedition all over again in terms of, like... How many things have to go wrong before you understand that you're cursed?

Devon: Yeah. Yeah. And I'm waiting for this to become a crock-er-shit [ala "crock of shit"]

Liz: [laughing] It was a crock-er-shit all along.

Devon: I mean, I'm sure it was.

Liz: Yes.

Devon: Oh, please tell me.

Liz: So the expedition leaves in 1913, which is great. They're---

Devon: God, didn't you say he found it in 1906?

Liz: Yeah. They're a solid year after the Titanic which is great because they promptly run into rocks while trying to avoid an iceberg. But in fairness, the captain was drunk. So--

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: [laughing] So there may not have been an iceberg at all. I'm not sure.

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: So they get to a different ship. They land in Greenland and they make a big shed that's going to be like their headquarters. And they start--

Devon: Their shed-quarters, you mean.

Liz: Their shed-quarters. Their Crocker shed-quarters.

Devon: Their Crocker Shit shed-quarters.

Liz: [laughing] And they go out and they make their supply caches. And so it's a couple of people from this expedition. They hire some native Inuit folks to travel with them.

Devon: Mmkay.

Liz: There's this whole interesting, super depressing component where basically... Minik Wallace was a Native Alaskan guy who as a kid, Robert Peary brought to the US?

Devon: Okay.

Liz: With, like, his whole family and some other adults and, like, everybody except Minik immediately died of tuberculosis.

Devon: Oh, no!

Liz: Yeah, well, he's, he's with them--

Devon: Okay.

Liz: Acting as sort of a translator and a guide.

Devon: Uh-huh.

Liz: So the weather conditions are very bad.

Devon: Mmhmm.

Liz: They reach a glacier, they climb it, somebody gets frostbite. The temperature's dropping. Sorry, guys. It's like... It's the Arctic. It's the Arctic Ocean.

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: So they get to the Arctic Ocean, they get on dogsleds.

Devon: Oh!

Liz: They get on dogsleds because they do have some Inuits there helping them. They're going across the sea ice, which is scary because the sweet spot that they're trying to hit here is "Cold enough that the ice isn't going to collapse under us, but not so cold that our fingers come off."

Devon: Oh, God!

Liz: And it's tricky! It's a tricky needle to, uh, thread, there.

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: But fortunately-- so they roll up in July of 1913. In April of 1914, they have finally gone on this expedition and they see on the northwestern horizon a huge island.

Devon: Oh!

Liz: So it has hills, valleys, snowcapped peaks, extending, as one guy says, "Through at least 120 degrees of the horizon." I don't know what that means, but that sounds big.

Devon: That sounds big. That's a lot.

Liz: And then there's this Inuit hunter who's with them, who's lived in the area for 20 years, and he says, "Yeah, that's poo-jok." And they're like, "What's that mean?" He's like, "It means mist. It's nothing. That's nothing." And they're like, "Yeah, what do you know?"

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: And so they press on and he's like, "Okay, like... Your money's good, I guess."

Devon: Yeah, I suppose.

Liz: So they keep going, even though it's warming up, the sea ice is breaking up... Five days, they go toward this huge island they can see. And finally they've covered 125 miles of sea ice and they're still not on land. And they're like, "Oh, okay, you might have a point about that poo-jok thing, my dude."

Devon: "Yeah, you might."

Liz: "That one's on us. That one's on us."

Devon: Let's recall here that the only reason Roald Amundsen made it to both Poles, he said, was because he fucking listened to the fucking natives who fucking lived in those conditions and did what they said.

Liz: Listen to the locals! Always!

Devon: Listen to the locals!

Liz: Yeah, so what Macmillan, the leader of the expedition, eventually said-- Cuz at least they did turn around--

Devon: I mean...

Liz: At least they weren't like "Well, we should have been there four days ago and we're not, but let's just keep going.

Devon: "Let's press on."

Liz: [sighs]

Devon: I appreciate a man who can say, "I made a mistake. Sorry, my dude."

Liz: Yeah. "This... Never mind. I don't think this will work out." So, he wrote: "The day was exceptionally clear, not a cloud or trace of mist. If land could be seen now was our time. Yes, there it was! It could even be seen without a glass." So like, without binoculars, I assume, or telescope.

Devon: Telescope, yeah.

Liz: "Extending from southwest true to north-northeast. Our powerful glasses, however, brought out more clearly the dark background, in contrast with a white, the whole resembling hills, valleys and snow-capped peaks to such a degree that had we not been out on the frozen sea for 150 miles, we would have staked our lives upon its reality."

Devon: Wow.

Liz: "Our judgment then, as now, is that this was a mirage of the sea ice." So thank God they turned around. They-- somebody went, "Okay, I don't care what we can see. I know we can see it. I know we can all see this big island."

Devon: Yeah, yeah.

Liz: "We're all seeing it, but we're not getting any closer to it, no matter how much we walk. Turn around."

Devon: Wow, that'd be so hard though. That'd be so hard.

Liz: Yeah, it's-- oh, that would be rough. And you know, they do turn around. There's more adventures that happen. There's some-- So the guy, the whole, the poo-jok guy getting shot probably because, um, one of the explorers wanted to get with his wife or had had his wife as a mistress in the past? And they had a couple of kids together?

Devon: Okay.

Liz: It's very strange, but long story short, it takes most of them several years to get home and get rescued.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: So that's what you get for being a dick.

Devon: That's probably what you get.

Liz: You can still see this. I found a story from 2012--

Devon: Okay.

Liz: --where someone's talking about driving on the Alaska Parks Highway and seeing this bizarre thing over Denali, of, like--

Devon: Wow.

Liz: --rectangular white masses. And he, you know, because it's now, or close to now, instead of one hundred years ago, he says, "As if a bored mythological toddler had used hills like LEGO blocks to craft a crude cityscape."

Devon: [laughing] Okay, yeah.

Liz: So the connection here is that he knew it was a fata morgana because he'd worked with somebody to cover the Iditarod trail sled-dog race in 2011.

Devon: Oh!

Liz: And when they were commuting by a small plane between the checkpoints, they noticed near the ghost town of Iditarod that the mountains in the distance looked unusually large, blocky and tall.

Devon: Oh, fascinating.

Liz: Yeah, yeah.

Devon: Fascinating.

Liz: It's something like... This is the closest I can get to understanding how it works: it's kind of like holding a mirror underwater.

Devon: Oh, okay.

Liz: The strange reflections and refractions that you get....

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Can make it so that you're seeing something.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: I think that's what's so tricky about this, is it's not like a classic Looney Tunes mirage.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: You are envisioning something that's not there at all and isn't there anywhere near you. You're seeing something that is plausible--

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: --to the environment that you're in, it fits in and, like, makes sense.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: It's just nowhere near where you are seeing it.

Devon: It's just not--

Liz: That's so trippy.

Devon: Yeah. It's like... I mean, you said Looney Tunes, and I'm thinking of the classic, like, neon flashing sign with an arrow pointing to it.

Liz: Yup. Palm trees, water...

Devon: Girls, girls, girls! And water, and it's a bar and, yeah. It's so strange to see things where: no, it's not unusual to see a mountain in Alaska. It's not unusual to see a building in Alaska. You only know it's not there because other people have said, "Your eyes are going to play tricks on you here."

Liz: Yeah, but here's the part that's extremely extra tricky.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Is, in Peary's journals from when he was out there and supposedly spotted Crocker Land? During the timeframe when he said he did, he didn't write anything about that in his journal.

Devon: Oh.

Liz: So it may have been, as you said, a crock-er-shit from like, the actual entire beginning.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And he may have sent a bunch of people to almost die, or in some cases get shot--

Devon: [starting to laugh]

Liz: -- to pursue something that was even more of a mirage than we thought it was.

Devon: Yeah. Just a straight-up lie.

Liz: Just a lie, yeah. That's just called a lie, sir.

Devon: It's not a mirage anymore if you just made it up.

Liz: Mirage makes it sound like you have a playful relationship.

Devon: [laughing] That's a much nicer way of putting it! Oh, strange... Well, and we've talked before about ghost photos and even about EVP is about how the brain really likes to make sense of things that are almost right, but not quite right. We've talked about this before in interpreting supposed photos of ghosts or even audio EVPs about how the brain really wants to make order out of things that are not quite right, but they're really close. So we want to matrix shapes or sounds into a familiar thing and then our brain can file it away and go, "Cool, I know what that is, moving on."

Liz: Yeah, "I can skip some steps now, because I know what bucket that goes in."

Devon: Exactly, right? [laughing] "I've seen a mountain before! I got this handled!"

Liz: [laughing]

Devon: "We're doing great!"

Liz: "I know about mountains!"

Devon: "I know all about mountains. Now I'm going to go try to classify, I don't know, dangerous fungi. We'll figure out which ones I can eat and which ones I can't."

Liz: "Woo!"

Devon: And so I wonder if that doesn't happen, too, when you see a mirage that's not, y'know, if it's not a reflection of... Or a projection of a city or a mountain, y'know... I wonder how much of it is just brains going... "I mean, the only other thing I can think of this shape and this size is a mountain. So that's what that is.

Liz: Yeah, yeah. So, with those guys who were out looking for Crocker Land, they're looking for an uninhabited island and that's what they see. And for the people who are seeing the silent city, they are told, "Look, I see a city," and they come up and they go, "Look at those tall buildings, look at those towers."

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: "Look at those bricks." And so they interpret the linear corners and shapes and stuff as buildings.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And they interpret it as a European city or a Russian city.

Devon: Right.

Liz: So they don't say, "I'm seeing another Alaskan town from my time period reflected. It must be from very far away." Because it doesn't look right. I mean, there's no skyscrapers in Juneau at this time.

Devon: Totally. Yeah.

Liz: And, so they make sense of it that way, when probably what it was, was a slice of mountain repeated and mirrored and flipped and turned into all this stuff.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And it makes sense as well, then you're like, "Okay, that's why it is white, why it is silent, why there's no people in it--"

Devon: I was going to ask that.

Liz: Your brain is not putting in little figures moving around--

Devon: Okay.

Liz: --but it is putting in, it's saying "That's a building," because you know what buildings are.

Devon: Yeah. I was going to ask that, like, do they ever report seeing people moving around? Because you didn't mention that in any of your descriptions. So that's even more leading into the idea that, yeah, it's this kind of weird... What did you call it, a morgana - a fata morgana.

Liz: Fata morgana, yeah.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Now, in the way of many stories here, there's the general experience... And then somebody tries to make a buck off it, and makes life really confusing.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: There was this guy named Professor Richard Willoughby. He had a pretty good beard, I gotta say.

Devon: I bet he did.

Liz: And he was a colorful character. He lived in Juneau, usually, and if tourists would complain of the rain, he would go out in, like, the worst downpour and say, "I have never known it to rain here in thirty years."

Devon: Oh, my God.

Liz: "It's the driest place on earth!"

Devon: Oh, my God. I mean, that's kind of funny.

Liz: It's kinda funny.

Devon: Yeah. He's being a dick and I kind of like it.

Liz: Yeah, like, what's to say? It's the weather - quit your bitchin'.

Devon: Quit your bitchin' is right. You moved to Alaska, ya dillweed.

Liz: Yeah. Willoughby claims that what he has done after seeing the silent city-- a tongue twister--

Devon: Indeed!

Liz: --is finally get a picture. He said that he went on many expeditions trying to photograph the picture [sic] and finally he was actually able to do so....

Devon: Wow!

Liz: And now let's see... When did he actually say he got the picture...? It's not super important because he didn't actually take a picture of anything.

Devon: Oh. Butt.

Liz: Oh, here we go: June 1888. So it's-- so it appears over the Muir glacier.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: What he says he sees is, y'know, a great city with tall houses where there's a river and there's tall trees and there's a large edifice with several towers and there's scaffolding around the towers.

Devon: Okay?

Liz: And what Mr. Willoughby, who later will call himself Professor Willoughby, because why the hell not?

Devon: Why not? Who's checking?

Liz: You've got a good beard and a good voice? You're entitled to do so. Go for it.

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: Why not? He basically said every time he would check on it, the building would go further. So like the scaffolding would move and stuff would advance.

Devon: [laughing] Oh! Oh, wow.

Liz: And according to Professor Willoughby, he sent to San Francisco and got a special camera with very highly sensitized plates so that he could photograph the apparition. And he only did this once successfully, because, of course, it was so insubstantial, he had to do a really, really long exposure.

Devon: Okay....

Liz: And you can have a copy of this for a mere 75 cents.

Devon: Oh!

Liz: Yeah. Which at the time is like 21 dollars.

Devon: Yeah!

Liz: And so he hung onto the negative and made tons and tons and tons of copies of this.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: Because there were people who were amazed by it and were like, "This guy is amazing. He's such a cool explorer. He's found something incredible." And there's people who were like, "This guy is a ridiculous hoaxster, but this is a cool souvenir. I can show people this and tell them the tale of the silent city." So you can see this photograph because there's a million copies around and there's like different versions of it where, like, sometimes he's cut out some of the sky because, you know, then it fits on a postcard.

Devon: Sure, right?

Liz: Yeah. [heavy sigh]

Devon: Okay, so can I go look this up on my phone while we're talking? Or should I wait?

Liz: Yes, you can. Look up the silent city of Alaska and I will reveal the hoax to you for this component. Now people pretty... I mean, I think there were people who immediately were like, "You're full of shit."

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: "And we know this is because you always are full of shit, and this is no exception."

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: So what seems to have probably happened? Is that Willoughby, when somebody was leaving Alaska bought some photography equipment and found this plate that was a picture of a city. Specifically, Bristol, England.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And went, "Ah-ha, I can attach this to this apparition that people have been seeing and make money off this." I mean, the odds that somebody from Bristol, England, who could recognize the city from that angle were pretty slim--

Devon: Oh, right.

Liz: But unfortunately, not none.

Devon: [starts to laugh]

Liz: He was like, "Yeah, that's the church. That's from like 20 years ago. I remember they were remodeling the church."

Devon: Oh, interesting. Okay.

Liz: And it didn't help that, uh... So Willoughby comes out with this picture and he actually starts, like, doing some 19th century Photoshop on it to make things look more misty.

Devon: Mmhmm.

Liz: To make the streets look more ancient and strange and all that kind of stuff. But... It-- that's a pretty good scam as such things go.

Devon: Totally!

Liz: And this is... Yeah. "Ask the miners who have tarried far away from civilization / they have seen the silent city and have stood in awe and wonder / gazing at its streets so empty, seeing it glimmer in mid heaven / like a city long deserted." So that's another weird ghost component of this, that it's a--

Devon: Yeah

Liz: --a silent city that you can see and... at least, according to Willoughby, who was obviously making a lot of this up--

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: --straight from his own ass.

Devon: Oh, yeah, totally.

Liz: A lot of this... It, it's changing over time, according to him.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And there's evidence of life, but you don't see the people.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: So... spooky, to me. The idea that you could walk through, it's like a dream--

Devon: It would be a dream, yeah.

Liz: It would be like walking through a place where people should be and you would expect to see them and they're not there. It's a, it's a cursed place, like a Shopko at two a.m., and it's just not right.

Devon: [laughing] Just any Shopko.

Liz: Yeah. Any Shopko at any time.

Devon: Bad Times Shopko is all Shopkos, because they exist in the singularity. I maintain that the creepiest thing you can show me is a place where kids are supposed to be that is devoid of kids. So like, a playground after dark, a school...

Liz: Why is it worse when it's kids?

Devon: I don't-- I don't know. Maybe it's because I associate that with hyper happiness or hyper innocent...

Liz: A ton of activity and noise?

Devon: Yeah, and so the absence of that is even more stark. But there's something I wanted to do... You know, that was like my [valley girl voice] "Photography 101!" Kind of, "Oh, this is going to be so deep," was I was going to go take a bunch of photos of playgrounds after dark with available light. Because "Oh, it's so bizarro world and creepy, and doesn't that say something to you?" And really, I, y'know, like... Not only did I get my own head out of my own ass, I was also like, "It's too fucking scary. I'm not going to go do that. Ew!"

Liz: It's very creepy.

Devon: Creepy!

Liz: I don't know... I don't know why it is creepy like that, but it is.

Devon: So, definitely creepier for me to see a mirage city devoid of people--

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: Than a mirage city full of people.

Liz: Yeah, that's-- that's upsetting because you're like, I don't... I feel like if I went there, I'd always... If I somehow made it to the silent city, I would perpetually be terrified--

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: That, that somebody is going to jump out at me.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: That I was going to find where they all were. I think that's what it is, is you're like "When I find where you all are, it's not going to be, like... at a surprise party!"

Devon: No, no.

Liz: "You're watching the New Avengers movie!" It's going to be something terrible, obviously.

Devon: Oh, yeah. It's like some Wicker Man shit, where you're all going to a sacrifice and whoops! I'm the sacrifice. Great.

Liz: Whoops! And I walked myself right over there.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: I will say, Willoughby's commitment to "I used a special magic camera"...

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And then when people would actually question him, it was revealed that he didn't even know how to use a regular camera? Is pretty impressive.

Devon: Go for it, Willoughby, you dig right in. You dig those heels in deep. Liz: . How would he know how to use a special camera? He only knew how to use a magic camera.

Liz: Yeah. He knows how to use magic cameras, quit asking him questions, do you want a copy or not?

Devon: "I'm sorry, I can't drive your Corolla. I'm used to my Lambo. It handles differently."

Liz: [tough guy voice] "I'm only certified for tactical assault vehicles."

Devon: [laughing] [in belligerent voice] "I'd show you I could punch you, but my hands are registered as lethal weapons, so it's actually illegal for me to do so, God."

Liz: [belligerent voice] "Just-- just, fine!"

Devon: "It's fine!"

Liz: "Don't worry about it!"

Devon: "It's my magic camera. Duh."

Liz: "Yeah, it's my magic camera. No, you can't see."

Devon: "No you can't-- Can you or can you not see that city? Were can you not see that city. It is right there in front of you, floating."

Liz: Yeah. It reminds me of... Crap, what was the thing? Oh! Ape Canyon again.

Devon: [affirmative] Mmm!

Liz: That there was the person who was looking for the remains of the cabin and I did point out in the episode that that was moving the goalposts a bit because the, the questionable aspect of that story was not whether a cabin existed.

Devon: [laughing] Yeah.

Liz: And so I feel like he's doing that old trick... I'm sure there's some psychological term for this, where you show people proof of a component of your questionable story that wasn't the questionable component?

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And they go along with it.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: So he's just like, "Is this or is this not a picture of a weird looking city? Well, case closed."

Devon: "Case closed!" Yeah, it's like a saint reliquary, like, "Yeah, I understand that that is actual fabric. I see the scrap of fabric in there. That's not the part I'm debating."

Liz: [laughing] Yeah, exactly. "That's not the part I'm wondering about."

Devon: Yeah. Yeah. That one? We've got that. Empirical? Done. We'll check that off. Let's go down the list.

Liz: Yeah. So according to to him it was a very, very long exposure. And then through a secret process with secret chemicals, he would put the exposed plates for three months in those in daylight.

Devon: No.

Liz: [laughing] Yup.

Devon: No.

Liz: You know, like how cameras work!

Devon: Like how cameras work! No. I can confidently tell you: that is not how silver gelatin plates work.

Liz: No! So this was, let's see -- in Popular Science Monthly, God bless the-- in 1897--

Devon: Oh, man.

Liz: They're on the case of the silent city and talking about Willoughby and his nonsense, because the, the guy who's writing this has gone to Alaska. He's bought the copies of the print

Devon: Of the print, yeah.

Liz: He has the story.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: And he says, "It's hardly necessary to call the attention of the intelligent reader to the absurdities involved in Mr. Willoughby's story and in the photograph which is its financial justification." So, he wraps up with this quote that I positively adore...

Devon: Okay?

Liz: And I don't know where he originated it because he says he said it elsewhere, but: "Thus it comes about, as I have elsewhere said," says this guy, owning everybody from 1897, "That there is no intellectual craze so absurd as not to have a following among educated men and women. There is no scheme for the renovation of the social order so silly that educated men will not invest their money in it. There is no medical fraud so shameless that educated men will not give it their certificate. There is no nonsense so unscientific that men called educated will not accept it as science."

Devon: [laughing] Shots fired!

Liz: Ruined everybody's whole career!

Devon: Oh my God, "There is no nonsense so..." Can you read me that last bit of it again? That was my favorite.

Liz: "There is nonsense so unscientific that men called educated will not accept it as science." Yeah, we're just humans. We're just tall monkeys, okay?

Devon: Yeah!

Liz: Our brains like shortcuts! All the time! We like shortcuts and patterns!

Devon: Yeah! Yeah!

Liz: Oh, my gosh!

Devon: Dude, I have to distract myself every fucking day from the fact that I no longer have a tail to use as an extra hand, so I'm going to accept the existence of ghosts so I feel a little better about that loss. Deal with it.

Liz: That's a-- okay, that's a connection I didn't anticipate, but I support you.

Devon: Thank you.

Liz: I'm just thinking about the whole argument from authority that happens so much with so much pseudoscientific stuff. It's like, look, there's a lot of people. There's a lot of people around!

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: You're going to find somebody who should know better but doesn't. And if you put them on the record, all of a sudden your shit seems impressive.

Devon: Yeah. Oh, yeah. There are very, very many doctors willing to endorse weight loss pills or...

Liz: Oh, yeah. No, there's like, a specific phenomenon with medical doctors because the confidence and the shortcut taking that gets beaten into them during medical school?

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And I'm allowed to say that because I work for a medical school--

Devon: You work for them--

Liz: Is... can backfire on them and they end up falling for really basic stuff sometimes because they don't think that they can be tricked.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: They don't think they can make a stupid decision.

Devon: That arrogance. Yeah.

Liz: Yeah. Yeah! You just-- you're like, "I couldn't be tricked. I mean, advertising works on everybody else, but not on me."

Devon: As someone who works in marketing--

Liz: "Wait a minute!"

Devon: I am so freely admitting of, "Jason. Jason, we got to stop there. They say they have the world's best bird feeder." And he's like, "What claim... By whose metric? What?" And I'm like, "I don't-- but the advertising worked. I am so susceptible to it, and I know better. But we're going to go buy that bird feeder, cuz it's the world's best.

Liz: Yup. So Willoughby is still commemorated in Juneau. Let me find this...

Devon: Wait, they still like him in Juneau? Like, commemorated?

Liz: Well, he was sort of like a full-time happy bullshitter, in the way that we love in the Northwest.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: So he claims to have been the first person to discover gold in Alaska.

Devon: No, no, no.

Liz: Well, he was involved in the Cassiar Gold Rush, which is why I was texting you about that earlier today.

Devon: Oh, okay.

Liz: Which is the one that Nellie was, was helpful with.

Devon: Yeah, Nellie Cashman.

Liz: Nellie Cashman, yeah. He went down to Seattle in 1895... Just started saying stuff. He said stuff like, "I lived in Alaska so long I've never seen a train!" And people are like, "This guy's never seen a train! Wow! Let's write about that!"

Devon: [laughing] "Check out the rube!"

Liz: He told a woman at one point he was so isolated in Alaska he didn't even know about the Civil War until it was over.

Devon: [laughing] Who are you, Brooks from The Shawshank Redemption? "I think I seen a car back in aught-eight once, when I was a boy." Like, what the hell, man?

Liz: Yup! So that was his vibe. So he-- In Juneau, there was a, a boardwalk that they built out in 1913-- so he died in Seattle in 1902-- and a boardwalk was built over the high tide line to connect different parts of downtown Juneau to sort of more suburban pass and became a road and it became known as Willoughby Avenue. And now the whole area is known as the Willoughby District.

Devon: Oh.

Liz: And it has, you know, Juneau's cultural hubs like the State Library, the archives, the museum, the arts and cultural center.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: And that's wonderful. That, to me, is like... Sometimes showing up is all you need to do in, in life.

Devon: It's all you need to do.

Liz: Showing up and having a good story, I guess.

Devon: [laughing] All these repositories of real information are named after a charlatan, after a huckster, after a total fucking tall tale storyteller.

Liz: Yeah. Complete bullshit artist who just said whatever occurred to him. Yeah. Just like, you know, show up in Seattle: "What's that iron horse? Buy me a drink!"

Devon: "My goodness! I discovered gold in 1849 before I was born, but that's when it was discovered in Alaska."

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: [exasperated sigh]

Liz: This is another one of those where it's like, there's the legend and then there's the hoax.

Devon: Yes.

Liz: And then there's the actual thing and then there's the scientific explanation of it. And then there's... I don't know what to make of all of it.

Devon: It's a lot of layers.

Liz: Yeah, there's a lot of layers.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Like the illusion itself.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: I would love to see something like this. I think it would make my eyes hurt, but I would love to see it.

Devon: Can you see those-- do you remember the magic eye stuff? Can you see those?

Liz: I feel like I got pretty good at that in the 90s, but I haven't tried one for a while.

Devon: All right. Well, I just think that you should exercise your eyes by using those. You could get ready to see these mirages.

Liz: That's true. That'll be a pretty good move.

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: Well, we can-- we can do this, Liz. We can make Alaska one of our Ouija Broads road trip stops. We're going to try the Sourtoe cocktail.

Liz: [distressed sound]

Devon: We're going to do a part of the Iditarod and see some of the haunted things there. We'll go look for mirages and then we'll zip line over bears in Ketchikan.

Liz: Well, that part does sound pretty good,

Devon: That's the easiest part because that's the only part I've done before.

Liz: Nice. Huh. So I do still probably owe you a proper ghost, because although this has ghostly aspects, it's not really a haunting, per se?

Devon: You gave me a whole ghost town. I don't know that it could get more ghostly than that.

Liz: A Flying Ghost City!

Devon: The Flying Dutchman of Villages!

Liz: [thoughtful sigh, pause] ...I apparently forgot how to outro us.

Devon: [laughs]

Liz: I was just like "Yeah!"

Devon: "Yeah, that's right! Goodbye!"

Liz: "Goodbye!"

Both: [laughing]

Liz: "See you later!

Devon: "I love you!"

Devon: "I love you! Talk to you soon, buddy!"

Liz: But when I found that in Strange Tales of Alaska and the Yukon, I went, "Yes, I have to tell Devon about this." I'm glad we've gone back to Alaska. And I, uh, yeah. If people have ever seen a mirage like that? You should come tell us about it on our social media.

Devon: You should!

Liz: You can come talk to us on the Facebook, Instagram, Twitter sites, we're Ouija Broads on those - and chat with us, or if we are tied up or swamped as we often are, just chat with other people who listen to the show because y'all are interesting and have good taste.

Devon: [laughing] Yeah, you do. I do love that folks are willing to just jump right in into other people's conversations on our pages. It's lovely. Lovely.

Devon: It helps!

Liz: Yeah. We're at ouijabroads.com, if you want to look at our guides, find merchandise, find all the other information that we've thrown on there over the months? Years?

Devon: I don't know.

Liz: In some ways, we've been doing this show forever, and in some ways, not.

Liz: If you want to get access to episodes early, get outtakes and the extended versions, then you should hit up patreon.com/ouijabroads. And if you haven't done so, it's always helpful to us if you can give us a rating/review and make sure you subscribe to us wherever you get your podcasts so that we show up in your busy life without you having to do anything, because I want to make your life easier, and make it easier for you to listen to our stories.

Devon: That's so sweet of you, Liz, because I'm like, "Do that, so the numbers get higher, so my ego gets bigger."

Liz: [pause, in incongruous tone] It helps us out.

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: I just said that because I didn't know what the fuck you said.

Devon: You're going to listen to it in play back and it's going to be hilarious.

Liz: Oh, this is going to be good.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: In the meantime, everyone, until you hear from us again, I would like for you to live weird...

Devon: I would like for you to-- aw, shit. I don't want you to die weird. But when the time comes... Liz, do that again! Sorry! I'll do my part again. "Die weird."

Liz: [very long pause] And stay weird!

Devon: I'm sorry!

Liz: I didn't hear a goddamn thing you just said. It was just [imitates audio cutting out in blips]

Devon: [imitates it too because she is a lil parakeet]

Liz: Thanks for listening, everybody!

Devon: Thank you for listening.

[theme song fades in, plays to end]

Episode Transcript: 14, Five Ghosts of the Davenport Hotel

The transcript can be read below or downloaded here.

Ouija Broads Episode 14: Five Ghosts of the Davenport Hotel

[theme music fades in: The House is Haunted, Roy Fox, 1934]

Liz: You're listening to Ouija Broads, this is Liz.  

Devon: This is Devon.  

Liz: Devon, we haven't done a ghost story for a while.

Devon: I'm so excited to do a ghost story. Are we going to do a ghost story now?

Liz: Yeah! No, I just told you that to tease you.

Devon: Yeah, well, that would be you.

Liz: [giggles]

Devon: It would be 100 percent you.

Liz: I get off on withholding, it's known.

Devon: Yeah, you do.

[both laugh]

Liz: I'm going to introduce two-parters to this, so--

Devon: I love it. [crosstalk]

Devon: Liz, I had knock-knock jokes for you, but they don't have anything to do with ghosts.

Liz: That's okay. Bring them.

Devon: Knock, knock.

Liz: Who's there?

Devon: Touch my...

Liz: "Touch my," who?

Devon: [laughs] Liz, "hoo" means vagina. That's it. That's the joke.

Liz: …you're strange.

Devon: You don't have to use it. I don't care.

Liz: I'm going to tell you about ghosts. I'm going to give a little content warning because I like to do that.

Devon: Yeah, you do.

Liz: There are stories in here where people self-harm. And I also want to acknowledge that this is one, which I haven't done for a while, that relies heavily on Spooky Spokane by Chet Caskey. And I'm really excited because I think by the time this comes out, I'll have gotten to go on another Chet Caskey Haunted Spokane tour.  

Devon: Yes!

Liz: If all goes well.

Devon: Yes.  

Liz: Devon, I'm gonna tell you about the ghosts of the Davenport Hotel.

Devon: Liz, I've been waiting for this. Oh, my God, I'm so excited. I got chills preemptively. I stayed in the Davenport, so I've gotten a little bit of history from their website and their books and stuff just because I was really hoping to see a ghost when I was there.

Liz: Yeah. I'll give you a brief history on the Davenport because we got to get to the ghosts, right?

Devon: Yeah.  

Liz: Now, I'm going to give you three guesses and the first two don't count. It was designed in 1914 by famous architect...

Devon: Okay.

Liz: Kirtland Cutter!

Devon: I was going to say Frank Lloyd Davenport,

Liz: Frank Lloyd Davenport. Tugboat Davenport!

Devon: Tugboat Davenport! By Kirtland Cutter, huh?

Liz: Yeah.  

Devon: Our friend?

Liz: Good friend... trolley boot-ee... Corbin Corbin's daddy, Kirtland Cutter, who I think is just going to become... He's never going to get his own episode. He's just going to guest star on everybody else's episode like so much Hollywood Squares or something.

Devon: Oh yeah. Yeah.

Liz: He designed it in 1914 under the auspices of Llewellyn Louis Davenport. So Louis Davenport arrived in Spokane the same year as the Great Fire, 1889, and he ran various restaurants. According to Wikipedia, he ran Davenport's Waffle Foundry, which is a great name for a waffle restaurant.

Devon: Yes, it is.

Liz: Yeah, that's fantastic. A waffle foundry.

Devon: A waffle foundry. I love it.

Liz: But according to what I found, he ran a tamale emporium.

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: I can't decide which one I like better.

Devon: Oh, I want it to be both.  

Liz: I want it to be both. He was a restaurant guy and his family were restaurant people. So the hotel was actually not his idea. He didn't move out here going, "I'm going to make a giant hotel and name it after myself."

Devon: Oh!

Liz: But the city founders, The Ring and the businessmen of the era wanted someplace to put up their out of town guests. And they said, "Okay, we're going to need somebody to build it and we're going to need somebody to run it." And they found Cutter and they found Davenport. They were their first picks and they got them.

Devon: Wow.

Liz: And this thing went up! Yeah! The hotel was lovely from the start. Like, they had the best linen, the best china, the best interior decoration. I'll put up some pictures because it's just a beautiful space.

Devon: Isn't it gorgeous?

Liz: Such nice pictures of it. But it was not a sure thing. Louis died in 1945. His wife died in 1967, and after that things went really downhill for the Davenport.  

Devon: Yeah.  

Liz: By 1985 it was closed, and it was actually scheduled for demolition.

Devon: Oh, wow.

Liz: They were like, "We can get this block of downtown back. If we dynamite it, the whole thing will be gone in twenty seconds." But the problem is, it was full of asbestos.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: So they were going to have to-- if they wanted to strip it and salvage it and do all that, it was going to cost more money and nobody really got around to doing it.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: In 2000, Walt and Karen Worthy bought it. They paid 6.5 million, which on the one hand is a lot of money... And on the other hand, is not for a giant, beautiful old hotel.

Devon: Gorgeous building.

Liz: They put 38 million dollars of their own money--

Devon: Oh, my!

Liz: --into redoing the Davenport, which is why it's so nice now. Just a gorgeous space.

Devon: Yeah, it is.

Liz: And they keep expanding their brand, too. So they've got other hotels downtown that they've taken over and they say, you know, it's the Davenport this and the Davenport that. So they're not original Davenport spaces but they're under the Davenport brand.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And they also have, when you go in there-- [laughs] We stayed there for Matt's birthday, I think, and they had a peanut bruttle [pronounced like brutal] on the, on the bed, in a little bag.

Devon: Yes.

Liz: It is so good, like a soft peanut brittle, so delicious.

Devon: Yes.

Liz: But they were also like, "Did you like the bed? You can buy one! You can buy a Davenport mattress, you can buy Davenport sheets, you can buy everything."  

Devon: They marketed it so well. I love that you can buy there-- it's like three grand for their mattress, but you can buy it!

Liz: Listen, if you're the kind of person who impulse-buys a bed based on sleeping in a hotel, three thousand dollars is completely reasonable.

Devon: Oh, yeah. Ain't bad at all.

Liz: Yeah!

Devon: I will say, I think it's interesting that the bruttle [pronounced to rhyme with scuttle] that Davenport has is not the original bruttle it had when it reopened. Do you remember that, like, kerfuffle...

Liz: No. There was a bruttle kerfuffle?

Devon: There was a bruttle kerfuffle. There was a little gift shop, if I remember correctly, a little candy shop in the Davenport. They had bruttle. It was delicious. And they supplied it to the Davenport. And then the Davenport decided they were going to make their own original bruttle. And I don't remember if this lady-- There was a thing in the paper at the time, but I was also buying a whole lot of bruttle. So I got this from the lady who owned the shop. She now has a little independent candy store across the street. Or she did back when I was living in Spokane, what, like four years ago, now. You can buy bruttle from her, that was originally supplied to the Davenport, or you can get the Davenport's bruttle. They no longer have business dealings together. There's some animosity, if I remember correctly.

Liz: I'm going to need both of them to send me a couple pounds of samples.

Devon: I'm thinking that whichever one wants to advertise with us? Just get at us because I'll eat both.

Liz: Let me cut to the chase. It is lovely and it is haunted as hell.

Devon: Yes, my two favorite things.

Liz: Yes, it has everything going for it. There are five ghosts I'm going to tell you about.

Devon: Five? You're going to tell me about five?

Liz: Five, five, five ghosts for the price of one! Which is zero because this podcast is free.

Devon: Free, my friends.

Liz: One of the ghosts is actually Louis Davenport himself.

Devon: No way!

Liz: Because he used to live in the hotel and he was kind of a micromanager. Which I say with affection, because I, too, am a control freak, ghost of Louis.

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: And if I had a place that beautiful, I, too, would wake up at 3:00 in the morning and go out in the hallway and make sure people were doing things the way I wanted them done.

Devon: 100%.

Liz: Yeah. I don't know that I would still do it, which is what Louis does.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: He died in '45, right?

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: He still appears to people when they are in the hallways of the Davenport, especially employees. He'll be wearing his pajamas. Wearin' his jim-jams--

Devon: Oh, precious…

Liz: --and wearing his housecoat and his slippers, and he'll just kind of stare at you as you go about your business.

Devon: Oh, precious!

Liz: Yeah. Still micromanaging.

Devon: I got the sweetest chills ever. If you've ever been to the Davenport, listeners, you know just how much goddamn carved wood there is there that needs polishing and dusting. So you kind of need a micromanager there making sure that you're getting in all the little cherub-y nooks and crannies.

Liz: Yeah, it's not minimalist.

Devon: Not even a little bit.

Liz: It was not a minimalist time. Oh, man, Devon… I've been looking at Victorian decor, because of the house? I was like, maybe we can do something, something that's inspired, but… like, it looks like Hoarders.

Devon: Doesn't it?

Liz: They loved cluttery bullshit.  

Devon: I'm going to knit you so many doilies. Or crotchet you doilies or whatever.

Liz: Antimacassars.

Devon: Oh my God. I always thought it was an anti-massacre. I've never heard it said.

Liz: No, Macassar oil was like a thing guys would put in their hair and then you'd put the antimacassar on the chair so they wouldn't ruin your nice chair.

Devon: You are kidding me. I had no fucking clue that those were related.

Liz: [singing] The more you know!

Devon: How dense am I?

Liz: You're not dense. You just read a thing when you were a kid and it got stored in your brain.

Devon: Yeah, that's exactly right. Oh my goodness.

Liz: Happens to us all. That's ghost number one.  

Devon: I'm making you some anti-massacres for your chair.

Liz: [laughs]

Devon: So Louis! Louis in his little housecoat and slippy-slips.

Liz: That's how he do. He was not... You know what, I'm not going to give him the personality defamation and talk about the other stuff. Let's just leave it at that.

Devon: I like it.

Liz: The only thing I like, actually, is he invented--- and I'm standing by you, Davenport, I say you invented the Crab Louis salad.

Devon: Yeah?

Liz: I like Crab Louis. I think it should be everywhere. And it's not super common outside the Northwest. It's like--

Devon: What kind of--

Liz: It's kind of a composed salad? Like a Cobb salad, except it has crab and green onions and eggs and... What else... Yeah. So it's kind of like a Cobb salad in that it's got the greens and then like different, um... Amounts of ingredients on top.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: I like it. And it's got sort of a Thousand Island-y type of dressing? A sort of creamy, Russian-y dressing? It's good. I believe he would do it because he was a restaurant guy. He had a tamale emporium, goddammit.

Devon: He had a tamale emporium! He had, what was it, a waffle empire or whatever?

Liz: A waffle foundry.

Devon: A waffle foundry!

Liz: They just have their little, you know... Their big welding masks down. You know, sparks flying as they make their waffles.

Devon: [laughing] Love it.

Liz: Yeah, people were hard as fuck in those days, it was great.

Devon: Dude, yeah.

Liz: Ghost number two.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: I had to go upstairs when I was researching this and go to my husband and my mother and say, "Hey, English majors, how do you say this name?"

Devon: Nice.

Liz: Because I had never heard of this guy. But his name is Vachel Lindsay, the great American poet.

Devon: Can you spell Vachel for me?

Liz: It's like Rachel with a V.

Devon: Oh, that's weird.  

Liz: Yeah!

Devon: All right.

Liz: He lived in the Davenport from 1924 to 1929. He got married in his suite; Suite 1129, if you're ever there. He got married. He brought his newborn child home to that room. Mr. Davenport was into it for a while because he was like, "Oh we'll have an artist in residence."

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: "This will be great for the hotel's prestige." It turned out to be more like when somebody crashes with you for, like, just till they get on their feet and then years later, it's still not happening.

Devon: Oh, dude.

Liz: Because he kind of went off the rails a little.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: Let me pull up a little bit of his poetry because I think I sent you some of it.

Devon: You did. I want you to read it to me.

Liz: Yeah, here we go. So, first of all, he did a poem about Lincoln, which I thought was very good. It opens: "It is portentous and a thing of state / that here at midnight in our little town / a mourning figure walks and will not rest." That's good!

Devon: That's very good!

Liz: That's very ghostly.

Devon: Yes, it is very atmospheric.

Liz: Now, his most famous one is The Congo, which goes: "Whirl ye the deadly voodoo rattle / Harry the uplands, steal all the cattle / Rattle-rattle, rattle-rattle bing / boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom," et cetera.

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: And I was telling this to my mom and she was like, "Yeah, there's a reason they only quoted two lines of that in Dead Poets Society."

Devon: That's amazing.  

Liz: Let me see, can I find any more of it?

Devon: That's amazing.

Liz: The Congo. Well, his deal was that he was like, "You should sing it and have rhythm and everything." And it's kind of unfortunate because, uh... He thought he was helping Black people and African Black people with the stuff.

Devon: [apprehensively] Ohhh...

Liz: He had good intentions. But, you know, good intentions don't stop you from producing horribly racist poetry.

Devon: Okay, yeah.

Liz: So you know what? I'm just trying to look through The Congo here to find something other than "Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, boom" to read to you? It's all racist.  

Devon: Oh, dear. It might as well be an old Disney movie.  

Liz: Yup. Yup. Oh, boy. Yeah, I'm bailing out. I'm pulling the ripcord. I'm getting out of this poem.

Devon: Boomlay, boomlay, boomlay, BOOM.

Liz: Okay, so Vachel's deal was, um... You know how high school teachers love poetry?

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: They love poets, too. So he married one Spokane high school teacher

Devon: [intrigued hum]

Liz: --and he had an affair with another one.  

Devon: He boomlay-boomlayed them both!

Liz: He boomlay-boomlayed like nobody's business!

Both: [laughing]

Liz: And he kind of went off the rails, um...

Devon: Okay.

Liz: And I don't mean to mock mental illness, but I would find it perturbing if I were having my grand-- my Crab Louie salad at the Davenport restaurant and Vachel was there with his two large dolls that he used to dress and bring to the table to sit with him.

Devon: Ew. What.

Liz: He said they had to be served alongside with him.

Devon: Ew. Vachel. Come on, now, Vachel. Get it together.

Liz: Louis was not into this, and he said, "You got to get out of here." And here comes the self-harm thing, because Vachel takes the train back to Springfield and drinks a bunch of Lysol.

Devon: [hisses] Vachel...

Liz: Yeah...

Devon: It doesn't clean you.

Liz: Yeah, that's not a good way to go. It's not a good way to go!

Devon: [negative hum]

Liz: So there are apparently still ghostly vibes there. I don't have any concrete sightings, but...

Devon: Okay.

Liz: I gotta say, that is a strong personality to imprint itself.

Devon: Is it centered around that room?

Liz: That's what they say. Although there are still fans of his poetry who come together to read his poems at the hotel. So that's probably also a good way to summon him. Or, get some large dolls.

Devon: Really? Well, why not both? Teddy Ruxpin a big old doll and have the doll be reciting his poetry?

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: Don't you just want, like an American Girl doll walking around going like, [eerie robot little girl voice] "Boomlay. Boomlay."

Liz: "Boomlay!" We are not English majors.

Devon: No, no, we are not.

Liz: I'm sure I would understand it if I were of that era and had heard it in context, but...

Devon: I like that he thinks it should have a meter and a-- I mean, it's like spoken word poetry or beat poetry. There should be a force behind it, and I appreciate that.  

Liz: Yeah! Yeah.

Devon: It's like my haikus. They don't translate to being spoken. I've been asked to read my poetry? It does not sound good. It sounds like half a thought.

Liz: Hmm. Interesting. Okay, I never thought about that, but yeah. Probably his stuff sounds great when it's actually read by somebody who knows where the boomlays go.

Devon: [snickers] Don't short-change yourself, my friend. I know you know how to boomlay.

Liz: All right. If you people are going to the Davenport and reading his poems, you got to invite me next time and I'll come listen to all of it.

Devon: Do you say three boomlays in a mirror with the lights off? And he appears?

Liz: [laughing] Only if you're a high school poetry teacher.

Devon: Well!

Liz: That was ghost number two. Ghost number three is a scary story. Ghost number three scares me, because I'm absent-minded and I don't have a good sense of direction.

Devon: Yes?

Liz: And this is what I'm afraid of. So August 17th, 1920, they're doing construction up on the third floor and around the Tiffany skylight. Ellen MacNamara, somehow I don't know how she gets out into the construction area. And because it's a glass skylight, they were using a catwalk.

Devon: [gasp]

Liz: She stepped onto the glass and plummeted through onto the marble floor.

Devon: Oh... oh, my....

Liz: Everybody rushes over.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: She didn't die immediately. They took her back to a room.

Devon: Oh, wow.  

Liz: I don't know why they didn't take her to a hospital. Obvious that nothing was going to work out with that. But she just, you know, she crashes through the glass and she lands really hard. And the last thing she says is, "Where did I turn? Where did I turn?"

Devon: Oh, wow, dude.  

Liz: And that's what they say that you will-- you'll still see her ghost up on the mezzanine saying, "Where did I turn? Where did I turn?"

Devon: I got chills.

Liz: Yeah, that's an upsetting one, isn't it?

Devon: Yeah, it is. That skylight is above the lobby, is that correct?

Liz: I think so, yeah. The atrium.  

Devon: Yes. Oh, dude, that one's freaky. Poor lady.

Liz: Poor lady, yeah! It's the kind of thing where you're like, well, on the one hand I like to think I wouldn't step out on glass, but on the other hand, there's a lot of situations in life where you just kind of trust that--

Devon: Mmhmm!

Liz: --that escalator is safe or this railing is holding or these stairs are up to code.

Devon: Wow, man. Yeah. "Where did I turn? Where did I turn?" That's such a haunting last word.

Liz: Yeah, I feel bad for her because it's like she's blaming herself. She's like, "Where'd I go wrong?"

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And if her ghost is still there trying to put it together, it's like, no, you should never have been able to get out there.

Devon: No, you shouldn't have. Do you know how old she was? She was a grown-up?

Liz: Uh, she was a grown-up. Let me see if I could find that because I had a couple of articles here. [rustling]

Devon: Okay.  

Liz: She was an out-of-towner.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: Oh, she was older. She was sixty-eight years old.

Devon: Well, okay.

Liz: She was a rich widow from New York and they were going to go to Glacier the next morning. She was touring the West with her sister and two cousins. So they were, they were touring the West and they stayed at the Davenport and she was very fashionably dressed. But yeah, I guess they say she wasn't feeling well and she was going to take some air on the third floor cement walkway while her companions went to dinner. And for whatever reason, she went out into the pagoda that covers the glass skylight. And instead of going out on the catwalk, she goes on the glass panels.

Devon: Just the wrong part, man.

Liz: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, according to this, she says, "where did I go?" rather than "where did I turn?"

Devon: Okay, I mean, both of those are quite creepy.

Liz: Yeah. I'm not okay with either of them.  

Devon: I don't want anybody asking me as a ghost, where did they go or where to. I don't want to answer that question literally or existentially or metaphorically. You're dead, you're supposed to know.  

Liz: And I can so relate to that. That moment where you're just like everything is not what you thought was happening and you've got to try to reorient it. It sounds like she just never reoriented. In life or death.

Devon: ...frick.  

Liz: Which is something, because the Davenport actually went up when they constructed it without any major worker injuries or fatalities, which is pretty unusual for the time because they put it up really fast.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: But, yeah, it still has claimed its share, I guess... that way.  

Devon: Yeah.  

Liz: Fourth ghost is the ghost bellman, and we actually don't know if this is one ghost or a bunch of ghosts because there's a bunch of stories that are kind of related.

Liz: And the idea---

Liz: [sotto voce, to self] I gotta stop flipping my papers all around.

Liz: [normal voice again] Or at least the experience... This reminds me of how you said if you haunted Jason, you'd, like, help him by finding his keys.

Devon: Oh, 100% percent I would, yeah.

Liz: Yeah. The bellman ghost. If you are-- if you're working there and you're carrying heavy stuff, he'll open doors for you--

Devon: That's so sweet!

Liz: And open gates and stuff and close them after you go through. Or he'll, like, help you pull luggage carts out of the elevators or push the-- push them down the hall for you.

Devon: That is so sweet.

Liz: Isn't that great? And you can kind of tell from that why they can't figure out whether this is just one guy or one bellman or a lot of them.

Devon: Yeah!

Liz: But this is a pretty consistent experience. Again, this is this is stuff that except for, um, I guess, Vachel and Ellen MacNamara, those you might experience as a guest. But the bellman and Louis, you're going to experience as an employee, which I think is very interesting. Like this Upstairs Downstairs thing.

Devon: Oh, absolutely. Isn't it? How cool. Do you know, are people seeing someone who looks like a bellman who does stuff or are they just experiencing a door opening?

Liz: Yeah, they're just experiencing the physical movement of, you know, the trolley moves by itself or the door opens and then closes for you and stuff like that. They don't see anything. But I think they work backward from that to say, well, who does this job? It's the bellhop, it's the bellman.

Devon: I like that one a lot. That's very sweet. Yeah, I'll be a helpful ghost when I die. That sounds good.

Liz: Yeah, I'd be a helpful ghost... I wouldn't want to keep doing my same job, though. I think that would suck. Not that my job sucks. But you know that, if you died and you still had to keep showing up to work...

Devon: Exactly, that's, no... I am retired. I'm going to go work at the zoo now or you know, whatever I want to do that's fun jobs.  

Liz: Yeah. I could do what I want. Okay, the last one...

Devon: The final ghost? Is this your resting place?  

Liz: The final ghost. Yes, it is my resting place for my voice and brain and my bladder.

Devon: I got all that too.

Liz: The Davenport opened for business September 1st, 1914, and Louis built what he thought was going to be the best nightclub in the West. He booked the acts for like two years in advance. Acts that would play at the Davenport eventually included, um, the musician who would become Bing Crosby. At that time, he was a drummer, of all things.

Devon: Oh. Cool!

Liz: A waste. I don't know, maybe he was a great drummer.

Devon: Maybe he was, you never know.

Liz: But he was meant to be a crooner. Anyway, he builds his jazz nightclub. He's got everything booked up. He opens the newspaper sixty three days after the Davenport is open for business and finds out that prohibition has come to the state of Washington five years before it would come to the rest of the country.

Devon: Oh, man.

Liz: Yep. Well, he rolls with the punches. He's that kind of guy and he disassembles the entire thing. It was on the first floor. He disassembles it and he reassembles it in the basement with a dedicated entrance on the Lincoln Street side of the building to what's now called the Early Bird Club.

Devon: Yes.

Liz: And for 19 years, there was a tuxedo-clad doorman that would let you into the speakeasy underneath the Davenport.

Devon: Amazing. I had no idea.

Liz: Isn't that awesome?

Devon: I had no idea about this. All right.

Liz: That is some entrepreneurial spirit that he was like, "Well, okay... Fine. Fine! Move it one floor down and knock a door into the other entrance and we'll just keep going with what we're doing."

Devon: We can [inaudible] even more now, because it's illegal.  

Liz: Exactly! So that was for, yknow, better part of twenty years, they had this going on, but after prohibition was over they didn't need it anymore. So they created in the Davenport the Early Bird Ballroom which has part of the original dance floor and parts of the speakeasy. And you can still hear jazz music, laughter and the clink of glasses.

Devon: That's neat.

Liz: And on the other end of the hallway, there's the day spa and sometimes people coming out of the spa will actually see a tall, thin man in a vintage tuxedo who's going to the door.

Devon: Ooh! That's quite interesting. That's cool.

Liz: He's still ready to let people into the speakeasy.

Devon: I love that. Good man. He stayed at his post, dude. I love it. So when we're talking about these five different hauntings, something that I think is really cool is that you have evidence of residual hauntings, and also--

Liz: Which ones are the residual ones again?

Devon: Residual's where it's just like a tape playing itself over and over again. So that would be the laughter, the clinking of the glasses and stuff like that. But you also have, I would say,. The bellman is an intelligent haunting because it's interacting with things that are happening in real time.  

Liz: How neat. What kind of haunting is Mrs. McNamara?

Devon: You know, that one I would also say is a residual because she's just replaying that same moment of death or high intensity emotion. But it sounds like they're seeing her on the second floor and not the third. So why would she be on the second floor mezzanine, which is not where she fell from nor where she landed?

Liz: I don't know. I might be telling it wrong. But with Louis, it's unclear as to whether he's just a residual, like playing out what he's doing or whether he's actually looking at the present day workers. I don't know.

Devon: Well, we're going to have to interview some workers and see if he's actually talked to them.

Liz: Yeah, you know, I-- Oh, man. At the Campbell House tour, if that tour guide who had been a little more down, I would have asked her about ghost stories.

Devon: That's right.

Liz: Didn't feel up for it.

Devon: Good for you. Read your audience, man.

Liz: Yeah. She was just--- she was patient.

Devon: Plus at the Campbell house, didn't you have your child channeling dead crazy people? So you had to work with...

Liz: Matt was like, "Oh, this says Snow White Soap!" And she went, "Shh! Never talk about that."

Devon: Creepy child!

Liz: She also got really freaked out by the icebox, like we told her what it was and she's like, "Aah, it's so cold. It's so cold, it's so cold, it's--" So, I don't know. I think this is as much time as the Campbell House is ever going to get. I'll probably just leave this in because, goddammit, there's no hauntings as far as I can tell. Well, there's like an urban legend that I think has just been passed on from busload of fourth graders to busload of fourth graders, that it's haunted by the spirits of all the children of the Campbell family who were murdered. That never happened.

Devon: I remember when that happened!  

Liz: Did you hear that legend like that?

Devon: I feel like I heard that! Yes, ma'am.

Liz: No, it was just, um, Mr. Campbell and his wife came and lived there and had some servants and they had one daughter and she got married and moved out. And then when they died and she didn't need two houses, she gave it to the historical society and they used it for a museum.

Devon: Well, that's quite pedestrian.

Liz: I know, right?

Devon: Come on now. Give us some intrigue. We need some Raleigh up in this action.

Liz: Yeah, we need some death and destruction or prohibition flaunting or something.

Devon: Yeah, maybe a sea serpent. Cryptic sighting.

Liz: Jazz it up a little Campbell House], jeez.

Devon: Come on, man.

Liz: It is a cool place, it's very interesting to look at but it's not ghostly. In my expert opinion, it's not tremendously ghostly.

Devon: I love it. You can be expert on this.

Liz: I'm as much an expert as anybody. I say. All right. You've been listening to the Ouija Broads. You can find us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, iTunes. If you do find us on iTunes, it would mean a lot to us if you would rate, review and subscribe because that helps other people find us. And we would like you to live weird--

Devon: --die weird--

Liz: --And stay weird. Thank you for listening.

Devon: Thank you. [fading out as theme music fades in] I'm sorry I interjected with "please," I--

Episode Transcript: #113, M is for Mima

You can read the entire transcript below, or download it here.

[Theme song plays, fades out.]

Devon: You are listening to Ouija Broads. This is Devon.

Liz: This is Liz

Devon: Liz, today, our weird story is in Washington.

Liz: Washington? I've heard of that.

Devon: Washington! You know that place! And actually, you've heard of this story, because it was the one you challenged me to talk about.

Liz: I did!

Devon: You did!

Liz: I challenged you! With a topic!

Devon: You did. You challenged me. We are going to talk about the geological phenomenon that does actually occur on every continent except Antarctica. But, right here in Washington State, specifically 20 miles south of Olympia, it is known as the Mima mounds.

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: Yeah, the Mima mounds! I've never been there.

Liz: Mmm-mm, me neither.

Devon: And I'm excited to, after researching it, after looking at some of the cool pictures. But before we talk about what they look like, let's talk about the name, 'cause the word Mima, M-I-M-A didn't mean anything to me. I kind of assumed it was a name, like, you know, named after, like, a person but--

Liz: Yeah, I thought it was like a village or a community that lived in the area. I mean, I understood it wasn't like "Mee-maw," like... Pop-pop mounds or something.

Devon: No, it, uh- there's two different thoughts. If you read Thurston County place names it means "a little further along," or if you are looking at William Bright's Native American place names of the United States, it's a Chinook word that means downstream

Liz: Those are both related and unhelpful because they only make sense if you're talking about them in a specific place.

Devon: Oh, yeah!

Liz: Like, you can't stand on the Mima mounds and go "These are the ones that are a little further along."

Devon: [echoing] --"are a little further along."

Liz: "They're right here." "They're downstream!" "No, they're not. We're looking at them. What are these things?”

Devon: What-- what-- what's your word for right here mounds?

Liz: Yeah, what kind of "Who's on first" situation are they trying to set up here?

Devon: Right? Right? And wasn't it like... I'm going to botch it. But isn't there some Australian animal that you know the White explorers asked an Aboriginal. What is that thing. And they said kangaroo. And so we were just like "cool, it's called a kangaroo" but really that's the Aboriginal word for "I don't know."

Liz: That's what I've heard.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Yeah, that it's just like [dubious noise].

Devon: [Dubious noise] That thing.

Liz: "What are you pointing at?" There was definitely... there's definitely a city on the East Coast that's named something like "wow, your clothes are really bright!" because they were just like "I assume that things that you say after I say 'what is this place called?' are in response to my question."

Devon: Oh, God love people. God love people. People are so good at naming things, Liz! These mounds, I told you they occur worldwide... And in the United States, like I said, people are great at naming them. They are called hogs-wallow mounds in southern Oregon. They are called Prairie mounds if you go over to Colorado, Wyoming, or New Mexico or the super fine and delicate folks of Texas, Louisiana, and Oklahoma call them pimple mounds.

Liz: Okay, that's still better than what I thought you were going to say.

Devon: Thank goodness I didn't say what you thought I was going to say, because I think pimple mounds is one of the worst descriptors I've ever heard.

Liz: Ope, nope. When I was researching the ice worms, there is a term for humped mounds of dirt with grass on them that they used in Alaska, that… sometimes it feels like they were just being racist out of like... a determination, you know? You know, what does this have to do with anything? Why just put a racial slur in there? They're like, "We gotta. We have a quota."

Devon: "We have—"

Liz: Eighteenth century.

Devon: "We do have a quota." I have-- I have two fairly racist things for you in this episode alone.

Liz: Oh, that's okay. I don't need that.

Devon: No. We'll get to 'em. Don't you worry. I think that since we've said that pimple mounds are the most evocative name or I've said that pimple mounds are the most evocative name, I'll describe them.

Liz: Okay.

Devon: Basically-- Mima mounds is now a word that is used kind of globally to describe this geological phenomenon which I thought was really surprising-- that it was the least descriptive name? And yet it's used worldwide now, I guess? Except in Antarctica?

Liz: It's very unique branding.

Devon: It is, right? Specific! You have to think about that one. What would its logo be?

Liz: I don't know, I don't know what they look like.

Devon: You don't know what they look like-- Liz, they look like... they look like Astroturfed bubble wrap, dude.

Liz: Oh, that's very evocative. Thank you.

Devon: There you go. They, they are mounds. I mean, they are low, flattened, circular to ovular dome-like mounds that cover an area of landscape.

Liz: So it's like Astroturfed bubble wrap, I can visualize that, I could get into that. But how big are we talking here?

Devon: We're talking large, they are 9 feet up to 150 feet in diameter.

Liz: Wow.

Devon: Yeah. And they rise about 6 feet off the ground and they, they form-- the quote I keep reading is "conspicuous natural patterns," meaning it's over an area of landscape. The Mima Mounds National Area Preserve is 637 acres of landscape.

Liz: Wow.

Devon: So it really is at, you know, not as far as the eye can see, but as far as you can see for a long ways, these funny little domes of earth all around you.

Liz: So it's not like you just find one.

Devon: No

Liz: And you're like "oh, A Mima Mound." No, they're in lines and swirls and stuff? Is that what conspicuous natural pattern is?

Devon: Conspicuous natural pattern just means that it covers a large area. They aren't-- they're very randomized. They don't make a spiral, they don't follow, you know, a Fibonacci sequence. They don't make lines, but they are little ice cream scoops of dirt pretty close to each other. Not dirt, of turf, pretty close to each other in a... an area of landscape.

Liz: Okay.

Devon: Seriously, like, I mean I, I wasn't trying just to be funny. Bubble wrap is, is more regulated in, you know, it's like an offset grid but that's pretty close to how if you expanded that to landscape size that's pretty close to how close these mounds are in real life.

Liz: Yeah. Which is not that closely aligned with how hills work right, like..

Devon: No.

Liz: That's not how dirt distributes itself.

Devon: No, it's not. And you know, they're-- they're hard to talk about, I think, because they're-- for me they were kind of hard to conceptualize until I saw pictures. Until I saw exactly what we're looking at and realized, like, no, this stretches over a big area of land, dude. There are a lot of these little... mounds, hills. You know, mound sounds too small, hill is definitely too big, but they are... [laughing at self] Liz, they're, they're a conspicuous natural pattern.

Liz: They look really intentional. And they--

Devon: Yeah!

Liz: I feel like if I came over a hill and saw this I would think that I had come across something that either like a farmer was doing or was the result of, like, burials or something.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Yeah, you would be like "what is going on with this?" This is not just hills-- this is bubbles.

Devon: Bubbles.

Liz: This is ground bubbles.

Devon: Yes. Ground bubbles. Why are they-- Well, so your, your logic, your line of thinking is right in line with what the first white people who saw them thought. I mean of course white people, you know, Caucasian settlers were not the first people to interact with Mima mounds because they had been part of the landscape that Native Americans had inhabited for thousands of years. But---

Liz: Well, that's informative in itself, though

Devon: It is, right? So we know they've been around.

Liz: It would be pretty scary if you came out just one day and your whole field was like that. It would be like crop circles.

Devon: It would be like crop circles. Definitely, my face has come up with a whole bunch of Mima mounds in one day.

Liz: [laughing] Oh, no.

Devon: Oh, no! But no, they were first, I guess... Come to the attention of white settlers in 1841 when Captain Charles Wilkes who was leading the US Exploring Expedition-- Exploring Expedition is a lot-- But the, he was leading the US Exploring Expedition that was charting the Northwest.

Liz: Okay. 

Devon: And his journals are what record you know the first - that we know of - white people interaction with them where he says "We soon reached Butte prairies which are extensive and covered with tumuli or small mounds at regular distances asunder. As far as I could learn, there is no tradition among the natives relative to them. They are conical mounds thirty feet in diameter about six to seven feet high above level and many thousands in number."

Liz: Now I'm wondering, did they not have a story about that? Or did they just not tell him.

Devon: Well-- [laughing]

Liz: And they were like, [bored voice] "Yeah, I don't know."

Devon: Yeah, that's--

Liz: Because it's like me, where it's like, "What happened to the last ice cream bar?" "Yeah, I don't know. Shit's wild."

Devon: "I'm not really sure. I guess-- it's just, you know... Strange world, lots of things happen."

Liz: Yep.

Devon: Well, okay. So you picked up on that. The, the current population was like, "I don't know what they are." But Captain Wilkes was pretty sure that they looked like burial mounds to him. And, of course, burial mounds have valuable relics inside. So even though the Native Americans had said, "There's nothing in there," and Captain Wilkes was pretty sure there was something in there and it was related to, y'know dead people, "He was like "let's open 'em up and figure it out."

Liz: Uh, yeah, they were correct to not tell him anything, because he is apparently a grave robber.

Devon: Total jackass grave robber. Yeah. What he writes in his journal is: "Being anxious as to ascertain if they contained relics, I subsequently visited these prairies and opened three of the mounds, but nothing was found in them but a pavement of round stones."

Liz: [exasperated sound] And this is the kind of thing where it's like, if you're in the UK, you do find those burial mounds and barrows and stuff with hoards of treasure. But for all he knows this is like going into Westminster Abbey with a shovel and just prying up rocks.

Devon: Yeah!

Liz: Like... You don't know! They didn't say, "And we don't care if you dig them up, that's how boring they are."

Devon: [laughing] "And knock yourself out there, duder."

Liz: "Yeah. Have fun. Help yourself."

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: "I didn't say we weren't gonna use them. I just said that you didn't need to worry about it. I didn't say it was okay to wreck them."

Devon: Captain Wilkes needed a talking-to.

Liz: Yeah...

Devon: Captain Wilkes was not the last person to guess what the hell these mounds are. Why were they created? How were they created? What are they made of?

Liz: Wait, so back to Captain Wilkes. He didn't dig into one, though, he was just like, "Note to self, come back and grave-rob these."

Devon: Oh, no, he dug into three of them and said he just found a pavement of round stones.

Liz: Interesting.

Devon: Yeah. So they did not contain relics. Didn't find anything that he thought was unusual or out of place in them. And that's kind of what modern day scientists have said. Y'know, even though Mima mounds vary by region and sometimes the mounds within a certain area vary a little bit as to their composition, they generally are all a blanket of prairie grass over loose sand and fine gravel and decayed plants and sometimes the soil profile is a little bit different or a little more complex like -- In particular I guess in the Mima mounds there are a few -- in the Mima mounds in Washington I should say, there are a few that folks have-- that scientists have dug into and they realized that they contained more than the average amount of carbon and charcoal?

Liz: Hmm.

Devon: And they found out that it's because the Native Americans in the area used to set brush fires as plant control and cultivation and things like that. So scientists are like "Oh cool. So we can see, y'know, that this is -- there was a fire here years and years and years ago, centuries and centuries and centuries ago, and so that's altering the carbon profile of the soil.

Liz: Okay! But that's the kind of sophisticated analysis that you're not going to be pulling off on an expedition--

Devon: Totally not.

Liz: --a couple hundred years earlier.

Devon: Totally not. What, what Captain Wilkes sees is probably what you or I or most people would see which is like "Okay, well this looks a lot like the dirt that is the dirt from around here. All right, cool."

Liz: "Sure some dirt!”

Devon: "Sure some dirt!" So we know what they're made of. But still, why are they formed? What-- what caused the Mima mounds? And there are theories that range from dry natural geological processes to very interesting fantastical theories involving everyone from Paul Bunyan to aliens being responsible.

Liz: We have-- see, this is the sweet spot where, like, "Here's what scientists would tell you, and here's somebody who has a very active imagination. Here's what they would tell you."

Devon: "Here is their super colorful theory."

Liz: Yup!

Devon: Do you-- I know that you've kind of read about the Mima mounds, are there any theories that you want to throw forward? Or that you've heard?

Liz: I only read enough about them as I was sort of scanning them and adding them to the list that I know they're not burial mounds.

Devon: Yes.

Liz: So I'm a step up from Captain Wilkes, I guess.

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: I think they are a natural phenomenon but I have the feeling that it is going to be like -- like the rocks that slide around--

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Or the singing sand or something--

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: --where I say that I want to understand how it works, and then people try to explain to me how it works and my brain just goes, "[affirmative] Mmhmm, the goblins, yep. Mmhmm."

Devon: Precisely.

Liz: "Okay...

Devon: Yeah. The sliding stones of Stone Track Playa are not-- it's not-- oh my God, it is not frost under the rocks that melts makes them slide, it is obviously ghouls. I will broker no scientific theory on that because, yeah, that's one of those things where I'm like... Well, I guess it be cool to know, but actually deep down, it wouldn't be cool to know. Let me keep wondering what pushes these rocks at night.

Liz: It feels like-- have you been following the whole Reddit glitter thing?

Devon: Oh God, yes.

Liz: Did you see that there's a show that says they solved it?

Devon: No... What does that show say it is?

Liz: They say that it's the boating industry that-- so, okay-- so to back up for people who aren't familiar with this. Because we're Reddit millennials, we're not, like, TikTok millennials... [laughing]

Devon: No... No... as much as...

Liz: That means we have mortgages...

Devon: That means we have our mortgages. But if you're on Reddit, you should go see r/tiktokcringe. And it's actually if you sort by "top" they're really good. They're not cringy at all, they're wonderful. I love TikTok, it's like Vine's younger brother.

Liz: It makes me happy. I don't understand the meme where you only see one person come into frame and then the song is playing and a bunch of people pop up--

Devon: Yeah. Neither do I.

Liz: But it makes me giggle every time.

Devon: It's funny!

Liz: Yeah. Anyway, so someone posted this mystery and it was in. I think the New York Times or The Washington Post or something about basically establishing that there is an industry that uses tremendous amounts of glitter--

Devon: Mmhmm.

Liz: --that is a closely held trade secret. And if you found out what it was, it would be very devastating for them. And I think they also said something about like, "it's in plain sight they just don't want people to know that it's glitter." And of course this brought on rampant speculation about what it might be. And notably for, for my purposes in terms of how satisfying I find the boat paint explanation, is that the very next thing they actually talk about is automotive paint.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: There is no -- I grew up around boats, like it's not a secret that there's a lot of glitter in boat paint.

Devon: Right?!

Liz: That's how boats look. Like, they, they look like the kinda fancy nails that you've got to sit for an hour and a half to get at the salon

Devon: Absolutely

Liz: They're very fancy, acrylic, shellacked... glitter everywhere.

Devon: Oh, yeah!

Liz: So although -- I guess, I'm not saying like "you didn't uncover anything interesting." Cuz like, no, they definitely verified that the boat paint industry uses a ridiculous amount of glitter and that's worrisome because of microplastics in the ocean and so forth. But I'm like, "that's not... it."

Devon: No.

Liz: That just can't be it.

Devon: No. No. That's not surprising at all to me. Yeah. Boats are supposed to look like the bowling ball that you and your brother fought over who got to use at the bowling alley in 1983. What I liked is the theory, was that it's in toothpaste.

Liz: That made sense to me, that it's in toothpaste and see... That would be the kind of thing where you're like, "It is in plain sight... but we don't like to think that we're putting glitter into our mouths..."

Devon: Totally.

Liz: Because it's something consumable.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Whereas people are trying to say "Well, they don't want you to know about the glitter because of microplastics." Like, that's not on enough people's radar. Like, I know everybody decided to have a little wankfest about straws and try to make people with disabilities' lives more difficult--

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: Because we all want to blame it on, hmmm, we want to blame it on people just trying to live their lives, rather than accept the industrial contribution to the destruction of the oceans.

Devon: Oh, yeah.

Liz: But I feel like, that's not going to affect people! Nobody cares--

Devon: Nobody cares.

Liz: --about oceans getting more plastic from boats.

Devon: No.

Liz: Like, that's not -- that's, that's not devastating. So I'm like, glitter in toothpaste made sense to me. I don't buy the cosmetics thing...

Devon: That's, like, obvious.

Liz: We all know you're not supposed to get glitter in your eyes and there's a difference between cosmetic glitter and craft glitter...

Devon: Totally.

Liz: And it can really fuck you up, but like again... That's not it.

Devon: No.

Liz: It would have to be something --- you see, it gets in your brain, though, because you're like "Okay, so what is something where it's in plain sight but nobody thinks about it?" And so you turn it over all the time because you can rule a lot of stuff out. You're like "Well, its not in like dog food or baby formula." It's not in plain sight in that way. So where the hell is it?

Devon: Yeah

Liz: Where's the glitter?

Devon: Where's the glitter?

Liz: Where's the glitter, man? If it's not in boat paint?

Devon: I... [laughing]

Liz: [sings to the tune of Jimmy Buffett's Boat Drinks] Boat paint!

Devon: No, I think -- I do think that boat paint is a red herring. I'm going to go with toothpaste as... I've, I've definitely not read another theory, and I sure as shit haven't come up with a better theory. I drew a total blank when they said in plain sight, would kind of rock your world in a bad way if you figured out what it was. I can only think of something that you put in your body and the only thing I can think of that I put in my body-- [pauses] One of the few things I can think of that I put in my body that is glittery would be toothpaste.

Liz: Yeah, yeah. Toothpaste could kind of make sense.

Devon: Right?

Liz: It's presumably not in a food product because the FDA has regulations around them.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Similarly, I don't think it's in medication.

Devon: No!

Liz: That would -- That's pretty closely scrutinized as an industry in term-- I mean, like, the whole generic and patent thing means that the formulas of medications are really closely held and carefully detailed.

Devon: Right.

Liz: So it's not that... Yeah, and I'm like, it's not lotion, like, we've all had shimmery lotions or whatever

Devon: Oh yeah, forever.

Liz: That's not news.

Devon: Oh my god.

Liz: Toothpaste is the closest I can think of. But even then I'm like, "would that really rock people's world? If they found that there was glitter in toothpaste?"

Devon: It definitely makes me feel... Well, it definitely elicits a reaction from me. I guess I shouldn't be shocked, but it's one of those "Oh, I didn't know I was eating plastic bits." You know? I didn't...

Liz: But why would your teeth not be glittery though, after you brush your teeth? Is it like, really, really, really fine glitter?

Devon: Hmmmm, I don't know. Glitter never sticks where you want it to stick. If I wanted it to stick to my teeth so that I had that cartoon like [makes 'bing!' sound effect] shine you know-- it wouldn't happen.

Liz: No, no, you'd look like Fury Road. "Witness me!"

Devon: Wouldn't happen.

Liz: And then you'd shake a bunch of glitter into your mouth with some Mod Podge...

Devon: [laughing] Oh my goodness...

Liz: [makes furious mouth sounds]

Devon: [mimics the furious mouth sounds]

Devon: Yes... yes... I recently did a craft at Becca's Halloween party that involved glitter on a witch hat, and Jason wouldn't let me bring it home because he brought up the deal we made after our wedding. Which was that I will not allow glitter to come into our home knowingly, because we still find some of my green glitter from my wedding shoes - which I haven't had in nine years - in his beard.

Liz: Okay. That's pretty impressive.

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: Between my crafting stuff and having a 6-year-old girl, I definitely have plenty of glitter around and she will just like... She had glitter as dandruff for awhile there- 

Devon: Oh, my goodness.

Liz: Cuz we only wash her hair once a week and she's got pretty thick hair. So I try to brush, and like the glitter is just like, "No, I'm staying here on the scalp."

Devon: "Yeah, I'm here"

Liz: And I was like "How did you get glitter in your hair? This much glitter? How? How?" She's like "I don't know." And then I was just brushing her hair [frustrated sounds] for glitter and she's like, "I guess maybe it was when Caiden poured all the glitter in my hair" and I'm like "yeah, maybe..."

Devon: Yeah. Could be, could be.

Liz: Could be. We'll never know!

Devon: No it's a mystery to this day. Much like the Mima mounds.

Liz: Yeah. Thanks for bringing it back around. I'm glad we brought up the glitter thing though because I have theories and opinions.

Devon: Well, it's a good one and I want to talk about -- I've wanted to talk about it on the show, but how do you make it specific to the Pacific Northwest? Well, guess what. Life finds a way.

Liz: Yeah, it does.

Devon: [Affirmative hum] When we talk about theories let's start with the kind of plausible ones and then we'll work our way to the fun, weird ones.

Liz: That's the ticket.

Devon: It's so what we do around here. When I was researching the kind of plausible geological phenomenon theories, a lot of them involved glaciers. Which...

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: ...is not really weird for the Pacific Northwest because we have those, what are they called? The, the erratic stones? Or the, the, the alien stones? They're the giant fucking boulders that have been deposited at random-ass places around the PNW because of the Missoula flood or because of the, the glacial ice sheets that used to cover this area and pushed these rocks from somewhere to the middle of nowhere. So that's not it's not a weird theory, I don't think. You know in 1913, we've got a geologist named Harlan Bretz whose theory was that when a glacier is melting, it melts at different rates and it will form these things called "sun cups," where it's a depression, a divot in the glacier, y'know, that's melting more rapidly. The sun's striking it just right or whatever, and that's where soil will wash into it, and kind of... You have this little sediment slurry in the bottom of this sun cup. And so, when the whole glacier melts you've got these tiny little depressions that are full of sediment that when they touch ground, they're like "Oh cool, now we are a mound."

Liz: That makes sense. Because it's not like when you get a heavy snow and it melts it all melts evenly. Like, even just a little drip from a tree or something will make a surprisingly deep divot.

Devon: Right. Or like in the, you know, Everest where they've got the-- what are they called? The seracs, the ice seracs, which are just these giant big pillars of ice that are formed because the sun melts stuff in weird ways.

Liz: Yeah

Devon: So that's...

Liz: Yeah, water's an odd substance.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: It doesn't -- it's, it confounds us, I think. It confounds us because it's both very, very powerful but also sometimes it's very hard to see what it's doing. You can't really conceptualize that a river made the Grand Canyon.

Devon: No

Liz: Like I think we can say it but we're like, "No."

Devon: "No. That doesn't make sense to me. Are you kidding me? Water carved all the way down there?"

Liz: "Nah... I can pick water up with my, my hand."

Devon: "With my hand! I put that on my face! That's not what it does."

Liz: [chuckles] Okay so, I would buy that.

Devon: Yeah!

Liz: Just because I feel like almost anything around here or wherever is explainable by these major -- I don't even know what you'd call them. They're climate events and they're geologic events.

Devon: Totally.

Liz: Yeah. Ice sheets, glaciers, floods.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: All that kind of stuff.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: They check out, and they're the kind of thing that, it wasn't until relatively recently that we were able to get a broad enough perspective and to know how to zoom in our perspective whether it was, y'know--

Devon: Mmhmm.

Liz: Way, way out to see the Caldera of Yellowstone or way way in, to get it, like, carbon dating.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: We haven't really been able to recreate that stuff for very long. So I'd buy that.

Devon: Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you just said some of the other, like, glacial theories, which are... Floods, you know, there are sediment-rich deposits that happen after glacially dammed lakes are freed, you know?

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: And then that was a theory. It was also posited that permafrost at the end of a glacial area would have cracked into these, like, many-sided shapes and ice formed in the cracks. And then as the climate warmed, the ice melted, and the soil was left in these kind of rounded shapes, y'know, cuz the ice drove in there, in these wedges, and broke it apart. And then you've also got, you know, runoff from glacial meltwater or snowpack is just eroding soil between trees and shrubs, and that leaves the kind of dirt around in a mound. and the trees and shrubs aren't there anymore, but that doesn't mean that they couldn't have been there, and that's what happened in this, this geological event.

Liz: That would be kind of cool.

Devon: Yeah! Mmhmm.

Liz: It's like a fossil, in a way.

Devon: And another theory is that there were ancient forests in the area and the mounds are the remains of the decayed stumps around which the windborne soil and sediment formed.

Liz: Ahhh.

Devon: That was the theory that I thought was likely was that they were... It's a word called aeolian.

Liz: Okay.

Devon: And you see it on beaches when there is a plant growing in an area that has a lot of loose sediment and wind. As the wind carries that soil, that sediment, that dirt, whatever... It can get caught on the plants and then you create sand dunes effectively.

Liz: Aeolian, like the god of wind!

Devon: Yeah, there you go.

Liz: I get it

Devon: You get it.

Liz: Because they do look like dunes... They're like inland dunes.

Devon: Yes.

Liz: Which are fascinating in their own right.

Devon: Yeah. So that seemed like a really likely theory to me. We've got other scientists who were saying "No, no, no, it's not wind, it's, it's seismic." So Andrew Berg is a geologist for the U.S. Bureau of Mines in Spokane. Shout out to our hometown boy.

Liz: What-what.

Devon: And one of his-- you know, his theory, the thing that he really thinks has formed these, is that it's possible that they're from earthquakes generating vibrational shockwaves and so those travel through the soil and the mounds form as a result when the earth settles again.

Liz: I would understand this much better if - I'm going to assume - Dr. Berg could show me with like, a sandbox.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Maybe like one of those turtle sandboxes. And some playground sand and like, a hammer?

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Or to simulate the tectonic plate shifting?

Devon: The shock waves.

Liz: Maybe we can, like, bury my hand under it? And then I can have my hand come out, as is a big hit with the two-year-old crowd? I just need to see how this works because I can't really visualize how the shockwaves would do that although I can't rule it out. I mean every--

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: It feels like every place on earth is perpetually in that cycle of going from really really disrupted to flat and back.

Devon: [laughing] Yes.

Liz: I believe it, regardless. If you're like "this is getting flatter" I'm like "okay. If you're like: "These mountains are getting higher." I'm like "sure."

Devon: Yeah, works! Great! If you can't show me in a sandbox, I'm not listening.

Liz: [sputters, laughs] I just want everybody to make science that tactile.

Devon: Yeah. Dr. Berg meet us. Mobius.

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: New Year's Eve 2020. We'll -- We'll meet you there. It'll be like Sleepless in Seattle and you're gonna tell us all about this.

Liz: I'll be wearing a red carnation

Devon: ...and that's all...

Liz: No. Not with that much sand around. You kidding?

Devon: It's going to get where you don't want it to get, no matter how many clothes you wear.

Liz: That's the secret of glitter. That's the secret. All sand is glitter.

Devon: What the beach industry doesn't want you to know.

Liz: [laughs]

Devon: And it's like how sea glass is all frosted over because of, uh, the, the way, the action...

Liz: I think you mean "frosed across." [laughing]

Devon: "Frosed across!" It's "frozed acrost!" You had too much fun with William Clark's journal. I told you that there were some weird theories as well--

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: And also some racist theories.

Liz: Uh-oh.

Devon: So let's do one that knocks out both of those: Paul Bunyan hired a bunch of Irishmen to help him build the American Great Wall of China.

Liz: And-- Yeah, I'm just going to wait till you finish...

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: What I'm going to charitably call a thought, here...

Devon: A thought! And the, the "lazy Irishmen" walked off the job because they were lazy Irishmen and they just dumped their wheelbarrows full of dirt wherever they wanted and thus formed the Mima mounds.

Liz: That's not even a logical racist story.

Devon: Are there any that are logical?

Liz: A great wall... Well at least they're somewhere... It's, like, they're trying to put people down and so they attribute stuff to them that a human would do if they were lazy.

Devon: Yeah, there you go.

Liz: It's just like... there's a great wall to keep who, where? And why did they line up all their dirt like bubble wrap? This doesn't even make a little sense.

Devon: Nope.

Liz: This wasn't even Paul Bunyan's job, he wasn't a manager.

Devon: He wasn't a manager! He wasn't building a wall! He was cutting down trees with his ox and his girlfriend with the big bustle and she rode a catfish or whatever.

Liz: That was extremely sloppy.

Devon: That was Pecos Bill. I don't know. We just wanted-- we just wanted to harp on the Irish that day.

Liz: Apparently!

Devon: And you know, we have the Mima mounds handy and we knew there weren't Native Americans buried inside of them. So. That's-- I mean, that's, that's the dumbest theory I guess I heard? Because like you said, it's not even grounded in, in anything that I can get behind. The weirdest theory I could find was that they have been created by aliens as a form of communication.

Liz: The contact theory.

Devon: Yeah. And, like, I don't unders... I mean, dude, are they like... Are they visual Morse code? Are they like.... Braille? Do the aliens come down and touch them to get a message? I don't understand how they're supposed to work because they're not like the Nazca Lines who form at least a pictogram.

Liz: Yeah, are they communicating to us?

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Yeah. What?

Devon: Because we're not getting the message.

Liz: It's been a couple thousand years and we didn't get the message, so that's awkward.

Devon: We--

Liz: We've been leaving them on read. 

Devon: They slid into our DMs and we just didn't even answer back. We decided it was more likely that a fake tall man with a fake blue ox really didn't like an entire race of people. That was more logical--

Liz: They were making a dirt wall, apparently.

Devon: Yeah, they were making a dirt wall of China. The problem with the alien theory-- obviously we've just come across a couple of them, but also I was really bummed because when I first started researching them I thought I'd bring you some kind of alien or UFO story, because we haven't-- I haven't really dug into like abductions or extraterrestrial things beyond foo fighters or some cattle mutilation. But this is one of those problems that I think you and I have a lot, which is, just blog after blog after blog says, "Oh yeah. One of the theories is aliens." But it never attributes it to anything, it never gets specific and it just feels like it's this big, y'know, tail-chase of which blog originated this story. How can I find the singularity where where this theory started?

Liz: Yeah. You're like, "No, who actually thinks that it's aliens and what do they have to say about it?"

Devon: Yeah!

Liz: Not just like, "Well, some people think it's whatever." It's like, yeah, I mean... It's a big planet. I'm sure you can find somebody who thinks anything, but like, what's the logic.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: What's the-- I mean, not to be like a meme from five years ago but it's like that history channel guy, right? He's going "Aliens!"

Devon: Aliens!

Liz: You're like, what about aliens? They're communicating what with us? Does it bother them that we haven't figured it out? Is... Why... Like, that's just such an inefficient method.

Devon: Yeah, that is the full and total theory. Aliens.

Liz: ...aliens.

Devon: Well, it wasn't aliens, Liz, because in 2013 scientists cracked it.

Liz: Whoa.

Devon: BBC, Seattle Times, and many other major news outlets were reporting in December 2013 that scientists had finally proven the origin of the mounds, with the American Association for Advancement of Science's headline reading: "Mima Mound Mystery Solved." And Live Science's December 4th headline was much less coy and said: "Great Pyramids of the Gophers - Mima Mounds Mystery Solved.

Liz: Oh, boy.

Devon: Oh, boy is right. Well, what scientists found by studying pocket gophers in San Diego was that pocket gophers, when they dig, they push soil upwards not downward, apparently. They will kick it out of their burrows into a mound-like shape. And these same scientists also discovered that a typical Mima mound is about the size of a very territorial pocket gopher's home range. Earlier in the episode, I said that they were anywhere from nine to one hundred and fifty feet in diameter, so that doesn't quite scan for me? But I will say that I am not a zoologist and I certainly don't study pocket gophers or mounds, so I don't know what "typical" is in this space, you know?

Liz: So the premise is that basically this is like, the spoil? The excavation dirt? Do pocket gophers live like in little pocket gopher suburbs, like they each have their own little dig? And that's why the piles are there?

Devon: That was kind of the theory, right? Was that they're each digging their own, that these mounds aren't necessarily just the, the... What did you call it? It was a great word for it. The excess--

Liz: Spoil?

Devon: Yeah. They weren't just the, they weren't just the discarded soil because apparently... Well, I've got to go into this a little bit more... Not chronologically, but I think, linearly. For a gopher to have created this mound or these mounds, apparently it would take 500 to 700 years and many, many, many, many hundreds of generations of gophers digging to create mounds of this size. The reason why they would create mounds like this, scientists speculated, was that the area in which Mima mounds are often found is typically waterlogged. So they thought, okay, so the Gophers aren't-- you know, the mounds aren't full of gopher holes necessarily. They're not full of, like, this little subterranean dwelling. But it does make an area of land above the water table. So when the water is-- Er, when the ground is waterlogged, there is an area of land for the pocket gophers to get up above that water line.

Liz: And the pocket gophers don't build their homes in those because they're just not evolved to do it? It hasn't occurred to them?

Devon: I don't know. That that's where the theory broke down for me. But dude, scientists were sure that this was it. They were positive their 3D modeling showed that, yeah, it's possible for a pocket gopher to make this kind of structure and whether or not they actually live within the mound, there could be reasons for them to do it, y'know. Meaning they need [indecipherable, "lown?"] to get up above the water table for.

Liz: Are there pocket gophers around every place, or, or similar creatures around every place with Mima mounds?

Devon: Hey guess what? There are not! Which is why--

Liz: I'm so good at science!

Devon: You are so good at science, which is why I was really surprised that the Internet caught on to, "it was totally gophers," when we know that they [Mima Mounds] occur on six of the seven continents, pocket gophers do not occur on six of the seven continents. The ones in South Africa, scientists were like, well, they're not pocket gophers, they're termites. Termites are creating these mounds.

Liz: Well, we know what termite mounds look like!

Devon: We know what termite mounds look like! And also, you know, thank-- thank goodness that scientists like you, [laughs] not like me, who's just like, "There's glitter in our toothpaste!"

Liz: [laughing]

Devon: Scientists like you, who are going-- [laughs] who are going, "that dog doesn't really hunt," are researching it and not just saying "okay, that's a good enough theory, that's the best one we've come up with."

Liz: Listen, "good enough theory" doesn't get you five-year grants from NIH.

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: "I can do better," is what you tell the government.

Devon: And, I tell you what, a scientist said they could do better. And six months after, so 2014, the headline that Live Science came out with: "Mysterious Earthen Mima Mounds Created By Plants, Not Animals."

Liz: Burrowing plants.

Devon: Burrowing plants!

Liz: [laughing] Hundreds of years of little Audreys.

Devon: Yeah, it was Audrey Twos, were just doing their chain-chomp, Mario plant-eatin' shit through the earth and creating these giant barfed-up mounds of dirt. The end.

Liz: Yeah. Wait, what was the actual explanation?”

Devon: The actual explanation is that... It's, it's a lot like the Aeolian theory that we talked about earlier--

Liz: Oh, yeah yeah yeah.

Devon: --with a little bit of of extra. So what the University of Cape Town researcher Professor Kramer and his team said, you know, "It's problematic to attribute these to animals because pocket gophers, termites, animals that have digging and mounding behavior do not occur wherever mounds are found. However, it sounds like vegetation spatial patterning could be the cause for this." And what that is, is when you've got plants... Individuals or small groups will spread out their roots and they drain the surrounding area of water and nutrients and so their little areas remain fertile. And because there's now areas of desert, basically, between these plants... That erodes--

Liz: [clicks tongue] Yeah! 

Devon: --And naturally causes this hillock, right? And then, not only do you have that you've got the Aeolian factor, where you've already got a high point with things clinging to it. Any wind that comes by and stirs up shit is going to definitely deposit said soil and shit on these mounds, further increasing their size.

Liz: Yeah. And then any other little plants that can live, like, in the shadow of the original are going to die and contribute dirt to that. Okay.

Devon: Yeah. Yeah.

Liz: I guess the part that's giving me frustration, is I feel like there should be a way to determine whether the mounds are composed in a fashion that you would expect from dirt being moved?

Devon: Mmhmm.

Liz: Like, like in the way that an animal would? Or whether they've sort of accreted around a point.

Devon: Right? Doesn't it seem--

Liz: Right, like there's a difference between scooping sugar out of a jar and making cotton candy.

Devon: Oh, absolutely. Yeah. Doesn't it seem like you could slice into it like a piece of cake and pull out this, y'know, chunk and be like, "Oh, okay, the sediment in here shows that, yeah, the stuff that should be at the top of a soil layer is at the bottom. Y'know, a gopher is digging and it's depositing the closest to the ground stuff on the bottom of this new mound and as it digs deeper that gets higher up. I mean...

Liz: But they're very old, right?

Devon: They're quite old!

Liz: Right? So...

Devon: They're quite old!

Liz: Maybe it's like, you could know if it was new, but after hundreds of years of settling and weather and plants being on top of it, you can't tell anymore?

Devon: And it's six feet. I mean that's-- you're still just within, like, the earth's crust.

Liz: Mmmhmm.

Devon: Or you know... So maybe there isn't that much of a difference? I don't know and scientists don't for sure know either. My theory is... I think it's got to be a combination. I think it just happens to be-- What is it called when it's, um, co-vergent [convergent] evolution? You know, where, like pigeons and humans or pigeons and mammals both developed a milk like substance to feed their young. But they are so far apart from each other it's not like evolutionarily they, they came up with these things and continued to branch. They're, they're on totally different limbs of the tree here, but they both happened to hit on a thing that works to feed young. You know, so my thought is that it's like this co-vergent evolution but whatever the geological equivalent is where it's like, well, some of these mounds can be found formed in a couple different ways. It could be seismic activity and that's what's happening here. Over there? Yeah, some, some gophers are just absolutely super industrious and making mounds. Over this way, it's the vegetation spatial patterning stuff. You know? [distressed sound] I'm super far out of my element here. I feel like I know more when I'm talking about ghosts than the real world. But I I don't know that it's logical to assume all Mima mounds are formed in the exact same way.

Liz: I track that, and I have a slightly different theory?

Devon: Okay.

Liz: Which has the same part as yours, which is that I think there may be some kind of geological phenomenon where if you have an accretion point you can get that Aeolian effect, right?

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Whether it is maybe... Not a super industrious gopher, maybe just a gopher made a little mound that was a foot high.

Devon: Right.

Liz: And over hundreds of years, it became more.

Devon: Right. Right.

Liz: Or termites, or whatever.

Devon: Right.

Liz: Or a plant. And so there is an end product that looks very similar from place to place, but the initial point that stuff started to accrete around could be gophers or seismic activity or plants or something else.

Devon: Right.

Liz: And just because it comes, like-- yeah, like what you were saying, just because it looks the same in the end or similar doesn't mean that it has the same origin. Like again, to go back to the ancient aliens guy. Why-- why are there pyramid-shaped things in Central America and in North Africa? Well, because that's the best way to pile up a lot of rocks and have them not fall down.

Devon: Right?

Liz: Yeah. Like a pyramid is just an organized heap.

Devon: Yep.

Liz: And so a Mima mound maybe is a disorganized heap--

Devon: [laughs]

Liz: That you get if conditions are right and you have that little scratchy initial factor that can come from a lot of different sources.

Devon: Yeah. You have whatever that little thing is but it's still a little tiny bit of sand in the oyster that it's going to form that pearl around.

Liz: Yes. You got what I was thinking.

Devon: Yeah, I pulled that right out of your brain. Yeah, dude, all I know is that I am not buying the Paul Bunyan theory.

Liz: Yeah, I think I'm comfortable ruling that one out.

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: I feel like I wanna go roll down one--

Devon: I was just thinking that!

Liz: Like we roll down the hill behind Moran Prairie.

Devon: Yeah! I want to roll down one hill, but they're close enough, I want to see how far I roll. How much does that momentum carry me up the next hill?

Liz: [laughing] A little roller coaster?

Devon: A little roller coaster, right. Oh my God, I would get so nauseated. I get so motion sick.

Liz: Why couldn't they have said, like, " Long ago, many children were fighting and so instead of having them fight over who was King of the Hill, God made a million hills."

Devon: Wow.

Liz: "To make them realize how pointless this was." 

Devon: [laughing] I was gonna say "So they could each be king in his own right." And you were just like, "So they all realized they were dumbasses."

Both: [laughing]

Liz: Maybe the earth is just cold.

Devon: Oh my God, it's--

Liz: They're— its goosebumps.

Devon: Goosebumps, I don't...

Liz: Why don't they call them goosebump mounds? That's better than pimple mounds.

Devon: That's way-- Have you ever, ever called them, um... Have you ever heard somebody call them "goose pimples." I hate that.

Liz: I hate that, too.

Devon: Yeah. "Goosebumps" is cute.

Liz: I don't even like the word "palimpsest" because it makes me think of pimples.

Devon: Okay. Tell me what the word palimpsest is, because I've never heard it.

Liz: It's not a word you encounter much. It's kind of like being allergic to star anise... It doesn't really affect my life that much.

Devon: [laughs]

Liz: But that, like-- in the olden days, when you would write like left to right, top to bottom across something?

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And then you would either, like, flip it and write across it.

Devon: Oh! Yes.

Liz: So that you can basically write twice on one piece of paper and you're filling it in?

Devon: Yeah!

Liz: It's-- for some reason, a lot of authors like to use it as a metaphor, like, they're like "His skin was a palimpsest of scars and tattoos telling you about his life--" And I'm like, "STOP IT."

Devon: Stop it!

Liz: Hate that word.

Devon: Oh my God, that's pretentious. I mean the word is fine, whatever, I don't-- I don't dig it, but I don't hate it. But I really do hate the, "his skin was a palimpsest."

Liz: Yeah and it's like pimple and incest in a word.

Devon: Ew!

Liz: It needs banned.

Devon: Oh!

Liz: It needs to be banned, as a word.

Devon: That word is absolutely stricken from the record.

Devon: Go away, pimply incest. Sick.

Liz: [laughing] What were we talking about?

Devon: Palimpsest? Gone! Paul Bunyan? You're out of here. Aliens? Not enough evidence, try again.

Liz: Although, you know goosebumps are exactly the same thing, in a way, because they're, they're the hair follicles, right?

Devon: Yeah!

Liz: The skin just doesn't spring up into those shapes spontaneously, it's because there are things protruding--

Devon: Protruding!

Liz: --that it gathers around.

Devon: Yeah, and I read that it's your, your... When you're cold, you get goose bumps because your little arm hairs are trying to raise up and trap as much heat close to your skin as it can. And I'm just like, "Oh, wow that's like a screen door trying to keep out a hurricane. What is happening, little dudes?" No. You're not keeping in anything just by raising up on little stalks. I just---

Liz: Mmhmm. Good effort.

Devon: What I'm going to do to keep in my heat is get fat. Let's make some blubber

Liz: I'm a sea-type mammal, not the land type.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: You might be confused by the fact that I'm on land all the time.

Devon: It's possible but I clearly do not have a pelt. I clearly was meant to put on a lot of weight very rapidly, so that I could submerge myself in water all day. Thank you.

Liz: Safely. Do you think that animals like seals and sea lions... Are they just cold all the time?

Devon: I don't think they are! I think... Aren't they supposed to be warm all the time?

Liz: I guess I'm just wondering if it bothers them.

Devon: If it bothers them? That's a good point.

Liz: Because I mean you you would be born to it, right? You would just have to deal with it. But are their lives just kind of a little shittier than if they lived someplace where it wasn't so freezing?

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: Or does it not make a difference to them?

Devon: I don't... well... hmmm...

Liz: I don't really need to know either way, because it will perturb me, like... have you heard of Greenland sharks?

Devon: Yeah!

Liz: They're like, the sharks that live for hundreds of years.

Devon: Yeah, yeah.

Liz: They-- all their teeth fall out.

Devon: They all fall out...

Liz: And every single Greenland shark goes blind because they get these parasites that get on their eyeballs.

Devon: Ugh!

Liz: And when I heard about that, it bothered me for like, a month. Like, I would seriously just lie there in bed thinking about, like, [tearfully] "Why don't we just take the parasites off? For the poor Greenland sharks?"

Devon: [laughing sympathetically] Oh, honey...

Liz: "Why can't we just go do that?”

Devon: Why can't we?

Liz: They don't need to go blind! [in less plaintive tones] It's like, there's nothing for them to fuckin' SEE, Liz.

Devon: [laughing] Were you thinking this--

Liz: They live underwater. They live under the ice. Like... It is their way of being.

Devon: Oh, my God.

Liz: Like, there's no philosophical or, or zoological logic to what you're worried about, but it just troubled me greatly.

Devon: Were you pregnant while you were having this crisis?

Liz: No! I'm just like this.

Devon: That's so not Scorpio of you. I had to look it up for you while you were talking. "Do sea lions get cold?" According to coral world v dot com, "They are able to maintain their high body temperature which is between 95 and 98 Degrees and they help keep heat in. However, a sea lion can get cold.

Liz: [gasp]

Devon: That's... So sad! So they can get cold, buddy, I'm really sorry. They're like your Greenland sharks with the blind eyes.

Liz: I have enough worry for all the creatures of all earth.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: All the people, and all the creatures.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Well, that's the problem with watching nature documentaries, right?

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: You don't want the lioness and her cubs to starve--

Devon: Nope.

Liz: But you also don't want to see the gazelle go down.

Devon: No! No. Why can't we all just eat-- I was going to say, "Why can't we all just have a hamburger," and then... That's complicated, Devon.

Liz: [laughing]

Devon: No one tell me!

Liz: Nobody tell Devon what beef is.

Devon: I don't want to know! I just like my burgers.

Liz: Have you tried the impossible burger yet?

Devon: No, I have not, but it's on my list. Have you?

Liz: Yeah, I want to check it out now. No, I haven't tried it but often... Often, I find that... There's some stuff that you cannot substitute. Bacon is definitely one of them.

Devon: Mmhmm.

Liz: Like meat bacon is... And I'm not trying to do the whole, like, thing we were all into five years ago, like "Bacon, blah blah blah!"

Devon: Oh yeah, right?

Liz: "I'm so hedonistic!"

Devon: "Bacon's my personality!"

Liz: But vegan… like, Morningstar Farms bacon is like somebody photocopied bacon onto a paper towel.

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: It's just... no.

Devon: I'd rather-- I'd rather have the memory of what bacon truly is than the cheap simulacrum that makes my palate sad.

Liz: Yeah, it's kind of like, like a Ludovico Technique to make you not miss bacon.

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: Like, "You liked bacon?" [sound of a slap] "No, you don't!"

Devon: "No, you don't!"

Liz: "Now you DON'T want it!"

Devon: "You don't want bacon, cuz this is what it is!"

Liz: "Take another bite of this paper towel!”

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: "Try thinking about bacon again."

Devon: [laughing] That's fucked up.

Liz: [laughing] But I love their buffalo wings!

Devon: Morningstar, please sponsor us. [more laughter]

Liz: I think you did a really good job with this episode.

Devon: Thank you

Liz: I'm very much looking forward to sharing it with the world.

Devon: I'm looking forward to sharing it with the world! I would really like to know what people's theories are as to how the Mima mounds form, and I'd really like to know if anybody's gone to it, because I've read a bunch of blogs, I've seen the photos, I've read the National Park website... I mean, it sounds really cool, but I want to know like, what does it feel like there? Do you-- do you notice the change in height? Do you walk up and down them and go, "huh." You know you're like the Joker when only one of the building [sic] blows up, and you just kind of throw your hands out and that's it, I guess. Or is it cool?

Liz: Yeah. Plus I, as you know, believe that I have some kind of magic insight and that if I just--

Devon: Oh, yeah!

Liz: Was on one, I would somehow know more than--

Devon: You would!

Liz: --people who do geology for a living.

Devon: If you laid hands on it.

Liz: [fake gasp] "It WAS the Irish! It was a conspiracy, though!"

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: That wasn't even who moved dirt around in the Northwest! That's a lazy story.

Devon: I know, isn't it bad?

Liz: [disgusted sigh]

Devon: There you go, Liz, that's the Mima mounds.

Liz: Nice work.

Devon: Thank you very much. Folks we would love if you continue this Mima mound conversation with us on social media--

Liz: -- social Mim-ia--

Devon: Where you will find us on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter... Did I, did I slur?

Liz: No, I just said "social Mim-ia--"

Devon: I thought you said Minia. Yeah, I obviously misheard. We would like you to join us on social "meme-ium." I'm just mad because I didn't think of it myself. As well as, you will be able to find these and other show notes on our website ouijabroads.com, you can find us on patreon.com/ouijabroads where you can throw a couple of bucks our way if you'd like help us pay for said website hosting. We are also on the podcatcher of your choice. You can find us on Podbean, on iTunes. We are... Where else are we, Liz, did I list them all?

Liz: Yeah, sure!

Devon: I think I did. Well, folks with that, we certainly hope that you live weird--

Liz: Die weird.

Devon: And stay weird.

Liz: Nice work, bud.

Devon: Thank you. Thank you for listening, nice work to you…
[Theme music comes in, fades out.]

Episode Transcript: #10, The Giant Palouse Earthworm

You can read the entire transcript below, or download it here.
 

[Theme music starts, fades out.]

Liz: You're listening to Ouija Broads, this is Liz.

Devon: This is Devon, and today, I--

Liz: What do you have for me?

Devon: What do I have?

Liz: Ha! I talked all over you.

Devon: [laughs] Girlfriend, you can do whatever you want all over me.

Liz: [blows raspberry, laughs]

Devon: Boom! My husband's at work. I'm just--

Liz: This is going to be unlike those podcasts where they're by a married couple and then they get divorced and it's depressing. This is just going to chart our slow merge.

Devon: Oh, it's... You guys, Liz and I have already decided that when our husbands predecease us -- tragically and we're not planning for it, but it's going to happen-- we're going to get married on the moon? Is that right?

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: In 2101, there will be a colony on the moon.

Devon: [crosstalk] There you go. [singing] In the year 2101 / Liz and Devon will be on the moon, having fun.

Devon: That's all I got. I wanted to keep going.

Liz: Wow!

Devon: That was good though, right?

Liz: That was really good!

Devon: Thanks. Hey, thanks. I've never done karaoke before, so we can consider that my first karaoke foray.

Liz: I'll do karaoke on the moon with you.

Devon: Yeah, you will. I love it. You're the best. You're the best.

Liz: [crosstalk] Tell me-- tell me about some weird shit, yeah!

Devon: [crosstalk] I have a story-- I have a story for you that doesn't take place on the moon.

Devon: It takes place on or in a natural area that's actually just as precious and interesting as the moon, maybe even more interesting than the moon, because we can go to it. Space X is not that far along yet. So this is a place we can go to it. If you are in Spokane, you live on or near the Palouse.

Devon: The Palouse prairie is a habitat that's in Spokane, and then it stretches east into Idaho, a little bit. Technical Palouse prairie area is this... It's native grasses, but now it's almost all farmland. There's only one percent of the native prairie remaining. So the Palouse prairie is recognized as one of the most endangered ecosystems in the United States, actually.

Liz: Oh! It's really beautiful.

Devon: It's gorgeous, isn't it? If you ever get a chance to head out down toward WSU, down toward Pullman, you'll see some of the last actual Palouse prairie. Those native grasses are really cool. The fact that they're there means that a whole bunch of other plants and animals can thrive in their area. They do all kinds of good stuff with their roots and they aid with water retention and they're food for certain butterflies and other bugs and animals. Plus, prairie is just really cool, dude. Really, really cool.

Devon: It was hard for the Palouse to be... To have special things? It was it was hard for the Palouse prairie to have endemic species, there weren't a lot of plants that were restricted to that specific area because the Palouse doesn't really have environmental distinctions that make it special.

Liz: Mm hmm.

Devon: So it just had a lot of really cool things going on. I'm going to tell you a couple of plants that are endemic to the Palouse.  So the Palouse prairie itself has some flora and fauna that are really special and live there and thrive, maybe only there, like the Pullman aster, there's a Palouse thistle... There's a couple of different kinds of milk vetch that are only found there. They're not particularly fussy plants, like milk vetches can thrive in a lot of different places, but they're still only found in this one little ecosystem, which I think is really cool. A lot of the topography in the Palouse, if you've ever been there, obviously it's open. It's just, I mean, it's just hills, dude, right? It's just open plain prairie area.

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: And there aren't really any unusual soil chemicals that are happening, but it's still its own special ecosystem. And one of the animals that this special ecosystem that supports is, is a special worm. It's a special type of worm, Liz.

Liz: I didn't know worms could be special, but that's very shortsighted of me.

Devon: It's so shortsighted of you. God damn, man, how did you not recognize this one's actually really special? You'll like it because the Palouse prairie is special for those plants that are endemic just to that area, right? But one of the other things that special for is that it is home to one of the few native worms in North America. And this worm was discovered in 1897 by a naturalist named Frank Smith, and it was discovered near Pullman, Washington. Everything that I can research says it was considered to be common at the time in the area, but there wasn't-- it was so common., there wasn't any kind of formal survey or anything taken on it.

Liz: [disappointed] Oh.

Devon: So we don't know what the original numbers were. But as recently as 2008, it was considered extinct.

Liz: [distressed] Little worm!

Devon: Little worm! Little buddy! But what's cool about that-- so a cryptid I've told you before is an animal-- it can be an animal that we think that science assumes is extinct, but there are non-verified sightings or reports of it. So there are enough people that think perhaps there's an existent population still kicking around.

Liz: Like the coelacanth.

Devon: Like the coelacanth, right. The giant Palouse earthworm was a cryptid up until summer of 2009 when there was a project launched by some, um... Well, by a student, by a group of students and their professor. In... Where were they? They were at the University of Idaho, not WSU.

Liz: Okay!

Devon: There was a professor and a group of students at the University of Idaho who started this project to find giant Palouse earthworms. They had enough circumstantial and story evidence from farmers who were saying, you know, "I think I've seen one in the last 10 years, I think I came across one tilling a field." So they started this project, they got some funding from the Department of Fish and Wildlife and some conservation center grants, and they started doing a survey to see if they could find giant Palouse earthworms.

Liz: Well, God bless 'em for not just writing it off.

Devon: Isn't that amazing? So-- and they did!

Liz: And good job, professor, too, because this is the kind of project that you can see a student wanting to do--

Devon: Yeah!

Liz: --and nobody wanting to put their reputation as a scientist into it.

Devon: --on the line--

Liz: But good for you, professor, and good for you, students.

Devon: This was Professor Jodi Johnson-Maynard and then specifically Jodi's student-- I'm sorry, student. I'm going to butcher your name, but I think you are Yaniria Sánchez-de León. They started this project in the summer of 2009. And in March 2010, they had discovered and recovered two specimens, an adult and a juvenile. How cool is that?

Liz: Let's put these guys on the whole Bigfoot thing!

Devon: Let's put them on the Bigfoot thing. These worms are hard to find, man. They can burrow up to 15 feet in the ground.

Liz: They're way littler than a Bigfoot.

Devon: They're way littler than a Bigfoot, but they're called giant Palouse earthworm for a reason. Do you want to know why?

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: They can get up to a meter long, three point three feet in length.

Liz: [excited gasp]

Devon: Well, it's believed to grow up to about a yard long. Modern specimens have only been observed up to about one and a half feet in length. So...

Liz: That's still a bananas size for an earthworm!

Devon: Think about that! Think about finding a worm that probably goes from your fingertips to your elbow and think about how gross--

Liz: Uh, no worm would ever be close to my fingertips or elbow to find that out.

Devon: [laughing] Yes, it would! My, um... My kindergarten walk from kindergarten to daycare, I always took with my best buddy at the time, Amy Marshall, and Amy and I, on rainy days, used to save worms. We would find worms that were in puddles and we thought they were drowning. So we'd pick them up out of puddles and put them on the grass.

Liz: Aww.

Devon: So I've been near many a worm, my friend. So I would definitely go check out giant Palouse earthworms. They're huge, right? And they have this ability to survive summer droughts by conserving water. And they can serve it in a--

Liz: Oh!

Devon: It's an invertebrate organ that occurs in pairs, kind of like our kidneys. It's called a nephridia [pronounced to rhyme with "idea"] or a nephridia [pronounced to rhyme with papaya]-- who knows if I'm pronouncing that right, but it's a special organ that conserves water. So between that and being able to burrow 15 feet in the earth, you could see how they'd be overlooked.

Liz: Mmhmm. But that's that's a really important skill for eastern Washington, where you're not going to get a lot of rain in the summer.

Devon: We get so dry, dude! Its Latin name. I should have you say, because I don't speak Latin, but I'm going to try. It's a Driloleirus americanus-- that one I can do--  Driololeirus? But it means lily-like worm, because when the first people discovered it, you know, at the turn of the century, they said it gave off a flowery fragrance similar to lilies when it was handled.

Liz: Ooh.

Devon: They also said that it could spit as a defense mechanism. The specimens found in 2010 did not exhibit either of those qualities, thank God.

Liz: Oh, they didn't have the smell? I can believe the spit thing was just something, but I assumed they wouldn't make up the smell

Devon: Yeah, right? Sounds right that they would, "All right, fine, whatever, you smell kind of like lilies smell, kind of like rotting meat. And you are--"

Liz: I don't like it, the smell of lilies.

Devon: I know. I don't...

Liz: It makes me think of funerals.

Devon: Very, very funerary. Well, you'll be happy to know that maybe giant Palouse earthworms don't actually smell like flowers that you don't like.

Liz: So now they're just cruising around being called lily-like worms and they have nothing lily-like about them. That's a hard word to say!

Devon: Lily-like worm. Lily-like? Lily-like, lily-like, lily-like--  I'm doing it. Maybe I'm just showing off.

Liz: [laughs]

Devon: I'm showing off, because I found out I can do that Xena cry.

Liz: Oh, do it now.

Devon: I feel a little weird doing it into this microphone. [fading] So we'll pull the microphone away.

Devon: [in distance, ululation ala Xena, Warrior Princess]

Liz: Really good! [laughing]

Devon: Really good, right? So there you go. I can-- I can say lily-like and I can Xena-yell.

Liz: Why did you develop this talent in 2017?

Devon: I was-- I was driving in my car and didn't want to turn on the radio.

Liz: [laughing] Okay!

Devon: [laughing] But it was a thing that I wanted to know if I could do. Did you know that I lost out on a role in high school? Um, do you remember when we were auditioning for Clue? Did you audition for that?

Liz: I didn't, I think I had peaced out at that point. I was sick of playing moms.

Devon: You did 'Night, Mother.

Liz: Yeah, I did.

Devon: Cuz it was the One-Acts and you did 'Night, Mother. So I lost out on the Mrs. Pea... uh, yeah, Mrs. Peacock role because I was too embarrassed to scream on stage during the audition.

Liz: Oh.

Devon: I would have screamed in the actual play, but I didn't want to do it in the audition. So I practiced screaming in my car so that I'm more comfortable making loud noises.

Liz: So if that ever comes up again, well, I can relate to that because... Did you hear the story on My Favorite Murder about--

Devon: [negative] Huh-uh.

Liz: I'll have to cut all of this, I'm just talking to you at this point.

Devon: No, it's good. I like it.

Liz: But it was, like, a girl who was in like a mountain cabin by herself and then realized somebody was there and she steps out into the hallway and just starts making the weirdest noises she can fucking think of. And the guy just panics and runs away.

Devon: You fucking serious?

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: Oh, my God. That is what I've always thought I would do if someone was in my house. I would start talking to, like, ghosts or demons or, you know, I, I would act really erratic and hope that it freaked them out enough that they would leave.

Liz: I feel like it'd be worth a shot if people were like, high on something and just trying to steal.

Devon: Yeah, man. If nothing else, I'm going to go out the way I lived: really obnoxious.

Liz: Live weird,  die weird.

Devon: [laughing] Live weird, die weird! Maybe that should be our new tagline. Live weird, die weird. I like that. I like it.

Liz: What the hell were we talking about?

Devon: [crosstalk, unintelligible]

Liz: Lily-like worms!

Devon: Lily-like worms! So they found these two specimens, an adult and a juvenile. And then in 2012, two more specimens were found near Paradise Ridge, which is south of Moscow, Idaho. So a little bit further away than Pullman. And they were... All of these specimens have been transferred to University of Idaho, where they're doing research on these worms to figure out why there aren't as many left. You know, one of the theories is that it's all of the, of course, you know, agriculture that happens.

Devon: It could be that maybe they-- there is something really special about the Palouse prairie that the worms need in order to thrive. And because we've only got one percent of Palouse prairie left, you figure you're only going to have one percent of the worm population left. Something that I was really frustrated by is that the species was considered probably extinct in 2008, right?

Liz: Mm hmm.

Devon: But once they figured out that there are still a couple of worms in existence, the World Conservation Union will only list them as vulnerable, which is a step up from endangered.

Liz: There's [sic] not endangered even though they thought they were extinct and now they just know where four of them are?

Devon: You see my confusion. You see why I'm really upset about this. In August, 2006, conservationists actually petitioned the US government to list the worm under the Endangered Species Act because they had only found four of them since-- uh, or no, sorry, shit! 2006 is two years before they really thought it was endangered--

Liz: Prescient!

Devon: --so they were definitely trying. Yeah, exactly. They're trying really hard. But in 2007, US Fish and Wildlife Service declined to list them as protected under the ESA because they said that there was a lack of scientific information on which to base the decision. [laughing] I mean, there is a lack of fucking worms, apparently.

Liz: Okay---

Devon: [laughing] That's your "lack of information."

Liz: [laughing] Get your-- get your microphone back, because-- because first of all, you said "protectered."

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: And second of all, this is all happening in 2006 and 2007 before they find the worms? Or this is happening... When?

Devon: Sorry...

Liz: What kind of time-traveling-ass lily worms are we dealing with here?

Devon: We're dealing with crazy ass worms. In 2006, conservationists hadn't seen a giant Palouse earthworm in a really fucking long time.

Liz: Okay.

Devon: So they petitioned the government to list it as endangered under the Endangered Species Act.

Liz: Got it

Devon: In 2007, that's when Fish and Wildlife Services declined to list them under the Endangered Species Act because there was a lack of evidence, which I'm like, dude, there's a lack of worms. That's your lack of evidence. What the fuck?

Liz: Do they think - is this some kind of scam I don't know about, to list non-existent animals as endangered?

Devon: I don't know!

Liz: That's a long grift.

Devon:  --what you get from this. Jee-sus. Well, it was like a thylacine, right, was listed as endangered, I think, 84 days after the last wild one had been killed.

Liz: Oh, no.

Devon: So they still had poor Benjamin in captivity, but there... it's ass-backward.

Liz: [sighs]

Devon: So, y'know, 2008 or so people were like, "Yeah, we're pretty sure this thing is extinct, so... Fuck." And then in 2009, our good buddy Jodi Johnson-Maynard and her students at U of I were like, no, we're going to do this project and we're going to find us some worms. We think they're still out there and they found four. So shit, yeah! Good job. Oregon is in a similar place. Oregon has a thing called a giant, the Oregon giant earthworm. And it's also very uncommon. They are listed as endangered. It was also last sighted in 2008. And for whatever reason, they've got better people petitioning Fish and Wildlife or ESA... but it's listed as endangered. Poor little buddy.

Liz: Poor buddy. There have been thylacine sightings again recently...

Devon: There have been! I'm so-- I think I would like you to allow me to do a whole thylacine episode and I will geek out for two hours about them. I'm really getting stoked by the number of sightings that are being seen. I saw a video pretty recently that looks... It's got that kind of, uh, signature hop going on in its movement, which got me really excited. But I'm talking about earthworms, and I haven't even told you about the biggest earthworm in the world.

Liz: [excited gasp]

Devon: It's also in Australia, so that was a really good tie in that you did. It doesn't live here. The Oregon giant earthworm and the giant Palouse earthworm both max out at probably a yard long, a meter long.

Liz: And do they look like just worms but big?

Devon: Yeah, yeah. So they look like worms, but big. There's not even a whole lot going on, girth-wise that would make you think like, "Oh fuck, it's a snake." They're still really skinny. They have a pretty grody-looking worm head. They've got the segmented bodies. If, if you looked at one, you probably wouldn't think it was any different from a normal earthworm. I read online that they're supposed to be albino in appearance, so they're quite a bit paler than the pinky-grey earthworms we're used to.

Liz: Hmm.

Devon: But the photo that I saw, I, I didn't think it was that pale. You know, it didn't look like a cave creature. It didn't look albino to me.

Liz: Oh. So that could also really have something to do with it as well, that if you're on a tractor--

Devon: No wonder!

Liz: You run over one of these, you're not really going to notice.

Devon: Oh, yeah, you're not going to notice if it's small. You know, if you run over a three foot worm, then you're going to go, well, fuck, I bet I know what that was. But yeah, if you run over something that's six inches long, you're probably going to be like, yep. Made two worms.

Liz: Yeah, exactly. Or if you ran over a three foot long worm and you saw one and a half feet of worm, you'd be like, "Yeah... Kinda big worm."

Devon: "Yeah. This is pretty large. I think I'll just leave him there. He's doing good stuff. Aerating."

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: But still, still they're not the biggest, Liz. The biggest worm in the world is the giant Gippsland earthworm or the giant Gippsland earthworm. They can get up to nine point eight feet in length.

Liz: What?!

Devon: Nine point eight feet in length and their bodies are able to expand and contract so they can appear much larger than nine point eight feet. They're growers and showers, Liz. 

Liz: That's too big for a worm.

Devon: That's so not too big for a worm.

Liz: I'm calling it. I disapprove.

Devon: [laughing] It can be 10 feet long and it still weighs less than half a pound.

Liz: [unhappy] Mm. Just think of all the places it could get to. It could get under doors.

Devon: It could get under your bed.

Liz: It could get in your air vent.

Devon: It could get in your air vent. They could climb up your toilet tank? The pipes?

Liz: Mmhmm.

Devon: Like snakes?

Liz: That's a bad news worm.

Devon: That's a bad news worm. Thank God we don't live in Australia.

Liz: Mm-hmm.

Devon: But if you ever see a ten foot dark, purple-headed, blue-grey bodied, three hundred to four hundred body segmented worm and you're in Australia, you've probably just seen the giant Gippsland's Earth one.

Liz: Is it fast?

Devon: [long pause, then laughter away from the microphone]

Liz: I need to know! How long do I have if I see one of these things?

Devon: You got about 10 feet, dude. [trying to talk through laughter] "Is it fast?" I can't answer your question. I don't know, and I'm not clever enough to come up with something mocking you for the weirdest question I never expected. I bet they're pretty speedy, don't you think?

Liz: Oh... yeah.

Devon: I bet they're pretty speedy. I bet they inchworm along.

Liz: [unhappy sound]

Devon: Liz, I bet they're really slow. I bet they're so slow and that they, they never live under your bed. I think that they're just out in the Outback. And about four o'clock in the day, they have some koala-ty time--

Liz: [laughing]

Devon: --with their koala friends.

Liz: Oh, God, that's why I don't rescue worms when I see them, because I hate when you pick them up and they're like, flippity flip flip flip flip!

Devon: I love it! I love it, no, it's like a puzzle! It's like, where do I touch you so that you're going to move. But I don't crush you, but that I also don't drop you and you can feel their muscle.

Liz: Oh, that's the worst. What if you picked up a Giant Palouse Earthworm and it was like flippity flip flip and it just slapped you in the face like a water noodle. Yeah.

Devon: It'd be like getting in the face with a wet sock. Sounds awful.

Liz: That would feel so bad.

Devon: Yeah, sorry, that does sound pretty gross, but I think if they're threatened, you actually probably can't pick them up. I don't think that you can-- I don't think it's legal to do-- to, to disturb a threatened or endangered species, you know.

Liz: Oh, good point.

Devon: So you don't have to worry about that. If you see one, I want you to take a picture of it. Put something-- obviously not yourself, but something in there so that they can get a good idea of scale.

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: Throw...Throw a ruler down and then back away. And take a picture and then you're going to be helping out our buddies at U of I.

Liz: When you say "specimens" at U of I, are they alive or dead ones?

Devon: Good question, that I don't know the answer to. I would hope that they're alive, but I don't... I don't know.

Liz: That would be tough.

Devon: Do they just make them a big terrarium?

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: You know?

Liz: Scoot around real slow.

Devon: Just really slow. Shoot, dude,  they're the slowest worms in existence.

Liz: That's their problem.

Devon: I'm trying to make you feel better, I don't know if they're slow or not.

Liz: If you could be the one to encounter any cryptid or mythological creature, which one would you want to encounter?

Devon: Thylacine.

Liz: Thylacine?

Devon: Thylacine. Yeah, I think they exist. I love them. I think they're beautiful. I think that their extinction is one hundred percent our fault. And for whatever reason I feel a lot of guilt about that. So I would either be a thylacine or it would be... hmm...

Liz: Cuz their mouths are real big!

Devon: Their mouths are real big, their mouths are real big. Did you know that thylacines, their pouches go backward? You know, like a kangaroo, the pouch comes up towards its neck--

Liz: What?

Devon: Their pouches go down toward their tails. Males have a pouch as well. And when they're running through, y'know, long grass, they can tuck their genitals in their pouch so that it doesn't get scraped in all the brambles and shit.

Liz: I don't know if that's the weirdest thing I've ever heard or it's weird that we can't all do that.

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: No, why do the males have pouches? Do male kangaroos have pouches?


Devon: I don't know if male kangaroos have pouches or not. I bet they do. That's a great question. I don't know, we're really outside our wheelhouse here, but I think that it's so that they can tuck their genitals in.

Liz: I don't have a competing explanation, so that'll just stand as the theory. 

Devon: If you let me do a thylacine episode, I'll research that for you. You know, once, once a year on your birthday, you get to talk about whatever mystery you want.

Liz: I like it. You got other worm stuff to tell me about?

Devon: No, I don't have other worm stuff to tell you about. Just that the Giant Palouse Earthworm and his friend, the Oregon Giant Earthworm, are anywhere up to 15 feet beneath you... you hope.

Liz: It's making the world a slightly weirder place.

Devon: Yeah, right. Right?

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: So, yeah, I'm glad that we can consider our little earthworm buddies. I think that they're part of what makes us weird and wonderful. And they're just out there aerating the Palouse and the prairies and the farmlands and the meadows, they're just out there making their little tunnels, dude, and having a good time.

Liz: I'm excited that it was a cryptid and then it got verified.

Devon: I'm excited about that, too. I really like seeing animals that, you know, we think are extinct. And then there's a couple of people that actually live in that environment and go, "Ah, hell no, dude, we see this all the time."

Liz: Yeah!

Devon: "All the time. I promise he's still alive." And then we get to go, "Oh, we haven't totally fucked the ecosystem yet! Oh, awesome. We found... We found you. Good job." The uh, what was it... The last, I think it was the last two Carolina parakeets in existence were shot on the same day by different hunters.

Liz: Mmhmm.

Devon: Oh man.

Liz: "Come look, everybody!" Yeah. Those are pathetic. They were real cute.

Devon: Yeah, I bet they were. I bet they tasted real good.

Liz: Oh, man, yeah, so do you know why they were able to kill so many Carolina parakeets? Because if you shot one, the others would all come over and look at it.

Devon: Are you serious?

Liz: Mm hmm.

Liz: So you could catch them to be pets or whatever if you just sort of fired blindly into a flock.

Devon: That's so depressing. That's so depressing. What was the-- there was a type of... Was it Steller's sea cow? Or somebody's dugong? Or whatever over near Greenland where when the explorers got there, they're just like these things are so sweet and curious and unafraid and goddamn, they taste good and oh shit, we ate them all.

Liz: I think that was the sea cow because I think in that family there's two kinds of manatees and then there's dugongs. And then there's the extinct Steller sea cow, which were the biggest ones.

Devon: Okay. there's a Steller's Sea Ape up near Alaska and it's a... aquatic-style Sasquatch. But if you ever want to range further north, I can tell you about this aquatic ape. It's the only animal that Steller ever talked about that was never verified by anybody else.

Liz: Oh, yeah, we got to do that. That sounds amazing. Alaska's in our territory, too, for sure.

Devon: Called it. We've adopted you, Alaska. You are just as weird as the rest of us, if not more so.

Liz: Oh, yeah.

Devon: Yeah. That's all I have to talk about in terms of worms. That's it for this episode of Ouija Broads. We would absolutely appreciate it if you would rate, review, and subscribe to us on iTunes. That really helps us out because that means other people will find us. If you rate, review, and subscribe to us, well, you're boosting our numbers. You can do the same thing, though, if you check us out on social media.

Devon: We're on Twitter, we're on Instagram, we're on Facebook. The social media channels are really fun for us because that's where we do updates. Or if we see things in real time that are Ouija Broads related, we can share them with you and get your feedback on. This has been a really good episode, Liz asked me in my sign-off if I would tell you all that I love you...

Liz: Awkwardly. I said awkwardly.

Devon: She said awkwardly, so--

Liz: [laughing]

Devon: I'm not I'm not really sure I can make it awkward because it is genuine.

Liz: This has been so fun. I think this is going to be our 10th episode. If I'm counting it right?

Devon: This is gonna be? I'm going to tell you all then for our 10th episode, we've got a pretty cool promotion that we're going to run as a thank you for joining us for 10 episodes.

Liz: What?

Devon: So if now that you've heard this episode, now that you've listened, you should stay tuned on social media for those promotions.

Liz: What are we doing?

Devon: We're going to do giveaways. I'm making crafts and we might do buttons and all kinds of stuff. I guess I needed to run this by you first.

Liz: No, I'm into it, I was just like, we already give the podcast away for free!

Devon: Give the podcast away for free is right. [laughing] Ah, shit. Am I supposed to awkwardly tell them I love them?

Liz: Yeah, try it.

Devon: [in a weird sultry voice] Mmm, Liz, I don't know that I can do anything awkward when I feel this kind of actual real deep love for out listeners.

Liz: Well, now I'm uncomfortable.

Devon: I love them so much. [normal voice] That wasn't awkward.

Liz: That was weird that... It was on brand. And then you-- and then you say, thank you for listening. [starting to laugh]

Devon: [through gritted teeth] Don't tell me how to do this, woman! I know it.

Liz: Hey, I'm the one who has to make an end of these.

Devon: Yeah, you're right. You're right. You've been listening to Ouija Broads. Live weird, die weird, stay weird, and thank you for listening.

Liz: Thank you.

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: Yay, that was fun.

Devon: Your "Thank you" was just so, like, "Goddammit, I let the child do the voicemail greeting and I have to show them that there's an adult in there."

Liz: [laughing]

Devon: So thank you... I love it. 

Liz: I hope somewhere in here, we've got something…

[Theme music fades in, ends.]

Episode Transcript: #45, Polybius

Transcript can be read below, or downloaded here.

[Theme music fades in.]

Liz: You're listening to Ouija Broads, this is Liz.

Devon: This is Devon.

Liz: I have an urban legend for you today.

Devon: Oh, cool. All right. 

Liz: I love urban legends, I love weird stories, as people have probably figured out.

Devon: [laughs] No!

Liz: This is one from Portland.

Devon: Okay!

 Liz: And it's one that I only encountered on the Internet, and I think the Internet has really spread it, but let me tell you how the urban legend itself goes.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: So! The story is that in Portland, Oregon, in 1981, there was a new arcade game that showed up in a couple arcades and it was bizarrely popular.

Devon: Okay?

Liz: A really strange game, but people loved it and guys would line up, like, fight over who would play next. And it was called Polybius. So the idea with Polybius is that not only was it hugely addictive, but people started to notice that weird things were happening around it.

Devon: How do you spell that?

Liz: P-O-L-Y-B-I-U-S. I'll get into the name a little bit later.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: But the urban legend says that there were a couple things that happened. One is that there were players who would have these very strange reactions. So they'd have amnesia, like, they would kind of black out while playing the game.

Devon: No way.

Liz: Or they would get night terrors, or they would get insomnia, or they would even hallucinate.

Devon: Oh, wow.

Liz: And also, the legend says that there were these Men in Black.

Devon: [excited gasp]

Liz: -- who would come to collect data from the arcade games. They would collect this information from Polybius, you know, plug into the back and do whatever.

Devon: Yeah?

Liz: Get that information. And about a month after it appeared, it disappeared, just as fast, without a trace.

Devon: No way.

Liz: Yeah, well, probably no way.

Devon: Okay. But I still--- wow, okay.

Liz: It's a fun urban legend, though. So it's developed into this complicated thing. So, Polybius does not actually seem to have a lot of documentation in the actual 80s. What seems to have popped up is that in early Internet days, so about , you know, 2000 or so--

Devon: Okay.

Liz: That's not super early, but, you know, it wasn't everybody was on the Internet.

Devon: I wasn't-- I was just barely.

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: You know I was late to it, though.

Liz: There was somebody who ran a site called Coin Op, as in like coin operated.

Devon: Yeah, okay.

Liz: He did a tip-off to a video game magazine called Game Pro, basically laying out the Polybius myth. It's the first time anybody has seen Polybius discussed in print. And, among other things, you know, it's sort of a "secrets and lies" column. And they say it's inconclusive as to whether this happened. But, you know, tons of people who were getting this magazine were like, "Ah-ha, interesting."

Devon: Okay.

Liz: "Polybius." And when people dug in, they actually found out that back in maybe 1998  or so, somebody posted about this on the Coin Op website. So as far as we can tell, that's kind of where the legend started of Polybius. And, of course, because of the way urban legends grow, it's gotten even more extreme, that it's not just that some people got sick or that it existed and it disappeared, but-- let's see-- so one variation of the legend says that, actually, a kid who got a high score was kidnapped and was taken through underground tunnels.

Devon: Whuh?

Liz: We've already talked--

Devon: [crosstalk] Yes--

Liz: --about the underground tunnels in Portland, abducted by the government. 1981 is when it allegedly came out. 1984 is when The Last Starfighter came out. Did you ever see that?

Devon: I know that name. I don't know what the game is necessarily.

Liz: I loved it. No, it's actually a movie. It came out and I think they played it on SciFi a lot and I loved it. It's about a video game called The Last Starfighter. Like an arcade game.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And the kid who gets the high score gets recruited by aliens who put The Last Starfighter on Earth as a way to find people who are really, really good at the skills necessary to fight whoever these aliens are fighting. It's been a while.

Devon: [laughing] This is like how the FBI or the CIA has those, those, uh, codes on their artwork out in their courtyard.

Liz: Yes!

Devon: And people think that if you crack those ciphers, it's actually a recruiting tool?

Liz: Exactly. That kind of got merged with Polybius. Some people have said that it's actually a way of recruiting people to, y'know, FBI, CIA, whatever kids think is cool out there, and people also say that the CIA was testing it as a brainwashing tool.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: Because some descriptions of the game say it was very sort of... It's non-representational. It wasn't like Tapper or Donkey Kong or something where you're like, "Okay, I'm a dude and I'm jumping." It was like, strange polygons and colors.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: One of the things that makes it either legendary or more obviously not real is that a lot of the play that they describe would be impossible with the technology that was available. You could either have raster or pixel. You couldn't intertwine them, and a lot of what they describe sounds like that.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: But, okay. That's the urban legend of Polybius and other folks, including some people that are doing a podcast and people that did documentaries have really dug into it and said, "okay, where the heck did this come from?"

Devon: Yeah

Liz: "And why is it gaining steam instead of just sort of fading out?” Like, it's 2017 for another month, and I'll keep saying it's 2017 for another seven.

Devon: [laughing] Yeah, you will. All right.

[note from future Liz transcribing - there's no additional tone or inflection here that makes that exchange about 2017 make sense in context. I have no idea what I was talking about, I probably edited out part of the discussion and didn't notice until now. I'm sorry!]

Liz: You know me. But they're trying to figure out what the heck is up with this mythical arcade game. So, one of the things that makes this more plausible is that arcade games were, especially at that time, pretty... Transient? I guess, is what I'm trying to say?

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: So there were plenty of games... Like, one of the things that kind of gets mixed up is, people say it was a Tempest-like game. So, I guess Tempest was a really popular arcade game at the time. There were Tempest games in Portland at the time. So, if you weren't familiar with it, you definitely could have seen people playing this. And then somebody explained it to you later. And you're like, no, I saw Polybius.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: It sounds like it was a lot like Tempest, but people also did prototypes. And I taped that episode with Matt where I actually tie it back into Polybius because he's talking about early Mario.

Devon:  Okay.

Liz: And when they were starting Donkey Kong, they put it in two arcades.

Devon: No way.

Liz: So imagine if it had never taken off. There would be people, y'know, now in their 30s and 40s being like, "I would swear that when I was a kid, I played this video game where I was this jumping man and, like, a gorilla was throwing barrels at me and shit?"

Devon: Yeah, okay.

Liz: And people will be like, "You're misremembering, you're making stuff up, you don't know what you're talking about."

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Because they just would have pulled it, and pre-Internet era, they wouldn't have a lot of images.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: There seem to be some pictures of Polybius around, but some of them you can prove are frauds because they're just, you know, the era is wrong, the background is wrong, you can find the original photoshopped picture--

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: -- which doesn't have Polybius in it. There's certainly a lot of people on YouTube who like to be like, "Ooh, I found an original Polybius Arcade Cabinet!" And then they go, like, digging in this dark warehouse with flashlights, and then, you know, they drop the camera and run away screaming...

Devon: Oh, God.

Devon: Yeah.

Devon: Super Blair Witch Project.

Devon: It's that type thing.

Liz: Well, and you could definitely have an old gaming cabinet from the right era, print out your own, like, banner, stick it on there, take a current picture and be like, "Dudes, I found one."

Liz: Yeah, "I found one. And, you know, I'm taking it with a potato, so you can't really, like, deconstruct it." Yeah, I'm taking a terrible picture. I'm taking like a really shakycam, you know, type thing.

Devon: Yeah

Liz: So there's a couple factors that actually could have contributed to this myth. One is that in one week, three kids in 1981 in Portland actually did get sick playing video games at arcades

Devon: What? Really?

Liz: Yeah. So remember, this is before we really knew about... I don't think most of us knew about the whole photosensitive epilepsy thing until that Pokemon thing.

Devon: Oh yeah!

Liz: So there were some video games that were really hard to watch. And even if you weren't subject to that kind of thing, they could definitely make you feel queasy or unsettled or give you a headache if you played them for too long.

Devon: For sure.

Liz: So, there's this little guy named Michael Lopez who got a migraine from playing Tempest. Apparently, he was on-- he was walking home from the arcade. He wasn't feeling good. He threw up and then he ended up falling onto a neighbor's lawn, just screaming because he felt like his head was exploding.

Devon: Oh, kiddo.

Liz: So he had migraines. This was his very first migraine he'd ever experienced. And he had no idea what the hell was happening.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Then-- back then, apparently 12 year olds could do this-- there is this kid named Brian Morrow who was trying to set a world record for playing Asteroids for the longest time.

Devon: Oh, kiddo.

Liz: Yeah, he played for 28 hours. All he was drinking was, like soda and orange juice.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: --and he got incredibly sick and had to quit.

Devon: Big surprise, Brian.

Liz: Yeah. That's not good for your body! And then a week later, there was an 18 year old competitive gamer named Jeff Daly who had a heart attack when he was chasing the world record in Berserk, which is another game that was very popular at the time. This is a little bit-- we weren't quite born, this is not totally familiar to me. I think by the time you and I were in, like the arcade age range, it's more like what are they called... Why am I drawing a blank on this? I just knew it. They're not reimbursement games, but there's something like that where we get tickets. Yeah, the idea is that you play and you get tickets and you trade them in for, like, I don't know, a dusty gummy worm or whatever.

Devon: [laughs] An Airhead from even 10 years before you were born.

Liz: Yes, exactly. It's going to shatter your teeth.

Devon: Yeah, exactly.

Liz: But at this era, it was, you know, it's Asteroids and Berserk and Tempest and Galaga and Donkey Kong and so forth. The-- the playing of it was the point. And so--

Devon: Yeah

Liz: They were competitive. And they would also play for a good long time. And then a year after this, another teenager died trying to set the world record in Berserk. So--

Devon: Also of a heart attack or like, what did he die of?

Liz: Also of a heart attack. Yeah, basically, if you are young and you've got undiagnosed heart conditions and you've never before pushed yourself really, really hard doing something that's, you know, very stressful, you've got a lot of attention on you, you're not paying attention to what your body needs.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: That can-- that can bring it out. I feel like often you see it with, like, football or--

Devon: [crosstalk] Yeah, exactly.

Devon: [crosstalk] --stress.

Liz: But this is kind of the perfect storm if you're already set up for that.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: So these guys were making a documentary about Polybius and one of them used a phrase I like, which is they said, "When you think about it in playground years, that's enough to keep kids going forever, right?"

Devon: Yes.

Liz: So especially back in the day when you are, like, hearing about stuff maybe from your parents or through the playground grapevine, it feels like all of a sudden a ton of kids are going down playing video games in your neighborhood really fast.

Devon: Yes. Well, and there's always the kid who's going to change the story enough so that it was like his cousin's friend.

Liz: Yes. Yes. My cousin's friend was my uncle who works at Nintendo.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: It was, you know, "And it was worse!" And it was that, you know, he was brainwashed or he was hypnotized.

Devon: Yeah.

 Liz: He didn't know what was happening. You know, all of these are medically explainable things with the stimulus that these kids were undergoing, especially the ones who are like, "I'm going to stay up--" The kid who passed out after 28 hours of Asteroids was trying to make it 48.

Devon: Child!

Liz: Like, that's not good on your body.

Devon: No.

Liz: Dammit.

Devon: You at least need some pretty good amphetamines if you're going to do that.

Liz: Right? And then your heart condition goes.

Devon: Yep, there you go. I mean, like you said, it's really funny to think of it in terms of perpetuating that myth on the playground where, like, you totally hear about the-- you mentioned the kid that, you know, he got a high score? So he got drug down the tunnels in Portland? And you're like, oh, so who saw this happen? Like were-- you were in the tunnels and this kid got pulled past you? Like how would you know the story is real?

Liz: Exactly. Like who saw this? What's happening? What are you even talking about? Now, the problem with some of this is, the Men in Black thing was real.

Devon: Wait, what? In terms of video games?

Liz: The FBI was raiding arcades in Portland in the 80s.

Devon: Nuh-uh! What for?

Liz: Because arcades were places where there was a lot of drug dealing happening.

Devon: Well, yeah.

Liz: And they were a lot less safe. And it was also an era in which parents were much more concerned about what video games and computer games were doing to their kids because it was kind of a new thing.

Devon: All right.

Liz: So there was also gambling where they had these special routers. And I don't understand enough about the technology to explain this, but there would be, like, a thing that you could hook in at the back and basically people could make bets and pay out on these video games that otherwise would just be, you know, "Let me get the high score and put in my initials, or put in A-S-S, and now I'm going to be the badass."

Devon: Right!

Liz: So, you actually could have been a kid in Portland in the eighties in the arcade and see FBI agents come in and mess around with the back of an arcade game.

Devon: Oh, my gosh.

Liz: Because they would have been checking to see if it was there, if they had those things on.

Devon: Oh, my gosh.

Liz: And because the drug dealing was so prevalent, they actually used high scores, and-- This seems like a thing that in a movie, you'd be like, "What the hell are you talking about?" But if they were trying to narrow down people who may have witnessed some of these things?

Devon: Ohhhh.

Liz: They look at the high scores and say, "Okay, we have somebody whose initials line up for this, you know, you got this high score, you must have been there.”

Devon: Yeah, we totally-- ASS was here at this time.

Liz: Yeah. "We have to track down ASS. ASS was here for all of this."

Devon: COK, C-O-K, better find it.

Liz: [laughing] So there's two factors that could explain kind of-- if you see those things together, you're a kid and you're like, "All right," you know, "the FBI is here, I saw it or my friend saw it. And also, these kids are getting sick...." Maybe you extrapolate from that. That could be! I mean, it would not be unprecedented for the CIA to mess with people.

Devon: Totally.

Liz: Like, we've got M.K. Ultra...

Devon: Totally.

Liz: They love to experiment with brainwashing and mind control and they use electronics.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Now, would they ever actually put in an arcade game? Probably not. That seems like a strange way to do it.

Devon: Yeah. 

Liz: But it's the kind of thing where there's just enough reality to where some of this is coming from--

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: --that it's not like a total centaur situation where you're like, "How would that even work?"

Devon: Yeah, yeah, yeah! This isn't like, okay, you've got two rib cages? Yeah, right, dumbass. That doesn't work. It sounds like you said: all the pieces are... Almost all of the pieces are there.

Liz: Yes, but there's also a factor where it may not even have been something that arose organically in the 80s, it may have been something that somebody just made up. There's this guy whose name is... What the heck is it? Something Yogi. One of the earliest mentions that you can find on the Web-- and again, it's tricky because a lot of this, like, late 90s, early 2000s Web stuff isn't around anymore-- was a guy who was kind of known to be a goof.

Devon: Oh, okay.

Liz: So did he just appreciate and like that this myth was, you know, spreading and so he decided to spread it further? Or was he the actual start of it? And then it gets picked up, it gets discussed on the Coin Op forums, it gets put into a magazine that a lot of gamers get. And before you know it, it's everywhere as a kind of, you know, thing that people are like, "Yes, this is what happened." It's a creepypasta. And it's a thing that people put on, you know, "Five arcade games that you didn't know were as horrible as they were," or whatever. People love the story.

Devon: That's fascinating.  

Liz: But there's a couple other weird--

Devon: Wait, even more? Jesus, okay.

Liz: Even more. It keeps weirding out. There's a screenshot allegedly of Polybius where it just says, you know, "Polybius copyright 1981: Sinneslochen." Saying that like, this is the company. And that-- what that means in kind of, dog German, like it's not good German? But it means like, "sense delete."

Devon: Okay.

Liz: Or you're erasing your senses or something. It's like a phrase that it's a it's a word that an actual German speaker would never put together. But it's kind of weird. And in 2006, somebody by the name of Stephen Roach comes on to CoinOp.org and says, "Yeah, actually, I worked on Polybius. There were a couple of us and we made a program... corporation or whatever called Sinnselochen. And we were hired to do this work and we made this mind control game and we didn't really know what we were doing. It was like a military tech thing and--" We don't know. But the thing is, there's a guy named Stephen Roach who actually did do brainwashing.

Devon: Oh, no way.

Liz: He was-- he and his wife ran some of those horrible behavior modification programs that people sent their kids to?

Devon: Oh!

Liz: Where it's basically like, you know, they abuse them ferociously, like so many of those are awful. But they ran one in Mexico and he and his wife are now on the run.

Devon: Oh, my gosh.

Devon: Yeah. So is it just an allusion to that? It's a very specific allusion. Is it just a coincidence that somebody used that name? Is it the actual Stephen Roach? And he thought it would be funny to jump in there like it's it's weird.

Devon: Did the original guy that put it up on Coin Op also, like-- is this, like, a master grand-daddy troll kind of thing? You just have all these pieces...

Liz: This is all he's posted.

Devon: Oh, wow. Okay.

Liz: Yeah. And somebody else has also jumped in years later and said, "No, it's B.S.. I worked on Polybius and I'm going to tell you more in a minute, stay tuned!"

Devon: Yeah. Sure.

Liz: Never seen again. So, there's a lot of fraud versions of Polybius out there. There's actually a couple that I think it'd be more accurate to say they're tributes. And so people have designed them based on what they're said to have looked like. And sometimes they even put in creepy stuff like, you know, they'll do subliminal messaging that says, you know, "kill" and "obey" and all this kind of stuff.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: They love that kind of nonsense. And-- Or, like, there's an April Fools prank version where you install it and it makes you say a million times like, "I understand, it could mess me up, I promise I can handle it." All this kind of stuff, and then it just basically says, "This is an April Fool's prank. Share it with your friends so that you're not the only one who got screwed over by this."

Devon: Yeah, exactly, okay. I mean, that's something that modern games do. I'm trying to come up with... like, Outlast is one that my kiddo plays and then there's another one... And I can't think of it. It's a side scrolling game that's black and white. But the idea is just to create this eerie ambience, and then they throw in tiny mind-fucks like, you know, the Tyler Durden splicing a penis as one frame, you know, in a thing.

Liz: [laughs]

Devon: But it's more like, it kind of trolls your-- trolls as in, like, a fish trawler, your history to come up with names that could be yours or could be someone you know, y'know? So it'll, like whisper it, and you're like, [nervously] "Well, that's specific. You don't usually hear Devon in a video game," you know?

Liz: Mm-hmm.

Devon: Or other just kind of, like, Skynet almost things? Where you're just like, [nervously] "Oh, that's specific enough that it's freaking me out."

Liz: Yeah. There's a version of Polybius out on the Web that's like that as well--

Devon: Oh, wow.

Liz: Where they will whisper like [whispers] "Play the game" and stuff like that--

Devon: [unhappy sound]

Liz: --at, like, really subtle levels. I have no interest in ever doing this.

Devon: No!

Liz: Yeah. Like you said, one of the tricky parts is, you could just get an old cabinet, mock it up to look like this.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And put on one of the various games that people have made for you.

Devon: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Liz: But every single one of these cabinets, games, alleged code, alleged circuit board-- because this is like solid-state computing at this point--

Devon: Yes.

Liz: --has been proven to be a fraud.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: They are props or they are hoaxes or they are mock-ups or whatever.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: It's caught on into people's minds so much. So it's been referenced... In The Simpsons, they have a cartoon version of Polybius?

Devon: Okay.

Liz: It's been referenced in Batman, a bar made one for Halloween.

Devon: Oh my gosh. Cool.

Liz: Yeah. So it's got this sort of life of its own at this point--

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: As a, you know... There's going to be enough people who are bouncing around on the Internet who will see some of the things that have been disproven?

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: That, you know, in ten years they're going to be like, "No, I saw Polybius! I saw it one time!" Or "I saw a picture of it and I can't find it!"

Devon: Yes.

Liz: So, you know, there's some arcade constructors named Rogue Synapse who registered the domain [pronounces it "sin-es-lo-ken" Sinneslochen.com.

Devon: Oh, Jesus.

Liz:  Or [pronounces it "sin-es-lo-shen"] Sinneslochen, sorry. And they offered a free downloadable game called Polybius!

Devon: My gosh.

Liz: --based on what Stephen Roach described, yeah. It has its own life. But...

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: At this point, I think... I don't know. You can't prove a negative, right?

Devon: Right.

Liz: You can't say, just because in no candid photo of arcades from this era, did we ever see a game called Polybius....

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: That doesn't establish anything because it was not an era when, uh, people carried cameras everywhere...

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Especially kids, especially... Why would you just, like, take pictures of your friends playing a video game? That's not very exciting.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Yeah. And they've never found, you know, an arcade owner who said, yes, I remember when they brought Polybius in. But again, it's one of those things where they said: it was only for a month, it was only in a couple locations in Portland.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: It was very specific and time limited. So it might be the kind of thing that was very hard to nail down. Here's the thing that makes me think this is specifically a hoax and not an urban legend that somebody added onto.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: Is Polybius is the name of a Greek historian whose specific contribution to history was to say, "If you're a historian, don't repeat stories that you haven't verified."

Devon: [starts laughing]

Liz: And he was from Arcadia.

Devon: [continues laughing]

Liz: [surprised] You love it!

Devon: I'm so happy! I want this to just be some poor, poor, like... Genius who was just-- Decided they were going to fuck with people one day and they were like, "Well, this is obvious, isn't it?" [makes weird noise that I think is this character laughing at themselves but I'm not sure to be honest] "For all my nerd friends!”

Liz: There's Polybius of Arcadia. And then there's an arcade game that has this legendary status.

Devon: Yeah. Yeah!

Liz: I think that'd be hilarious. It actually - I watched this documentary that compared it to the Pacific Tree Octopus--

Devon: Bless.

Liz: --as a thing to test and see whether people are actually paying attention to the stuff that they read on the Internet.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: Whether they're bothering to cross-reference and verify from other sources, or they just have that tendency to say, "Yeah, this sounds right."

Devon: Mm-hmm.

Liz: And especially if you were a kid in Portland in the 80s, that sounds right, because it explains stuff that you probably wanted to have explained, or fits into rumors that you probably heard.

Devon: Right. It fits into something that you've probably heard. And no one wants to be left out. You know, you don't want to be the only one that hasn't heard about this or hasn't seen it or, you, don't want to-- I mean, how do-- Like you said, you can't, you can't refute a negative and you can't... Like, if my buddy Zach says that his uncle's friend works on it, I don't... I don't fucking even know Zach's dad, how am I going to verify any of that?

Liz: Right. But it's going to-- your brain is going to store it as a "maybe." And I don't think our brains are good at storing stuff as "maybe."

Devon: Oh, yeah, I could see that.

Liz: Yeah. I think they're just kind of like "Zach's dad worked on Polybius."

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And maybe when you think about it concretely, and directly, and actively, you're like "Zach *said* that his uncle worked on it." So this is like--

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: -- maybe two or three steps away. It's not firsthand like Polybius, the person, would have liked you to use, but--

Devon: Yeah

Liz: Somebody says, oh, my cousin played Polybius and had seizures. You're like, "I've heard something about Polybius. I heard about somebody working on Polybius."

Devon: Yeah. Yeah. So then they just... Those two facts reinforce each other. I mean they're not facts, but those two bits that your brain has and it's trying to make up a "maybe" now it's like nudging it into the truth.

Liz: Yes, exactly. Because you're like, okay, now I've got two sources.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: I've heard about this more places. And it was definitely one of these things where when I was researching it? Basically every article says the same thing, which was a little exasperating and I'll share them all in our show notes. And if you read them, they can, but, um... Some people made the connection with the Stephen Roach thing, some people have really gone in into the Wayback Machine or whatever the equivalent is, and said, look, you know, we really don't see any mention of this before the year 2000 except for the actual historian. It's not something that was kicking around on the Internet. And again, absence of evidence is not evidence that thing doesn't exist.

Devon: Right.

Liz: But when you have this many potential sources of evidence that don't pan out, you can't actually get a person to come on camera and say, "Yes, this is my name, here's my driver's license. I exist. And I can prove that in 1979, I was working on this game they released. You can't get that.

Devon: Right.

Liz: You can't get a real picture. You can't get Internet evidence. You can't get firsthand reports. It seems to be something that exists in the collective consciousness rather than in reality. I think it's very cool. I think it fits into Portland and the 80s. And...

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: All our secret hopes and dreams and fears about video games is that they were doing something more than what we could see.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Right? That your high scores were going to qualify you to go be the Last Starfighter...

Devon: Mm-hmm.

Liz: Or if you got really good at Asteroids, you'd be famous or whatever it may be.

Devon: Yes.

Liz: Or, you know, the flip side, what the parents were concerned about. It's  making the kids sick. It's hurting them. It's--

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: You know, warping their brains.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: The whole idea that video games warp your brains is perennial, ever since we've had videogames. We're constantly confused and alarmed by what they're doing, and the more real they get, the more alarmed we are.

Devon: Mm-hmm, yeah. Yeah. You're starting to blur that line between game and reality, between online world and then with VR, actual three dimensional physical reality. Video games came out right at the same time that the satanic panic was being revived when it comes to music and like you said, it was, it was, you've got this whole generation of people who were like, the fuck is this? I don't understand it. And because I don't understand it, I'm not sure if it's okay for my kids to do yet. And if I'm not sure my instinct is to protect and to protect, I'll just ban it outright and I will listen to all the scary shit about it and take that as gospel, because it's, it's... If you get poisoned by one mushroom, you might as well just swear off mushrooms for a generation.

Liz: Yeah, sure.

Devon: Your kids are safe.

Liz: You know, they weren't wrong that arcades were sketchy, especially in those days. I mean, they were so sketchy, the FBI was raiding them.

Devon: Yeah. Stuff could have gone down.

Liz: I'm sure there was, you know... Those kids could have gotten offered drugs by, you know, the same people that give away drugs for free on Halloween.

Devon: Oh, yeah, man.

Liz: Here they come, Barbara.

Liz: So, I like it because I think it's a story that, first of all, highlights some actual weird stuff happening, like with the FBI raiding arcades and stuff, and the kids having seizures and whatnot and migraines. And it also... I think urban legends are fascinating in that they, they really illustrate how we think the world works.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: There's some stuff that's just a lie--

Devon: Right

Liz: --And we can accept it as a lie, where somebody is like, "Oh, you know, flying cars are real!" And you're like, "I really don't think so, because I would have seen it. I would have heard about it and somebody would be making money on it."

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: But something that has the secrecy and the time-limited aspect and the very small scope, you're like, "Well, I wasn't in Portland, how do I know? I wasn't there in 1981."

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: This is how the world works. Like I think a lot of the urban legends you and I grew up with had to do with AIDS, right?

Devon: Yes, absolutely.

Liz: Because it was about, you know... It felt like this very scary thing that we didn't really understand how it worked. And of course in 1997 we did understand how AIDS worked, but there had been a whole generation who didn't and died as a result.

Devon: Yeah, oh, yeah.

Liz: So it still seemed plausible to us. You know, we're only ten, fifteen years out from people calling it, you know, GRIDS or gay cancer or whatever.

Devon: Mm-hmm.

Liz: It had this mystique, and the mystique outlasted the actual time span in which we didn't know what it was. So, you know--

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: "They're going to put a needle in the the theater seat. And when you turn around after it pokes you, there's a note that says, Congratulations, you've got AIDS," or....

Devon: Yeah

Liz: You know, somebody hurts you when you take them home and they write on your mirror in lipstick, "Congratulations, you've got AIDS." [sighs]

Devon: [laughs] You saw that TLC music video, too?

Liz: Yeah. Nobody actually is out there in the world malevolently going like, "Yes, more AIDS people!" [pauses] Well, I can't say nobody. There's always...

Devon: There's a subset there.

Liz: There's somebody for everybody out there.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Yeah. But this was not like a widespread--

Devon: No--

Liz: --thing, but in the early days, for a long time, we didn't know how it was spread.

Devon: No. We thought you could get it from a toilet seat.

Liz: Yeah, it could come out from anywhere and it could get you at any time.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: It was like Freddy Krueger or something.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: So I think we'll... I don't know. It just makes a lot of sense to me that there are myths of video games that invade your mind like that, because that's how we kind of think the world works.

Devon: It is really interesting. I love the idea of these, like, collective consciousness things and the power of suggestion and you figure out how malleable memories are. And, and, I mean, it's like the the Berenstein versus Berenstain Bears, where you've got this whole group of people, myself included, convinced it was spelled a certain way with no evidence to support that, just like general collective consciousness. So you've got a whole group of people who were in Portland at the time that probably go, "Well, yeah, I think I saw I mean, sure, I bet I saw that, that looks familiar, that sounds right." And it's just, it's... Whether it's real or not, you've got the power of suggestion, you've got, like you said, all these other things that are kind of working to help inform that it's possible and you can't refute it.

Liz: That's the story of Polybius, the Portland urban legend, slash, hoax, slash,  mysterious evil arcade game. Very different than our usual stuff, right?

Devon: Like there's no people.

Liz: There's no critters.

Devon: Well, I mean, only if it's actually a hoax. It sounds like there were Men in Black, and we don't know that they aren't critters.

Liz: Yeah, there we go. Maybe it was some kind of Mind Flayer that disguises itself as an arcade game.

Devon: Oh, yeah. Lizard man in an "Egger" suit. ["Edgar" pronounced like in the Men in Black movie] Easy!

Liz: Prove me wrong.

Devon: [laughing] Whatever.

Liz: Yeah. So if you still want to play Polybius, if you want to scare yourself, you can certainly find it and do that. But in the meantime, don't trust history that you don't have from a reliable source, firsthand, if possible.

Devon: I-- probably don't trust anything I say, that I haven't already told you I researched, because I remember a lot of things poorly.

Liz: It's-- the Internet has abundantly done this to us, I think, and that even when I'm preparing for a story like this, I'm like, "Okay, well, so somebody found the Stephen Roach guy and Stephen Roach is such and such..." I don't know that! I just know that more than one source told me that.

Devon: Yup!

Liz: And I take it as accepted because these are fairly large, well-known websites. But who knows? Anybody can edit Wikipedia.

Devon: Right? Even Dan Rather was wrong at least one time when it mattered.

Liz: Yeah, maybe the Men In Black are going around and writing all these articles for these websites and saying, tell them that all the pictures of the arcade game, Polybius, are hoaxes.

Devon: That's it! They're the ones that are editing the Internet and they're taking down these sites. And then, they're also the ones that are going through and playing other video games, and when they when they type in A-S-S because it's the only joy in their sad, scary jobs.

Liz: Yes. [sound of two knocks] [nonchalantly] Oh, they're here for me.

Devon: [very distressed] Jesus Christ, what was that?! What was that? Is there-- Did you knock? Fuck you, did you knock?!

Liz: [laughing] I knocked on the wall, you chicken!

Devon: I'm not the chicken! You're the chicken. You're the one who shrieks like a banshee when your child approaches! No, I thought your family was home, but that it was a startling-- I was worried for you, Liz. I'm so sorry that my concern for my best friend makes me chicken.

Liz: [laughing]

Devon: Well!

Liz: No, [crosstalk/inaudible] from the time that I heard something and pulled my podcast nook curtain back, and saw my kid just standing there in a dark room staring at me like fucking Children of the Corn.

Devon: [laughing] The other night... so the cat gets his food on a-- we have really wide windowsills and he gets his food on the windowsill in the kitchen, which is right next to the fire escape. And he just bolted away just like, I mean, hounds of hell were after him out of the kitchen. So I knew there was something on the fire escape. And I was like, I bet it's a raccoon or a neighborhood cat. And I get over to it and I see reflective eyes. And even though I know it's a raccoon, my-- my mouth and my brain betray me and I [warbling high-pitched shriek] and Jason's like, "Is there an opera? Like what's going on over there? Things are happening?" And it's a raccoon and I know that. But my body reacted before I could stop.

Liz: "Problem!"

Devon: So I am yeah, I am a chicken.

Liz: That's okay, me too. We're appropriately cautious.

Devon: Thank you. We did not lose our instincts for self-preservation.

Liz: Everybody stay alert all the time.

Devon: Constant vigilance.

Liz: I enjoyed telling you about Polybius, that was a weird one. Had you-- You'd never heard of this, right?

Devon: No, I never heard it.

Liz: I told you "an 80s urban legend" and you were like "I don't know!"

Devon: No, and I made sure that I didn't Google. I knew it was an Oregon urban legend that you were going to tell me. And I made sure I didn't Google it. And I was thinking about telling you, like, a Pacific Northwest urban legend, and I just didn't Google that either because I didn't want it to come up. Man, I'm getting way better at that delayed gratification. I can wait, like, I can buy a Snickers and I can wait a whole hour before I eat it all now.

Liz: How much of that hour do you spend thinking about the Snickers bar?

Devon: Fifty-nine minutes.

Liz: All right. And then there's the minute when you're walking toward it.

Devon: There's a minute. Yeah there's the-- [laughs] The minute I hit myself in the head with a hammer just so I can have a moment's respite from the Snickers. Jeeesus. Food addiction is real, my friends.

Liz: It's real. Yeah. That's my latest story for you. If people want to hear all the stories before and all the stories that are going to come after... Because I don't have an end in sight, do you?

Devon: No, ma'am.

Liz: No, I definitely want us to make it to a year. I'm very proud of us for sticking with it.

Devon: Guys, by the time you've listened to this episode, we'll probably be at forty six, forty four, something like that? And all we have to do is make it to fifty two episodes. And we've been doing this for an entire year.

Liz: Yeah. I'll tell them about our new project and then if our collaborator doesn't want me to, I'll take this out.

Devon: That's great. Please do.

Liz: But one of our patrons, Elden Fragrances actually reached out and we are going to be doing a fragrance line with them.

Devon: This is gonna be so cool.

Liz: I am so excited about-- I don't think any podcast has a fragrance line.

Devon: No.

Liz: I would be shocked. But we're going to have, you know, unisex scents and all kinds of interesting stuff for you. We're kind of... We had to work out the business side of it and then we get to do the fun, creative side.

Devon: Mm-hmm.

Liz: And I think our tagline has to be "smell weird." [laughing]

Devon: See and I was going to do "smell like a broad," but I think "smell weird" is a lot smarter.

Liz: It's-- I love all of this idea, but yeah, there's a lot of inspirations in our shows that are going to go into these ideas and I'm really excited to see what Ellen is going to come up with. And once we've actually developed it all, we'll roll it out and we'll tell you a lot about it and tell you where to buy it. But we're not there yet. So in the meantime, if you just have money burning a hole in your pocket that you want to give us, you can go to Patreon dot com slash Ouija Broads, and you can-- We've got two seances up right now.

Devon: Yes.

Liz: One about our experiences with the spiritual reading, and one about the Spokane Street Motel and all the murders associated with that. Because for reasons that I get into in the actual episode, I didn't want to put it on the main feed. Lots of outtakes, lots of fun facts and behind the scenes peeks. And you can also join us on Instagram on Facebook and Twitter for your social needs. If you want to just make sure you get all the episodes... iTunes, Podbean, I'm sure there's other podcast aggregators that have picked us up, but those are the ones I know about for sure.

Devon: Yeah

Liz: Yeah! And keep coming back, we love it. Subscribe, rate, review and live weird.

Devon: Smell weird.

Liz: [laughing] Smell weird before you die!

Devon: Then die weird--

Liz: --and stay weird. Thanks for listening, everybody.

Devon: Thanks for listening, friends.

Devon: [as music fades out, delighted with herself] I got you!

Episode Transcript: #130, American Horror Story - Gessner House

You can read the transcript in full below, or download it here.

[Theme music fades in]

Devon: You're listening to Ouija Broads, this is Devon.

Liz: This is Liz.

Devon: Liz, we're back!

Liz: We're back.  

Devon: It's good to be back. We have some patrons to thank, I believe.

Liz: We do. I would like to thank our new patrons: Andrew, Megan, and Stephanie, thank you for coming on board.

Devon: Thank you for joining us.

Liz: I appreciate your support. Current patrons, past patrons, and welcome to our new patrons. People want to get in on that, its patreon dot com slash Ouija Broads. But you know. You know the drill. You know what's up. Stephanie, Megan and Andrew know what's up.

Devon: This is going to be an interesting episode for us because it's our very first sponsored episode.

Liz: Yes. And we've turned down a lot of suggestions.

Devon: We've turned down so many.

Liz: Various, uh... my favorite, I don't remember if I told you about this one, but I think-- I don't know if I get our Instagram emails or what was happening or if they, like, find the email and I see it because it comes to Ouija Broads at Gmail?

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: But we repeatedly have gotten people who are, like, wanting us to sell yoga pants or, like, juice fast shakes and stuff. My favorite was this-- it was some like, you know, Beachbody, you have our expensive shakes and--

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: -- be underfed and you'll lose weight thing, and they contacted me during the Donner Party episodes, when they were running those.

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: I don't think you've listened to our program...

Devon: Oh, dear, oh, dear. Well, clearly, I mean, that's a... That's a wonderfully ironic episode to contact us about. But also, if you've-- if you've spent five minutes with either of us, you know that we're very body positive, femme, fat-bodied people who... Oh, gosh, what a terrible fit.

Liz: [laughing]

Devon: Oh, marvelously terrible fit, oh. Well, this is a good one. I'll be able to tell you about our sponsor in the middle of the show. But just so you all know, she is a broad after your own heart. She's a kick. I'm really excited to work with Jesse.

Liz: Awesome. All right. Well, lay it on me. I've done my part. Now I get to sit back and enjoy.

Devon: I hope that I can be your late night radio DJ with my sultry voice lulling you into a sense of security and safety with tonight's ghost story.

Liz: I love it.

Devon: This story came to me from Haunted Washington by Adam Woog, which is a book I recently picked up. And then the history, the historical parts came to me thanks to our newspapers.com subscription. So, patrons...

Liz: Hooray.

Devon: You're the ones that are keeping this factual, because I got to tell you, Haunted Washington by Adam Woog is... There are very few ghost story compilations that I would recommend to someone, and this is not one of them.

Liz: Oh... yeah.

Devon: He tried, God love him.

Liz: Yeah. Sometimes I think people are just looking for something different from those books than what I'm looking for.

Devon: Yeah

Liz: Lyd has her Big Little Book of Ghost Stories, and we read them with her and she... We've taught her, and she goes through it like the tiniest little broad that she is about, you know. "Well, couldn't they have looked up whether there was a plane crash?"

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: Or "Why doesn't this guy have a name?" or "What happened to the other people in this story?" And I'm like, that's my girl.

Devon: Dude, Lyd's going to hate this one.

Liz: [laughing]

Devon: We get to the ghosts and you're just going, how is it possible that you you have so much information, yet so little data?

Liz: Ooooh, see, that's-- that's a phrase for the ages, first of all--

Devon: You like that one?

Liz: [crosstalk] It goes way beyond the ghost story thing, yeah. But I, I personally like when we try to punch up ghost stories that we're given like that one about the singing barber lady in Pike Place where she, like, fell through the floor or something?

Devon: [laughing] She fell through the floor? We think?

Liz: We think? Maybe?

Devon: It's just--

Liz: Were you about to attach it to anything? Or, like, Glover Mansion, which I was thinking about the other day because I was watching that Hot Club of Spokane "That was a very good beard" video.

Devon: Yeah

Liz: That always makes me smile?

Devon: Yeah!

Liz: And they filmed it in the Glover Mansion, I'm pretty sure. And so I was thinking about the ghost of that, where you're like, why-- none of this is based on anything.

Devon: None of it.

Liz: These-- I just-- ground your ghost stories, folks.

Devon: [crosstalk] You need something.

Liz: Like you need the little, the little central core of this. You need the hazelnut in the Ferrero Rocher, or you just have a big handful of chocolate and it's a mess.  

Devon: I would so much rather have a big handful of chocolate. Fuck your hazelnut.

Liz: [laughing]

Devon: However, I understand the metaphor as it pertains to ghost stories. And this one's got a hazelnut, but I mean... Well, no, this one's got is a Ferrero Rocher and it's got, like, a walnut in the middle of it.

Liz: OK, that's wild. I'm here for that.

Devon: You're just thrown off. Let's set the scene, though. We'll start at the beginning. And the beginning of this story is a man named Peter Gessner.

Liz: 'kay.

Devon: In turn of the century Seattle, Peter Gessner was a wealthy gambler and had his fingers in many sinister soups around town.

Liz: [laughing]

Devon: What is that from? Is that Venture Brothers?

Liz: Yes, that's a safe bet. It's our Star Wars, you know, we can absolutely not reference it every time we talk to each other,

Devon: God, it's our touchstone. That's-- shout out to Lauren Hatcher for sending me the very first Venture Brothers DVD disc. My goodness.

Liz: Yeah. And I think I've talked about it on here before because it's informed so much of our humor and our references.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And I look back at it now, which-- it just got canceled.

Devon: Oh, did it?

Liz: They're not bringing it back for another season.

Devon: Oh, bummer.

Liz: And, I'm like... That's a bummer. But also, the last season I wasn't that excited for and I think it was just a matter of kind of outgrowing it because--

Devon: Okay.

Liz: The humor and the stories... I no longer have patience for, um, shows with no women.

Devon: Uh-huh!

Liz: [laughing] I'm over it. I'm just-- I walk in, there's no women. I turn around and walk right back out.

Devon: Uh huh!

Liz: I just-- I'm not here for that at this point. And so, although I really enjoy the female characters that they do put in Venture Brothers, if you can't really commit to having somebody in your core cast who's not literally Doctor Girlfriend?

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And you know, and I love the character and I love the voice that they did and I love what's going on with her. But I just want things to pass the Bechdel test these days. And I... Yeah.

Devon: There's-- yeah. There's not a single female character in that that doesn't revolve around a male character.

Liz: Mm-hmm, and they never talk to each other at any point.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: And it's like no. Over this.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Somebody the other day called it default settings. I'm just sick of default settings characters and--

Devon: [agreeing] Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Liz: I'm not here for it anymore. I'm sorry. It's been said.

Devon: [cackles]

Liz: Please tell me your ghost story!

Devon: Peter Gessner was not only a gambler, he owned a poultry farm, among other things, as well as the Central Tavern in Seattle, which also goes by the Central Saloon and apparently has had another name or two. But it's all the same place. It's actually Seattle's oldest tavern.

Liz: Oh, it's still operating.

Devon: It's still operating. It opened in  1892.

Liz: Wow.

Devon: Which was three years or so after Seattle's Great Fire and it's still in operation. I looked at their history webpage and it sounds like it's been under the same management this time since the 1970s.

Liz: I was really hoping you were going to say since 1892.

Devon: It's the same guy.

Liz: Nothing spooky here!

Devon: He's a vampire. That's a different episode.

Liz: [laughing] It's a fun coincidence. Nothing to do with the ghost.

Devon: Nothing to do--

Liz: It's just an immortal who runs this bar. And we leave him because he's doing a great job.

Devon: He's doing fine. I don't-- I don't really want it to tip, you know? I'm worried that if you all hear about this vampire owned bar, you're going to go change the vibe.

Liz: [laughing]

Devon: So, Peter was doing pretty good for himself, you know. He had this saloon, he had this poultry farm, he was doing great for himself as a gambler. So in 1902, he built a mansion in the Georgetown neighborhood for himself, his wife and possibly his three children. I've heard from different sources that he had three kids and another source, that he had one kid. So he built it for his family, his immediate family, however big that was.

Devon: Today, Georgetown is a really cool neighborhood. It's a-- it's a place where Jason and I had talked about, like, if I'm going to live in Seattle proper, I would love to live in Georgetown because it's got these old brick buildings, of course, because it was, 20 years ago, like an inexpensive artist enclave, like this safe haven for artists and low rent, now it's becoming gentrified as fuck, so I can no longer afford it.

Liz: That's the only setting that Seattle has anymore.

Devon: Oh my God. That's why we're out in the suburb that we're in. My goodness. Back then, it was not part of Seattle proper, and it was actually the red light district.

Liz: [intrigued sound]

Devon: Outside of the city limits, still close to the waterfront... Red light district. This is where Peter Gessner said, I'm going to build my five thousand square foot Victorian home.

Liz: Cool.

Devon: It's got nine bedrooms, it's got a turret. And it became known as the Georgetown Castle.

Liz: I am sold.

Devon: Oh!

Liz: I'm sold on this.

Devon: Oh!

Liz: Once  you got past five thousand square feet, because that means nothing to me.

Devon: It's--

Liz: It's like you told me it was green big. I'm like, I don't--

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: I got nothing. But nine bedrooms? Okay. I understand that.  

Devon: What color is it? It's a Wednesday, like a light Wednesday.

Liz: [laughing] You're on a roll with this.

Devon: Speaking of Venture Brothers quotes...

Devon: The Gessner House or Georgetown Castle, as we now know it, was originally built for one of two reasons. The first one, I already said -  it's possible that it was a home for Peter's young bride, Lizzie, and their kids. It's also possible that he built it specifically to be a gambling den that was outside of Seattle's jurisdiction.

Liz: Okay.

Devon: He had a good reason for that. He was currently being sued by the city of Seattle for letting minors gambles. Minors, the young people, not the people with pickaxes.

Liz: [laughing] Yeah I'm like "no, stop, go back--"

Devon: Either is possible in Seattle in the 18s, early 1900s.

Liz: Some were both!

Devon: Where both he was letting kiddos gamble at Central Saloon and he wasn't about to stop letting people with money to burn gamble. So he, y'know--

Liz: [laughing]

Devon: As opposed to being--

Liz: He's like, "that's not my problem. I got one to three kids, not however many these are."

Devon: Yeah, that's fine. So he built this beautiful, large, green-sized house in Georgetown. You would think life was going pretty damn good for Peter Gessner. Narrator: Life was not going that great for Peter Gessner.

Liz: Is it something to do with the poultry farm? Because you mentioned it twice, and now I'm just waiting to find out.

Devon: Aren't you a smart little cookie? You!

Liz: I just think about chickens a lot.

Devon: Well, the thing is, the poultry farm had a manager and that manager must have been some kind of looker because Lizzie--

Liz: [gasps]

Devon: started a-wanderin' before the house was even completed. Peter and Lizzie separated and she stayed at their farm near Sunnydale, Washington. He moved into the soon to be completed and then completed Georgetown Castle, and she started hooking up with the manager of their chicken farm.

Liz: God, sorry. I have just the worst joke and-- keep talking, please. I don't want to think about this.

Devon: [laughing] You don't want to think--

Liz: It's-- it's the crappy kind of low that's *not* worthy of us for once.

Devon: So I can't make a--  I can't make a cock-a-doodle-doo joke? You're not going to allow that?

Liz: No that's pretty - that's pretty good.

Devon: All right. Thanks.

Liz: Yeah. There's just something about... "this low hanging fruit doesn't smell right. I'll let Devon keep talking."

Devon: [laughing] Terrible. Terrible! Peter Gessner's castle-- Victorian house, but we're going to call it a castle because that sounds sexier -- was completed in 1902. In 1903, one year after the house was completed, Peter Gessner was found dead in his bed with chemical burns on his lips and his mouth.

Liz: Oh, no. Okay.

Devon: He died by drinking carbolic acid.

Liz: Oh, my God, no.

Devon: Isn't that a horrible way to go?

Liz: [distressed sound]

Devon: The Seattle Times of the Day reported that Peter Gessner died of a, quote, broken heart. It-- no, it was carbolic fuckin acid, y'all. The shady thing is the death was ruled a suicide. The coroner decided not to hold an inquest. But Peter's family, other than Lizzie, said that it was quite suspicious and they suspected foul play.

Liz: Well, they would say that, yes.

Devon: Wouldn't they?

Liz: Someone probably always should, because that is the thing where you're like, look, just because somebody was depressed doesn't mean they can't get murdered.

Devon: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. I mean, if I die, I want you to make them hold an inquest because I've got treasures, I'm sure of it. Somewhere.

Liz: [laughing]

Devon: The upshot is that Lizzie inherited the mansion four months after her husband's death. She married the poultry farm manager and the two moved into the house. They didn't live there very long. It was like a decade before she rented it out...

Liz: [muttering] Neither did her first husband.

Devon: [laughing] Too soon.

Liz: Too soon?

Devon: He's hardly cold in the ground, my friend.

Liz: It's only been 118 years, show some respect.

Devon: Wow, that was good math.

Liz: Well, 2020 is an easier year to subtract from than most.

Devon: Oh, there you go. There you go.

Devon: Over the years, the house has changed... So over the last hundred and eighteen years, as you said, the house has changed hands so many frickin times, dude. And it's had so many different incarnations. It has been a social club, a baseball clubhouse, a brothel, a gambling den, a brothel again, a speakeasy, a boarding house--

Liz: Speakeasy, which was kind of a brothel, boarding house which was, you know, a brothel when it needed to be...

Devon: A brothel lite, yeah! And then it was in a state of disrepair until the early 2000s when a mother and son duo bought the place and lovingly and painstakingly restored it to be their residence.

Liz: When did it get neglected? Like they picked up in 2000s, but when did that start?

Devon: The nineteen eighties...

Liz: Okay.

Devon: ...is when the neglect really started and apparently I only read this in one article, so I don't know how truthful it is? But apparently houseless persons broke into the house and were living in it. There were people squatting in it for a while. They tore up some of the original hardwood to burn for fires. Then--

Liz: I'm OK with that, actually.

Devon: I mean, if it's going unused, right? But when the mother and son -- Lynda and... Micah is his name- when they bought the house, they had to redo everything.

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: Just about, you know. The roof was terrible, parts of the floor were collapsing, but they made it really beautiful. And we will come back to Lynda and Micah here later. But in that huge amount of lifetime and with at least one death on the property that we know of, there are probably going to be some ghosts associated with this place.

Liz: [crosstalk] Well, yeah. Cuz this is like, one of the oldest houses of Seattle.

Devon: Has to be, right?

Liz: I mean--

Devon: Yeah, I'm trying to figure out... We just did the Mother Damnable episode and she moved into the oldest log... The oldest...

Liz: [laughing] The oldest finished timber house.

Devon: Thank you. Thank you. God, how do you remember that and not me?

Liz: Because I had to edit the part over and over when I said, "Wait, so if they weren't made of finished timber before, what were they made of?" And you think about it for a generous pause, then you say "walls!"

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: Confidently!

Devon: That's right!

Liz: It stuck with me.

Devon: That's right! Why didn't I say Danish timber, that would have been funny.

Liz: That would have been pretty good.

Devon: That would have been funny. Ah, hindsight, Devon. Hindsight.  Before we get into the ghosts, I think that this is probably a pretty natural pause point so we can talk about our first new sponsor.

Liz: Cool! Do that. I have no idea what this is going to be like.

Devon: This is like I said, this is a broad who one hundred percent gets us. This episode is sponsored by Jesse Ingles and she's a Pacific Northwest land broker.

Liz: OK,

Devon: You want to go check her out on Jesse_Sells_Land so it's Jesse Underscore sells underscore land on Instagram and check out--

Liz: how do you spell Jesse?

Devon: Oh, good point, J-E-S-S-E.

Liz: OK, not what I would have come up with.

Devon: There's no I in it. J-E-S-S-E. What is different about Jesse is, y'all she sells weird houses and properties, so her stuff is off the grid. It's remote and it's also possibly haunted.

Liz: [sounding delighted] It comes with a ghost?

Devon: Oh, my goodness. She's one of the few realtors in Washington State who doesn't shy away from houses that have the reputation of being haunted. Like if you go to New Orleans, it-- it's necessary on the, on the listings, they have to put haunted or not haunted. It's just part and parcel of what you're buying, to know the paranormal history of the place. And here, you know, it's a little more buttoned up in the Pacific Northwest when you're talking about, is this property haunted or not? And Jesse just goes, like, balls in.

Liz: [giggling]

Devon: And will sell the haunted properties.

Liz: Just so folks know if they're going to check out the Instagram, Jesse is a hunter. So there are pictures of hunting in there and I just didn't want to stress anybody-- stress anybody out.

Devon: Yes. Thank you.

Liz: With a deer picture they weren't ready for. But--

Devon: [crosstalk] Thank you for pointing that out.

Liz: [crosstalk] There are also some very beautiful properties. I want the cherry orchard and I want the horse farm.

Devon: Oh, my goodness. So if you're looking at her stuff right now, she's-- her two recent ones that are my most favorite, uh, she just did a post-- she just did a list of affordable off-the-grid Washington homes? And one of them is the-- apparently, it's the original site of the infamous Kelly Hill Gold marijuana operation.

Liz: Oh, wow.

Devon: I didn't really know what that was. I had to look it up. So apparently there was this ranch in Kelly Hills and it the the rancher was like, in debt? Or he wasn't able to pay the taxes on it? So he kind of did the Breaking Bad thing where it's like, I guess I'll grow pot so that I can pay my bills so that my sons can inherit my ranch. And he got good enough at it that he got caught.

Liz: Oh!

Devon: Sold too much weed and--

Liz: I see.

Devon: Went-- went to prison for five years. This was in the nineties. The one that I really want right now is... It's a 442 acre ranch near the Canadian border. It was built in 1891.  

Liz: Neat!

Devon: And what I-- [starts laughing] It's just so random! The poultry barn... the poultry barn has been designed for emus.

Liz: That's an extremely Washington sentence.

Devon: Right? Like, what's so specific about-- would it-- [becomes serious again] would it work for a smaller ostrich? I don't know.

Liz: [laughing] Where... where do you stand on cassowaries?

Devon: Fuck those birds. Those are the assholes of the bird word. [sic] Cassowaries can eat me. They are monsters.

Liz: Every bird is the asshole of the bird word. That is hard to say! Bird world.

Devon: I know. It gets you. You kind of liked my cockatiel Boo Radley. You kind of liked him.

Liz: [laughing] Sorry, I'm loving... "Other, comma, Idaho."

Devon: [laughing] Yes.

Liz: I think what it means is "in no township," but it makes it seem like there's a city called Other.

Devon: I want there to be. I truly do. Oh my goodness.

Liz: Okay. Yeah. I did like your cockatiel and obviously I like my chickens. But they are, you know, they are what they are, which is tiny dinosaurs. Their culture is different, isn't it.

Devon: Very different. Again, we want to thank Jesse Ingles so much for sponsoring this episode. Again, you can find her at Jesse Sells Land. J-E-S-S-E, underscore, sells, underscore land on Instagram. And I often repost her stuff to our Instagram stories, just--

Liz: [crosstalk] Oh, you do? Cool.

Devon: When they're, they're so bizarrely fabulous that I think you need to see them without actually going over to her page. Just see them immediately.

Liz: Devon's like "I can't take the chance that you're not going to see this weirdness."

Devon: You have to see the emu ranch. How could you not? So thank you very much, Jesse, for sponsoring this episode.

Liz: Yeah, thank you. I'm going to just make myself stop looking at properties now.

Devon: Good luck.

Liz: [effortfully] I don't need....

Devon: But don't you?

Liz: It's the menu effect, you know? You see something, you're like, "which one's for me? Sometimes I go to the website for private islands.

Devon: I love the website for private-- but doesn't this-- I don't know, dude, looking at this made me want to buy property with you.  

Liz: Yes!

Devon: It's just, why not? We know a guy now! So I bet she could get us a deal. Let's buy acreage in the middle of fucking nowhere, Washington and then we just have it.

Liz: Yeah. I will say, like, in 2020... The whole "hey, I live close to downtown" thing really just doesn't hit the same.

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: Who cares? Give me 200 acres near nothing.

Devon: All I need is a Wi-Fi connection and I can do my job. So here I come to middle of nowhere.

Liz: [laughs]

Devon: Let's get on to the Gessner mansion ghosts, my friend.

Liz: I like to talk about ghosts.

Devon: I love to talk about ghosts. The very first ghost we're going to talk about is the one we have...

Liz: Multiple ghosts?!

Devon: Multiple ghosts! There's more than one. I'm not bringing you a one ghost wonder, my love. I'm bringing you a buffet.

Liz: Thank you. Cuz a 19th century Victorian-style mansion with a turret, if it stops at one ghost? What's wrong? What went wrong?

Devon: [agreeing] Oh!

Liz: You've made a misstep. This thing should have been pre-installed with ghosts.

Devon: Came with like three or four, shouldn't it have? Just from the get go.

Liz: Yeah!

Devon: Yeah, this ghost is the most, like I said, high on info, low on data ghost I have ever encountered. And it is frustrating.

Liz: That says something. Some of the stuff we've had here...

Devon: We've had some of the most... Most, like, nebulous -- pardon the word nebulous when we're talking about ghosts, but-- the most... oh, my goodness. I'm just going to jump right in and I'm going to tell you, don't get attached to the first story I tell you about this ghost, because we've got four other iterations of the same haunting.

Liz: Wow! Okay. Okay.

Devon: One of the supposed ghosts is that of a young woman who is trapped in this world mourning the death of her infant.

Liz: Mm-hmm.

Devon: According to an article in the Daily News, the ghost is Peter Gessner's daughter in law. So Peter and Lizzie had a son together who's also named Peter - confusing-

Liz: [irritably] They did that.

Devon: And Peter married a woman named Sarah.

Liz: Yes, one of the four names that white people had at the time.

Devon: That's all you can do. I mean, thank God we're going to get some other male names in here, because Peter is taken twice. Peter the Younger and Sarah had a baby, which, according to this Daily News article, Peter murdered and then buried under the front steps. He then locked Sarah up in the turret where she went mad with grief and died, and the ghost that is seen is supposedly that of Sarah, who haunts the house to this day, mourning the death of her baby.

Liz: [skeptically] Huh.

Devon: The Haunted Washington book that first brought me this story says, it's totally possible that that was Sarah. Yeah, but it also could be the ghost of a sex worker named Mary Christiansen, who worked in one of the brothels, and that the baby wasn't Peter the son's baby, it was a baby of one of her clients, and the illegitimate baby was killed by the father and then buried under the front steps. And he somehow was able to lock her in the tower and she went mad and died.

Liz: I like that it's just taken as read the turret and the tower lock. Like--

Devon: [emphatically] Mm-hmm!

Liz: They're like, "obviously you're not just-- if you've got one of those, you're not just going to put somebody in the pantry and shove a chair in front of the door. What are we even doing here? We're wasting time." If you don't lock the woman up in the tower, you are not even putting your heart into this game.

Devon: This is a Cinderella situation where it's up a million rickety steps. There's a skeleton key and Lady Tremaine--

Liz: Yup.

Devon: And there are no mice to help Sarah, possibly Mary, get out.

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: I wanted to corroborate this, so I kept researching and I found Atlas Obscura, which does not help the situation. In fact, Atlas Obscura further complicates this by separating the incident into two separate ghosts and makes it an entirely different woman.

Liz: Because-- Here's the part I'm not tracking is, what is, the, the, the step baby skeleton part, like? Why is that in there? Did somebody find something?  Did they have a dream of something under the steps?

Devon: [in a 'you got me there' tone] Eh? Walls?

Devon: Like, I have no idea, you cannot find any, "oh, well, then they actually exhumed the steps and found the skeleton of a young baby." No, it is just taken as gospel in all of these sources that a baby died on the property, was buried under the steps and that its mother still haunts the place.

Liz: Okay...

Devon: Atlas Obscura says the baby didn't die because the father killed it, the baby, accidentally fell out of a second story window.

Liz: Mm-hmm.

Devon: And you can still hear its cries on the property today. And that the woman who haunts may or may not be the baby's mom, but we definitely know she either appears as a specter with flowing red hair and a white nightgown or with black hair and kohl-rimmed eyes.

Liz: Maybe it's two different ghosts.

Devon: No, this is apparently... It's one or the other of those things.

Liz: [laughs]

Devon: But we know it's the same ghost. The part that really threw me for a loop in this entire ghost charade is that Atlas Obscura says it's also possible that the ghost of the woman was indeed Mary or another sex worker, and she was strangled by a magician.

Liz: [bursts into uncontrollable laughter] WHAT?!

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: [muffled] I just blew out my microphone.

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: What?

Devon: It's... the quote...

Liz: That thing hit me like a speeding garbage truck [both laughing. Magician at the end of that sentence! I could have given you a thousand guesses as to where that sentence was going, and I would not have gotten it.

Devon: [laughing, high-pitched] I know! The quote...

Liz: Give it to me one more time. Give me-- give me that mo' 'gain.

Devon: The quote is actually, do you want the whole thing again for real, or do you just want to hear it?

Liz: Yeah, I do, actually.

Devon: Atlas Obscura says the ghost is indeed of a sex worker, either Mary or someone else, but than she was inexplicably strangled by a magician.

Liz: [starts laughing again] So-- there's so many-- there's so much to unpack there that we're just going to throw away the whole suitcase.

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: You know, like, what do you mean "of course, it's a sex worker." Like, she had a nightgown on? What are you talking about?

Devon: I just-- and that's where fucking Atlas Obscura ends it. What do you--

Liz: That's it? There's not more information?

Devon: Where did the magician come from?!

Liz: [high-pitched, losing it] "Did you just say magician?!"

Devon: Is this the Futurama Lost city of Atlanta episode-- "And a magician just climbs aboard!"

Liz: I mean, I have a theory as to what happened to the Atlas Obscura writer.

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: Which is that they were inexplicably strangled by a magician.

Devon: By a magician! Oh,  my God...

Liz: It's because you expect that the end of that sentence is going to give you some insight as to why.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: Like, "by a jealous lover," "by a rival employee," by a something. It's like "No, a magician."

Devon: "A magician."

Liz: "Goodbye forever."

Devon: And you just you picture the white gloves and the cape.

Liz: Yeah, oh, yeah!

Devon: [bursts into laughter again, struggling to talk] And so... so... the Gessner House is most famous--

Liz: [still laughing] I'm not over this, hang on...

Devon: I can try to talk. My face hurts.  

Liz: At least it's not in Everett, because then it would be illegal for him to do hypnosis.

Devon: It would be! It would be, as long as it was in a, a public window--

Liz: Mm-hmm.

Devon: Remember, it had to be--

Liz: Yeah, no secondary location, not in a window for display.

Devon: Not for display purposes, no.

Liz: No aesthetic hypnotism.  

Devon: This can be in private only. [deep breath] Regardless of whether this was Mary, was Sarah... She was locked in a tower or she was strangled by a magician, she is the Gessner--

Liz: [starts laughing again]

Devon: [catches laughter from Liz, tries to keep going with decreasing success as sentence goes on] The Gessner House's  biggest or most famous ghost is apparently this woman--

Liz: [through laughter] Stop it, we're professionals. We've been doing this for 150 episodes.  

Devon: [hysterically] I know! I know! This is like me with the beaver episode. I can't get it together, Liz.

Liz: I can't get it together. Okay. [deep breaths from both as they calm down]

Devon: But, no matter who it is, I guess in the 60s and 70s or whatever, when this was a boarding house, that was the most frequently seen ghost, was a sad young woman. There was a woman, Catherine Johnson. She was a neighbor who lived near the house in the 80s or 90s. I guess. She visited the house when it was not just derelict, you know, and apparently there was a painting of Sarah or Mary or whomever it was. Again, I don't know how she knows that this is Sarah or Mary, but she says it was a painting of Sarah and it was hanging on the wall and it flew across the room. And as she was sitting there in the living room after this had happened, apparently, the door opened and a dark-haired young woman in an old-fashioned dress poked her head into the room, looked around and then left.

Liz: Ooh.

Devon: [long pause, sigh] I just can't get over the magician.

Liz: Oh, don't start me again.

Devon: Don't-- no. People have also said they believe Peter Gessner himself to haunt the second floor, particularly the bedroom where he was found dead. Then there are unnamed ghosts. After it was a boarding house in the 70s, the Gessner house was bought by Ray McWade and Peter Peterson, who lived there while kind of trying to renovate it? There was only one or two rooms that were habitable and they were also running the Castle Inn catering company from it.

Liz: Oh, my God, where's this movie? They're-- they're not in love when it starts, I'm going to say.

Devon: Of course not.

Liz: I'm going to say that they're just friends.

Devon: Okay.

Liz: But as they build their business and their home, something magical grows.

Devon: [snorts] The magician?

Liz: The magician! I didn't do that on purpose.  

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: No, I'm just saying they're-- they're falling in love and they're solving problems together and they're decorating. They do the cute, you know, I don't know, dab paint on your nose thing--

Devon: They get in a flour fight with with cooking flour! Not the-- the things that grow.

Liz: OK, I'm sorry, just you calling flowers [imitates lilting intonation] "the things that grow."

Devon: I'm making a hand gesture to-- plants! That's what I meant to say.

Liz: [laughing] "The things that grow!"

Devon: Those ones.

Liz: I'm sorry, just-- sometimes you inhabit these characters where you're like this, I don't know, thousand year old elf who's just lived in the same tree their whole life.

Devon: Yes

Liz: "The things that grow!"

Devon: "The things that grow!" That's very much me. I tuck up like a little squirrel at night.

Liz: Nice.

Devon: When Peter and Ray were in the house-- they've given interviews about this and so there's a lot of information on what they experienced and they found a small room that had been walled off and said that after they uncovered it, this room remained perpetually frigid. It was just one giant cold spot for no reason.

Liz: I mean, I got an old house, too, let me tell ya-- there can be a 20 degree temperature differential between rooms.

Devon: Yeah. I'm like, maybe that's why they walled it off, because it was a heat sink, y'all.  

Liz: Yeah. It's like every time I go to the Corbin Mansion and I remember the thing about how Anna sits in that one windowsill. [spooky voice] And it's always cold... [normal voice] Cuz it's single paned glass.

Devon: Because it's single-- because it's not even double-hung, y'all.  

Liz: Yeah. And we're in a building that they don't heat that warmly.

Devon: No, they don't.

Liz: And it's usually winter when I'm here for some reason. But, y'know.  

Devon: It's because you don't want to be proven wrong.

Liz: [crosstalk] That's it.

Devon: You're a nonbeliever and you don't want to be proven wrong. So you surround yourself with the scientific explanations as to why things are the way they are. So you've got plausible deniability when you go over there and it's cold as fuck, and it's actually Mrs. Corbin, you're just like, [serene/smug voice] "Mmm, no, science is on my side."

Liz: [in a 'not arguing' voice] And I've shut myself off to joy because they're inherently incompatible, you're right.

Devon: Yeah. There you go.  

Liz: Mm-hmm.

Devon: Ray has reported that he often heard what sounded like vicious brawls occurring upstairs.

Liz: Ooh.

Devon: And they had a guest one evening who was with them in the kitchen and apparently wondered around [sic], "Where do you keep the bread?" And once they said that, a loaf of bread suddenly rolled out of the pantry.

Liz: Oh, that's helpful.

Devon: Quite helpful! I would be: "Where's the thousand dollars?" And then it just unfolds itself from a drawer. Ray and Peter both report that they frequently saw the ghost of an elderly woman with, they said, coal-black eyes and a long white dress.

Liz: Hmm!

Devon: She's also kind of a confusing one because they said she would appear and clutch at her throat with one hand while striking out in the air with the other hand. And behind her floated a ghostly portrait of a sinister looking man.

Liz: A portrait?

Devon: A portrait, apparently. And--

Liz: Like, literally?

Devon: Like a literal oil painting, gilt frame portrait of a sinister looking man who Peter and Ray decided was this woman's murderer.

Liz: And the portrait followed her around as she died like the letter U in a Sesame Street sketch?  

Devon: [laughing] Yes! This death brought to you by... portrait! It's.. What they saw. We're going to muddy this already muddy picture by saying that Peter was actually a painter and he painted this woman. He painted what he saw--

Liz: Okay, I was like "yeah, he was renovating the place. He could do a whole room in an afternoon, two coats!"  

Devon: [laughing] Sistine fuckin' Chapel there, Peter, good job! He was an artist, painter, not just a wall painter. And like I said, at some point, he--

Liz: [mockingly] Oh was Da Vinci a 'wall painter,' Devon?

Devon: Yo, Da Vinci? We're talking about Michelangelo with--

Liz: [giggling]

Devon: What is-- get your artists right!

Liz: I'm talking about frescoes!

Devon: 'Fresnos'? You mean frescoes?

Liz: I said frescoes!

Devon: I have this volume down so loud, I'm guessing at half of the words you're saying. And I wanted to be right.

Liz: Well, fine.

Devon: [laughs] Peter, the not wall painter, because he wasn't Da Vinci or something, painted this old woman and apparently they had another living old woman come visit them, who saw the painting and said it looked exactly like her great-aunt Sarah, who had met an unfortunate end in that house.

Liz: Okay, back up.

Devon: Yeah.

Liz: [stammering] Who-- who-- who they ran-- who'd they run this by?  

Devon: some old woman. They don't say why she's there: if she's a friend, if she's a neighbor, if she's a looky-loo, if she is a random psychic magician stopping in on for Tuesday tea. The article that I read just says that an old woman visited the property, saw the painting and told Peter and Ray that it looked exactly like her great-aunt Sarah, who had died in that house.

Liz: Okay.

Devon: You may recall, Sarah was the name of Peter Junior's wife, who he supposedly locked in the tower.

Liz: [serenely] I did not recall.

Devon: Well, it doesn't make any sense because she supposedly died as a young woman after he killed her infant. And this portrait is supposed to be of an old woman who's, you know, choking herself to death or something with the portrait floating behind her. Like, don't-- don't try to make it make sense because it doesn't

Liz: Having a second portrait in this is really confusing.

Devon: There's so many portraits. Is this like Dorian Gray? So now the ghost ages, but the portrait doesn't.

Liz: There's the ghost who's being chased by a portrait ghost.

Devon: Mm-hmm.

Liz: A ghost portrait.

Devon: Mm-hmm.

Liz: Unclear.

Devon: That's some Scooby-Doo shit.

Liz: And then he paints a portrait of the...  In the picture of her that he painted, is the ghost portrait also there? Behind her?

Devon: Didn't mention. I don't think it's a real accurate portrait of her without the ghost portrait in there.

Liz: This is just hard to follow.

Devon: [agreeing] Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the people that take-- they have that one photo of them with their dog and they get it printed on their shirt and then they take a photo of them wearing it-- and it just keeps layering like that.

Liz: Exactly.

Devon: Like an infinity mirror.  

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: Not the only confusing ghost in this house.

Liz: Okay?

Devon: One of the early owners of the house, Willis Corson, was the King County Hospital and poor farm superintendent, and paranormal investigators and other people who visited the property over the years believe that Willis, as well as some of the patients from his hospital, have come back to haunt the house. Boeing Field is very nearby, and many Georgetown residents feel that ghosts from crashed Boeing planes haunt the neighborhood in general, and are attracted--

Liz: Okay, I was gonna say--

Devon: Yeah, they have nothing to do with the house but are in the area. And they're kind of attracted to-- it's like the Poltergeist house, like it's got bad energy radiating in. It makes them all, like, wild and woolly. There's a final connection. And I always get-- I don't know, dude, I always get really weird telling stories about Native Americans because it's--- ahh, just feels wrong for me to do. But the Seattle Met did say that the neighborhood sits on a Duwamish burial ground that was dug up when early Seattle rerouted the Duwamish River through there. And Chief Seattle apparently warned that there would be shadowy returning spirits because of the digging up of this burial ground.

Liz: Look, I mean, I'm obviously not the right person to vibe check that exactly, but that seems like you did a good job telling the story... Now that we have such an understanding of how often cemeteries get moved, I think it evokes an interesting comparison between all the early pioneer cemeteries that get moved?

Devon: Mm-hmm.

Liz: And sometimes they lead to ghost stories and sometimes they don't. But we definitely only ever hear about a Duwamish burial ground if it's associated with a ghost story.

Devon: Absolutely. Absolutely. It's always that, that terrible cliche of, like the "ancient Indian curse." I will buy... Any holy place or cemetery that is not treated with respect upon its removal being a place of bad vibes. So the early pioneer cemeteries that we've talked about on the show being moved so far? Yeah, they've been moved, but it sounds like they were done with as much respect as people in nineteen hundred were doing anything with respect. They were at least gathering up the bodies and taking them to a new place and interring them with Christian burials. Maybe that plays a part. I don't know. That one's got me.

Devon: But I wanted to get back real quick to the mother and son, Lynda and Micah, who bought the property and renovated it in the early 2000s.

Liz: Okay.

Devon:  Lynda did say that at first when they were renovating, they encountered some strange things like cold spots, like banging noises, like heavy footsteps. And they had one houseguest who said that he was pushed on the stairs. They did let a couple paranormal groups come out and investigate. But since the restoration has been completed and Lynda and Micah are living there peacefully, Lynda says that the paranormal activity has stopped. She thinks that, like a lot of people have reported, any kind of big change to an old property kind of stirs up the energy, stirs up the spirits if you believe in that sort of thing. And that now that that's all done, things are kind of in a normal groove and the spirits see that the place is being taken care of and loved. They have no more reason to kick up a fuss.

Liz: Hmm,  okay. I have a question about the remodel that Ray and Peter were doing, one, when was the era of that and did they not finish it or did they finish it and it got torn up again? Or what?

Devon: That was the 1980s, and it sounds like they didn't do a whole lot. They just kind of made the rooms they were inhabitable.

Liz: All right, and then they sold it on?

Devon: And then, uh, yeah, they sold it on, and then there was a period in the 90s? To early 2000s? Before Lynda and her son bought it when it was, as far as I can tell, vacant.

Liz: Okay.

Devon: I thought that that was a really nice, neat kind of wrap up to the Gessner House, that it had this kind of tragic beginning with the affair and the suicide or murder and then the, y'know, ghost of the woman, if that story is true, is... Is quite sad. And it goes through all these permutations to eventually become loved by a mother and son who take such great care of it.

Liz: Yeah.

Devon: Who are now there putting nothing but good energy into it. And the ghosts can rest.

Liz: Yeah, by the logic of a ghost story, it would have to be a mother and son.

Devon: It would have to be a mother and son.

Liz: But we're not done with ghosts quite yet.

Liz: Wow.

Devon: You recall that Peter Gessner owned Central Saloon.

Liz: Yes.

Devon: That has a history and it has its own ghost stories. It is known as one of the-- during the days of grunge, I mean, this place was ground zero for grunge. It hosted Jimi Hendrix, Alice in Chains, Soundgarden, Bikini Kill, when they were babies. And it's actually probably the first place that Nirvana played a gig.

Liz: Wow.

Devon: Supposedly the first gig that Nirvana played was at a place called the Vogue. But Bruce Pavitt, who's the founder of the Sub Pop label that signed Nirvana, said, "No, actually, their very first gig was here at Central Saloon. It was April 10th, 1988. And no one would remember it because they played to me, the bouncer, and like three people who were in the bar."

Liz: Oh!

Devon: So it's really cool in that it's got this great musical history. It's got it's one of the oldest operating places in Seattle, let alone taverns in Seattle. And it's also known to paranormal believers because investigators have gone there and found EVPs, footsteps, shadow men, flickering lights, and even the apparition of a woman.

Liz: [beat] Oh, I thought you were going to give me more information about this woman.

Devon: That's all I have! There's very little distinct information on it, but I thought it was really cool that these two places that Peter Gessner is really associated with both have their own place in Seattle's history, plus a lot of paranormal associations.

Liz: And they both made it to the present day.

Devon: They did both make it to the present day. Isn't that marvelous?

Liz: I have a question about how he died, though. I thought there was going to be more about-- it doesn't sound like he's much of a player in the ghost scene. And it doesn't sound like anything ever came of the investigation.

Devon: They didn't have an investigation.

Liz: Ohhh.  

Devon: There was-- the coroner decided not to do an inquest.

Liz: Okay.

Devon: He said it was suicide, that it was because of this, you know, "his wife spurned him." That's just what they ruled it as. And the family wanted an inquiry done, but the coroner declined it.

Liz: [crosstalk] Okay. There's a lot of question marks about that.

Devon: [crosstalk] There's not a lot of details other than-- So many question marks, right? There's not a lot of details that I could find in, you know, the dozen articles that I read about Peter Gessner haunting other than people thinking that he haunts the second story, particularly the bedroom where he died and that he might be responsible for some of the heavy footsteps that they hear.

Liz: Yeah, that's... It feels like that's one where you could build such a thing about the spurned man and the acid and everything.

Devon: Couldn't you?

Liz: Instead they're like, "yeah, he walks around."  

Devon: Yeah. Why isn't it like, the-- the visage of some facially deformed, angry man rising up before you from the bedclothes? Why is it Mary, slash, Sarah, slash, we don't know who this woman is who's maybe got red hair, pr maybe got brown hair, or maybe she's an old woman. Like, why did that take on a life of its own when you have an actual rooted in history, grisly death on site that you could have come up with all these tales for?

Liz: Yeah. Huh. All right.

Devon: Yeah, so that's my tale about the Gessner House, and then tangentially,  the Central Saloon.

Liz: I liked that very much.  That was confusing, but in a way I enjoyed.

Devon: It was all redeemed by the magician, I feel.  

Liz: [laughing quietly] The magician... Just so many unfinished plot threads from when Gessner House got canceled.

Devon: [snorts]

Liz: And, like I -- the magician stuff, I don't know where they were going with that.

Devon: Yeah!

Liz: I feel like they were going to come back and tell us something about the carbolic acid mystery and hen they just kind of left that... I don't know if they couldn't get the actor back, or what happened...

Devon: [laughing]

Liz: They keep recasting Sally like we're not going to notice. There's a portrait. It's just... it does not hang together.

Devon: I would imagine there were some kind of scheduling conflicts. Someone was a little bit of a prima donna on set.

Liz: Great season of American Horror Story, though.

Devon: Wasn't it marvelous?

Liz: This would be so good.

Devon: Oh, friends, thank you for listening to my story about the Georgetown Castle, also known as the Gessner House. If you want to hear more about this particular story or really any of our stories, you want to head on over to our website, ouijabroads.com which is where we have show notes, so you'll be able to find links to all of the materials I referenced for this episode and all the materials we reference for any episode.

If you are a patron, that's at patreon.com, you not only get outtakes and first pass edits of our episodes, Liz is also putting up some of the articles that we have written for Nostalgia Magazine. So if you don't have a subscription to Nostalgia, but you still want to read the stuff with the Broads are doing for not Ouija Broads, that's a great way to do it, really. It's as little as a dollar a month gets you access to that.

We are also on Facebook. We're on Instagram, we're on Twitter. You're listening to us on the podcast catcher of your choice. You know that you can find us on Podbean or on iTunes on either of those, it's so helpful to us if you can give us a review or if you can subscribe to us that helps other people find us.

Devon: Other than that, I, of course, my darlings, hope that you live weird.

Liz: Die weird.

Devon: And stay weird. Thank you for listening.


[Theme music fades out]

The Ouija Broads Guide to Good Vibes and Happy Thoughts

Even ghost stories can be stressful sometimes, what with the usual horrible death pre-requisite. Here we have collected the episodes that we think are the most light-hearted and require the fewest content warnings. In fact we’ll even put in some extra notes about potentially stressful stuff in the descriptions below so you can pick the chillest episode for your personal requirements!

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101: The Political Animal (June 17, 2019)

It's technically politics, but we promise it's zero stress. The first story in the episode is about Boston Curtis, a long-eared mule that was briefly elected as a Republican precinct committeeman in Milton, Washington. The second story is about Mayor Stubbs, a tail-free marmalade cat who spent most of his twenty years of life as the mayor of a small town in Alaska.

Stress rating: The guy who helped Boston Curtis get elected coordinated a prank where a teen did get thumped in the head with a firehose, but everybody is okay.

Does an animal die: Stubbs does die, but peacefully and at a ripe old age.

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94: Man’s West Friend March 4, 2019

Devon tells Liz about a four-legged explorer and his journey with Lewis and Clark. This is the tale of Seaman, the Newfoundland who accompanied Lewis and Clark on their famous journey.

Stress rating: Seaman is briefly abducted and Meriwether Lewis threatens to go full John Wick on a whole village, but the dog is returned in time. He also gets bitten by a beaver, but survives. The colonialism is minimally referenced but inherent to the setting.

Does an animal die: One story claims that Seaman pined away and died with grief upon his master’s grave.

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88: A Noble and Absurd Undertaking (December 10, 2018)

Devon and Liz swap tales of more Good Dogs of the Northwest, including a very big beagle and Bobbie the Wonder Dog. The first story is about the Dog Bark Park Inn, an Idaho hotel in the shape of a beagle for no particular reason. The second story is about Bobbie the Wonder Dog, a scrappy pup who did a real-life Homeward Bound: The Incredible Journey.

Stress rating: Pretty minimal except when Bobbie gets lost.

Does an animal die: Bobbie passes eventually, after being reunited with his family.

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Bonus Audio: It’s Not Bro Time, It’s Show Time (Liz and Devon watch Magic Mike XXL) (August 13, 2018)

You can get the movie and watch along with us or just enjoy our out of context reactions, we basically never shut up unless it's the part where the ladies kiss. 

Stress rating: Zero.

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70: You’re It, Huckleberry! (July 2, 2018)

Liz tells Devon about a Spokane game that's gone Hollywood! Specifically, a decades-long game of tag.

Stress level: If anything around guns stresses you out, skip the part where Devon tells the story of the bearskin prank. Nobody is harmed, though.

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69: Eat Weird, Oregon! (June 17, 2018)

A light-hearted overview of some of the tasty treats special to the Beaver State. Topics covered include Dave's Killer Bread, Tillamook, hazelnuts, marionberries, Burgerville, Voodoo Doughnuts, breweries, the humongous fungus, lithium water, the biggest chocolate waterfall in the world, ice cream rolls, eating pigeons and bugs, Taco Time, crustos, and strip club wars.

Potential stress rating: Maybe if strip clubs and conflict around veganism stress you out?

Episode Transcript: #12, The Skydiving Beaver and the Arboreal Octopus

The transcript can be read in full below, or downloaded as a pdf at this link.

Ouija Broads Episode 12, The Skydiving Beaver and the Arboreal Octopus.

Opening theme music (The House is Haunted) plays and fades in.

 

LIZ: You are listening to Ouija Broads. This is Liz—

DEVON: --this is Devon—

LIZ:-- and I have brought to you our very first Idaho story!

DEVON: I’m so glad we’re crossing borders.

LIZ: Yes! The kind of border you can walk to from where I’m at.

DEVON: Yeah.

LIZ: But it counts.

DEVON: It does count. We had a friend that, uh skateboarded—longboarded from Spokane to Idaho, so if she can do that, you can definitely walk there.

LIZ: Well, do you remember when her husband ran all the way from his house to Coeur d’Alene?

DEVON: Yeah, and at the end he danced, because it wasn’t enough running.

LIZ: Yeah.

**pause**

LIZ: What’s wrong with people?

DEVON: I don’t know why we’re friends with these people. They just make us feel bad about ourselves.

LIZ: **laughing** I drove to that restaurant, and I ate some food next to him, so I did my part, okay?

DEVON: You did your part, yup. You’re pit crew.

LIZ: Yeah, exactly. Except I just showed up at the end to say good job.

DEVON: That’s all he needed.

LIZ: I gotta start talking about the actual thing because my stomach’s growling—

DEVON: Go for it!

LIZ: --this isn’t going to be good!

DEVON: Tell me about Idaho!

LIZ: Okay. I’m going to set the stage for you. It’s 1948 in Idaho—

DEVON: You-da-hoe. **laughing**

LIZ: I gotta warn you, there’s gonna be a lot of opportunities for low-hanging fruit in terms of double entendres, so just get it out of your system now.

DEVON: **laughing** I’ll stop, I’ll be good. Please. Please set the scene.

LIZ: **laughing** All right! Housing boom after the war is great for Idaho, but is actually very hard on the local wildlife, right?

DEVON: Yeah.

LIZ: There’s all this new development, and in particular, one animal that’s having a really hard time with this is the beavers.

DEVON: **laughing**

LIZ: Yeah, got anything?

DEVON: **through laughter** I’m being good. I’m being good. Nope. I love a beaver with a hard time.

LIZ: **affectionate sigh**

DEVON: Go ahead, please!

LIZ: They don’t mix well with all the new development because they are their own little engineers. And they like to make dams and chew through things, and they damage homes, and they screw up the irrigation systems for farms, and all this kind of stuff.

DEVON: Yeah.

LIZ: But even in the forties, they understand that beavers are a really important part of the ecosystem, so they’re not just going to kill them. They know that when you have beavers around, it reduces the risk of flash floods, and there’s less erosion, and they improve the habitats of other creatures.

DEVON: Okay.

LIZ: So they decide to relocate them. They have two problems that are connected. One is that the places that they did want the beavers to live were very underdeveloped, and they didn’t really have roads where you could take a care.

DEVON: Okay.

LIZ: And the usual way of getting around in these areas was you would use a horse or a mule.

DEVON: Right.

LIZ: And the beavers did not care for this very much.

DEVON: **laughing**

LIZ: They did not like being put in little transportation boxes and bounced around in the heat. And you know who else didn’t like it was the horses.

DEVON: **laughing**

LIZ: Cuz the beavers did not smell good, and they had a couple of incidents where they would try this, and y’know, as soon as you let the beaver out the beaver would just be like “Nope, fuck this, fuck you, fuck everything, rarararar.”

DEVON: Oh yes.

LIZ: The horses would be mad, the conservationist would get bitten, and it was just a bad scene.

DEVON: Oh, dear.

LIZ: So. It was pretty miserable for everyone involved.

DEVON: Oh, dear.

LIZ: Here’s where they come up with a brilliant plan. Surplus… World War Two… parachutes.

DEVON: What.

LIZ: They put a lot of effort into this project... to airdrop beavers.

DEVON: **explodes in laughter for several seconds**

DEVON: **through laughter** Oh, I’m crying. Oh, my God.

LIZ: It’s an entirely true story and when I went digging for weird Idaho stuff, I found this and I was like, “Well, I’m done.”

DEVON: **is still dying from laughter**

LIZ: “I don’t want to do anything else before this.” Beaver parachutes!

DEVON: **weakly** Beaver parachutes. **still laughing** Please… give me a second…

LIZ: **laughing**

DEVON: **away from mic, still laughing* …hyperventilating… it’s just really funny to picture… please continue… I’ll be good…

LIZ: Well, I’m sorry to say that they didn’t put them in little vests.

DEVON: They didn’t?

LIZ: If only. They built these special wooden boxes that they held together with linen strips.

DEVON: Okay.

LIZ: And it took them a while to find the right design for this. Because the trick was, they needed something that after they landed, the beavers could get out, but they would not chew their way out while they’re still in the plane.

DEVON: While they’re in air!

LIZ: --therefore, yeah… therefore sprinting around the small propeller plane and distressing everyone.

DEVON: **laughing** Especially the horses. I assume the horses are still part of it, right? They’re in the plane as well.

LIZ: **laughing** Yeah, well, they wanted to see how it worked.

LIZ: So they made these boxes and they tested them with this one really patient beaver who was named Geronimo, of course.

DEVON: Good God.

LIZ: And they dropped him off the plane with a parachute many, many, many times.

DEVON: **laughing**

LIZ: And… yeah, and it got to the point where, when he would pop out of it, he would actually just go to them and wait to be put back in the next iteration, because he knew this was his job.

DEVON: Oh!

LIZ: His reward for his patience is, he got to be the first airlifted beaver who got relocated and they sent him with three female beavers to keep him company.

DEVON: **approvingly** Yeah, Geronimo!

LIZ: Way to go, Geronimo, yeah. All in all, they airdropped 76 beavers.

DEVON: Good God, that many?

LIZ: Yeah, 76. 75 of them were fine, and one of them apparently, halfway down, got out of the box somehow and jumped off it. Like, he would have been fine if he’d just stayed on the box.

DEVON: If he just stayed on the box!

LIZ: Probably panicked. But I would have been pretty alarmed.

DEVON: Aw.

LIZ: These are not small animals, like, I don’t even like putting a cat in a carrier or a kid in carseat. So—

DEVON: No!

LIZ: --the idea of capturing a wild beaver and cramming it into this little thing with a parachute, a surplus parachute.

DEVON: Oh, my God. This is my favorite day. I can’t believe this is what human beings came up with.

LIZ: Yes! They looked at this problem and they didn’t say, “oh, well, I guess we’ll just put up with y’know, how unpleasant this is,” or “Maybe we’ll wait until they put a better road in,” or “let’s just give up on this project,” they said “we can crack this!”

DEVON: “We have the technology!”

LIZ: “What’ve we got lying around? We can make this work! What do we got extra of these days, parachutes? Sweet!”

DEVON: So I want to do a limited edition run of drawings that I make related to some of our episodes and this is definitely on the list of things to draw.

LIZ: Oh, yeah. It’s so good.

DEVON: Beaver drop.

LIZ: And these were not artists, or anything. These were conservation officers. So that is a lot of dedication.

DEVON: That is a lot of dedication! Man, they really wanted this to work.

LIZ: Mm-hmm, yeah. Seventy-five beavers. And you know what, it was really successful. Their descendants are still around.

DEVON: No way!

LIZ: Yeah, they’re still around supporting the habitat and making dams for free, basically. You don’t have to get a corps of engineers in, you can just airdrop some beavers in there. They haven’t done it since. It was successful and it accomplished what they were trying to do, and they really haven’t had that circumstance come up again, but it was the kind of thing where it happened and it made the news a tiny bit from what I was able to find, but then it just completely fell out of the public consciousness until a couple years ago, because God loves us, somebody found a videotape

DEVON: What. Are you serious?

LIZ: Yes! They make this sort of… it’s very late forties, early fifties video of—

LIZ: **fifties announcer type voice** “Science On The March!”

DEVON: Yes! Yes!

LIZ: And I will put it up on Facebook and Twitter for everyone to enjoy.

DEVON: Immediately! Oh, gosh!

LIZ: Well, when the episode comes out. Cuz otherwise they’re going to—the surprise will be ruined.

DEVON: I have not wanted anything more in my life than this video right now.

LIZ: Yeah. There’s not—this is a tricky one. I really should have picked a second topic, because that’s the whole story. You know the whole story as soon as I say the words “beaver parachute.” But I can’t not bring beaver parachutes to you.

DEVON: That’s all I need! I don’t need it to be a long story. It is perfect in its simplicity.

LIZ: Yeah! It’s really—it’s sweet, only one beaver is harmed in the making of this ludicrousness—

DEVON: And he did it to himself.

LIZ: It’s a real animal, it really happened. Our tax dollars went to this project. And I’m frankly quite sad they abandoned it, because I think it would give us a real tactical advantage in some places.

DEVON: **laughing**

LIZ: The element of surprise.

DEVON: What would you dump, Liz? Would you dump, like, wolverines?

LIZ: What wouldn’t I dump?

DEVON: **laughing** That is fair. That is fair.

LIZ: All I’m saying is, if you want to win hearts and minds in whatever country we’ve decided to go to war with this week, just be like, “But would you like… some puppies?!”

DEVON: Take note, United Nations. Stop dropping food and water into war-torn places.

LIZ: More dogs is what people want. Extra mouths to feed.

DEVON: More… beavers then, it is.

LIZ: Yep, beavers. For places that need some irrigation and so forth. There were actually coyote puppies on the cover of the Spokesman today and I was like “Look Matt, wolverines!”

DEVON: I was gonna say! It’s too bad that Manito Zoo was shut down, cuz they could’ve just walled the beavers off, much like Manito.

LIZ: **laughing** Yeah! If it had been twenty years earlier, I’m sure one of these things could have caught a stiff breeze and ended up in Spokane and they would’ve gone, “neat! Free beaver!”

DEVON: “Stick ‘em in the zoo with the others!”

LIZ: “Yeah!”

DEVON: Or he would have run off to the wilds to live with the escaped grizzly bear that, I’m sorry, they looked for for… four days?

LIZ: Four whole days.

DEVON: Fuck that.

LIZ: Well I mean, for some of those days, they knew where it was, they just couldn’t catch it.

DEVON: No!

LIZ: Yeah.

DEVON: Oh, God.

LIZ: They said it was really good at… what it was doing, so--

DEVON: Bein’ a bear, man. Just bear stuff.

LIZ: --they bailed, yeah.

LIZ: I got so wrapped up in all that, that I didn’t even tell people that that’s why Spokane is called the Lilac City, because they started a lilac garden that started a huge trend of having lilacs in your gardens. So now I’ve said that! That’s why Spokane is the Lilac City.

DEVON: Oh, I thought this was going to relate to the bears.

LIZ: Yeah, that bear’s name was Lilac, and it was—

DEVON: Whatever.

LIZ: --so famous!

DEVON: You will bullshit as long as I keep hitting record, so..

LIZ: **laughing**

DEVON: I want to believe it, too.

LIZ: This story has been so true up to this point, I had to throw something in there.

DEVON: You did. You had to keep me guessing. Geronimo the beaver just let them do this, eh?

LIZ: Yeah, he—yeah, suddenly Canadian Devon, he did.

**both laughing**

DEVON: That’s how I indicate a question mark when you can’t see my face!

LIZ: **laughing**

DEVON: Giving you verbal cues!

LIZ: Yeah, and then he got to be Geronimo the polygamous beaver.

DEVON: Geronimo’s living the life we all want to live.

LIZ: Yeah, that was a very non-traditional marriage for Idaho, I gotta say.

DEVON: Wasn’t that the truth.

LIZ: Yeah.

DEVON: You know, you have given me something new to associate with Idaho, because up until this point it’s been the Coeur d’Alene Resort and the Bennett Bay sex hotel.

LIZ: **laughing** Where you can pretend that you are in space, having sex!

DEVON: You’re an astronaut! Or you’re in the jungle!

LIZ: God love you, Bennett Bay, but when your website brags that you clean the hot tubs once a week… it makes me think about it too much.

DEVON: It makes me really consider… the timeline, here. Uh, sorry, my cat’s on my lap and he’s eating my headphone cords, so do you have a spare parachute? Because I have an animal I’d like to drop out of a plane right now.

LIZ: That’s a solution to your moving problem.

DEVON: Bangarang, let’s do it. All right, I’m on it.

LIZ: So yeah, it’s a happy ending, and a real animal, but a very weird story.

DEVON: Oh man, I love it when a beaver has a happy ending.

LIZ: **laughing** You made it a good fifteen minutes without doing that so—

DEVON: --it was like holding back a sneeze, Liz! It gave me a headache!

LIZ: Oh, okay… I’m going to give you a preview of some Idaho stuff that I’ve found. Did you know the Center of the Universe is in Idaho?

DEVON: I did! I have been to it!

LIZ: Have you? Oh, that’s amazing!

DEVON: I’ve been to the Center of the Universe and I have a picture of my husband standing under the sign.

LIZ: Well jeez, put that up, that sounds really good.

DEVON: On it.

LIZ: Excellent.

DEVON: Sorry—tell me something I don’t know.                                                                                                                

DEVON: That came off really snotty and challenging and I didn’t mean it that way!

LIZ: No, it’s amazing that you went, I have considered it, but I’m also like, that’s a long road trip for a picture.

(Side note: Liz did eventually get to Wallace, Idaho in summer 2019).

LIZ: Um, let’s see, what else do I have. Do you know there is a brothel museum from the 80s?

DEVON: The 1880s?

LIZ: No, the 1980s.

DEVON: This I did not know about, and this I need to know about.

LIZ: There was a raid and everything has been left exactly how it was when all the women ran out, except they have put some mannequins in to wear the outfits.

DEVON: Oh, that improved it.

LIZ: Yeah.

DEVON: Good Lord.

LIZ: But it’s a little time capsule now!

DEVON: Okay, let’s go there!

LIZ: There has been a request for a brothel episode, which I definitely think we can do.

DEVON: Oh, yeah.

 

**”The House is Haunted” fades in abruptly, then back out.**

 

LIZ: Oh, Devon.

DEVON: Oh, Liz!

LIZ: Our beaver episode came in really short, so I thought we should cover another topic that we recorded at a later date, just to make sure our listeners get all the content they deserve.

DEVON: I really like that idea. I hope that it’s also about a cute adorable fuzzy creature and it has some good stories that I can tell people about, because I’ve told so many people about beavers being dropped over Idaho since we recorded that episode.

LIZ: **laughing** It’s the best, because it has it all in the name…

DEVON: Yep!

LIZ: …which also made it a very short episode.

DEVON: Yep!

LIZ: The creature I want to tell you about, Devon, is cute? Adorable… not fuzzy.

DEVON: So it’s me.

LIZ: I’m sorry. Two outta three ain’t bad.

DEVON: **laughing** No, it isn’t.

LIZ: I’m gonna tell you about the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus.

DEVON: **delighted gasp** What is that?

LIZ: Octopus paxarbolus…

DEVON: What is that?!

LIZ: It lives in the Olympic peninsula – you’ve never seen one of these?

DEVON: I’ve never seen one of these. I’ve spent a lot of time here!

**both laughing**

LIZ: You can’t keep it together!

DEVON: Okay, I’m calm. No, I’ve never seen one. I’ve never seen one over here.

LIZ: Okay, well, they don’t live in the water. They live in the trees, hence the name.

DEVON: Yeah.

LIZ: Yeah. So when they’re born, they live in the water, but as soon as they become adults they come out and they live in the rainforest, and because they’re adapted to it, they can live outside the water and they’re the only octopi? Octopodes? Octopuses?

DEVON: I think octopuses.

LIZ: --that can do that!

DEVON: No way. Dude, no way.

LIZ: They’re really intelligent!

DEVON: Well, I mean, cephalopods are known for being really intelligent, which is great, but the fact that these have evolved to climb trees? Like, that’s even smarter than a normal octopus, because that means you get the best of a watery world and a tree world.

LIZ: Right, well, if you think about the way a octopus is laid out, too, it makes sense. Like, they’re probably really good at climbing. They are the sloths of the water.

DEVON: Oh, they have to be.

LIZ: Or… monkeys or something like that. No, they’re cool in a lot of ways, too. So, this-- This gives them access to a whole new ecosystem as omnivores—

DEVON: Wow!

LIZ: --so they can get an egg, or they can eat bugs as they climb around.

DEVON: Yeah!

LIZ: They have really good eyesight, and they actually change color, not like a mimic octopus does in order to conceal itself so much as to, this is how they show emotion and what’s going on with them—

DEVON: What?

LIZ: --is that they’re very social—

DEVON: Wait, they live in groups in the rainforest, and I have not seen one yet?

LIZ: Well, they—every year in spring, they go back to the Hood Canal area, and they congregate and they find mates, and that’s when they make their egg clusters—

DEVON: Okay?

LIZ: --and the female guards it and cares for it.

DEVON: Okay.

LIZ: But probably why you haven’t seen them is they’re severely endangered.

DEVON: **sad sound* Ohhh.

LIZ: It’s not as happy a story as the beaver story, right? Because there’s a lot of logging going on, there’s—it’s hard for them to cross the road, cuz they’re so little, and damp—

DEVON: Oh, right. Oh, they’re so wet.

LIZ: Yeah.

DEVON: They stick to everything.

LIZ: They do. And their natural predators are really taking out the ones that are left, including the Sasquatch, which is a huge natural predator of the Pacific Tree Octopus.

DEVON: **laughing** Just stomping around with his big feet. Oh, well, so… do Sasquatch then, they eat calamari? Is that what you’re telling me?

LIZ: Yeah, just raw! Just raw, and it’s really hard really hard on the Pacific Tree Octopus, cuz they have this major threat of being a completely fictional creature.

**both laughing**

LIZ: Thank you for playing along with me.

DEVON: I lost it so many times!

LIZ: I wonder how many people are gonna tweet at us before they get four minutes into this.

DEVON: Before they get to the end of it – oh, my goodness. Oh, my goodness Liz, I’m so excited. I’m just so excited.

LIZ: I felt like that was about as far as I could keep it together.

DEVON: Yeah, yeah.

LIZ: Yeah. This is a internet hoax that’s from the late 90s. There’s this guy named Lyle Zapato, who—

DEVON: Yes.

LIZ: --came up with all this, and so if you search the Pacific Tree Octopus, you find some fairly plausible looking sites.

DEVON: **laughing**

LIZ: And they, uh—they use it a lot in internet literacy classes because they’re trying to teach, like, seventh graders how to critically evaluate what you see on the internet. And not—Devon, did you know? Sometimes people lie on the internet.

DEVON: What? Like you just did, just now?

LIZ: Oh my God, I’m part of the problem.

DEVON: God, you are part of the problem.

LIZ: Nooo!

DEVON: Elizabeth!

LIZ: **laughing**

DEVON: Every now and then, people lie on the internet. Do we call them alternative facts, or are you just gonna go balls-out and say it’s a lie?

LIZ: I’m just gonna say it’s a lie. It’s an untruth, it’s a falsehood.

DEVON: It’s a falsehood.

LIZ: And you can even get stuff like what I was reading past some people, even if you say that their predators are things like Sasquatch.

DEVON: **heavy sigh**

LIZ: People don’t read! I’ve noticed this! I’m an educator, and honestly, people don’t read what you give them sometimes. One semester –and I’m not gonna get in trouble saying this, because if any students listen to this, then they’ll have listened to my podcast. Good, you get an A plus –

DEVON: You get an A plus, kid.

LIZ: I put a secret part in my syllabus in the Academic Honesty section about if they had read that far, I told them, “okay, just e-mail me and tell me that you read that far, and I’ll give you some extra credit points.”

DEVON: That’s incredible. How many students did you get an e-mail from?

LIZ: …maybe ten percent.

DEVON: Oh, damn.

LIZ: I think I also made them do, like, a very short quiz. Like a four-question thing that was already online, so it was just like click, click, click, ridiculously easy. Not to say that 90% of them didn’t read that far, I’m sure there was some component of them who looked at it and were like “heh, no. Life’s too short.”

DEVON: **laughing** All right.

LIZ: But our research standards for this podcast are… better than some? But fundamentally you and I are not biologists or geologists or conservation officers—

DEVON: No.

LIZ: I think we do our best. But I wanted to throw in the Pacific Tree Octopus and I was having a hard time figuring out how to do it, because I knew you already knew it wasn’t real.

DEVON: Yeah, but I’m willing to pretend I can act.

LIZ: Thank you for playing along, you’re a very good actress.

DEVON: You’re very welcome. Can I tell you my one octopus story that I have? It’s not the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus, it’s just a regular run-of-the-mill, you know, Pacific Octopus.

LIZ: Devon, there’s no such thing as a run-of-the-mill octopus.

DEVON: Bless your heart.

LIZ: They’re all amazing. And delicious.

DEVON: You’re so gross, I can’t believe you eat them. They’re like rubber bands. Salty rubber bands.

LIZ: Mmm, get at me.

DEVON: And I can get those for free. **laughing** Gross.

LIZ: Tell me your octopus story.

DEVON: Well, we learned about this in museum school. There was a.. you know, when you’re in museum school, you also learn about aquariums and zoos and stuff that has live collections.

LIZ: I mean of course, because you made museum school up. I’m sure you learned about ponies and fairies and stuff.

DEVON: **laughing** Actually, I did, because I went to elf school in Iceland with a bunch of my museum people! And I have a textbook from elf school and it talks about fairies, and it talks about Icelandic ponies. So clearly, you went to this same class and you got this same textbook.

LIZ: Oh, Icelandic ponies are real, actually, I’ve ridden them.

DEVON: **laughing**

LIZ: It’s true! They have a special pace in between a walk and a trot, it’s called toelting. I bet you didn’t know I knew so much about Iceland ponies.

DEVON: **through laughter** I had no idea! I don’t even know enough—I don’t have the wherewithal to refute that argument, or that statement. I have no idea. I’m going to tell you my octopus story, which I learned in museum school, which I did not make up – or if I did, I gamed myself, because I paid a fuck-ton of money to go to museum school.

LIZ: **laughing**

DEVON: There was an aquarium we learned about that had a problem, and the problem was that some of their exotic fish were going missing every evening. They’d have ten fish, they’d lock up the museum, they’d come back the next day and there’d be three fish and they’d go “What the fuck is happening to our fish?” So the folks at the museum got really conspiracy theorist, you know, they thought there were, um, workers in the museum that must be selling these fish to exotic fish breeders—

LIZ: Oh, yeah.

DEVON: Or, you know, the janitor had a saltwater tank at home that he was stocking with his own, you know, ill-got fish from the museum. So they put up cameras, and what they found out is their Giant Pacific Octopus figured out how to get itself out of a two-inch hole in its tank—

LIZ: Criminy!

DEVON: --and it—I love criminy, you’re from 1920s England—

LIZ: This is what happens when you have a kid, all of a sudden “jeepers creepers” is what’s coming out of your mouth.

DEVON: Cheese and rice!

LIZ: Cheese and rice!

DEVON: Anyway, this octopus was getting out of this tiny little crack – jeepers – and was climbing out of his tank at night, helping himself to whatever fish he wanted to eat, and you know, arming himself back across the floor and back into his tank before the keepers came back in the morning.

LIZ: That’s amazing.

DEVON: How cool is that?

LIZ: He was like, “I cannot sit in this tank all day watching the buffet and not help myself when you’re not looking.”

DEVON: Oh no, that’s just torturous, that’s mean.

LIZ: They are really smart. The one in the National Aquarium, they actually put baby toys in with it, so it has something to play with.

DEVON: I love the Seattle Aquarium because they catch their giant octopus off of the coast – I mean, they catch them here locally and they have them on display for six months before releasing them. If you keep them any longer, they’re so smart that they get depressed.

LIZ: Oh!

DEVON: So the Seattle Aquarium takes great pains to make sure that they have them long enough so that they inspire conservation activities in visitors, and then they let them go back to being octopuses in the wild.

LIZ: This is 100% what it would sound like if aliens had a podcast and they were discussing humans.

DEVON: **laughing**

LIZ: They’re like, “you scoop ‘em up and after like, a week, they’re—they’re really smart, you wouldn’t believe it but they’re really smart, and they get depressed, and you have to go put them back in the grass field you found them in.”

DEVON: Man, if they only did that instead of mutilating our cattle—

LIZ: Mm-hmm.

DEVON: What a world.

LIZ: **laughing** I mean, if they gave you some toys and stuff, it wouldn’t be so bad.

DEVON: Dude, if they--  Okay, they’re feeding me? They’re giving me great medical care, I have a tank to myself.. At the Seattle Aquarium, every Valentine’s Day, they put the male and female together to see if they’ll make some babies. Um, yeah. So it sounds like a really good deal. Sign me up.

LIZ: **laughing** Excellent. All right, I’m going to have us do an outro just to help me edit it all together when we get there.

DEVON: Absolutely.

LIZ: So, let’s see. You’ve been—

DEVON: You’ve been listening—

LIZ: Ah! **laughing**

DEVON: Sorry! I was going to take the initiative and do it for you.

LIZ: I way overreacted to that!

DEVON: **laughing** No, that was an appropriate reaction to me actually doing some damn work.

LIZ: **laughing** Okay, you take it.

DEVON: All right. You’ve been listening to Ouija Broads. This is Devon.

LIZ: …this is Liz.

DEVON: And we—ah ha ha, wait, what the hell am I doing? I did an intro, didn’t I?

LIZ: That’s okay, I’m just gonna tell them—

DEVON: Go for it.

LIZ: You can find us on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook at Ouija Broads. Please rate, review, and subscribe if you’re a fan of the show, and keep your eyes on our social media where we’re gonna be sharing information about giveaways and swag.

DEVON: We will!

LIZ: Can I say swag, or am I too old?

DEVON: You can say swag, cuz you have swag.

LIZ: Thank you.

DEVON: Thank you.

**awkward pause**

LIZ: Live weird…

DEVON: …die weird…

LIZ: …stay weird.

BOTH **laughing**

LIZ (fading out): Okay, let’s stop and save this…  

Theme music (The House is Haunted) plays and fades out.

Episode Transcript: #96, The Witch's Castle

Huge, huge thanks to Kathryn Leonardi for her transcription of this episode!

The transcript can be read in full below, or downloaded as a pdf at this link.

Transcript: Ouija Broads Episode 96, The Witches Castle.

 

Special thanks to Kathryn Leonardi for her transcription work.

 

Opening theme music (Me and the Man in the Moon) plays and fades in.

 

LIZ: You are listening to Ouija Broads. This is Liz!

DEVON: This is Devon. You didn’t do a slate, my friend.

LIZ: Oh, I didn’t! Okay. Let’s do one now. 3,2,1… **clap noise**

DEVON: The slate is my favorite part.

LIZ: I’m sorry I left it out, I don’t know-- I think I was just so busy yelling about work that I assumed we had already done it.

DEVON: **laughing**

LIZ: That’s what that’s like.

DEVON: Nope, nope, just you being mad.

LIZ: Mmhmm, just me being mad. All right, what I have for you today is an Oregon story--

DEVON: Okay.

LIZ: -- because I felt like we hadn’t done Oregon in a little bit.

DEVON: I love Oregon.

LIZ: I like to shake it up and I like to do some things that we haven’t done in a while. And then of course, I think that we are doing that and then I look and I’m like, “we just did, like, eight ghosts in a row.”

DEVON: Whatevs, it happens. I think you are very equitable. You always try to make sure that we hit every place that we consider Pacific Northwest as well as all the genres that we cover in a good rotation. I am just like animals animals animals ghost, more animals animals animals another ghost.

LIZ: **laughing** But you’re so good at it.

DEVON: I love those ones.

LIZ: I thought since we have had so much uplifting stuff I could get away with a ghost that was the result of a murder. Do you think we could handle that?

DEVON: I think so. Fuck. Let me get a seatbelt on this chair though.

LIZ: All right, yeah. Shake your shoulders out, take a deep breath, it’s okay-- it happened a long time ago, if that helps.

DEVON: All right. But I’m just worried that I am real close to Oregon and what if the ghost is still there and what if it’s going to get me. It’s getting dark out Liz, and we’re recording this at night.

LIZ: How far can ghosts travel from where they haunt?

DEVON: Well, depends I guess…

LIZ: Yeah, cause if they’re a train ghost, pretty far.

DEVON: Yes. Precisely. So, I am not sure what you are going to tell me. I am just going to buckle in and not look out the dark scary window that’s over here to my left and listen to your sultry voice.

LIZ: It’s so sultry. I just got over one cold and I am starting another cold, and I burned a bunch of twigs today because we had our trees worked on. So really just, hitting all the best things to do for somebody who has an important thing to do with their voice in their life.

DEVON: Mmhmm.

LIZ: Okay. What I wanted to tell you about was the Witch’s Castle at Macleay Park.

DEVON: What the fuck is this?

LIZ: **laughing** I love castle stories. We haven’t done a castle in a while.

DEVON: Yeah. God damn. But it’s got like all the words that I Google search. This should have come up in my search history. How do I not know about this?

LIZ: It may sound more familiar as I get into it. But we will see. So near downtown Portland just to the west-- oh that’s another reason why I wanted to do this one, is because I like trying to do ones where people can actually go there. Sometimes it’s like this place is long gone, or it’s private property, or there’s nothing to see. This, you can straight up go. So if you go to Forest Park, which is a 5000-acre park just west of downtown Portland--

DEVON: Fuck.

LIZ: --it’s extending for 8 miles along the Willamette, it’s the largest urban forest in the United States. So.. it’s reserved. It’s-- Portland can’t expand and take over that. There’s just this gigantic forested park.

DEVON: Take that, gentrification.

LIZ: Take that, this is for deer and raccoons.

DEVON: And some squirrels even though Liz hates them.

LIZ: Well, they’re okay there, just stay out of my dumpster. That goes for everybody.

DEVON: **laughing**

LIZ: Macleay park has 70 miles of trails. Which is pretty impressive to me.

DEVON: Oh my God. Yeah.

LIZ: But this one you don’t have to hike all day. You basically go for a mile on this one trail that is called the Lower Macleay Trail, also known as the Balch Creek Trail. And you will see on a hill, a stone building that is weathered, it has grey stones covered in moss. There’s just spaces where the windows were, it is-- the structure is still there but basically you can like walk through the doorway, you can see through the windows, there’s no roof.

DEVON: Oh cool.

LIZ: There’s an upper level and a lower level.

DEVON: Oh wow.

LIZ: It’s all deteriorated and it is known as the Witch’s Castle. Yeah… so it’s said there are strange occurrences in this area. Of course.

DEVON: Of course there are.                 

LIZ: So, like, mmm orbs, like you can definitely get some good orb photographs there like you can most places that aren’t paved.

DEVON: **snorts** -- that you can get anywhere, where there’s a slight amount of dust in the air and refractable light.

LIZ: Yeah, mmhmm.

DEVON: I have seen a couple photos of orbs – purported orbs. Where I am like -- oh that almost looks like it has its own luminescence. That, you know, that looks kind of legit. I wouldn’t just say that’s light refracting off dust. But those are few and far between. If you are going to get real orbs, it’s going to be around a place called the Witch’s Castle though, so I buy that.

LIZ: Yes, it has-- it reminds me a little bit of the “Thousand Steps,” in that it has a lot of different things attached to it. It actually has its own steps that lead up and of course it’s in this wet Portland forest, so of course they’re all mossed over and eerie looking too. Some people say you can actually see apparitions that seem to be fighting with each other.

DEVON: Oh!

LIZ: Some people say that it is a site for rituals.

DEVON: Mmm, of course

LIZ: Satanic rituals.

DEVON: Boooo

LIZ: Or, mmm maybe human sacrifice.

DEVON: Boo.

LIZ: Or, the bad kind of witchcraft.

DEVON: Super boo.

LIZ: There’s the story that sometimes people who have come here at night have disappeared--

DEVON: Mmm.

LIZ: --and have eventually been found wandering on the park trails completely bewildered having lost their minds. I think probably not. But there is a lot of creepy graffiti because it’s pretty heavily vandalized. And I should say “some people say” as in, NorthwesternghostandHauntings.blogspot.com

DEVON: **snorts, laughing**

LIZ (reading): “I got hammered here all the time with my buddies as do many high school kids, it’s not haunted sorry.” **laughing**

DEVON: **laughing**

LIZ (reading): Or there’s this other one I like-- “Dude, I was there Friday night, there were tons of spirits there if you know what I mean. Huge party spot.”

DEVON: Oh my God.

LIZ: **laughing**

DEVON: Oh my God.

LIZ: But then there are other people saying, I have got EVPs there, I have been pushed and touched by an entity, there’s weird stuff that you can pick up even though there is no electricity in the area.

DEVON: Okay.

LIZ: Yeah. Oh, I like this one.

LIZ (reading): “This sounds weird but I think I keep traveling here in my dreams. I finally looked it up and found this building. I have been to Portland but not to this place.” So people are all over the place as to whether it’s a totally normal place where you just go to like smoke weed and spray paint your high school’s mascot on stuff.

DEVON: Yeah.

LIZ: Or whether it’s obviously hugely full of ghosts and bad energy and warring spirits and stuff. But what we always like to do on Ouija Broads is say, “okay, so that’s what people say they’re experiencing - presuming that ghosts are real, what happened on this spot that would make that happen?”

DEVON: Yeah.

LIZ: So. Remember how I said this is Balch Creek Trail.

DEVON: Yes, and what’s it also called, sorry, the park?

LIZ: That’s Forest Park. And then its Lower Macleay Trail.

DEVON: Lower Macleay Trail, thank you. Balch Creek Trail or Lower Macleay Trail.

LIZ: I think, basically, it’s a couple of parks that got merged. So they also just call it Macleay Park.

DEVON: No fucking wonder the spirits are fighting, it’s a turf war.

LIZ: Confusing!

DEVON: So confusing.

LIZ: In the very early days of settlement in Portland, before this was on the border of Portland, it was owned by a man named Danford Balch. This was the 1850s. So Danford came out here on the Oregon Trail with his wife, Mary Jane and they had 9 kids.

DEVON: Holy shit.

LIZ: It was kind of like a Brady Bunch situation. Where it was like some of her kids from her first marriage and some of his kids. I don’t know if they had kids together but they had a lot of kids.

DEVON: Lot of kids, man.

LIZ: Nine is a lot. They had a cabin, as you do in the Oregon Trail days.

DEVON: I hope a big one.

LIZ: Yeah, **laughing** I know, right? Like, the Shining Lodge type like—it’s more of a hotel.

DEVON: **laughing** Oh, man.

LIZ: Just a little cottage.

DEVON: None of this Brady Bunch 3-bedroom bullshit for 9 people, no.

LIZ: **laughing** Well, they moved out there and they had 350 acres of land.

DEVON: All right.

LIZ: Which is hefty, and they were working on, “civilizing it”, right? So the family’s settling in, and they’re doing the settler thing. They’re going to sell some of this timber, they’re going to clear some of this land for crops. And Danford, who sometimes in the record you’ll find as Danforth, because spelling is just whatever you wanted it to be in the 19th century--

DEVON: Yeah you just get the first three letters right and the rest is a grab bag.

LIZ: Yep. In October 1858 they are clearing land, and the 9 kids, the oldest one is 15 and she’s a daughter. So he didn’t have the 7 brides for 7 brothers, like “I’ve got a bunch of young men who I can just, like, distribute to this task, I need to get some outside help.” So there was another family nearby whose name was Stump. Not why Portland is called Stumptown, but apt somehow.

DEVON: I guess. Apropos.

LIZ: Apropos! And so he hires the son from that family, who-- they’re technically in Vancouver Washington, because it’s all a big whatever. Like, I understand why they made the river the division of the state but it’s pretty arbitrary.

DEVON: Yeah.

LIZ: So he gets Mortimer Stump, who I am not sure how old he is, but he’s pretty young.

DEVON: Stop it.

LIZ: Yes, Mortimer is young. **laughing*

DEVON: Oh my God. Danford and Mortimer, I am just not into these names. But please continue. I’ll try to get down with Mortimer and Danford.

LIZ: Yes.

DEVON: I will try and be more charitable here.

LIZ: You can do it. You can envision Danford is like a Pa Ingalls wearing his flannel shirt, clearing the land, head of the household. And Mortimer is the young guy from the next household over who comes over. And so I’m unclear as to whether he was like an older teenager or in his early 20s. But he was of the age--
DEVON: Anything goes when we’re marrying off our oldest daughter.

LIZ: Oooh, you see where we’re going with this.

DEVON: I do, but tell me anyway.

LIZ: Well, so Mortimer moved in with the family because obviously he wasn’t going to commute from Vancouver, that wasn’t super convenient. And he became smitten, as they say, with Anna who is the 15-year-old daughter. And Anna is likewise smitten with him. And Mortimer goes to Danford.

DEVON: **laughing**

LIZ: What?

DEVON: Well, he’s the only man around that isn’t related to her, so of course she is.

LIZ: Right? She’s like, “Wow, you sure look like not my family.”

DEVON: **laughing** Exactly

LIZ: I love the way you’re not my stepfather. that’s cool.

DEVON: I know, right. I love the way you’re not my weird Greg Brady and I am your Marcia and we’re going to have some erotic tension here.

LIZ: **laughing**

DEVON: New genetics, yes, please. Sorry, go ahead, Anna and Mortimer.

LIZ: You are like so far ahead of me that it’s awesome.

DEVON: Ah man.

LIZ: So there’s this reciprocal positive energy and no big barriers. And of course, as we know from the Mercer Belles and so forth, you kind of needed to lock that shit down. It’s not like he could wait like 5 years and come back when Anna was 20, she would have been long gone, like long gone, of marriage or diphtheria. Who knows?

DEVON: Sick typhoid is not just a name.

LIZ: A log fell on her, a lot of things can happen. A bride of Sasquatch, that’s a perennial issue.

DEVON: Oh it is, wow.

LIZ: But Mortimer goes to Danford and says “Hello, I’d like to marry Anna, please.” And Danford says, “Absolutely not, you are my employee.”

DEVON: **gasps** What?

LIZ: So apparently they are out in the middle of nowhere, like they, all these families have come out on the Oregon Trail but apparently Danford, with his weird little Brady Bunch accidental cult compound is like, “no, I am your social superior.” It’s like, how do you figure? Like, we all wear underwear that has two buttons on the back so we can poop out the butt. Where are you coming up with this?

DEVON: Right?! **muffled laughter**

LIZ: How are you my social superior in any sense, my dude. Neither of us have seen sugar in three years. I don’t know where he is coming up with any of this.

DEVON: **through muffled laughter** You and your butt flap britches better get off your high horse.

LIZ: **laughing**

DEVON: Wonderful.

LIZ: So Danford is having none of it. And it’s not just that they’re like oh, okay, this will be awkward for a week. He’s like, “and you’re fired, and you don’t live here anymore.” And you know what is amazing? Is Mortimer didn’t go “oh well, I tried.” He and Anna, of course, elope.

DEVON: Oh ho! Saw that one coming.

LIZ: Right. So on November 4th, Anna and Mortimer move back in with his family. Because his family is not being so weird about this--

DEVON: I am sure his family is happy to have a strapping young lad back on the fucking homestead to fight wolverines and plow fucking land. And now they got themselves a house maid.

LIZ: Yeah. Better than nothing. She’s there.

DEVON: Yeah. Smart, the Stumps. Good job.

LIZ: Let me read you what Danford said about the night he came home and found that Anna had run away to marry Mortimer.

DEVON: Oh my God. Oh my God. Can I, can I guess some of the words?

LIZ: Go for it.

DEVON: Yeah there has to be, if he thinks he’s so fucking good with his little butt flap britches, like you pointed out, like he shits in a hole in the ground, then there’s got to be some kind of use of flowery language. Like he talks about his heart being besieged. Or about the, not, what’s a fancy word for double cross, or for being, you know, maligned by-- Anyway, I just, in my head it is this like, “Winter’s Evening, 7pm, I sit and stare at the flames of mine fire.” And then he talks shit. No, please tell me.

LIZ: **laughing** Okay.

LIZ (reading): “The night I came home and found the girl gone, it struck a pain to my heart. Like a knife cutting me. I ate a little supper and went to bed but did not sleep a wink all night. In the morning, at once after getting up and started for town and it seemed that my stomach would burst from anxiety and grief which were more than I can express.”

DEVON: Oh, God.

LIZ: Which, like, dude. Your 15-year-old stepdaughter got married and moved out. This is a massive overreaction.

DEVON: Right? Right? This is trending into like, you were using her as backup wife in case your second (presumably) wife, maybe died of a snake bite.

LIZ: Thank you. Yeah. So there is at least one historian, Diane Goeres-Gardner, who says, “This sounds like a man describing the loss of his lover not his daughter.”

DEVON: Yo, called it.

LIZ: And I am not trying to make assertions about a dynamic that obviously I have no more information about than what I have told you, but suffice to say he did not take it well.

DEVON: **snorts**

LIZ: He’s not good with it. He had already been drinking heavily for several years before this went down.

DEVON: Oh Lord.

LIZ: So I’m sure that really contributed to Anna’s readiness to get the fuck out of Dodge.

DEVON: Yeah. GTFO is right.

LIZ: Yeah! So, okay… oh, that’s right. They elope to Vancouver on November 4th. And on November 18th they take the ferry-- so there’s a ferry that goes back and forth from Vancouver to Portland at this time. I don’t remember if there still is. I think there’s just a bridge.

DEVON: Now it’s just Bridge of the Gods or whatever that is.

LIZ: I think so. I don’t know. So when they go into Portland to get supplies… they run into Danford.

DEVON: Oh no.

LIZ: Danford is drunk.

DEVON: Yeah.

LIZ: Danford says, “you need to come home with me, Anna.” She says “no, I’m not. I am a married woman now, I live in Vancouver, I am not coming back to our weird cabin on 350 acres of nothing. I’m good. Pass. Hard pass Danforth.” Like…

DEVON: **laughing**

LIZ: And then, here are some more good names for you. Mortimer’s dad is with them, and Mortimer’s dad is named Cuthbert. Cuthbert Stump.

DEVON: **laughing**

LIZ: And what Cuthbert Stump has to say to Danforth—‘cause all of these sound like I am kind of drunk, like **speaks unintelligibly/mumbles all syllables of names mentioned** –Mortimer. Yeah. So they’re having a big fight on the street in front of God and everybody. And here is what Cuthbert thinks will like, soothe the waters of this dynamic. He says, “you’re making a great fuss about your child, she’s an ordinary little bitch. I don’t know what the hell you want with her.”

DEVON: Oooooh

LIZ: **laughing**

DEVON: Cuthbert.

LIZ: Good. Good move Cuthbert, way to de-escalate.

DEVON: Wow, buddy! That’s gasoline on the fire.

LIZ: Not a helpful move.

DEVON: No.

LIZ: Not a helpful move. So, that confrontation was witnessed by a lot of people because they’re right in downtown. They’re in front of one of the few stores that’s in town and is owned by the Sheriff at the time and who is also the former Mayor. Because there’s like seven people who are allowed to do that ‘cause like, only white dudes of a certain age and education. And they’re just like I don’t know, you want to be mayor this year?

DEVON: I mean who was it, Jimmy Carter had to sell his peanut farm. Apparently this guy can be Sheriff and Sears and Roebuck.

LIZ: It was a part time gig. Yeah.

DEVON: The sheriff-ing.

LIZ: The original gig economy. Well, Oregon’s not even really a state at this point, it’s either about to become a state or it has just been a state. Let me see specifically.

DEVON: Right, I would have said it was… 1859.

LIZ: **speaks to self while you can hear keyboard typing in background** When did Oregon become a.. okay, yeah. Oregon became a state on February 14th, 1859.

DEVON: Oh, BOO YEAH.

LIZ: You fucking nailed that. How did you know that?

DEVON: I don’t know!

LIZ: So Oregon is a couple months out from becoming a state when this happens. And…

DEVON: Well, yeah, it’s ‘cause the Cuthberts, and the Danforths and Morti-pies of the world are all fucking fighting over an ordinary bitch apparently.

LIZ: Yeah, apparently Portland is just four giant lots of land with a cabin each. That’s my best guess. And a—and a shop.

D; And a shop. It’s how we play Risk.

LIZ: I want to put one dude on all of Kamchatka. Hold it down there, Trevor.

DEVON: You’re doing fine, Keith.

LIZ: Hold down Kamchatka for me. So, that whole, “She’s an ordinary bitch,” that kind of ends the discussion for the time being. I don’t know what you can say to that, because it’s such like a-- you’re getting hit from a bunch of directions. Where it’s like, you’re getting mad cause they took her and you want her back, but they’re putting her down, but also they won’t give her back, and you’re like, I don’t know what thing to argue with first. “I.. no, yes, no. Yes, she is, give her back. No, she’s not, fuck you. I don’t even know what I’m supposed to say!”

DEVON: It’s like in Futurama, “She does NOT look good for a truck stop girl!”

LIZ: **laughing**

DEVON: I don’t know how.

LIZ: She’s no ordinary bitch!

DEVON: She’s my extraordinary bitch.

LIZ: I love that album. Okay.

DEVON: **laughing**

LIZ: So Danforth, if you’re Danforth what you do is… you’re waiting for like, for the right thing to say to come to you, so you go home and you drink a lot. And according to some people, your wife also really hypes you up.

DEVON: **laughing**

LIZ: This is a key part of marriage for me, is having somebody who you go home and you’re like “guess what this fucko did?,” and they’re like “what did that fucko do?” and they’re automatically on your side and you’re like “urgggh, I don’t have to be fair and balanced about this, I am in the privacy of my own home and I am just going to tell the version of this story where I did everything right and they did everything wrong and we can all agree that I am awesome and everyone should listen to me. Yeah!” So, I imagine that is the discussion that they have.

DEVON: Mmhmm.

LIZ: Which in fairness, if anybody went home and said, “So I ran into the in-laws and what they have to say about our daughter is that she’s an ordinary little bitch and they don’t know why the hell we want her back.” I feel like there’s a good starting point that’s probably going to keep you busy conversationally for a while.

DEVON: Totally, there is a lot you can say, man.

LIZ: Yeah. So he’s at home. He comes back to town. He comes back to town to catch up with the Stumps. So we have Cuthbert and Mortimer and now Anna… Balch-Stump, I guess. I don’t know if she hyphenated. I don’t know how she saw this.

DEVON: Neither one of those names is good. So I hope she just whacked them both off and just went by Anna.

LIZ: Balch-Stump

DEVON: Nope.

LIZ: And he comes back and he has his double-barreled shot gun.

DEVON: Oooh, one for each of them.

LIZ: Yes. And he catches up with them. They are getting back on the ferry to go home to Vancouver. So they are like, so close to getting literally out of the state where this guy is drunk and belligerent.

DEVON: Yeah.

LIZ: He shoots Mortimer in the head and kills him. Both barrels.

DEVON: Awwww.

LIZ: Basically, takes his head off according to some of the resources that I looked at. Witnesses confirm he was extremely drunk.

DEVON: Good shot.

LIZ: Yeah, well, I mean it was pretty much point blank, is the problem. Oh no wait, I think that’s a term of art. I don’t know what point blank means. It was right there. It was extremely close range because they were all on this ferry. Which I don’t imagine was like one of those big ferries you drive a bunch of cars onto. I am pretty sure it was like some logs that were assembled.

DEVON: It was a Mark Twain kind of ferry. It’s a raft.

LIZ: Mmhmm, it was a raft. So people grab him because it’s not that much of a wild west. They’re like “uhh excuse me, you just decapitated that man. That’s not allowed. You can’t just do that.” They have a rental building that they’re using as a jail.

DEVON: Oh, Lord.

LIZ: Now what’s complicated about this is, because of the whole Kamchatka situation as previously discussed, they didn’t exactly have a smooth running justice system that can process this guy. There is no night court. There is no day court. They have what’s called the Assizes Method. Which is basically, there’s a traveling judge who rides the circuit and when he comes to town he just handles all the cases at once. And then you just have to wait till he comes around again.
DEVON: No way, oh wow. Oh, I am glad we are out of that system.

LIZ: Yeah, yeah. So, they have to keep this guy in jail for a long time.

DEVON: Well, he can sober up.

LIZ: Yeah, there you go. So, it’s November when he shoots Mortimer. They’re like “oh shit, we have to hold onto this guy until spring when the judge comes back.”

DEVON: Nooo, fuck! Yeah.

LIZ: So naturally he escaped.

DEVON: Of course.

LIZ: And where does he go?

DEVON: Of course, they’re in a rental building.

LIZ: Yeah exactly, it’s probably like, “now, do you like promise not to leave?”

DEVON: “I am going to shut this door. We gotta leave it cracked cause the cat likes to come and go.”

LIZ: **laughing**

DEVON: “Ya gonna be here when we come back?”

LIZ: “Where else are you going to go, Danforth?” And of course, I mean, he is like the cat. He goes straight home. That’s all that occurs to him to do. Which I guess, who’s he going to go to? I don’t know if he has any friends. He can’t go to the Stumps, so he goes straight back home. Which, I mean, it helps that he has a 350-acre forest. Like he’s probably going to hide successfully there more then we could in a split-level suburban thing.

DEVON: In my town house I have three levels, thanks very much, Liz.

LIZ: **laughing**

DEVON: I have many closets.

LIZ: Do you have many good hiding places?

DEVON: Well, I did before I gained all this weight. Now I can’t fit under the beds anymore.

LIZ: My whole escape strategy relies on people not knowing I have a second staircase.

DEVON: Wow.

LIZ: I mainly use it to startle house guests. But--

DEVON: Wow. The one in your kitchen that you can pop out of like so much kitchen help.

LIZ: Exactly, yeah, the staircase for the help. Because even though this house is tiny, apparently it needed two staircases.

DEVON: I think that that’s great for fire egress.

LIZ: It’s good for fire egress and it’s going to be great for when we turn this place into our Ouija Broads museum cause that means it will be up to code although I don’t know how the hell we’re going to get it ADA compliant. And it also facilitates a lot of great French farce type situations where you’re trying to tell somebody something as you come up and they’re going down… a lot of door slamming.

DEVON: And jangly music, and—I can see it now.

LIZ: A straight up Frasier episode.

LIZ: **happily** I am having a lot of fun with this episode. I am enjoying this.

DEVON: I can tell, I can tell, you’re enjoyable, my dear.

LIZ: Awww, I love you.

DEVON: I love you.

LIZ: So it’s-- at least one thing says that they think he actually tried to fake his own death because there’s allegedly-- and it wasn’t in the newspapers I have access to but that’s some old-ass newspapers, there’s not a lot that remains-- allegedly at one point, Mary Jane rolls up into town because they have a drowning victim. And she says, “Oh yeah, that is totally my husband.”

LIZ: **as townsfolk** “What?”

DEVON: Haha, come on, Mary Jane.

LIZ: **as townsfolk** “And then who was this dude lurking outside your cabin?”

LIZ: **as Mary Jane**  “I don’t know. Do you know him? I don’t know him.”

DEVON: **as Mary Jane** “Never seen him before.”

LIZ: **as Mary Jane** “Weird. It’s almost like we have 8 kids together.”

DEVON: **as Mary Jane** “We had another kid, didn’t you know. Keith. That’s Keith.”

LIZ: So, the police find him 8 months later. So they capture him in the fall. He’s supposed to go to trial in the spring. They grab him in the summer. And it finally goes to trial.
DEVON: Okay.

LIZ: And the trial is of course as much of a mess as you would expect.

DEVON: Oh, what a shitshow

LIZ: I know, there’s nothing else to do. So everybody who wants to see it is rolling up. He, in an exciting twist, is shocked that he is in trouble.

DEVON: For real?

LIZ: And he’s like, “I’m defending my property.”

DEVON: For real?

LIZ: “I do not understand why I am in trouble for defending my property.” He feels that everything he did was completely justified. There’s a lot of witnesses who are around to say, “okay, two things that happened a lot before the crime happened. One is that this dude sat around in bars a lot talking about how he was going to kill Mortimer and the other is that his wife would hang around with him and bug him to do that.”

DEVON: No. **laughing**

LIZ: Which is not a great look for either of them.

DEVON: **laughing** Wow. If you’re going to premeditate, you just keep that in your head. You don’t put it in your journal or your Facebook or tell people at the bar.

LIZ: It’s not like they walked past your window. Like, you had to make an effort to be someplace that people could overhear you in Portland in the 1850s.

DEVON: Right? Right? Right? You had 350 other acres you could have gone to and said whatever the fuck and they never would have known. Come on now, Danford.

LIZ: Yeah, well. Danford says, “I have never seen these people before in my life.” **laughing**

DEVON: **laughing** I mean he probably seen them twice ‘cause you were so fucking drunk you were cross-eyed.

LIZ: He’s got a barrel for each of them.

DEVON: He’s got a barrel for each of them. **laughing**

LIZ: What they do with this-- he becomes-- because he’s dragged it out so long, while he was running around doing whatever in the woods, Oregon became a state. So Danforth goes on the record books as the first person to be executed in the state of Oregon.

DEVON: There you go, Danford.

LIZ: So they hang him by the neck until dead. About 600 people show up.

DEVON: Fuck!

LIZ: Naturally.

DEVON: Natch.

LIZ: But the one that everyone focuses on being there is… Anna.

DEVON: Is it! Oh, oh, I wanted to know this.

LIZ: Completely dry-eyed.

DEVON: Yeah!

LIZ: With her in-laws.

DEVON: Yeah!

LIZ: And they watch him die.

DEVON: Cold.

LIZ: So, October 18th, 1859, ten months to the day after he takes off Mortimer’s head with his double barreled shot gun, Balch is hanged in front of these people who he deprived of their son and husband respectively.

DEVON: Yeah… fuck.

LIZ: There was a reporter there from the Portland Oregonian who was real upset about Anna being there and not crying.

DEVON: **protesting sound**

LIZ: Here’s what he had to say -- I am assuming it was a he, I think I am pretty safe as it’s1858, no 1859-- okay: “The idea of a daughter by her own volition, attending the execution of a father upon a gallows is a disgrace of the intelligence of the age, and to every principal a filial affection manifested or exhibited by every species of the brute creation in the sea and upon the earth.” So apparently mermaids are included in this.

DEVON: Yeah, well.

LIZ: **reading** “The fact is that of a character that we cannot pass unnoticed and must meet with the surprise reprobation and detestation of the whole community.”

DEVON: **laughing**

LIZ: So what the reporter thinks the real takeaway of this is, “man, that Anna. What’s her problem?”

DEVON: How fucking dare she want justice for her husband?

LIZ: Yeah, it’s like what do you mean, why is she not crying? Was it the part where he literally tried to treat her like a piece of property or the part where he exploded her husband’s entire skull next to her?

DEVON: Right? Right?

LIZ: Yeah. Or whatever was going on with that possessive dynamic.

DEVON: Right?

LIZ: Which, not a good look. Not a great look.

DEVON: I’m sorry. Captain Incest went and pulled a Lee Harvey Oswald on this poor woman, like 150 years before Lee Harvey Oswald was a thing and she’s supposed to cry when he dies?

LIZ: Yeah, she’s supposed to be like, “well, what’s really sad is that this guy that I met when I was 13 and then murdered my husband 2 years later, it’s just such a bummer the way that he’s going to die.”

DEVON: “Yeah, this sucks.”

LIZ: **as Anna** “I am just really torn up about this.”

LIZ: I don’t know, was it the reporter’s first day? Like, they just got there and all they know is they’re like sitting there with their little pad of paper like “who’s this guy?”

LIZ: **as other person** “Oh he’s getting hanged for murder.”

LIZ: **as reporter** “And who’s she over there?”

LIZ: **as other person** “Oh that’s his daughter.”

LIZ: ** as reporter** “Oh, she’s not even sad. Oh shit, deadline! Okay.”

DEVON: **as reporter** “Let’s just print it!”

LIZ: **laughing**

DEVON: No. he sounds like Oregon’s first incel. Congratulations, reporter.

LIZ: Yeah, that’s the incident. And as usual there’s like a concrete incident which is fairly well attested in historical record. There’s all the stories on the other end. And then there’s like everything that happens in between. Mary Jane, for whatever reason, when her will was read when she passed away--

DEVON: Wait, who’s Mary Jane?

LIZ: The mother.

DEVON: The mother, sorry.

LIZ: When the mother passes away, she leaves her property to none of the children.

DEVON: Yo, bitch move MJ.

LIZ: She ends up not leaving it to any of the kids. There’s some people who want to go back and say, oh, she’s the witch.

DEVON: Ohh.

LIZ: I have never seen anything that convinces me that Danforth tried this, but some people say that he claimed that she bewitched him to kill Mortimer.

DEVON: Okay.

LIZ: That doesn’t concur at all to me with the defense that he actually took.

DEVON: Right, right. It sounds like he was totally like “yeah, I did it cause I wanted to.”

LIZ: Yeah.

DEVON: That’s enough!

LIZ: That’s allowed. “Gentlemen of the jury, would you like to not have this option if your 15-year-old stepdaughter that you’re creepily involved with happened to marry somebody?”

DEVON: **laughing**

LIZ: Where does it end?

DEVON: Where does it end?

**both laughing**

LIZ: So it passes through a bunch of people’s hands and in 1897, it ends up with this guy named Donald Macleay, who’s got a chunk of the former Balch property. And he’s pissed off because they’re charging him taxes on it. And he literally is like, okay, this is a hillside with a bunch of trees. I cannot get money out of it, but I have to pay money for it. I don’t care for that. Portland, you have it. And that’s how they got Macleay park.

DEVON: **laughing**

LIZ: It’s kind of a spite park.

DEVON: It is a spite park. I kind of like the pettiness of it. I don’t want to pay taxes on it. Here city, you pay taxes.

LIZ: Yeah, you do it.

DEVON: Or you use taxes to take care of it, you know what I mean.

LIZ: You throw this away.

DEVON: You throw this away is right.

LIZ: He actually had an interesting requirement. Let me see if I can find this here… Well, one of the things that he asked when he donated the property is that it be accessible to wheelchairs. Which is, you know, it’s what, eighteen, um… ninety-seven or so? So it’s a hot 100 years before the ADA, so I found that intriguing because of the whole day job thing. And it becomes a part of the Portland Parks system, other properties in that area get donated, so it kind of gets combined into Forest Park. Now, significantly, they lived in a log cabin.

DEVON: Yeah, yeah.

LIZ: The Witch’s Castle is a stone building. So how do we get a stone building there?

DEVON: Thank you.

LIZ: Well, I will tell you.

DEVON: It’s all the stones they picked up off the trails that were in the way of wheelchairs.

LIZ: Ooooooh.

DEVON: And they put them into a castle, I don’t know why. I have ran out. I just-- all I can think of is like, this is awesome, I am super glad with how progressive he is… Museum people, you can’t take a gift for—this is why you have collection policies that don’t allow you to take a gift that have restrictions on them. Because you’re looking at this park going, how the fuck do we get wheelchairs in here? It is 1900 my friend, these are not cool, new 4-wheel ATV wheelchairs.

LIZ: No-ho-ho.

DEVON: These are those old wicker porch chairs that somebody put spindly little ass wheels on. The fuck do we do?

LIZ: Good question. So I have read two versions of when that structure came into play, but let me see first… I don’t like to give you too many puzzles. But imagine… let’s put ourselves in the Spokane setting. Let’s say that were in a park, were in Manito, we’re in Lincoln Park. What are the buildings that are built in those parks?

DEVON: Ohhh! They’re—yeah! They’re bathrooms.

LIZ: Nailed it! The Witch’s Castle is a bathroom.

DEVON: Fuck! **laughing** A two story bathroom? We are living high and mighty from the days of butt-flap pants-shitting in the woods on stumps, my friend.

LIZ: Ah, progress marches on.

DEVON: This is a commode with an abode. Holy shit.

LIZ: **laughing until she starts coughing**

DEVON: A can with a plan!

LIZ: (away from mic as she recovers) You can’t do that to me, I’m going to die.

LIZ: Okay, so I am unclear from these resources whether it was built in the 30s or the 50s, but somewhere in that window they built a rangers’ station - kind of just a, y’know, “let’s keep our shit in here,” not literally-- but also it was mainly a bathroom.

DEVON: **laughing**

LIZ: And in 1962 there was a big storm and it was heavily damaged. And they didn’t bother to repair it. So, from 1962 until now, it becomes the party hang out, it gets mossy, it gets graffiti, and it becomes known, somehow -- probably high school students I’m gonna guess -- as the Witches Castle. So I love that, because I am fairly sure everyone who decided it was spooky worked backward from it looking spooky.

DEVON: **laughing** Yeah.

LIZ: So the entire story of murder, potential incest, a daughter watching her father hanged from the neck until dead with dry eyes-- fucking nothing to do with this. It’s just a spooky-ass former shit house. And that’s good enough for us.

DEVON: **laughing**

LIZ: I love this story.

DEVON: It’s my favorite quote in the world. Oh my God.

LIZ: I mean, alternately, if I am going to put on my other, more open-minded hat. Potentially, this building… attracted the spirits who are always in conflict and at war, even though neither of them died there, because all this bad stuff happened and also a building was built on it that happened to look spooky, but it’s legitimately haunted because bad shit went down. I mean that’s another way it could happen.

DEVON: Sure. **laughing** Sure, Liz, that’s another way that can happen.

LIZ: Sure. I am just trying to be fair.

BOTH: **more laughing**

DEVON: Someone said, “dookey” but they heard “spooky” and it just became this terrible game of telephone. In which teenagers were like, “fucking witch lived there!” And you’ve got one of them going “nah man, I heard on this podcast it used to be an outhouse.” “No bro, no it couldn’t be that.”

LIZ: And that’s when you’re like, “How do I recover… uhh satanic, Satanist, Satanists did spells there, look there’s still blood!” “I think that may be spray paint.” “No dude. That’s definitely blood”

DEVON: Fucking sacrifice.

LIZ: I was really excited-- I had known about this story for a while. So most of my resource here is Weird Oregon. But then I also have some other links that I will actually try to put up. I am actually trying to put the show notes back together, because I am trying to transfer them from Wordpress and it’s hard… I have a lot happening.

DEVON: You have a lot happening.

LIZ: But Weird Oregon was the main source for this. And I love this because it has many components that I like. It has an actual historical thing, of the first man to be executed in the State of Oregon.

Devon: Mm-hmm.

Liz: But then it also has a magical haunted toilet.

DEVON: **laughing**

LIZ: And you don’t usually get both of those in one story.

DEVON: No, no…

LIZ: And it’s only a mile walk apparently. So, I super want to go next time we’re in Portland. I want to see this thing.

DEVON: **still laughing**

LIZ: It also makes me want to like, just start building stuff in parks. Like, it’s like, seeding a coral reef. You know how sometimes they deliberately sink a yacht or whatever cause they’re like “yes and then all those little corals will grow on it.” That’s what you get when you abandon a property in a forest park. You come back in 50 years and there’s going to be so much ghost on that.

DEVON: So much ghost all up on that.

LIZ: They love it. It’s their habitat.

DEVON: They’re drawn to it. Oh, oh, can you and I please build a little structure in Lincoln Park. And then, let’s just wait. Let’s just, how many people can we get that haven’t listened to this episode that contact us and are like, did you know about this?

LIZ: Yeah, well, all I’ll say is Lydia is kind of outgrowing her playhouse. So I feel like, if she ever loses interest in it. And we put in a solid day, get some sandpaper, rough it up. Carve some spooky things in it. We can put that in the back of a Ford and find some good place to put that.

DEVON: Farragut Park Lookout! I don’t think it’s considering littering when we’re doing it for a podcast.

LIZ: Yeah. It’s both art and science.

DEVON: Uh yeah, it is an installation, hello.

LIZ: It’s also conservation. It’s not littering when you put a bird house on a tree.

DEVON: Right, we’re seeding the fucking coral reef with our shitter.

LIZ: (whispering) We’re not lawyers. Don’t do these things. **laughing**

DEVON: **laughing** No. Do do them. Absolutely do them. And my defense will be the same as Danforth’s basically, which is like, “yeah, it was a good idea.”

LIZ: **laughing**

DEVON: Duh.

LIZ: Yeah, or the combined thing of what he actually did and what people thought later. Which is, “I didn’t do it, if I did do it, I had a good reason and if I didn’t have a good reason, a witch made me do it.” Tell me what situation you can’t walk out of with those defenses. I mean.

DEVON: I mean! Oh, I’m putting that on a cake for you one day.

LIZ: Yeah, I want a cake, and maybe like a, I want to put it on um-- like a motivation quote, like a beautiful picture of a sunrise over a mountain. “I didn’t do it, if I did do it, I had a good reason, and if I didn’t have a good reason, a witch made me do it.”

DEVON: I would buy that poster. Coming soon to our store.

LIZ: So that’s the story of The Witches Castle in McLeay park and also Forest Park. A park within a park.

DEVON: It’s a park within a park. And it’s a toilet within a castle.

LIZ: Yeah. There you go. I don’t think there’s actually literally any toilets left. But also if you have a bunch of drunk toilets. Or shit--

DEVON: A bunch of drunk toilets.

LIZ: A bunch of drunk toilets.

DEVON: Tell me more.

LIZ: If you have a bunch of drunk teenagers anywhere, everything is a toilet, so…

DEVON: Fucking gross.

LIZ: Close enough.

DEVON: What a wonderful story.

LIZ: I want to go see it someday. I… want people to join us on social media. I want them to come to Facebook, twitter, Instagram. Look for the Ouija Broads. Come to ouijabroads.com. Just yesterday, when I am recording this, I put up the Ouija Broads guide to Badass Women of the Northwest.

Devon: Boom!

LIZ: Because it’s Women’s History Month and I was like, yes, it’s time. We got your Stagecoach Mary, we got your Eagle Lady, we got your Ada Blackjack, we got your Mercer’s Belles. And of course, we got your Nelly Cashman.

DEVON: Damn right, you do.

LIZ: Yeah! Let me see, what else do we want to tell them about? Patreon.

DEVON: iTunes.

LIZ: If you go to Patreon.com/ouijabroads-- sorry I am just going to talk over you? And carry on?

DEVON: Do it, edit me out.

LIZ: You can get old episodes, in fact I would recommend that everybody, if you’re ever like, “man, I am so bummed that they went to an every other week schedule.” Hop on OuijaBroads.com, go to the button that says episodes, and then I want you to scroll all the way down, so you’re going to go through all the-- at this time, God, what are we at, 93, 94 episodes?

DEVON: 96

LIZ: Dang. Okay, you’re going to go all the way down. And once you go past our very first episodes, you’re going to find a section that says, “Guest Spots, Lost Episodes and More” So what you will find when you go to that is the other shows that we have been on and other stuff. So, let me tell you a little bit about it. So what I was listening to the other day that was making me very happy was when we went on a show that is all about friendship, called Best Forevers. Our episode is called “Cosmically Correct” because that is how we feel about our friendship. That’s very fun. If you’ve ever been like, how did they meet and why are they so weird together? I don’t know if this will help, but maybe it will give you more data points. There’s Devon, this is the most recent one, Devon ghosting-- **laughing**

DEVON: Yes, I was. Boooooooo.

LIZ: **laughing** Oh, that was an accident.

DEVON: Oh woman. It is 8:30 and you are not that drunk. Are you having a stroke?

LIZ: I had one cider. Devon guesting on “Insanely Haunted” talking about the Ghost Adventures episode of the Lizzie Borden house. Very wonderful.

DEVON: Thank you. Yeah, shout out to Max and Cassie. They’re fucking rad.

LIZ: Shout out! Okay, I went on Historical Hotties back a while ago, Fall 2017, man that feels like a long time ago.

DEVON: Yeah. That was our first guesting. Wasn’t it?

LIZ: Yeah it was, we were like, really new.

DEVON: Babies

LIZ: Babies. They were doing a category of the Old West. So we talked about who was the Historical Hottie. They have a very structured thing. They rate them on different categories and you have gotta pick a number. And it’s very organized, and it basically reminds me of a less aggressive version of “Fuck, Marry, Kill,” where it like gives you the framework to make a really passionate case for what you argue about, but you don’t have to say you’re going to kill anybody. And I love that part.

DEVON: I do appreciate that. It’s just the order in which I would mate with you.

LIZ: There you go. I stood up for Josie Earp, so Wyatt’s wife. The Sisters Nelson presented Annie Oakley the sharpshooter and John Ware who was a legend of Calgary as a black cowboy. So some really interesting stuff to dig into there.

DEVON: Yeah it is.

LIZ: I don’t know if I put all this in there, but I feel like I have never really gone through all of it on the show.

DEVON: No, I think it’s great. It’s really good. Talk about Nostalgia Magazine, unless you want me to bring it up.

LIZ: I will get to that. We’ve got more episodes to get through.

DEVON: God damn, do we?

LIZ: I just titled this one, “Liz Has a Day Job?” Someone reached out and I went and talked about some of the stuff that I do looking into health policy and people with disabilities. Talking about health insurance, talking about Medicaid work requirements. Because of the nature of the gig, the Medicaid work requirement stuff is fairly out of date at this point. But you can hear me talk about that on Healthcare Dialogue from Spokane Public Radio KYRS. And then of course, if you want to get in on the Patreon, we have these séances, and I have never really talked about what-all they are. Now there is one that I have to find, because I know we did an episode where I told you about the nurse who killed the hit man and like two other women who destroyed their attackers. And it’s not on this list, so I have to find it, hopefully I will find it by the time people actually see this, or hear this. Séance number one we talked about intuitive readings that we’d had and talked about-- what I put here that we talked about was lucid dreaming, bullshit situations, lizard ownership, sad flowers, charismatic megafauna and wind. So I feel like I need to re-listen to that because it sounds like a Stefan bit on SNL. They have Lizard Ownership and Sad Flowers.

DEVON: It sounds like everything we talk about every episode. You could apply that to all of them.

LIZ: Yes. Then we Séance number two -- or whatever number depending on where this nurse kills hitman one goes -- I focused on the Spokane Street Hotel murders. Interesting. Séance number 3, I named after a quote that I think is in my top 5 Devon quotes of all time, which is “We Can Ford That Shit.” **laughing**

DEVON: Well, I thought we could.

LIZ: That’s when we played the Oregon Trail. I listened to that one the other day and it made me happy. Séance number 4 is when we just kind of churned through a bunch of topics that we wanted to talk about, the faceless roamer, Mel’s hole and Seattle’s Umbrella Man and then we did one just the other day about depictions of the Northwest that we like, which cryptid we’d be and our zodiac signs.

DEVON: Yo.

LIZ: So just if you’re ever like wow I really want to listen to an episode but I have listened to all of these too recently, go to ouijabroads.com backslash episodes-- forward slash? I don’t know which slash that is…slash. Slash them episodes. And get in on some of this stuff. If you’re looking more for written word stuff, ouijabroads.com is also good for that. I’ve written up a couple of cases including F. Lewis Clark and the Fircrest Phone Hack, I Prefer Lemons, that thing-- and you should really be subscribing to Nostalgia magazine where I am writing up some weird history. Do you want to get in on that some time? You’re welcome to.

DEVON: Oh my God, I would love to. Is that an option? I am so much better at writing shit than writing it then remembering it to tell you in an episode.

LIZ: Yes, let’s do that for the next one. Let’s pick something good and weird for Spokane. And that’s the first-- my Mom doesn’t listen to the show, but she did get Nostalgia magazine and put it up on the fridge. So now, I’vee really made it.

DEVON: That’s so sweet. You have got the fridge Buddy.

LIZ: I got the fridge. Yeah.

DEVON: That’s the front page of the family.

LIZ: **laughing** That is the front page of the family! Aw. All right. So those are places that you can go to get more of what we’re doing. But we will be back in a couple weeks to tell you more stuff. And you know what want you to do.

DEVON: You do know!

LIZ: We want you to live weird--

DEVON: --to die weird--

LIZ: We want you to stay weird. And thank you for listening.

DEVON: Thank you for listening. 

Closing theme music (Me and the Man in the Moon) plays and fades out.

"I Prefer Lemons." Was the mysterious cell-phone harassment of several people in Fircrest, WA a terrifying hack, or a teenage hoax?

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It began innocuously. 16-year-old Courtney Kuykendall received texts from her friends one night in 2007 asking why she had simply texted them the word “gay.” Courtney hadn’t texted “gay” at anyone, so was somewhat confused. Pretty forgettable, except for what came next.

Before long, Courtney and her friends and family were receiving relentless, threatening texts and phone calls from an unknown figure that they came to call “Restricted,” after the name that appeared on their Caller ID when these calls came through. Restricted said that he was going to kill them, rape them, kill their pets, attack their school. The messages came around the clock, to the family’s landline as well as their cell phones. Switching their phones, getting new accounts, and turning the phones off didn’t seem to help at all. Once, while Courtney and another victim were explaining the situation in the presence of a police officer, their phones turned themselves on and called each other.

When the police got involved, they traced the threatening messages back to Courtney’s own phone – which seemed to be able to send messages and make calls even when it was turned off. When the Kuykendalls got home from meeting with law enforcement, they had a voicemail that consisted of a recording of the conversation they had had only hours earlier. They took Courtney’s phone away, but the calls just kept coming.

Even more alarmingly, Restricted seemed to be able to see them, even inside their own home. When they got a new security system keypad for their home, they received a call moments later from Restricted, saying that he knew the passcode. Sometimes he would comment on their clothing. The quintessential quote from this case is from Andrea McKay, who was cutting limes on the counter when she received a message from Restricted: I prefer lemons.

One night, someone even banged on the side of the Kuykendall house and ran off. Blocking the camera lenses with tape and removing the phones’ batteries didn’t seem to help.

Courtney, her family, and the other victims of the harassment were terrified. The cops were baffled. There seemed to be no way to hide away from where their phones could hear and see… or to avoid what Restricted wanted to say.

Aaaaand that’s kind of where the whole story trails off, which is exasperating. I have found some resources that indicate that the FBI became involved and the calls stopped around that time, but very little follow-up on this story from any of the media outlets that were so eager to cover the initial mystery. (It was right around when the first iPhone came out, which I think didn’t hurt the popularity of the story.) If the case was officially solved, it was not discussed publicly by law enforcement or by the victims.

Having read many, many iterations of the same article from when this story peaked, I want to clarify one thing - many articles refer to the victims as “three families,” which can make it sound like this was three unrelated groups of people. It was Heather Kuykendall and family, her slightly older (married, living with her husband in a different house) sister and family, and Heather’s friend who lived across the street and family. At least one other friend of Heather’s also said that her phone’s ringtone changed without her involvement to a guttural voice saying “answer your phone,” but she tends not to get included in the count.

So what the hell happened here? Obviously, most people jump to a hoax, and Courtney tends to get the lion’s share of the blame – I mean, not only was it her phone, but she was a pretty blonde teenager who got to go on national TV with this exciting story. Courtney’s rebuttal was, “Why would I do that to people I care about? Why would I harass my own family?” For what it’s worth, her mother also was adamant that Courtney was not involved.

Some argue that Restricted was using some kind of hack or virus to control the phones, possibly with inside help from either a deliberate confederate (e.g., someone who could smuggle their family member’s phone out to Restricted for some hands-on fuckery) or a clueless accomplice (e.g., a theory that Courtney kept re-infecting her new phone by visiting her MySpace page). I am not a tech person, but discussions online seem to range from “turning on a phone and having it send messages/make calls without being in the room with it is very possible” to “in 2007, that would have been some military-grade technology and very hard to pull off without having physical access to it at some point.” But for what it’s worth, the family did live close to McChord Air Force Base, and Heather’s brother-in-law worked there. In fact, he received a Restricted text at one point that said, “McChord needs us.”

At least one skeptic online has also pointed out that you don’t have to either hang the entire story on “spooky phone can see you cutting up limes with its all-seeing lens” vs. “utter hoax.” There are some more low-tech approaches that enable you to make sinister statements about someone’s meal prep or how their shirt looks, such as looking through the damn window or texting with someone who is in the next room from your victim. One law enforcement officer suggested that they might have a “tech-savvy teenage boy” in their neighborhood who was doing this. Sure, or a kid who lives in the neighborhood – or even across the street – and can creep on people the old-fashioned way.

At this point I’m wondering, did any of it actually happen? Almost every one of the technological wonders ascribed to Restricted and the cell phones is based on the report of one of the victims. Even the “the phones turned themselves on while the police officer was sitting right there” and the “we had a voicemail recording of ourselves talking to the cops” stories are based purely on what the families say. If the police officer who saw the phones turn themselves on was around in 2007, he didn’t make any statements on the record. If you’ve ever gotten a pocket dial from someone or have accidentally opened your camera app when pulling your phone out of your pocket, you’re aware that we don’t exactly spend much of our lives in situations where our phones can record nice clean audio or have a good view of what we’re doing – all the less so in 2007, when watching Hulu on your screen while you fixed dinner wasn’t an option.

As far as I can tell, nobody’s ever confessed, and there was no big resolution – just the FBI getting involved and the calls stopping. The media got very excited about this story, which let them make excited noises about cyber-bullying as well as the mysterious sexy power of cell phones and how they’re just such a part of our lives all the time, much like the new iPhone, coming out now! And then they lost interest, and moved on.

My personal theory, just based on what I’ve read (of which basically everything pertinent is shared here) is that Heather or her friend sent threats to someone via phone, then got scared of getting in trouble and decided to cover their asses by turning it into a whole “I was totally hacked! Other people send threats from my phone all the time! They even threaten me and my family!” thing. (Like how people who fuck up on Twitter tend to allege that they were hacked, and that’s why they accidentally shared hardcore porn on their account or made racist statements or whatever.) Whether the person who did this actually went to the trouble of making the phone do mysterious things, or simply said that it was (possibly with some help from an accomplice), I can’t say.

The one explanation I find very unlikely is that someone with no physical access to the family or their phones decided to relentlessly harass them around the clock, but then abruptly stopped. There are simply much faster, lower-energy ways to be an asshole to somebody, and 99.9% of people will just use one of those – egg their house or put gum in their hair at school or whatever. There is a small proportion of people who would get into this kind of campaign (ala the Watcher who pesters that family in New Jersey), but I feel like they don’t just peace out forever (or at least for 12 years and counting) based on a little law enforcement involvement.

Articles:

Cell hack geek stalks pretty blonde shocker

Stalker Terrorizes Family Via Cell Phone?

Cell Phone Stalkers Harass Washington Family

Metafilter discussion on the case.

I originally shared this post on Reddit’s UnresolvedMysteries subreddit, and the ensuing discussion has many interesting insights and theories.

The Mysterious Disappearance of F. Lewis Clark

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Background

Francis Lewis Clark, the “elegant entrepreneur,” left his mark on many parts of Spokane, Washington. A famed yachtsman, he named his award-winning craft “The Spokane.” He made much of his fortune in Idaho, and spent much of his fortune on a 900-acre estate, Honeysuckle Lodge, on Hayden Lake.

The Disappearance

Francis was married to the willowy and charming Winifred, and they liked to winter in California. On January 17, 1914, F. Lewis accompanied Winifred to the train station in Santa Barbara - she was traveling visit a family member in San Francisco. According to some reports, they quarreled. After seeing her off, he dismissed his chauffeur, saying that he planned to walk back to the hotel himself. He asked for a key to the side door of the hotel.

He was never seen again.

Investigation, Phase 1: Suicide or Accident

The first theory, of course, was that he went into the water, either intentionally or unintentionally. Santa Barbara is a coastal town, and the railroad tracks are only a few blocks from their famous deepwater pier, Stearns Wharf. A few days after he disappeared, Clark’s hat was found floating a mile off-shore, focusing the search on the water.

Investigation, Phase 2: Intentional Disappearance

On January 20th, Winifred volunteers that Francis may be in a sanitarium somewhere in Los Angeles. Evidently their winter plans had been “disarranged suddenly” by Clark deciding to take a “rest cure” in San Diego. According to this version of events, relayed by unnamed “friends” who she spoke to on the train, she was unhappy that she wouldn’t get to see much of him if he were in San Diego, and had decided to go back north to be with family. I think from context that "going back north" is referring to San Francisco (300 miles north of Santa Barbara) and not Spokane.

“Clark Is Alive Is Belief of Police,” says the Associated Press on January 21. Clark’s valet volunteers that he does not think that Clark was suicidal when he left the hotel that evening (to take Winifred to the train station). Mrs. Clark agrees that she does not think there was anything that might have caused him to take his own life, although “he had been in ill health for some time.” Winifred turns back toward Santa Barbara, and Clark’s son, Theodore, departs Cambridge to join his mother in California.

On January 21st, Winifred’s brother-in-law offers a $5,000 reward for finding Clark alive, or $200 for his body. He states, “We are unable to disabuse our minds of the possibility that Mr. Clark is in some sanitarium, hospital, or even held in duress in this vicinity.” As of the 24th, detectives have searched area hospitals and sanitariums for Clark, without success.

Investigation, Phase 3: Abduction

By January 29, 1914, Clark had been missing for 12 days. The Los Angeles Chief of Police makes public the fact that he has a ransom note from a group claiming to be holding F. Lewis Clark. The letter reads as follows:

We are holding Millionaire Clark for ransom of $75,000. State in Examiner if his folks will pay it or not. He is well taken care of. Yours, THE BLACKMAILERS

Across the top they added, “Make prompt reply in the papers as he is very anxious to get out.”

Mrs. Clark says she is willing to pay the ransom if they can prove that they’re the real deal, but the police are skeptical. Mrs. Clark and the detectives both ask for some kind of evidence - a personal item or key sentence that would prove the reality of the message. Evidently they do not get this, because by the 31st, an article on the case notes that police are confident that the kidnapping message was a hoax, and that there are a lot of “tin-star” detectives who want to “get a finger” into Clark’s money.

It’s certainly not unheard of for people to affiliate themselves with prominent crimes just for the attention, or for money. But we actually have some very, very plausible candidates for the authors of this note, and they were not rubberneckers or “tin-star detectives.” They were the most bizarre criminal ring that you’ve never heard of. They had various names, including “The Big Five” and “The Ring” but my absolute favorite is “The Long Beach Spook Trust.”

Meet the Long Beach Spook Trust

The activities of the Spook Trust were revealed over several court cases, many court appearances, and multiple locations between mid-1914 and 1916. The first strand of the web unravels when the Trust overreaches itself and tries to blackmail the mayor of Santa Monica. Going after the mayor was a bit too close to the bone even for experienced fleecers like the trust. The mayor went to the police, who gave him marked bills with which to pay the blackmail. The bills ended up in the hands of two Spook Trust members, private detective Edgar C. Byron and Santa Monica police officer C. C. Minger, both of whom are arrested on May 28, 1914.

CLEVER WOMEN USED AS BAIT, one headline proclaims excitedly. The scope of the ring is coming into focus - it’s clear that they have connections and operations even over in major East coast cities - and their appearance in the papers is bringing out other victims. The police issue a dozen warrants, including four for unnamed female badger-gamers (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Badger_game) and one specifically for “Clarice the Blondy.” These women would apparently “get acquainted with wealthy young society men shortly before their marriage” and then start blackmailing them, in addition to working the “time-worn badger game."

It rapidly becomes clear that this is a massive and complex operation. Byron’s home is full of telegrams, wire reports, letters, and codebooks - including some that indicate he was behind the ransom letter for F. Lewis Clark.

The Ring and F. Lewis Clark

In May 1914, Detective Felts had posed as a “Dr. Edwards,” a representative authorized to pay $50,000 for the safe return of Clark, and met with Mrs. Byron, who said she was aware of the whereabouts of Clark. He then met Mr. Byron by appointment at a hotel. Felts was “hot on the trail” when the mayor blackmail case broke open and Mr. Byron and Constable C. C. Minger were arrested.

“Developments” in the Ring's case led Felts to suspect that they may have had a hand in Clark’s disappearance, and that in fact Clark could possibly still be alive - months after his disappearance - and held hostage on an island off the coast. The Californian detectives prepared to search for Clark, while the Spokane detectives interrogated Mrs. Clark about conversations she had had with members of this psychic ring. There was evidence that Mrs. Clark, when she came to Los Angeles, was met by a female medium who said she could locate Mr. Clark.

Felts claims that he has reason to believe that Millionaire Clark was induced to take an interest in spiritualism. Through this, according to Felts, the millionaire induced his wife to leave Santa Barbara and go to San Francisco. Shortly after she left Santa Barbara Felts believes that the conspirators persuaded Clark to go aboard a steam launch. Then, as the detective reasons, the millionaire was taken away in bondage. With this accomplished, Felts believes that the blackmailers then approached Mrs. Clark through a medium. Felts claims that one of Clark’s most intimate associates was acquainted with a man who is now being sought as an alleged accomplice to Private Detective Byron… (The Oregon Daily Journal, May 31, 1914.)

This sounds outlandish, but it was completely consistent with the activities of the Spook Trust. They specialized in cons that involved a dose of spiritualism, a promise of riches, and a long grift that generally ended in blackmail. They preyed on wealthy widows, preferably those from out of town. They had both male and female mediums in the gang who regularly would do cold approaches on their targets, saying they had received a message from the spiritual realm.

One of the Ring's advertisements https://imgur.com/a/cKucKky

Clarice the Blonde is arrested in connection with the Clark case in early June, and is said to have been involved with several other of the ring’s blackmail and extortion plots. She says “it’s all a mistake” as she’s taken in. “I have never heard of Clark, whom I’m supposed to have kidnapped, and I never heard of Alexander, McCullough, or Byron.” (If you’re thinking that it would be unusual for her never to have even heard of the missing millionaire from her area, we’re on the same page. That’s like somebody in 1991 Los Angeles saying they haven’t heard of Rodney King.)

Marie Ella Allen, a.k.a. Clarice the Blonde https://imgur.com/a/Fj1Kh8i

Clarice is released only four or five days after her arrest, and the newspapers say that “their investigations have failed to uncover any facts that might connect the ring with the disappearance from Santa Barbara several months ago of J. (sic) Lewis Clark.” The rest of the ring is rounded up over the next few months. The ring is broken when two of them quarrel over how to divide up the loot and one shoots the other. A few sentences are handed down. All in all, it’s estimated that the ring took over $200,000 from its targets.

The trials of the ring shed no further light on Clark’s disappearance and/or their connection to it. He is not found, dead or alive, by any searches of the islands. Several of his business ventures are closed or sold. His will leaves $700,000 to Winifred and $10 to Theodore.

The Confession The story jumps ahead to February 1929, when Marie Allen Kelley - formerly known as Marie Ella Allen, or Clarice the Blonde - comes forward to Los Angeles police, saying that she had played a role in Clark’s death and wished to confess.

Marie’s story is as follows. Back in 1914, a man who she calls “Blackie” paid her $800 for riding with Clark in a taxi from Los Angeles to Santa Barbara, where a “mob” (later clarified as five men) was waiting to rob Clark. Specifically, Marie was going to meet Clark at a hotel. Marie asserts that she did not know that the mob planned to kill Clark until it was too late. She eventually discloses the real name of “Blackie” to the police, and an address for him in Chicago.

I have told you that I did not see Mr. Clark killed. I drove with him to Santa Barbara, as I have told you, and he left me out at a hotel there, promising to return later. I knew the mob was coming up there and probably would rob him but I did not know of the murder until several months afterward.

The police are skeptical of her claim, and give her a sanity test in which she is examined by two “alienists” (the contemporary term for psychologists) to determine whether the story is a product of her imagination. Marie is defiant.

I saw in this morning’s papers where they believe I am a mental case. If I look like an insane person put me down as one and let it go at that. I am trying to help you solve a case that has weighed on my conscience for many years. Call all the alienists and psychiatrics you desire and I will gladly face all of them.

The case closes again in early March, when the Chief of Police for Santa Barbara declares that Marie’s story is a “fabrication which could not be checked or proven if true. Her story differs in some key material points previously authenticated at the time of Clark’s disappearance. The facts determined at the time of the episode were enough to convince a Coroner’s jury that it was a case of suicide and Mrs. Kelly’s story hasn’t been sufficient to warrant a reopening of the case.”

Besides, it’s been fifteen years, he says. Attempts to check records of hotels were futile, as were their attempts to find the parties she named. “We couldn’t have a criminal case against anybody in connection with Clarks’ disappearance as things stand now.”

After being questioned for several hours and hearing the Chief’s verdict, Marie is described as “resigned and noncommittal about the case.”

The police have done all they can do, I guess. Maybe I’m crazy. It all seems like a dream now. There is something funny about the whole works. I hope I’m not goofy. If it was a dream, it was a bad one.

The trail goes cold again. F. Lewis Clark becomes a story in a roundup of “famous mysteries” that papers can publish on a slow news day.

Did the Long Beach Spook Trust Kill F. Lewis Clark?

I honestly can’t claim that I know what role the Spook Trust played in Clark’s disappearance, but their involvement complicates an already mysterious case. I think there are two main ways that you could plausibly interpret the pieces of evidence that we have.

Interpretation #1: All a hoax.

The most popular interpretation over the years. In this theory, the Spook Trust was totally unconnected to Clark before his disappearance (whether it was an accident, self-harm, or foul play at the hands of an unrelated third party). Given their exhaustive interest in wealthy out-of-towners, it’s likely they were tuned in to who he was, where he was staying (newspapers printed this in those days for notable figures, I was able to find the record for Clark’s hotel), and that he was married. It would have been very easy to deploy one of their faux psychics to Winifred with enough vague but hopeful details to hook her, putting the psychic in the position to prime Winifred for a ransom letter the Trust would later send. When the Trust wasn’t able to provide Winifred adequate evidence - since they didn’t actually have Clark - the plan fell apart.

The part that puzzles me with this interpretation is the 1929 confession. Marie seems to have been surprised that law enforcement was uninterested in doing anything with the information she brought forward. She received some attention for her confession, but no money that I know of, and plenty of negative press. It’s possible that she concocted this story as a way to get revenge on a former partner (business, romantic, or both), but it was several days in before she reluctantly gave contact information for her accomplice, and as far as I know he was never apprehended. If it was a revenge plot, it wasn’t very organized and she didn’t pursue it very aggressively.

Interpretation #2: Ripoff gone wrong.

Another interpretation is that F. Lewis Clark was caught up in one of the Spook Trust’s standard cons. This is what Marie asserts happened, give or take. The tendency of the trust to lure victims to hotels puts a slightly different light on Clark’s insistence on dismissing his staff and walking himself home that fateful evening after dropping off his wife. Was he actually planning on going back to his usual hotel, or was he heading to another location for a rendezvous that he didn’t want anyone to know about? Did the shakedown go awry and the Trust ended up with a body instead of a blackmail victim?

It’s possible, but I think unlikely, that the Trust was holding Clark alive at some point and sending ransom letters but then something went wrong and the kidnapping turned into a murder. One way or another, I’m pretty sure that Clark died the night that he disappeared - there’s zero evidence that he was alive for long after he said farewell to his chauffeur.

The question I’d ask Marie about her story, if I could, is why on earth the Trust would then double down on their involvement in the case by writing a ransom letter. If you’ve actually killed someone, claiming that you are holding them alive and will release them for the right sum is what we might call a high-risk, high-reward maneuver. On the other hand, this was a group who did get violent with victims who didn’t pay up, not to mention each other. Would they have gotten this audacious?

If the police in 1929 thought that it was a case too distant in the past to solve, we can hardly do better 89 years later with only newspapers to work with. There are just too many pieces missing in this puzzle.What we do know is that the Spook Trust lied. To their victims, to the newspapers, to the police, and to each other. In 1914, Marie claimed to have nothing to do with the Clark disappearance. In 1929, she said that she led Clark to his death. Which one was the lie?

Some references:

Wikipedia's page on the Disappearance of F. Lewis Clark.

A picture of Clark's Spokane home, which is now used for offices.

A history of Clark's Idaho home, now a bed and breakfast.

The Clark House's own history of his life and disappearance.

So what do you think happened?