This podcast episode blends personal anecdotes, sponsor ads, and two paranormal/mystery stories. The hosts open with updates: one discusses her sobriety, noting it's been months without cravings except a brief beer temptation, while the other deals with appetite loss and humorous self-diagnoses like a tapeworm. They also talk about Hank, a dog whose DNA test revealed a surprising mix of Bernese Mountain Dog, Rottweiler, and Pomeranian, and his ongoing training for reactive behavior at the dog park. After sponsor segments, the first story covers the 1968 Olive Hill Poltergeist in Kentucky, where elderly couple John and Ora Callahan experienced escalating supernatural activity—shattering objects, flying furniture, and apparitions—that followed their 12-year-old grandson Roger. Investigators, including William Roll, documented 200 incidents, with Roger present for most, leading to a theory of recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis (RSPK). An exorcism failed, and the family moved, ending the activity. The episode then teases the Yuba County Five, a 1978 case where five men from a basketball team vanished after a game, their car found abandoned in a forest; Ted Weir's body was later discovered in an emergency trailer, starved despite ample supplies, while the others remain missing. The hosts mix humor with eerie storytelling, ending with plans for future episodes.
I planned on doing this with hank by my side as my little co-host today, but he decided that eating a carrot was more important. We would like to thank EmbarkVet.com for supporting and that's why we drink. If you go to EmbarkVet.com, you can save $10 on the breed and health test and get free shipping with promo code drink. We cover cryptids and I have my own little carrot eating cryptid in the corner right now. And one of my biggest unsolved mysteries was what breed is he? To solve this, I went to Embark's dog DNA test. They have the most accurate dog DNA test available and all I had to do was take a little cheek swab from him. I had to mail it to them in a pre-packaged envelope that they provided for me. And two weeks later, we got the results and everyone thought when we got hank they were like, oh, clearly he's a cattle dog. Big surprise indeed, he is actually a burnwiler, which is half Bernie's mountain dog and half rotwiler. And also Pomeranian, which was an even bigger surprise and a pinch, like 3% German shepherd. If you want to see for yourself what your dog's breed is and not just what their breed is at a curiosity, but how you can actually help them based on their breed, what's going to help them health wise, what their diet should look like, what their exercise should look like, what their lifespan will look like. Then check out Embark, it's been so helpful to us. Get the dog DNA test that is trusted by millions and this August, if you'd like, you can add a donation for shelters and rescues right at checkout go to EmbarkVet.com to get free shipping and save $10 with promo code drink, visit EmbarkVet.com and use promo code drink to save $10 today. The first thing you need to do is to get the dog DNA test done in the next two to three months. Today's episode is sponsored by the ASPCA Pet Health Insurance Program. As a frequent goer of the dog park, I have seen some scary things happen to the dog park, luckily not to my dog. Although very recently we had our first scare, he ended up stepping on a bee and got stung. But I was absolutely panicked as a first time dog parent who has absolutely infantilized my little puppy dog. In a moment like that, you really are thankful that you have your pet insurance. The ASPCA Pet Health Insurance Program offers customizable accident and illness plans that can fit your budget, your lifestyle, and even your pet's particular quirks. Like if he enjoys stepping on bees and horrifying their parents. Because let's be honest, that bills can add up fast. All we ever do at the dog park is talk about how expensive our dogs are. This will help you in the long run. ASPCA Pet Health Insurance has been around for almost 30 years and has covered over a million pets. And when it's time to submit a claim, it's easy just use their app and receive reimbursement for eligible vet bills directly into your bank account. So you can get back to focusing on what really matters, your pet, my little hankies, and to explore coverage, visit ASPCA Pet Insurance.com/drink. That's ASPCA Pet Insurance.com/drink. One more time, again, that's ASPCA Pet Insurance.com/drink. This is a paid advertisement insurance is underwritten by either Independence American Insurance Company or United States Fire Insurance Company and produced by PTZ Insurance Agency Limited. ASPCA is not insured and is not engaged in the business of insurance. My watch just said, you've achieved, you've reached your stand goal and I'm like very actively sitting on camera. There's like visible proof that I'm not standing. My watch just said, you've done it. Your watch is like you go girl, you go girl. Yeah, I think sometimes it's just like been prompted to give me little like pet talks. That's honestly, maybe that's why I need to start wearing go watch, just have someone say something. It's wearable tech to just, yeah, improve boost morale, you know. Oh, Kristian, what are you doing this? It's Monday. I, yes, everybody, obviously, something's wrong with my voice, but we're, I don't know to sit anymore. I feel like I heard it at first and now it's like gone for me. Um, I can't notice it. I, yeah, I think it's probably just me that's having the, the immediate warming to the voice, but I think like, I don't know, I think people will like it. Thank you. I'm just, I, we might as well address before everyone's like, are you sick? I don't know what I am, but it's just began like two days ago, a day ago, and it's not ending. So we're all just taking it for a ride. So yeah, we're all just going to see what, see where it takes us, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Where your breath takes us. Oh, yes. My, my breath. That's right. That's gonna be nice. Let's talk about my breath. Well, are you drinking anything? Because you should be lubricating that throat. If you do have this Leranjoytus, you speak of, um, not that I've ever had, I clearly don't know anything about Leranjoytus because I went, oh, no, doesn't that hurt? And Emma said, no, it doesn't hurt. I think, my understanding is that Leranjoytus is just like the fancy word for you're losing your voice. And bronchitis is when you're like coughing, which leads to you losing your voice. I mean, I believe you. So I clearly don't know much of anything, um, but what are you looking? Well, you, first you mentioned my breath and I thought I should show you my, well, you went, I didn't know that I would just kind of get that wasn't meant to be like an alieup and does something worse. It was meant to be more like, you know what? We've reached the edge. Now let's come back. Don't even something worse. I'm still not over you. Not take care of my skeleton when I'm gone, but I literally posted that and I was like, am I really the asshole? And then people were like, yes. And I was like, oh. Were they really? Okay. It was, it was definitely split, but I was cracking up because people were like, I mean, yeah, kind of you're an asshole if you won't touch your friend's skeleton. And I was like, I wish I'll live. Okay. Like, no, we're not getting into this again because then we're going to get, you know, you know, you know, I'm saying, you know how your co-host gets when, when you bring up touching skeletons, you know what I'm saying is if it were your dying request, there's very few things I would do. But like what if I said my dying request was to like, shoot a puppy. Oh. I mean, I'm saying like, why would you say done? Like why on earth would you say done when I just said the world is my oyster? I could say the worst possible thing. I was going between the roll of decks of joint ISIS, like I had all these things. And you said done and before I could even spit one out. I think in terms of like the creepy crawly stuff, I would do most things for you. But if I had to commit murder, I don't know. So it depends on if it's a puppy or like another murder or you've joint ISIS undercover. Sorry. I'm going to suffer about ISIS. Um, yeah, it's funny. Anyway, I am drinking up here. I'm drinking. I'm drinking three different things. My ADHD got the better of me today. Okay. I'm drinking a water. I'm drinking, the thing I was looking was my, I have a London fog, but the place that I got it from had like a cold foam on top. So they had a cold and I was like, and they just don't want you coming back. They just don't want you coming back. That's all. No, it had like a foam on top of it. I love a little cold foam. Oh, it's so good. It was a vanilla cold foam. Thanks for letting us watch you lick that off the lid. It was really nice. You're welcome. And the third one is a protein power drink thing, just because I'm hungry and I need to fill the foam. Yeah. That's what kind of what I've got here. A smoothie again, but it's like, I've just not had it like an appetite very much. So I'm trying to get my calories in like smoothie form lately. Oh, really? I think it's when I stopped drinking. It was like, I just lost my appetite for everything. It was so weird. Interesting. And I still have it back. Is something make you hungry? Kind of. I mean, I don't know. I think I was just in such a rhythm, like a very unhealthy rhythm that like, I had a system going and then maybe, but also I was googling like in the middle of the night on incognito, like signs you have a tapeworm. So I don't know. I feel like I'm all over the place, but yeah, if anybody could maybe diagnose, no, don't do that. I mean, for fun, why not? I mean, for entertainment purposes, only if anybody knows why I can't eat until like five p.m. And then I'm like, suddenly ravenous, but like only for liquid foods. It's really weird. Oh, that's interesting. A virgin to solid foods. And it was like, your infant and I was like, no, no, me. Me. And it was and like, there are, you know, situations where you have sensory issues or things like that go into adulthood. But I'm like, what about like sudden onset? Like, it's not like I've never liked to eat food. It's just suddenly I'm very like averse to like it makes me ill to even think about. So I don't know what that's about. And it's not like I'm like losing a bunch of weight. It's just like this weird bow and then at night, I get really hungry and I'll just like snack on like nuts and I'm trying to like eat actually nutritious foods which is why I order these smoothies. But yeah, it's a weird thing. So anyway, I should probably go to the doctor. Yeah, good luck. I don't know. Who has time for that? No, I will use octop. I promise everyone right now I'm going to use octok and there's no that that ad is not even in this episode, but it is true. And I because I'm not going to be calling anybody. Let's be for real. A lot of mysterious ailments going on over here today. Yeah. Wow. We're effed up. We're always kind of effed up. It's been a while since we've had like meladrama regard medical meladrama, a TMTM, TMTM, TMTM. I'm wearing my TM bracelet. I knew it. I wore my TM bracelet and I said today we're going to TM something. I betcha. I betcha. You nailed it. You nailed it. Well, if you're comfortable talking about it just because you mentioned it, how is your journey, your sober journey? Are you having a. Thank you for asking. It's. Only if you want to talk about it. Yeah, yeah. It's been like something I don't really think about. What? Which is the most shocking.
Yeah, it was the day that I realized I'd stop checking the days that I was like oh my god and What day did it get to before you stopped counting the days? I think well remember it was on air with you that I was like I forget and you were like you don't know What like your hundred days or something and I was like nope and then I've missed it So it was like in the 80s or 90s. So it took a couple months The other day was the first time that I got really down because I passed like Something and it had like beer. I was having a really really bad day and I saw like These like beers or something and I was like I would literally do and I would touch M skeleton for a beer I know something we found what it would take. I would break my sobriety for a nice cold beer for a I would do that for you just for that. No, but in that moment, I was like it's really hard because in that moment You're like what's wrong with me like, you know, and then it's like hey It's chill. I got home. I have like some non-alcoholic beers took a few steps was over it, you know But in the moment like your nervous system is like freaking out and he's like it's the only thing that'll fix it You know, and you just kind of have to learn to like sit with discomfort, which is like My least favorite thing and apparently the thing that comically I'm meant to learn the most is to just sit in the discomfort of Change and of life. I don't know. It is so I'm you know, it's okay. It's going okay, and I'm very pleased that I've connected with some people if you've messaged me on or DM me. I haven't I've gone through some and occasionally I'll open it and go through a few but a couple people have messaged a lot of people have messaged him and really Kind and supportive, but I just have barely the bandwidth to get myself to a doctor and eat Eat anything for breakfast. So I'm sorry that I'm not responding, but I'm so proud of everybody else too Who's like you know what I was looking for a sign and then you were like hey if you're looking for a sign Here's your sign that were a couple people who said that and I was like that's so meaningful, you know, just that alone So anyway, but thank you for asking. It's been good in that like It's hard it was hard the hardest part. I think was deciding it and committing to it because then I was like I can't go But it's like it was this weird mental block where I was like all right doors are closed But yeah after a few months. I'm not having any cravings except that one time for the beer And they make really good non-alcoholic beers. So like that really solves that for me. But yeah What are you drinking today? I have this smoothie with like Dates I know we discussed that dates and peanut like very Chaloric things to try You're like, I'm just trying to put anything in my body at this point I just want to eat like sometimes geo and I just eat cheese. It's at two in the mornings I'm like I haven't eaten and I'm so It's really effed up. I'm sorry my hormones. I think I don't know. I'm all over the place I need to see a doctor. I'm aware. It sounds precious though Just the two of you at two in the morning just it is something's never changed We have a lot of moments that yeah exactly that I'm like that are precious, but also they're just like routine Or does he just wake you up at 2 a.m now for your your cheese at run? He literally two nights in a row has woken me up between the hours of one and two a.m So thank you for asking he has and I don't think I realize why I think he also has changed food. So I think he has to go potty, but like Also now I'm realizing it is when I start snacking when he wakes me up So maybe that's maybe we're Pavlov at each other, you know sure sure. Oh, no. Oh, it happens. Oh, do you have a reason why you drink? Probably because like I can't get any calories except through candy cheeses and smoothies. That's a good reason Thanks, they're good reason. I mean it's better than oh, I sang in my feet. It's better than wine right all my calories for wine But maybe that's why maybe my body's like where are normal calories, you know? I mean, it does sound like you used to get your calories from a liquid and I are like let's do that again. True like it's just yeah, that's a good point Why do I drink I oh because I have a tapeworm. That's why I drink because I've gone to the most extreme WebMD middle of the night option I would like to know more about your tapeworm. Thanks. I mean, I know so far we don't know anything But if there's an update, I sure would like to hear it on whether it exists or not Well, see here's a dangerous thing my brother joked quote-unquote for years about having a tumor in his brain And then he literally had a tumor in his brain whoops And so it's sort of like hmm self-fulfilling prophecy Or he just like medically knew that that was there. I don't know. That's so weird I also have friends who also recently discovered that they have tumors on their brain. Was it on their pituitary? I don't know where it was. That's for his is which also was his third eye and I was like oh my god And he's like don't fucking start with me and I was like you're right. Oh my god. No mine was um Is he okay, by the way? Um, no Okay, I mean he's just trying to find a doctor who will look at it and it's like nope. It's been years It's been like he found out actually when I was in Egypt, so Well, um, yeah almost a year. That's horrifying. Yeah, it is horrifying And I'm like and nobody will fucking do anything about it pisses me right off. I My my friend who is also dealing with something similar We only call each other when something bad's happening It's what I saw her phone ringing guys like I answered it and I went what happened and she went now brain tumor and I went oh Yeah, take a guess um apparently hers. I don't know how science works But I guess just by looking at it through her skull. They can tell it's benign that I would I don't know how that works, but apparently hers is okay. So hopefully his is okay, too I think it depends to like how big it is um Sure Yeah, his is pretty small, but they said it could be affecting hormones because pituitary Is for your mom is Interesting. So and he's you know, so anyway, I don't want to put air all his medical stuff But this is stuff he's already mentioned on be she see any so well all right Well, I'll send down a little Like Yeah, manifesting good vibes to him. I mean while like I have a tapeworm. I'm like no, you don't curse him Yeah, this point don't complain you have a tapeworm. It's okay You know, I don't even think I have a tapeworm. I'm making that up. I'm literally inventing that. Yeah, but for the story I'm gonna need people to know that it's fully an existing tapeworm It's probably exists. I feel like maybe Not feeling at least maybe Don't say that now I'm gonna get freaked out. Oh, just boiled just coiled I balls and belly buttons if you don't shut up That's a fair It's a fair threat. I know your weakness If it helps, I'm glad the toenail murderer The cuticle shredder. Yeah Oh my god I don't want my favorite belly button If it helps, I'm constantly making fun of Allison and saying that I think she has worms just because anytime there's a stomach trouble I'm just like oh why would that help a and be explain yourself please they're not alone that there's everyone's got a worm thing I don't have worm. Okay You you have a lovely way of words Don't worry you and Allison both have worms. That is not okay sure yeah every time I I have tummy troubles I blame the worms even though I don't think you can just blame the worms anyway Where are we oh? Oh, I was gonna say the reason I drink is because Hank is I know it's delayed everybody. Don't yell at me. Um, he is in training now Oh and um Because he's been a bit of a bad boy lately. What did he do? Um Nothing like violent buddy is reactive and Uh at the dog park. He is like He and at the dog park in general. He's a big barker. Um, but Like to a point where it's a problem Like he's like in the face like he's like his idea of trying to get the dogs to play with him is to bark and lunge at them Oh, yeah, yeah, I know it geo does have any small so it's like less upsetting. Yeah Yeah, Hank is a rottweiler and he's in the small dog park, you know, I'm saying like yeah, yeah, yeah Right like rolls reverse not not probably not good. Not cute. I mean, so Luckily he has his own little group of friends where like I think it's like it's helpful and bad that he learned from Some of the dogs they're who love to rough house. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that was acceptable So now he tries to do it. I had to stop taking geo to the dog park because I was like well He plays with some dogs and then some get too violent. It's just like I couldn't trust him anymore Yeah, the dogs. I just was like it's not working. Well, I'm I'm very lucky that um I like the people that I go there all the all the time at the same time so everyone who has like small dogs like They all know that Hank is like not a threat and like I can literally hear at the on the other side of the park I'll hear him like bark and lunge at another dog And I just hear how their hang owners go Hank stop it That's like cut cut it out Hank like I know nobody's worried But I'm worried about the day when we're in a new environment and that happens or somebody brings a new dog Yeah, yeah, exactly um and he's also Because I I was taking him to the small and timid dog park when he was freaked out about everything And then that's where he ended up making his friends now he's still going there And he's not he's not the only big dog there. There's there's other big brave dogs there that just get along better with small dogs and I think I accidentally tricked him into thinking he's a small dog because now anytime there's a dog his size or bigger He like Doesn't know what to do with it and starts like barking him won't shut the fuck up and like Like I think he just doesn't see as like a size preference when it comes to dogs and Anyway, so we're working on that for the dog park but then Allison I do the dog park Allison walks him. She's got her own whole list of things that she wants to work on with him and But it's a lot. She'll be good at that too. You both will be very good at that. I feel like like Yeah, we've had our first session yesterday um And he's very smart. I know it'll be fine But I'm just like uh this seems like it's going to be like a long road ahead because It's just a lot of little things that we want to correct um Anyway, so I dream because it just feels like it's going to be a bit of a headache
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And after you check out they'll ask where you heard about them, so please support our show and tell them that we sent you, experience the new standard and comfort and support with Honey Love. - I found a good one for you today. - Thank God. - I know. - So it was a bad one, I would've just hung up. - Well, it's just so hard to find the solid, solid ones now. I got to spread them out. I got to make them really count. And this is not that the other ones are bad, but like when I tell you the topic today, you'll know why, 'cause almost 500 episodes, Chrissy, that's-- - I cannot believe it. - Crazy. - Also 491, my lucky numbers. - Happy 491. - Thank you so much. It feels nice. I have a wild one for you too. So. - Look at us. - Let's buckle up. - Do you have a request for 500? Do you want to say it now? But if you think of one, let me know 'cause I'd like to prep you to see. - I looked at the calendar last night and I was like, I saw episode 500 with like a bunch of exclamation points and I was like, well, I think that's a sign for me to start thinking about it. So, 'cause my brother and I, to record it are, wait, that's weird. My brother and I recorded our 400th yesterday and I forgot completely, like completely. And so, that's gonna happen if I don't think about it. You know that already about me. I will not know. - I do. - I will not know. So the exclamation points did clue me in. So, let me-- - You don't have to know now, but give me an idea. - You got like brain storm. - Nine weeks, so. - Don't do tapeworms, I'll kill you. - I will not, I will not. This is a poltergeist story for you. - Ooh, okay. - So this is the, and it's in your town. Well, it's in your state. Tell me, do you know the town Olive Hill? - No. - Okay. - This is the Olive Hill Poltergeist. - Oh my gosh, I've never heard of this. - How far away is Olive Hill from you? - I just said I've never heard of it. - I know, I, I expect to, I don't know why I expected you to look at it. - I'm not, I'm not ALEXA. - If that's what you're asking. - It's two hours from you. - Which direction? Like what part, what part? - That's near Ashland. - Huntington. - West Virginia? - Yeah. - Oh, I like, so like Appalachian kind of. - Yes. - Getting close, yeah. Okay, cool. I love it. It's so beautiful down there. I love that drive. - It's very great. - West Virginia starts to get scary a little bit, but. And West Virginia makes fun of Kentucky and Kentucky makes fun of West Virginia. So you know what? - It's shocking that there isn't more of a rivalry between Virginia and West Virginia. But they are, they're, they're, they even share a name and yet are so different. - I think that's, yeah, what, I think that's why. I think Kentucky and West Virginia are very similar. So they get really mad at each other. - What's, I think West Virginia and Western Virginia are very similar. And interesting. - But like, Fredericksburg is very different than West Virginia. - Yeah. - And then like, 'cause like DC area, I mean, yeah, makes sense. So all of Hill, Kentucky, which is two hours from Christine, and this was in 1968. So the two people that you have to care about right now are John and ORA, ORA. And they are retirees living in their house. And they're, oh, their last name is Callahan. So sometimes it's been called the Callahan Polter Grace. But okay, John and ORA. So in 1968, we start strong. They're sitting on their couch and above their couch, there's a frame picture of Jesus. And of course, you've got to start a poltergeist. I mean, it's like fresh into like, if you want to start a horror movie, start with a picture of Jesus. - Oh, I was just thinking of Kentucky. But yeah, also horror movie. - Horror movie. - Yeah, it really fits both. - Literally writes itself. - Kind of both. - Yeah. - So, okay. Picture of Jesus, apparently written on the picture of Jesus, it says, Christ is the head of this house. - Oh, lovely. - Literally meant for a movie intro. The picture cracks on its own. And that is the beginning of, I'm just going to call it Hell Week, because throughout the week, it's very similar things happen only, it very quickly escalates. So there's mirrors, light bulbs, dishes, even more picture frames to start shattering in the home. - Oh, my God. - All in the same pattern, which is interesting, I guess they noticed that the cracking pattern on them was similar to if it had been shot in the center and like splintered out. Ew. So it's like one pin point in the middle, like a bullet hole sort of, ew, that is so creepy, dude. - So much shot, Jesus. - Because, ew, I hate that. And also like, that visually is so creepy rather than like just, oh, the side cracked a little bit. - No, it's like. - It's like right in the middle, outward is wild. - Yeah. It's very odd. - Weird. - Then the washing machine also starts freaking out. - Well, it's just like-- - It's getting shot. - It's good. You know what? Actually-- - I'm freaking out, too. - That's so funny. You mentioned that. I hadn't put it together. But one of the problems with it was that they kept hearing loud bangs from the inside. So-- - Oh, dear. Which like, I guess you could say is like my weed pen rolling around in there, usually is what. Like when that happens, I'm like, oh, no, I've done it again. But yeah, I guess this could also be that a paranormal gunshots. - I feel like, imagine it's like flying in the air and levitating and it's just playing that fuck-ass three-minute-long Samsung song, like-- - Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That always interrupts like the most intense moments of your life. - So the washing machine is literally shaking and freaking out, just like how other objects are flying around, despite this being super heavy. It literally levitates from the ground and starts shaking as if energy's trying to get out of it. - Ew, ew, ew. - Or she-- this is a bit of a long quote, but it-- I own-- and also the-- it was a fragmented quote where like, I got one piece from a different article and other piece from a different article, but it's all talking about the same situation, so I just clumped it together, so. Or it says, "Things began to break all at once. I didn't know what to do. I got up and went into the bathroom and a bottle of bath oil flew against the wall and cracked like a shotgun." - Oh my god. - Later in the day, I started my washer and it boomed inside just like a shotgun. I knew all the granite would be broken off inside, but when I opened the lid, there wasn't any damage. Things would break and we're just sitting there looking at them with no one touching anything, no one near them. And then it got to a point where now we're just leaving things to let them lay where they fall. Like, it was like-- - Whoa, it was like-- - It was happening so often. - The blank might as well-- nothing we can do about it sort of thing. - Yeah, like, it was happening so frequently that they stopped just even trying to clean it up. They were just like, "Well, okay." - So that's interesting because of course I thought like washing machines, Samsung did it, but like, I didn't, and we'd pen, but I didn't think like, "Oh, 19, what year's it? 68." - 68. - To even have a washing machine, I feel like it's a big deal, especially in like Eastern Kentucky. It feels like that wouldn't be normal, but then the granite, maybe it's more like a-- - Like an original washing machine. - Like a crank one? I don't know. I made a washboards in there, yeah, I don't know. - I'm sure that maybe, but I just, that thing about cracked granite, I'm like, what kind of washing machine is this? But-- - That's a good point. - I mean, those-- - Sounds fancy though. - Those were in the same quote too, so I didn't, I, yeah, I don't know about the quote but come from. - Oh, I got you. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - Only a few days later, they, I said they weren't even trying to like really like clean the stuff up and re-hang it or anything. They just kept buckets around the house and would just put the shards in them. - I feel like that's how I live. It's like, with a four-year-old, it's like, "I don't even bother putting stuff away. I just kind of like have piles." I'm like, "Yes. We'll get to it." - A doom bucket. You just have to have it. - But once the tornado finishes, then I'll get to it, yeah. - So they had buckets around the house where they were just tossing-- - That's why. - Shattered pieces in. And this is all within one week. They were, it went from nothing's going on to all of this. - To the Jesus cracking and then like-- - Yes. - Oh, God. That's crazy. - By the end of the week, good for them, they flood the house. They moved. - Oh, I thought you said flood. And I was like-- - Oh, no. - Excuse me? They flooded the house. Okay, they fled, fled, fled. - They fled the house. - Like, I know that not everybody has the ability to do that, but I like how in every other Polterguy story, I'm like, get out as soon as you get out, and they never get out. - Yeah. - It's nice when the trope of like staying forever doesn't happen. - Right. I don't know if you know these locations, but I guess all of Hill, I guess the neighborhood they lived in was called Henderson Branch. And then they moved to another neighborhood. - Hall of Hill Henderson Branch, okay. - Yeah.
And then they moved to Zimmerman Hill. - I don't know. - My understanding is that there are two neighborhoods in the same town. - Okay, okay. - So I think there's like very small towns over there. So I feel like it's probably, yeah. They're kind of mixed together. - Okay, cool. Would you, if it sounds like a lot of these places are just last names and then like a nature thing. Like-- - Really just my name. - Zimmerman Hill. Yeah, would you be like, she for trunk? What would you be? - She for trunk. - She for valley. - Oh. - It would want to be a valley 'cause then I'm like, that sounds like so deep, get it. - I think I'd want to be like, well, I don't know about with the last name Shultz, but I like the idea of like some sort of water thing, like a river. - Oh yeah, that's good too. That's good too. Or what about like a cat canyon or something? Like, you know, something like cavern. - Is there anything alliterative with Shultz? - Oh, good, or Shiefer. - Or Shiefer. - The Shiefer Shultz. - Shanchuary. - Shanchuary. - Shiefer Shultz wilderness shank shuary. (laughing) Shark shank shuary. - I mean, with love, that's what it would be now. - That's a shark shank shuary. So I don't know what anyone wants to do about it, except just accept it. Thank you. - I love that. Thank you. - I knew to ask. - Okay. - You were right to ask. - The Shiefer Shultz shank shuary. Okay. Shack shank shuary. (laughing) Okay, so they are still in the volatile area, but they move within a week. And the very first like day I'm thinking, or at least within the first week of them moving into this new house. - Oh no. - They see an apparition of the first owner that lived in their last house. Like the person who-- - What's he there? He's like, oh, thank God we got out. And they're like, wait, you weren't invited. I feel like he's like hitched a ride to the holiday in. Like that's not fair. - Yeah, so I don't really know where to place this, or if I was even gonna mention it at all, but the theory later was that some researchers think that the original owner of the house used to kind of like, try to make contact with spirits. And so maybe he stirred something up, but that would explain why like when, we don't have any records of him being haunted, or like the many years that the family lived in that house before this week. - Yeah. - So maybe he did just kind of pop, he was like, I'm out of there now. I've attached to you guys. I've hitched a ride with you guys. - Maybe, a part of me is like, for the first time in my life skeptical where I'm like, maybe they just had a dream of like the, all the people who had to live there before them. It was like, I don't know. I don't really understand. It was a very fleeting moment where they said like, oh yeah, then we saw the original owner of the house. I'm like, why don't we speak on that? - I mean, there's not much to say. - I guess, but. - Except he hitched a ride. - I guess, I mean, honestly, your theory is the funniest, so I'm just gonna stick with that. - It's also the correctest, so. - That helps. - He, but so they saw him. The theory goes that he made contact with spirits and might be responsible for this. I don't really know about that. But so they saw him as soon as they moved into this new place and then as soon as they saw the operation of this guy, the activity starts all over again. So it's almost like he, if you wanna play that game, it's like he cursed them into the activity that gets all around, I don't know. - I see, okay, okay, okay. He like symbolizes the cycle starting all over again. He's like. - Maybe, or like, I took it as like, all of the haunting spirits of the house followed you. And so like, one night you saw a previous owner, another night, it was. - Oh, you're being honest. - I don't know if I did buy all the previous. - I guess I don't know. - I guess it's a strange situation. - Well, so they see that guy, the next day activity has clearly followed them because the objects start breaking again. They know pretty soon objects are gonna be flying around the room again. - They're like, we know this old story. Yeah, get the buckets. - The tale is old this time. - Yeah. - Friends and family were over at the new house, including their 12 year old grandson, Roger. Roger becomes a pivotal character here. - Oh, I bet. - And not to say that he's responsible for anything, but just like he's gonna get mentioned a lot so remember the name, Roger. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And he's 12. So the friends and family are all over at the house, probably helping them pack or unpack. And objects are flying everywhere. There's heavy furniture flipping itself over. Dishes are shooting itself across the room. Picture frames are spinning on the wall. Apparently like a chest of furniture, a chest flew at Roger. An end table flipped itself. Family figurines floated in the air and then go straight to the ground. There was one quote that I saw from one of the grandkids who was like, I saw this figurine in the air and it clearly floated there because I was then able to look at my cousin and then look back at it and then it dropped. - So it was like, you see in this? Oh my gosh. - Wow, that's crazy. - Some of them got hit with projectiles, some items swirled around other items and then landed back in their original spot. - Ew. - So there was one case of like an ash tray that picked itself up, floated across the room, went around a lamp and then came back and sat back down. - It feels like a weird like trick you would buy in like a magazine from the 1960s, like a magic kit that you would buy in a catalog or something and then like learn magnetic tricks to like levitate stuff. - Fishing wire or something. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Like trick, fool your friends. - Yes. - Yeah, yeah. - But wow, but I really don't understand how that would happen so. - I have no idea and this one, I don't know why, other certainly should be scarier to me, but this one freaked me out the most was that they saw plastic cups that were stacked on top of the fridge slowly drifting down from the top of the fridge. So like, it's almost like they got picked up off the fridge and then just one by one slowly drifted down to the floor. - Oh, what? - And when they stack the cups back up and put them back on the top of the fridge, then they flew across the room and the fridge moved itself. - I don't like it. - I don't know why that one freaks me out more than like the projectiles hitting children, but. - There's something about the polter guy stuff that's like with the, I don't know, like with the stacking and the perfect symmetry that is so unsettling. - And I, in human, you know. - And I think about how silly the ghosts must actually look. - I imagine a kind of like a movie set and like you could see all the people in like green screen costumes, like just carrying things from place to place. - And it's like covered in, yeah, yeah, yeah. - It's like it's really not that scary if I could see how stupid you look, picking this up and putting it over there and then putting it back, you know. - You put piling quarters on top of each other in the middle of the hallway. - I don't like, don't you have anything else to do? But yeah, it's still so eerie. The things moving slower after they've clearly proven they can go faster. - Yes. - I hate it. - Yeah, not good. - In the next few days, a stray cat also started coming by but then very quickly refused to ever go near the house again. - Oh boy. - And then more apparitions appeared. Namely there were two of them. Both Aura saw. And she also saw the. - The produce owner. - Yeah. She saw both of these next apparitions, the clearest. Although there were witnesses before or after. So let me explain. One of them was her brother who had passed 14 years earlier. - Oh God. Okay, wow. So something, yeah, weird. Okay. - So yeah, it's almost like things got brought over from the last portal or something. Like yeah, it's strange. - Something like that. And so even though she saw this apparition, apparently her son also later saw this apparition. - Oh, so he saw his uncle then. - Yes. - Okay. The next one, which makes very little sense to me. Aura saw the ghost of a Catholic nurse. So she looked like a nun, but she was also a nurse. She had like, she was wearing the habit. She was in all white. And I guess Roger, before she ever saw it, Roger said that he saw something white in the yard running behind a tree. So we think that maybe he. - It was just a rabbit. - Yeah, I could just spend like a fucking turtle bug. I don't know. (laughing) - Wow. Now listen, hold on, rewind. Now that's newsworthy. No, but yeah, that's creepy, but if she's running behind trees like that is horrible, I refuse to believe that's a Catholic nurse running behind the trees in the back yard. I can't believe that. - Unless there's a medical emergency behind the tree. - Maybe that's the only soothing thing. 'Cause I will not sleep if I think about that for another second. - So apparently, despite my turtle buff claims, this Catholic nurse was taller and bigger than most people. So like really towered over her. - Oh, okay. - It was while she was, I guess, sleeping or in her bedroom, I'd ask her to bed. So she like towered over her. I guess one of them touched the other and Aura said that she felt very cold. And when Aura ran out of the room, a cabinet in the kitchen tried to slam into her. - Yuck. - Yuck. - I was just talking to a friend about postpartum hair shedding and how much I struggled with that because I'd already had a lot of hair shedding before that. And so then after when I postpartum, I was like, oh no. But Neutrophil offered a postpartum formula and I was able to start taking that. And I have now stopped taking Neutrophil since then and it really has worked wonders for me. I recommend it to anybody who's feeling insecure or feeling like just they wanna get a little more volume, little more thickness to their hair. 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They reached out somehow. Well, there's a lot of hills, so you could probably stand on top of one of the hills and just hauler. They hauler down the hauler, yeah. Exactly. The sheavershields hauler. I would love also hauler, although I feel like I'm appropriating because I didn't grow up in haulers. Yeah, even though yeah, you were pretty close, huh? Geographically, but not like that. I think haulers started like an hour and a half away from me. Okay. Um, I have people who were lived in West Virginia, came to my college, and I remember them saying they lived in a hauler and I was like, "Tell me everything." You're like, "That's a real thing." Yeah, it's like, like, what do you, the poo? Are you. I moved to D.C. for college and everyone was like, "You're from Ohio, did you own like a cow?" And I was like, "No, I don't own a cow." What the fuck? I, uh, yeah. No. Anyway, that's a story for another day. Yes. So, Desper for help, the family reached out and somehow it got through the grapevine to a local college. They, basically, they said, "We're looking for any fucking help, please God help us." And more head state university, um, they, they are one of the first colleges that had a paranormal club. Whoa, I didn't know that. It's called the S-I-S-P. I don't even know if it still exists, but if someone is a part of it, let me know. Um, you literally, it froze from when you said, "It's called," and then it completely froze, and then it came back at, "But if anyone's part of it, let me know." Like, yeah. It's like a two-thousand milliseconds for me, for me. It redacted itself. Yeah. It literally just bleeped it out. What was it, so. Let's try it again. Yeah. Uh, the S-I-S-P, or society, did I have that again? Nope. Okay. Society for investigation of supernatural phenomena. Wow. Yeah. It totally redacted. That's crazy. Wow. How cool though, I did not know that. Yeah. So, um, I hope it's still kicking, um, and they found out about this, and I'm sure if you're like a college club who like wants to prove yourself and it's about ghosts, you know they jumped on that. They were like, "We have the culture." Yeah. We think we have a poltergeist. I mean, come on. I'd jump on that. I'd be like, "I'm joining the club immediately." If there was a poltergeist two hours from here, I'd be like, "I don't know if I'll go myself, but I would love to know somebody who's there and maybe take some videos for me." No. I would for sure watch the live stream. Like some content creator's live stream of the US. Yeah. We see each other. And then we would yap a bad at later from the comfort of our own homes and act like we were there. Why don't you just leave? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's perfect. So, one of the main students involved in this at the time, I think he was one of the founders of the club. His name was Ed. And I only say his name because it sounds like he was kind of the leader of the bunch who all ended up going over to the house to check it out. So Ed and the gang, they, this was their version, I guess, of like an investigation. But it sounds like a lot of what they did was kind of just research deaths in the town. And I guess that was to see how they might be affecting the land that the house was on. Yeah. Okay. I feel like I could do it. Yeah. I'm down. I feel like I would try to figure out who it was, maybe, but I guess, I don't know. Well, it's a good angle. And I mean, there's students and there's very little, I mean, there's no internet and there's no other people to talk to about this. So I guess they were going with what they had, which was the wide range of rocks. So like, I don't know what's going on. I'm not hesitant to bring them up because they are a part of the story, but I'm hesitant to really dive deep into their theories or like their methods because it just sounds, I don't, I'm not like trying to judge anybody. It just sounds a little. No wonder they were adapted their name. They're going to find a sue you in a minute. Well, these days, I'm sure it's like simply with the power of internet. I'm sure that they can take it like, they have more sources. No, back then, like, what else do you, I mean, if you're devoted and you're reading books, I mean, that means, you realize that means that they didn't watch YouTube videos. They literally had to read books about this shit, which is like pretty legit. No, that's for sure. Like for sure. It's quite a bit of credit, I think. So, I guess the way I'm trying to phrase it is that like, they came up with a lot of information, but I don't know how it really connects to anything. Okay, okay. So they just, yeah, found like background history. Like, they were like, this happened here and this happened and it felt like a lot of their theories were kind of leaps to try to make them connect. Right. So, an example is that there was a death many years before at like a coal mine or something like that. And the same company where there was that death, another worker once lived in the house of John and Oro. And so it's like, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, like a little, like, what is that? Like, just like a lot of stretches, like they were around. They don't also really solve anything, I guess. Right. Or like, when they, when Oro saw the apparition of her brother who died 15 years before, his wife, I guess, maybe had some mental illness and was institutionalized. And they tried to use that as a reason for like, everyone else was like losing touch with reality with all these poltergeist activities going on the house. Like it was just like, they were just trying to connect dots where they were trying to find dots and then trying to connect them, you know. Yeah, they were creating dots that, yeah, okay, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. And so they did go to the house and they did observe a lot of stuff. I just think they're reasoning for a lot of it, just doesn't totally click for me. Sure. So one of the things that they did do, they researched the town, they also went over to observe what they could and eventually other investigators got involved as well, which really muddies this up because I don't know who saw what. So I'm just gonna say the investigators, but it could mean this college club or it could mean like, investigators in Durham, North Carolina, who had like, much more advanced technology, they went on to be like prominent figures in paranormal research. So it's quite a gamut in everyone seems to have been in the house at the same time. Oh, I see. So they're just in and out like gathering anything they can. I think so. Yeah. So it's a confusing who's who, but the only thing I'll say is the one that really matters, I guess, is one investigator who was a part of all this. His name is William Roll, and he becomes like a big guy in paranormal eventually. Okay. Okay. Okay. But I'm just gonna vaguely say investigators from that one. I feel like he should go by Billy Roll. Yeah. Sure. I like that. Billy Roll. Jelly Roll. Billy Roll. Mm-hmm. You probably hated that. No. It made me, I was wondering if I should go on a tangent or not, and I'm gonna say no. I'm saying that guy probably hated it. Probably. Yeah. Someone called them Billy Roll. You know, you hated it. Investigators, blanket statement, they wondered if the spirits were connected to Roger because Roger seemed to have developed a sixth sense with all of this activity. He was able to predict incidents before they actually happened. This is a child. Yes. He's the 12-year-old grandson. Okay. So an example of this is he would say like some things about to happen or things will start up again soon. Oh, no. And then they went. And then he found his kid that he bought from the catalog with the fishing wire. And then they found all of his magnets in string. I mean, it's happened before Fox sisters, anybody? I know. And you know, I had it just been the college club, and this was like there maybe one of their first, like, their first tries at this. I would have thought maybe they missed something, but when this other Durham group of investigators came where they were professional paranormal investigators and researchers, they said that they tried every sort of test they could and they could not find strings, not this. So one time they were also recording a conversation with Roger about his experiences in the house. And very weirdly, the recording of Roger's voice was interrupted by three very strange sounds and then the tape went blank and didn't record anything else for the rest of the interview. No, thanks. So that was the first time that they've been theorized, well, maybe Roger is at the center of this, but it's not intentional. Maybe something is attached to Roger. Yuck. Um, one thing they noticed was that Roger's senses were actually getting stronger. It seemed like he was getting stronger or more attuned to the activity. No, I don't like this. And John or the grandparents, uh, whose house is originally affected, they were getting physically weaker. Now, I will say they were also like in their 70s and 80s, maybe they were just, that could be explained, I suppose. Yeah. But, uh, and I would also say like, maybe Roger's just getting more confident and he's getting quite a lot of attention with people coming in and out asking questions, going through puberty, probably just.
to say like if it's 12. I don't know. Um, but so they're, their observation was, well, he's getting stronger and they're getting weaker. So we need to separate them and then we'll see if the activity follows just him. Um, so investigators kept them away from each other and put Roger just back at his own house. And the activity stopped happening at the grandparents house. So it did seem to follow Roger. But one night like it didn't just follow him like a little bit like the grandparents ended up getting a phone call from the house saying like you don't have to worry about anything like all of that activity is for sure over here. Wow. Objects were flying like crazy. Furniture was flipping all the same stuff that was going on at the original house. One of the stories was that the parents of Roger who had already been witnessing everything going on, things were about to start flying like they saw items just twitching as if they were about to take off. And they started just grabbing things off the table and just throwing them on the ground before they could start flying. Yeah, that is so creepy dude. Like the concept of like, oh shit, that's about to go flying and that becomes normal to you. Yeah. And just being like, I'm going to be you to it and just start on the floor. Oh, no. Another time investigators were in a room with Roger. His back was facing the television. And on the television, there was a bowl of fruit or sorry, a bowl of flowers. And that bowl of flowers was sitting on top of a oily, which was on top of the TV. Is that makes sense? Classic. Classic. Yes. So Roger's not even looking at the TV or anything. He's in the room. His back is facing all of that. But they hear this loud crack. And the bowl of flowers and the doily that it's sitting on top of both lift themselves off the TV, throw themselves behind the TV. And when they go and look, it's sitting perfectly as it was with the flowers all still arranged perfectly in the bowl on top of the doily on the floor behind the TV. Oh, oh, oh. Then is there talking about how that could have happened? A clock that was also sitting on the TV, then flies across the room in the opposite direction, like four feet or something until it lands just at their toes. See, it's like that kind of shit. And also what's freaky to me is that like it flew across in the opposite direction. So you can't even say, oh, there was a shift or something. Right. Like it's going in all directions. Wind. Yeah. No, it's that's creepy. I mean, and like he's 12. So that is the perfect age, right? Like puberty, like for poltergeist, like, that's when that happens. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's that teenage energy. You're onto it. So another time, Roger claimed that the table was going to flip over. Apparently when he said this, he like just stared off into the sunset or something. Yeah. His eyes like went to the middle gaze, yeah, to the ether. And five minutes later, the 60 pound table not only levitated, but rotated itself 45 degrees and then landed on top of the chairs in a way where if you were to take like all four dining room chairs and have them kind of close enough to each other, the table is balanced. Yeah. So that's not cool, man. So the table landed in a way where none of its legs were heading before. It was bouncing on the chair. That's so effed up. That's like literally immediately had a flashback to those like we used to build like coaster with coasters, like try to build with coasters. Like that that's creepy, dude. I don't like that. It's one thing because if it was like a 12 year old kid and he's doing this on purpose with his little strings and all this. Yeah, exactly. A 60 pound table flying over your head and landing exactly on the chairs on the first try and for everybody. The fact that he said that and then like I hate that they have to wait five minutes. They're like, when is it going to happen? At least that time he said a table slipping over versus like something will happen. Because if they were sitting at the table, it's like, yeah, get away from the table, you know, yeah. The second night here, the table slipping over would be like, I'll be on the other room where the tables are actually. So another table a different time through itself over them, like over their heads. This was after he predicted something would happen at 1 a.m. And at 1 a.m. is when the table flipped itself. Oh my god. Objects flew everywhere. There was loud knocking that came from nowhere, shelving toppled itself. And at this point, Roder's parents, they were like, fuck this. We think that either there's a demon attached to him or you brought the demon investigators. And they're just like, I think trying to find blame anywhere they can. So they told the investigators to leave. They were like, you're clearly not helping. So just go. Now apparently Roder's parents are Jehovah's Witnesses. And they reached out to their group of people and the Jehovah's Witnesses came over and said, okay, we agree that something's attached to him and we're going to host an exorcism. Oh dear. As juicy as that sounds, I don't want you to get your hopes up for anything fun coming out of this because it's kind of just a one sentence beat. And I'm like, why didn't we talk more about this? But they have apparently hosted an exorcism that included burning a lot of his personal items, thinking about that. Oh my gosh. I know. So imagine being 12 and traumatizing to every extent. If I were 12 and there wasn't a poltergeist and someone burned all my clothes and favored items, I'd be pissed. Yeah. And then they told you, oh, it's we're only burning them because there's demons attached to them and you. Oh, thanks. That helps. Thank you. Yes. Thank you. So they host an exorcism. Apparently it doesn't even work. So he had all the stuff burned for no reason. Super duper. Eventually the family, I guess, just gives up and they're like, okay, we're going to move into what happens. Oh, they move. Okay. And so they, which I guess doesn't make a lot of sense because it clearly didn't fix anything the last time they all moved. I guess desperate times. I don't know. Those were times. But they, I mean, this time they moved out of the area and like, entirely like they moved out of all of Hill Kentucky. And the activity sees. So that led to like, to this day, local say all of Hill in general is haunted. Sure. And then that feeds into like giving the college investigators like a lot of validation because they're like, okay, so all of our research on why all of Hill in general is haunted makes some sense that they were going to be haunted no matter where they were as long as they were in this area. So it was a lot of like confirmation bias that all of Hill is just a haunted town period. Investigators had a lot of theories about where the activity came from. Like I said, a lot of it fell like stretches. So I'm not really even going to entertain them. But the main running theory, which came from Billy Roll, who he at the time, he was just starting out when he investigated this. And now he's this big prominent figure, but his whole special interest is psychokinesis. Oh, yes, with your mind. And so his big theory was that Roger was responsible for everything, but that he was dealing with a specific type of psychokinesis called RSPK, which means recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis. The recurrent meaning it's happening nonstop and the spontaneous meaning it was not intentional or conscious. Right. So it may have actually looked like Poltergeist activity. This is a big Poltergeist theory that what are the odds? A lot of Poltergeist activity happens in homes where the family has pubescent or about to be pubescent children. And all of that energy swirling around them makes them have emotions. Especially in like homes with like charge situations like I've heard stories where like one child was very ill. And so it added so much stress to the family and like or like a divorce is happening. Yeah, yeah, it gives me chills. So that's become the running theories that Roger did not know he was responsible for this, which feels like I guess we're alleviating half the victim blaming here, but it goes with most pair Poltergeist theories that he was just responsible for it with psychokinesis. And they actually reached out to see if he would come to the lab with them, like the investigators after they were told to leave. They said can he at least come back and we can test his psychokinesis and we can work with him at our place and the parents refused. They were like we want nothing to do with you. And that was kind of the end of that relationship. Yeah, I mean, I especially feel like in a Jehovah's Witness community, I feel like that's not really like the vibe. Don't send them off to the lab. They're not going to send them off to the lab, but they will do an exorcism. So that's fantastic. But it's their exorcism. Yeah. So the investigators in total, I think they documented like 200 incidents in these few weeks that they were there. And Roger was present or at least in the room in some capacity for 180 of them. Out of how many? At a 200. Oh, wow. Yeah, so that, I mean, that feels right. And I'm rounding up. It's like 170 something against 190 something. I'm just saying 180 to 200. But so they were like, he's probably involved. And after this, Billy Roll, as he grew in his career, he has stated that Roger's case of RSPK was one of the most authentic cases he's ever come across. Wow. Probably just because there were so many witnesses and there was no explanation. And that was like intense, like, I mean, tables flipping and stuff. They're ducking. Yeah. So anyway, that is the olive hill poltergeist. Geez. I can't believe I've never heard of that. That's freaking crazy. Yeah. And now next time you're rolling through Olive Hill, you go, this whole town is honored apparently. Oh, I've heard. I've heard on good, good, good authority. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, I have, I found this creepy crampus coloring book that we can look at some cool imagery and maybe brainstorm five topics for
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As of within the last five minutes, well, I did lose my cell phone, oh here it is. Do people still say cell phone? Sometimes I wonder that. Like because I normally, yeah, I would say I lost my, all right, I can't find my phone, obviously. But for some reason, sometimes I'll say, where's my cell phone? And I'm like, does anybody say that? Or is that just me being an Arellic, you know? - You're cellular device. - Right, my mobile. - Cellular telephone. I mean, I call it a P home, so I really don't get to. - Yeah, why the fuck am I asking you of all these people? - I know. - No, and in Germany, they call it a handy, like my handy. - That's fun. - Yeah, so I'm always like, that's a good one, but I don't know if cell phone, if that's weird. I think I'm at an age where I wouldn't. - We wouldn't bad and I probably. - No, but I'm sure others wouldn't. - I see, yes. Oh, well, you know, frankly, my dear. I just don't give a damn. So as long as you don't have a problem with. - I don't care at all. - Me saying cellular device, then. We're okay. - I just do not. - Excellent, all right. So I have a story for you today. By the way, when I said we had an inside joke, don't worry, you're gonna be part of the inside joke very soon, because that's part of the story. Unfortunately, I've already warned him. Okay, so this is a very famous case that I have heard about a million times and am excited to cover. And I'm realizing right in this very moment would have been perfect for episode five. - It's okay, that happens. - Because it's also called the Yuba County Five. And we really could have done some puns. - Oh God, wow. I'm a little bit like why didn't I? Because also it's such a rabbit hole that I made myself limit the information because I was like, I don't go on forever and I don't, you know. So I've limited the information, but I feel like I could speak on a lot of it. So if you have any questions, let me know. But I'm gonna give the full background of the case. And it is creepy, and it's like really frickin creepy. So this is a group of five boys, but they're technically men, young men from Yuba City, and Mary'sville, California. Their names were Ted Weir, who was 32, Jack Madruga, who was 30, Bill Sterling, 29, Jack Hewitt, 24, and Gary Matthias, 25. The five of them were close knit. And collectively they were referred to by their families as the boys, which by the way, not like the TV show. I don't know if you watched that show, but that show. - I have heard. - It is traumatizing. - I have heard. - I watched it, and I really feel that some of that has contributed to certain nightmares I have. - It sounds bad. - It sounds bad. It sounds really violent. - It's upsetting. - Yeah, I'm a very good. It's a very good show, but it's very, you have to be in that proper headspace. - I mean, I obviously love a superhero show, but I also really don't like having anxiety when I'm relaxing, so. - Oh, really? I've never heard of any other way, but anyway. Well, all these people are like, oh, what do you mean you don't watch Grey's Anatomy or anything that makes you cry? And I'm like, why would I choose to cry when I'm trying to rest? I don't need to have dark, bad thoughts in my head right before the bed. So that's why I feel about violent stuff, too, where I'm like, if I see it, then I'm gonna think about it online. - Yeah, it's disturbing. And I didn't realize, and then there's a lot of shock stuff, and I think my system is so not used to that because I never watched horror movies growing up. And so to me, I'm like, oh, I can handle like really fucked up stuff, but like I'm not necessarily used to shock value, like to the shock factor part. - Right. - And so, and I don't even go to the haunted houses, like I don't engage in any shock factor stuff. So that part really threw me, and I think I'm literally in this moment realizing like why, I think it has stuck with me so much is because I'm not used to that. But like, it's a shocking show. - That's funny, the shocking stuff, the shock, the part of it is nothing for me, but it's the emotional part of it. - And it's disturbing, like, but it's so well done, but it's so disturbing, you know what I mean? Anyway, okay. - Anyway, shout out to the boys that are not these boys. - Not these boys, but like, you know, same quote unquote name, but they were called the boys and they were very close. Four of them men, and a part of the reason they were called the boys is that they were young in a lot of ways. Four of them, we're Madruga Sterling and Hewitt, had mild intellectual disabilities or developmental delays. We genuinely do not know the details because this, I spoil or alert, takes place in the 70s and so the verbiage used back then, like leaves much to be desired in the way of like nuance and any sort of understanding besides like, they're slow quote unquote. - Right, they're like something much worse, yeah. - Right, let's just what their parents, how their parents described it, there wasn't much more detail that you can find except they were all, you know, very functioning, they lived like, they did all live with their parents, but they were all two different degrees, like, very successful in whatever they were pursuing. Gary was the only one of the boys who did not have a disability. He was a US Army veteran who had been given a psychiatric discharge and was diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. And so he didn't have, you know, he was in a sort of, he came from a different group than some of them, some of them met in the program I'm about to get into. But he had been in the US Army, he was discharged and he had been prescribed daily anti-psychotics and by February 1978, Matthias was considered by doctors to be basically like a medical, not medical miracle, but like a total success case. Like he was so stable and so like successful in his just daily life that doctors were like, this is fantastic, this medication works great. And he was stable at the time of this incident. So it's just important to note that. He was living at home at the time. He was working in his stepfather's gardening business. All five men played for a local special needs basketball team and the name of the team was the Gateway Gators. - Cool. - I know, it's pretty kick ass. The team was scheduled to play their first tournament game in Sacramento on the morning of Saturday, February 25th, 1978. And all five men were like jazzed about this because the winners of this tournament won a trip to Los Angeles. And like the team literally won tickets or the trip to Los Angeles. So like they were excited. And to the point that they were like bugging their parents about it because they were like, don't make, don't let me sleep in. Like, you know, like laying their clothes out early. Like they were just so very sweet, very jazzed and like very ready to kick ass. So they had everything set. And it's just so chilling and I, I don't know. This run reminds me of like what's the story? I can't believe I just forgot it. but the young man from. from who vanished in California, and he drove off. Oh my gosh, I'm like, the disappearance of-- - Right. - Not, yeah. - Brian, let's be safe. - Brian's safe, let's piece this, yes, that's the one. It gives that vibe where it's like they just drove away. - That's crazy. - I know, and with five people, five people. - Wow. - Okay, so, around 6.30 PM, Jack Medruga picked up the other four men in his 1969 turquoise Mercury Montego. And this car was like this teal turquoise color. He made sure it was pristine condition. It was his prized possession, like his baby. Nobody else was allowed to drive it. So Jack picked up his friends, the other four guys, in this Mercury Montego, they drove roughly 50 miles north to California State University, Chico, because they were scheduled to go see a basketball game together between UC Davis and Chico State. So, their team won, they were thrilled. - Cool. - Around 10 PM, the basketball game ended and the men left the arena. We know that shortly after that, they stopped at a place called Bears Market, which was a convenience store near the campus in Chico. And we know this because they had purchased snack food there. They purchased a cherry pie, a lemon pie, a Snickers bar, a marathon bar, two bottles of Pepsi and a quarter and a half of milk. And the reason I said, this is how we know. That's not how we know. The reason we know is because the store clerk remembered them buying all those items and was annoyed because she was trying to close the shop and they were like five guys, like causing mayhem in the store picking candies and stuff. So she was like the last verified person to see them alive, right? Obviously not knowing that in the moment, but just that was the last time anybody saw the five men alive confirmed. So the direct highway route from Chico back to their homes in Yuba City should have taken roughly 50 minutes heading south. They had maps with them. They knew where home was like they were going home to sleep before the big game tomorrow morning. - They were very excited about it. They wouldn't have missed it. - That's where we need to understand the weirdest part, which is that instead of heading south, they began to travel far to the northeast into rugged, high elevation terrain toward the Plumas National Forest. - Okay. - The middle of the night rolls around. One of the moms is like anxious because her kids supposed to have come home by like 11 pm. And these are young men who like have had to establish routine in their lives, right? Because like they live with their parents and their parents have had to help facilitate adult living for them and they've all to varying degrees are independent, but they have routine. And so like they're not gonna just all five be like out in the middle of the night, like partying it off, especially when they have like the game tomorrow, they just aren't. So when the mom wakes up and the kids not in bed, she starts calling the other parents and lone beholden none of the kids have gotten home. So by Saturday, the police are alerted to the disappearance. - Do we, we know that they drove off into the forest or do we know that their car drove off into the forest? - So great question. You will shortly find out, yes. So not too long after that, a cup, well, I mean, it was long in that the parents waiting, nightmare, amount of time, because Saturday was when they alerted police on Tuesday, February 28th, a US Forest Service Ranger located, Jack Madruga's Mercury Montego, parked on an unpaved snow-covered forest road inside the Plumas National Forest. The car was located roughly 70 miles away from Chico and 4,400 feet above sea level. So like far off of any logical path to Ubicity, it was just sitting there, unlocked. The driver's window was rolled down. - Was it near anything? Were like, let's say somebody took their car and then clearly needed it to drive all that distance. Is it near anything that they would have wanted to drive to or it's just a van in a desert? - It's not a van, it's basically a big wilderness. So like, yes and no. Like if you were going camping and you wanted to like find a particular campy stop maybe, but also there was a blizzard on this night. And they're from like Chico, California. They were not supposed to be driving into the mountains. They weren't even dressed for that. They were dressed for a basketball game. And someone tried to abandon this car. - It's just so strange, right? Because also when they take a look at it, they find all the wrappers, well, okay, they find all the wrappers of the candies then stuff they had bought at the convenience store, except apparently the marathon bar was like not finished. Which I don't know what that says about a marathon bar. - What is a marathon bar? - I don't even know to be honest. - It doesn't look good. I don't want to finish it either. - No. - A chocolate-covered, braided caramel. Oh, so it's like-- - Oh, I know those, I think. - I know the British version. - With the curly whirlies is the British version. - Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. - Yeah, all right. Well, I don't know why you wouldn't finish that. - Yeah, I don't know. So they find all the wrappers and the keys are not in the ignition. So at first they're thinking like, okay, maybe the car died. So the police hotwire the car, but it starts immediately and it has a quarter tank of gas. So it didn't run out of gas. Engine fully functional. They looked underneath the car, no dense, no damage, meaning like whoever drove this had been driving very carefully and cautiously. So they assumed Jack had driven it because he took such careful care of this car and it had clearly been like driven very slowly up this mountainous road for some reason. They found no damage underneath. The tires had spun a little bit in the snow, but it was so out in the-- it was not in a spot where it would have been stuck. Like five men, especially they were like very able-bodied. They would have been able to pretty easily push this car out. - They were in their athletic prime. - Right, exactly. I mean, they're training for a basketball game, exactly. So it wasn't an issue of like, oh, their car was stuck and they couldn't get out and there was no other option. So just really strange already, right? So as this had happened, a severe blizzard, like I mentioned was hitting at that exact time. Feet of snow were coming through and for that reason, search and rescue teams were also unable, once after they'd found the car to do much until the snow melted. So now we fast forward to June of 1978. The winter snow is melting. When motorcyclists contact police and say they had been riding off-road and they had stumbled into a US forest service trailer near the Daniel Zink campground. The trailer was located roughly 20 miles from where Madruga's car had been abandoned. And when they approached this trailer, they immediately noticed a smell of decomposition, which is why they looked inside, they saw a body and they contacted police. And honestly, if they had not discovered this, just kind of off-roading that day, I'm not sure when. - Yeah. - Yeah, this would have gotten discovered or been discovered. Police arrived inside. They find the body of Ted Weir. He's lying on a bed. He's been like neatly wrapped head-to-toe in eight thick, heavy cotton blankets. The autopsy revealed he had died of starvation and hypothermia. And when they found him, so before he had disappeared, he was six foot 200 pounds. He, at this point, they estimated he had lost around 80 to 100 pounds and was now about 100 to 120 pounds. That's, he had starved that rapidly in a matter of weeks, slash months. - Oh my God. - They used his beard growth to indicate how long he had been alive in the cabin, which is just also so morbid. And his beard growth indicated that he had survived inside this unheeded trailer for between eight to 13 weeks. - Oh my God. - Yeah. He had starved to death over those months and had also suffered frostbite and his shoes were missing from the house. Here's the strangest part, which a sheriff's deputy called Bizarre as Hell. This trailer was an emergency forest service trailer and it had been equipped to the gills to keep people alive. - What the fuck? And they didn't use any of it. It's some of it, like it get, oh, it's so chilling, okay? So inside the trailer storage lockers, there were dozens of unopened sea ration cans of food. There was a propane tank outside that all you had to do was like turn a knob. There was enough to, there was enough food in these lockers to keep all five men fed and warm for over one year. - Wow. - All five of them. And there are disputes on whether all five were at the cabin at one point or not. It's very much giving yellow.
Jackets, speaking of another disturbing show that is very good, but also like requires proper state of mind. How many people have we found so far, too? Just one. Just one. Okay. Yeah, we found the car, and then now we found Ted in the cabin. In the cabin, yes. And they found that only 12 to 15 cans were ever opened over like a two to three month period. And now they had been opened with a military style. It's called a P-38 can opener, which only two of the men would have known how to use because they had done military service, which was Gary Matthias and Jack Medruga. So maybe Ted didn't know how to open the food? Exactly. So that could have been, but also there were like fruit cups and other rations. And also like he had been suffering from this frostbite and stuff, but there was a propane tank right outside the building, and so it was strange that like nobody, especially if somebody was able to use the military can open or somebody was able to use it to open 12 to 15 of them. You'd think they would have figured out the propane tank or to bring it inside and heat up the place. There was also there were matches, a fireplace, like none of this was used, which is so strange. Now they also found fruit cups, other rations, paperback books, like just stuff that was there to keep the place like livable. Yeah. Exactly. Like an emergency shelter, and like none of that was touched, which is so strange to me. Even, you know, at any level, it's just strange. So when they found his body, of course, so, so tragic, they found next to him his ring, his necklace, his wallet with money in it, we're all on the nightstand. There was a watch there too that didn't belong to him, and when they asked all the parents, they were like, none of our boys own that watch. So nobody knows where the watch came from. Like, it could very well have just been left at the emergency trailer by somebody. Right. The last person I was there, yeah. Exactly. So we don't necessarily know if it meant anything, but it was like laid out with his jewelry, which was interesting. We're shoes were also missing from the trailer. Like I said, but in the trailer, they found Gary Matthias as sneakers. So police theorized that like Gary had been there and was able to open the cans and that kind of thing. And if he were also suffering from like swelling feet from frostbite, maybe he put on wears boots because they were bigger and more comfortable, you know, to wrap his feet up and put his feet in, which I think makes sense. And if he were to leave the trailer, he's clearly not in it when they find Ted. So it's like, that's why his feet, the other are shoes are missing then. Precisely. Yes. It's missing and ever came back so he couldn't open anymore of the food. That is my theory. Yeah. That makes sense. I think that is my theory because, but you'll see there's like so many rabbit holes and like twist and turns that I mean, there are like multiple hour long YouTube videos that I watched, but was like, I cannot, I cannot do like maybe for the 500s, but like, you know, it's, it's a lot. So I'm trying to stick to most of just like the basics, but yeah, you can go down so many rabbit holes and like, there have been like investigators and online folks who've been obsessed and in healthy ways, maybe not so healthy ways. And I've tried to get to the bottom of different parts of it so you can really dig into it. But I'll give you the, the most, the big, the big bullet points here. So regarding the other men, Monday, June 5th. So that was the following day. Researchers found the remains of Jack Madruga and Bill Sterling. They were on the, they were on opposite sides of the mountain road, roughly 4.3 miles away from where the car had been abandoned, on route to the trailer. And so when they found the bodies, they had been heavily scavenged by animals. The cause of death was hypothermia. So it's presumed that they didn't make it past four miles on the walk to the trailer. And there was a snow plow of some sort that had gone through and paved an actual path. So there was a path that they were able to walk, but 20 miles during a blizzard and these, these kids are not, these young adults are not like dressed for the elements. Also none of them had any, I like, this was one thing I found interesting. None of them had any like outdoorsy experience. They just weren't the type and they weren't interested. One of them had gone camping a few years prior, but then like said, no, I don't want to do that anymore. Like didn't like it understood, yeah, relatable. If you're looking for a good gift, that's no fail, seriously. And the person is a wine drinker. You have to go with first leaf because we've used them for years. 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Head to tryfirstleaf.com/drink to sign up and you'll get 50% off your first box plus free shipping for an entire year. That's T-R-Y-F-I-R-S-T-L-E-A-F.com/drink, tryfirstleaf.com/drink. But no, so they found these two. And some people think maybe some people, I listened to the stuff you should know episode on this, which I will always be embarrassed for calling it things you should know. Stuff you should know did a good episode on this case, but they mentioned like they were just, they had both seen different facts about this that maybe Ted had gotten sick or was really not well. And so the boys all went to get help. And that's how they died. I think the prevailing theory that I've read is that the two boys didn't make it or three didn't make it on the way to the trailer because they found two four miles from the car. And that's a long hike for not being prepared in any way. Was there like, this is stupid, but like, could they've been like attacked by a bear or something? No, because their cause of death was hypothermia, so then all of their, so the two that they found, yes, the one in the cabin was starvation and hypothermia. Right. No, the other ones that they found out. Yes. So the two bodies had died of hypotherm, both of those men had died of hypothermia. And then animals got to their bodies afterward after words, okay. Yes. Yes. There was a blizzard out. So there was like, no, it was just a total like snowstorm when they were out there. But also like again, why are they going up there? They have a car that's functioning just fine. Like, why are you walking up here? It's like so strange. I couldn't have been because it was so cold that their car stalled or something. And like, no, I mean, like they just, they just hot wired it and turned right on when the police came. So I don't, they, and he like knew his car, you know, like he was very, I mean, I can understand him maybe insisting, like, I don't want to drive my car in this, but also like, to get out at midnight in the middle of a snowstorm and walk. I mean, so it's been argued right like, well, you know, they had a disability and it's like sure, I guess, I guess, yes, that may have played a part. It's just really unclear how much of a part and like, yeah, do you know what I mean? It's really, it requires a lot of nuance because you just hear different angles from all the different families and like, they were all dealing with different, yeah, it's just strange. And like, they were all very close. So it's like they, they had such a tight bond. Maybe they were just trying to stick together, you know, it's hard to say. Also with some of them having mental health factors, you don't want to like use that as the full reasoning of like what their judgment or what their ability to make decisions was, especially when they're panicked and scared. Right. And that's the other thing is like, yeah, maybe it was a situation where they freaked out. Like maybe they hit a snow, you know, like a, maybe they spun the car or something and were like, who knows, right? Could there have been a situation where they were like, how far away was the car from the cabin? Know that because could they have gone back out to the car? Okay. Because I was going to say, maybe they went to look for the car and they just got to go get the car. And they just got spun around and they just could find it. But they were on the right path. They were just only four miles. Oh, well, yeah. Maybe they were trying to get the car and they just didn't make it. Very well could be. I think the prevailing theory is that they didn't even make it to the cabin. Like they died on the way to the cabin, which I'm not sure of that. That's just where I read in most reports. So man, that's that's what I think happened. And then they had to leave them obviously behind and keep walking this path and then find the trailer. That has to be so sad to watch you just fucking leave your friends in the snow. Jesus Christ. I know. Oh my God. So now we get to the point of like whether Matthias is like, whether his schizophrenia played a part or not, it's like, well, now his daily anti-psychotics are not here. So whether he was stable at the time of disappearance and by all accounts was healthy and had no issues and then all of a sudden, like, he's out in the wilderness.
with none of his medication in a traumatizing situation. - Well, you know, who knows what happened, right? And he had post-army. He had had several what his dad called hysteric fits or something like something like so old school where he called them, just like, oh, another one of those like hissy fits, not really. - Yeah. - Or something like that where you're like, okay, then. - One of his spats. - Or something like that. - Something like where you're like, I don't think so. But so, basically, he had had incidents before, like violent outbursts. And that's why he was medicated and the medication was working very well. But obviously, it doesn't bode well to remember, to know that he has had off medication, has had some very violent and paranoid, you know, outbursts. So, or whatever, whatever dad wants to call it. - Sure. - So, this is probably the creepiest part to me. - Got it, he keeps getting worse, Chris. - No, I know, it gives me chills, it really is. So, right around the time that they're discovering the car, Joseph, local man named Joseph Shones comes forward to police and he says he has a really odd story to tell and it is a really odd story, am. So, just like makes my stomach feel weird. I don't know. So, he stated, he had been driving up a mountain road on the evening of February 24th to check his cabin but his truck got stuck in a snow bank. And so, he is getting out. Actually, it says truck, but I'm pretty sure he drove a Volkswagen Beetle. So, I don't know why I wrote truck, but I'm pretty sure it was a Volkswagen Beetle. - It's currently truck. - Yeah, super specifically. Yeah, like my other car is a truck, okay. But so, he, whatever, whatever sources is what I use, but he got out and he was attempting to push his car and he had a heart attack. He's beginning to suffer a heart attack. And so, he climbs back into his car, turns the heat on and is like, I know, like I'm just gonna like, wait it out. - Jesus Christ. - Because it's middle of a blizzard, right? - Oh my God, oh my God. - So, he's horrible. - Horrible. - Oh my God. - So, he, he just kind of lays in his vehicle in severe pain with the heater running and is like, I hope someone finds me before I run out of gas, basically. - Jesus. - He claims around 11.30 p.m. that night, he began to hear whistling. - Okay. - He got out of his car and saw headlights, parked aways behind his truck and heard a group of people approaching and was like, oh, thank God, I'm going to be rescued. He saw what he described as five men and a woman holding a baby holding flashlights and walking up this like snowy hill. - Okay, okay. - He says he called out for help, but they immediately all went quiet and turned off their flashlights. And he kind of like. - To be fair, if you're mid-heart attack, you're yelling for help probably just sounds like a, like a, probably scared them. - I probably did scare them, yes. But I feel like if you're like, hey, I need help, I've had a heart attack. - Oh, was he verbalizing that? - I don't know, I'm just kind of moaning. - Well, no, 'cause I mean, I will say true. It was, okay, good question, because they also mentioned this on the part of guess that he, it was a mild heart attack and he, the next morning was able to walk like eight miles back to where, I think it was eight miles back to where he had last like had a drink that night before his car got stuck. So like, it was mild enough that like by the next morning, he was like walking eight miles. - Okay, so he was probably verbalizing. - So I think at this point, he probably was able to like, at least express like, hey, something's wrong. I need help, whatever. But any, either way, like they turn off the flashlights and go quiet. He says nobody would answer his cries for help and he eventually got back to the lodge and was able to seek medical attention and police are like, okay, like, I don't know what this, at first when they told, when he told them this, they were like, I don't know what this has to do with anything. And he goes, oh, on the way down, I saw a car as well. It must have been theirs. And they were like, what kind of car? And he said, well, it was this teal or turquoise mercury Montego. And they were like, oh shit. And he's like, yeah, it was just empty sitting there. So basically now there's like a sighting, like a potential sighting. And with a stranger involved, like a woman with a baby. Which I could, I don't know, obviously what happened, but I could see hallucination. Oh, I was, I'm sorry, that's what they call, that's who they think it's a medical hallucination that like maybe he just was seeing thing, like, but also then I'm like, but then why did you see five men that was a correct description? But then just like, my thought was like, I could have seen someone, like if they maybe I don't know their ability to make judgments or anything like that. But if they were missing this basketball game and like all this stuff that they, I could see them at the gas station meeting a woman with a baby who said, help, I need a ride. And then it just, she just kept going and going and going and going into the woods or something and then feeling like they couldn't say no or they thought it was gonna be a shorter drive and it just kept, it just never ended. Okay, so I mean, you're like onto something because the parents at the time, especially were like, there's somebody else involved. Like our kids would not have just driven up a random mountain for miles. Like somebody else is either involved or like something really wrong happened. But like this is not just them being careless, you know? I definitely think there was somebody else involved. So what do you think the motive would have been like, a motive or just like she really needed a ride? Or was it like to like, I feel like, I mean, I always go straight into like some sort of trafficking, which wouldn't really make sense with 14-age boys, but maybe like robbing them, like trying to drive them out into the middle and no word in the club. But remember, they found the wallet with his money still in it and stuff. And they just starved to death out there. It's just so strange and like, where did she go? And like, maybe they, she really needed a drive or a ride, but then it was dark and it was starting to blizzard. So she even got lost and didn't know where to tell them to drop her off and then they all ended up. But then like, but then where the fuck is she, you know? And that's terrible too, that she had a baby with her, right? And it's like, well, did anybody report that person missing? But I don't think there was any report of a woman missing. So it could have, if they did drop her off and then they were trying to get home and they got turned around. - That could be right. But then like, why are they, but all five wandering - Oh, right, they saw her in the place. - And he's like, oh, they were whistling. It's just so creepy. I mean, I don't know, like walking up the road. And so then he's like, oh, on my way back, I saw their car and the police were like, oh, shit, then that was definitely them. So yeah, very disturbing. They do eventually find, like I said, the body of Ted in the, in the trailer. They find the bodies on June 5th of, of Jack and Bill, about four miles from the car on route to the trailer, presumably, and heavily scavenged by animals cause a death as hypothermia. And then Tuesday, and this one's rough too, because Jack Hewitt was the only, Jack Hewitt and Gary Matthias were the only ones who were still missing at this point. And Jack Hewitt's dad wanted to be part of the search party. And police were like, you shouldn't do that, but he insisted. And he found his son's clothes. And when he picked a piece of it up, a spine fell out. And so I know, I'm sorry. But that's how it is described in all the reporting. I know, I'm sorry, it's horrible. And so-- - So that was like a bear attack or something? Like how else do you-- - No, no, no, no, it was just scavenged by, I mean, he'd been out there for months. - Oh, oh, oh, I see. - And so like, he just had found a piece of his like clothes or whatever, and like, yeah, it's horrible. Yeah, it's really horrible. So he was able to identify that, like, the shoes and clothes were his sons. Now Gary's body was never located to this day. We still don't know where Gary is. - I mean, like, if all that was left of-- - Yeah, exactly. - Someone who was having a spine, like, it all takes his one more animal, picking up the spine and bringing his son-- - And a couple more winters of, you know, years and decades of, yeah, yeah. And that's like what I, I mean, that's what I assume. - Just, I think, just got taken away, yeah. - Or something, just, yeah. So search crews did find the tennis shoes with wear, which we know, leading investigators to believe that like, he just switched shoes when he went out because his feet were probably swollen from, or maybe he wanted to put on like extra socks or, you know, whatever. So here are some other like theories/ unexplained parts of this that like, just are worth noting. So there is no explained connection between any of the young man and the town of Quincy or Plumas National Forest. They had never expressed interest in visiting. Gary was said to have some like former friends who lived like a town like past it, but they, even they were like, now there's no reason he would have driven here, especially in the middle of the night. And we haven't even heard from him in years. And also like, they had this game tomorrow. And it was important to all five of them. And I don't think any of them would have been like, yeah, let's go for a joy ride into up a mountain for no reason. It's just so strange. And they knew their way home. They had four maps that were like, very clearly, here's mountain, you know, it's not like they couldn't figure that out. And the amount of time he took to drive miles up the snowy road with that little car is like, for what? but you're right, like maybe it is that they picked someone up and we're giving them a ride.
I think that's what it was. I'm pretty confident. I know that's what it was. It feels like what it would be, he hate like, he himself, Madruga, whose car it was. Like, he hated to drive and snow. He hated his car getting dirty, right? Like, none of them even like being cold. He like, it's just so strange. The other thing is like walking that long distance through the woods to get to this trailer. It's like, I guess there was a paved path, but like the fact that they didn't get in the warm slash like functional car and drive back down the mountain instead of up it. And if you were going to walk 20 miles, wouldn't you walk back down the mountain? Because then you get back to where you were. Maybe one of them knew it. No, I see, I don't know. Now, another theory is that like, maybe they had like qualms about like, no, that doesn't make sense either. I hate that theory. That makes me mad. It's a theory about like them not understanding like ethics or morals. Oh, I don't know. And I'm like, I don't think so. I'm not even going to go there. So there is some people have theorized that like perhaps Gary, Gary's mental illness did play a part here. Like unlike the other four men who had intellectual or developmental disabilities, Gary, Matthias had average intelligence, military experience, but paranoid schizophrenia as well. And he required that daily medication and he left home without it. I mean, obviously he thought he was coming back. So it was like that weird. Right. But also, I mean, some people have speculated and this is like maybe a reach because how on earth could you speculate this? And I don't have enough sources. But someone was saying, well, maybe he didn't want to take the meds before the game because they did. His parents did say they made him very drowsy, which he didn't like. So it's like some people argued, maybe he didn't take his meds because he wanted to be fit for the basketball. It doesn't matter either way. Like, you know, some people have said perhaps like he had some sort of episode and like convinced them and they didn't maybe understand his illness enough to know like that this was an episode of paranoid schizophrenia rather than like a real scenario. So maybe he did have an episode and like somehow led them up this path by force or by just convincing your conviction, you know, I'm not sure it's like really how could you do anything? It really couldn't know. Yeah, it could have nothing to do with him. It could. Exactly. Totally have everything to do with him. I mean, it could be any of it. Yeah. And so, you know, it was like, of course, people were siding, you know, because it's like, well. Oh, and she's gone. Hello. Are you all right? Oh, dear. That's creepy. Oh, hold on. One moment. It was like the credits said, sorry, Christine. It was, I just raised my camera died. I forgot to plug. I forgot to plug it in so that the like, the like, Cam link thing showed logo shut up. OK, I was like, wow, fade to black. OK, talk about like a fucking Vodville came like by your home. Well, the plug on me. OK, so the shoe swap thing kind of like, proves to people that Matthias was in the trailer with we are, especially if he was one of the people who could open the cans. And if the other one had already died on the way there, it's like, well, then maybe he was the one who was there helping open the cans. And like, the thing you said right off the bat, I was like, that makes the most sense to me that for whatever reason they ended up there, but part of me is like, then why did he starve over a months of long time and not like, turn on it? I don't know. This is, I don't know anything obviously, but I would feel like if that woman and the baby existed, I could see them saying like, here, take some food with you as when you find, and here's the can opener or something. And we'll figure out how to open the rest of the can opener. Well, the can opener was there. Oh, it was there. It was just only only two of them would have really known how to use it because it was like, I don't know, special tea. But like, there was also food that didn't require a can opener. Which like, maybe they didn't know it was in the locker. And I think Ted was like missing his toes. Like, I think he had really suffered this hypothermia. But it's also so strange that nobody thought to like, turn on the propane tank right outside or like, start a fire in the fireplace. And I, but we don't know their mental level. We don't know, no, and we don't know. And like, they're able to operate a car. Someone must have known how to do something. I guess that's what I'm saying. It's like, it's so hard to know because it's like, we don't even know if all five of them made it to the cabin or if two of them died on the way or three of them died on anyway. It's just, it's so hard to know. And so like, I think it makes sense that if three of them made it, the two who died, like, right near each other, if they passed away on the way to the cabin. And then the three remaining, maybe Ted was, this is also what they said in stuff we should know. But like, maybe Ted was in like really bad shape. And so Gary was like, oh, you know, you go get help to Jack. And maybe he went to go or to find the car, like you said. And like went off trying to find it, got lost, died. And then Gary eventually was like, well, shit. I can only open this many cans and like have to go look for help myself, you know, or something. Or both of them left at the same time. Or wait, he was, he was knocked out, right? But also like, he was layered in blankets of like head to toe. I don't know. I was going to say what if they said, you're clearly in a bad spot. You just say here by yourself and I'll open some cans for you. Yeah. And we're both going to leave and go find the car. Yeah. And then that's why he was completely by himself. And it probably didn't need to know how to use the can opener. If he thought they were going to come back within the next day. Yeah. Also, like what year was it? Because I know like if I saw a can opener from 10 or 15 years before, I'd be like, what the fuck is that? Like, yeah. Like can opener, they come in all shapes and sizes. And sometimes I've looked at them and didn't even know they were can opener. No, no, this one you like need to be trained to use, I guess. It was like, so it looks very great to open. You might just be fucked. But it doesn't explain the fruit cups though. Well, but it does. If he doesn't have toes and he can't walk. And maybe he's so ill that like he can't get out to the shed. And also maybe he's because you know, they say when you're frostbitten, like your brain chemistry tells you, you're like boiling hot. Like and that's why they find a lot of people naked. Like maybe he just wasn't even, maybe he'd lost all ability to even know that he was hungry. Like, maybe they had like left pretty early on and only left him with a certain amount of food. And he had just like rationed it. I don't know. It's terrible either way. But yeah. But it also is just so strange that like, there's no explanation for any of it. Like why they even were there or why they even went off the wrong road. It's just so weird. And you don't think it's like a murderer because otherwise like they, I mean, I don't think it's a murderer. But like to just leave so much evidence of. Well, the family thought some of the family thought it was foul play. They were like, they wouldn't have just been up there. Like someone was either rashing the food and not allowing them to eat or like someone was holding them hostage. But it's also like, who and why was it like the woman with the idea? And then why would they leave his body there unless they thought no one was ever going to see him so strange all of it? It doesn't really, like none of it really makes sense. Maybe the woman. I mean, also I, I, I would have liked the someone told him the food wasn't good or it was spoiled or something. I don't know what, I mean, I would still eat rotten food if I was that hungry, but maybe they were told, maybe the woman if she was there told them, like, oh, don't eat that food because that's, I don't know. I have no fucking idea. I mean, the food like that, yeah, I know. I mean, but why? I don't know. I have no idea. So and then it's because, you know, they never found Gary's remains also that like there's lingering suspicion among like armchair, you know, ex researchers and stuff that like he could have survived, but I really doubted. I think, I think it's a scenario where like just the most tragic thing happened and like it went as badly as it could have gone. And like who knows what happened or how they got there, but I mean, like Gary had been medically stable for two years, actually in a 2020 internal sheriff's memo, they said Matthias, that Gary Matthias was actually a presumed victim of foul play. And so like even the sheriff's department was like, we don't think he had anything to do with it. Like in terms of like causing it or creating it, but yeah, it's just really string, like intentionally, but yeah, it's really strange. But it's also strange. They said he could be a victim of foul play, though, because it's like by who then? Like, I don't know man, and they, I got to get more answers on this one, dude. That's a, I have no idea. It's just so sad and strange. Yeah. Wow. And what's this one called? The you, well, some people call it the disappearance of Gary Matthias, because they never found his body or him, but the Yuba County five is, but it's also, also commonly referred to. I feel like that's something I'm going to watch a lot of the YouTube videos on. Yeah, it's really worth like, like going down some rabbit holes because I feel like it's been simplified, been so many, it's been simplified to just like, oh, well, they just didn't know how to do anything. And it's like, no, you know, it's not that something happened. Yeah, so that's all I got for you. I can't imagine the headache it was to even have to research that.
sounds like a lot of loose arms, a loose branches off a tree. - Yeah, well, I mean, I'm fortunate that so many people have already researched it that it's kind of like, okay, there's a pretty solid narrative here. I just had to pick and choose which rabbit holes to go down, which ones to not, and et cetera. - Man, yeah. I mean, you know I love an unsolved mystery, but. - But also hate it, yeah. - Matt, I can't solve it. - It's rough. One of these days, I'm gonna solve one of them, and I'm every, you'll all see, you know? All of you're gonna go, holy shit, they did it. - It's finally been done. They said it couldn't be done, it's been done. - Yeah, wow, that'll be a great day. - A great day. - No, what's your gut feeling, final thoughts? - I think that, I have no idea. - I think that woman was, I think there was a woman with a baby. I think, or I think there was someone, I don't know who, but someone asked for a rider did something that brought them out there. I don't think they just did it for fun. - Yeah, no, see, that doesn't make sense. I think your version is the most compelling, and I don't know why that's not discussed more often, so I'm sort of like, that seems reasonable. I don't know why it's not, maybe it isn't main theory that I missed, but I feel like that's. - It feels like, if you're holding a baby, and there's five sensitive guys who might feel like they - Totally, yes. - And want to be, do the right thing, yeah. - I don't know how they would all fit in a car, unless they can sit more than five people. - Okay, so this car, I do know, apparently, is like real, it's like a doozy of a car, like a place that's called them like a land boat. - Okay, well, yeah, then I would think that she said, can you give me a ride, and then, either it ends up being way farther than-- - They probably got lost, or something, or they got lost, or they heard about the blizzard, and thought maybe they should park for a second, and then it got super cold while they thought they'd wait out the storm, so they had to go find shelter. - Imagine like a baby crying through it. - A baby crying. - I mean, I'm serious, like that sounds, or maybe they, maybe that woman was also in the cabin with them at some point, and-- - True, like probably, what have you even thought of that? - And maybe she took some of the food to help her out while she like just walked to go get help. - But like, you don't light a fire? I mean, come on. - I don't know. - Like, you don't light a fire, you don't like-- - Yeah, maybe none of them knew how to use a propane take. I don't know how to use one. - No, literally, though, there's matches in the room, and five, I mean, it's all set up to be like a survival thing, and there's literally a propane take, and they made the point of saying, like, you just turn a knob, and one of them worked for like a gardening business. I mean, these are like, they're not like outdoorsy people, but they're like handy, you know, enough to think, but maybe not, maybe like, if three of them don't survive on the way there, it's like, first of all, traumatizing. Maybe the woman and the baby didn't survive, and that was traumatizing, and like, now there's two guys left, and one doesn't have his medication, you know, like, it could have been anything, but like, we just don't even know. - I think that's a good point. I think maybe the woman and the baby didn't survive, and they also just got picked up and carried away. - Who knows, yeah, 'cause I mean, there was a description like that the land can just kind of in that, that just sort of over seasons, like, you know, I mean, you just kind of lose track of. - Or, I wonder if there was ever, if there was a woman and a baby, there's someone who lured them out there. Maybe they already got dropped off, and then they by themselves got lost, and maybe the guy who swears that he saw five guys and a woman with a baby, maybe he just mis-countered, and it was the five guys, and one of them was like holding the other one, while they were walking through the, while they were walking through the smell. - Or carrying just like a backpack, who knows, like a bag of their basketball bag, or something, who knows. But yeah, it's a good point, 'cause maybe, so maybe something else lured them there, but he misinterpreted the group, and like, yeah, great point, or not even lured them there. Like, maybe somebody had just like, said, I need a ride, and then like got dropped off, and then they got lost, and then they got lost, and they had to go find somewhere to work. - What weird is like leaving the car there? Also like, yeah, I mean, - With gas, turning on just fine. - When you just sit in the heated car. - And the heater, they took the keys with them. It was just strange. - And they clearly didn't leave because they were like super hungry. - Do you think that trailer was on a map? Like, maybe they had a map that showed the trailer, and they were able to like, - No, maybe. - Maybe that's unreasonable. - It is interesting that they happened to find a cabin in the woods that had all these things. - But I think that's why, it was mentioned that like a snow plow had paved, like a pretty flat path. And so I think like, they were following a path, but it was like a 20 mile like. - And dark. - Blizzard in middle than I dark. - So you could very easily fall off the path. - And they were barely, well, no, I think they were like snowed in basically, but like. - Oh, like walls was snowing on them. - But it's they, you know, to get hypothermia there, you're pretty fucked, right? Like four miles into the hike. It's like, you either keep going or go back. - Also, everyone was having a fucking bad time on that rope 'cause even that other guy was having a fucking heart attack in the middle of a woods. - It was going on. - It starts with a guy having a heart attack being like, oh, I saw something really weird. And they're like, it's a hallucination. Like, no, it's five people who died. - Yeah, it sounds like if he was able to walk eight miles the next day, I don't think he was having a hallucination mid-harder sack. - I mean, it could be, I don't know. I don't know. I don't know, man. I think we've, I think we've answered some questions for people. - Also, it's just, I can't, yeah, I would just stop. I would just never stop. So anyway, well, thank you for truly listening to our podcast. If you'd like to follow such socials, where Megan takes these moments and turns them into just nice bites of clips. Little, little treats. You can find us at ATWD Podcast. And otherwise, I have to pee, so I'm gonna bolt. - Okay, and that's why we drink.
Podcast Summary
Key Points:
The hosts discuss personal topics, including one host's sobriety journey, health issues (loss of appetite, potential tapeworm joke), and their dog Hank's DNA test results (Bernese Mountain Dog, Rottweiler, Pomeranian mix) and behavioral training.
Sponsorships include EmbarkVet dog DNA tests, ASPCA Pet Health Insurance, Honey Love shapewear, Nutrafol hair supplements, Batch THC mints, and Zipper Cruder hiring.
The main story covers the Olive Hill Poltergeist (1968, Kentucky)
A second story introduces the Yuba County Five (1978, California)
The episode includes casual banter, inside jokes, and discussion of future episode plans.
Summary:
This podcast episode blends personal anecdotes, sponsor ads, and two paranormal/mystery stories. The hosts open with updates: one discusses her sobriety, noting it's been months without cravings except a brief beer temptation, while the other deals with appetite loss and humorous self-diagnoses like a tapeworm. They also talk about Hank, a dog whose DNA test revealed a surprising mix of Bernese Mountain Dog, Rottweiler, and Pomeranian, and his ongoing training for reactive behavior at the dog park.
After sponsor segments, the first story covers the 1968 Olive Hill Poltergeist in Kentucky, where elderly couple John and Ora Callahan experienced escalating supernatural activity—shattering objects, flying furniture, and apparitions—that followed their 12-year-old grandson Roger. Investigators, including William Roll, documented 200 incidents, with Roger present for most, leading to a theory of recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis (RSPK). An exorcism failed, and the family moved, ending the activity.
The episode then teases the Yuba County Five, a 1978 case where five men from a basketball team vanished after a game, their car found abandoned in a forest; Ted Weir's body was later discovered in an emergency trailer, starved despite ample supplies, while the others remain missing. The hosts mix humor with eerie storytelling, ending with plans for future episodes.
FAQs
EmbarkVet.com offers dog DNA tests, including breed and health tests. You can save $10 and get free shipping with promo code 'drink'.
Hank's DNA test revealed he is a Bernese Mountain Dog and Rottweiler mix, with a small percentage of German Shepherd and Pomeranian.
The Olive Hill Poltergeist case from 1968 involves John and Ora Callahan, whose home experienced objects shattering and flying. The activity followed their grandson Roger, and investigators documented over 200 incidents, attributing it to recurrent spontaneous psychokinesis.
The Yuba County Five case involves five men who disappeared in 1978 after a basketball game, driving into the Plumas National Forest. Their car was found abandoned, and one man, Ted Weir, was found starved in a forest service trailer, while the others' remains were found later.
ASPCA Pet Health Insurance offers customizable accident and illness plans. You can submit claims via their app and receive reimbursements for eligible vet bills directly to your bank account.
Batch micromints are edible mints containing 1 milligram of THC and CBD. They are designed to reduce anxiety and provide a mild effect without a hangover, hitting in 15-20 minutes.
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