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The Setagaya Family Murders Jul 06, 2022

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Welcome back passengers! Tonight we dive deep… too deep.. Into our bread and butter… we are diving back into unsolved murders. Hold on to your skivvies and make sure you have a drink and a magnifying glass because we are gonna talk about the Setagaya Murders. Bum bum buuuuuuummmmmmmmmm!!!!!! Typically, New Year's Eve is a happy occasion. It indicates that things are changing and making room for something new. It's a time to rejoice in a brand-new beginning, typically with your family and close friends. This day, known in Japan as Omisoka, is regarded as one of the most significant ones of the year. There are traditions and conventions connected, which are often observed. In Japan, New Year's is regarded as the most prestigious celebration, unlike in America where it is frequently associated with revelry and midnight kisses. The holiday season, however, was permanently tarnished by a tragic occurrence that happened around the turn of the century. For almost 20 years, what happened on this night in the Tokyo neighborhood of Setagaya has baffled detectives to no end. In contrast to other cultures, Japan celebrates a century's conclusion. Japan rang in the new millennium a full year after we did in America with the opening of 2001, while most of us did so with the notorious Y2K fear. By most accounts, the Miyazawa family was a normal Japanese household. The father, Mikio Miyazawa, age 44, was employed by the London-based marketing company Interbrand. It is unknown what type of work Mikio performed for the company, but it was a sizable one with locations in more than twenty nations and experience working on significant marketing campaigns for organizations like Microsoft, Nissan, Xerox, and many more. In fact, Interbrand was the organization in charge of branding the phrase "Wi-fi" the year prior, in 1999. Interbrand coworkers characterized Mikio as "congenial." They said he was "the kind of man that got along with everyone - definitely not the kind to create enemies." The family's mother and wife, Yasuko Miyazawa, was forty-one years old and similar to her husband. She was a teacher who spent a lot of time with the couple's two children, Rei, 6, and Niina, 8, and was universally regarded as sensitive and gentle. The daughter, Niina, was in second grade and appeared to be your average young lady: she was lively, she was fun, and she loved ballet and soccer, two activities in which she was actively involved. Rei, the family's youngest member, had recently been experiencing a problem: His speech handicap had been causing the family quite a bit of worry. It appears that they had begun to look for expert assistance, but it was still quite concerning to them. I In 1990, Mikio and Yasuki Miyazawa moved into their house in Setagaya. It was a growing neighborhood with over 200 households at the time, and it seemed like a pleasant enough place to raise a family. The second biggest of Tokyo's twenty-three districts, Setagaya is situated immediately southwest of the central city. Setagaya is a fairly residential-looking neighborhood that sticks out from its hectic, crowded surroundings and is within a short distance from Tokyo Bay. Even by itself, the Miyazawa family house was intriguing. The house was a two-story, communal structure. On the exterior, it appeared to be a single house, but in reality, it was more like a duplex. It made it possible for the Miyazawas to be neighbors with Yasuko's family, mostly her mother but also her sister and brother-in-law who were also living with her at the time. Seven family members may now reside in this joint home, even though there was no interior link between the two homes. You must exit the building and enter through a different entrance to get from one side to the other. The park directly back the house, however, was the feature that had the greatest impact. Although the park had been present for some time, the city had planned to enlarge it. This indicated that the majority of the Miyazawa's neighbors had been vacating their properties recently to make room for this growth. The neighborhood, which had formerly been home to more than 200 people, had now been reduced to just four: the Miyazawas, their cousins who lived next door, two other families who resided on their block. Aside from that, the neighborhood was a ghost town. The skate park directly behind the Miyazawa family house was where the majority of local activity was taking place. The Miyazawa family had some difficulties because this was the busiest area of the rapidly developing park. See, the only thing separating the skate park and the home was a fence. Mikio had addressed some rowdy and annoying teens at the skate park the week before New Year's Eve for making too much of a ruckus. A witness claimed to have seen him encounter a group of teenage rebels who belonged to the Bosozoku, a form of Japanese motorcycle gang, at about the same time. The Miyazawas were among the last households to begin making arrangements to move because of the park's growing foot traffic and the city's intentions to expand it further. In only a few months, they would be relocating to another house in the neighborhood, and it was December 2000. Therefore, all they had to do to stop worrying about it was rough out the skate park hooligans for a few months. Sadly, they would never have the opportunity. In addition to Mikio's run-ins with hooligans throughout the week leading up to New Year's Eve, the Miyazawa family will also encounter some other peculiar events. The locals had reportedly begun to see some of the area's animals being physically abused over the summer. There are claims that neighborhood cats, most of which are stray, had been tortured and that rats had been discovered dead. One witness remembered witnessing a nice stray suddenly emerge one day without a tail. Yasuko informed her father-in-law that a strange automobile had parked in front of their home on Christmas Day, December 25. Despite the fact that there was alternate parking nearby that wouldn't need the person parked to hop over a fence to enter the park, this has occurred more than once. An eyewitness saw a guy who was thought to be in his forties going near the Miyazawa family home two days later, on the 27th. A apparently benign item that, in hindsight, appears suspicious. The neighboring park assures that people will be in the neighborhood for a number of reasons. A guy was sighted in the adjacent Seijogakuenmae Station on December 29, just a few days before the start of the new century, not far from where the Miyazawa family was residing. Due to the weather, one eyewitness remembered this man's "skater"-style clothing as being peculiar and believed the man, who was also sporting a rucksack, appeared to be significantly underdressed. Police suspect a guy fitting this general description bought a sashimi knife from the same retail center on this day, the 29th. It was quite simple to track down because it was the only one bought at this grocery on this particular day. A man matching that description was sighted on December 30 about a mile from the Miyazawas' home, in the vicinity of Sengawa Station. This unsub, who was described as being between 35 and 40 years old, was moving steadily toward the Setagaya residence of the Miyazawa family. Unbeknownst to them, the Miyazawa family's final day would be on Saturday, December 30. They carried on with their usual activities while getting ready for the next holiday. Due to the approaching New Year and the fresh start of a new century, there was a celebratory mood in the air. The family reportedly went shopping around about 6:00 PM in the early evening. Although we can't be certain if all four of the family members attended, a bystander remembered seeing them in a local mall around that time. This tale has credibility because a neighbor who was driving by their house that evening remembered seeing the family automobile disappearing at about 6:30 PM. Yasuko contacted her mother who lived next door at approximately 7:00 that evening. The families spoke to one another over the phone frequently since they considered one another to be neighbors. The topic of the discussion was probably something unimportant, most likely Yasuko asking her mother if she wanted to see her granddaughter. Niina walking next door to watch a taped TV show till 9:30 PM or so confirms this. Everything for the Miyazawa family had been quite routine up until this point in the night. An accessible email that was viewed at roughly 10:38 that evening is the final activity we have of the Miyazawa family. It was Mikio reading a business email that was password-protected, indicating that he was most likely the one who opened it. At least one member of the Miyazawa family was last known to be alive at this time. And their residence, which was often peaceful and calm, was about to turn into a house of horrors. A witness heard what sounded like an altercation inside the Miyazawa house that evening at approximately ten o'clock while walking along the park trail behind the home. They couldn't recall any especially ear-shattering shouts or loud physical noises, but they claimed it just sounded like a couple arguing. A neighbor of Yasuko's family would notice a loud pounding sound coming from the Miyazawa side of the building around an hour and a half later. They didn't know the precise time, but they were able to estimate it later using the current television programming schedule. This happened at the same time that a witness or maybe a neighbor reported seeing a guy rushing along the sidewalk near to the family's home. These were the only three indications that something wasn't right in Setagaya that evening. It would take hours before anybody realized how terrifying the Miyazawa house had become. Three passengers were being picked up by a taxi driver not far from the Miyazawa residence. All three of these passengers, who will stay unnamed for this story due to the cab driver's oversight, were middle-aged males who kept to themselves the entire time. It was far after midnight when the three guys were being dropped off at a neighboring station, something the taxi driver remembered as being quite unusual for the time. A bloodstain from one of the individuals who appeared to have a wound was seen on the backseat of the taxi. Yasuko's mother attempted to contact her daughter's family the next morning on New Year's Eve to arrange preparations for later that day. Unexpectedly, her call wouldn't even connect, much less ring. She was unaware that someone had cut and purposely unplugged the phone lines in the Miyazawa family home hours earlier. She went outside and made her way to the house where her daughter, son-in-law, and two grandchildren lived. When the doorbell went unanswered, she used her set of keys to allow herself in, according to the police report she would later submit. There was no sound to be heard within the home itself. The moment Yasuko's mother walked inside the house, she would have realized something was wrong. As she entered the family's home, she quickly realized the reality as she came face to face with Mikio Miyazawa's body at the foot of the stairs. The family's father, who was 44 years old, was found dead at the bottom of the stairway leading to the second storey after having been stabbed several times. Yasuko's mother remembers trying to find out what had happened to the rest of her family by walking upstairs to the second storey. The remains of her granddaughter Niina and daughter Yasuko, who had both been viciously stabbed hundreds of times, would be waiting for her at the top of the stairs. Their suffering far surpassed that of Mikio's body. Yasuko's mother recalls placing her hands on the corpses of her daughter and granddaughter in an effort to check for signs of life, either out of grief or even hope. Her granddaughter Niina, with whom she had just finished watching a television show, and Yasuko, her daughter, with whom she had reared and been close for more than forty years. They were both now dead and icy, loved ones turned into corpses by an unidentified murderer. The last catastrophe would be revealed to Yasuko's mother in an adjacent bedroom: six-year-old Rei, who had been struggling with a speech impediment in an effort to satisfy his parents, was still in bed. He had been strangled to death, which led detectives to believe that he was the family's first victim. It goes without saying that Yasuko's mother—this devastated grandmother—would call the police. However, what she had witnessed was irreversible, and nothing could replace the family she had just lost. When the event occurred, Tokyo Police were as appalled by the crime scene as Yasuko's mother had been. They were aware that this case would shock everyone in the neighborhood: witnessing a whole family being murdered by an unidentified intruder in the middle of the night is arguably the most terrifying scenario one could conceive. Police started investigating the incident and piecing it together at the spot. Yasuko's mother, sister, and brother-in-law, who were all there when the crime took place next door, remembered anything peculiar or unusual that may have transpired that evening. The only thing that sprang to mind for them was the loud thud that had happened at about 11:30 that evening; the timing was supported by a TV schedule that showed the thud happened during the broadcast of a certain program. When Mikio, the father, approached the alleged murderer, the police instantly assumed that the thud may have happened then. They assumed that he had fought with the person who had attacked Yasuko's family based on the injuries on his body, and that the loud thud Yasuko's family had heard could have been him being thrown to the bottom of the steps. Mikio had been stabbed several times, with the majority of the wounds being to his neck. They would deduce that the sashimi knife that had been abandoned in the family's kitchen was what had caused the stab wounds. But the knife had somehow broken when Mikio was being attacked. Investigators instantly hypothesized that the broken knife had been merely one of two murder weapons based on the evidence they had at the site. The killer also used a knife he had discovered in Mikio and Yasuko's very own kitchen to murder the two ladies upstairs. The fact that Mikio's body was still in his day clothes—business-casual dress that he would typically wear out and about—was what was most peculiar about its discovery. As for the bodies of Yasuko and Niina, however, the home was constructed so that a ladder leading to a third-story loft was located at the top of the stairs going to the second level. Many people have speculated that because the third-story loft contained a bed and a TV, Yasuko and Niina were both there when the killings took place, maybe in bed or watching TV. Both Yasuko and Niina's bodies, which had been repeatedly stabbed, were discovered at the bottom of the ladder leading to the third-floor loft. Investigators determined that both individuals had been stabbed well past the point of death because of the excessive number of knife wounds. This gave rise to several speculations suggesting that the murderer had some type of hatred for women or at the very least had some anger toward them. Sadly, this is not an attitude that is particularly unusual in these homicides, but it would become important in the investigation that followed. Rei, the family's son, was discovered murdered in bed. When police started to piece together the facts, they realized that Rei was the first member of the family to be slain, which explained why he had avoid…

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World UFO Day Special: A Weird Ass UFO Story Jul 02, 2022

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Yep! It's World UFO Day and we wanted to drop a special for you and, BOY, is this special!

LOOK TO THE SKIES, TONIGHT!

To all of our American listeners, have a safe and awesome Fourth of July and enjoy the celebration of the US's independence.

Don't lose any fingers.

CHOO CHOO, YOU SEXY BASTARDS!

The Antikythera Mechanism (Nerd Overload) Jun 28, 2022

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Sign up for bonus episodes at www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com Well since last week's episode left Logan up at night with nightmares and I still can't get the stains out of my shorts; we have decided to make this week's episode a little more on the lighter side. So we are diving deep into the wonderful world of politics! You got it, today we are going to discuss The Biden Administrations wonderful and brilliant plans and maybe even get an interview with Brandon himself! HA like that would ever happen. Fuck those guys. We are actually talking about the Antikythera Mechanism, and the mysteries surrounding it. The Antikythera mechanism is a hand-powered orrery( a mechanical model of our solar system) from Ancient Greece that has been dubbed the world's first analog computer since it was used to forecast celestial locations and eclipses decades in advance. The ancient Olympic Games' four-year cycle, which was akin to an Olympiad, could also be followed using this method. In 1901, wreckage from a shipwreck off the shore of the Greek island of Antikythera included this artifact. Archaeologist Valerios Stais recognized it as bearing a gear on May 17, 1902. The gadget, which was found as a single lump and then fragmented into three primary components that are now divided into 82 individual shards following conservation efforts, was contained in the remnants of a wooden box that measured 34 cm 18 cm 9 cm (13.4 in 7.1 in 3.5 in). While several of these shards have inscriptions, four of them have gears. The biggest gear has 223 teeth and is around 13 centimeters (5.1 in) in diameter. Using contemporary computer x-ray tomography and high resolution surface scanning, a team at Cardiff University led by Mike Edmunds and Tony Freeth was able to image inside fragments of the crust-encased mechanism in 2008 and decipher the faintest writing that had once been inscribed on the machine's outer casing. This shows that it contained 37 bronze meshing gears that allowed it to mimic the Moon's erratic orbit, where the Moon's velocity is higher in its perigee than in its apogee, follow the motions of the Moon and Sun across the zodiac, and anticipate eclipses. Astronomer Hipparchus of Rhodes researched this motion in the second century BC, and it is possible that he was consulted when building the device. It is believed that a piece of the system, which also determined the locations of the five classical planets, is missing. The device has been variously dated to between 150 and 100 BC, or to 205 BC, and it is thought to have been devised and built by Greek scientists. In any event, it had to have been built prior to the shipwreck, which has been dated to around 70–60 BC by many lines of evidence. Researchers suggested in 2022 that the machine's initial calibration date, rather than the actual date of manufacture, would have been December 23, 178 BC. Some academics disagree, arguing that the calibration date should be 204 BC. Up to the astronomical clocks of Richard of Wallingford and Giovanni de' Dondi in the fourteenth century, comparable complicated machines had not been seen. The National Archaeological Museum in Athens currently has all of the Antikythera mechanism's fragments as well as a variety of reproductions and artistic reconstructions that show how it would have appeared and operated. During the first voyage with the Hellenic Royal Navy, in 1900–1901, Captain Dimitrios Kontos and a crew of sponge divers from Symi island found the Antikythera shipwreck. Off Point Glyphadia on the Greek island of Antikythera, at a depth of 45 meters (148 feet), a Roman cargo ship wreck was discovered. The crew found various huge items, including the mechanism, ceramics, special glassware, jewelry, bronze and marble statues, and more. In 1901, most likely that July, the mechanism was pulled from the rubble. The mechanism's origin remains unknown, however it has been speculated that it was transported from Rhodes to Rome along with other seized goods to assist a triumphant procession that Julius Caesar was staging. The National Museum of Archaeology in Athens received all the salvaged debris pieces for storage and examination. The museum personnel spent two years assembling more visible artifacts, like the sculptures, but the mechanism, which looked like a mass of tarnished brass and wood, remained unseen. The mechanism underwent deformational modifications as a result of not treating it after removal from saltwater. Archaeologist Valerios Stais discovered a gear wheel lodged in one of the rocks on May 17, 1902. Although most experts judged the object to be prochronistic and too complicated to have been created during the same era as the other components that had been unearthed, he originally thought it was an astronomical clock. Before British science historian and Yale University professor Derek J. de Solla Price developed an interest in the object in 1951, investigations into the object were abandoned. The 82 pieces were photographed using X-ray and gamma-ray technology in 1971 by Price and Greek nuclear researcher Charalampos Karakalos. In 1974, Price issued a 70-page report summarizing their findings. In 2012 and 2015, two more searches at the Antikythera wreck site turned up artifacts and another ship that may or may not be related to the treasure ship on which the mechanism was discovered. A bronze disc decorated with a bull's head was also discovered. Some speculated that the disc, which has four "ears" with holes in them, may have served as a "cog wheel" in the Antikythera mechanism. There doesn't seem to be any proof that it was a component of the mechanism; it's more probable that the disc was a bronze ornament on some furniture. The earliest analog computer is typically referred to as the Antikythera mechanism. The production of the device must have had undiscovered ancestors throughout the Hellenistic era based on its quality and intricacy. It is believed to have been erected either in the late second century BC or the early first century BC, and its construction was based on mathematical and astronomical ideas created by Greek scientists during the second century BC. Since they recognized the calendar on the Metonic Spiral as originating from Corinth or one of its colonies in northwest Greece or Sicily, further investigation by the Antikythera Mechanism Research Project in 2008 showed that the idea for the mechanism may have originated in the colonies of Corinth. The Antikythera Mechanism Research Initiative contended in 2008 that Syracuse could suggest a relationship with the school of Archimedes because it was a Corinthian colony and the home of Archimedes. In 2017, it was shown that the Metonic Spiral's calendar is of the Corinthian type and cannot be a Syracuse calendar. Another idea postulates that the device's origin may have come from the ancient Greek city of Pergamon, site of the Library of Pergamum, and claims that coins discovered by Jacques Cousteau at the wreck site in the 1970s correspond to the time of the device's creation. It was second in significance to the Library of Alexandria during the Hellenistic era due to its extensive collection of art and scientific scrolls. A theory that the gadget was built in an academy established by Stoic philosopher Posidonius on that Greek island is supported by the discovery of Rhodian-style vases aboard the ship that carried the object. Hipparchus, an astronomer active from around 140 BC to 120 BC, lived at Rhodes, which was a bustling commercial port and a center for astronomy and mechanical engineering. Hipparchus' hypothesis of the motion of the Moon is used by the mechanism, raising the likelihood that he may have developed it or at the very least worked on it. The island of Rhodes is situated between the latitudes of 35.85 and 36.50 degrees north; it has lately been proposed that the astronomical events on the Parapegma of the Antikythera mechanism operate best for latitudes in the range of 33.3-37.0 degrees north. According to a research published in 2014 by Carman and Evans, the Saros Dial's start-up date corresponds to the astronomical lunar month that started soon after the new moon on April 28, 205 BC. This suggests a revised dating of about 200 BC. Carman and Evans claim that the Babylonian arithmetic style of prediction suits the device's predictive models considerably better than the conventional Greek trigonometric approach does. According to a 2017 study by Paul Iversen, the device's prototype originated in Rhodes, but this particular model was modified for a customer from Epirus in northwest Greece. Iversen contends that the device was likely built no earlier than a generation before the shipwreck, a date that is also supported by Jones. In an effort to learn more about the mechanism, further dives were made in 2014 and 2015. A five-year investigative program that started in 2014 and finished in October 2019 was followed by a second five-year session that began in May 2020. The original mechanism probably came in one encrusted piece from the Mediterranean. It broke into three main parts shortly after that. In the meanwhile, more little fragments have come loose from handling and cleaning, and the Cousteau expedition discovered other fragments on the ocean floor. Fragment F was found in this fashion in 2005, suggesting that other fragments may still remain in storage, undetected since their first retrieval. The majority of the mechanism and inscriptions are found on seven of the 82 known fragments, which are also mechanically noteworthy. Additionally, 16 smaller components include inscriptions that are illegible and fragmentary. The twelve zodiacal signs are divided into equal 30-degree sectors on a fixed ring dial that represents the ecliptic on the mechanism's front face. Even though the borders of the constellations were arbitrary, this was consistent with the Babylonian practice of allocating an equal portion of the ecliptic to each zodiac sign. The Sothic Egyptian calendar, which has twelve months of 30 days plus five intercalary days, is marked off with a rotating ring that is located outside that dial. The Greek alphabetized versions of the Egyptian names for the months are used to identify them. To align the Egyptian calendar ring with the current zodiac points, the first procedure is to spin it. Due to the Egyptian calendar's disregard for leap days, a whole zodiac sign would cycle through every 120 years. Now we cannot show you pictures because well you couldn't see them. So we will try to describe them as best we can and we can also post them online. The mechanism was turned by a now-lost little hand crank that was connected to the biggest gear, the four-spoked gear shown on the front of fragment A, gear b1, via a crown gear. As a result, the date indicator on the front dial was shifted to the appropriate day of the Egyptian calendar. Since the year cannot be changed, it is necessary to know the year that is currently in use. Alternatively, since most calendar cycles are not synchronized with the year, the cycles indicated by the various calendar cycle indicators on the back can be found in the Babylonian ephemeris tables for the day of the year that is currently in use. If the mechanism were in good operating order, the crank would easily be able to strike a certain day on the dial because it moves the date marker around 78 days each full rotation. The mechanism's interlocking gears would all revolve as the hand crank was turned, allowing for the simultaneous determination of the Sun's and Moon's positions, the moon's phase, the timing of an eclipse, the calendar cycle, and maybe the positions of planets. The position of the spiral dial pointers on the two huge dials on the rear had to be observed by the operator as well. As the dials included four and five complete rotations of the pointers, the pointer had a "follower" that followed the spiral incisions in the metal. Before continuing, a pointer's follower had to be manually shifted to the opposite end of the spiral after reaching the terminal month place at either end of the spiral. Two circular concentric scales may be seen on the front dial. The Greek zodiac signs are denoted on the inner scale, which is divided into degrees. A series of similar holes underneath the movable ring that rests flush with the surface and runs in a channel that makes up the outer scale are marked off with what appear to be days. This outer ring has been thought to symbolize the 365-day Egyptian calendar ever since the mechanism was discovered, but new study contradicts this assumption and suggests it is really divided into 354 intervals. The Sothic and Callippic cycles had previously pointed to a 365 14-day solar year, as evidenced in Ptolemy III's proposed calendar reform of 238 BC. If one accepts the 365-day presupposition, it is acknowledged that the mechanism predates the Julian calendar reform. The dials aren't thought to represent his intended leap day, but by rotating the scale back one day every four years, the outer calendar dial may be adjusted against the inner dial to account for the effect of the extra quarter-day in the solar year. The ring is most likely seen as a manifestation of a 354-day lunar calendar if one accepts the 354-day evidence. It is perhaps the first instance of the Egyptian civil-based lunar calendar postulated by Richard Anthony Parker in 1950, given the age of the mechanism's putative manufacture and the existence of Egyptian month names. The lunar calendar was intended to act as a daily indicator of succeeding lunations and to aid in the understanding of the Metonic(The moon phases return at the same time of year every almost precisely 19 years during the Metonic cycle. Although the recurrence is imperfect, careful examination shows that the Metonic cycle, which is defined as 235 synodic months, is only 2 hours, 4 minutes, and 58 seconds longer than 19 tropical years. In the fifth century BC, Meton of Athens determined that the cycle was exactly 6,940 days long. The creation of a lunisolar calendar is made easier by using these full integers.) and Saros(The saros, which may be used to forecast solar and lunar eclipses, is a period of exactly 223 synodic months, or around 6585.3211 days, or 18 years, 10, 11, or 12 days (depending on how many leap years there are). In what is known as an eclipse cycle, the Sun, Earth, and Moon return to about the same relative geometry, a nearly straight line, one saros time after an eclipse, and a nearly similar eclipse will take place. A sar is a saros's lower half.) dials as well as the Lunar phase pointer. Unknown gearing is assumed to move a pointer across this scale in synchrony with the rest of the mechanism's Metonic gearing. A one-in-76-year Callippic cycle correction and practical lunisolar intercalation were made possible by the movement and registration of the ring with respect to the underlying holes. The dial also shows the Sun's location on the ecliptic in relation to the current year's date. The ecliptic serves as a useful reference for determining the locations of the Moon, the five planets known to the Greeks, and other celestial bodies whose orbits are similarly near to it. The locations of bodies on the ecliptic were marked by at least two points. The position of the Moon was displayed by a lunar pointer, while the location of the mean Sun and the current date were also provided. The Moon position was the oldest known application of epicyclic gearing(Two gears positioned so that one gear's center spins around the other's center make up an epicyclic gear train, sometimes referred to as a planetary gearset.), and it mimicked the acceleration and deceleration of the Moon's elliptical orbit ra…

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The Exorcism of Anneliese Michel Jun 21, 2022

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Ep. 159 Exorcism Of Annaliese Michel Do you believe in the devil? Demons? Do you think the devil or demons can possess your body? Does that shit creep you out and keep you up at night? Well, if it does… you're gonna love today's episode! If you've ever seen the exorcism of Emily Rose, you'll at least know this story. The movie was based on the subject of today's episode. It's gonna get kinda crazy today as we discuss the exorcism of Annaliese Michel! Some of you may already be familiar with this story, as it's been discussed on other podcasts and continues to be a pretty famous story in the world of exorcisms, demons, and possessions. Annaliese Michel was born on September 21, 1952, in Leiblfing, Bavaria, West Germany. She was born into a very religious Roman Catholic family. She attended Mass twice weekly with her family and was described as "a vibrant, pretty girl on her way to becoming a gorgeous woman. She had shining black hair, an open, honest face, and a stunning smile." Four years before Anneliese was born, her mother, Anna Michel, gave birth to an illegitimate daughter. This was a source of shame for the Catholic family. After she married and gave birth to Anneliese, she apparently harbored feelings of guilt about her first daughter. Unfortunately, Anneliese's older sister died at the age of eight, but Anneliese reportedly felt like she needed to repent for her mother's sin. She supposedly spent much of her time doing penance for her mother, her sinful youth, and evil priests. Sounds like a great childhood. All the crazy shit began in 1968, around the time of her sixteenth birthday when Anneliese had the first of several seizures. She lost consciousness during school and was found by her classmate to be in a trance-like state. Later that night, Anneliese woke up claiming she felt something was pressing down on her. She couldn't move, couldn't breathe or speak, and lost control of her bladder. Although the experience frightened her greatly, when it didn't happen again, she just forgot about it. Then, on August 24, 1969, Anneliese suffered another seizure. When examined by neurologist Dr. Siegfried Luthy, her EEG showed "a normal, physiological alpha-type brain activity." Dr. Luthy later explained to investigators, "I judged from the description I was given that this was probably a case of cerebral seizures of the nocturnal type, with the symptoms of a grand mal epilepsy." Tonic-Clonic seizures, formerly known as grand mal seizures, comprise two stages: a tonic phase and a clonic phase. According to John Hopkins Medicine, episodes may begin with a simple or complex partial attack known as an aura, during which persons may experience sensations such as unusual smells, vertigo, nausea, or anxiety. Or my everyday life. During the tonic phase, persons may lose consciousness and experience bodily and respiratory paralysis as the muscles involuntarily contract. Finally, during the clonic phase, the person's face, arms, and legs spasm and jerk uncontrollably and rapidly. When the body relaxes, the bladder may also release. Got all that? I knew you would, you intelligent bastards. Anneliese's symptoms certainly fit the criteria of a Tonic-Clonic seizure, and there's good reason to believe on at least one occasion, she also experienced aura. One day while praying to the rosary, she related smelling a sweetness "wafting about her like the fragrance of violets" and a euphoric feeling that lasted into the next day. She was found by other girls to be in a trance-like state with her hands rigidly outstretched "like you had a cramp or something. Like when my cat stretches her claws," and her pupils dilated, "I thought they were blue. Now they are all black." After her third seizure, Anneliese began experiencing one of the longest-lasting side effects, continuously filling her with fratzen, which is German for "grimacing faces." Another EEG showed "an irregular alpha pattern with some theta and delta waves, but nothing pathological." By 1973, her friends and family reported her behavior had changed—she was irritable and withdrawn, prone to lashing out in anger. Again, my everyday life. Anneliese fell into a deep and prolonged depression. This depression was severe enough that she contemplated suicide and would later describe it as "This is no longer a depression, this is a condition"; she claimed "someone else is manipulating me" and that "My will is not my own." She mentioned to her psychiatrist that she "could not love sufficiently" that she felt "castrated, ice-cold" and told her boyfriend, "I can't feel any love at all. I am all numb, sort of. I can't feel emotions like that." Anneliese stopped associating with her usual group of friends and became drawn to a group of students considered to be religious zealots. That is not a good sign. One of her childhood friends noted, "After her illness, Anneliese was changed. She was quiet and withdrew from her friends. I also noted that she kept wanting to carry on mostly religious conversations." For her part, Anneliese became convinced of her damnation and began warning others of the world's imminent end. She believed she had personal visions and communed with the Virgin Mary and became particularly drawn to the life of Barbara Weigand, a Catholic mystic and "prophetess." She also claimed to experience visions of the Virgin Mary. In addition to the visual hallucinations, Anneliese also claimed to begin experiencing olfactory hallucinations known as phantosmia: "She started smelling a horrid stench not perceived by others." The nature of this nasty smell changed over time. However, it was later related, "[Anneliese] exuded a stench like Frau Hein had never smelled before, like fecal matter or something burning. Everyone in the bus could smell it." This would seem to indicate that the source of the stench was, in fact, Anneliese herself. Further evidence supports this from a visit from Father Roth to the Michel household: "Herr Michel received me and took me immediately to the living room. It was filled with a horrible stench, of something burning, and of dung, that penetrated everything. Herr Michel expressly called my attention to it and told me that Anneliese had been in the room just before. In the other rooms of the Michel home and on the outside I could detect no trace." The pungent smell was not, however, present all the time. During the criminal investigation in October 1976, Father Hagiber recalled his first meeting with Anneliese and mentioned nothing of an odor. Father Herrmann, who met with Anneliese about ten times from 1973 to 1975, stated, "From her parents I heard that on occasion she evidenced disrespect toward sacred objects and there was a stench of dung or of something burning in the room where she was. However, these symptoms never occurred in my apartment". Likewise, none of Anneliese's doctors, classmates, or teachers ever complained of a foul odor emanating from or percolating around her. Her boyfriend was utterly unaware of her problem with the smell until she mentioned how it plagued her. Based on what Anneliese revealed to her psychiatrist, we know she was intimate with her boyfriend. One might expect he would've noticed something that smelled like burning doo doo. By 1973, she had depression and began hallucinating while praying and complained about hearing voices telling her that she was "damned" and would "rot in hell ."Michel's treatment in a psychiatric hospital did not improve her health, and her depression worsened. Long-term treatment did not help either, and she grew increasingly frustrated with the medical intervention, taking pharmacological drugs for five years. In addition, Michel became intolerant of Christian sacred places and objects, such as the crucifix." In one instance, her family organized a trip to San Damiano to pray for God to intervene. Annaliese said standing on the shrine's soil made her feet burn, and she refused to drink water from its holy spring. As a result, she could not even walk past sacred icons. The priest accompanying them stated: "She [Michel] approached it [the shrine] with the greatest hesitation, then said that the soil burned like fire and she simply could not stand it… She also noted that she could no longer look at medals or pictures of saints; they sparkled so immensely that she could not stand it." Annaliese was put on several medications, but none seemed to help the situation throughout the early 70s. Finally, between the results of her pilgrimage and her increasingly strange behavior, her parents decided to put their faith in the Church. Oh... and an exorcism. Her behavior had deteriorated to the point where she would at times growl, swear, and blaspheme for no god damn reason (see what I did there?) and even urinate on the floor and lick it up. Then, in the spring of 1973, Anneliese began to hear a knocking sound in her room. Dr. Vogt could not find anything wrong with her hearing, so he referred her to a specialist. However, her mother, Anna, began to believe something supernatural was occurring because she and her other daughters could soon hear the same sound, like rapping or thumping in the wardrobe, then above the ceiling and below the floor. In addition, Anneliese was now seeing overtly demonic faces with horns, telling her she would be damned for eternity. Her father, Josef, dismissed these weird-ass happenings as products of hysteria. However, he was disturbed by his wife's account of Anneliese staring at a statue of the Virgin with a malicious expression. Her eyes were black and dilated. Her hands contorted like an animal's paws. On September 3, Anneliese revisited Dr. Lüthy and finally told him of the hideous faces she had been seeing. She also confided that the devil was inside her and that a judgment of fire would come upon everyone. Dr. Lüthy recalled, "She could not get her mind off these things. She had no power of decision, and everything was empty in her." Momma Anna claimed that Dr. Lüthy advised them to see a Jesuit about the demonic faces, but the doctor intensely denied that he had said that shit. It is possible that the doctor made a tongue-in-cheek comment, which he later forgot since Frau Michel was adamant that she had gotten the idea of calling a Jesuit from the doctor. She had never before heard that Jesuits were specialists at exorcisms. Either way, Dr. Lüthy did not think much of the visions since he prescribed only Aolept (periciazine) drops, a medium-intensity anti-psychotic drug for neurosis in children. That shit is mainly sold in Canada, Italy, Russia, and Australia, and you can't even get it in the states. In his words, "It could not be stated with certainty at the time that there was the beginning of a psychotic symptomatology." Despite continued treatment with Dilantin and periciazine, Anneliese's visions did not go away, and the drugs only seemed to make her tired and depressed. The Michels believed that the images were a particular problem from the seizures and now followed Dr. Lüthy's offhand suggestion to see a priest about them. They first sought Father Habiger, pastor of the Mother of God parish in Aschaffenburg, who examined Anneliese and found only an ordinary, shy girl with no signs of possession. He recommended that she see a physician. The end. NOPE! The family was able to contact an elderly Jesuit, Father Adolf Rodewyk in Frankfurt, about Anneliese's case. Father Rodewyk was an expert on possession, having published a book on the subject. Still, he could not travel to Klingenberg and recommended the retired Father Herrmann of the Mother of God parish in Aschaffenburg. You got that, right? Two priests, one Church. Gross. Father Herrmann met with Anneliese ten times in his home and found her a nice, deeply religious girl. He recommended that she see a neurologist, but she protested that she had already seen Dr. Lüthy, who could not help her. Nevertheless, father Herrmann did not observe any sacrilegious behavior by Anneliese; she calmly prayed the rosary with him many times without any demons popping out and burning their poop. In September 1973, Father Herrmann visited Father Ernst Alt of the St. Agatha parish in Aschaffenburg. Father Alt had already heard about Anneliese's case from Thea Hein and had long had a deep interest in the paranormal, having conducted studies of extrasensory perception (ESP). This was not unusual at the time, as even nonreligious researchers took ESP seriously in the 1970s. Still, Father Alt also believed himself to have telepathy, precognition, and even dowsing powers. Evidently, he was a big believer in the paranormal, as well. Fr. Alt offered Mass on behalf of the troubled girl he had yet to meet, and while preparing for the consecration, he had another incredible sensation. "All of a sudden, something hit me in the back, the air turned cold, and at the same time, there was an intense stench as though something was burning. I had to lean against the altar. With great effort and only by dint of considerable concentration was I able to speak the rest of the text. I felt deeply distressed as if a negative force were surrounding me, which, however, aside from vexing me, could inflict no real harm." Mmmhmmm After Mass, Father Alt calmly related this experience to another priest. That night, he was unable to sleep, even with the aid of a sleeping pill. He smelled a variety of stenches, alternating from dung to sewage to something burning. Additionally, he heard a thumping sound in his wardrobe. Finally, after praying to Padre Pio repeatedly, he suddenly smelled an intense fragrance of violets. At that time, he noticed that his "field of vision had been very much narrowed," and his "color perception was reduced," but now his eyesight was restored. The following day, he spoke of his experience to his fellow priests, and suddenly they could all smell a burning stench throughout the parish house, though the windows were open. On July 30, 1975, Peter(boyfriend) visited Anneliese in Klingenberg. They went for a walk, limited by Anneliese's constant exhaustion and sluggish, stiff-limbed gait. However, when Peter suggested they head back home, she was suddenly able to move normally, even gingerly, and she exclaimed happily that she was entirely herself again. The following day they returned to Würzburg, where Anneliese registered for the fall semester. While grocery shopping, however, her face and legs tensed up, yet she did not behave aggressively. When she returned to her room, she stood stiff in front of a crucifix, glaring at it with hatred. Peter later stated: "Her face was totally distorted; she growled like an animal and gritted her teeth so loudly that I was afraid that all her teeth would fall out. I started praying for her in thought, without giving any indication at all of what I was doing. Immediately she ordered me with clenched teeth to stop…" Peter had not been a churchgoing Catholic before meeting Anneliese, much less devout. Nevertheless, he had started going to Mass again for her sake, and now he was squarely facing evidence of the supernatural. For an hour, the recently lucid Anneliese stood transfixed in one spot, strangely bending her upper body away from the crucifix even as her arms reached toward it. She later explained, "I wanted to take the cross in my hand, but against my will I was pushed back, so I couldn't reach it." It appeared that more than one consciousness was living in Anneliese's body. After this episode, Peter said, "fuc…

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Unsolved: The Chicago Tylenol Murders May 31, 2022

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Today on the train we figured we'd go back to the land of unsolved true crime as we like to do, on occasion. So, as with all these unsolved true crime episodes, we like to bring these crimes back into the limelight and bring the stories back into the conversation. Once these stories stop getting talked about any chance of solving them goes by the wayside. This one is a strange one for sure. We're talking a look at what are called the Chicago Tylenol murders. The Chicago Tylenol murders were a series of poisoning deaths resulting from drug tampering in the Chicago metropolitan area in 1982. The victims had all taken Tylenol-branded acetaminophen capsules that had been laced with potassium cyanide. To date, no suspect has been charged or convicted of the poisonings. The incidents led to reforms in the packaging of over-the-counter substances and to federal anti-tampering laws. The actions of Johnson & Johnson to reduce deaths and warn the public of poisoning risks have been widely praised as an exemplary public relations response to such a crisis. There were 7 victims total from the original incident with even more deaths resulting from copycat incidents after the fact. Let's first take a look at the victims. MARY KELLERMAN September 29, 1982 The first victim was 12-year-old Mary Kellerman, a seventh grader at Addams Junior High School in Schaumburg and living in Chicago’s northwest suburbs. She enjoyed horseback riding and earned extra money after school babysitting for neighborhood children. Mary woke up early in the morning hours of September 29, 1982. Feeling ill, she took an Extra Strength Tylenol to help with a runny nose and sore throat. At 7 am, her parents found Mary unconscious on the bathroom floor. Her parents rushed her to the hospital where Mary was pronounced dead by 9:30 am. Her death was first assumed to be a stroke, but the toxicology report and connection to other deaths soon proved it to be a murder. She left behind her parents Dennis and Jeanna M. Kellerman. Mary Kellerman was laid to rest in the Saint Michael The Archangel Catholic Cemetery. ADAM, STANLEY AND THERESA JANUS September 29, 1982 Twenty-seven-year-old Adam Janus was the next person to die after taking Extra Strength Tylenol. He was the father of two young children, and living in Arlington Heights. The day of his death, Adam thought he was coming down with a cold. He stayed home from work that day. On his way home from picking up his children from preschool, he stopped at a Jewel grocery store and purchased a bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol. "After taking several capsules, he walked into his bedroom, collapsed and fell into a coma. He died in the emergency room at Northwest Community Hospital." — SARA OLKON, The Chicago Tribune After the death of Adam Janus, his family gathered at his home to mourn and begin making funeral arrangements. Stanley, Adam's brother, and his wife Theresa (Adam's sister-in-law), were visiting with family when they complained of headaches and looked for a nearby remedy. In Adam's bathroom cabinet, they found the same bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol. Moments after taking the disguised cyanide capsules, Stanley and then Theresa collapsed. Fearing carbon monoxide poisoning, the rest of the Janus family was taken to hospital for observation. They were given their last rites, but did not die. The Januses were survived by Janus parents Tadeusz "Ted" and Alojza Janus, niece Monica Janus, brother Joseph Janus, Theresa's brother Robert Tarasewicz, her mother Helena Tarasewicz, and a host of other bereaved family members and friends. A joint funeral was held for the three Janus family victims on October 5, 1982, with the Archbishop Joseph Bernardun presiding. Adam Janus was laid to rest at Maryhill Catholic Cemetery & Mausoleum in Niles, Cook County, Illinois. Stanley and Theresa Janus were laid to rest at Saints Peter and Paul Cemetery in Naperville, DuPage County, Illinois. MARY REINER September 29, 1982 Mary Reiner was happily married to her husband Ed, and the couple had just welcomed their fourth child into the world. She used Tylenol to relieve symptoms of post-birth discomfort. Like the other victims, Mary Reiner collapsed shortly after taking the fatally disguised dose of cyanide. Mary's daughter, Michelle Rosen, was just eight years old when she witnessed her mother's poisoning, collapse, and death. Mary's husband arrived at the scene shortly after: "I came home right after she had fallen on the floor. An ambulance came [and rushed her to Central DuPage Hospital in Winfield]. I’m not gonna say a whole lot more than that." — Ed Reiner, as quoted by Chicago Magazine "Mary Magdalene Reiner grew up in Villa Park and was "100 percent Irish." Rosen remembers her being a good cook and preparing corned beef and egg noodles for the family. She also loved playing softball, the drums, and bowling." — James Sotonoff, Daily Herald Her death left husband Ed Reiner to mourn, and four children, including an infant son to grow up without a mother. MARY MCFARLAND September 30, 1982 Thirty-year-old Mary McFarland was working at her job at the Illinois Bell in Lombard, when she felt a bad headache coming on. According to her brother Jack Eliason, Mary took Tylenol in the back room of her workplace, and died shortly after. He told the Associated Press: "...she went in the back room and took I don't know how many Tylenol — at least one, obviously — and within minutes she was on the floor." She was a single mother, working and raising two young sons at the time of her death. Her two boys Ryan and Bradley McFarland, now grown, survive Mary McFarland. She was also survived by parents John and Jane Eliason, brother Jack Eliason and sister-in-law Nancy Eliason, and siblings. A granddaughter she never had the chance to meet was named Mary in her honor. PAULA PRINCE October 1, 1982 Paula Jean Prince, 35, was a flight attendant who worked for United Airlines. On the day of her death, she flew from Las Vegas to O'Hare International Airport. She purchased Tylenol from a Walgreens on her way home. An ATM surveillance camera captured the purchase. Exhausted from a long flight, Paula took Tylenol to relieve the symptoms of a cold as she got ready for bed. She was found dead in her apartment, and an open bottle of Tylenol was found on her bathroom counter. While other victims of the Tylenol Scare were from the suburbs of Chicago, Paula was the only victim to live in the city. The deaths of Mary Kellerman, Adam Janus, Stanley Janus, Theresa Janus, Mary Reiner, Mary McFarland and Paula Prince shared many similarities. All turned to Tylenol, a trusted, safe and common over-the-counter drug, to relieve minor ailments, and lost their lives. Their stories are almost universally relatable. Who hasn't taken a Tylenol for quick relief from a headache, cold or other aches and pain? The ordinariness of the circumstances coupled with the heinousness of the crime created a wave of panic in the Chicago metropolitan area. Paula's funeral was held in Omaha at the same time as the Janus family victims, on October 5, 1982. She was laid to rest at Calvary Cemetery in Omaha, Douglas County, Nebraska. She was survived by her father Lloyd Prince, mother Margaret Prince, and siblings Carol Lisle, Margaret Conway and Robert Prince. All of the victim information was taken from an article on beyondthedash.com Next up let's look at the suspects…what few there actually were! First up is James William Lewis. Here is what we know about Lewis as it pertains to this case: Worked as a tax accountant Also known to be a fraudster Handwriting was positively matched to that of two letters sent to Johnson & Johnson and the White House, the Johnson & Johnson letter demanding an end to the poisonings, The White House letter threatening to bomb it and continue the Tylenol poisonings Was at New York City with his wife during the time of the murders, left the Chicago area in the early days of September 1982. Was able to show the authorities how an offender could, hypothetically, tamper Tylenol pills with Cyanide. Claimed he did it for helping out. This is typical of other offenders, such as Ted Bundy An unidentified man seen in a CCTV footage of one of the affected drugstores bears a striking resemblance to him. The man appears to have been watching victim Paula Prince, who is also shown in the footage, buying the tainted pills. Sentenced to 20 years in prison for extortion and letter and credit-card fraud, but served only 13 years of the sentence and was paroled in 1995 In February 2009 his Cambridge, Mass., home was raided by the FBI; agents were seen leaving with boxes of evidence and an Apple computer. In 2010, Lewis, then 63, and his wife, Leann, appeared at a closed hearing at the Middlesex Superior Court Wednesday to determine whether they have to submit to the grand jury's subpoena, which was a request to submit DNA, according to sources close to the case. The judge ordered them to comply with the subpoena and both James and Leann Lewis turned over samples, according to investigators. But Lewis has always maintained his innocence in the actual poisonings of the Tylenol capsules. When asked about the drawings, he has claimed he was only trying to be a "good citizen" by giving authorities detailed sketches depicting how someone might go about injecting cyanide into Tylenol capsules. "I could tell you how Julius Caesar was killed, but that does not mean I was the killer," Lewis told the Chicago Tribune in a 1992 jailhouse interview. Pressed as to why he and his wife would have been subpoenaed for DNA if they are innocent, Lewis declined to comment. According to the Daily Herald in Chicago in in 201⁰0 new scientific technology available to analyze a smudge on one of the original Tylenol bottles could help establish a link between Lewis and the crimes. The paper, quoting an ex-state official involved in the original investigation whose name was not mentioned because he agreed to speak only with a guarantee of anonymity, said that "advances in DNA and fingerprint technology may make the 'smudge' evidence relevant today." In receding to whether all of the evidence collected could've bring about a trial: "The evidence investigators presented to prosecutors so far remains circumstantial, but it could be bolstered by statements from potential witnesses who have declined to sit for interviews, according to sources close to the investigation. So far, however, no decision has been made on whether to give the grand jury a green light. Sources say both state’s attorneys from Cook and DuPage counties have been briefed on the evidence. The investigation, handled by an FBI-led task force of law-enforcement agents, still centers on the same man: James W. Lewis, sources tell the Sun-Times." In a lengthy chronicle of the case for the Reader, Joy Bergmann paints Lewis as a suspicious character… but not, aside from his extortion, necessarily suspicious as the Tylenol killer: Lewis maintained he was a "political prisoner," a "scapegoat," and an "all-purpose monster…fathered by the wild-eyed hyperventilated imaginations of two brutal men, Tyrone Fahner and Daniel K. Webb," who simply "blew" the Tylenol investigation thanks to "bureaucratic blundering incompetence." McGarr had already listened to Dan Webb reiterate Lewis's biography: the violence toward his parents, the mental hospital commitment, the Raymond West murder charge, the Kansas City fraud schemes for which he was convicted in May of 1983 and sentenced to ten years, the fugitive flight, the extortion conviction, the breadboard schematic, the grandiose and quick-to-explode temperament, the innumerable aliases and deceptions. Years later, some still show skepticism towards Lewis as the killer: Superintendent Brzeczek It wasn’t James Lewis. James Lewis was an asshole, an opportunist. He tried to extort some money from Johnson & Johnson, and he went to jail. He was in the joint a long time. When someone is in the penitentiary, you can go and talk to him, with or without his lawyer present. In all those years, all the work on James Lewis to put it together: nothing. Attorney General Fahner Do I think James Lewis was involved? I did, and I do. And the head of the FBI office here at the time—I can’t speak for him, but I think he felt as I did. But we could never put him in the city, in the places, at the right time. August Locallo Lieutenant with the Chicago Police Department I was the top man in violent crimes. [Lewis] had lived in Chicago, and that’s why they zeroed in on my unit. He was in custody in New York, and I was assigned to go to New York to interview him. Basically, the FBI had him in custody, and by the time we got to New York, he had his attorney and he wouldn’t talk to us. That was a futile effort. He’s a con man. Strictly a con man. And he’ll do anything to get to his goal. I really believed he might have killed somebody, but they couldn’t put anything on him. Interesting to say the least. Why would this guy straight up insert himself in the crime for no reason? Did he really think an extortion letter would work? Interesting either way! There were a couple more suspects besides Lewis. Roger Arnold: Roger Arnold was a 48-year-old dock worker. He was overheard saying some “suspicious things” about the Tylenol murders in a bar. While the police were questioning him, they found several connections. He worked at a jewel warehouse with Mary Reiner’s father, Adam Janus bought his Tylenol from a Jewel convenience store, Mary Reiner bought her bottle from a store that is right across from the psychiatric ward where Arnold’s wife was. The officers found “How-to” crime books in Arnold’s home and there was evidence of “chemistry” as well. The evidence of “chemistry” included beakers and other equipment, along with a bag of powder that turned out to be potassium carbonate. Arnold refused to take a polygraph and there was never enough evidence to prosecute him. Arnold went on to have a nervous breakdown from the attention in the media. He blamed everything on a bar owner, Marty Sinclair. In 1983, during the summer, Arnold shot and killed a man named John Stanisha, he thought Stanisha was Sinclair. Roger Arnold received a 30-year sentence for second-degree murder but only served 15 years of it. He died in June of 2008. Laurie Dann: Not much evidence to tie her to the murders but an interesting case with this one. Laurie Dann shot and killed one boy, Nick Corwin, and wounded two girls and three boys in a Winnetka, Illinois elementary school. She then took a family hostage and shot another man, non-fatally, before killing herself. Dann was born in Chicago and grew up in Glencoe, a north suburb of Chicago. She met and married Russell Dann, an executive in an insurance broker firm in September 1982, but the marriage quickly soured as Russell's family noted signs of obsessive-compulsive disorder and strange behavior[2] including leaving trash around the house.[3] She saw a psychiatrist for a short period, who identified her childhood and upbringing as a cause of her problems.[3] Laurie and Russell Dann separated in October 1985.[2] The divorce negotiations were acrimonious, with Laurie claiming that Russell was abusive. In the following months, the police were called to investigate various incidents, including several harassing phone calls made to Russell and his family.[3] In April 1986, Laurie Dann accused Russell of breaking into and vandalizing her parents' house, where she was then living. Shortly after, she purchased a Smith & Wesson Model 19 .357 Magnum, telling the salesman that she needed it for self-defense. The police were concerned about h…

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Man-Eating Animals May 26, 2022

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Ep. 157 Man Eaters Tonight we're gonna talk about something everyone loves, something everyone needs, and something both Moody and myself know quite a bit about…that's right platonic love between two males…wait, wrong podcast… actually it's ……FOOOOOOOD!! I know what you're thinking… "Jon, how is that creepy?" Well let me tell you how it is creepy, it's creepy when humans are on the menu. Today we are talking about man eaters. And no.. Not the Hall and Oates classic. We're talking about animals who put humans on the menu! Throughout time humans have come to be thought of as the top of the food chain. For the most part we are because we have no real natural predators aside from ourselves. But this can change when humans encroach on an animal's territory. There are several reasons animals can attack humans. Not all attacks turn into man eating scenarios but it is important to understand why animals attack. Perceived Threat or Fear Most animals face the threat of predation. To avoid the risk of being injured or killed, animals employ tactics to fool predators – in some cases that’s us, the humans. In the event those strategies fail, their ‘killing’ instinct kicks in and launches attacks. Cape Buffaloes (aka Black Death) is the best example. Cape Buffalo is most aggressive when it has been wounded, or if they detect a threat to the young ones in the herd. Lions could attack humans out of fear to defend themselves when they are approached at close range. For Food When a carnivorous animal attacks a human, wildlife experts often point to the absence of wild prey species. According to a study in the journal Human-Wildlife Interactions, researchers at the Berryman Institute of Utah State University analyzed leopard attacks in and around Binsar Wildlife Sanctuary in India. They concluded that leopards had been forced to kill livestock due to the low population of their natural prey. In certain cases, leopards also become man-eaters. Self-Preservation Sometimes animals attack humans because they have to, or they are forced to. Since the beginning of time, humans have attacked wild animals, caged, or killed them. This left animals with a deep-seated fear of humans, and an increased urge to attack if they feel stressed, anxious, or frightened by our mere presence. Protect Their Young Animals are super protective of their young. The animal kingdom has the most devoted dads like lions, Arctic wolves, gorillas, and golden jackals and moms like elephants who will stop at nothing to rescue their young ones from harm. And that includes driving away or killing humans. New Territories Due to the population explosion, the world needs to build billions of new homes every year. With increased household demands, it’s inevitable that the human race will continue moving into new places. As we do, we become instrumental in deforestation and threaten wildlife. The result – wild animals hunting people who threaten their home. A good example is hippos. They kill more people than any other animal. Most of the hippo attacks are out of fear of losing their territory. The chances of deliberate attacks are high especially when humans get between hippos when they are in the shallows, cut off from the safety of deep water. Humans Don’t Usually Put up a Good Fight Over the years, we humans have effectively removed ourselves from the food chain. This is good in one way because we don’t have to go on hunting parties to get food or fight for territories and survival with other animal species as wildlife. But the downside is that it makes humans easy prey. We’re so unused to being hunted that when things go south, we panic instead of fleeing or fighting and end-up being the prey. Mistaken Identity One of the most common reasons behind shark attacks. They often think we’re food because they can’t really see us very well and differentiate from their natural prey. Surfers are more likely to be in danger zone because the surfboard makes them look like a seal, which is the favorite meal of many shark species. Human Ignorance In most cases, humans get attacked for their own fault. Seeing wildlife up close and taking pictures are fascinating. But there’s a huge difference between keeping a safe distance and approaching them closer for a selfie or video. Unfortunately, many people venturing out for wildlife holidays don’t know that. They simply invade animals’ homes and space and get attacked in return. So those are the main reasons for animal attacks in general…you know…so mostly just fucking leave wild animals alone. Or learn how to fight a bear or wolf or something! So while most attacks don't involve humans being eaten there are many interesting cases of man eaters out there throughout history. The ones that don't involve eating people…. Well we don't care about those…we are here for the gruesome, gory, man eating details! There are many different types of animals that have been reported as man eaters. We are going to go through some of those and some of the cases involving those animals! First up we're gonna look at the big cats! Lions and tigers and leopards and jaguars and cougars…oh my! All have been reported at times to be man eaters. Tiger attacks are an extreme form of human–wildlife conflict which occur for various reasons and have claimed more human lives than attacks by any of the other big cats. The most comprehensive study of deaths due to tiger attacks estimates that at least 373,000 people died due to tiger attacks between 1800 and 2009 averaging about 1800 kills per year, the majority of these attacks occurring in India, Nepal and Southeast Asia. For tigers, most commonly they will become man eaters when they are injured or incapacitated making their normal prey to hard to catch. Man-eating tigers have been a recurrent problem in India, especially in Kumaon, Garhwal and the Sundarbans mangrove swamps of Bengal. There, some healthy tigers have been known to hunt humans. However, there have been mentions of man eaters in old Indian literature, so it appears that after the British occupied India and built roads into forests and brought the tradition of 'shikaar', man eaters became a nightmare come alive. Even though tigers usually avoid elephants, they have been known to jump on an elephant's back and severely injure the “mahout” riding on the elephant's back. A mahout is an elephant rider, trainer, or keeper. Mahouts were used since antiquity for both civilian and military use. Kesri Singh mentioned a case when a fatally wounded tiger attacked and killed the hunter who wounded it while the hunter was on the back of an elephant. Most man-eating tigers are eventually captured, shot or poisoned. During war, tigers may acquire a taste for human flesh from the consumption of corpses which were just laying around, unburied, and go on to attack soldiers; this happened during the Vietnam and Second World Wars. There are some pretty well known tigers that were man eaters. The Champawat Tiger was originally from Nepal where it had managed to kill approximately 200 people starting in 1903 before the Napalese drove her out (without killing her) to the Kumaon region of India in the early 20th century. After the tiger’s arrival, she managed to kill another 234 before an exasperated government called in Jim Corbett. Edward James Corbett was born on July 25, 1875, the son of British colonists in India. He had become a colonel in the British Indian army. Being raised in the valley of Nainital and Kaladhungi region full of natural wonder, he grew up appreciative of wildlife and the need to conserve it. As was typical of early naturalists, he took to hunting and viewed the conservation of wildlife as being more to preserve stock for hunters rather than the preservation of the ecology per se. His skill as a hunter was well-known although this would be the first time he would attempt to take a reputed “man-eater.” The attacks began in the Himalayas of western Nepal in a Rupal village. Despite the stealth of the massive cat, she left a trail of blood that set hunters headlong in pursuit. Yet, the tiger evaded capture and death. Despite the failed first efforts of hunters, the Nepalese Army knew something had to be done. So, they organized a massive patrol, forcing the tiger to abandon her territory. Unfortunately, danger relocated with her. Driven over the river Sarda and the border into India, the move did little to slow her thirst for human flesh. In the Kumaon District, she preyed on countless unprepared villagers. The tigress adjusted her hunting strategy to optimize success while diminishing the risk of containment. By some accounts, she traveled upwards of 20 miles (32 km) per day to make a kill and then avoid capture. She targeted young women and children. They were the ones who most often wandered into the forest to collect firewood, food for livestock, and materials for handicrafts. She only killed during daylight, typical behavior for man-eating tigers. As word got out about the Chapawat tiger’s vicious attacks, daily life drew to a standstill. Hearing the Bengal tigress’s roars from the forest, men refused to leave their huts for work. Just two days before he brought down the “Tiger Queen,” Corbett tracked the beast by following the blood trail of her latest victim. Premka Devi, a 16-year-old girl from the village of Fungar near the city of Champawat. She had disappeared, and villagers and Corbett quickly guessed the girl’s fate. After locating Premka’s remains and confirming her violent death by the tigress, he nearly got ambushed by the big cat herself. Only two hastily fired shots from his rifle managed to scare the cat away. Only then did he recognize the real danger associated with hunting a man-eater. The Bengal tiger felt no fear of humans. The next day, with the help of Chapawat’s tahsildar, Corbett organized a patrol of 300 villagers. Around noon, he finally had the murderer in his sights and made the kill. Life could return to normal. Because of the legacy he gained by saving the residents of Chapawat and its surrounding villages from the big cat, he went on to pursue and kill about a dozen more well-documented man-eaters. When the tiger was finally brought down it was noted that both the top and bottom canines on her right side were broken, the top one on half, and the bottom one broken to the jaw bone. The thought is that this is the thing that caused her to turn into a man eater. She couldn't kill and eat her normal prey, so she went after easier prey in humans. Pussy ass humans. Her final body count is recorded at around 436 people…holy shit! Tiger of Segur The Tiger of Segur was a young man-eating male Bengal tiger. Though originating in the District of Malabar-Wynaad below the south-western face of the Blue Mountains, the tiger would later shift its hunting grounds to Gudalur and between Segur and Anaikutty. It was killed by Kenneth Anderson, who would later note that the tiger had a disability preventing it from hunting its natural prey. His body count was 5. The Tigers of Chowgarh were a pair of man-eating Bengal tigers, consisting of an old tigress and her sub-adult cub, which for over a five-year period killed a reported 64 people in eastern Kumaon over an area spanning 1,500 square miles (3,900 km2). The tigress was attacking humans initially alone, but later she was assisted by her sub-adult cub. The figures however are uncertain, as the natives of the areas the tigers frequented claimed double that number, and they do not take into account victims who survived direct attacks but died subsequently. Both tigers were killed by.... Good ol Jim Corbett. Most recently, the Tigers of Bardia, In 2021, four tigers killed ten people and injured several others in Bardia National Park of Nepal. Three of the tigers were captured and transferred to rescue centers. One of the tigers escaped from its cage and is yet to be captured. The tigers were identified and captured from Gaida Machan on 4 April, from Khata on 18 March and from Geruwa on 17 March. The tigers were found with broken canine teeth, possibly due to fighting between two males. After the capture, one of the tigers escaped from the iron cage and went back to the forest in the Banke district. Two were housed at the rescue facility in Bardia National Park in Thakurdwara and Rambapur. One was transferred to the Central Zoo in Jawalakhel, Kathmandu. How about lions…y'all like lions…maybe not after hearing some of this shit. Man-eating lions have been recorded to actively enter human villages at night as well as during the day to acquire prey. This greater assertiveness usually makes man-eating lions easier to dispatch than tigers. Lions typically become man-eaters for the same reasons as tigers: starvation, old age and illness, though as with tigers, some man-eaters were reportedly in perfect health. The most famous man eating lions would probably be the Tsavo man eaters. The story of the Tsavo lions begins in March 1898, when a team of Indian workers led by British Lt. Col. John Henry Patterson arrived in Kenya to build a bridge over the Tsavo River, as part of the Kenya-Uganda Railway project. The project, it seems, was doomed from the start. As Bruce Patterson (no relation) writes in his book "The Lions of Tsavo," "Few of the men at the railhead knew that the name itself was a warning. Tsavo means 'place of slaughter'" in the local language. That actually referred to killings by the Maasai people, who attacked weaker tribes and took no prisoners, but it was still a bad omen. Lt. Col. Patterson and company had only just arrived when they noticed that one of their men, a porter, had gone missing. A search quickly uncovered his mutilated body. Patterson, fearing that a lion had killed his employee, set out the next day to find the beast. Instead he stumbled upon other corpses, all men who had disappeared from previous expeditions. Almost immediately, a second of Patterson's men disappeared. By April, the count had grown to 17. And this was just the beginning. The killings continued for months as the lions circumvented every fence, barrier and trap erected to keep them out. Hundreds of workers fled the site, putting a stop to bridge construction. Those who remained lived in fear of the night. The violence didn't end until December, when Patterson finally stalked and killed the two lions that he blamed for the killings. It wasn't an easy hunt. The first lion fell on Dec. 9, but it took Patterson nearly three more weeks to deal with the second. By then, Patterson claimed, the lions had killed a total of 135 people from his crew. (The Ugandan Railway Company downplayed the claim, putting the death toll at just 28.) But that wasn't the end of the story. Bruce Patterson, a Field Museum zoologist and curator, spent years studying the lions, as did others. Chemical tests of their hair keratin and bone collagen confirmed that they had eaten human flesh in the few months before they were shot. But the tests revealed something else: one of the lions had eaten 11 people. The other had eaten 24. That put the total at just 35 deaths, far lower than the 135 claimed by Lt. Col. Patterson. I mean…35…135…still fucking crazy Lions' proclivity for man-eating has been systematically examined. American and Tanzanian scientists report that man-eating behavior in rural areas of Tanzania increased greatly from 1990 to 2005. At least 563 villagers were attacked and many eaten over this period. The incidents occurred near Selous National Park in Rufiji District and in Lindi Province near the Mozambican border. While the expansion of villages into bush country is one concern, the authors argue conservation policy must mitigate the danger because in this case, conservation contributes directly to human deaths. Cases in Lindi in which lions seize human…

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What Happened to the Sodder Children? May 17, 2022

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Welcome aboard for another crazy episode! Today on the train we step into a familiar world…or should we say .. Worlds? A couple episodes ago we did some mass disappearances and you know we love some true crime so today we sort of combine the two. You see, for the mass disappearances episode there was one case that kept popping up. Now this was interesting to us because we've had that particular case on our list of shows to do for some time now. We figured this would be a good time to go ahead and finally do it. Today we are talking about the disappearance of the Sodder children. The incident happened on Christmas Eve in 1945 in Fayetteville, West Virginia. George and Jenny Sodder lived with 9 of their 10 children. At the time, the oldest son was off fighting in WW2. The night of the incident, Jennie was awoken three times. First, at 12:30 a.m., she was awoken by a phone call during which she could hear a woman’s voice she didnt recognize asking for a name she didn’t know, as well as glasses clinking in the background. Jennie told the caller she had reached the wrong number, later recalling the woman's "weird laugh". As she did, she noticed that some of the lights were still on and the curtains hadn’t been closed, two things the children normally did when they stayed up later than their parents. Marion had fallen asleep on the living room couch, so Jennie assumed the other children ,who had stayed up later, had gone back up to the attic where they slept. She closed the curtains, turned out the lights, and returned to bed. She then went back to bed only to be startled by a loud bang and a rolling noise on the roof. She soon dozed off again and finally awoke an hour later at around 130, to see the house engulfed in smoke. She found that the room George used for his office was on fire, around the telephone line and fuse box. Those are pretty much the facts that can be proven for the most part. Everything else…well it's strange to say the least. George and Jennie made it out of that fire, as did Sylvia, just a toddler at the time. Also two of their teenage children, Marion and George Jr, made it out. 23 year old John rounded out the kids that made it out alive. Or did he? John said in his first police interview after the fire that he went up to the attic to alert his siblings sleeping there, though he later changed his story to say that he only called up there and did not actually see them. The children remaining inside were Maurice 14 , Martha 12, Louis 9, Jennie 8, and Betty 5. According to accounts, Marion, ran to the neighbors house to call the fire department because their phone was not working. A driver on the nearby road had also seen the flames and called from a nearby tavern; they too were unsuccessful either because they could not reach the operator or because the phone there turned out to be broken. It was Christmas Eve and I’ve read that the police chief sent everyone home to their families. She couldn't get an answer so another neighbor went to find the fire chief and let him know what was happening. While this was going on, George, who climbed an outside wall, barefoot, to get to the attic and Jennie tried desperately to save their other children. This is where some of the strange things happen. First off neither of the Sodders trucks would start, despite having worked perfectly during the previous day.. Then their ladder was found to be mysteriously missing. Because of the family not being able to get help from the neighbor and their trucks oddly not starting when they tried to leave to look for the fire chief, help didn't arrive until 8am, almost 7 hours later. The fire department is just 2 miles from the home. The fire department was low on manpower due to the war and relying on individual firefighters to call each other. Chief F.J. Morris said the next day that the already slow response was further hampered by his inability to drive the fire truck, requiring that he wait until someone who could drive was available. Because he was fucking drunk; partying at a local pub, celebrating Christmas Eve. Oh, and one of the firefighters was Jennie’s brother, their children’s uncle. The fire was initially blamed on faulty wiring, even though the Sodders claim there had never been any kind of issues with the electrical wiring before. In fact, A visitor to the house, seeking work, went around to the back of the house and warned George that a pair of fuse boxes would "cause a fire someday." George was puzzled by the observation, since he had just had the house rewired when an electric stove was installed, and the local electric company had said afterwards it was safe. During the investigation something happened that makes this case the crazy thing that we are talking about. 5 of the Sodder children allegedly perished in the fire but the body's were never found. The fire chief told them the fire had cremated the bodies. Jennie asked a crematorium worker if that was possible, the worker told Jennie that bones remain even after bodies are burned at 2,000 degrees for two hours. The Sodder home only took 45 minutes to burn to the ground. So we did a little fact checking about this and there is a lot of argument about whether a house fire can burn bones to ash, but, it seems like those who have degrees and a bunch of letters after their name all agree that a house fire typically will not burn hot enough to get rid of bones. Also another thing we found is that even during cremations bones do not actually turn to dust. In fact after being incinerated at usually between 1800-2000°f, for about 2 hours, the bones are the only thing left. Now, the bones are not the same, granted, as with all the heat, it destroys the structure of the bone but does not turn it to ash. The ashes you receive are actually the bones of the deceased that have been put into what is essentially a big mixer, to pulverize them into dust. So enjoy that thought. At any rate, due to what the experts said, the family did not believe that the other children simply burned up in the fire. They believed something else happened to the kids. But what else could have happened? What else would lead one to think something possibly nefarious happened? Well according to some reports, some strange things happened in the lead up to the fire. One strange thing that happened was that in the months before the fire a "ominous drifter, hinted at doom '' We're assuming it was like Friday the 13th…the guy just points and goes…you're all dooooooomed, doomed! Whatever happened it sounds funny. A few weeks earlier, not too far out from the incident, an angry insurance salesman berated George, telling him that his house was going to go up in smoke and his children would be destroyed as a retaliation for his criticisms of Mussolini in the mostly Italian immigrant community. Actually he said "the dirty remarks you have been making about Mussolini." If it was a sales tactic, it definitely needs work, otherwise, it's oddly specific! Also a bus driver came forward and spoke of how she saw "fireballs" being thrown into the roof of the house, could that be the noise she heard? In the weeks before Christmas that year, George's older sons had also noticed a strange car parked along the main highway through town, its occupants watching the younger Sodder children as they returned from school. What about the man who cut off the telephone lines at the Sodder residence? Someone witnessed him taking away a block and tackle used to remove car engines during the fire. He admitted to the theft but answered that he had no part in starting the fire; he had just wanted to cut off the power lines but instead clipped the telephone line. He was let go, and no records exist identifying him or questioning why he wanted to cut lines to steal a block and tackle. Then on top of that you have the incidents on the night of the fire. There was the phone call and then the noise on the roof and she woke up to smoke in the house. Put all that together, and one could see where people may start to form some theories that this was more than just a tragic house fire. You know we love a good conspiracy theory as much as the next folks…well at least Moody does. Not only that, sightings of the children started almost immediately. For starters, locals reported seeing the 5 children in a car that was driving past and watching the fire. Then the next morning a woman operating a truck stop claimed she saw the children come in for breakfast with 4 Italian speaking adults. Once pictures began to circulate, more sightings came in. a woman said that she saw four of the children (where was the fifth?) in the company of four adults at a hotel in South Carolina. Which could lend credence to the truck stop story, which also mentioned 4 adults. Armed with all these facts, George and Jennie went back to the police and demanded to have the fire further investigated. But the police refused, claiming that the coroner’s inquiry determined that no crime had been committed. This is when George and Jennie decided they would continue the search on their own. George would constantly go and dig through the rubble trying to find something. At one point his searching seemed to find the first evidence of the children. He found what appeared to be an internal organ and also some small pieces of bone. They were sent for testing and the tests revealed that the "organ" was a cow's liver, and that the bones were from someone older than any of the missing children. The small bone fragments that were unearthed were determined to have been human vertebrae. The bone fragments were sent to Marshall T. Newman, a specialist at the Smithsonian Institution. They were confirmed to be lumbar vertebrae, all from the same person. "Since the transverse recesses are fused, the age of this individual at death should have been 16 or 17 years", Newman's report said. "The top limit of age should be about 22 since the centra, which normally fuse at 23, are still unfused". Thus, given this age range, it was not very likely that these bones were from any of the five missing children, since the oldest, Maurice, had been 14 at the time (although the report allowed that vertebrae of a boy his age sometimes were advanced enough to appear to be at the lower end of the range). Also the bones show no sign of being affected in any way by the fire. It was speculated that the bone fragments were mixed in with some dirt brought in to help fill in the basement. Later, Tinsley supposedly confirmed that the bone fragments had come from a cemetery in nearby Mount Hope, but could not explain why they had been taken from there or how they came to be at the fire site. The Smithsonian returned the bone fragments to George in September 1949, according to its records; their current location is unknown. As far as the liver, it is said that a private investigator found out that the liver was put there by the fire chief at some point in hopes the family would find it and accept the idea that the kids perished in the fire. George sometimes made his own sightings. On one occasion, George saw a magazine photo of a group of young ballet dancers in New York City, one of whom looked like his missing daughter Betty. He drove all the way to the girl's school, where his repeated demands to see the girl himself were refused. The investigation and its findings attracted national attention, and the West Virginia Legislature held two hearings on the case in 1950. Afterwards, however, Governor Okey L. Patteson and state police superintendent W.E. Burchett told the Sodders the case was "hopeless" and closed it at the state level. The FBI decided it had jurisdiction as a possible interstate kidnapping, but dropped the case after two years of following fruitless leads. After this second official investigation ended, George and Jennie continued their search. George followed up on many leads on his own including heading to St Louis where a woman claimed Martha was being held in a convent but nothing came of that. Another woman in Texas claimed that she overheard two other patrons making incriminating remarks about a fire that happened on Christmas Eve in West Virginia several years before. Again nothing here proved significant. At one point George heard that a relative of Jennies who lived in Florida had children that looked exactly like his had. He went down there to check it out and only when the relative was able to prove the children were his that George would leave it alone. In 1967, George went to the Houston area to investigate another tip. A woman there had written to the family, saying that Louis had revealed his true identity to her one night after having too much to drink. She believed that he and Maurice were both living in Texas somewhere. However, George and his son-in-law, Grover Paxton, were unable to speak with her. Police there were able to help them find the two men she had indicated, but they denied being the missing sons. Paxton said years later that doubts about that denial lingered in George's mind for the rest of his life. That same year the family would receive something pretty crazy. A photo showed up in the mail one day. The photo showed a man that appeared to be around his early 30s with strikingly similar features as their son Louis had had. Written on the back of the photo was this: Louis Sodder I love brother Frankie Ilil boys A90132 or 35 Interesting…. Very interesting. The photo was in an envelope postmarked central city Kentucky. There was no return address. The Sodders hired a private detective to go to Central city and try and track down where this letter came from and follow this lead. The private detective headed to Central city and guess what he fucking found….. well no one will ever know because after he left he was never heard from again. He never reported back to the Sodders and they were unable to ever locate him. Did he disappear with their money or was he made to sleep with the fishes? Unfortunately, this took a pretty heavy toll on George. He said in an interview the following year that the lack of information had been "like hitting a rock wall—we can't go any further". "Time is running out for us", he admitted in another interview around that time. "But we only want to know. If they did die in the fire, we want to be convinced. Otherwise, we want to know what happened to them". George would pass a year later in 1969 believing that his children were never killed in that fire and they were still out there someplace. After this the rest of the family would continue to search and publicize the case. The only one that would not get involved was John. John believed that the family should accept what happened and all move on with their lives. Jennie stayed in the family home and built a fence around it and added rooms. She wore black for the mourning for the rest of her life and tended the garden at the site of the former house. These are basically the facts as we know them. Since there's not much in the way of actual forensic evidence in this case, there's no way of telling for sure what happened as far as the children's bodies being burned. Obviously the investigation was quick, taking only 2 hours, and there wasn't a ton of forensic detective work back then. Plus DNA testing wasn't a thing. And just in general investigating wasn't generally as thorough as it is these days. The surviving Sodder children, joined by their own children, along with older Fayetteville residents, have theorized that the Sicilian Mafia was trying to extort money from George and the children may have been taken by someone who knew about the planned arson and said they would be safe if they left the house. They were possibly taken back to Italy. If the…

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Creepy Portugal May 10, 2022

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Become a Patreon supporter at www.themidnighttrainpodcast.com This week we're taking the train across the pond for another creepy adventure. That's right, we are doing one of our creepy episodes! It's been a while so we figured it was time. This week we are headed to what some people say is one of the top scariest countries in the world! Not only that…we know we have some awesome listeners here. This week we are headed to creepy Portugal! We are gonna try our best to find the coolest, creepiest places for you guys. I'm just going to assume there's going to be a bridge in here someplace. So without further Ado.. Let's fucking rock and roll!!! So first up we're gonna do a little history lesson. Will keep it somewhat sorry and sweet since if we got into the complete history of a country of the age of Portugal, it would be an entire episode on its own. To get there history of this country we went to the source, portugal.com and an article written by Goncarlo Costa. The history of Portugal starts many ages ago, when the so-called Iberian tribes inhabited the territory of today’s Portugal. Then, in the beginning of the first millennium BC, Celtic tribes invaded and intermarried with the local Iberians, creating what is now known as the Celtiberians. The Lusitanians, who inhabited the interior region of Portugal since the Iron Age, are considered the forefathers of the Portuguese nation. This is why today we have names like Lusophone, someone who speaks Portuguese, or Luso-American, a Portuguese American person. They were known for successfully fending off the Roman armies until the death of their leader, Viriathus, known as a hero in Portugal. The tribe was considered a worthy adversary by the Romans, so much that they named the province of the whole territory of modern Portugal (south of the Douro River) and part of western Spain after them. The Romans left various works, such as baths, temples, bridges, roads, theaters and statues; some of them are still found in different parts of the country. This lasted until the Barbarian invasions, when Germanic tribes migrated to various parts of the Roman Empire. In Portugal, the territory became controlled by the Germanic in the 5th century. The Kingdom of the Suebi controlled Galicia and the North and Center of Portugal, while the Visigothic Kingdom controlled the rest of the Iberian Peninsula, including the rest of Portugal, until eventually conquering the Suebi and, consequently, the whole of Iberia. This is when the rigid class structure appeared in the country, with a Nobility and Clergy getting more and more political and social power. In the 8th century, the Islamic Umayyad Caliphate invaded the Iberian Peninsula from the North of Africa. Al-Andalus, the Islamic name for the Peninsula, became a part of the Caliphate, and Portugal with it. The Portuguese kept lots of things from their Muslim past, like many of their words, architecture and the famous ‘azulejos’. The Christians held on in the North of the Peninsula, creating the Kingdom of the Asturias. This was until the Reconquista, when they reconquered the lands from the Moors, the Muslims. In this Kingdom, at the end of the 9th century, a county based in the now north of Portugal was established, the County of Portugal. The county grew in power and, at the end of the 11th century, a Burgundian knight named Henry, who was fighting in the Reconquista, was crowned as ‘Count of Portugal’ and merged it with the County of Coimbra. Henry’s son, Afonso Henriques, proclaimed himself King of Portugal in 1139 with Guimarães as its capital. This city remains known until this day as the “Cradle of the Nation’ by the Portuguese. However, it was only in 1179 that a papal bull officially recognized Afonso I as king. The Reconquista continued with the Algarve, the south of the country, finally being conquered in 1249, and Lisbon becoming the capital in 1255. Since then, Portugal’s land borders have remained almost unchanged, being considered one of the longest standing borders in Europe. The Kingdom of Portugal remained very important in Europe’s (and especially Iberian) politics, waging several wars against Spain, creating an alliance with England (the longest standing alliance in the world, lasting until today) and starting the “Age of Discovery”. In this Age, the country built a vast empire, having territory all over the world, from South America to Oceania. They started by exploring their coast and adventuring into the Moroccan coast, hoping to continue the Reconquista to the North of Africa. Then, the Portuguese sailors started to adventure into the open sea, when they discovered the islands of the Canaries, Madeira, Azores and Cape Verde. Subsequently, the Portuguese explored the coast of Africa, setting trading ports, and tried to discover the maritime route to India, which they did in 1498, under the explorer Vasco da Gama. They continued to explore and look for trade around the world, from Africa, passing through Arabia, and reaching Japan, setting several outposts, many of them having developed into colonies later on. In 1500, they reached South America and started the colonization of Brazil. The Empire started to decline, however, when the Dutch, English, and French got in the game. They started to surround or conquer the scattered Portuguese trading posts and territories, diminishing their power. On the Battle of Alcácer-Quibir, in 1578, Portugal lost its king, becoming part of a dynastic union with Spain that lasted until 1640, when it finally gained its independence again. After that, the country never became the great power it once was. It lost several colonies (including its largest one, Brazil) and trade routes, it saw its capital being destroyed by an earthquake in 1755 and it was occupied during the Napoleonic Wars. From then on, Portugal was a minor power in Europe, having just some colonies in Africa and Asia and never becoming an economic powerhouse. Then, in 1910, due to corruption, dissatisfaction with the several Kings and the loss of claimed African lands to the English, the monarchy ended and a Republic was created. Fiercely secular, to the point where it was antichurch, filed with corruption, government instability and near to bankruptcy, the regime came to an end with a military coup in 1926. A military dictatorship was installed and then, a fascist-like regime, the ‘Estado Novo’ (‘New State’), headed by António de Oliveira Salazar. This period was marked by authoritarianism, lack of freedom and, from 1961, by the Portuguese Colonial War. All of this ended when, in April 25th 1974, the Carnation Revolution happened, carried out by the Armed Forces Movement (Movimento das Forças Armadas – MFA), a movement of young left-leaning captains of the Portuguese Armed Forces. With the Revolution, democratic reforms were made and the first free elections with multiple parties happened, as well as the independence of all of Portugal’s colonies. It also started the PREC (Processo Revolucionário Em Curso – Ongoing Revolutionary Process), a period when conservative and left-leaning forces inside the MFA confronted each other, marked by political turmoil, violence, instability, and the nationalization and expropriation of private lands. It came to an end on the 25 November 1975, when the MFA moderates appeared as the main force. Nevertheless, revolutionary achievements were not forgotten, with the Constitution pledging until this day to realize socialism, as well as declaring extensive nationalizations and land seizures as irreversible, many, however, now overturned. Nowadays, Portugal is one of 15 most sustainable states in the world and considered the third most peaceful. It has high living standards and a good economy. It was a founding member of NATO, the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and the Community of Portuguese Language Countries. It entered the European Economic Community (now the European Union) in 1986 and is one of its fiercest supporters, even having produced a European Commission President. Ok so that's a brief…incredibly brief mini history of Portugal. Really the take aways are…super old, plenty of things happened to make the place creepy over that many years. So let's see what creepy stuff Portugal has to offer! What better way to start than with a sanatorium! Valongo Sanatorium to be exact. The construction of the Mont'Alto Sanatorium began in 1932. Due to the appearance of a large number of people who had contracted tuberculosis, there was a need to expand the facilities, and these expansion works were completed in 1958. construction of these hospital units were carried out in high altitude places, due to the purity of the air, and also because they were away from the populations to avoid the effects of contagion. The sanatorium only operated for a short period, having been inaugurated in 1958 and closed in 1975, after which it entered a profound state of disrepair. Due to its dimensions, it is considered one of the most imposing buildings of its type in Portugal.Its building is large, with an area of approximately 88,000 m², having been built with a view to housing about 300 patients. The building was designed by the architect José Júlio de Brito , who was also responsible for other prominent structures in the city of Porto, such as the Coliseu or Teatro Rivoli . The sanatorium complex, which occupied nine hectares, also included a school, a laundry room, a water reservoir, and a chapel dedicated to Our Lady of the Sick. The installation of the Sanatorium in Valongo was part of a phase in the history of health in Portugal, during which the government undertook the construction of several specialized establishments to combat tuberculosis, a disease that was ravaging the country at the time. This period began in 1899, with the foundation of the National Institute of Assistance to Tuberculosis, which began the construction of several sanatoriums in different parts of the national territory. In 1930, efforts against tuberculosis were renewed in the north of the country, with the creation of the Assistance to Tuberculosis of Northern Portugal by António Elísio Lopes Rodrigues, and at that time, planning began to build a sanatorium that would house the sick in that region, who had lower economic resources. Serra de Santa Justa was chosen, where the air was healthier, in addition to being isolated from urban centers, in order to reduce the risk of contagion. Shortly after, the Sá family donated a plot of land in Serra de Santa Justa, allowing the construction of the building, whose works began in 1932. However, the works were suspended due to lack of funding, having been resumed due to the support of the local populations. On July 5, 1940, ATNP began building the Casa de Nossa Senhora da Conceição, to support the children of the sanatorium's patients. According to the Diário Popular of 3 January 1956, the finishing works and equipping of the sanatorium were already under way, and it was expected to be completed during the following year, and that it would have a capacity for 350 beds. However, the works were only completed in 1958. Another reason for the delay in the work may have been the opposition by the Companhia das Minas de São Pedro da Cova to the construction of the building, because it was being installed inside an area destined for coal mining, a few kilometers away from the mines. However, at the time of the sanatorium's inauguration, mining was already entering its final phase, ending up closing in 1970. Some of the users of the hospital were the mine workers themselves, who suffered from occupational diseases such as tuberculosis and silicosis . The Sanatorium of Monte Alto was inaugurated on 1 November 1958, being the last one to be opened in Portugal. The inauguration ceremony included a religious service at the Chapel of Nossa Senhora dos Enfermos, the unveiling of a commemorative tombstone, a tribute to the League of Combatants of theFirst World War, and concluded with a port of honor offered by the board of directors. of the sanatorium. During the ceremony, the admission and accommodation process of the first clients, all veterans of the First World War, was also carried out. Although it was planned for three hundred patients, its initial capacity was only fifty beds, and during its operation it accommodated 350 people. In the early 1970s, there began to be greater control over the tuberculosis disease, which began to be fought in a different way, through the outpatient system. In this way, the sanatoriums ceased to be useful, and were progressively abandoned or underwent a process of readaptation for other purposes. In the case of the Montalto Sanatorium, the closure process began in 1972, due to the low number of tuberculosis patients in the Porto District. At that time, the building already had only a few patients, having been thought of its adaptation as a psychiatric hospital or for the returnees from overseas, which did not advance. Due to the process of closing the Sanatorium, Casa Nossa Senhora da Conceição ceased to function as a boarding school, starting to support only external students. The building was abandoned after the April 25 Revolution , when the last employee left, although it was only officially closed in 1975. Following its closure, it was completely looted, being a of the main reasons its connection to the Estado Novo, as it was mostly built and used during that regime. This connection to the Estado Novo also had a negative impact on the collection of funds, making it impossible to carry out works on the building. It was also used as a training ground by firefighters and civil protection, who performed drills there and destroyed some walls. Later, the sanatorium was used for paintball games and photo shoots, and various ceremonies related to the supernatural, such as rituals, were also performed there. The building was also hit by several fires, accentuating its degradation. History is awesome and fun and you know we love it but…. The reason we're here is for creepiness! There are stories abound of how haunted this place is. Given the numerous people who died there it makes sense to us! So what kind of stuff are we talking about here ? Well, let's look. Well paranormal investigators have been spending time here for years, when there's no paintball matches going on, to try and find crazy shit! There have been numerous reports of strange noises and things moving around. There have been entities seen and apparitions spotted. It's hard to find much in English so finding pages from Portuguese websites and trying to find studies was tough but we managed to find one study where a group of friends were exploring the abandoned hospital and had some interesting things happen. They talked about how they started hearing strange noises while they were exploring. The noises seemed to be following them around the building. They talked about how they had a heavy feeling around them as they explored. The sounds seemed to keep getting closer to them. They claim that things started getting knocked over and moved on their own. At one point, one of the group claimed they saw a shadowy figure seemingly watching them. At that point they all decided it was time to go! Sounds like a pretty crazy experience! True or not? We like to think so! Can't go and episode without fucking tuberculosis… Teatro Lethes: The building that today is called Teatro Lethes, began as a Jesuit College – Colégio de Santiago Maior, founded by the then Bishop of the Algarve, D. Fernando Martins Mascarenhas -, whose license was granted to them on 8 February 1599. of learning, above all of a religious nature – the “first university in the Algarve”, as someone has called it. In 1759, the Society of Jesus was banned from the country and it…

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Unexplained Mass Disappearances. Where’d They Go? May 03, 2022

Show notes

Ep. 154 Unexplained Mass Disappearances Today we're talking about unsolved stuff…but in a different way. We're talking about unexplained mass disappearances. How can large numbers of people just disappear without a trace? Where'd they go? Why'd they go? Did somebody make them leave? Bigfoot again? Aliens? Supernatural? Chainsaw? We may never know….but that won't stop us from discussing, speculating, and inevitably making really bad jokes on today's episode. So all aboard bitches let's roll! Let us begin back…back…waaaaay back in 1918. We're talking about the USS Cyclops. Aside from having a great name, it fits the bill on mass disappearances. USS Cyclops (AC-4) was the second of four Proteus-class colliers built for the United States Navy several years before World War I. A collier is a fancy name for a big ass coal cargo ship. The USS Langley, the first aircraft carrier in the US Navy, was a converted collier. This was actually the second ship to bear the name Cyclops. She had been swimming around hauling coal and helping refugees between the Baltic sea, the Bahamas, and Mexico since 1910. In 1917 she was covered to help haul troops and coal all over the world during WW1. In March 1918, the ship was given a new cargo: tons and tons of dense manganese ore, used in steelmaking. She left Brazil loaded up with the brittle metal, then voyaged to Barbados to resupply for the long journey home to Baltimore. That's where things get interesting. On the journey home something went wrong and the ship was never heard from again. Not even an sos. The last known transmission from the Cyclops was "weather fair, all well" at the beginning of the trip home. When the ship did not reach Baltimore a massive search was undertaken. Every naval ship from Cuba to Puerto Rico was sent out to search for debris. At the time, given it was during the war, the general consensus was that she was sunk by the Germans. But during the search, ships could not find any debris field that would be evident if it was torpedoed. In fact no one found anything…anything at all. It seemed the ship just disappeared. 306 people were just… gone. It remains to this day, the single largest loss of life in the history of the United States Navy that did not directly involve combat! Wow that's pretty crazy. So what exactly happened? Well there are theories abound my friends! First there is a mini conspiracy theory that the captain sabotaged the ship or even took it all the way to Germany! Why, you ask? Well let us tell you. It is said that the crew was unhappy with the captain. You see, Captain Worley was hated by his staff and officers and was accused of being pro German. It was discovered later that Worley was actually German born and had changed his name at some point. It's not known why he changed his name. On top of that, the US Consulate General of Rio, named Gottschalk, boarded the ship with 73 other local sailors. Gottschalk was very popular with the German community in Brazil. Couple this with the fact that upon leaving Brazil, the ship was said to have been overloaded and people began to speculate. They say that Worley and Gottschalk purposely sabotaged the ship in some way to favor the Germans back home. Either that or the thought is that they essentially stole the crew and cargo and headed back to Germany. Seems plausible, until you try and figure how a few men could have forced 300 men to go back to Germany. There are several theories of the ship being struck by a rogue wave or breaking up at sea. One sailor reported when they reached Rio, that on the way, the deck of the ship would sway when the ship was struck with large waves. He says the ship was showing signs of structural failure. Could that have been the issue? If so…where was the debris? Another theory was that the ship was overloaded and ran into a storm in which the unstable ship overturned and sank to the bottom of the ocean. Again…why no debris though? For a BBC Radio 4 documentary, Tom Mangold had an expert from Lloyds investigate the loss of the Cyclops. The expert noted that manganese ore, being much denser than coal, had room to move within the holds even when fully laden, the hatch covers were canvas, and that when wet, the ore can become a slurry. As such, the load could shift and cause the ship to list. Listing is caused by the off-centerline distribution of weight aboard due to uneven loading or to flooding. By contrast, roll is the dynamic movement from side to side caused by waves. If a listing ship goes beyond the point where a righting moment will keep it afloat, it will capsize and potentially sink. Combined with a possible loss of power from its one engine, it could fill with water and go down in bad weather. Then there's our personal favorite…the Bermuda triangle just straight fucked it up and aliens took it. That's right passengers…this happened in the infamous Bermuda triangle!!! So of course there are numerous theories involving the Bermuda triangle and supernatural goings on. Most of these Bermuda triangle theories involve either aliens coming down and abducting the ship and crew, or aliens under the ocean coming up and claiming the ship for themselves. We here at the train, well at least Moody, think that this is the most plausible explanation of course. So what do you guys think? Aliens?.... Yea it was aliens… Ok so up next we’re heading up to the great white north. For those of you who don't know…that's Canada.. You know America's hat. Anyway.. we're looking at the lake Anjikuni incident. The telling of this mystery was taken from mysterioustrip.com. Anjikuni Lake is located deep in the Kivallig area of rural Nunavut in Canada. Placed near the Kazan River, the lake is perfect for fishing and trout. Anjikuni fastly became a home for the Inuit tribe; it developed soon into a colony and became popular almost instantly on a cold November day in 1930. Joe Labelle, a Canadian fur trapper, was more than an efficient individual who spent a lot of time doing outdoor activities. He was very familiar with the area; he knew that the people established a community. Joe was acquainted with the Inuit stories of wood ghosts that were reportedly harmful, and this remote part was soaked in the tales of the Wendigo. Labelle generally didn’t have any fear or anxiety; however, this specific night at the lake became different. The full moon was casting a spooky luminosity all over the village, and no one was moving. The Huskies that were usually loud with the influx of travelers were quiet as well. The only sound he could hear was of his own steps made on the snow and the concave reverb of his greeting. He quickly understood something was not normal, and he started investigating as soon as he entered the village. The village was in complete silence, and he could see no one. No noise of conversation or laughter was detected. What’s worse was the complete lack of smoke originating from chimneys that denoted the presence of living beings. Joe noticed a fire at a distance and went towards it to inspect; the fire seemed to be burning for a significant amount of time. Upon further investigation, he found that someone started their supper preparations; however, they didn’t finish making it. LaBelle continued towards the village, ready to bump into someone who could tell her what was really happening here. Joe, stepping out of his uncontrollable feelings, began an investigation into the Inuit’s homes to search for any clues related to the silence and made a sudden and quick decision to leave the village. He found that several homes were well-stocked with food and weapons; he further found a burnt meal in another house. In one spot, he found a repair of a junior sealskin that was yet to be finished. Sadly, he couldn’t conclude anything. As there wasn’t any conclusive answer concerning what took place, it must certainly have been an unexpected event that spread widely and involved all 30 men, women & children in the village. Food, clothing, and weapons were left behind. But Why? There was no answer More investigation directed him to a pair of findings that was enough to give him goosebumps. To the extent that he was able to tell, whatever happened, had happened recently. He examined the entire village and found no new traces in the snow apart from his own. The most ghastly discovery he made was of the dogs. Seven of them had starved to death. This evidence was enough to persuade him to head to the nearest telegraph office located farther away. That would mean that Joe had to overlook basic requirements such as shelter and food; however, he was in a hurry to leave the place and seek assistance. As beaten and frostbitten as Labelle was, he finally stumbled into the telegraph office. In a few minutes, he sent an emergency message to the nearest RCMP (Royal Canadian Mounted Police) camp. By the time the Mounties reached, many hours later, Labelle had calmed himself enough to talk about his distressing stories. According to 1984’s article – The world’s most significant UFO mysteries, written by Roger Boar and Nigel Blundell– the Mounties, when on their way to the Angikuni Lake mystery, took a bit of time to rest at a shack alongside a trapper and his two sons. They explained to the trapper and his sons that they are heading towards Anjikuni Lake to solve a ‘problem.’ The Mounties asked the trapper if he had seen anything strange these past few days. Upon asking this question, the trapper was compelled to admit that he and his two sons had noticed an eerie luminous object flying all over the sky a few days ago. He further stated that he had seen giant, gleaming ‘flying objects’ changing shape right before their eyes. And this object was flying towards the village at Anjikuni lake. So did this event even happen? Or was LaBelle making it up. According to skeptoid.com( see we look at both sides equally) here are a number of things about the Joe Labelle story that raise red flags. For one thing, it happened in November, when average temperatures are 13°C degrees below freezing. Angikuni Lake is a sheet of ice; kayaks pulled up on the beach would not be "battered by wave action". The very presence of kayaks so far inland is suspect, though not impossible. Migratory Inuit would often park their kayaks to hunt caribou. These eastern Iglulik kayaks were made of sealskin stretched over willow branches. But the small Angikuni Lake is landlocked so far inland on the Barrens that neither willow nor sealskin were available, and this would be, by far, the farthest inland that the historical use of Iglulik kayaks would have ever been documented. Not impossible, but highly suspect. Labelle described a permanent settlement, a "friendly little Eskimo village" of "about thirty inhabitants" that he'd known "for many years". A statement from the Mounted Police says "A village with such a large population would not have existed in such a remote area of the Northwest Territories." They had left sealskin garments behind, in a region where there was caribou hide rather than sealskin; and as a trapper Labelle should have been able to identify it properly. So there was either a series of quite improbable circumstances, or Labelle was wrong. Today, no physical evidence exists of a village at Angikuni Lake, and nobody has ever published an account of going up there and clearing away any remnants. So we have to rely on documentary evidence to find the true history of the vanishing village. So with all the contradictory evidence what is real and what isn't. Was there a group of Inuits that completely disappeared or was it a tall tale? Could it be a combination of both and the truth is somewhere in the middle? Who knows…either way…crazy story! Next up we head to Brazil and the village of Hoer Verde! We got the following info mostly from coolinterestingstuff.com. The Mysterious legend of Hoer Verde, the town with 600 inhabitants that vanished, is certainly confusing and troubling. The case will cause you to ask questions, questions like “how can anything like that ever happen with absolutely no evidence to suggest anything unusual had happened?” Like so many legends from the area, information on Hoer Verde is difficult to track down. But what information is accessible is not only disturbing, but incredibly perplexing. As visitors to the village entered the small town they were immediately struck by how dead everything was. Unlike other villages of six hundred no one was walking through the streets. Hanging signs waved in the gentle wind creaking noisily juxtaposed with the uneasy footsteps and subdued whispers of those passing through. As they passed by local houses and looked in the windows it was evident immediately that something wasn’t right. No one was anywhere to be seen. The police were called, and investigators descended on the town to look through the village. As they came to the town’s school they found a gun, which they took to be forensically examined. And then the investigators looked to the blackboard on which the words, “There is no salvation” were written. After a cursory examination, they realized that it had been fired the day before, but by whom they were unsure. A manhunt ensued for the 600 villagers in the small town. Despite this, no trace of any of the locals was ever unearthed. As newspaper reports of the town’s disappearance reached the west it was considered a curiosity, but with the shifting political climate of Brazil in 1923 it was considered possible that the town had evacuated to avoid conflict with guerrillas. Another mysterious element is the original language of the phrase “There is no salvation.” Though the phrase has been largely translated into English, the phrase holds little significance in English or Portuguese. However, if the words had been “Illic est haud salus.” in Latin or some variation of it, this could have been related to the phrase “Extra Ecclesiam nulla salus” which is a Catholic phrase meaning “Outside the Church there is no salvation.” If this was the case in a largely Catholic area, the lesson could have been a religious lesson which was interrupted by some unknown force, but with no specific significance itself. So what happened…we don't know…but you know there are some crazy theories!! Let’s start with the most bizarre theory that is floating around. This theory states the 600 residents of Hoer Verde were swallowed by a black hole taking them all to a fourth dimension. yes…that's a theory. Along those lines there's the inevitable alien abduction talk. Could aliens have really come down and abducted 600 people? We like to think so but who knows. The next theory people point to is the political landscape in Brazil leading to soldiers or revolutionaries forcing all the villagers to evacuate. The only thing is the villagers disappeared in 1923. There was no civil war going on at the time, as is sometimes referred to with the legend. Also the revolution didn't occur until 1930 and another occurred in 1932. In neither case was a village of 600 reported to be wiped out or relocated. And then there’s the issues of the names of the towns, one town is completely nameless in the legend while Hoer Verde is a rather strange name for a village or town in Brazil, for one Verde translates to green from Portuguese to English but Hoer is not a word in Portuguese. It seems to be a Dutch word that is a derogatory word for sex workers. Second, the legend states the town has been forgotten to time but one source we found says they were able to find multiple lists of towns and villages dating back to the 16th century for Brazil. No name comes close to Hoer Verde except for Ouro Preto, which translates to black gold and the history for it goes back to 1698. So this story is pretty crazy huh. Well turns out it…

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The Nantiinaq; Portlock, Alaska and Other Ghost Towns Apr 27, 2022

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Portlock Alaska & Other haunted ghost towns Today we're talking about a ghost town in Alaska that is rumored to have been abandoned because of…. Wait for it….a killer bigfoot!! dun dun duuuuuuuuuuun!!! We're going to look at Portlock Alaska and after that maybe take a look at other haunted and creepy ghost towns! History of Portlock: As per wikipedia Portlock is a ghost town in the U.S. state of Alaska, located on the southern edge of the Kenai Peninsula, around 16 miles south of Seldovia. It is located in Port Chatham bay, after which an adjacent community takes its namesake. Named after Nathaniel Portlock, Portlock was established in the Kenai Peninsula in the early-twentieth century as a cannery, particularly for salmon. It is thought to have been named after Captain Nathaniel Portlock, a British ship captain who sailed there in 1786. In 1921, a United States Post Office opened in the town. The population largely consisted of Russian-Aleuts, indigenous people of the Aleutian Islands. Both the Aleut people and the islands are divided between the US state of Alaska and the Russian administrative division of Kamchatka Krai. In the early 1900s there were a series of deaths and disappearances in the town. Many people started to blame this on a killer cryptid! It is said that this big bad beast is the reason behind the town being abandoned and left to become a legend. Nantiinaq: First off let's talk about the cryptid that is believed to be the cause of all of this mess. Nantinaq is a large Bigfoot-like creature that is believed to be a key factor in the abandonment of the Alaskan fishing village Portlock. Elders from the nearby town of Nanwalek have kept oral traditions of the creature alive since Portlock’s abandonment in 1950. Stories differentiate Nantinaq from the North American Sasquatch or Bigfoot through its abilities, which many believe to be supernatural and evil in nature. The earliest descriptions and accounts of Nantinaq can be traced back to European expedition logs in the 1700’s. When Native Alaskans began inhabiting the Portlock area stories and encounters with a mysterious creature began occurring with increasing regularity. In the early 20th century, as Portlock’s population grew, local and national sources began to record unexplained occurrences in the area. An abnormally high number of disappearances, catastrophes, and deaths eventually lead to village elders to move the population to nearby Nanwalek. The physical characteristics of Nantinaq are typically described to be similar to the North American Sasquatch. Eye witnesses and historians describe the creature as being upwards of 8 feet tall and being covered in dark fur. Sharp claws capable of ripping mammals with ease have also been identified. Despite the creatures imposing physical characteristics, many locals identify Nantinaq more through its invisible traits. Strange illnesses, smells and noises have all been recorded in the Portlock area with no known explanation. This has led many locals and elders to believe Nantinaq is spiritual in nature. The craziness: Even before Portlock had even existed there had long been sinister stories told by the Natives of the area. They had long told of a creature stalking the wildernesses of the region, which they referred to as a Nantiinaq, roughly translating to “half man- half beast.” The Natives were apparently terrified of these creatures, and would avoid any area in which they were known to lurk. At first Portlock seemed safe, but whether the Nantiinaq had anything to do with it or not, strange things began happening in and around the area, not long after its settlement. In 1900, a group of hair-covered creatures ran at a prospector who had climbed a tree in an attempt to get his bearings near Thomas Bay. The prospector said they were, “the most hideous creatures. I couldn’t call them anything but devils…” The prospector, upon seeing the creatures advancing on him, was able to drop down out of the tree, get to his canoe and make his escape in the nick of time. He had no doubt in his mind that, had he not seen the creatures when he did, they would have made short work of him. Another bizarre incident allegedly happened in as early as 1905, just a few years after the cannery had opened. At this time, many of the workers at the cannery suddenly stopped coming to work and refused to come back, but this wasn’t due to poor pay or working conditions, but rather because the men were deeply spooked. They claimed that there was “something in the woods,” commonly reported by the men as being large dark shapes that would stare at them from the tree line at the shore and sometimes display menacing behavior. The workers were eventually convinced to come back the following season, but this was not the end of the town’s problems. In the 1920s and 30s there were several mysterious deaths in the area that seemed to have been caused by something very large and powerful. The first was a local hunter by the name of Albert Petka, who was out hunting with his dogs in the 1920s when he came across a massive hairy creature that materialized from the trees to strike him in the chest, sending him flying. Petka’s dogs allegedly managed to chase the beast off, and when rescuers arrived he explained what had happened, before dying from his wounds later. Natives at the time saw this as a bad sign, believing it to be evidence that a Nantiinaq had come to haunt the area. Rumors like this persisted for years, only further perpetuated by stories of miners, loggers, hunters, or cannery workers finding huge tracks in the woods, or of seeing fleeting large dark shapes and sometimes hearing eerie howls at night. Making it even more ominous is that there were some reports from frightened Natives that there was a ghostly entity in the area as well, which took the form of a woman wearing a long black dress and who would appear at the top of the cliffs near town to scream and moan before vanishing. Brian Weed is the co-founder of a group called Juneau's Hidden History that primarily keeps track of things through their Facebook page. He has traveled all over Juneau and many other Alaskan towns in search of natural history and stories. His group plans frequent hikes in the area to places that have some sort of story to tell or just to see the natural beauty of the state. He related another story of a mysterious death. "A logger was out working and something or someone hit him over the head with a huge piece of logging equipment, something that one man couldn't have lifted. When they found his body, there was blood on the equipment and there was no way that one person could have done it. He was a good ten feet from the logging equipment, so it's not like he slipped, fell, and hit his head. It looked more like someone picked it up and bonked him over the head." In 1940 it was reported that a search party had been sent out to look for one such missing hunter, which would claim that they had come across his body in a creek, mutilated and torn apart in a way not consistent with a bear attack. Other bodies would reportedly be found as well, apparently washed down from the mountains into a nearby lagoon, with others still discovered washed up on the shores of Port Chatham, all of them ripped apart and maimed as if by some immensely powerful animal. At the time there were so many people turning up in that lagoon dead that it began to truly freak out the locals, to the point that they spent much time cowering indoors away from those creepy ass woods. By the 1950s, locals were sick and tired of living in fear so they completely fled the town and left it abandoned. Years later when hunters returned, it is said that they reported seeing 18-inch long human-like footprints with patterns similar to a deer or wolf. Former Portlock resident Malania Helen Kehl was interviewed by Naomi Klouda of the Homer Tribune back in October of 2009 and said things in Portlock started out well enough but degenerated to such a point that the family left their home and fled to Nanwalek.The family had endured the murder of Malania’s godfather, Andrew Kamluck in 1931. Kamluck was the logger who was killed when someone, or something, hit him over the head. "We left our houses and the school and started all new here (Nanwalek),” said Kehl. Port Graham elder, Simeon Kvasnikoff told of the unexplained disappearance of a gold miner near the village during this time. “He went up there one time and never came back,” said Kvasnikoff. “No one found any sign of him.” Another interesting aspect of the Portlock story was relayed to Klouda by an Anchorage paramedic who preferred to remain anonymous. “In 1990, while I was working as a paramedic in Anchorage, we got called out on an alarm for a man having a heart attack at the state jail in Eagle River. He was a Native man in his 70s, and after I got him stabilized with IVs, O2 and cardiac drugs, my partner and I began to transport him to the Native Hospital in Anchorage.” En route to the hospital, the paramedic and the Native man, an “Aleut'' from Port Graham, talked about hunting. The paramedic had been to DogFish Bay and was once stuck there due to bad weather. “This old man sat up on the gurney and grabbed me by the front of my shirt. He got right up to my face and said, ‘Did it bother you?’ Well, with that question, the hair just stood up on the back of my head. I said, ‘Yes.’ “Did you see it?” was his next question. I said, “No, did you see it?” He said “No, but my brother seen it. It chased him.” Ok so that's pretty jacked up….a killer bigfoot! That's one hell of a story. The town had been abandoned ever since and sightings continue to this day. In fact there is a TV series about this place called Alaskan Killer Bigfoot! The series followed a 40 day expedition to the area to try and see if they can get to the bottom of all the mystery! Moody hasn't watched it yet but I'm sure he'll get high and binge it soon. So on the side of fairness we do have to disclose an interview we found. The interview was with a woman named Sally Ash. Sally is Sugpiaq of Russian-Aleut descent. She has lived in Nanwalek for most of her life and continues to speak her native language Sugt’stun. Her mother was born in Dogfish Bay, near Port Chatham. “Our people were nomadic, went by the seasons, whatever was in season they would move from one place to another. They went through Port Chatham, Dogfish Bay, Seldovia, Homer, even to Kodiak.” "Portlock was kind of a creepy place,” she admitted. “They’d tell us don’t go out on a foggy day. That’s when he’s walking around. You could run into him and you never know what he might do.” The ‘he’ that she is talking about is their local form of Sasquatch, known as Nantiinaq. Nantiinaq pronounced ‘non-tee-nuck,’ is not your typical, everyday Sasquatch brute. Nantiinaq is more of a supernatural being. “I think he is part-human,” Sally describes. “He lived with people and then didn’t want to be around them anymore so he moved to the forest; away from everybody. He started growing hair and he looked like a bigfoot — scary… My uncles, my grandfathers, they all talked about him. They’d tell us they live far away from people. They don’t mix with people.” “My brother went up to the lake. He was tying off his skiff. He started smelling something really bad in the bushes, so he opened it, moving the branches. Something’s going on here. Then he looked in there and there was a man with his hands — in the back way (turned around). It looked like a man, but he was all hairy and he looked really scary. So he and our cousin took off running and didn’t want to be up there. He wasn’t sure if it was a bigfoot, but there was a horrible smell,” she said. “I think it’s a he; he has been living for a long time,” Sally says. “He’s old, he’s tall, he’s strong, he’s hairy. It lives in the woods and you can tell when he’s getting near. You can smell him. My mom used to talk about it a lot. She’d tell stories of the bigfoot, like in Dogfish area, her and her brother would talk about how bigfoot was around. They were getting too close to him and they would be nice to him. Respect him. Keep distance. They live with him but not so close. He moved around — he was quick.” Sally served as translator for her cousin, Malania Kehl during her historic interview for the Homer Tribune in 2009, that has since taken the bigfoot-believing world by storm. Malania told the reporter that the entire town evacuated Port Chatham in 1949 due to this murderous Nantiinaq. Her story has been perceived as being factual by authors, documentarians, and bigfoot buffs. Buuuuuuuuttttttt….. “My cousin Malania was being interviewed and we were sitting with her,” Sally recalls. “Malania kind of made up a story, because she was getting tired of people asking if this (story) is true. She made up this story about how Bigfoot was killing people. It wasn’t true. Everybody knows that, but it was not our place to say nothing. We all knew but we couldn’t just stop her. We were brought up in a way where we can’t tell our elders they are wrong.” "And that was her story,” Sally giggles… “we knew it. There was me and my sisters and my cousins and we all just sat there. We couldn’t tell her, ‘Don’t say that Malania,’ because she might get mad at us. We were younger than her and we were not allowed in front of her to say anything like that… Malania knew that we knew about her story that she made up and we all had a laugh about it with her.” Sally said the reason for the exodus from Port Chatham was more practical in nature. “People would see Nantiinaq, but that wasn’t the reason why people moved this way to Seldovia and Nanwalek. They moved because of the economy, schools and the church. There really was no killing of people.” Well…that's disappointing…but we here at The train are gonna stick to the fact that there's a killer bigfoot to blame! Wow so that's fun! But you know what…it's not enough. We strive to bring you the best in podcast entertainment here so we're going to do some of our patented quick hitters and throw in some more crazy ghost towns for ya! Let's roll! First up we’re off to Italy. The ghost town of Craco to be more specific. Craco is a ghost town and comune in the province of Matera, in the southern Italian region of Basilicata. Haunted, surreal and moving, it’s not surprising that the Craco ghost town and the beautiful surrounding landscape was chosen as the setting for several movies such as Mel Gibson’s The Passion of the Christ and 007 Quantum of Solace. The first written evidence of the town's existence shows that it was under the possession of a bishop named Arnaldo in 1060 A.D. The town's oldest building, the tall Torre Normanna, predates the bishop's documented ownership by 20 years. From 1154 to 1168, after the archbishop, the nobleman Eberto controlled the town, establishing Feudalistic rule, and then ownership passed onto Roberto di Pietrapertos in 1179. A university was established in the 13th century and the population kept growing, reaching 2,590 in the year 1561. By this time, the construction of four large plazas was completed. Craco had its first substantial landslide in 1600, but life went on, and the monastery of St. Peter went up in 1630. Then, another tragedy hit. In 1656, the Black Death began to spread. Hundreds died and the population dipped. But Craco wasn't down for the count quite yet. In 1799, the town successfully overthrew the feudal system — only to then fall to Napoleonic occupation. In 1815, a still-growing Craco was divided into two separate districts. After Italy's unification in the mid-19th century, the controversial gangster and folk hero Carmine Crocco briefly conquered the village. Mother Nature had more in store for Craco. Poor agricultural conditions caused a severe famin…

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