Monthly Spooky | Spontaneous Combustion, Haunted Funeral Homes, and Killer Squirrels

0:00 Swarms of bees are terrorizing New York City citizens who believes in ghosts and why the creepier sign to running a mortuary and of course bursting into flames for no reason. Get comfortable, turn off the lights. It's Monthly Spooky. Well, hello, my spookies, it is indeed that time of the month. It's it's time for a little monthly spooky.

0:45 I'm of course you're a host, Enrique Kuto here with my good buddy and co host here on Monthly Spooky, Michelle, Michelle, how are you? I don't know, I'm whatever. That's fair. I should have asked it easier question. I'm sorry, Yeah, you al started this? Yeah I opened too intense. Yeah yeah, ask me like a math problem. Well, well tell I see I I want to ask a math problem. But immediately I know that I won't know the answer to the questions. So it's not like fair, you know, just.

1:29 Yeah, because I could just say something. Yeah, you just say a number that that sounds right, and I would be right, or I would be like yay. It's like, uh, what was There was a comedian who used to do a joke that said my friend was my friend is an idiot? Savant idiot. So you could take a jar of toothpicks and throw him on the floor, and he could tell you exactly how many are down on the ground, and he's always wrong. That's how That's how I feel most of my life. Yeah, me too. No, no, I don't think I'm right. No, no, fair, fair enough. So but we're back yet again, and I think, according to my count, we've done thirty seven episodes of Monthly Spooky. That sounds like a lot, it, does it?

2:16 No, not really. Oh. Sometimes I like to look at like the aggregate number of minutes I've podcasted and imagine, like a NonStop marathon, like how many days could somebody be subjected to just listening to me speak? And then how much money would the federal government's intelligence agency pay me to use that as a torture method. Yeah, I wish. I'm always looking for a new ways to monetize content, you know, I'm just I'm very savvy like that. Yeah. So, but it is. We're heading into August, we're heading into the latter half of the summer, and it has been a very hot summer. I don't know if you noticed.

3:07 I mean, there was there was that time when we had that really really intense heat wave, but then since then it's been pretty pretty normal ish here. We really haven't been We've been in the eighties until today. So we had we had the same, like a heat wave that was just freaking brutal, But we've been hanging in the mid in the low nineties for several days in a row, so it's just been it's yeah, it's just been stewy outside. I don't know another word for it. So it's been it's been really warm. My electric bill was the scariest part of my whole month wow, running at ac My my electric bill was really high after that that month, with the heat wave and everything.

3:51 I wish I knew what you meant by really high. Uh it was like two hundred and twenty dollars. That's really high. Yeah, So on top of us having a heat wave, are what do you call it? The cost of electricity? Like the contract ended and now it's gone up slightly as well. Oh yeah I have to you know, I have mine ending in August. I have to switch again. Yeah. I already re upped that, but I need to re up my natural gas. I felt like I'm not in a hurry since I've got a while before I'll be using much of it at all. All I use it on is heating my water right now, So it's pretty consistent, Bill. But yeah, so on top of all that, it's that, and we do have a second building now running AC right, although that second building is small and we generally keep it at like seventy eight degrees or seventy nine degrees. It's not like super chilly in there.

4:47 But I like to keep my house pretty cool. Really. One of the reasons the AC runs so high is this podcast fault. I know, because my office gets way warmer than the rest of the house, and then when I have to close the door and put up the sound dampening, it gets so warm in here that I end up needing to keep the house as a whole pretty damn cold to get this room to stay like below seventy five or seventy six. That's why my favorite time of year to podcast is the winter, because then it's the opposite. I turn the heat way down because the one room I'm in is nice and toasty. Yeah, it's pretty nice. It honestly feels like a hack. When I'm the only person home. It's like I'll be like, I'm just gonna turn the dial the sixty two. Also, there's no dial, this is not the past, but I'll like put it to sixty two because the office will be like sixty six or sixty seven if I've been podcasting for hours in here. So it's the smallest room in the house is my studio office space, so it's always stayed really warm anyway. Yeah, but then there's also like, you know, computers and and me. I just generate a lot of heat.

5:57 People really do though, in general. Yeah scary. Oh yeah, no, we really really do. Yeah. So yeah, I've I've seen like like when I've worked event spaces that are really large, you'll come in and be like, oh my god, I'm freezing death. I'm like, oh, we're just getting ready for when the four hundred people come in, and then sure enough, Yeah, the temperature balances once four hundred people are standing in there. Gross. What we're just generators? Gross? Gross? I mean you're generating heat right now. I know. Gross. I'm sorry. I'm sorry that there's nothing you can do about it. Well, speaking of heat, this month's topic is going to be spontaneous human combustion.

6:49 No, I'm scared of that you are, Yeah, what is there to be afraid of? I don't know, going on fire spontaneously? Yeah, yeah, I mean that part does sound awful. I mean, have you seen the photos, like the terrifying photos of like just feet. No, I don't look at that stuff. No, that's good. You're smart. Yeah, I guess you could just like stop, drop and roll. It's except it's supposedly coming from inside you, not outside. You just pat it out. Well, if it makes you feel any better. Most people are skeptical of its existence. Yeah, I do know that.

7:30 Yeah, But but there's a whole thing and I will get into it more when we dive in deep. But there's a whole thing about how human fat, all fat liquifies when it gets really hot, renders, and once it renders, it becomes insanely flammable. Uh huh. So we're basically just giant walking candles with anxiety. Yeah. Yeah, I mean some of us will burn longer than others. I would burn substantially longer than you. But you know, nobody's perfect. It's not that big of a deal though, because you're gonna die of smoke inhalation before you burn to death. That's true. It just leaves a really bizarre scene because it could potentially burn hot enough to burn your bones to ash.

8:16 That's not great. Possibly, well, it's better than at the cemetery, the or the crematoriums where they just burn you for like forty five minutes and then grind you up. They're like, ah, it's good enough, just grind up the rest, meal it out. So we're gonna talk about that. But before we talk about the the hot and balmy the topic, we'll have some spooky news, including an update on the death Cap mushroom situation. Unfortunately, there's we don't have everything really. Yeah, we'll get into all of that right after this. Now, as we return, I think it's about time we do not only our usual coverage of the news, but for the second time ever on the program, a news update.

9:15 Yeah. Yeah, so I guess it's time. Do you want to you want to take the honors? I usually always get to do it. You want to do it? I thought you really liked to do it. I mean, I enjoy it, but but that's part of friendship, is I like to share things I enjoy. Oh, do you want me to do it? Yeah? Do it? We're going to do that thing with you do the news stuff, and it's kind of spooky sometime. All right, next time I'll write you some cards. Uh, it's it's time for the spooky news. The spooky news. So this is an update about the Aaron Patterson court hearing about death cap mushrooms. This was published on July seventh, so after our last episode published and last time we were on the show, so two times before we covered a ton about this. Then we covered the court trial, but unfortunately they hadn't reached a verdict yet because they'd only had five days to figure out how obviously that this woman murdered people with mushrooms. But this is from NPR.

10:29 I figure we could go through this and it'll give us a little bit of a refresher and then let us know how things went in the court hearing. Of course, the headline spoils most of that. The headline is an Australian woman is found guilty of murdering her in laws by toxic mushrooms. I don't know how I would have felt if it had turned out that, if they had been like, she's not guilty. Yeah, there's so many ridiculous elements to this I think when this is all done, I'm gonna do like a super long, terrifying and true and like run down all of the ridiculous stuff. You should. Yeah.

11:09 After nearly two years and a nine week trial, wow, nine weeks, wow, a jury found Aaron Patterson guilty in the murder and attempted murder of her estranged husband's elderly relatives, three of whom died after eating her home cooked meal containing poisonous mushrooms. Yeah, and she didn't really get sick at all. She went to lostpo was like, my stomach feels off, and then I was like, anyway, I'm gonna go home. Everybody else is dying. The fifty year old mother of two is facing life in prison and will be sentenced later. That's the thing. Hopefully, hopefully she'll be sentenced by next month. I don't know why it's taking so long, so but hopefully.

12:00 Oh. I don't know how that works. And you only have a sentencing trial when it's when it's possible that they're going to kill you. And also that's in America, so I have no idea. Oh no, uh yeah, they do it different. I know she could be facing life and you can like in America, you can appeal a sentence, you know so, And I'm sure you can there too. But yeah, it's just it's just this has taken so long. I want the resolution. Yeah, yeah, me too. In July of twenty twenty three, I shouldn't be complaining. We're getting so much content out of this, but still, Patterson hosted four guests, her husband's parents, aunt, and uncle, for lunch at her home in the small town of Leon Gotha. I can never say. I don't know how I say Leon Gotha. It's Leon and then Gava, Leon Gava, Yeah, about eighty five miles from Melbourne. It is undisputed that she served them individual portions of homemade beef wellington. That alone is questionable because usually you don't make individual portions of beef wellington. She claimed she couldn't find steaks big enough or something a steak dish wrapped in pastry, usually with a paste of finely chopped mushrooms, and as Patterson herself testified during the trial, that paste contained death cap mushrooms, which are among the most poisonous in the world. All

13:33 four guests were hospitalized with gastro intestinal symptoms the following day, and three of them died the following week from altered liver function and multiple organ failure due to Amita mushroom poisoning. The sole survivor recovered after weeks and intensive care and went on to testify at Patterson's trial in Victoria State Supreme Court. Wow, that had to go all the way to the State Supreme Court too. I like how they mentioned that like four guests, well, five people supposedly ate the food. M see why I can't believe that it took like a nine week trial. Yeah, supposedly five people ate the food, and magically the one, the person who cooked it, had zero ailment at all.

14:19 She could have said something like, well, I was I've been training to to, like, you know, do that thing where I'm not. It can't build an immunity, yeah. To them for a really tolerance. Yeah, so I ate it and I was basically okay. But it's weird that that's what I was doing. But you know, the trial, which lasted far longer than it's expected six weeks. I think six weeks is a long time. Yeah, featured over fifty witnesses. Wow. Eight days of Patterson's testimony, So eight days of jail, just her wow and a series of twist and turns.

15:06 The main question facing the jury did no shit? Did Patterson knowingly put deathcap mushrooms in the dish with the intention of killing her guests? That was the main I thought the main question would be, like, is a beef Wellington an appropriate meal for a lunch? That's what the jury's deliberating about. Like a backup part of it that they also rolled on. That's why it took so long. Prosecutors argued that she did so on purpose, citing financial tensions between her and her estranged husband, but stopping short of offering a motive. Patterson, who pleaded not guilty to three counts of murder and one count of attempted murder, denied that poisonings were deliberate. Throughout the trial, Patterson's lawyers argued that some foraged mushrooms made it into the dish by accident, and said she later covered up her actions, including lying to investigators about things like four jing for mushrooms, owning a food dehydrator, and becoming ill herself after the meal out of fear after her guest's deaths.

16:07 Yeah, that's yeah. The fact that she never got ill. That should negate everything like that should make it way worse that she admits, like I must have I had foraged mushrooms. I had lied about it. It's like, but why did you never get ill? Why did you not eat any of it? Maybe she did, but she only got the parts of the mushroom that were okay, like she was it was just magic. Yeah, yeah, but the luck of the puree. Yeah yeah yeah. In the days before the jury members entered sequestered deliberations, Justice Christopher Beale warned that Patterson's lies did not inherently prove her guilt. Okay, I mean, I mean she was literally misleading an investigation.

16:57 And also fuck in like she she's like, oh, I forged mushrooms and maybe it just made it in there. It's like, yo, so you were just so you who knows about mushrooms, were just keeping death cab mushrooms in your cabinet, Like. No, you wow, you got you got real jersey in that one. Sorry, no, no, no, it's good, you're just getting passionate. I guess no, you're right though, Well, she's claiming that she just had foraged mushrooms, that some of them must have been death caps. But she'd no, because she's a mushroom forger like it. No, yeah, no, yeah. I know, I'm with you. I agree her argument is the problem. Yeah. The judge was quoted as saying, even if you think that the alleged incriminating conduct she admits engaging and makes her look guilty, that does not necessarily mean that she is guilty, he said, But the jury was convinced of her guilt. Yeah, so, man, like, I don't want to run through the whole thing again because we covered it pretty at length last time. Yeah, but definitely if you didn't listen last month, check it out.

18:07 We've talked at length about this, but we will bring up again well next monthly spooky hopefully when she's been sentenced. Will we'll put a cap on all of this. Very nice, Thank you. Well, when we get back, we're going to talk about something happening on our side of the ocean, as apparently a kind of plague is hitting New York City right now, right after this, all right, so we're heading to your ancestral homeland.

18:53 Yeah except no, not. Yeah, well not exactly, but of New York City. This articles from the New York Post, and I hadn't heard about this at all. I don't know if ed you heard about this the stories from June, Why are there bees? Bee swarms buzzing through New York City and what to do if you see one? I have not heard about this. No. Well, first of all, the article starts with bee warned boom. Hordes of bees have been flocking to planters, trash bins, and even bicycles around Midtown Manhattan this season, according to multiple social media posts and videos capturing the quote biblical swarms. I hadn't heard about this at all.

19:43 And they're showing there's pictures of like city bikes covered in bees. Oh wow, that's a lot of bees. That's a lot of bees. Yeah, look at that, all those bees. They look so happy. Actually they're probably not happy if they're swarming. Oh actually, probably not happy if they have to pay the kind of rent that's in New York City. Oh yeah, they're like, ah, hell that was my desktop background. Enjoy so uh quote It's a fascinating and terrifying experience, said Nick Rosack, head bee keeper at the nonprofit Bee University New York City and Staten Island chapter president of the New York be Club. Imagine how exciting for a moment.

20:34 Imagine how exciting that would be. Sorry to be the head beat keeper and of of the and of the Staten Island Chapter and Staten Island Chapter president of the New York BE Club like and like, imagine exciting. This situation is really exciting. Yeah, Like you spend most of your life, I assume alone, if you're that interested in bees, and then all of a sudden, like the New York Post calls you goes, uh, hey there are bees swarming all over New York. You're like, oh, yes, my opinion, it's valuable. Like I just I just imagine, Like if I were the Staten Island Chapter president of the New York BE Club, I'd be like at the grocery store and somebody like, excuse me, where is the detergent? And then when I turned and they saw like I had like New York BE Club on my shirt, they'd be like, oh, never mind, it's like walk away. Nobody wants to hear my opinion. Finally, I don't mean any mean to Nick Brozak.

21:39 He look, I've known some people who study bugs, and they usually have a pretty good sense of humor about how weird it is to be really into insects. So I hope if I know, Nick listens to the show, so I hope he doesn't take it personal. I just think it's it just sounds funny to think, like there's a there's a Staten Island chapter of the New York be Club, that there is a New York Bee Club. So then for New York City to be like attacked by swarms of bees, it's like they finally arrived. Like part of me thinks like they'd get the call and then like they would look around the room and then like a little keypad would come out of their desk and they'd be like be pressing buttons and like a door would open with all these like weapons and be suits and stuff. They like, this is why we were founded in seventeen fourteen. They knew this day would come.

22:25 It's just funny that there's a bee club. Now. This makes me wonder if is there a Dayton, Ohio b Club. I'm sure there is, because there's because beekeeping is a profession. I don't so we don't have a bee club, but we have the Greater Dayton bee Keepers Okay, so yeah, which are a part of the Ohio State Beekeepers Association, so pretty much the same thing, except better, right, probably. I actually don't know, I know, I mean, I know I'm allergic to bees, but I don't know if we have like great bees here. I know I've had Ohio honey and it's pretty good. Okay, I like bees. They're outside.

23:07 What about when they get inside? Though they don't really get inside. The wasps get inside, and that's scary. Yeah. Yeah, I'm very very allergic to wasps. I have cans of wasp killer basically under every sink in my house. I'm sorry because if if I see a wasp, it's me or them, I know, because they're so aggressive. When I see a bee, I just I'm fine. I just I just like mine my own business and and they're fine with it. But if I see a wasp, I'm like, I need to kill this wasp and I need to find the nest and kill the nest right now. Like they are a danger to me. Yeah, and I will treat them as such. I'm going to join I'm going to start the Ohio Wasp Club infiltrate it.

24:00 Did you know that there's an they make an they make like a thing that you can take from wasp venom to get yourself less allergic. To wasps, like anti venom not I. Mean anti venom, I believe is like something you would give afterwards. This is like this is like the this is like kind of like allergy shots. I'm curious, now there are there are allergy shots. It's called venom immunotherapy. Yeah, that's it. Yeah. Yeah. There are people who just go around and they take down the wasps and then they freeze them and then they bring them to this place in somewhere on the East coast. I can't Oregon. That's not the East coast at all.

24:44 I was wondering after you mentioned that. I was like, hey, I never thought about, like why isn't that a more popular option for people with allergies? Like why was it never brought up to me. That's because it takes three to five years to have the effects of immunotherapy from it. Okay, I mean, I know that's a long time, but you'd still get it. That's a really long time to commit to something. To commit to something that would help you significantly. I mean, if we're gonna follow the statistics, I should just stop eating red meat and go for a jog every day. Okay, I mean, if that's what you want. I was just gonna. I was just trying to make you not get killed by wasps things.

25:25 But whatever, Well, my secret weapon is I kill them first. Yeah, it's all good until you're just like outside and you step down and you get you get stung by a wasp. I wear shoes. I also wear shoes, but one of them went in my sandal. I wear shoes. I don't wear sandals. And well when when I wear crocs, it's okay because wasps are very snobby and they've often said they would never be caught dead wearing crocs, So I have no problem there. Okay, fine, this this escalated quickly. Quote. You're standing there and there's twenty or thirty thousand bees in a tornado flying through midtown Manhattan. It's definitely going to make people pay attention.

26:13 More than two hundred species of bees, called gothams trees, light poles, and buildings home, according to the city's Health Department, and much like their human counterparts, summer serves as a peak time for them to find a new home and food sources, resulting in swarms. Wow, there's a video. I don't think you'd be able to see it very well from there. But it's like, just they're swarmingly crazy. Yeah, I care all over the bus and stuff. Yeah, it's kind of had to see him because they're so small. Yeah, a colony of thousands of bees may form a swarm when it is time to leave their hive and form a new one, according to the city website, adding that bee swarms may land on a quote stationary object in the process. Okay, but Rozac asserts the bees aren't setting up a new home on bicycles or traffic lights, and worker bees are just quote hanging out and waiting for further instructions, while scout bees are actively looking for more hospitable spots for a permanent hive. I don't know if I believe what Big Bee is telling us about this right now. I think this is a scheme to get us to buy more immunotherapy and be stuff.

27:28 I mean, considering no one brought that up. At all yet. The article's not over. Oh fine, yeah, but we're gonna take a quick break and then we're gonna get to the bottom of this obvious conspiracy theory right after this all right, now, we're back talking about the swarms of bees in New York. I still can't believe I didn't hear. About this because I don't think this was really a big deal. Like, it doesn't sound like a big deal. It sounds like there was like three people on TikTok who saw some bees, and then New York Post was like, I don't know, let's just do a story about the bees because that's like them.

28:11 That's like them. And as we've learned, almost all news is based on a TikTok going, not even going that viral bit like the TikTok which now has seven hundred and fifty thousand views. It's like that's not even that many. Yeah, I mean for TikTok. Yeah. Dramatic videos of Midtown swarms this season were first reported last month near West thirty eighth Street and seventh Avenue, while others have since been spotted near Radio City Music Hall on sixth Avenue. While Nick while Nick wholefly, hmm, I don't know if I trust somebody with a name like that. Certified master beekeeper and New York Bee Club Administration director told The Post that swarming behavior is quote very regular for bees. He noted that midtown swarming is to see due to a lack of greenery. I just want to say, this reminds me of years ago we read that news story saying that, like, sharks won't bite your feet, so just go in the ocean with your feet, And it felt very obvious that the sharks had written that article.

29:16 Yeah. All I'm saying is this man has a vested interest in bees. Yeah, but he would have. I know, I don't know. He's here to protect us for sure. Yeah. Lies. A surge in Manhattan's corporate rooftop bee hives also led to a density density and bees that's quote a little higher than what Midtown can handle. He added, The swarming maybe a little more than they would be regularly, But it's not a wild thing that we're seeing. See now, they're telling us to deny our lying eyes. I'm becoming Alex Jones on this. The bees are here and they're going to take our lives. They're going to take the men and women in children we love.

30:02 Yay. I haven't done an Alex Jones voice in a while, and I can still I can still nail it. Yeah that felt good. Good. I won't bow down to the bees, and I ask you don't either, all Right, he's becoming like Halcog in the Morn. Actually, honestly, he always sounded kind of like Haulcog and rest in peace all right. Rosack added that responsible I feel like it should be like. Rozak added that whole fly doesn't know what he's talking about and barely even attends me. That would be amazing if it just became them fighting. Rozak added that responsible beekeepers prevent regular swarms by quote tricking bees to stay put, but it's unclear whether the recent Manhattan swarms are the result of an inexperienced beekeeper or Faral hives.

30:47 Yay, Faral Hives. That should be the name of your next album, Faral Hives. Okay, it sounds like it's probably about a skin condition. But that's the best part. Yeah, it's up to the interpretation of the audience. I mean, it's just going to be a picture of red skin. But then printed in black and white. Yes, so it's just gray. Quote. As an urban beekeeper, it's part of our responsibility to actually prevent swarming, he said, So it's their fault. I knew it. I mean, yes, quote, it's healthy for the bee to do that, but in an urban setting, we try our best to prevent it. Now they're giving us advice on what to do if you see a bee swarm. New Yorker is witnessing a beet swarm on city property, you're urged to call nine one one, according to the Health Department. So everything we just read. But then but then it's like, the Health Department said, call nine one one.

31:54 Don't they have other things they gotta do? I guess not. No, they don't. They don't do that anymore. The city retains a quote be cop to handle swarms, hope I said, who in turn keeps a short list of other beekeepers for backup. Just say the guy just shows up knocking on a beehive and the bees are like, do you have a warrant? That's how their voices have to sound. The NYPD's Bite Sized Beekeeping Unit responded to dozens of swarm and hive removal requests in the Burrows between twenty nineteen and twenty twenty four. Hobbyist beatkeepers will also oftentimes catch wind and flock to the scene at no cost for the chance to haul a swarm away. Hopely says, yeah, you can make money off of a beehive or you're just weird and you like bees.

32:46 Well maybe you're a beekeeper and you're gonna make money. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's what I said. I said making money off them is great. It would be if you were like, I just want to keep bees for the sake of it. That's what I'm like. Uh no, so you might want to keep them, ah hope, I said. Some will hould them away for free, while other beekeepers and pest control companies will charge a fee. Quote. Most of the swarms that you're seeing on social media are getting picked up by local beekeepers, Hopefly explained. It really depends on who's available and how much of a nuisance the swarm is. So, see, I'm getting mixed signals because you were like see, so it's nothing and then it's like call nine one one when you see one.

33:28 M So maybe it's call nine one one so we can come get the bees. So we have them now, because will because they're dangerous? Yeah, because they're dangerous. She made air quotes. Rosack asserts that bees swarms are not dangerous and the bees are quote extremely docile see when they're in a swarm, because they're not protecting babies, food or shelter. We don't even know what kind of bees they are. Right, I mean, I don't think they're killer bees. But are they like are they like honey bees, or are they like bumblebees or something? Carpenter bees.

34:08 Carpenter bees don't swarm because they're solitary. That's sad. I know, makes me feel sad. It makes me feel seen. Quote it looks terrifying. But you could literally just stand in the middle, he said, unless, of course, you're allergic. That doesn't make it sound safe at all. Why doesn't sound safe? You can stand in the middle. But by saying unless you're allergic means because you will get stung some then. Well, I think it's more like it's possible. So you wouldn't want to do that if you're allergic, because you know, at the one percent chance they sting, you'll die.

34:54 Quote. The average person could just take out their phone and take some photos, don't interact with them, don't in their way, and just let them land somewhere and then call a beekeeper to come and respond. He said, this all sounds like this is actually dangerous to me. I like it. Quote, you want to practice a little bit of caution because they are stinging insects. Hoefly added, but they're generally not going to bother you much if you're not bothering them, So now we're blaming the victim. I see. Bees tend to act on their natural instinct to swarm around May to July and take about two weeks to prepare to flee their existing hive. Once bees start to swarm, they could be in and around a stationary object for between a few hours to as long as several days. Usually they're yeah, usually they're not there for more than a week, Hope I said. However, there is the odd swarm that decides to set up shop right where they're sitting. The New York Bee Club formed OH formed last year on Staten Island and in Queens with a Brooklyn chapter on the Horizon, seeks to educate beekeepers and give them sources to help hives thrive, including workshops on how to prevent swarming.

36:03 So it's not dangerous, but like, don't go anywhere near it if you're allergic. It's not dangerous, but call nine one one if you see one. And it's not dangerous. But we're opening more chapters to deal with it because it's happening so much. It's not to deal with it. It's because they like bees and they're beekeepers. It's not like they're it's not like it's an emergency or response team yet. And we just heard that New York only has a little response team for bees, like just a little unit. So they're not making more units of the response things. I mean, in the nineteen forty forties there was a little unit called the Federal Bureau of Investigation, just a tiny part of the Department of Justice. And now look at them. They had the X files.

36:52 It's true. Quote, especially in urt what we're gonna say, I'm sorry, I don't know. Especially in urban areas, the goal is always to keep your bees in the box. Hopefly said. The bees sometimes have made up their mind and no matter what you do, they're going to swarm and kill you. But the more I added to kill you. But the more responsible you are as a bee keeper, the better your ability to keep the bees from swarming and killing you. Okay, so I added both of those killing yous. Oh man, there's comments I'm like nervous about it. Wow, what can they say?

37:32 Do not call pest control? As stated, this is Sally z bees are not pests and are in fact endangered. And then Mike commented and said, if they sting me, they're endangered. Well they die if they sting you, So that helps. A person named wake ups that I would like to see the bees put up in hotels me too. All right, well that was quite the article. Uh, we're gonna take a quick break, and then we're gonna talk about a news story that has been all over social media involving the death of a paranormal investigator and how it might be related to a possessed doll. Right after this, we're back and we're gonna talk a little bit about a haunted doll that's pretty famous due to films and books and things like that, known as Annabelle. I'm a guess.

38:33 I'm gonna guess tell you haven't seen the annabel movies. No, two animal movies. Have you seen any of those? Like the movies featuring the the you know, fake warrens, I mean, not the real warrens that are fake, but the pretend warrens. I think I saw one, but I don't know which one it was because. They conjuring I believe is there. Yeah, Yeah, that's the one. Those are fun movies. I actually kind of want to revisit them. Do what I thought? It was fine? I think harsh. Sorry, Oh no, it's okay. I mean, but I'm sure a lot of people have heard that a paranormal investigator named Dan Rivera has passed away recently while in Pennsylvania, your state, and a lot of people feel like it's pretty weird. But some new news has come out. This is from people dot com. The headline is Annabel doll in hotel room where he died. Oh, I'm sorry. Paramoral investigator did not have possessed annabel Doll in hotel room where he died, says the coroner. It was cut off. There was an ad. Come, I'm not even joking. The ad was covering the first half. So no, the allegedly possessed Annabelle Doll was not in the hotel room where paranormal investigator Dan Rivera died earlier this week, according to a Pennsylvania corner in a Friday July eighteenth.

39:57 In a Friday July eighteenth message to People, Francis Dutrow, the Adams County Coroner, confirmed that the doll was not present when he arrived at the scene on Sunday, July thirteenth. That sounds scarier. I know that step, Yeah, it fled the scene. When authorities were notified of Rivera's death, Dutrow went on to note that the doll had not been in the hotel room at all. Rivera, a lead investigator for the Connecticut based New England Society for Psychic Research, was in Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, last weekend with Annabella as part of the Devils on the Run tour when he died at age fifty four, young to be passing away and they haven't released a cause of death yet. The Pennsylvania State Police share a report on Wednesday, July sixteenth detailing what happened. Quote members from PSP Gettysburg responded to a hotel in Straban Township Straban Township, Adams County for a report of a deceased man.

40:59 Official said the descendant was discovered in his hotel room by workers. Nothing unusual or suspicious was observed at the scene, the agency added. His cause of death is pending. Dutrou earlier told people that Rivera had been with colleagues on Sunday morning, but said he was feeling sick and was going back to his room. It's unclear what Rivera may have been ill with, and further information is pending his autopsy, which are autopsy results which are expected in about eight to ten weeks. Wow, it seems I feel like in movies they do it in like six minutes. But you know, I guess that it could be possible to movie lied. I didn't know. I just assume they're like really backed up with cases. So it's like eventually from.

41:43 All the people dying of bees things. Yeah, yeah, just a different state, no one' oh okay. According to the New England Society for Psychic Research his website, Annabelle's origin goes back to nineteen sixty eight, when a student nurse was gifted the doll and brought it to the home where she lived with her roommate. Quote. Almost immediately, the roommates noticed strange occurrences with the doll, and they were introduced to a medium who told them the doll was inhabited by the spirit of a young girl named annabel The organization wrote the two roommates tried to accept the doll's spirit and please it, only to have it reciprocate maliciousness and violent intent. Oh no, how do you please a doll? I mean, like like it likes Burger King, so you like go to BK for it? Or what is this?

42:38 I mean, I think poorly is what happened. I guess the problem is that we don't know how. Exactly, or especially them, they didn't know how. The Society added that its founders paranormal investigators Ed and Lorraine Warren, were called in and determined that Annabel was quote demonically possessed. Dunt dunt dum. Yeah, I do wonder. I'm not a fan of Ed and Lorraine Warren. They were frauds. You've already said that. I'm saying it again. It's worth it's worth repeating a good idea. But I and I'm gonna do a really big, terrifying and true where I go through like all of the claims against them. I'm like really looking forward to it. Yeah, but I wonder if they have they I would be curious if they've ever investigated anything and said it wasn't something supernatural, because they they I mean, if you dig deep into their history, they claim that they encountered were wolves and vampires, like not just ghosts and demons and stuff.

43:42 So yeah, Lucky. The story of Annabel and the Warrens led to the development of the horror film franchise The Conjuring. In a statement later shared with people on Tuesday, July fifteenth, the New England Society for Psychic Research, which first confirmed the death on social media, made tribute to Rivera. Quote Dan was not only a vital part of our team for over a decade, but also a deeply compassionate, loyal and dedicated friend, they wrote. His integrity, creativity, and generosity defined him. Dan's passion for the paranormal was rooted in a genuine interest, a desire to educate, help and connect with others, whether through social media, conventions or investigations with local families, seeking understanding and peace. That's a pretty nice sentiment.

44:30 Yeah, I feel bad. I wish we knew what happened to him. Yeah, really quote. We understand that Dan's work inspired fascination and curiosity for many, but above all, he was a father, devoted husband and loyal friend, someone who meant the world to those closest to him, the statement added. According to a Facebook post by Ryan Buell, the host of A and E's Paranormal State, Rivera was also an Army veteran and is survived by his wife and children. Did they just say Paranormal State? Does that exist anymore? I don't know. I haven't seen Paranormal State in like fifteen years.

45:11 I'm sorry. What are you mad at me? I feel like did I do something? No, I'm mad because I really liked that show. One time they thought people thought that there was a ghost in their house, and they really almost died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Oh, they saved their lives. I'm glad me too. Okay, I'll check if Paranormal State is still on the air, and then we got to take a break. No, it's okay, you don't have to look. Well, it's too late now you already hurt my feelings. Uh No, it was canceled in twenty eleven. See, it's weird to say that he's the host of it if it's like not been a show for over ten years.

45:53 Well, it's not like they removed him from it afterwards. Yeah, well, we'll take a break and we'll be back with a story about well, who's more likely to believe in ghosts in the United States of America after this? All right, So this article I found very interesting cell. It's from Newsweek and it's the headline, is the Americans more likely to believe in ghosts? Yeah? There are five demographics in the US which are more likely to believe in ghosts than others, according to research group. To recent research from Gallup, Okay, so do you have any guesses on I.

46:50 Don't really want a stereotype, So now you can just tell me it's polling. That's all it is, is stereotyping. That's the best part of it. But you can get away with it when it's. A pole, I guess. Paranormal belief, whether it's ghosts or spiritual healing, has long been a societal and cultural fascination, from paranormal Investigator TV shows to fictionalized horror movies and franchises. Gallup's pole found that Americans are mostly skeptical about paranormal phenomenon, but certain demographics are more likely to believe than others. Do you want to guess?

47:31 Why? Don't? Oh? But I was going to say you could guess, but I think you're looking at it. I am, yeah, I can't take can. I mean, I know what the top one is, but I don't really want to say it. Oh, now you have to because you just set it up like that. Oh no, oh, come on. I think it's probably white women. Well so they didn't make it racial like you did. That's nice, at least not in this initial part of the piece. But uh, women forty percent, so they are the most likely demographic to have paranormal beliefs.

48:13 Yeah, yeah, I will believe it. Followed by people who infrequently attend religious service also forty percent. That's weird. Yeah, I would agree, College non graduates thirty eight percent, okay, political moderates thirty seven percent. Wow, and then finally liberals thirty five percent. Okay. These groups are all more likely to be open to belief than men twenty eight percent, conservatives twenty eight percent, college graduates twenty eight percent, and weekly church goers twenty two percent.

49:04 Wow. You know what's weird, though, is this mentions that Americans are mostly skeptical. But it really is the most literal definition of the word for mostly, because right here it says overall, forty eight percent of American adults believe in psychic or spiritual healing, while thirty nine percent express a belief in ghosts. It's a lot of people, Yeah, it is. I used to always joke that when I would watch movies and stuff, and you have all the skeptics saying, like, but there are no such thing as ghosts, I'm like, I almost never meet anybody who says there's no such thing as ghosts. Like most people I know at least have some like mild belief in ghosts. And some of that's because I'm around women, apparently. But like Peter Dandel, an American folklorist and professor in English at Penn State, told Newsweek via email quote, there are men any psychological reasons people hold paranormal beliefs, such as gaining a sense of control over situations in which they are vulnerable, populating a world with magic and meaning, connecting with the past or future, and reinforcing community among others who also believe.

50:16 There are also cognitive explanations that map onto this as a separate layer of analysis, including mistrust of institutional authority and deficiencies in properly evaluating popular media such as TV shows or websites. That's a lot of mean things to say about women. Yeah, did you just basically say girls go to Jupiter to get more stupider, Because that's like what. I heard I mean it didn't rhyme, but. It wasn't as eloquently put yeah as the nursery rhyme. The Gallup poll also identified eight paranormal phenomenon which are listed below. Psychic or spiritual healing or the power of the human mind to heal the body. Ghosts or that or that spirits of dead people can come back in certain places and situations. Telepathy or communication between minds without using the traditional five senses that people can hear from or communicate mentally with someone who has died. Clairvoyance or the power of the mind to know the past and predict the future. Astrology or the position of the stars and planets can affect people's lives. That's probably what did women in on the total balance of like them, being forty percent overall women like their astrology.

51:36 What I don't know. I mean, you know, I know you don't believe in astrology. I do not believe, but I know a lot of people who like astrology, or as I call it sky racism, reincarnation that is the rebirth of the soul in a new body after death. And then I love this last one. The last one is just witches. There's no further explanation either like all the other ones have like the secondary thing, just as witches. And that could open a lot of people up to be like, well, I mean, I guess there's witches. I don't know that they do anything, but I guess it's years ago. The Onion used to do these articles where they would do lists that would be like hyper detailed, like comedy lists.

52:20 And one of the things they kept doing this owhere it would just be killer bees and no explanation of why it was in there or anything. It would just say killer bees. And I used to always laugh at that. They also used to put TV's Alan Alda in like slideshows of like but it would be stuff like you know, best sandwiches to eat when you're depressed, and it would be like turkey Tam and then it was like TV legend Alan Alda and just the same photo of him every time. I used to read, because I you know, I hated my boss so at my old job, I used to read The Onion all the time online and we used to like look forward to every time there was a slide show, be like, come on, Alan Alda. We were always hoping for Alan all that to pop up.

53:04 The Gallupole then asked Americans about their about their belief in each of these individual news week get Your Stuff together about their belief in each of these individual phenomena. The percentage of people who responded to the gallup Pole that they believed in those seven identified phenomena for each category in chronological order are forty eight percent to psychics, thirty nine percent to ghosts, twenty nine percent to telepathy, twenty seven percent to people being able to communicate with the dead, twenty seven percent to clairvoyance, twenty six percent to astrology. Oh, in surprise, astrology so low, twenty five percent to reincarnation, wait or twenty five percent to astrology, twenty four percent to reincarnation, and twenty four percent to witches hell, let's just witches. I can't get over that.

53:56 The percentage of people who responded to the gallup Pole that they were not sure about the seven identified phenomena for each category and chronologic orders as it follows nineteen percent psychics, nineteen percent, ghosts, twenty one percent, telepathy twenty two percent, people can hear and communicate with the dead twenty three percent, clairvoyance, nineteen percent astrology twenty five percent reincarnation, and fifteen percent witches. Yay, oh boy. The percentage of people respond to the Gallopole that they do not believe in the seven identified phenomena for each category is in chronic is as follows. Thirty two percent psychics, so thirty two percent of people just don't believe in psychics at all, forty two percent ghosts, twenty eight percent telepathy, forty nine percent that people can hear from or communicate with the dead, fifty percent claiavoyance, fifty five percent astrology. Wow, astrology is actually really unpopular. Yeah, fifty percent reincarnation and sixty percent witches.

54:55 Wow. Well, so that's the most people disbelieve and is witches out of all of that. Yeah. Wow. Maybe it's because they didn't define it very well. Yeah, just like okay, sure witches. Well, we'll dive into more of their findings right after this, Okay. So when it comes to this poll, the findings were based on a gallop Pole which was conducted from May one to May eighteenth of this year. Speaking about the demographic differences in paranormal belief, Dandel said, quote, people of traditional religious backgrounds, regular church attendants have a buttress against popular paranormal beliefs such as telepathy and astrology, perhaps because they perceive those to be counter to their religion. That makes sense they either believe it is false or else the work of different spiritual forces such as demons. College graduates we also have a buttress against paranormal beliefs from a greater exposure to courses in critical thinking, science, world history, and religion, as well as cultural analysis. So in this limited context, it seems that some demographics without railguards can be more susceptible to paranormal beliefs. Dandel added, Oh, man, let's see Peter Dandel. We were just talking. I don't know whether they're reintroducing him at this point in the article.

56:28 But Peter Dandel, an American focalist and professor in English at Penn State, told Newsweek quote, women and men do not believe in the same paranormal phenomena. Equally, women are somewhat more inclined towards phenomena with a social aspect of connecting with other people, such as psychic abilities or astrological readings, while men are somewhat more attracted to beliefs with a strongly physical component, such as Bigfoot and aliens. That is true. I did a Bigfoot documentary and I did a TV series about Bigfoot. Men are into Bigfoot and aliens very much. There may also be a cult, be cultural scripts that encourage men to assert themselves with markers of rationality. I like that. So it's society's fault men are more rational.

57:18 That's a safe, safe argument because it would be kind of rude to just say women aren't rational, which I don't believe is as a whole at all. That is literally what this article is saying, though, I mean overall, really what it's saying. Yeah, I mean, would you like to counterpoint them? No, I would like them not to say that. I would not like. I would like them not to go like, hey, I'm a guy and I don't believe in these things. So obviously people who don't believe who do believe in them have there's something going on there, but they're less rational. I mean maybe depends. You know, there's an anime about this, but I'll tell you that afterwards.

57:59 Oh gosh, that's fair, fair enough. It makes me think of that Simpsons episode where Marge Simpson was like, well, that's true, but he didn't have to say it like that quote. The Gallipole reads, in part quote, most Americans approach paranormal phenomena with caution. However, women, those who attend churches less frequently, and adults without a college degree are more likely than their counterparts to be open to believing in at least a few paranormal phenomena. Meanwhile, religious attendance is the most associated with skepticism. That's while that religious attendance is more associated with skepticism than college education.

58:40 I mean that makes sense to me though, right because we were just talking about it being counter to teachings, so and they have another belief that's filling in that spot. So I just think that that's just I think that actually that's the most interesting element of the finding, rather than just picking on women. I think that none of it's very interesting because it's not. I just don't. I mean, I think it's interesting, like categorically, like how much people believe in witch things and witches. But besides that, we'll want me to look at the comments section. I'm kidding, it's empty, but this is one last thing worth mentioning. Gallup took similar surveys in nineteen ninety four two thousand and one and twenty twenty five.

59:29 This poll stated that Americans belief in the paranormal phenomena remains largely unchanged. That's interesting. That is really interesting. You think it would change and shift in major ways, especially since nineteen ninety four, but it hasn't. So that's good. I would assume that, you know, the post Terminator two world is just better in general, So there you have it. But yeah, there's there's an anime that starts off with like a dondan on where where's the two main characters. One of them believes in aliens and doesn't believe in ghosts, and the other one believes in ghosts and doesn't believe in aliens. So like they they do like a challenge, Like one of them is like, Okay, you don't believe in ghosts, go in the little really scary tunnel and I'm going to show you there's ghosts, and the other person's like, okay, go in this building that like normally, like there's ufoes a fly overhead, and it turns out everything's real.

1:00:23 So yeah, I used to That just made me think of there was a script I was working on when I was first getting started and making movies, and it was it was called well it was it was a sequel to Marty Jenkins in The Vampire Bitches, which was my first feature, and it was called Marty Jenkins and the Wolfband from Outer Space. And the reason I thought it was so funny for so many years was because the concept was that an alien, like a cheesy like alien, just lands on Earth that says like I'm going to inspect and understand the human condition and blah blah blah, and then all of a sudden, like a bush starts shaking. He's like, what is that over there? So the idea is that an alien gets bit by a werewolf and becomes the wolf Man from outer Space. And I just thought that was the I mean, especially at nineteen years old, I just thought that was the funniest thing. Yeah, the Wolfman from outer Space. But speaking of animals, this article is from Huffington Post. North Dakota's fourth largest city overrun by ground squirrels. Really, yes, I mean, why would I lie?

1:01:33 I'm not sure? Ouch? Okay, thanks, it's. A ground squirrel like a chipmunk. Uh. I don't think so? Oh maybe it is? Well, well, I guess we could learn together okay, the Richardson's ground squirrel weighs less than Oh no, yeah, the Richardson's ground squirrel weighs less than a pound and is about a foot long and is native to the northern plains. The little creature also is a ferocious tunneler, and it's exasperating the people of Minote, North Dakota, where it's burrowing everywhere from vacant lots to the middle of town and growing more plentiful over the past two decades. Now, North Dakota's fourth largest city, is fighting back. But even the pest control guy leading the charge. This is how it's written.

1:02:24 Even the pest control guy leading the charge acknowledges that it will be difficult to turn the tide against the rodent. Joshua Herman said fighting the squirrels is akin to quote, one guy standing against a massive storm. Wow, he really thinks a lot of himself. Yeah, this guy, I like this guy. I'm with. The bee guy is not so much. Yeah. If I'm trapping but my neighbor isn't, well, then we're really not going to get anywhere with it. Long term. Hermann said, ground squirrels have been an issue in Minote, a city of nearly fifty thousand people for at least twenty years, but the problem has dramatically worsened in the last few said Minote Street Department Superintendent Kevin Brayton. It's unclear how many of the squirrels live in a Note, but it's likely it likely nears or even exceeds the city's population.

1:03:14 That makes sense. Quote, gosh, there's got to be tens of thousands of them in the area. Hermann said, wow, gosh. We're gonna take a quick break and then we'll see how Minote Note is handling this. Right after this break, let's find out more about how North Dakota's handling this scourge. Officials in the city a green spot along the winding Cirous River, surrounded by farmland and grassy prairie. No, they can't get rid of the squirrels, but hope to simply get the rodent numbers down. Quote. I don't see the population ever going to zero. Brighton said, I mean, it's almost impossible by the numbers that we have. I think that they have a lobbying organization. By how their politician is talking about it, hmmm, I see you are. The problem is our mayor is owned by by big small squirrel. Yeah, wake up, people.

1:04:22 I mean they may be paying taxes we don't know, I mean, or. Just direct bribes. Put another way, minote won't be able to rid itself of the squirrels because the animals have lived on the prairie for centuries. Outside of town, predators like coyotes, badgers, owls, and even snakes love to dine on the squirrels. But in residential neighborhoods and even downtown, where few of their predators live, the rodents can roam pretty freely. So the answer is to buy a bunch of snakes. Yeah, and loose and owls and things. They don't want to buy any owls. They're pretty expensive. Oh why don't you just go find the owls and tell them. To because time is valuable too.

1:05:03 Okay, fine, yay, we'll get snakes to eat them, but then we'll we'll have all these snakes to deal with. That's okay. Then we'll get a bunch of gorillas who thrive on snake meat. But then we'll have a ton of gorillas around the winter should kill most of them, Okay, I guess so, Greg gulliksen An outreach biologists with the North Dakota Game and Fish Department adds that the squirrels now have fewer grassland areas available to them, and like the mode spots they find in town. Female squirrels typically give birth to litters of about six babies a year, so it's easy to see how their numbers can quickly soar. Yeah, we need to come up with a thing like they're doing what they're trying to do with mosquitos, where we make them, where we like genetically affect them to become impotent, kill them all. Yeah, I know you're right. The mosquitoes can all die, but not these guys.

1:06:08 No, they live there. Herman said. He kills thirty five hundred to five thousand of them a year. What that's a lot, primarily by putting snares and carbon monoxide into the holes and using an air rifle. Oh my god. Quote. I've had calls downtown, calls in the mall, along the highways, here at the airport, really every part of the city. I've done trapping four ground squirrels here in the note, Herman said as he checked his traps along an apartment building and shoveled dirt over holes. Herman says they damaged driveways, sidewalks and lawns, create tripping hazards with their holes, and can harbor disease from fleas. What you love fleas, don't you?

1:06:54 No, I don't like fleas. I just think that all animals can get fleas, But I don't really think that that's something that we can We should be pointing out, you. Know, well, the problem is these animals are overly abundant, so that means the fleas would be closer to us to make us sick and our pets too. Along an apartment building, the squirrel had dug under a concrete slab and against the foundation. Nearby an a vacant lot. The rodents popped in and out of the holes. Ground squirrels near pashone grandson's grandson's ground level apartment dig holes near her door and eat her plants. One squirrel even got around her baby gate at the door and into her daughter's clothes in her bedroom. That's so weird quote. It was a little scary. You don't know what disease they carry.

1:07:39 They're dirty. I have a young daughter. I didn't know if it was going to bite her. Grandson said see this does sound like a bit of a scourge, I. Don't know, calling them like dirty and all that stuff. They're like little little animals, like squirrels and like chipmunks. They're not going to attack you. They're scared of you. They just want to play in your clothes. Right like just like the bees. North of town, Minote Air Force Base, which houses bombers and intercontinental ballistic missiles, has fought the ground squirrels for years. Wow. Earlier this month, the base said it had trapped more than eight hundred dak rats, a base name for the rodents.

1:08:22 So they have their own slur for the rodents. Yeah. Yeah. Base officials declined to comment on the squirrels. No comment. Jared Edwards, facilities director from Minote Public Schools, which has three schools on the base, said residential areas of the base and runways are overrun by ground squirrels. He called it quote a continuous battle for them, with them for the last seventy five years since the base has been there. Wow. Quote. I'm not going to exaggerate thereby the millions out there, Edwards. Said, I'm mean to get it nice flat area.

1:09:04 Running around in town. Three school properties have large populations of ground squirrels. He said last year the school system began using snares, and for years before that had used poison. Quote. It's something you have to keep up with. It's mother nature, Edwards said, adding that they've probably been in the area since homesteaders came through. Still, not everyone sees the squirrels as a pest. Some find the critters cute and fuzzy, like serial killers. Now Herman said people have sabotaged, stolen, or thrown out his traps m hm. They occasionally confront him when he shoots at the ground squirrel squirrels with an air rifle, scolding him for hunting the wildlife. He said, you want to defend your actions?

1:09:51 No, I know what I did. Quote. They get that cute association and they are, you know, adorable, but they're a vermin and a pest and dangerous when they are allowed to prolificate or proliferate. Sorry, Herman said, I don't, so, I mean you have you want to defend. You want to defend this. You're you want to defend these dacrats. No, we don't. We don't call them slurs. Oh sorry, sorry, geez. Now I'm really on their side. They're not calling us slurs. If you don't know what they're saying, that's correct, Okay, okay, okay, fine, it does sound like an insane number of squirrels though. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm just saying, maybe we should touch upon our nuclear capabilities.

1:10:47 Just take down the whole town. Well, if it'll get rid of the squirrels, right, it. Might not because they're runner around. A lot, and we'll have to talk to the to the squirrel Keepers Association. Okay, I I feel for them. I hate having to get rid of pests, but sometimes you can't avoid the necessity of it. Yeah yeah, I mean. I have not killed the groundhog. That is like ruining my life, even though I really should so, but I'm too much of a wimp. I won't do it. So I just twist my ankle all the time when I'm mowing my lawn.

1:11:31 I'm sorry, No, you're not a little bit sorry. Well, we're gonna take a quick break and talk about how in the United Kingdom there's an odd warning going out to parents right after this. All right, we're back and this article the headline made me uncomfortab okay, so I'm excited to read it with you because it just gave me like this, feeling like a horror movie. This is, of course from mirror dot co dot UK. It's the first one today.

1:12:13 Yeah, we've leaned off them a little bit. HU, don't worry, they'll they'll be back. They always come back. But this headline warning for UK parents with kids having nightmares to quote act differently what I know. Children often do quirky things, especially when they're little. But does your child's behavior ever seem strange or even unsettling to you? If this sounds familiar, one of the explanations could be that your youngster has gifts that are out of the. Ordinary, or maybe they're just weird.

1:12:54 Were you a gifted child? No, damn must be nice. No, it was not nice not being gifted. Yeah, I mean, like you weren't labeled as gifted. Yes, I wasn't labeled as gifted. I was at remedial classes really talked about this. Yeah, I probably forgot it because it doesn't make any sense to me because you're you're smart. I like it was like specifically for reading and stuff. I just can't read. I'm pretty sure you can read. I mean, I guess I can read now, but I couldn't read for a really long time or well, so oh okay, yeah I was not. I was not a gifted kid at all.

1:13:42 I was in some gifted classes, I know, and I dropped out of school. So there you go. Yeah, win, you win. I was explaining to a friend who was homeschooled the other day how gifted things work, because she was like, oh, yeah, you know, like a is it hard for gifted kids. I was like, eh, most of them, know, because a lot of people end up leaving the gifted programs at some point. Like I remember when like a ton of us were in there in like third grade, and by like seventh or eighth grade, most of us were not in the gifted programs anymore. Like we just got stupid. I guess, you know, we were just dumb. They were just like, oh, on second thought, you're a handworker. Yeah, okay, anyway.

1:14:29 Quote Psychic children are deep thinkers, and people often comment that they are in their own little world, alleges Cassandra easan author of the Psychic Power of Children and a person who'd never heard of imagination. Oh I added the last part, but yeah. Quote suffering from nightmares is another telltale sign. This is about to piss me off, telltale sign they're picking up on energies around them. Some children also see or hear spirits and may not want to sleep in a particular room or visit a certain place. This really pisses me off, because if a kid is having night terrors, severe nightmares, sleep paralysis, stuff, hearing it might be real is not the thing to.

1:15:19 Tell them, No, no it's not. I'm like, I'm sorry. That really makes me mad. I had a friend years ago who she would get that feeling of like weight on your chest while she was sleeping, and her mother was like kind of cuckoo b and anas, and she told her like, that's a spirit like sitting on your chest, Like, don't let it do that to you, like you could die, And she was terrified for like her entire childhood. Instead of just saying like, that's an experience some people have when they sleep, you're fine, you know. I what you don't when a child has a horrible nightmare, you don't sit down with them and go, well, it might be real. M h No, No, you tell them it wasn't real because it was a friggin nightmare.

1:16:07 I mean, there is a small percentage of people who this is gonna destroy because nobody believes them. But for the most part, anything that you have in your dreams is not real. It's your dreams, your brain. Your brain's doing stuff. Yeah, and you should just sit down with your kid and say, hey, this is just how brains work. We don't know why. It's kind of scary that we don't understand it, but it's not not gonna get you. It is wild how little we understand about dreams. Yeah. Over the years, Cassandra, a psychic and self described witch from the Isle of Wight, which means most people don't believe in her. Yeah, a self described witch and me described reckless idiot just for legal purposes, so it's understand like I described her as a reckless idiot, has been contacted via her website and social media by hundreds of parents worried about their child unusual abilities. This also makes me mad because parents are some of the most desperate people to do right by their children and to take any chance or listen to any advice if it means they could do a better job at being a parent.

1:17:16 Yeah. So I feel like I feel like parents are on par with people who've lost a loved one and get desperate to like to believe they're somewhere else, or to figure out how to move on or whatever. Okay, yeah, you know, and it's not their fault, like their their intentions are good. You know, if you lose someone you love, or if you're a parent who's worried you're not a good enough parent, that's because you want to do well by those you love. Yeah, but that desperation can be easily taken advantage of by people like this woman. Yeah. Yeah, quote. I've had parents whose children say they see an elderly man or woman in their bedroom who chats to them like an imaginary friend. They're later pointed out this grandparent in a photo album, and sometimes they even have named them. Yeah, sure, sure, you show them a picture? Is this him? Yes? It's a child, They're they're suggestible.

1:18:10 Yeah, I mean i'd have to see what happened to know, you know, sure, Like did they name the person the same name as their elderly relative without knowing them, or. Or because this is all self reported, did they go was his name Charlie? And it was because they're freaking leading the kid? Sorry, I get annoyed enough when people are ripping people off and lying and all this crap. But I get really mad when you're a taking advantage of people who are desperate and be harming children potentially. Yeah, yeah, you seem to not like that. I don't know what you're dealing. Well, and I get that people will be like, what's the harm there is? There is a potential harm.

1:18:51 No, no, I mean they're just kids. But by But it's not just about that. When you encourage someone to believe a fake worldview, you open the possibility that they'll be taken advantage by even more dangerous actors. You run the risk of them believing in faith healers and not getting treated for illnesses. There's all kinds of possibilities when you don't teach people, especially children, any critical thinking, or when you teach people that critical thinking is harmful because it told them to not believe in this stuff. And I know that those are extreme cases, but yes, but like people do die because they believe in hocum and it leads them to believe in more hocum. And some hocum is astrology, and some hocum is drink the extract from a peach pit to cure your cancer. Oh well, it'll kill you because it's literally poison. So that's where I lose my sense of humor sometimes with things like this.

1:19:49 And I really as a child who suffered from sleep paralysis my entire childhood. If somebody had told me, oh, you're probably seeing ghosts or being abducted by aliens or something, I would have had I would have had a horrible life trying to sleep every night. Yeah. Yeah, So now I'm angry about it, and we need to take a break so that I could take a sip of water and regain my fun, care free composure because we still eventually, well, we need to try to finish this article. Although it's making me very angry. You know what, I don't know. I might just we I think we're gonna end this article. This is stupid, Okay.

1:20:30 I thought this was going to be a little bit more exciting, but I don't want to promote this woman's book. It mentions her book like eight times. Wow, So love every love you guys that listen to the show, I think you'll understand. I got pretty angry, so I have my reasons. But when we get back, we're going to go back to Mirro code I UK for something that they're good for. Which is a funeral director describing some chilling experiences he's had at work. Right after this, all right, we're back with another Mirror dot co dot uk story to wrap us up for tonight. This one the headline is, I'm a funeral director and these are the chilling experiences I've had at work. Would you be a funeral director?

1:21:27 Probably not, because I don't really like dead people. But that's pretty mean. What do they do to you? I don't know, there's there and they scare me. Probably not. Also the other part of being a funeral director is you have to like talk to people a lot, and they're sad, like really. Sad and people. No, I don't like when other people are sad. Not real people. Okay, it's all starting to make sense. I mean in your way, in a way, in your way that you make sense. Yeah, not like said real people.

1:22:09 I know a lot of people who have thought like I'm just going to become a mortician or I'm going to work at a funeral home. But I actually had a friend who owned a funeral home and he used to tell me like that he liked the job. But like, you have to really be built for it. He was a very like, he was a very nice actually you know, no joke. His name was Ulysses Grant. I'm serious, yeah, I believe you. And he was a very like, a very stoic, intense and very gentle, like fifty year old black guy. Okay. And one day we were talking and he mentioned like, and uh he had a I forget he was like the way he was dressed or something. But I asked.

1:22:51 I was like, oh, are you a pastor because we worked with tons of pastors on local TV. And he was like, oh no, no, I'm a I'm a I own a funeral home. I was like, oh, okay, So yeah, he was actually a really cool guy, one of my favorite people at that job. But yeah, I just remember when I heard people say we used to call mister Grant, and then somebody mentioned his name was Ulysses and I was like, no, ways, so that's so slick. His parents must have been really fun, yeah, Ulysses. If there's any propession, profession, profession you'd expect might have come across a ghostly encounter, it would be a funeral director, right. That hasn't strictly been the case, According to one man in the profession. However, Social media's Yorkshire funeral director Jacob Walsh, who is based in Gule East Riding of Yorkshire, took to TikTok to open up on his experiences with the paranormal at his workplace.

1:23:48 Quote ghosts, Have I seen them? Have I experienced them? He asked rhetorically in a video. I felt a presence, usually in the mortuary, which is completely understandable as it's where people in my care are resting. Jacob admitted that initially he put his chilling experiences down to the fact he works late into the day, which by which point he's tired. But over time, more and more things have happened, prompting him to have a rethink. Does working late into the day mean working late at night? I'm thinking yes, I mean no, but yes, because it sounds like that's what that means.

1:24:32 Because at first of I heard late into the day, I'm like, that's not working late if it's still a day. Yeah, I'm looking it up. I need to know working late in the day is in British slang can be expressed in various ways. Oh no, it doesn't. It doesn't seem to understand what that Okay, So late in the day, according to Mariam Webster, means after the expected or proper time, So just means working later than normal. Okay, I don't know. Maybe he only works until like four, but it's just too much because he gets stuck too much. Well, maybe he gets up, maybe he starts work. Maybe he's like a twelve hour day and he starts work at four am. Oh and so by the afternoon he's just kind of done.

1:25:24 I like how that's the thing that made us most serious. Works late into the day. Quote. I have definitely felt people tapping me on the back, he confessed. Now did he mean when no one was there? Because that just isn't that a confession? Yeah? Or just strange things that I can't put my finger on. But as I have always said, don't worry about the dead. It's the living that will hurt you. I mean, I I mean now, I'm like, I'm like, oh, should I go find him and beat him up? I'm a living. I mean, he knows you're going to hurt him, so why would you Why do you need to prove him right? Why not prove him wrong and not hurt him, like.

1:26:05 You say, by killing yourself and then hurting him way to do it. Yeah, but why would a spirit tap him on the shoulder. Jacob explained his belief quote, I think it must mean it's a reassurance that I'm doing right by them, and that's all that matters. We always talk to the people in my care. We wish them good morning, and every night I say good night to them. A little weird, I don't. That's not why I tap people on shoulders, not to let them know they're doing a good job. It's to get their attention exactly. Yeah, you know, and you guys, you guys can't see Michelle, she was like miming the violence, and then I go and say it, making me sound like the crazy one. Yeah.

1:26:53 He added that even when he's quote doing personal care such as shaving deceased gentleman, he tells them what he's doing out of respect. Jacob summarized, quote, So if they are watching over us, that's fine. We just don't know what's in the afterlife, and I'm not here to tell you what I think there is or isn't writing. In response, another funeral director revealed quote, I have heard footsteps in our mortuary early hours of the morning, and a second shared quote having worked alone in different branches of our funeral homes. I have definitely heard walking upstairs when I'm on my own. Never been scared though. Wow, he's that's a chad, Like what an absolute chad? Yeah. A third person detailed their experience, quote, my dad passed last Saturday, and I've come to my mom's house as she needed me and my sister. I could feel my dad's presence. This is my first experience with it. He died suddenly, so it's a shock. And a fourth TikTok user recalled, quote, my mom blew a light bulb in the funeral parlor, and when the funeral director got up to change it, it came back on and she said, that's strange. But I said, my mom was a medium and has sent me message. What oh, I think they forgot to mention his mother was dead, I guess, because that's how she would blow out a light bulb in the funeral parlor.

1:28:10 But didn't she also say words. Oh no, that was a different user. Oh okay, yeah, that was before my mum's house thing. This is no. This is a fourth TikToker who said my mum blew a light bulb in the funeral parlor, and when the funeral director got up to change it, it came back on and she said that strange. Oh you just assumed the funeral director can't be a woman. Huh, No, you are the problem. Cell. It's not Dallappole that hates women. I think it's you. No, I don't even think that that ghosts aren't real. Probably I don't know. Okay, all right. Many others praised Jacob for showing such dignity in his profession, one of whom said, quote, you are an amazing man with so much empathy. That's why they say thank you by tapping you. I'm gonna start tapping people to thank them for things and see if it works.

1:29:00 Maybe you should morse code what you need? Yeah to tap, tap, tap to tap, tap to to that, tap, tap to tap. It's pretty much morse code. Right, what are you? What are you tapping on your shoulder right now? Oh? Oh god, that's not a good thing to hear. Yeah, that's why I'm gonna tap on people's shoulders. Well, since we've had our little chilling experience in mortuaryism, I'm gonna say that like it's a word. When we get back, we're going to talk about something a bit hotter, a bit more human, as we learn about spontaneous human combustion. After this, Michelle, Yes, do you remember when you first heard about spontaneous human combustion? No, well, what do you know about it? You go on, that's that's all you that's all you know about it.

1:30:07 What else am I supposed to know about it? I don't know. I just thought maybe you had, like some all I've What I've really learned from doing the show is how much of my life I've wasted on like really stupid, like like weird folklore and urban legends. Because I'll be like, Michelle, what do you know about you know, uh, the Sasquatch? You like, Ay, he's got a big foot, And I'm like, oh, because I know a lot about him. I mean, I don't know anything. And then that's what's going on. I don't think that's true. Whatever. Okay, So well, since you are a novice to spontaneous human combustion and I've watched a few documentaries about it throughout my wasted life learning about these things, I figured we go to the ultimate source of all information that is totally infallible, Wikipedia and we dig in on spontaneous human combustion a bit, learn something, or die trying in a fire. So Spontaneous human combustion is the pseudoscientific concept of spontaneous combustion of a living or recently deceased human body without an apparent external source of ignition on the body. In addition to reported cases, descriptions of the alleged phenomena appear in literature, and both types have been observed to share common characteristics in terms of circumstances and remains of the victim. Scientific

1:31:39 investigations have attempted to analyze reported instances of spontaneous human combustion and have resulted in hypotheses regarding potential causes and mechanisms, including victim behavior and habit, alcohol consumption, and proximity to potential sources of ignition, as well as the behavior of fires that consume melted fats. I mentioned that before, which by melted fats was my name when I was a jazz player. That's pretty cool, thank you. Yeah. Natural explanations, as well as unverified natural phenomena, have been proposed to explain reports of spontaneous human combustion. The current scientific consensus is that purported cases involve overlooked external sources of ignition. Yeah, geez okay. Spontaneous human combustion refers to the death from a fire originating without an apparent external source of ignition. Obviously. This idea and the term spontaneous human combustion were both first proposed in seventeen forty six by Paul Rowley, a fellow of the Royal Society, in an article published in the Philosophical Transactions concerning the mysterious death of Countess Cornelia Zengheri Bondi Hmmm. Writing in the British Medical Journal in nineteen thirty eight, Gavin Thurston describes the phenomena as having quote apparently attracted the attention not only of the medical profession but of the non medical professionals one hundred years ago, referring to a fictional account

1:33:13 published in eighteen thirty four in the Frederick Marriatt Cycle in this In his nineteen ninety five book A Blaze That's a great title, it has an exclamation point good A Blaze. Larry E. Arnold, the director of Paras Science International, wrote that there had been about two hundred cited reports of spontaneous human combustion worldwide, over a period of around three hundred years. Okay, that's less than one a year, So. That make you feel a little bit better, more like you're safe. No, okay, all right, well this might help. Here are some characteristics of people who suffer from spontaneous human combustion. So the topic received coverage in the British Medical Journal in nineteen thirty eight. An article by La Perry cited an eighteen twenty three published book Medical Jurisprudence, which stated that commonalities among recorded cases of spontaneous human combustion included the following. Number One victims are chronic alcoholics.

1:34:20 Oh oh, I see what happens. That's probably not you. Number two there man, They are usually elderly females. Really yeah wow yeah. Number three the body has not burned spontaneously, but some lighted substance has come into contact with it. Uh huh, so okay. Number four the hands and feet usually fall off. That I've seen the photos where it's just hands and feet are all that's left in a big smoldering spot.

1:35:00 I wonder why that is. I assume that there's very little fat in the part of the body. So it just falls off because everything else burns around it. That's my gas. Number five, the fire has caused very little damage to combustible things in contact with the body. That's one thing is it tends to be very like isolated, localized a good word for it. And number six, the combustion of the body has left a residue of greasy and fetid ashes and a very offensive odor. Yeah. That's I gotta be honest. I gotta be honest. You gotta hope, right because, like, imagine if it was like and the weirdest part of spontaneous human combustion just smells terrific.

1:35:47 Yeah. That's how you know you're in trouble, because you get you get a report, like there's a fire in a building, and the moment you open the door, it smells wonderful and you're like, oh fuck, somebody has been spontaneously human combusted. And instead of like ashes, it's just flower. Pedals, beautiful flower pedals. Yeah, next to the hands and feet. Yeah. An extensive two and a half year research project involving thirty historical cases of alleged spontaneous human combustion from seventeen twenty five to nineteen eighty two was conducted by Science investigator Joe Nickel one of my favorite guys. I've read his books. They're really good. He was, for over thirty years the only full time paranormal investigator in the world.

1:36:32 Wow. Dana Scully was loosely based on him in X Files. Oh Cool, and forensic analyst John F. Fisher I don't know him. Their lengthy two part report was published in nineteen eighty four in the Journal of the International Association of Arson Investigators and incorporated into their nineteen eighty eight book Secrets of the Supernatural, which is a really good book. Nickel has written frequently on the subject, appeared to television documentaries, conducted additional research, and lectured at the New York State Academy of Fire Science at montor Falls, New York as a guest instructure astructor. The Nickel and Fisher investigation, which looked at cases in the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth century, showed that the burned cadavers were close to plausible sources of ignition i e. Candles, lamps, fireplaces, and so on, so such sources were often omitted from published accounts of these incidents, presumably to deepen the aura of mystery. Surrounding an apparently spontaneous death.

1:37:34 Right, that makes sense. I mean it's not smart not to leave out details. Stock. No. Yeah. The investigators also found that there was a correlation between alleged spontaneous human combustion deaths and the victims intoxication or other forms of incapacitation, which could conceivably have caused them to be careless and unable to respond properly to an accident. Yeah. This is one thing I've always found interesting because I've heard people say, like, oh, the alcohol might have made them burn, maybe, but more likely, being super duper drunk made them unable to react properly to being on fire. Yeah, and also made them more likely to stand near things that were going to light them on fire.

1:38:19 Oh, because the alcohol would catch on fire. Oh no, no, no, because they're drunk, so they're not paying attention. Oh, standing near a candle or something, or knocking something. I got you. Yeah. So let's see where was I Where the destruction of the body was not particularly extensive, A primary source of combustible fuel could plausibly have been the victim's clothing or a covering such as a blanket or comforter. However, where the destruction was extensive. Additional fuel sources were involved, such as chair stuffing, floor coverings, the flooring itself, and the like. The investigators described how such materials helped to retain melted fat, which could cause more of the body to be burned and destroyed, yielding still more liquefied fat in a cyclic process known as the wick effect or the candle effect.

1:39:11 I like how bothered you looked when I said the wick effect. Yeah, but I like that both of them are basically the wick and the candle effect, or like, that's almost exactly the same thing. Oh yeah, I mean, like it's the same. It's like, yeah, it's the same. It's basically a candle. It's just you. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we're going to take a quick break and we'll dive further into some fiery explanations right after this, we're back looking further into the investigation of spontaneous human combustion. Michelle, how you doing temperature wise? You're feeling a little warm now?

1:39:54 No, it's okay in here. Okay, good. According to the Nickel and Fisher investigation, near objects often remained undamaged because fire tends to burn upwards, but burns laterally with some difficulty. The fires in question are relatively small, achieving considerable destruction via the Wick effect, and nearby objects may not be close enough to catch fire themselves, much as one can closely approach a modest campfire without burning. As with other mysteries, Nicol and Fisher cautioned against a single, simplistic explanation for all unusual burning deaths, but rather urged investigating on an individual basis. Neurologist Stephen Novella, I've met Stephen Novella. Yeah, he was at the George rob concert that you came and saw me at. Oh, yeah, he was there has said that skepticism about spontaneous human combustion is now bleeding over into popular skepticism about spontaneous combustion in general. There are people who there are theories that, like, some things just explode to fire, not just people.

1:41:03 Yeah. So like rags that have stuff on it that you clean your oh yeah, paints. From, Oh, like acetone. I don't know if it's acidon. I don't think it. I don't know. I'm not a doctor. Mineral spirit oh yeah. Mineral spirits. In a two thousand and two study, A GM. Christensen of the University of Tennessee cremated both healthy and osteoporotic samples of human bone and compared the resulting color changes in fragmentation. The study found that osteoporotic bone samples quote consistently displayed more discoloration and a greater degree of fragmentation than healthy ones. The same study found that when human tissue is burned, the resulting flame produces a small amount of heat, indicating that the fire is unlikely to spread from burning tissue.

1:41:56 Hm. Okay, so we're kind of we're kind of. It sounds like people are just being set on fire, which is worrisome, whether it's by other people or by themselves. I remember I read about one woman who they believe that someone had poured a whole bottle of her perfume on her delight or on fire so that she would die in her sleep. Hyah, isn't that just a delight? So Benjamin Radford, science writer and deputy editor of the science magazine Skeptical Inquirer, cast doubt on the plausibility of spontaneous human combustion. And remember that that that's referring to no external flame source. Yeah, if spontaneous human combustion is a real phenomenon, not the result of an elderly or infirm person being too close to a flame source. Why doesn't it happen more often?

1:42:51 There are eight billion people in the world as of today twenty four, twenty four, and yet we don't see reports of people bursting into flame while walking down the street, attending football games, or sipping coffee at a local Starbucks. It's probably true, unless they're just hiding it from us. They could be hiding it. Yeah, So here are some natural explanations suggested for spontaneous human combustion. Almost all postulated cases of spontaneous human combustion involve people with low mobility due to advanced age or obesity, along with poor health. Victims show a high likelihood of having died in their sleep or having been unable to move once they had caught fire. Smoking is often seen as the source of fire.

1:43:35 Natural causes such as heart attacks may lead to the victim dying, subsequently dropping the cigarette, which, after a period of smoldering, can ignite the victim's clothes. Okay, that would make sense too, because smoking has decreased a lot and people and the people who do smoke much less smoke in their homes and way less smoke in bed because it used to be a thing to smoke in bed, which is wild to imagine. Yeah, just smoking a cigarette and bed. So uh. And then of course there was the wick effect we just talked about. We pretty much went through that whole thing. Scalding can cause burn like injuries, sometimes leading to death without setting fire to clothing, although not applicable in cases where the body is charred and burnt.

1:44:22 This has been suggested as a cause and at least one claimed spontaneous human combustion like event. Okay. Brian J. Ford Is suggested that ketosis, possibly caused by alcoholism or low carb dieting, produces acetone, which is highly flammable and could therefore lead to a parent spontaneous combustion. That's pretty far fetched. Yeah, if you have you ever tasted something like acetone coming out of your mouth. No, So when you go through ketosis when you're losing weight, you know, quickly sometimes you get like a weird taste in your mouth that's kind of acetone and it's just basic. It's like acetone and it's basically just it's your system processing fat can cause that. But that it would have to be pretty intense for that to be flammable. Spontaneous human combustion can be confused with self immolation as a form of suicide. In the West, simple self immolation accounts for one percent of suicides, while Radford claims in developing countries the figure can be as high as forty percent. Geese, Yeah, sometimes there are reasonable explanations for the deaths, but proponents ignore official autopsies and contradictory evidence in favor of anecdotal accounts and personal testimonies. And another one is inhaling slash.

1:45:52 Digesting phosphorus in different forms may lead to the formation of phosphine, which can auto ignite. I don't know a lot about phosphorus or why you would eat it or inhale it. I guess you could inhale it because it's a dust. I guess what you want me to look up? Phosphorus? Do you need to understand? No, it's okay. I mean it's an element that can be highly flammable. I didn't know a ton about it either, I just had to look it up quick. But here are some alternative hypotheses. Larry E. Arnold in his nineteen ninety five book A Blaze proposes a pseudoscientific new sub atomic particle, which he called pyrotron. You like that, Yes, it's a pretty good name, pyrotron. Arnold also wrote that the flammability of a human body could be increased by certain circumstances, like increased alcohol in the blood. It would have to be a lot of alcohol, because like when you're really drunk, your blood is less than one percent alcohol, Like it's like what point three or point two percent? Point wait?

1:47:06 What is well? I need to find out what is the legal limit of point oh eight? So less than one percent blood alcohol makes you or less way less than one percent makes you legally drunk. So you would have to be drinking an amount that could like literally kill you. Yeah, so yeah, that one's a little weird. He further proposed that extreme stress could be the trigger that starts many combustions. Wow, this process may use no external oxygen to spread throughout the body, since it may not be an oxidation reduction reaction. However, no reaction mechanism has been proposed. Researcher Joe Nichol has criticized arnolds hypothesis as based on selective evidence and argument from ignorance. Bamn.

1:48:00 Joe Nichols always got those, so he's ready to slam down on y'all. In his nineteen seventy to six book Fire from Heaven, UK, writer Michael Harrison suggests spontaneous human combustion is connected to poltergeist activity. Okay, this is my favorite is when it'll be like, how do we explain something ridiculous, We'll go with something else ridiculous, like, you know, how do we explain you know, how do we explain people suddenly catching on fire? What if unicorns are lighting them on fire? That's what the argument sounds like to me when you say, like, we'll bring a poltergeist into this, because he argues, quote the force which activates the poltergeist originates in and is supplied by a human being. Within the concluding summary, Harrison writes, fatal or non fatal spontaneous human commustion belongs to the extensive range of poltergeist phenomena.

1:48:53 But poltergeist are literally able to move things around. Why don't they just like grab a candle and light you on fire. They could just do. That because it's easier to I don't know, maybe that's what's happening answer. Me, damn it. It could still be what's happening, though the poldergeist comes and it just throws a candle. On you, okay. John Abrahamson suggested that ball lightning this is just like like this. There should be one that's just unicorns, do it, that ball lightning could account for spontaneous human combustion. Quote this is circumstantial only, but the charring of human limbs seen in a number of ball lightning cases are very suggestive that this mechanism may also have occurred where people have had limbs combusted. I'm pretty sure ball lightning is like, basically not real.

1:49:47 Ball lightning is real, Oh. Is a rare and unexplained phenomenon described as luminescent spherical objects. I wonder I don't know if it's proven real or not, though. I'm pretty sure it's real. It's just really really rare. Okay, I'll give you this. There's a lot of hypothesis about it, Yeah, over fifteen major hypothesis of what's causing it. So we're gonna take a quick break and then we're gonna go through some famous examples of spontaneous human combustion before we wrap things up. Right after this all right.

1:50:30 Before we wrap up our conversation about spontaneous human combustion, we want to talk about some famous examples that have been investigated as as such. And I won't show you the pictures of the random hands and feet Michelle, Okay, thanks, it's very upsetting. Yeah. So the first one is on the second of July nineteen fifty one, Mary Reeser, a sixty seven year old woman, was found burned to death in her house in Saint Petersburg, Florida, after her land noted that the house's doorknob was unusually warm. Hmmm. The landlady notified the police, and upon entering the home, they found Reeser's remains completely burned into ash, with only one leg remaining. She The chair she was sitting in was also destroyed. Reeser had been taking sleeping pills and had also been a smoker. Despite its proliferation in popular culture, the contemporary FBI investigation ruled out the possibility of spontaneous human combustion. A common theory was that she was smoking a cigarette after taking sleeping pills and then fell asleep while still holding the burning cigarette, which could have ignited her gown, ultimately leading to her death, Her daughter in law stated quote the cigarette dropped to her lap. Her fat was the fuel that kept her burning. The floor was cement and the chair was by itself. There was nothing around her to burn. M I will say about the photograph, she must have lived in a like It

1:52:01 appears she was sitting like in her bathroom, the burned up chair in the remains. You can see a toilet in the sink. Oh, she may have lived in like a really small, like depressing place. Yeah, I was gonna say, and also definitely didn't have like a smoke detector. No. Yeah. Margaret Hogan, a eighty nine year old widow who lived alone in a house on Prussia Street in Dublin, Ireland, was found burned almost to the point of complete destruction on the twenty eighth of March nineteen seventy. Plastic flowers on a table in the center of the room had been reduced to liquid, and a television with a melted screen sat twelve feet from the armchair in which the ashen remains were found. Otherwise, the surroundings were almost untouched.

1:52:46 I mean that's a lot that was affected. Yeah, her two feet and both legs from below the knees were undamaged. A small coal fire had been burning in the grate when a neighbor left the house the previous day. However, no connection between this fire and that in which missus Hogan died could be found. An inquest held on the third of April nineteen seventy recorded death by burning, with the cause of the fire listed as unknown. On the twenty fourth of November nineteen seventy nine, during Thanksgiving weekend, Beatrice Oakskoski, a fifty one year old woman, was found charred to death in her home in the village of Bolingbrook, Illinois, in the United States. No info there, that's it, that's it.

1:53:31 Henry Thomas, a seventy three year old man, was found burned to death in the living room of his council house on the Rossau estate in How do you say, ebb W? I don't know. Yeah, I'm sorry, it's EBBW Valet, South Wales. I have no idea how you would say, how do you say that BBBW? I gotta know, yeah, maybe nope, I can't. I can't find it and I want to keep looking. But sorry, that one through me. In nineteen eighty most of his body was incinerated, leaving only his skull and part of each leg below the knee. The feet and legs were still clothed in socks and trousers. Half of the chair which he had been sitting in, was also destroyed.

1:54:18 Police forensic officers decided that the incineration of Thomas was due to the Wick effect. Ooh, this one's recent. In December of twenty ten, the death of Michael Faherty, a seventy six year old man in County Galway, Ireland. A lot of Ireland. Maybe it is alcohol related, but ump bump, as quote spontaneous combustion by the coroner. The doctor Syrian McLoughlin made his statement at the inquiry into the death, quote, this fire was thoroughly investigated and I'm left with the conclusion that this fits into the category of spontaneous human combustion for which there is no adequate explanation. The Skeptic magazine described to possible spontaneous human combustion the eighteen ninety nine case of two children from the same family who were burned to death in different places at the same time.

1:55:14 The evidence showed that although the coincidence seemed strange, the children both loved to play with fire and had been whipped for this behavior in the past. Looking at all the evidence, the coroner and jury ruled that these were both accidental deaths. I do wonder some of these deaths, especially ironically enough, the ones who were like in Ireland and stuff like that, maybe some of it was to save face. Yeah, you know, because it's like, we don't want people to know that they got pissed, they got like pissed drunk and just like burn themselves alive, because that is, you know, it's not the most honorable way to go out unfortunately. Yeah.

1:55:54 So, but that is spontaneous human combustion. I love that. Wikipedia's like see also loading animal. Yay, So there you go. But uh, the other day, I was looking up an actor. I forget his name off the top of my head, but I was looking up an actor because I was curious he was playing a a character and I think he was playing like a I don't know, but I was curious if he was like Puerto Rican or Mexican or whatever. I was just curious where he was from originally, and he's Puerto Rican. But then it said under under like the info about him being for Puerto Rico. It said see also list of Puerto Ricans, and I was like what, and I clicked on it and it was just a list of famous people that were Puerto Rican.

1:56:36 But nowhere in any of the page did it say like famous Puerto Ricans or famous actors for Puerto Rico. Just said list of Puerto Ricans. Wow, and then just a long list of mostly like famous Puerto Ricans, but never once to say anything other than the list of Puerto Ricans. Not quite as good as witches, though, But it's not bad. It's not bad at all. So but now whenever he pops up in a movie, now I'll go, oh, man, I remember him from the list of Puerto Ricans. So anyway, with that all being said, we're gonna take a quick break and we're gonna wrap things up on this month's Spooky right after this, Well, my Spookies, we've pretty much exacerbated everything in this episode. I mean, we had spontaneous human combustion, we had an autumount of misogyny coming from Michelle. Hey, we had.

1:57:34 What it was not me, It was the article. Uh huh, right, of course it was, of course it was. We had me getting very upset about a psychic. We found out I found out that I did not understand ball lightning. So it's been a pretty fortuitous episode of Monthly Spooky. Other than we didn't get the damn if we could just get the death cat mushroom sentence, I want to know how it all ends. Yeah, even though it's pretty obvious, probably I don't know. I don't actually know Australia, so I don't know how likely any sentence would be. But that all being said, before we wrap things up, man, my voice is going before we wrap things up. I wanted to mention I did see two brand new horror movies in the theater this last month.

1:58:26 So I saw twenty eight Years Later, which is the twenty eight year later sequel to twenty eight Days Later, and it was pretty fun. I enjoyed it. I thought it did a lot of really cool world building. Apparently the day they released it, they announced that they had already shot a sequel that would come out in January. Oh so there was a teaser at the end for another movie, which makes sense because it exists. It's actually twenty eight years later the Bone Temple. Oh okay, so it's in the same period of time. Yeah. So, yeah, I was hoping for twenty eight decades later and it just be like futuristic cars. Did have you seen twenty eight days later?

1:59:07 I actually have? Yeah? Really? Yeah, So in twenty eight years later, all of the United Kingdom is just a no a no man's land, like they're separate from the rest of the world. The people who managed to survive there just kind of do their own thing. But it's like NATO ships go around to make sure no one can escape and potentially take the virus because it's so powerful, right, Okay, so literally it's just in England. It like ends up not spreading to the whole world. It just like ravishes England, Okay. And there's some really interesting stuff about, like like small island communities off the coast and how they like survive by going on the mainland and learning how to fight the rage virus people and stuff. You'd probably really like it. Actually, do you remember liking twenty eight days later?

1:59:56 I think? So, Yeah, it's a good movie. Was there a twenty eight weeks there? Was? It was? Okay? Okay, that was one where twenty eight weeks later they deem it safe to come back to London and it doesn't go so good. Yeah, no, but no, I enjoyed it. The other film I saw, which is kind of a sign of the times because it's also a sequel to an older movie, was I Know What You Did last summer, the new sequel remake thing. It wasn't bad, but it walked the line between fan service and trying to do something new to risk free, Like they should have either really went into being In my opinion, they should have went all in on just being fan service, like, remember how much you liked that movie.

2:00:41 We're doing that again. We're doing this, Remember how much you liked it. They should have. Instead, they would like, do it a little bit, then they pull back, but then they do the same thing with when they try something new. They would do some of it, but they wouldn't go so far as to really change what the movie was. So I thought it was fine, Like it was a fun time in the theater. I got a real kick out of it. I had a good time watching it. But you know, it's not something I'm gonna be like, Man, I can't wait to watch that when it comes, you know, out on home video. I'm good. I watched it once. It was fun. Okay, So uh, but before we get out of here, do you have anything eerie to share from rered it? I put the roll of my tongue in the D instead of the R. That was, ok it was weird. I have like one thing I will try to explain in a way that makes sense, okay, but basically it's from the Glitchen the matrix so reddit and so there's this person and I don't know what their gender is, but the OP has like a second cousin and let me pop back in here and his wife no, yeah, and they're and that second cousin is like married and they have two kids, right okay, hate Like they both have both daughters of h names, and they've seen each other before, like the the op's kids have kid has hung out, his daughter has hung out with the two girls, the two you know people in the family and all that stuff. And recently,

2:02:13 actually this was a while ago, but the OP has noticed that like when whoever you know, his extended family posts on Facebook a lot, and they're never posting about the one girl. They always post about the other one, like oh, you know, we went to Disney and stuff like that. And so finally he like he like called or like was talking to them and he's like, what's going on with the other one? And they were like, we only have fun, kid, what are you talking about? So he's like, I'm we're like camped with them, and his daughter remembers her too, So it's not just one person, right, having a mental breakdown, but it's just them, and they were like looking through their pictures like trying to find evidence this person exists.

2:02:59 Can't find anything, like pictures that they should have been taking with both the girls only have the one daughter in it. Now they have no idea what's going on, and no one else remembers, including his son. That's I That's the kind of that actually like makes me really uncomfortable because that would freak me out so deeply. Yeah, just be like, no, there was only one of us this whole time, Like how would you because how would you explain that? I I don't know, especially because if it if the the poster had said like I'm the only one that remembers it, I would just be like, cool, you have a brain cancer. Sorry, yeah, of course. But if someone else does, and it's it's to me, it's good that both his kids don't remember, because if if they both remembered. I would think, okay, power of suggestion or something, right, but for just the daughter to be like, no, like we hung because she used to hang out with them, And yeah, that's weird.

2:03:52 It's an upset, extremely weird and upsetting. Yeah. Yeah, well, thank you. That one's that's a good one, because, I mean, other than conspiracy gaslighting, I can't think of anything else. Yeah, that's the only thing I could think of too. I mean, but the problem is that all their pictures are different now, so like, how would you how would you execute that photoshop? I mean, I guess since since everything's digital, you technically could. Yeah, it would just be super I mean, but considering the reason they would do this is because they murdered their child probably, like I guess. Well, and their child was a CIA asset to begin with, right right. Yeah, so no, that's a good one. Yeah. Thanks.

2:04:40 Oh before we go, did I tell you I was in I spent some time in Cincinnati a few weeks ago, and I was walking to a movie theater with a friend and I noticed that there was a restaurant called, like I think it was called the Gaslight Bar and Grill. Yeah, and I pointed that out to her and said, oh, yeah, we're in the gaslight district, like that's what it's called here, and I was like, oh, man, I wish I could. I want to work there so that when people come in for the first time, I can say, hey, so cool to have you back, and they can be like, I haven't been here before. I'm like, yeah you have. This is your favorite place to eat? Yeah, gaslight, barn, krill, the full experience or like.

2:05:21 And they come in and they're like, oh, how long have you been there? You can be like, oh, we just oh, we've been here like one hundred years, and they'd be like that's funny because I thought there was another No, it's all like I don't know what you're talking about. You've always been here. I mean maybe if you rode your horse and buggy up to the original place. I don't know what was here then. But yeah, anyway, the usual I would would that would be my favorite thing, would just be making gaslight jokes about everything you want your usual burger and fries. I'm a vegetarian. You sound crazy right now. Everyone's gonna think you're nuts. But on that note, thank you guys so much for joining us for another episode of Monthly Spooky.

2:06:06 I really do appreciate it. If you enjoy what we're doing here at the show and you want to support us, there are a few ways to do it, one of which is go to your favorite podcasting app like Spotify or Apple Podcasts leave us a five star rating. If you haven't already, you can also go to Weeklyspooky dot com slash join and for as little as one dollar a month, get two bonus shows every single month and support the show in a very very direct way. We're heading into six years of Weekly Spooky this October, and I'm really looking forward to just celebrating with even more scary stories and such. So for myself, for my producer Dan Wilder, my executive producers Rob Fields and Babbletopia dot com, as well as our composer Ray Mattis, I'm gonna let Michelle have the final words, like, these aren't dangerous? Then why do we have to call nine online? Answer the question?

2:07:06 I don't know