me and Drew are kind of like two little crows that were like,
here we brought you little oddities and curiosities, let us leave it for you.
We're crow bros.
We're crows before bros.
Crows before crows.
Yes!
Forever, yes.
This is Drew and this is Olivia and we are what?
So as a first podcast episode, I feel, I'm just gonna say it, I'm feeling really nervous but excited,
like Disneyland excited.
Yeah.
Like I'm gonna make a mistake, I'm not gonna get the things I want to get done,
I'm not gonna get to ride slash mountain, but I'm still gonna have fun.
I feel like I am going on like a first date and like got the butterflies in my stomach,
but I have a good feeling about it, although I'm not going on a first date with you because I've
known you forever.
Yeah, and we're not going on a first date with you.
And we're all our weird topics.
No.
Maybe, maybe you're a metaphors.
We're like, so what do you want to do for fun?
Oh, I don't want to know what you do for fun.
But I did have already like a nightmare about this, but in a good way, like I didn't want to mess it up.
So I'm just gonna be chill and it's gonna be fun and it's going to become the greatest thing
we've ever done on our lives.
Yeah, it's gonna be amazing.
Yeah, this is like a inaugural, it's inaugural, right?
That's a weird word.
I think you can say it either way.
Watch the other way.
Inaugural.
Yeah.
Inaugural.
I don't know.
It's like a boat.
It's like a boat going out to sea and then they put, it's a proverbial boat and we have a proverbial
champagne and it's breaking.
I don't know why they do that.
I don't know.
We're pushing it out.
It's wasteful.
I know.
Anyway, we won't be the Titanic though.
We'll be like a Disney cruise line.
It's like Disney.
Yeah.
But we do need to figure out who's gonna go first.
Okay.
I don't care.
Do you want to do a rock, paper, scissors?
Okay, let's do rock, paper, scissors.
Okay.
You!
Wait, that's right.
Is that what that means?
Paper covers rock, I think.
Right, but like me winning, does that mean I go first?
Oh, maybe you winning.
You decide if you want to go first or second.
I can go first.
Okay.
My topic is about the Chernobyl disaster.
Oh man.
So this is a topic that I've always been fascinated by,
but I did not know a lot of the details until I watched the Chernobyl series.
And then I was like, you know what, this would be a great topic for the podcast.
And I get to do a lot more research.
Perfect.
So we're...
The subject isn't perfect, but this is perfect.
Right.
It's far from perfect as a subject.
Yeah.
This will make me want to watch the show because I am fascinated by it.
Yeah.
Everyone should watch the show.
Okay.
So I'm just going to jump right in.
Okay.
So on April 6th, 1986, at 1.23 a.m., at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant,
there was an explosion during a safety test.
And the engineers and the workers at the power plant have no idea why this happened.
By all accounts, this should not have happened.
During the explosion though, two of the engineers were immediately killed
and two more were injured by the blast.
And if that wasn't bad enough, after the explosion, there was an open air fire that released more radiation into the air.
And so...
Although you want to be the guy that gets killed right away?
Honestly, that's like, I feel so bad for him.
Would you don't want to say that, but what people have to go through after?
Yeah.
I'm like, oh.
Which you guys will hear about.
Yeah.
It's really terrible.
Which also, that poor man.
Those poor men.
I know.
And the thing is, a lot of the engineers that were actually like closest to the reactor,
they didn't know that there was a safety test going on.
So they literally did not know what hit them.
Oh no.
So right after the fire started, firefighters were called to the scene at Chernobyl.
And all they were told was that there was a fire.
They didn't know that there was any additional risk to it.
They just thought that it was a normal fire.
Naturally.
I mean, you would never assume that.
Right.
Like it was...
It was like a fire as a fire.
It was unprecedented.
And they're like, we're firefighters.
This is what we do.
And so as they start to fight the fire though, some get burns from touching what appears to be
rubble on the ground, which I feel like is not a good idea anyway to touch rubble that's been around a fire.
Yeah.
But it should not be giving you the burns that they got.
And then people started getting sick and throwing up.
And a lot of the first responders are immediately sent to the hospital.
After this, 237 emergency response workers were hospitalized.
This was one of the like two of the biggest nuclear accidents ever to be recorded.
And it rated a seven, which is the maximum severity on the international nuclear event scale.
And was 50 times the explosion, but the radioactivity of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Oh my gosh.
Like together.
Together.
Oh my gosh.
Yeah.
So we were there to experience that.
Right.
But you just know how bad that was.
Yeah.
I don't know about you, but I read about Hiroshima and Nagasaki in school.
Yes, me too.
Yeah.
It was horrifying.
So just reading about that and then realizing that this was so much worse.
And the fact that Godzilla is supposed to represent Hiroshima, right?
Which is like the cutest way to like work on your generational trauma.
But what kind of monster would come out of Chernobyl?
Oh my gosh.
Someone, someone should make that.
Yeah.
I'm like, I wonder if any of the other like monsters that Godzilla thought were supposed to be Chernobyl.
Mothra?
Is that you?
Mothra.
Oh man, we should try and figure that out.
Yeah.
Okay, so after the initial disaster, members of the scientific community, as well as Soviet officials,
are called upon to figure out what happened because they still don't know exactly why it exploded
and to find a way to clean up the damage.
Of course, though, when any explanation is brought up that might reflect badly on the Soviet Union,
you can imagine it is outright dismissed or the information is suppressed because they don't want anything that reflects badly on them.
No.
And so the first thing that is used to try and cool the reactor is a mixture of boron and sand,
which would initially help it a little bit.
However, the scientists figured out that this will also cause more volatility.
And if they continue to do that, it will cause another explosion that would be even more catastrophic.
Do I know what boron is?
It's like one of those things I've read about.
I immediately think of boron.
I immediately think of borax.
I know.
Like we're going to make slime?
I know.
That's not the same.
I would love to say that I knew exactly what boron was.
And I probably should.
You're like, boron that later.
Oh, no.
I mean, there is more about boron later.
More about boron.
So no, I don't know.
All I know is it's supposed to help.
It's supposed to help.
Yeah.
But I think it mixed in with the sand was causing it to be more volatile.
And well, I'll get more into why.
I was like, I can't wait.
Also, I'm also really upset.
But I can't wait.
I know.
It just gets more upsetting.
So a couple of things happen.
Workers from Chernobyl are asked to dive underwater to shut off the water lines at Chernobyl.
Because at this point, the water tanks are flooding and producing more steam,
which can also lead to another explosion.
So when the reactor first exploded and went off,
one of the things that they were supposed to do was to flood the water tanks.
But then later, they had all of this water just sitting in the water tanks.
And this combined with the boron and the sand could make it explode.
Oh, no.
So three workers were asked to dive underwater and go and shut those lines off.
And then another thing that happened was 400 coal miners are recruited to dig underneath
Chernobyl to stop a meltdown and basically create more space underneath the cooling pad
that sits underneath the reactor.
Because that's another thing that could eventually cause a meltdown.
So for months, they just dug underneath to create more space.
After it happened, they kept digging.
Right.
Oh my God.
Oh my gosh.
So they're working around it.
That's upsetting.
Yeah, it's very upsetting.
Oh, no.
Yeah.
And a thing that happened in the series that I guess happened in real life was it was so hot down there.
It was...
Under the water?
Uh, not under the water.
Oh, oh yeah.
Underneath.
Like when they were digging, that was like 130 degrees.
Oh, no.
That they just had to dig with no clothes on because it was so hot.
Well, I mean...
You just get real comfortable with your neighbor.
And you're like, I'm gonna get radiation poisoning anyways.
Everyone keeps getting spots where they're like,
maybe you should have that looked at.
You should have that looked at.
That's really sad.
We're all gonna need to be looked at.
Yeah.
So eventually after intervention from scientists and telling them that people needed to be
further away from the reactor, the government evacuated the entire city of Pripyat,
which was where Chernobyl was.
And 300,000 citizens were displaced from their homes and bused out of the city of Pripyat.
So it was just bus after bus.
They immediately had to leave their homes.
And they had to leave their pets behind.
No, no.
Why?
Did they say why?
Because the pets might be carrying radiation.
That would break my heart.
I'm like, I can't go.
I know.
I was like, I would find some way to smuggle Henry with me.
Right.
The bag is just like, look, I have a trench coat for a reason.
But one of the things about the Soviet Union is that everyone was just so used to falling
in line.
Yeah.
That it was kind of amazing that they didn't have anyone that was like getting upset or
like putting up a fight.
People just were like, okay, we got to go.
We're going to get on the bus.
Right.
So I'm like, I guess that's a good thing.
Their psyche was so beaten down that they're like, okay.
Yeah, but in this case, it was for their own good.
Yeah, that's true.
And then, like I said, another thing that they had to worry about was pets and wildlife that
would be affected by radiation because not only would they spread it throughout the city,
but then they would eventually propagate and then those animals would have radiation as well.
Right.
So over 600,000 people were conscripted to become what is called in the Russian language
liquidators to eradicate all the wildlife and the pets that were left behind and appropriate,
which is so terribly sad.
6,000 people.
600,000.
Oh, 600,000.
That's so many.
How many?
There's a lot of animals.
There must have been.
I don't know like how far they went to like eradicate animals.
True.
That might be part of that.
Because it's not like Ukraine is small.
It's a big place.
It is a big place.
Man, that's really, I would not want that.
I know.
Oh my gosh.
That would be so devastating.
I'm like, I don't know if I could even do that.
Take off all my clothes like the diggers and run off right to the woods and live with the animals.
I would rather just go right into the reactor than kill any animals.
Yeah.
Investigation into what caused the explosion started.
So a safety test was scheduled to run at nuclear reactor for that day on the day of the
explosion and several things set this onto a trajectory of failure.
There was so many things that happened that just added up to this disaster.
The controllers had already lowered the reactor from its usual 3200 megawatts to 1600 for the
safety test, which is standard.
However, due to upper management wanting to save money, the test had already been delayed 10 hours.
So at that point, they should have just stopped and said, we'll do this another day.
But they decided, no, we want to continue and do the safety test.
And actually the the main engineer that ran the safety test, the at-law,
part of the reason he wanted to do it was because he was going to be up for a promotion.
And basically the two men above him would be up for a promotion as well.
If the safety test ran without a hitch.
So of course that ran without a hitch.
Oh, definitely.
Nothing can go wrong.
Another thing was that there was a shift change before the safety test.
So the people who had been trained to handle the test were no longer on shift.
Instead, engineers Topdumov and Akimov, neither of whom had performed this test were running it.
And they had received no training whatsoever.
And Topdumov only had four months of on-the-job training and was only 25 years old.
He was just a baby.
I'm like, I can't imagine like being in charge of anything at that age, but especially
like this very fragile system.
Yeah, no.
I'm sure he was very smart.
He's better than us.
So a little bit about how an RMBK, no,
RBMK reactor works so we can understand what went wrong.
Yeah, because I remember reading about it, but I don't remember what went wrong.
It's fascinating.
The science behind it is so fascinating to me.
It runs on uranium fuel and as the atom split, the reactivity goes up.
But then there's boron control rods that then reduce reactivity.
The water that is flooded into the tanks then cools down the system and turns to steam,
which creates a void.
And this is a positive void coefficient.
And the more steam present, the higher the reactivity, which creates more heat, which creates more steam.
So it is kind of like a cycle.
Right.
And then there's a negative temperature coefficient is introduced, which then reduces reactivity.
The element xenon is created in the reactor.
But normally xenon, which would not be good to have buildup in the reactor, is burned away by the high temperatures.
So at this point in the test, though, it's not hot enough for this xenon to be burned away.
It was xenon's fault.
I mean, it was a lot of things.
A lot of things, yeah.
So the power has dropped so dangerously low.
Do we know why the temperature wasn't high enough?
Yes.
So the reason it wasn't high enough is because it had already been reduced.
And then it was...
By the boron.
No, not by the boron.
For the safety test, it was already reduced.
And so it was not running at its usual power.
And so they should have just done the test then.
Yeah.
And in hours, it just sat at that level.
Then the temperature and the power wattage just dropped drastically.
Yeah.
That's a recipe for actual disaster.
It is.
So now at 30 megawatts, so it usually should be running at 3200.
It is at 30 megawatts.
Oh my gosh.
The xenon is still being created and not melting away.
And the reactor is not producing steam.
And so to try and stabilize it,
Akimov and Topdimov remove 205 control rods, all but 6.
And so the fuel has now gone cold.
The uranium has nothing stabilizing it.
The steam is increasing.
And so is the reactivity.
And the power is surging.
And so now they decide to do an emergency shutdown using an emergency button called AZ5.
Or as they say in the series, AZ5.
I think it sounds cooler.
AZ5.
And then that inserts all the control rods at once.
However, what they don't know is that these control rods have tips made of lead,
which actually increases reactivity.
So they're inserting all of these at once.
All these lead tips are going into the reactor,
and it just instantly makes it even more volatile.
All of these going at the same time is essentially turning it into a nuclear bomb.
It's like they were poking a bear.
Right. But they had no idea.
No.
This reactor that is designed to run at 3,200 megawatts is now at 35,000.
Oh my gosh.
And that is the final reading when it explodes.
The worst part of this is that the Soviet Union had already been alerted to the issue
with the emergency shutdown with the lead tips.
Meaning they could have prevented this,
but they didn't want to admit that there was a design flaw.
Right. Of course they don't.
But nothing changes with this design flaw until one of the leading scientists who worked
at Cleaning Chernobyl takes his life on April 6, 1988.
And this man is named Valeri.
And exactly two years after the Chernobyl disaster is when he takes his life
and he spoke out about the flaws within the reactor
and he tried to make change during his life,
but it wasn't until after his death when his memoirs were circulated among Soviet scientists
that the Soviet officials were finally forced to admit their fault
and retrofit all reactors so that this wouldn't happen again.
I didn't get much into Valeri as a person,
but his story is really fascinating
and they get more into that in the series and the podcast for Chernobyl.
Now I will share some statistics with you about what happened because of Chernobyl.
So of the 237 first responders that were hospitalized,
134 exhibited acute radiation syndrome
and 28 died in the following three months.
In a little bit, just so I can tell you how horrifying acute radiation syndrome is.
Okay. I'm ready.
The first stage is the classic symptoms are nausea, vomiting,
as well as anorexia and possible diarrhea.
And it occurs from minutes to days following exposure.
And then the next stage, the patient looks and feels generally healthy
for a few hours or even a few weeks.
And then the third stage, in this stage,
the symptoms depend on the specific syndrome and lasts from hours up to months.
And then the people will either recover or die,
but most patients will die.
And it's basically a complete shutdown.
And I know for lack of a better word,
melting of like the internal organs.
Oh man.
Yeah.
And kind of like we talked about, like looking at someone who's had radiation,
poisoning, looking at their skin, it just looks like,
it looks like they're inside out for lack of a better word.
Yes. It's very disturbing.
Yeah. Which is just awful.
I know. And they, these poor people had no idea what was coming.
No, no.
And I was like a silent killer.
It is a silent killer for sure.
And of the 400 miners, at least 100 died before the age of 40.
Fortunately, the three divers that actually went underground to the reactor,
they actually survived after hospitalization.
I wonder if the water must have been like a buffer.
Maybe. I think part of it was,
they weren't in there too long.
Oh, okay.
It was fairly quick.
So I think that helps too.
Yeah, that makes sense.
And there's no account of how many liquidators met in early death.
And the exclusion zone, which are the areas of radioactivity is 2,
2,600 square kilometers.
And that is through like Ukraine and Belarus.
Okay.
No one really knows how many people died from Chernobyl.
Estimates are between 4,000 to 93,000.
But to this day, since this happened,
the Soviet Union reports that it was only 31.
Of course.
Yeah.
And then finally, Gorbachev is quoted as saying that he believes Chernobyl is what ultimately led to the fall of the Soviet Union.
And that, it wasn't anything else.
No.
But I mean, honestly, that's probably true.
That did really push it over.
Because, yeah, because I was 86, the Soviet Union fell in 89.
So it was like the final countdown.
Yeah.
And part of it too, I didn't really get into that as much.
But the reason people found out that there was radioactivity in Chernobyl was because radioactivity was starting to appear in Sweden and Germany.
And they were reporting that and they eventually figured out that it was coming from Chernobyl.
Otherwise, no one would have known.
They would have kept it quiet to themselves.
I think maybe.
They would have tried for longer.
I think eventually it probably would have come out.
But it definitely wouldn't have happened as quickly.
Yeah.
Like Sweden, you tattletail.
I know Sweden is like, it's like, seriously, we don't, this is dangerous.
And that's so scary.
I know my sources for this were the Chernobyl podcast and TV show.
I ended up using that a lot because they were really diligent about their research and very accurate.
I used Wikipedia world nuclear org and CDC dot gov.
Wow, CDC.
Yeah, I wanted to get a little more information on how cute radiation sickness works.
Did you see pictures?
No, I actually didn't.
They were nice.
CDC was like, we're not going to show you that.
Wow, that was really good.
That was so scary.
It makes you wonder since 1986, how many people have been affected by radiation because of Chernobyl?
Like how much more messed up are humans because it might have just gone everywhere.
Well, there was a huge spike of cancer in the Soviet Union and the surrounding areas and unfortunately most of it was in children.
Oh, that's really sad.
Because they're just so much more sensitive.
Right.
Yeah, their little bodies aren't developed enough.
Yeah, not that you would wish cancer on anyone, but when it's in children, you're like, why?
That's just is unfair.
I know.
Yeah, it makes sense though because with radiation, if you're working for chemo or something where you're putting it in your body, it's such a small amount.
But when you're saying that, it's like melting.
It's like you're melting your insides.
So imagine that times a million of just being...
It's like you're injecting yourself with the worst chemicals ever.
Yeah.
But you don't even see it.
I know.
It's really terrible.
Also, the man that ran the test, a lot of people in the Soviet Union kind of blamed Dyatlov before they found out it was a design flaw.
Yeah.
But I'm like, it wasn't his fault, but he sounds like he was an awful person.
So they're like, well, it could be.
He never owned up to the fact that any of it was his fault.
And by all accounts, he was a complete bully to all of his staff, and they probably would have stopped the safety test if he hadn't bullied them into continuing to do it.
He's like, if I've learned anything from the Soviet Union, I will never admit my mistakes.
Exactly.
That's very Soviet.
Yeah.
He's like, no, I don't think so.
Well, that was really good.
Yay.
Thanks, Olivia.
You did your first story.
I did.
Do you want to take a quick break?
Yes.
Let's take a break and we'll be back for more.
Yes.
So I'm going to join your story with a completely different part of the world and a different time period.
This is in particular a town that I am familiar with.
It's called Aberdeen.
I know that place.
Have you been there?
No, I just know Kurt Cobain.
Okay.
So yeah, that's what it's known for.
Kurt Cobain's hometown, frontman of a band you may or may not know.
Me personally?
No, I'm just kidding.
It's called Dave Girl and his friends.
Oh, but no, Nirvana.
It would be Nirvana.
The reason I'm more familiar with it because of not Kurt is because it's where my grandfather
is from.
And so I've always just been kind of like curious about it.
Like I visited there a few times and one thing that really stood out to me was in the middle
of the downtown is this restaurant called Billy's Bar and Grill.
Naturally, when I go anywhere, you just have to look stuff up because you're like, Hey,
what's happening?
Yeah.
Is it just my grandpa's hometown?
Is it just Kurt Cobain's hometown?
Why is this place the birthplace of grunge?
Oh, I'll tell you.
But I'm like, buckle up.
So this is more set in the early 1900s and Aberdeen is kind of a newish place.
I think a lot of the West is fairly new adjacent.
Oregon Trail and whatnot.
Right.
Yeah.
I mean, way before Washington was even a state, it was the Oregon territories.
So this is like straight up brand new.
Straight up.
Anyway, Aberdeen, Washington, it was incorporated as a town in 1888.
It was named after the Scottish fishing port of Aberdeen, Scotland.
And what's adorable is that both Aberdeens are situated at the mouth of two rivers.
So Aberdeen, Washington is the Shehalis and the Wishka.
In Scotland, it's rivers D and Don.
It's like D and Don in the morning, sounds like two sisters.
I know.
You got your River D and your River Don.
They're mad at each other right now.
They have huge hair.
They probably do.
So this is situated in Graves Harbor.
And what's cute about Scotland is like, I actually drove through Aberdeen, Scotland
a few years ago and I was just like, oh my goodness, it's so cute here.
I, you know, God bless you Aberdeen, Washington, but it's not that same vibe.
And I'll tell you why.
So this is situated in Graves Harbor County and in the early 20th century.
So like turn of the century really, it was the largest lumber shipyard in the world.
Like they were all about cutting down their trees.
And so our story really starts in 1900, a lot of people had failed at the gold rush.
There were people trying to find work.
A lot of people, you know, they went up to Alaska, they were coming down, they went to
California, they're coming up, they're kind of meeting.
A lot of these men were good at cutting down trees.
And the East Coast and Midwest, their lumber situation is not the way it used to be.
Like it's really just like thinning out, it's becoming more national parks.
They're not as avid tree cutters as Pacific Northwest, I guess.
So they're seeing an influx of a lot of different ethnicities.
A lot of people who are just kind of migrating over, but a lot of Scandinavians, a lot of
German, a lot of Finns.
And really they were kind of drawn to the area also because it's similar to their own
home.
Makes sense.
Yeah.
And by 1900, so it's been 20, well, more like 16 or so years since Aberdeen was really
a thing on the map, it became home to saloons, brothels, and gambling establishments.
Oh, lovely.
And at one point it was nicknamed the hellhole of the best way.
Oh, God.
Yeah.
And there's many reasons why.
And remember Billy's Bar and Grill, which is currently a place and I'm wearing a shirt.
I know, I see it.
I'm literally wearing Billy's Bar and Grill.
I got his shirt the last time I went.
It also was known, this little town was known as the Port of Missing Men and Billy's Bar
and Grill is named after Billy Goal or Ghoul, I think we looked at Abbots Ghoul, who was
known as the Ghoul of Grace Harbor.
I mean, with a name like that, you don't have a chance.
I know.
Yeah, I mean, and you know what's funny is when you look at Billy, like I showed you a
picture of him, he just looks like a nice, upstanding individual.
He does not look like a serial killer.
He looks like he would just like tell you too much about IPAs.
Oh, for sure.
Or what's a, you know, a Pilsner.
And I would rather die.
I don't care.
He's like, I got the thrills for the pills.
Sorry.
That's from Brooklyn Nine-Nine.
Anyway, okay.
So, so Aberdeen starts our story, but good old Billy, he's like the star of the show.
So this is going to be about Billy Ghoul.
Is he a serial killer or a working class hero?
And why do they still have a restaurant named after him?
I bet I can guess.
Yeah, I bet you can.
So Billy, the date of birth, it's really sketchy, but 1860 seems to be like, probably 1860.
I think back in the day, I don't know, like back in the day is like, oh, they didn't have
records back then.
Actually, they did.
I just think some people just didn't.
Or they're just like bad at keeping track of them.
And I think if you're from a certain level of like societal class, you just probably
didn't have access to that.
So he was probably born in Germany, but what's interesting is that he has a couple of warrants
for his arrest that say he was either born in Wisconsin or Bergen, Norway.
So really, Billy is a mystery, but Ghoul is a German last name.
And it's actually, I think, a town in Germany.
So I think it's safe to say he's a German immigrant.
In some way.
So Billy, he just really took to a life of being a mysterious sort, not much is known
about his early life.
The first 40 years of his life, he would answer questions about his life with a, you know,
a riddle or just outright lies.
And you're like, I just really can't take you seriously, Billy.
I'm sorry.
But he seemed like an upstanding guy.
He was strong.
He had a stocky build.
He was he had a clean shaven scalp, which you see in this picture.
He had a strong resemblance to any brewery owner of 2021 of Oregon.
100%.
Yeah.
He literally looks like he's going to tell you to buy Bitcoin and he has a Tesla.
I feel like I've met people at breweries that could be serial killers.
Yeah.
But it's like a subtle, like the subtle one.
Yeah.
Like they're not necessarily demented.
They're not there to make you suffer.
They just want your stuff.
The vibes are just off.
The vibes are off.
Yeah.
Please give me your stuff.
So he did not look very different from the, the timber cutters and the seamen who worked
in Aberdeen.
He just, he, he fit in.
No one got bad vibes from him, which, you know, he just, he, he looked the same.
I'm sorry.
They didn't get bad vibes from someone that would tell riddles about his work.
But what makes you wonder, it was called the hellhole of the Pacific.
And they're like, true.
They're like, you know what?
I'm like, all right.
He had a few stints.
This is where it becomes sketchy with his backstory.
Because of many people, including, I read the book of the port of missing men by Aaron
Goings, where he actually advocates for, for Billy, that he is a working class hero.
But I'm going to explain why and why some people think he's actually a serial killer.
I feel like I'm, for our first podcast episode, I feel like I'm doing a lot of circling.
I'm like, and then we're back and then we're back.
So now we're back.
It's still averaging.
It's still 1900.
Billy's still around.
He's still as a mustache.
We still don't know what he's about.
Billy, what are you about?
He's like, well, riddle me this.
So as time goes on, he leaves Germany.
He becomes a member of the gold.
I don't know if you say you're gold rushing.
Are you member of the gold rush?
Is it a club?
It's not a club.
You're just looking for gold.
I don't know.
I don't know enough about the gold rush.
I don't know.
But he ended up in the Yukon and many failed attempts, which I think a lot of people, I
think gold was not found by many.
And he ended up lighting somebody's house on fire.
Oh, yeah.
And I'm not sure if that was just frustration out of lack of gold or who's just who knows.
I'm mad I didn't find gold.
Right.
But there's not too much to be known about that.
So it could have been, is this just a tale or is this fact?
But as he progressed downward to Washington, he worked as a bartender, and then he was
employed as the union official at the sailors union of the Pacific.
So he would see sailors come in usually at odd hours.
Sailors would come in at like the middle of the night.
And usually a lot of times they would be alone or they would file in, look for their, they
would have mail that would come in, they would have very few possessions, but they would
have a lot of money.
Because you'd make money at sea and you would collect your earnings.
But so he was basically in charge of taking care of these people.
And Billy, he seemed so likable that he often would be working alone.
He was really good at his job that they felt like, oh, I don't need anyone to be watching
him.
He's just Billy, the main guy.
So between 1909 and 1912, while Billy is tending this operation by himself of the head of the
sailors union, Aberdeen became a pretty violent port, hence the name of port of missing men.
Usually sailors would not return.
They would go out to sea or they would come back and then they would just be gone.
Or usually if you're working as a timber cutter, you would wake up and feel like I'm not going
to live because my life is so hard.
They felt like they're really like living with one foot in the grave or you'd wake up
and be like, is this the day I die?
Because it's either you're going to get cutting a tree, it's going to land on you.
You're going to take it to the sawmill, you're going to cut your face off.
I don't know.
Yeah.
I really noticed and this is where you feel like, oh, he was a good guy is he would advocate
for the working man.
He would see where there was a lack of safety and Osha would have a field day.
There's no safety procedures at all.
I was going to say, is he the origin of Osha?
I know, right?
But he would get frustrated with people in charge because they would not, I mean, it
would just be expendable.
Yeah.
There's so many men that need work that it would be like, I'm, you know, and a lot of
times these men would come homeless, they'd spend their money, you know, the very few
dollars they would earn, they would use it at the brothel or gambling.
So a lot of times they just be homeless.
And so he would start to advocate for like even a shanty town on the port to be like,
can we please give these men some, some space to call home before they die?
Well, so far he sounds good.
Yeah.
So it's kind of like, okay, you know, I see where this is coming from.
I really went into this thinking, okay, this is the ghoul of Grace Harbor, but really he
just is a nice guy.
But this is where he would kind of be a go between, between the police and the higher
ups, but he also was kind of at the same time, seeming a little bit shady.
The sailors would arrive to Aberdeen.
They would visit the sailors union soon after disembarking.
Really would see them collect their mail or he would help them set aside money for savings.
He would be on duty alone.
Like I said, he would turn the conversation to money and valuables.
And this is where it gets a little tricky.
Yes, he's being the working class hero, but it's also like he, he's got a mind for what
else can I get?
He's a little shady.
He's a little bit shady.
Yeah.
So he would turn the conversation to money and valuables.
But the sailor was passing through, Billy would recognize this person is not going to
be missed by anyone in the area.
And especially if they had a large amount of cash, it's how Billy would choose his next
victim.
So Billy would have a revolver with him, which I think is just natural working in the union
building.
You were just given a revolver.
Yeah.
Um, so when a sailor would reveal their money and their valuables, he would shoot them in
the forehead.
Oh my God.
You know, and at the same time, I'm thinking, well, back then there wasn't like a way to
silence a shotgun or a pistol, but this is a chaotic place.
Yeah.
I mean, there are literally boats coming in and out.
There are like horse drawn carriages or carts with, you know, tons of lumber.
I'm sure if they hear a loud sound, they're just like, okay, you know, probably other
people are shooting guns.
Exactly.
And I'm like, and this is like literally a, yeah, this is the hellhole.
So people are going to be like, Oh, it was Billy.
Who cares?
So he would shoot them in the forehead.
And then he would, there was a shoot under like his desk, basically that led right into
the Wishka River.
And he would just drag their body over, open the shoot, drop them in.
And it was that the boat they disembark from, they're not going back.
They're probably heading to Seattle or Portland or maybe even to start timber cutting because
you know, their journey is over and bodies would not be reported because no one really
knew they were there except for Billy.
Some reports state that Billy would use a launch to murder his victims and dump the
bodies into the harbor, which sounds a little farfetched like, like a, like a wave.
What's it called that old, like a, that mid evil weapon they would use to, like the catapult,
like a catapult, which I'm like, I think people would see that.
I feel like people would notice.
Yeah.
Like he has like, it's like a, like a potato gun.
There's just like bodies being long in the air.
Which what it sounds like Aberdeen was such a rough place.
It wouldn't surprise me that people just saw a body lying into the water and they're like,
there's another one.
They're like, well, there's Jim.
Yeah.
So I don't think that, I think it was probably the shoot makes a little bit more sense.
The other reports state that yeah, he had the, the launch.
So Billy started to be suspected.
Eventually people did start to, to ask questions.
And the reason why is because bodies started floating up onto shore or random places.
And they, as they do, I mean, you can't just get rid of a body, Billy.
The, don't you know how the tides work?
He's like, I don't care.
Yeah.
And I don't know if their science was good enough to be like these, you know, there's
a bullet in this man or if it went through, they're like, okay, everyone has a bullet
hole.
Uh, they're all sailors kind of like, their pockets are empty.
Yeah.
So clearly this person's been robbed and murdered because of it.
So since he was being suspected, people started to be a little bit wary.
However, because he was such a working class hero, a lot of people would kind of turn a
blind eye like, well, you're taking care of yourself.
So really nothing was done to stop him.
Typical.
Yeah.
So until he had an accomplice, which is always where you just don't trust people.
Don't trust people.
Even if they're both shady, even if you're like, Hey, I'm a bad guy.
You're a bad guy.
Let's be bad together.
That's what trust the shady person even left.
No, right.
Because it's like, it's like kind of like once a cheater, always a cheater.
Like, how do you know that person's not going to cheat on you?
Well, John Klingenberg.
John Klingenberg.
He was a cheater.
So he was Billy's accomplice and people started to assume things.
However, John was kind of smart.
He knew that if he said anything about Billy, Billy would probably send him to a watery grave.
Because of his big mouth, he jumped on a ship to Mexico.
But because people on the ship found out that he might have had association with Billy and
Billy, you know, people are starting to talk that people brought him back to Aberdeen from
that boat.
They're like, you're not going anywhere.
So John Klingenberg, not much is known about him.
I tried to find anything which other than his name and the fact that he knows Billy,
not much is known about him.
And I'm not even sure how Billy even came to know him or, you know, got him in on his
racket.
Like, did he oversee something and it was like, I can't handle you suddenly dying because
you're important.
Who knows?
Yeah, or maybe like, maybe he saw Billy doing something.
Yeah, yeah.
Maybe he blackmailed him.
John Klingenberg was able to testify, sing Billy alone with his sailor, which also, I
mean, I don't know if we can trust him.
He might be making this up, but that's probably how he got him in the first place.
So this sailor that now has a name, because most of them are nameless because people don't
seem to care about them, which is sad.
Yeah, his name was Charles Hatberg.
His body had been found in the harbor next to Aberdeen and he had been reported missing.
Billy had already been arrested for this murder because people started to be suspected, but
they did not have any evidence that they couldn't keep him.
But because John Klingenberg had been brought back from his escape to Mexico, he could corroborate.
It sounds a little bit shady.
It seems a little bit like, how do we know?
He sounds like he could be like a snitch.
A little bit.
Like, how reliable is this source?
But anyway.
Of the bodies that came up to shore, they counted 41.
Oh my gosh.
A lot of times, when you look up Billy, it'll say that his victim numbers were in the hundreds.
But so this is where Aaron Goings, who is actually a doctor, Dr. Aaron Goings, starts
to intimate.
This is a really tough place to work.
And unless they have a bullet hole in their body, which it's hard to say if they did,
who knows if they had like a corner there.
It was a very rough place.
This is people who are working with their life in their hands.
These are people who they really thought they could just die at any given moment.
And it's almost like they were attributing every dead body to Billy.
And just because they have an eyewitness, this guy is not to be trusted because we don't
really know about him.
And if Billy is starting to make waves for trying to advocate for the working man, it
would be very convenient if people who had money, who could not see to lose any more
money, started to push this evidence on Billy.
Maybe he had killed a few, but 41 or up to 100.
It seems like that's a big stretch.
However, some people are like, yeah, that's just those are the facts.
Billy is that big of a serial killer.
That seems hard to believe.
Yeah.
I mean, plus people, like they had dangerous jobs or like they might have just been depressed
because it sounds like an awful life.
They might have died by suicide.
Yep.
Exactly.
Yeah.
They might have used all their money to get themselves to Alaska for the gold rush.
They lost it all and now they're stuck waiting to just die at sea and they're like, this
is it.
Yeah.
One other thing that was really interesting that I read about in Aaron Goeings book is
that these important businessmen who usually they didn't even live in Aberdeen, they would
be in Seattle and Olympia and Tacoma.
They would see this like extreme talk of getting help for the working man as leftist
speech.
They even tried to pass a law that if you even said anything about your working conditions,
you could be immediately jailed and fined.
So because they wanted to know a little bit more about the goings on of like this underbelly
of is Billy trying to start something by helping out his fellow man, they employed Pinkerton
detectives to basically become a spy.
And so what Aaron Goeings has discovered is that has a pinker tin detective drummed up
evidence and placed it on Billy.
So it's really muddy.
You can see where he might have not been a great guy.
It's a real gray area.
I mean, the first thing you hear about him is how he, you know, lit someone's house on
fire in Alaska before heading to Washington.
There is a trap door in the Union building and being alone with sailors with money, that
is an actual thing that he could have done.
But did he kill in the hundreds?
You know, who's to say?
But it doesn't matter because there is no justice on on either.
On either of the sides.
Yeah.
Okay, so after the Charles Hattberg murder, they also had quote unquote, I witness of
the murder of John Hoffman.
They said that he was injured and killed by ghoul.
And then he basically just floated up the next day.
But at the same time, they said that he did not have any bullet wounds in his body.
So but they, they basically whoever found the body, they were like, well, you know, Billy
didn't have his gun with him.
Obviously, he just beat him to death.
Obviously, obviously, whether it's true or not.
It's pretty obvious.
The Union building is an ideal location for crimes.
You could conceal evidence of their murders by throwing their bodies in the water.
Maybe they'll float up, which they probably do.
So it just seemed like this makes sense.
And since he'd be on duty alone, these are all the things that were pointing towards
his guild.
So John Klingenberg testified to the Charles Hattberg murder.
And he said that Charles Hattberg had been shot with a 38 automatic pistol.
But what was interesting is that the pistol had been found on his body.
So they said that Billy had left his gun there.
That's why they said, you know, the next person murdered was probably beaten to death.
So it makes sense.
There was no bullet.
But it's at the same time, you know, why risk it if that's what you're doing.
Why would you just get another pistol?
Right.
Yeah.
By February 1910, Billy Gull, Gull, I'm so sorry, Billy.
It's Gull.
Billy Gull had been arrested.
And this is for the Hattberg murder.
They did not have enough evidence for the, oh no, I lost the name of that guy.
Oh no.
Roman, I'm sorry.
He's like, Olivia, you did great.
Drew, you got to work on.
Oh my gosh.
What was that guy's name?
John Hoffman.
Oh my gosh.
Okay.
By the time John Klingenberg had been taken back and they forced, you know, forced him
to admit that he had seen Charles Hattberg shot by Billy Gull, it was December 21, 1909.
By this time, they did not have enough evidence against Gull for the Hoffman murder, but basically
they said that it didn't really matter because they were just going to attribute any dead
body they found to him.
So by February 1910, Billy was arrested for the Hattberg murder, though suspected for
41 more murders.
And then of course, as time goes on, they're just going to be like, whoa.
They're just going to keep at it.
And they're like, oh, unlike the Soviet Union that will keep their one amount, Billy's is
just going to keep going up.
So he was arrested in February on May 12, 1910.
He was sentenced to life imprisonment.
And this, I think a year prior to the sentencing, Washington had abolished their death penalty.
So he had just missed that.
I was going to say, I was surprised they didn't sentence him to death.
Yeah.
Like usually that would be a hanging.
Nope, life in prison.
He was taken to the state prison on June 13.
In addition to the Hattberg murder and the supposed Hoffman murder, a witness to the
Hattberg murder was shot and injured by Gull the night of the murder, somebody says.
And so then he was killed the next day by Klingenberg.
That's also just word of mouth.
But because somebody says this, they have now sentenced Klingenberg to 20 years in prison.
They don't have the evidence for that completely though, but I feel like he probably did.
Yeah, he seems a little bit shady.
John Hoffman had been killed on December 23, 1909 and had been robbed about $400.
That's why they were like, this is clearly a Billy thing.
Not much is known of his remains because he was disposed near Indian Creek near the harbor.
Yet they found a human skeleton, but they don't really know if that's Hoffman.
Other corpses in the area are sub sub sub.
Oh my gosh.
Other corpses in the area are suggested to be victims of Billy.
One of them is the body of Carl Carlson.
I'm like, why do I feel like I know someone.
You're like Carl Carlson.
He was found on April 27, 1910 floating in the harbor, but they don't say how advanced
his decay was because if you remember Billy was arrested in February.
So they found his body in April, but they still attributed him as another victim of
Billy's.
Despite being in state prison, eventually he was transferred to an asylum for the criminally
insane Walla Walla state penitentiary was where he was sentenced to life in prison,
but the criminally insane is where he unfortunately contracted dementia paralytic cause by syphilis,
which does not sound lovely.
And he ended up passing away at the Eastern state hospital in Spokane on March 1927.
So you know, there ends the reign of terror of Billy Ghoul, but it still seems a little
bit up in the air of, you know, did this really happen?
Yeah, he probably did some things, but what's funny on Wikipedia shows victims to in parentheses
possibly a hundred plus.
So what's what's fascinating about this is my great grandparents moved to Aberdeen in
the 1920s when Billy's still alive.
Like he's not there anymore.
This you know, is why my grandfather grew up there.
And it's just that that whole connection is just a little bit funny of he's it seems
so far away, but my grandfather was alive around the time that Billy was there.
Yeah, that's funny.
Yeah.
So in the beginning of my story, I've referenced Billy's bar and grill, which I'm not sure
what it means when you name your restaurant after a serial killer.
I'm impressed.
The website of Billy's bar and grill is kind of awesome.
And I'm just going to reference it says and quote.
So yes, Billy is named after the Billy who did in fact exist in Aberdeen's colorful past.
These were times when opportunists, flourished and flamboyant operators often controlled
the growing towns in an area teaming with lumbering, fishing and sailing activity around
the early part of our century, our baby faced Billy stands out as a figure of considerable
notoriety.
A man of dashing Savoy fair, Billy was at first admired and respected as the secretary
of the local sailors union headquartered above the Grand Saloon.
Soon, however, Billy began to make up his own rules directed by a spirit of melodrama
and self serving adventure.
Eventually, mysterious arson's murders, robberies and shootings were traced to Billy and his
overly enthusiastic methods of operation.
After a sensational trial, Billy was sent to prison where we're happy to report he was
a model prisoner until he contracted.
I thought they were saying we were happy to report he died.
I know.
I'm like, do they like do they love Billy?
Are they pro or are they pro?
I know.
It's just interesting.
And this is my favorite part.
Well, none of us is perfect, folks.
And Billy in his brief but spectacular career, he at least gave it his best shot.
Oh, no.
And he shot people.
I don't know if they did that on purpose.
Anyway, they just reference his lucky house rules of when he was a bartender.
And really, it just kind of goes into the portion of their restaurant of serving high
quality food and beverages.
They don't reference anything about not murdering anyone, which they should.
I just think it's very interesting that Billy is alive and well.
He and Kurt Cobain, the spirit of Aberdeen lives on.
Unfortunately, they both died tragically.
I know.
But my first question, the most important one is, is the food good there?
It was good.
It was, it was basically pub food, which I think you can't go wrong.
Yeah.
No, I think it'd be worth it.
It would be worth doing a podcast road trip someday.
I would do a road trip with you.
Yeah.
You can visit Kurt Cobain's park and we can go to Billy's.
Yeah.
And we'll find some other third thing.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah.
It's the Pacific Northwest.
There's a lot of said.
That's true.
It's like a.
Anyway, that is the story of Billy Ghoul, the ghoul of Grace Harbor.
That was interesting.
Also, one of the things, I don't know.
I don't know what I think if he's a murderer or if he was just like a scapegoat.
Right.
But part of me is like, well, if he is alone working at this port and all these sailors
are coming in, what if he killed some of them in self-defense?
Like, I would.
That's true.
I would imagine that's probably part of why he has a pistol.
Yeah.
And I guess he would probably, he would think if he would report it, if it was self-defense,
but it sounds like it was a pretty lawless place.
Yeah.
Then the police officers were kind of kept in the back pocket of people who ran the town.
Yeah.
So I don't know if they would necessarily help somebody who.
Yeah.
I don't know if he did say that.
I feel like they probably wouldn't.
Oh, yeah.
Report it.
Yeah.
That's a really good question.
Yeah.
I don't know.
Just a thought.
Yeah.
So, this man, the one thing I was going to show you is when looking up his picture, somebody
drew this picture of him.
I don't know what era.
I don't know if it's from the turn of the century when he was, you know, on trial or
if it was more current, but this is just, I mean, now that you know what he looks like,
this is just, this would be my 13th reason why.
I'm like, not that I condone murder at all.
Yeah.
If I saw this picture of myself, I could have been like, all right, that's it.
And I believe we should post this on our Instagram.
Okay.
Oh, yeah.
Does it look anything like him?
No, it's, no.
It just is like, oh, that's the real thing.
Was that their first time drawing?
They're like, that's Billy.
I know anyone.
That's Billy.
And Billy would be like, all right, that's it.
He's like, if I ever get out, I'm coming for you.
I'm coming for you.
He's like, oh, and I got syphilis.
Oh, man.
I mean, I don't, I would imagine that's a pretty bad way to go.
I don't like that.
I know one time we visited Alcatraz and they were really quick to tell us that Al Capone
died of syphilis and Alcatraz.
I could not imagine a worse way to go in at least comforting place.
Like, you know, I know you did some terrible things, but yikes.
Yeah.
That was pretty common back then.
I think a lot of people died of syphilis.
Yeah.
Well, I know.
And I feel like that was, that was really fun for our first, our first venture into podcasting.
I feel like with my ADHD brain, ADHD brain, my high definition brain, nope, my ADHD brain,
I'm going to be really thorough about writing out my notes because I felt like a few times
it was a little clustered.
Oh, no, you did good.
I felt like my anxiety brain just makes me talk super fast and so then I can't catch
my breath.
So you're like, boron and the xenon.
Sorry for having a panic attack.
Right.
No, you did really good.
Thank you.
You're like natural podcaster.
So are you.
Thanks.
Do we have anything to say at the end that we want to wrap up with?
If you're the head of a union building working alone, don't shoot anyone in the forehead.
No.
I mean, if nothing else, just because if you do it once, they're going to pin it all on
you.
Yeah.
If I've learned anything about capitalism, you cannot make your way in the world if you
have rich white men pushing you down.
Yeah.
Just just admit your mistakes because you never know when not admitting a mistake will
lead to a Chernobyl event.
Yeah.
Whether in your life or in the world.
Yeah.
Mentally emotionally.
Just avoid your own Chernobyl.
Yeah.
Please don't have your own Chernobyl.
Yeah.
And I'm saying that to myself too.
Oh yeah.
Bad admitting my mistake.
Yeah.
Oh man.
That was a big lesson I learned yesterday chatting with a mutual friend where I was immediately
like, I have made a terrible mistake and I'm going to admit it.
Well, you're going to have to tell me that off the pod.
Stay tuned for more oddities and curiosities.