1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:23,000 From the unexplained to the mundane, join us on our journey to the French. 2 00:00:30,000 --> 00:00:35,000 Hello and welcome to Journey to the Fringe, like a good old turnip jack-o'-lantern. 3 00:00:35,000 --> 00:00:41,000 We are telling the old and creepy stories as they are meant to be, not those flashy pumpkin boys you see today. 4 00:00:41,000 --> 00:00:43,000 They're lies told to you by Big Pumpkin. 5 00:00:43,000 --> 00:00:51,000 We are your historically accurate podcast host, Taylor and Chelsea, and today we get our annual Halloween creature feature. 6 00:00:51,000 --> 00:00:57,000 We got quite a few to get through, so I think the best way to start this is just get right into it. 7 00:00:57,000 --> 00:01:04,000 Yeah, no fluff. Okay, I just gotta get right into it. We have no time. There's too many monsters, creatures, like correction. 8 00:01:04,000 --> 00:01:12,000 Let me tell you the story of the Flatwoods monster, and with that I hope we've never already told that story. 9 00:01:12,000 --> 00:01:14,000 I think we might have. 10 00:01:14,000 --> 00:01:15,000 I don't think we did. 11 00:01:15,000 --> 00:01:17,000 Does it involve an interrogation? 12 00:01:17,000 --> 00:01:18,000 No. 13 00:01:18,000 --> 00:01:20,000 Okay, then I'm thinking about somebody else. 14 00:01:20,000 --> 00:01:31,000 Okay, the Flatwoods monster, aka the Braxton County monster or the Phantom of the Flatwoods, is an alleged and identified extraterrestrial or cryptid of some sort. 15 00:01:31,000 --> 00:01:33,000 Something's going on with it, that's weird. 16 00:01:33,000 --> 00:01:40,000 Reported to be sighted in the town of Flatwoods in Braxton County, if you didn't already get that from all the names that it has. 17 00:01:40,000 --> 00:01:42,000 And this is in West Virginia. 18 00:01:42,000 --> 00:01:44,000 Something else is in West Virginia. 19 00:01:44,000 --> 00:01:45,000 Mothman. 20 00:01:45,000 --> 00:01:46,000 The Mothman? 21 00:01:46,000 --> 00:01:47,000 Yeah. 22 00:01:47,000 --> 00:01:56,000 This is creepy place. This happened precisely 7.15 p.m. on September 12, 1952 after a bright object crossed the sky. 23 00:01:56,000 --> 00:02:02,000 Seven eyewitnesses claimed to have seen this monster, quote, that was worse than Frankenstein. 24 00:02:02,000 --> 00:02:10,000 So that precise night, three boys named Edward and Fred were brothers, and the third one was their friend Tommy. 25 00:02:10,000 --> 00:02:15,000 So they're trespassing or something on Farmer Bailey Fisher's property. 26 00:02:15,000 --> 00:02:21,000 I don't know that they were trespassing, but I'm here to tell a story and they didn't say they weren't trespassing. 27 00:02:21,000 --> 00:02:22,000 So I'm doing my job. 28 00:02:22,000 --> 00:02:26,000 That sounds like something somebody who was trespassing would neglect to say. 29 00:02:26,000 --> 00:02:27,000 I agree. 30 00:02:27,000 --> 00:02:29,000 Exactly. They would just leave that out. 31 00:02:29,000 --> 00:02:34,000 While they're at that farm, they see a bright light streak across the sky. 32 00:02:34,000 --> 00:02:40,000 And the media at this time, because it does go to the media, spoiler alert, reports it as a flying saucer. 33 00:02:40,000 --> 00:02:50,000 So after seeing that bright light streak across the sky, the boys steal a tractor to go what appears to be their aunt's house to tell her what happened. 34 00:02:50,000 --> 00:02:51,000 Her name's Kathleen May. 35 00:02:51,000 --> 00:02:54,000 Holy, these guys are just committing crimes left and right. 36 00:02:54,000 --> 00:02:56,000 Yeah, I know. 37 00:02:56,000 --> 00:03:03,000 And in this story at least, and they may not have stolen a tractor per se to go tell the aunt about this. 38 00:03:03,000 --> 00:03:13,000 But in all the stories, it doesn't say. So I'm just taking some artistic journey to the fringe liberties here to make the story ours. 39 00:03:13,000 --> 00:03:16,000 Okay, just going in the face of my intro, I get it. 40 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:19,000 Yeah, exactly. 41 00:03:19,000 --> 00:03:21,000 So they're with the aunt. 42 00:03:21,000 --> 00:03:32,000 They all decide to go back to the farm or Wooded Hills or whatever they're at because it changes in search of this bright object, which seems wrong, but they do it. 43 00:03:32,000 --> 00:03:38,000 And along the way, they find some neighborhood kids who join the search, Neil and Ronnie. 44 00:03:38,000 --> 00:03:43,000 And West Virginia National Guardsmen by the name of Eugene, I believe. 45 00:03:43,000 --> 00:03:46,000 I didn't put that in there. I think it's Eugene. 46 00:03:46,000 --> 00:03:49,000 That might be another artistic liberty. Who knows? 47 00:03:49,000 --> 00:03:51,000 He also goes with them for some reason. 48 00:03:51,000 --> 00:03:56,000 I don't know why. I don't know how a National Guardsman found out, but he's there. 49 00:03:56,000 --> 00:04:00,000 And this story is just really poorly being told at this point. 50 00:04:00,000 --> 00:04:04,000 They're all at the farm, all seven of them, I believe that adds up to. 51 00:04:04,000 --> 00:04:09,000 Just an estimate of my part. It's too high of a number to be specific with. 52 00:04:09,000 --> 00:04:11,000 More than two. You just got to estimate. 53 00:04:11,000 --> 00:04:14,000 Yeah, exactly. It feels like seven. 54 00:04:14,000 --> 00:04:19,000 So Eugene National Guard, he has a dog with him too. 55 00:04:19,000 --> 00:04:21,000 So technically there's eight witnesses. 56 00:04:21,000 --> 00:04:27,000 He runs ahead. He spots something he takes off out of sight and begins barking at something. 57 00:04:27,000 --> 00:04:31,000 And moments later, he runs back to the group with the tail between his legs. 58 00:04:31,000 --> 00:04:36,000 They keep going. They reach the top of a hill on or off the farm. 59 00:04:36,000 --> 00:04:40,000 I assume it's near this light and they see a pulsing red light. 60 00:04:40,000 --> 00:04:42,000 Okay, they are there. 61 00:04:42,000 --> 00:04:44,000 Slash ball of fire, they describe it as. 62 00:04:44,000 --> 00:04:49,000 And it's about 50 feet slash 15 meters to the right. 63 00:04:49,000 --> 00:04:54,000 And they also detect a pungent mist that makes their eyes and nose burn. 64 00:04:54,000 --> 00:05:02,000 You're seeing that light now. You're also seeing to the side of this what Kathleen describes as quote, 65 00:05:02,000 --> 00:05:12,000 a fire breathing monster 10 feet tall with a bright green body and a blood red face that's floating towards them from between the trees. 66 00:05:12,000 --> 00:05:17,000 Backlit by a large pulsating, but it's backlit by another ball of fire. 67 00:05:17,000 --> 00:05:25,000 The creature emits a shrill hissing noise before gliding towards them changing direction and heading back towards the red light. 68 00:05:25,000 --> 00:05:31,000 Eugene says that he initially thought it might be an opossum or a raccoon. 69 00:05:31,000 --> 00:05:34,000 I wouldn't think that's how one would appear to be. 70 00:05:34,000 --> 00:05:36,000 I've never heard of them doing that. 71 00:05:36,000 --> 00:05:41,000 No, neither. Not once until he shone his flashlight on it. 72 00:05:41,000 --> 00:05:48,000 Because then he saw the monster completely and it had a green body that he said seemed to glow. 73 00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:50,000 I guess even with the flashlight being shone on it. 74 00:05:50,000 --> 00:06:00,000 The group stares at the monster in terror for a moment before screaming and running away looking back over their shoulders to make sure it wasn't chasing after them. 75 00:06:00,000 --> 00:06:07,000 Monster, they said, gave off an overpowering metallic odor that the witnesses found nauseating. 76 00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:11,000 According to Kathleen, they vomited for several hours after the encounter. 77 00:06:11,000 --> 00:06:13,000 It could also be shock. 78 00:06:13,000 --> 00:06:21,000 Subsequent investigation turned up little physical evidence, although a local sheriff car and his deputy, Bernal Lawn, 79 00:06:21,000 --> 00:06:26,000 did claim to smell the strange metallic odor still while they were searching the area. 80 00:06:26,000 --> 00:06:35,000 A. Lee Stewart, a co-publisher of the Braxton County Democrat, a local newspaper, returned to the site later that evening with lemon 81 00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:38,000 and also admitted to noticing an odd odor. 82 00:06:38,000 --> 00:06:41,000 The odor was still there, Stewart said. 83 00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:48,000 It was sort of warm and sickening and there were two places about six to eight feet in diameter where the brush was trampled down. 84 00:06:48,000 --> 00:06:52,000 Stewart, for his part, seemed convinced that the group had seen something strange. 85 00:06:52,000 --> 00:06:56,000 Those people were the most scared I've ever seen, he said. 86 00:06:56,000 --> 00:06:59,000 People don't make up that kind of story that quickly. 87 00:06:59,000 --> 00:07:04,000 I hate to say I believe it, but I hate to say I don't believe it, added Stewart. 88 00:07:04,000 --> 00:07:09,000 Those people were scared, badly scared, and I sure smelled something. 89 00:07:09,000 --> 00:07:17,000 A search performed by Stewart the following day discovered two elongated tracks in the mud, along with the thick black liquid, 90 00:07:17,000 --> 00:07:25,000 but the tracks were found to have been made by the truck of a man who had come and searched the monster prior to Stewart's return to the scene. 91 00:07:25,000 --> 00:07:27,000 And the liquid was most likely motor oil. 92 00:07:27,000 --> 00:07:32,000 That seems redundant to put in because you would think he would know tire tracks. 93 00:07:32,000 --> 00:07:36,000 However, in the days after the event, other witnesses came forward. 94 00:07:36,000 --> 00:07:44,000 A mother and her 21-year-old daughter claimed to have encountered a similar creature with the same strange odor a week prior to the original sighting, 95 00:07:44,000 --> 00:07:51,000 which reportedly resulted in the daughter being shaken so badly that she spent three weeks in the Clarksburg Hospital. 96 00:07:51,000 --> 00:08:00,000 Eugene Lemon's mother said that at the approximate time of the saucer sighting, her house had been violently shaken and her radio cut out for 45 minutes. 97 00:08:00,000 --> 00:08:08,000 And the director of the local board of education claimed that he had seen a flying saucer take off at 6.30 am the morning of September 13. 98 00:08:08,000 --> 00:08:17,000 The authorities ultimately decided that the flying saucer the May boys had seen was a meteorite since the sighting took place during a meteor shower. 99 00:08:17,000 --> 00:08:20,000 That was occurring over a three-state area at the time. 100 00:08:20,000 --> 00:08:23,000 And that's pretty specific for a meteor shower. 101 00:08:23,000 --> 00:08:31,000 And the monster sighting itself was reportedly written off as mass hysteria involving a mundane animal, possibly a barn owl. 102 00:08:31,000 --> 00:08:43,000 Despite that, the witnesses did not recant their testimony and the Flatwoods monster is widely considered one of the most fascinating reported encounters with a UFO occupant to emerge from the 1950s. 103 00:08:43,000 --> 00:08:49,000 If you've never seen, you probably have seen this just to describe it really well for you right now. 104 00:08:49,000 --> 00:08:55,000 It kind of reminds me of like a woman wearing an apron and it kind of has a halo around its head. 105 00:08:55,000 --> 00:08:56,000 Yeah. 106 00:08:56,000 --> 00:09:00,000 Just to describe it real quick, we'll probably post it up on the socials for you to take a look at. 107 00:09:00,000 --> 00:09:07,000 Kind of like a robot woman wearing a apron with a halo around her head. 108 00:09:07,000 --> 00:09:11,000 Yeah, like that 1950s style puffy bottom apron. 109 00:09:11,000 --> 00:09:12,000 Exactly. 110 00:09:12,000 --> 00:09:15,000 Or like a ball gown apron. 111 00:09:15,000 --> 00:09:16,000 Yeah. 112 00:09:16,000 --> 00:09:18,000 So that's a Flatwoods monster. 113 00:09:18,000 --> 00:09:19,000 Okay. 114 00:09:19,000 --> 00:09:20,000 It's very spooky. 115 00:09:20,000 --> 00:09:23,000 Chelsea, have you ever heard of the dog boy of Arkansas? 116 00:09:23,000 --> 00:09:24,000 No. 117 00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:26,000 Fairly unbeknownst name, right? 118 00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:27,000 Like doesn't sound that bad. 119 00:09:27,000 --> 00:09:29,000 No, it sounds cute even. 120 00:09:29,000 --> 00:09:31,000 Yeah, definitely viewer discretion advised on this one. 121 00:09:31,000 --> 00:09:32,000 Oh, shit. 122 00:09:32,000 --> 00:09:33,000 Yeah. 123 00:09:33,000 --> 00:09:37,000 So this takes place in Quitman, Arkansas on July 23rd, 1954. 124 00:09:37,000 --> 00:09:40,000 Gerald Bettis was born to Floyd and Alan Bettis. 125 00:09:40,000 --> 00:09:42,000 However, he's not a really ordinary boy. 126 00:09:42,000 --> 00:09:45,000 He's actually very large for his age. 127 00:09:45,000 --> 00:09:48,000 He gets bullied relentlessly. He's really peculiar too. 128 00:09:48,000 --> 00:09:52,000 He's prone to bouts of rage, often in public, and many people feared him. 129 00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:55,000 He was private and solitary as he grew up. 130 00:09:55,000 --> 00:09:57,000 He became even more withdrawn. 131 00:09:57,000 --> 00:10:00,000 Reason he's called dog boy, he collected stray cats and dogs, 132 00:10:00,000 --> 00:10:02,000 kept them in the family house and tortured them. 133 00:10:02,000 --> 00:10:05,000 The neighbors knew him as dog boy because of this, 134 00:10:05,000 --> 00:10:07,000 and they heard animal cries throughout the night. 135 00:10:07,000 --> 00:10:09,000 Not what I was thinking. 136 00:10:09,000 --> 00:10:10,000 That's awful. 137 00:10:10,000 --> 00:10:13,000 And what Gerald left behind of these creatures was inhumane. 138 00:10:13,000 --> 00:10:15,000 The neighbors were terrified of Gerald, 139 00:10:15,000 --> 00:10:17,000 and one woman once said, quote, 140 00:10:17,000 --> 00:10:22,000 if you had ever seen his eyes, they seemed to glow at night, end quote. 141 00:10:22,000 --> 00:10:25,000 He was not human, but something all the more animalistic. 142 00:10:25,000 --> 00:10:28,000 Gerald became increasingly unhinged as he got older. 143 00:10:28,000 --> 00:10:31,000 One day, animals were no longer enough as his subjects of cruelty, 144 00:10:31,000 --> 00:10:34,000 and he soon set his torturous sights on his desperate parents. 145 00:10:34,000 --> 00:10:36,000 They would suffer Gerald's wrath. 146 00:10:36,000 --> 00:10:38,000 They would pay the consequences, 147 00:10:38,000 --> 00:10:42,000 and this once idealic home on Mulberry Street would go down in history 148 00:10:42,000 --> 00:10:44,000 as the stuff of demented, haunted nightmares. 149 00:10:44,000 --> 00:10:47,000 Gerald kept his parents locked in the attic. 150 00:10:47,000 --> 00:10:50,000 He didn't feed them until he decided it was time to feed them. 151 00:10:50,000 --> 00:10:52,000 The abuse was clear to see. 152 00:10:52,000 --> 00:10:55,000 At one point, Gerald threw his father out the second floor window. 153 00:10:55,000 --> 00:10:59,000 Gerald's father died in 1981 amid a cloud of rumors. 154 00:10:59,000 --> 00:11:01,000 Some say he died of pneumonia. 155 00:11:01,000 --> 00:11:04,000 Others a broken heart, some say Gerald pushed him down the stairs 156 00:11:04,000 --> 00:11:06,000 or deliberately snapped his own father's neck. 157 00:11:06,000 --> 00:11:09,000 In 1982, Aline was treated for a broken hip. 158 00:11:09,000 --> 00:11:12,000 Once again, rumors abounded that Gerald was to blame. 159 00:11:12,000 --> 00:11:14,000 A nurse witnessed Gerald mistreating his mother. 160 00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:17,000 Gerald built a sunroom on the back of the house, 161 00:11:17,000 --> 00:11:19,000 and in it he grew marijuana. 162 00:11:19,000 --> 00:11:21,000 He became a dealer and a drug user, 163 00:11:21,000 --> 00:11:23,000 and the police finally arrested him in the late 1980s, 164 00:11:23,000 --> 00:11:26,000 not for the abuse, but for the drugs that he was growing. 165 00:11:26,000 --> 00:11:30,000 He died in May of 1988 of an overdose at the age of 34. 166 00:11:30,000 --> 00:11:32,000 His mother died in 1995, 167 00:11:32,000 --> 00:11:35,000 and a woman named Reba Carter inherited the house. 168 00:11:35,000 --> 00:11:37,000 Not long after this, 169 00:11:37,000 --> 00:11:40,000 the house was sold to a truck driver named Tony Weaver, 170 00:11:40,000 --> 00:11:43,000 and Tony and his wife lived in the house for a few years. 171 00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:45,000 The Weavers did not believe in ghosts, 172 00:11:45,000 --> 00:11:47,000 but strange things started happening in their home. 173 00:11:47,000 --> 00:11:49,000 Weaver's wife would turn off all the lights before leaving 174 00:11:49,000 --> 00:11:51,000 to go work a night shift, 175 00:11:51,000 --> 00:11:53,000 but when she returned, the lights were all back on. 176 00:11:53,000 --> 00:11:55,000 At first she believed it was an intruder, 177 00:11:55,000 --> 00:11:57,000 but over time, stranger things began to happen. 178 00:11:57,000 --> 00:12:00,000 One time, pennies floated down the stairwell from upstairs. 179 00:12:00,000 --> 00:12:03,000 The coins stopped and fell to the floor. 180 00:12:03,000 --> 00:12:05,000 After six months of similar spookinings, 181 00:12:05,000 --> 00:12:08,000 the wife didn't want to live there anymore. 182 00:12:08,000 --> 00:12:10,000 Tony also had his own bizarre incidents. 183 00:12:10,000 --> 00:12:11,000 Quote, 184 00:12:11,000 --> 00:12:12,000 One day I was working on the house, 185 00:12:12,000 --> 00:12:15,000 I saw a man looking through the foyer into the living room. 186 00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:17,000 He looked like a World War I soldier, 187 00:12:17,000 --> 00:12:18,000 complete with a helmet. 188 00:12:18,000 --> 00:12:20,000 He looked so real, Tony said. 189 00:12:20,000 --> 00:12:22,000 He ran after the soldier, but the soldier vanished. 190 00:12:22,000 --> 00:12:24,000 Tony and his wife soon moved out, 191 00:12:24,000 --> 00:12:27,000 but the next couple to live there also had their fair share of strangeness. 192 00:12:27,000 --> 00:12:31,000 In 2003, Quinton White and his wife Stephanie moved in, 193 00:12:31,000 --> 00:12:34,000 and strange things would happen on a regular basis. 194 00:12:34,000 --> 00:12:36,000 The commode would flush on its own, 195 00:12:36,000 --> 00:12:38,000 but there was even more than this. 196 00:12:38,000 --> 00:12:40,000 One day Quinton was working on the house outside 197 00:12:40,000 --> 00:12:42,000 when he heard a crashing noise upstairs. 198 00:12:42,000 --> 00:12:43,000 He went to find out what happened, 199 00:12:43,000 --> 00:12:46,000 and he previously stacked a large pile of 2x4s on the floor. 200 00:12:46,000 --> 00:12:49,000 When he reached upstairs, the boards were standing up straight. 201 00:12:49,000 --> 00:12:51,000 After they saw this, they had had enough and moved out, 202 00:12:51,000 --> 00:12:53,000 though they still owned the house. 203 00:12:53,000 --> 00:12:54,000 They tried to sell it. 204 00:12:54,000 --> 00:12:56,000 At the time of this writing, it was now on sale. 205 00:12:56,000 --> 00:12:58,000 I'm not sure when this was written. 206 00:12:58,000 --> 00:13:00,000 I can't say, I don't know, 207 00:13:00,000 --> 00:13:03,000 I can't say what I would do if I experienced any spookinings with that. 208 00:13:03,000 --> 00:13:07,000 But while it was for sale, buyers that were walking through 209 00:13:07,000 --> 00:13:09,000 would also experience odd things. 210 00:13:09,000 --> 00:13:12,000 Sunglasses and prescription medication going missing, 211 00:13:12,000 --> 00:13:14,000 a recliner in the home flipping back on its own, 212 00:13:14,000 --> 00:13:17,000 dogs refusing to go inside, and eerie feelings of a sneeze. 213 00:13:17,000 --> 00:13:19,000 Yeah, it's probably still for sale. 214 00:13:19,000 --> 00:13:22,000 See, I tried to find it, and I couldn't find it. 215 00:13:22,000 --> 00:13:26,000 So I assume it's been bought, but I couldn't find it. 216 00:13:26,000 --> 00:13:29,000 One woman interested in the house brought her young daughter with her. 217 00:13:29,000 --> 00:13:31,000 She was sensitive, the daughter, 218 00:13:31,000 --> 00:13:33,000 and while the woman was walking through the house, 219 00:13:33,000 --> 00:13:35,000 the daughter stopped on the stairs and felt very sad. 220 00:13:35,000 --> 00:13:39,000 One worker working on the house only worked on the house at night 221 00:13:39,000 --> 00:13:42,000 because too many curious people showed up wanting to see the ghost. 222 00:13:42,000 --> 00:13:46,000 Even he, a skeptic, had experienced many unexplainable incidents. 223 00:13:46,000 --> 00:13:48,000 The worker is quoted as saying, 224 00:13:48,000 --> 00:13:50,000 I'm a rational person, I don't believe in the paranormal, 225 00:13:50,000 --> 00:13:52,000 but since I've been working on that place, 226 00:13:52,000 --> 00:13:55,000 I feel very uncomfortable like someone's watching me. 227 00:13:55,000 --> 00:13:57,000 He also claims to have seen spirit several times, 228 00:13:57,000 --> 00:14:01,000 quote, when I pull up into the driveway of the house at night, 229 00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:05,000 I see a man looking down at me, like from another time period, end quote. 230 00:14:05,000 --> 00:14:08,000 He also claims to have seen Gerald several times, 231 00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:11,000 and he has experienced a cold wind on the back of his neck 232 00:14:11,000 --> 00:14:13,000 and heard slamming noises and footsteps. 233 00:14:13,000 --> 00:14:16,000 Now Gerald, Bettis, was tragically a real person. 234 00:14:16,000 --> 00:14:18,000 What he did was truly despicable. 235 00:14:18,000 --> 00:14:22,000 The absolute truth of the story may be mired in rumors forevermore. 236 00:14:22,000 --> 00:14:26,000 And the strange haunting of the Arkansas dog boy has taken on mythical status. 237 00:14:26,000 --> 00:14:29,000 Ghost hunters from around the world are fascinated by this house, 238 00:14:29,000 --> 00:14:31,000 and the dark secrets lurking within. 239 00:14:31,000 --> 00:14:36,000 Some potential buyers swear that they have seen Gerald running at them screaming to get out. 240 00:14:36,000 --> 00:14:38,000 And that's where I am, the Arkansas dog boy. 241 00:14:38,000 --> 00:14:41,000 Well, that was disturbing. Thank you for that. 242 00:14:41,000 --> 00:14:44,000 That will most certainly haunt my Halloween dreams. 243 00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:46,000 Which is what we're going for. 244 00:14:46,000 --> 00:14:51,000 So with that, you're going on to the dismal Dover demon. 245 00:14:51,000 --> 00:14:53,000 I just feel like it can't follow that. 246 00:14:53,000 --> 00:14:55,000 It's not quite as flashy. 247 00:14:55,000 --> 00:14:57,000 No, it's not. Okay. 248 00:14:57,000 --> 00:14:59,000 It's too bad. It's got demon in the name. 249 00:14:59,000 --> 00:15:01,000 Like you just keep them names and you're like, 250 00:15:01,000 --> 00:15:03,000 objectively Dover demon is going to be more interesting. 251 00:15:03,000 --> 00:15:06,000 I just don't know how you followed that story though. 252 00:15:06,000 --> 00:15:10,000 This one's going April 21st, 1977. 253 00:15:10,000 --> 00:15:14,000 The date that a group of teenagers in Dover, Massachusetts. 254 00:15:14,000 --> 00:15:18,000 I don't understand how that makes that sound, first of all, 255 00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:20,000 but that's neither here nor there. 256 00:15:20,000 --> 00:15:24,000 We are pronunciators, but we're not here to dissect 257 00:15:24,000 --> 00:15:28,000 how you or why you pronounce Massachusetts, Massachusetts, 258 00:15:28,000 --> 00:15:33,000 or why you pronounce Colonel instead of Colinel. 259 00:15:33,000 --> 00:15:35,000 We'll never know. Yeah. 260 00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:37,000 We do know, but we kind of do know. 261 00:15:37,000 --> 00:15:39,000 But it's a secret of the podcast. 262 00:15:39,000 --> 00:15:43,000 Yeah. First encountered the creature that cryptozoologist 263 00:15:43,000 --> 00:15:47,000 Lauren Coleman would eventually dub the Dover demon. 264 00:15:47,000 --> 00:15:50,000 There were three separate sightings of this creature. 265 00:15:50,000 --> 00:15:52,000 The first sighting is the Bartlett sighting. 266 00:15:52,000 --> 00:15:55,000 On the night of April 21st, 1977, 267 00:15:55,000 --> 00:15:58,000 Bill Bartlett was driving in his Volkswagen 268 00:15:58,000 --> 00:16:01,000 with friends Mike, Mike and Andy. 269 00:16:01,000 --> 00:16:03,000 We never going to last names. 270 00:16:03,000 --> 00:16:05,000 I think that should be our thing. 271 00:16:05,000 --> 00:16:07,000 All of whom were 17 years old. 272 00:16:07,000 --> 00:16:09,000 At about 10 30 p.m. 273 00:16:09,000 --> 00:16:12,000 the three young men were headed northward on farm street 274 00:16:12,000 --> 00:16:14,000 when Bartlett spotted what he at first thought 275 00:16:14,000 --> 00:16:18,000 might be a dog or a cat on top of a low stone wall. 276 00:16:18,000 --> 00:16:21,000 He quickly realized that his initial impression was inaccurate 277 00:16:21,000 --> 00:16:25,000 and the VW's headlights illuminated the entity. 278 00:16:25,000 --> 00:16:29,000 Creature Bartlett saw stood there three and a half to four feet tall 279 00:16:29,000 --> 00:16:33,000 and had a large watermelon shaped head with two large round eyes 280 00:16:33,000 --> 00:16:36,000 that shone like two orange marbles. 281 00:16:36,000 --> 00:16:39,000 Its oversized head was supported by a thin net 282 00:16:39,000 --> 00:16:44,000 that led to an oblong torso from which sprouted long spindly limbs. 283 00:16:44,000 --> 00:16:47,000 It was humanoid with two arms and two legs 284 00:16:47,000 --> 00:16:51,000 and unusually large hands and feet I guess as well as the head. 285 00:16:51,000 --> 00:16:56,000 Being skin had an odd texture like wet sandpaper said Bartlett 286 00:16:56,000 --> 00:17:01,000 and was peach colored although it whitened somewhat at the extremities. 287 00:17:01,000 --> 00:17:05,000 Neither Bill nor Andy saw the creature. 288 00:17:05,000 --> 00:17:08,000 Oh no no Andy or the other guy. 289 00:17:08,000 --> 00:17:09,000 There's three of them. 290 00:17:09,000 --> 00:17:11,000 Mike? There's so many Mike's in the car. 291 00:17:11,000 --> 00:17:12,000 Andy and Mike. Andy and Mike. 292 00:17:12,000 --> 00:17:13,000 Bill saw it. 293 00:17:13,000 --> 00:17:15,000 Andy and Mike did not see the creature 294 00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:19,000 both claiming to have been distracted by other things at the time 295 00:17:19,000 --> 00:17:23,000 although they both vouched for the sincerity of their friends emotion at the sighting. 296 00:17:23,000 --> 00:17:24,000 So what? 297 00:17:24,000 --> 00:17:28,000 What had their attention while Bill is probably screaming his ass off 298 00:17:28,000 --> 00:17:30,000 about this weird thing that he's seeing? 299 00:17:30,000 --> 00:17:34,000 What was so important is what I immediately am wondering. 300 00:17:34,000 --> 00:17:37,000 He notices it in a lot of detail 301 00:17:37,000 --> 00:17:40,000 if it was just a quick pass by in his Volkswagen. 302 00:17:40,000 --> 00:17:41,000 Super strange. 303 00:17:41,000 --> 00:17:42,000 That's the first sighting. 304 00:17:42,000 --> 00:17:46,000 That's the Bartlett sighting because Bartlett was with two other people only he saw it. 305 00:17:46,000 --> 00:17:48,000 Next is the Baxter sighting. 306 00:17:48,000 --> 00:17:54,000 Around two hours later, 15 year old John Baxter was walking home from his girlfriend's house 307 00:17:54,000 --> 00:17:56,000 along Millers Hill Road. 308 00:17:56,000 --> 00:18:00,000 After walking for about a mile Baxter said that he noticed a silhouetted figure 309 00:18:00,000 --> 00:18:02,000 approach him on the side of the road. 310 00:18:02,000 --> 00:18:06,000 At first he suspected that it might be a local boy who lived on the street. 311 00:18:06,000 --> 00:18:10,000 Baxter called out to the shadowy being but received no response 312 00:18:10,000 --> 00:18:14,000 when they were approximately 15 feet apart the silhouette stopped. 313 00:18:14,000 --> 00:18:17,000 Baxter again called out and received no response. 314 00:18:17,000 --> 00:18:21,000 When he stepped towards the figure it scurried quickly off the road. 315 00:18:21,000 --> 00:18:27,000 He chased it down the roadside ditch but stopped as he saw it outlined against an open field. 316 00:18:27,000 --> 00:18:33,000 Baxter described roughly the same creature as Bartlett with its oversized head and long spindly limbs. 317 00:18:33,000 --> 00:18:39,000 This time although the being was standing using its long fingers to grasp the trunk of a tree 318 00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:40,000 it was leaning on. 319 00:18:40,000 --> 00:18:44,000 Its weirdly long toes contoured to the rock beneath its feet. 320 00:18:44,000 --> 00:18:46,000 How has he seen this detail? 321 00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:51,000 Baxter didn't report any glowing eyes but the creature made him very uncomfortable all the same 322 00:18:51,000 --> 00:18:54,000 and he backed up the road and quickly walked away. 323 00:18:54,000 --> 00:18:57,000 I would have been fully surprised if he said I wasn't scared at all. 324 00:18:57,000 --> 00:19:00,000 Now had it had glowing eyes I would have been terrified but... 325 00:19:00,000 --> 00:19:07,000 Yeah that's true and it seems to me then that it didn't have eye glow it was just the reflection that it was. 326 00:19:07,000 --> 00:19:09,000 Because they were driving a car in the first one. 327 00:19:09,000 --> 00:19:11,000 Yeah that's what I'm thinking it sounds like. 328 00:19:11,000 --> 00:19:14,000 The last sighting is the Brabham Tranter sighting. 329 00:19:14,000 --> 00:19:16,000 This is the next night. 330 00:19:16,000 --> 00:19:23,000 Abby Brabham 15 was being driven home by Will Tranter 18 and he spotted something in the road. 331 00:19:23,000 --> 00:19:29,000 Brabham 2 described a strange creature with a large ovoid head and long spindly limbs. 332 00:19:29,000 --> 00:19:31,000 Yeah ovoid like egg shaped. 333 00:19:31,000 --> 00:19:35,000 Okay she said that the being was missing all facial features except for its eyes. 334 00:19:35,000 --> 00:19:44,000 It's creepy which around and glowed bright green a color which she steadfastly insisted on to investigators despite its idiosyncrasy. 335 00:19:44,000 --> 00:19:51,000 Painter caught only a fleeting glimpse of the creature and said he saw something with a large head and tan body crouched in the road. 336 00:19:51,000 --> 00:19:58,000 So that's that sighting all three sightings people who saw them drew sketches of the alleged creature. 337 00:19:58,000 --> 00:20:03,000 Bartlett wrote on his sketch famously in regards to the Dover Demon. 338 00:20:03,000 --> 00:20:09,000 Which is like general famous but in regards to the specific cryptid famous quote. 339 00:20:09,000 --> 00:20:14,000 I Bill Bartlett swear on a stack of Bibles that I saw this creature and quote. 340 00:20:14,000 --> 00:20:21,000 According to the Boston Globe the locations of the sightings plotted on a map laying a straight line over two miles. 341 00:20:21,000 --> 00:20:24,000 Investigators Lauren Coleman where it gets its name. 342 00:20:24,000 --> 00:20:32,000 Walter Webb, Joseph Nyman and Ed Fogg were unanimously impressed by the witnesses especially Bartlett and Brabham. 343 00:20:32,000 --> 00:20:40,000 The Dover police chief Carl Sheridan went so far as to describe Bartlett as an outstanding artist and reliable witness. 344 00:20:40,000 --> 00:20:49,000 Parents, teachers and other community members came out in support of the teenagers and it was generally agreed that they were ordinary kids who had witnessed something extraordinary. 345 00:20:49,000 --> 00:20:56,000 Explanations for the Dover Demon range from an escaped monkey to a baby moose to a fox with mange. 346 00:20:56,000 --> 00:21:07,000 Although those mundane conclusions never held much water with investigators, a paranormal hypothesis was equally difficult to present since as Webb wrote in his report on the case. 347 00:21:07,000 --> 00:21:11,000 Nor does it fit the known patterns of ghost fairies or UFO knots. 348 00:21:11,000 --> 00:21:20,000 A snowy owl based on size and plumage which would have reflected the yellow headlights of older cars as the peach color described by Bartlett. 349 00:21:20,000 --> 00:21:30,000 In addition, the long spindly arms and fingers of the supposed creature could be the partially open wings and the splayed feathers of the wing tips of a snow owl. 350 00:21:30,000 --> 00:21:37,000 Police told the Associated Press that creatures reported by the teenagers quote were probably nothing more than a school vacation house end quote. 351 00:21:37,000 --> 00:21:43,000 Skeptic Ben Radford had suggested the sighting may have been influenced by the pop culture at the time. 352 00:21:43,000 --> 00:21:48,000 1977 was the year for big headed client type creatures end quote. 353 00:21:48,000 --> 00:21:49,000 That's weird. 354 00:21:49,000 --> 00:21:51,000 The Dover Demon is a true enigma. 355 00:21:51,000 --> 00:21:56,000 Wrote Webb an animat, an animate, an anomaly. 356 00:21:56,000 --> 00:21:58,000 Ananamal- this is a tongue twister. 357 00:21:58,000 --> 00:22:01,000 An animate ananamal- anomaly. 358 00:22:01,000 --> 00:22:03,000 Geez, I know this word anomaly. 359 00:22:03,000 --> 00:22:06,000 I can't say those two at the same time. 360 00:22:06,000 --> 00:22:12,000 That intersect the lives of four credible young people that lonely week in April 1977. 361 00:22:12,000 --> 00:22:14,000 What a poetic way to put that. 362 00:22:14,000 --> 00:22:21,000 The thing with these cryptids and it's always the same if there's multiple witnesses that are seeing the same weird thing. 363 00:22:21,000 --> 00:22:25,000 You would think one of them would know what an owl would look like. 364 00:22:25,000 --> 00:22:33,000 Yeah, and particularly it doesn't sound like these guys actually knew each other or would have been able to talk to each other prior to their sightings. 365 00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:36,000 So it is interesting that they're all basically saying the same thing independently. 366 00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:38,000 Yeah, it's kind of cool. 367 00:22:38,000 --> 00:22:40,000 And like you see that with like mothmen too. 368 00:22:40,000 --> 00:22:43,000 Like people are reporting the same weird thing. 369 00:22:43,000 --> 00:22:48,000 And so for people to be basically describing the exact same creature, 370 00:22:48,000 --> 00:22:54,000 you would think they would come closer to putting together a portrait of an owl if it's actually an owl. 371 00:22:54,000 --> 00:22:56,000 And you know, this weird- 372 00:22:56,000 --> 00:22:58,000 Or somebody would have described feathers. 373 00:22:58,000 --> 00:23:04,000 Yeah, somebody would have given, you know, they all would have given a little bit different pieces of information to be like, 374 00:23:04,000 --> 00:23:06,000 okay, like that's clearly an owl. 375 00:23:06,000 --> 00:23:09,000 Just one person misinterpreted as something else. 376 00:23:09,000 --> 00:23:15,000 But for them all to misinterpret something for the same creature is just weird to me. 377 00:23:15,000 --> 00:23:17,000 And the exact same way too as well. 378 00:23:17,000 --> 00:23:23,000 Yeah, so I think that always gives credence when there's multiple reportings of the same creature. 379 00:23:23,000 --> 00:23:25,000 In the same region too. 380 00:23:25,000 --> 00:23:27,000 It's not like it was all over the county. 381 00:23:27,000 --> 00:23:28,000 It's one stretch of road. 382 00:23:28,000 --> 00:23:30,000 Yeah, like a two mile stretch of road. 383 00:23:30,000 --> 00:23:32,000 Yeah, so that's the Dover demon. 384 00:23:32,000 --> 00:23:35,000 Okay, now next up Chelsea, I'm not sure if we've ever talked about this. 385 00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:38,000 I just want to make sure before I talk about it, the bell witch. 386 00:23:38,000 --> 00:23:41,000 Okay, well, there's a bell witch.org website. 387 00:23:41,000 --> 00:23:43,000 They have the entire history of this phenomenon. 388 00:23:43,000 --> 00:23:45,000 And I'm just, they tell it very well. 389 00:23:45,000 --> 00:23:48,000 So I just edited it a little bit to make it a little more readable. 390 00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:54,000 In the early 1800s, John Bell moved his family from North Carolina to what's present day Adams, Tennessee. 391 00:23:54,000 --> 00:23:56,000 Bell purchased some land in a large house for his family. 392 00:23:56,000 --> 00:24:02,000 Over the years, he acquired more land, increasing his holdings to 328 acres and cleared a number of fields for planting. 393 00:24:02,000 --> 00:24:05,000 He also became an elder of the Red River Baptist Church. 394 00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:12,000 One day in 1817, John Bell was inspecting his cornfield when he encountered a strange looking animal sitting in the middle of a cornrow, 395 00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:17,000 shocked by the appearance of this animal, which had the body of a dog in the head of a rabbit. 396 00:24:17,000 --> 00:24:20,000 Bell shot it several times. The animal then vanished. 397 00:24:20,000 --> 00:24:23,000 This was the first documented manifestation of this entity. 398 00:24:23,000 --> 00:24:26,000 Bell thought nothing more of the incident, at least not until after dinner. 399 00:24:26,000 --> 00:24:31,000 That evening, the family began hearing quote, beating sounds and quote, on the outside of their log home. 400 00:24:31,000 --> 00:24:35,000 The mysterious sounds continued with increased frequency and force each night. 401 00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:40,000 Bell and his sons often hurried outside to catch the culprit, but always returned empty-handed. 402 00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:44,000 In the weeks that followed, the Bell children began waking up frightened, 403 00:24:44,000 --> 00:24:46,000 complaining that rats were gnawing at their bed posts. 404 00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:51,000 Not long after that, the children began complaining of having their bed covers pulled from them 405 00:24:51,000 --> 00:24:54,000 and their pillows tossed onto the floor by a seemingly invisible entity. 406 00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:58,000 As time went on, the Bells began hearing faint whispering voices, 407 00:24:58,000 --> 00:25:02,000 which were too weak to understand but sounded like a feeble old woman singing hymns. 408 00:25:02,000 --> 00:25:06,000 The encounters escalated and the Bell's youngest daughter, Betsy Bell, 409 00:25:06,000 --> 00:25:09,000 began experiencing brutal encounters with the invisible entity. 410 00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:15,000 It would pull her hair and slap her relentlessly, often leaving welts and handprints on her face and body. 411 00:25:15,000 --> 00:25:18,000 The disturbances about which John Bell had vowed his family to secret, 412 00:25:18,000 --> 00:25:24,000 finally escalated to the point that he shared his family trouble with the closest friend and neighbor, James Johnston. 413 00:25:24,000 --> 00:25:27,000 Skeptical at first, Johnston and his wife spent the night at the Bell home. 414 00:25:27,000 --> 00:25:30,000 Things began peacefully, but once they were tired for the evening, 415 00:25:30,000 --> 00:25:34,000 they were subjected to the same terrifying disturbances that the Bells had been experiencing. 416 00:25:34,000 --> 00:25:39,000 After their bed covers were yanked off and James was slapped, he sprang out a bed explaining, 417 00:25:39,000 --> 00:25:43,000 quote, in the name of the Lord, who are you, and what do you want, end quote. 418 00:25:43,000 --> 00:25:46,000 The entity did not respond. The rest of the night was peaceful, 419 00:25:46,000 --> 00:25:51,000 and the next morning, Mr. Johnston explained to the Bells that the culprit was likely a evil spirit, 420 00:25:51,000 --> 00:25:53,000 the kind that the Bible talks about. 421 00:25:53,000 --> 00:25:57,000 The entity's voice strengthened over time and became loud and unmistakable. 422 00:25:57,000 --> 00:26:01,000 It sang hymns, quoted scripture, carried on intelligent conversation, 423 00:26:01,000 --> 00:26:08,000 and once even quoted word for word, two sermons that were preached at the same time on the same day, 13 miles apart. 424 00:26:08,000 --> 00:26:11,000 Word of the supernatural phenomena soon spread outside the settlement, 425 00:26:11,000 --> 00:26:17,000 even in Nashville, where then Major General Andrew Jackson became interested in the so-called Bell Witch. 426 00:26:17,000 --> 00:26:25,000 John Bell Jr., alongside with his brother Drewry Bell and Jesse Bell, had fought under General Jackson in the Battle of New Orleans. 427 00:26:25,000 --> 00:26:31,000 A few years later in 1819, Jackson heard about the disturbance at the Bell Home and decided to pay it a visit and investigate. 428 00:26:31,000 --> 00:26:38,000 As Jackson's entourage, consisting of several men, well-grouped horses, and large wagons approached the Bell property, 429 00:26:38,000 --> 00:26:43,000 the wagon jolted to a sudden stop. It had become stuck in the muddy creek bed, and the horses weren't able to pull it. 430 00:26:43,000 --> 00:26:45,000 At least that's what the men thought. 431 00:26:45,000 --> 00:26:49,000 After several minutes of cursing and coaxing the horses into pulling the wagon, Jackson proclaimed, 432 00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:53,000 by the eternal boys, that must be the Bell Witch. 433 00:26:53,000 --> 00:26:59,000 Then suddenly a disembodied female voice told Jackson that they could proceed and that she would see them again later that evening. 434 00:26:59,000 --> 00:27:03,000 They were then able to proceed across the property, up the lane, and to the Bell Home. 435 00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:09,000 That evening, Jackson told old war stories while his entourage set up their tents in John and Lucy Bell's yard. 436 00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:14,000 One of the men claimed to be a witch tamer, and after several uneventful hours, he pulled out a shiny pistol 437 00:27:14,000 --> 00:27:18,000 and proclaimed that its silver bullets would kill any spirit that came into contact with. 438 00:27:18,000 --> 00:27:25,000 He went on to say that the reason nothing had happened to them was because whatever had been haunting the Bells was scared of his silver bullets. 439 00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:30,000 Immediately, the man screamed and began jerking his body in different directions, 440 00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:33,000 complaining that he was being stuck with pins and beaten severely. 441 00:27:33,000 --> 00:27:39,000 A strong swift kick to the man's posterior region from an invisible foot sent him to the front door. 442 00:27:39,000 --> 00:27:47,000 Angry, the entity spoke up and announced that there was yet another fraud in Jackson's party and that she would identify him the following evening. 443 00:27:47,000 --> 00:27:51,000 Now terrified, Jackson's men begged to leave the Bell Farm. 444 00:27:51,000 --> 00:27:55,000 Jackson insisted on saying he wanted to know who the other fraud was, 445 00:27:55,000 --> 00:27:59,000 and the men eventually went outside to sleep in their tents while continuously begging Jackson to leave. 446 00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:06,000 What happened next is not clear, but Jackson and his entourage were spotted in nearby Springfield early the next morning, going back to Nashville. 447 00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:09,000 Some alleged that Jackson later proclaimed, quote, 448 00:28:09,000 --> 00:28:13,000 I would rather fight the British at New Orleans than fight the Bell Witch, end quote. 449 00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:19,000 The disturbances decreased, but the entity continued to express disdain for John Bell, relentlessly vowing to kill him. 450 00:28:19,000 --> 00:28:26,000 Bell had been experiencing episodes of twitching in his face and difficulty swallowing for almost a year, and the malady grew worse with time. 451 00:28:26,000 --> 00:28:30,000 By the fall of 1820, his declining health had confined him to the house, 452 00:28:30,000 --> 00:28:33,000 where the malicious entity continuously removed his shoes when he tried to walk, 453 00:28:33,000 --> 00:28:36,000 and slapped his face when he recovered from his numerous seizures. 454 00:28:36,000 --> 00:28:42,000 Her shrill voice was heard all over the farm, cursing and chastising old Jack Bell, the nickname she had given him. 455 00:28:42,000 --> 00:28:48,000 John Bell breathed his last breath on the morning of December 20th, 1820, after slipping into a coma a day earlier. 456 00:28:48,000 --> 00:28:52,000 Immediately after his death, the family found a vial of strange black liquid in the cupboard. 457 00:28:52,000 --> 00:28:55,000 John Jr. sprinkled two drops on the cat's tongue. 458 00:28:55,000 --> 00:29:02,000 Weird way to test something, and the cat jumped in the air, rolled over in midair, and then was dead when it hit the floor. 459 00:29:02,000 --> 00:29:03,000 The entity exclaimed, 460 00:29:03,000 --> 00:29:07,000 I give old Jack a big dose of that last night, which fixed him. 461 00:29:07,000 --> 00:29:12,000 John Jr. tossed in the series vial into the fireplace. It burst into a bright blue flame and shot up the chimney. 462 00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:13,000 What? 463 00:29:13,000 --> 00:29:17,000 John Bell's funeral was one of the largest ever held in Robertson County, Tennessee. 464 00:29:17,000 --> 00:29:21,000 People attended from miles away, and three creatures eulogized him. 465 00:29:21,000 --> 00:29:27,000 As the crowd of mourners began leaving the graveyard, the Bell Witch entity laughed and sang a song about a bottle of brandy. 466 00:29:27,000 --> 00:29:31,000 Her fervent singing didn't stop until the last mourner had left the graveyard. 467 00:29:31,000 --> 00:29:36,000 The entity's presence was almost non-existent after John's Bell's demise, as though it had fulfilled its purpose. 468 00:29:36,000 --> 00:29:43,000 Over time, Betsy Bell became interested in Joshua Gardner, a young man who lived nearby with the blessing of the parents they decided to marry. 469 00:29:43,000 --> 00:29:45,000 Everyone was happy about their engagement. 470 00:29:45,000 --> 00:29:51,000 Except, of course, the mysterious entity became furious and repeatedly ordered Betsy to not marry Joshua. 471 00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:56,000 Betsy and Joshua's former schoolteacher, Richard Powell, had been noticeably interested in Betsy for some time, 472 00:29:56,000 --> 00:29:59,000 and expressed interest in marrying her when she became older. 473 00:29:59,000 --> 00:30:00,000 That's really gross. 474 00:30:00,000 --> 00:30:06,000 By some accounts, Powell was eleven years Betsy senior and was a student of the occult, ventriloquism and mathematical genius, 475 00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:08,000 and well-versed in horticulture and geology. 476 00:30:08,000 --> 00:30:14,000 He was secretly married to a woman in nearby Nashville, Esther Scott, during the time he lived in Taut Goulette Red River, 477 00:30:14,000 --> 00:30:16,000 and expressed his unwavering fondness for Betsy Bell. 478 00:30:16,000 --> 00:30:21,000 According to early accounts, Powell politely expressed his disappointment with Betsy's engagement to Joshua. 479 00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:27,000 In April of 1821, shortly after Betsy Bell had broken her engagement, the entity visited John Bell's widow, Lucy Bell, 480 00:30:27,000 --> 00:30:31,000 and told her that it was leaving but would return in seven years. 481 00:30:31,000 --> 00:30:33,000 The entity returned in 1828, as promised. 482 00:30:33,000 --> 00:30:38,000 Most of the return visits centered on John Bell Jr., with whom the entity discussed the origin of life, 483 00:30:38,000 --> 00:30:42,000 civilization, Christianity, and the need for a major spiritual awakening. 484 00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:47,000 A particular significance was his prediction of the Civil War and other major events, some of which she missed. 485 00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:54,000 The entity bade farewell after three weeks, promising to visit John Bell's most direct descendant in 107 years. 486 00:30:54,000 --> 00:31:01,000 The year would be 1935, and the closest living relative at the time was Nashville physician Dr. Charles Bailey Bell, 487 00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:04,000 a neurologist and John Bell's senior's great-grandson. 488 00:31:04,000 --> 00:31:10,000 In 1934, Dr. Bell published a book about the Bell Witch, likely to raise awareness of the spirit's impending return. 489 00:31:10,000 --> 00:31:15,000 The book contains the first-ever account of the alleged confessions between the entity and John Bell Jr. in 1828. 490 00:31:15,000 --> 00:31:21,000 The author's father, Dr. Joel Thomas Bell, had allegedly taken notes during the conference, and upon his death passed them down to him. 491 00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:28,000 Dr. Bell published no follow-up to his 1934 book, and he died in 1945 and is buried at the Bellwood Cemetery in Adam, Tennessee. 492 00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:32,000 We don't know if the Bell Witch ever returned to him at that time. 493 00:31:32,000 --> 00:31:41,000 The entity that tormented the Bell family in the Red River Sellment almost 200 years ago is often blamed for unexplained manifestations that occur near the old Bell Farm today. 494 00:31:41,000 --> 00:31:46,000 And the faint sounds of people talking and children playing come sometimes be heard in the area, 495 00:31:46,000 --> 00:31:50,000 and it's not uncommon to see candle lights dance through the dark fields late at night. 496 00:31:50,000 --> 00:32:00,000 Photography is especially difficult. Some pictures taken in the area show mist, orbs of light, and other phenomena, including human-like figures who were not present when the pictures were taken. 497 00:32:00,000 --> 00:32:07,000 The cause of the Bell family's torment 200 years ago, along with today's continued phenomenon in the area, although to a lesser extent, 498 00:32:07,000 --> 00:32:11,000 remains a mystery and numerous theories have been put forth, but all have been debunked. 499 00:32:11,000 --> 00:32:19,000 However, most researchers agree that something had to have caused the incident at Red River in the early 1800s that gave rise to the Bell Witch legend as we know it today. 500 00:32:19,000 --> 00:32:21,000 I just thought that was a creepy story. 501 00:32:21,000 --> 00:32:28,000 That is a creepy story. I think the creepiest thing about it, I mean, I can't imagine having the blinkers pulled off of me personally, 502 00:32:28,000 --> 00:32:31,000 but that weird creature at the beginning. 503 00:32:31,000 --> 00:32:33,000 Yeah, half dog, half rabbit. 504 00:32:33,000 --> 00:32:34,000 Yeah, it's like a skinwalker. 505 00:32:34,000 --> 00:32:37,000 It did remind me of the Skinwalker Ranch story at the beginning. 506 00:32:37,000 --> 00:32:41,000 Yeah, which is creepy. Good story. I like that we had a haunting in there. 507 00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:46,000 Yeah, somewhat possession too, because of the hitting and whatnot and seizures. 508 00:32:46,000 --> 00:32:49,000 It also hit on mystery fluid. 509 00:32:49,000 --> 00:32:51,000 Yeah, often overlooked. 510 00:32:51,000 --> 00:32:54,000 Very much so in the very normal community. 511 00:32:54,000 --> 00:33:03,000 Well, that is our creature feature. I hope you guys are ready for your Halloween, where the veil between the world is at its weakest. 512 00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:06,000 You have a truly creepy time. Get into the spirits. 513 00:33:06,000 --> 00:33:12,000 And I have been Taylor here with Chelsea. We are Journey to the Fringe. Thank you all for listening and we'll see you next week. 514 00:33:12,000 --> 00:33:15,000 Bye. P.S. Stay away from crossroads on Halloween. 515 00:33:15,000 --> 00:33:16,000 Yes. 516 00:33:45,000 --> 00:33:49,000 I'm going to be back with another video for new episodes or tell us that we're wrong and terrible either way. 517 00:33:49,000 --> 00:33:54,000 Please send us an email at JourneyToTheFringe at gmail.com. 518 00:33:54,000 --> 00:34:16,000 I'll see you in the next episode.