From the unexplained to the mundane, join us on our journey to the fringe.
Hello and welcome to Journey to the Fringe, where we take French Halloween seriously.
And for any frat members out there looking for a French Halloween costume, might I suggest
a Chupa-Cop bro?
I did have to put hold for applause there, just in case.
We are your spooky host Taylor and Chelsea here today, talking about, I almost want to
call this a creature feature, but it's not quite that.
It's kind of hard to explain, but it is basically sightings of robed figures in the night.
It's a weird thing, it's hard to separate it out, because there's a couple things that
always came up when I was searching this.
First and foremost, shadow people.
We've done a shadow people episode, go take a look at the shadow people episode.
I'm keeping that part of this.
And here's the thing, if they're blacked and hooded, it's hard to tell whether or not
they're a shadow person.
The next part where this comes up, death, the Grim Reaper.
They're a very well known hooded or robed figure.
I have decided to kind of just keep that one out of this.
You took the Grim Reaper out, okay.
And the other part that I've somewhat avoided, just because I think it's its own topic on
its own, stumbling across cults, because I do know there are some somewhat that are larger
sightings like that, but right now, really all I'm focusing on is sightings of robed
or hooded figures in the night that are unexplainable.
I can pick that up, I can pick up what you're putting down.
Because I had to put those limitations on it for what I've decided to do, I found it
actually kind of weird.
Only have one sighting?
No, in fact, I have many sightings, which is just, it's good.
I was scared for a second.
And we end the episode now because I couldn't actually find anything.
So the criteria was just too straight.
Too straight.
But you know, you guys, I stick to my morals on my strictness.
Now, what I came across, I actually found really interesting in that these can be traced
back fairly far in that we find carvings of hooded or roped figures all the time that
we can't really explain.
And this comes from a website called Ancient Pages, and the article title is called Mystery
of the Hooded Ones, Enigmatic Cloaked Figures.
And I just, I really liked the way this one went.
And I just kind of wanted to give like a bit of a background on how at least there's an
unexplained hooded figure in cultural backgrounds.
This is written by Jan Bartek on February 10, 2020.
Depictions of mysterious hooded ones have been encountered in various European places.
Who are these enigmatic cloaked individuals?
And why is it so hard to determine their gender?
Were they made in the image of pagan gods, monks, dwarves, spirits, or some unknown strangers
we haven't been able to identify yet?
The enduring mystery of the figures remains a captivating historical subject.
There are many speculations and theories on genius cocolatus, which means the hooded one.
No, it's not.
They named it something scientific.
Yeah, they have a Latin name for it.
That's funny.
Several stone carvings depicting the hooded ones clay statuettes have been unearthed in
continental Europe and Britain.
A famous carving of the hooded ones can be found on Hadrian's wall.
In most cases, it's impossible to say whether they were women or men, but a carving found
in the Mosul region shows the hooded ones wearing mustaches.
And that particular carving gives off a reason to think they could have been males.
The hooded ones wear a long cloak covering them from the head to the ankles.
This outfit makes it only possible to see the face of the hooded one.
On carvings, we find them depicted either as singular or as triplets.
Statues of the hooded ones have been found near springs, leading some scholars to believe
that these beings were gods of healing.
Over the centuries, people have observed the waters and its powers and created myths and
legends related to it.
Water has been credited with purification and healing effects.
Sometimes the hooded ones wear a sword, which gives us reasons to speculate whether they
were guardians.
What could they have protected?
Historians and mythology experts emphasize that these puzzling cloaked individuals occasionally
stand next to Lienus, the god of healing.
Being his presence indicates they may have been regarded as protectors against disease.
Although these sculptures resemble those of the Greco-Roman deity Plesperus, hooded attendant
of Asclepius?
Scientists know today that the hooded ones have been considered a figure peculiar to the
Celtic cultures of Britain and Gaul.
I find this really interesting speculation here.
Some researchers who have studied the hooded ones point out we should pay attention to
the small size of these cloaked beings.
Can their height offer clues to their identity?
Waldemar Diona, who wrote a monograph on hooded supernatural beings, said that they may not
have been great gods, but rather minor gods, demons, or spirits.
Diona asserts that the hooded one is usually a child or a dwarf, more rarely an adult of
normal height.
Other scholars before and after him have considered the hooded ones to be dwarves.
However, an examination of photos and sketches of the figures themselves allow one to wonder
what evidence there is for such a conclusion.
I think I can end that there, just with the dwarf thing.
I wanted to add that just because it's a mythical being.
I thought it would be fun to include at least that speculation.
Oh, I just want to make a comment.
I pulled up exactly the article that I think you're reading.
The first one, I see two different...
They have a bunch of different photos in there.
I've at least scrolled to the second one so far.
And the first one is of three, like Taylor's triplets.
They do look probably like men in robes.
You can see their face, they're robed, it's like a cloak coming up to like a little point,
then their feet are sticking out.
And then the next one is kind of the...
I'm assuming it's a side profile?
It could be a side profile.
It could just be the erosion has kind of taken away any features.
It's hard to say for sure though.
That's true.
I want to say side profile though.
And it looks like they're moving in a line.
Still three of them.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, no faces on that one.
And oh yeah, yeah, okay.
Yep, there are more pictures.
I'm going to stop my commentary here.
I just wanted to describe the figures.
Yeah, no, that's really good.
And Chelsea, there's actually...
It's not just a European phenomenon either.
I found this on a...
Oh, I think it was the...
It was a really weird website that I wasn't expecting to see it.
National Post is where it was.
Apparently it has some ground in Inuit culture too.
Really?
That's what...
Unless they're wearing a warm coat.
This is the weird thing.
So you can take a look.
National Post hooded figurine Inuit.
If you Google that, you should be able to find it.
As they dug into the foundation of an ancient proto-Inuit house on Baffin Island, archaeologists
George and Deborah Sabo were turning up the usual artifacts.
Bones, bailings, harpoon heads, bits of wood, but then their tools under something downright
eerie.
A faceless man in a hooded robe with a simple cross emblazoned on his chest.
To any modern westerner, the figure instantly was recognizable as a member of the Roman Catholic
clergy.
But the nomadic tool people living at the time of the Middle Ages should have seen these
figures as alien as Martians.
To the Sabos, the eerie figurine was proof that the mythical hallelulind mentioned in
Viking sagas wasn't mythical at all.
It had been the Arctic Canadians all along.
But it's a super creepy looking doll.
Oh, it's super creepy.
Yep.
So yeah, hooded figures kind of pop up everywhere.
Now Chelsea, I found...
I just wanted to show that this thing isn't just a recent phenomenon.
It appears to go further back.
It's hard to find stories though specifically of that and especially separated out because
there are weird groups that like to have traditions in the woods wearing robes.
So it is hard to get rid of those people that are just, you know, doing normal, I don't
know, orgy stuff in the woods.
A round of burning thing.
Really, if you want to be doing weird shit in the woods, you got to wear a robe.
That's just a law of nature.
I'm sorry to bring it back again, uptales.
But this always reminds me of my favorite episode of Duckdale.
With the druids.
It's come up many a times.
I love that episode.
I bring it up more than I should.
But I just had to say it one more time.
It's just so relevant to everyday life apparently.
It's so relevant, especially to hooded figures.
Now Chelsea, for the first part of this, I took a lot of the sightings from the website
Phantoms and Monsters, which is heavily used in the Forty-In research and yeah, and it
is Lorne who does all the interviews for this and he was heavily used for the Mothman episodes
or the Mothperson episodes.
He was yet big fan of that website.
He does a good job.
He does a great job and he has quite a few robed figure encounters.
This first one I'm going to read comes from excited that we're getting stuff from him posted
on May 23rd, 2024.
Very recent.
I'm going to leave the title out just so we can hear this account without giving away
what's going to happen in it.
Okay, the title is a spoiler alert.
Okay.
Oh yeah, the titles are all spoiler alerts with this stuff.
Don't read the title.
I was hunting with a friend of mine, Tony, deep in the mountains of Northern California.
We went to the top of a ridge to get a good look at the area and try and pick a likely
place to find some boar.
I saw a dirt road to the east, a fire trail actually.
Was about to rain it off when I noticed a row of campers driving along.
They disappeared behind a hill at the edge of the valley.
I scanned the valley floor and found several other campers near the tree line.
Tony suggested we go over and see if they would share a meal and a warm fire with two
worn out hunters.
It was dark by the time we got to the hill they disappeared behind, so we climbed up
to get a good last bearing and distance estimate.
What we found was surreal.
About half a mile away in the middle of the clearing was a bonfire.
Instinctively, we both dropped to the ground and crawled to some brush for cover overlooking
the valley.
I scanned the area looking for the camp and at any security they might deploy.
Tony surveyed the other side of the valley.
When he grabbed my arm, I turned and followed his gaze.
There were two groups of people standing near the edge of the valley right below us.
One was wearing black hooded robes and the other white.
A figure carrying a staff and wearing a red hooded robe walked out of the trees towards
the fire.
The others followed in two single file lines.
At the fire, the red figure stopped and raised his arms.
The black robes circled clockwise and the white robes counterclockwise until they completely
encircled the fire alternating black and white.
We could hear chanting, but we couldn't make out any words.
After about an hour of chanting and walking around the fire, first in one direction then
the other, they stopped.
And a naked man was brought out from the tree line bound in blindfolded.
He was presented to each of the robe figures clockwise around the fire before being presented
to the red figure.
He was then made to lie down at the red figure's feet.
Then a naked and bound woman was brought out and the process was repeated counterclockwise
before she was laid next to the naked man.
I at least had no idea what I was watching or what I should do.
There was more chanting and then silence as four black robe figures emerged from the tree
line carrying a black robe much like a flag.
They circled the fire clockwise, once behind the figure and once in front of them.
Each black figure touched the robe as it passed.
Then they arrived at the red figure.
They stopped over the naked man.
The red figure said something and the other responded.
He then pointed his staff at the naked man and the four laid the robe over top of him.
After another chant, a white robe was brought out and the process was repeated counterclockwise
stopping over the naked woman.
The red figure said something and the other responded.
He then pointed his staff at the naked woman and the four laid the robe over top of her.
The red figure waved his hands and staff over them and raised his staff over his head.
The robe bearer then picked up the robes as they had before and the two rose from the
ground.
The robe bearer then lifted the robes over their heads.
The two then circled the fire twice embracing each member.
First the robes of their color and then the other.
When they got back to the red figure, he pointed towards the camp with the staff and the new
members led the procession back to camp.
They watched them enter the tree line and then looked back to the fire for the red figure.
He hadn't moved.
When the last couple was out of the clearing, the bonfire flashed green and then red and
the red robe collapsed to the ground.
We ran all the way back to our truck that night and we were too scared to stop.
The next morning we stopped at Denny's for breakfast.
We had put more than 60 miles between us and the clearing and felt safe.
While we were eating, two couples came in.
One sat behind Tony and the other behind me so that we each saw one of them.
They just smiled at us while we ate.
When we left, we saw two campers in the parking lot.
Tony and I never spoke about that night.
We found a better hunting area far away from that clearing.
It has been nearly 40 years since that night but each time I see a camper reminds me of
the incident.
And that was submitted by Jay.
Hey, I'll give you the title.
I'm pretty sure I know what that was.
Cousers and counters robed figures conducting bizarre ritual around bonfire.
Okay, so that was a KKK rally.
It could have been but the black and red robes are kind of different.
But if you google it, you'll see black and red robes for KKK.
Yeah, that's actually a fair point.
And I do have something to say with that.
That was for sure a KKK rally.
Funny enough, in my just readings through Reddit in like various things, Ask Reddit,
even paranormal communities, people just say what's the weirdest thing you stumble upon
in the woods at night.
A lot of people are commenting that they stumbled onto a KKK rally in the middle of the woods.
Yeah, and I guess that is its own scary implications and really fits with the theme of this week,
apparently.
Yeah, the amount of times I see it pop up on Reddit is disturbing and therefore spooky
for Halloween and spooky because this exists in our world as something that you have to
be careful not to stumble into the woods on.
Keep in mind that, I mean, that's for sure makes me uncomfortable about that.
And you know what, a lot of the ones that I stumbled to on Reddit were in our neighbors
down in Oregon and Washington.
Oh yeah, Oregon's really bad.
Apparently, you wouldn't think it would be but apparently so.
Well, outside of the major cities is bad.
Alright, this next one.
This is a true account, even though it's difficult for me to believe sometimes.
This occurred right after I graduated from high school in the spring of 73.
That fall, a buddy and another friend of mine came over to my place.
We lived close to the University of Tennessee campus in Knoxville.
We went over to get a pitcher of beer at a local watering hole.
There were no girls with us to bother us or anything like that.
I don't know why they had to include that.
Well, we got a pitcher of beer and then went back to my neighborhood.
One of us had to relieve ourselves so we turned into a Baptist church parking lot that I have
attended a time or two.
We turned up into the driveway and there were about six characters dressed in cowled red
robes.
No.
We had to wear hoodies and robes all the way down to the ground.
So we come around the corner of this church.
My buddy was driving his beat up old Volkswagen Beetle, freaked out, hit the reverse, made
a U-turn and got out of there.
We tried to get him to go back but of course he wouldn't do it.
The oddest thing about it was these people, whoever they were, seemed to move strangely.
It's almost like a scatter shot thing.
Elbows raising that sort of thing.
I don't know what that means.
They just kind of moved around the corner.
I've wondered about that for all of these years.
I haven't got a clue.
All this time we just kind of figured it was devil worshipers.
But if they were, why in a church parking lot?
I'll never know but it sure has freaked me all these years.
What if it's just something mundane like the monks get together at night to late?
They have to move pews at night or something like that.
Yeah.
In full garb.
It's laundry.
Yeah.
Everything else is dirty.
Yeah.
You know what?
Maybe they had their clothes lines out and it was just the wind blowing them about.
No this is Halloween.
It's supposed to be spooky.
It's spooky, yes.
Well, laundry can be spooky.
It can, it really can.
It is, it is spooky.
I'll wait.
Chelsea, next one.
They get spookier from here.
Hi, lawn.
I'd like your opinion on my encounter.
Back in about 2003 I worked at the city jail here in Louisville, Kentucky.
And I live kind of in a more remote area.
You know at the time I was driving home after work?
Very long double shift, about one o'clock in the morning.
I got off at midnight so about halfway home I drive on the road along the river.
There's not much down there except for old terminals.
There's not much activity down there at night.
It's literally right next to the Ohio River.
The other side is Indiana.
As I'm driving, I know Indiana, terrifying.
As I'm driving, I come up on these three figures.
You know, three people, they looked like they were wearing old time robes.
They were standing literally in the middle of the road to where they blocked both lanes.
I stopped.
I turned my bright lights on to look at them.
One of them raised its arm to me and that's when I noticed their eyes were glowing red.
I had the creepiest feeling.
I felt like I was in grave mortal danger.
I did not dare try to go forward and I mean I was armed in everything but I turned around
and went the long way home.
I got home around 2am instead of my usual.
I wasn't that far from home but I turned around and went back.
I just felt like I was in mortal danger and the energy that night was weird.
My cat was doing strange things and there was a lot of fog that night.
After these many years since that encounter, I still feel a sense of grave mortal danger.
I really hope he just means what he thinks about that and it's just like not a constant
feeling of grave mortal danger since that time.
Yeah, I'm really, maybe when he thinks about it even.
Oh my god, what do you do?
What do you do if you see that?
You ram him?
Oh, I turned the fuck around.
Do you risk stopping the car at that point?
You make sure the doors are locked and then you turn around?
Yeah, we've gone over kind of a drill at night.
Yeah, we've gone over this drill.
People know what to do at this point.
If not, please listen to the back catalog.
It's come up many a time.
What to do with encounters at night in the car?
You remind me because I forgot and now I'm nervous.
It's in the Benny and Barty Hill, definitely it came up.
The Mothman episodes, it definitely came up and I think there's one more.
I can't remember up top of my head.
Do you remember what to do because I forgot now I'm nervous.
No, we got it.
You got to go listen to the backlog.
But it's for me.
Yeah, well, we still need to listen to none the less the boss can't do it themselves.
Right.
We need to make a million dollars.
Okay, I'm nervous, so I can't drive at night until I find it.
Yeah, this next story actually, Elani got it from two separate Collins, the coast to
coast AM.
So November 1st, 2014 is the first one, June 13th, 2015 is the next one.
The caller, this happened the night after Halloween.
I deliver newspapers at night and I was delivering newspapers that night and it was business
as usual.
Around the curve, I saw a group of kids in the middle of the road.
There were about six of them and they were all wearing gray robes with hoods.
They didn't have the hoods on.
They were down their backs.
I thought that was kind of strange because Halloween had ended about 10 hours before
that.
One of them saw me and started walking very quickly towards my car saying something.
She got very close to my car and I could see that she was about 15 years old.
My first thought was, why was she out there?
That's pretty young to be out there at that time of night.
It was about 430 in the morning.
I didn't have time to talk, so I drove around her, but then there were the other five kids
in the middle of the road.
Then they saw me and they fanned out to surround my car so I couldn't move and that scared
me.
I drove up on the lawn to get around them, but they were coming pretty quickly at my
car and I almost hit one of them and then I thought, I'm going to call the police because
this is quite odd.
Then I thought, I better follow them so I could tell the police what they're doing.
I'm sorry, he's making so many bad decisions here.
I saw them turn down the street and I turned to follow them and it took about 10 seconds
to get to this street.
They were gone.
They had disappeared and there's no way they could have gone to even the first house.
So that was his first one.
This is the same guy having a second one.
Yeah, and this is Minneapolis just so that we're all on the same page for this.
Sorry, it's Mary in Minneapolis that called.
You know what?
I think the exact same ones you just called into the show twice.
I tried calling coast to coast, but nobody really helped me with it or told me what I'm
sorry.
This is darkness radio, not coast to coast.
The second one.
This radio is you can look that up.
You know, it is the exact same one.
So I think we can skip it, but it does end with I called coast to coast because David
Weatherly was on there and I guess he's the expert on what black eyed kids.
I thought maybe that's what they were.
It sounded like that's what it could have been, but he didn't really say much.
You just said that Halloween was the night that portals are open or something and whatever
can get through.
And just Google David Weatherly.
Can you please go to general to see one of his books that he wrote?
Oh no, the black eyed kids.
They took his stuff.
I'm sorry, he has a book and it's a funny black eyed kid on the front.
Yeah.
Oh God.
I just need to check.
Does he have a 1990s webpage?
He has to.
Oh, he has to.
And why does it say leprechaun press?
And let's take a look here.
David Weatherly looks exactly how you would think that he looks.
I mean, I don't know why there's not any good looking people in the UFO community.
I feel like if you're, yeah, well, we can speculate on a different assholes of the
UFO community at some point.
But yeah, that's that one.
And unfortunately we're now done with phantoms and monsters for the time being.
Next one I found.
I don't know why this kept popping up when I was doing my research.
It's another forum called unexplained mysteries.
This man posted this.
I should say member.
I think he's a man because his nickname is hockey dude.
And he posted it on October 5th, 2006.
The sighting I had happened in May of 05 in Midland, Michigan, where I was attending college.
It was about 3.30 in the afternoon and a perfectly bright and sunny day.
I was riding my bike through the neighborhood where I lived and came to a dead end street
where I spotted a trail off to my left that led into some woods.
I prefer to ride on trails rather than sidewalks, so I started to head off this trail.
However, I quickly veered from that direction when I saw what was standing down the path,
roughly 50 feet from me.
Whatever it was was frightening enough to cause me to quickly turn the other direction.
However, my curiosity soon got the best of me and I turned back and stopped at the trail
ahead to view what had startled me.
I stood there with my bike for what seemed about a half minute staring at this thing.
Whatever it was, was just sitting there absolutely still just staring back at me.
I was wearing a pitch black robe or cloak which had a black pointed hood covering its
face.
I couldn't see any facial features, just darkness.
The most prominent feature which made the entire experience the strangest was the thing's
hands.
It had big, claw-like hands that appeared almost a foot in length.
If any of you can picture the big werewolf gloves that one would wear for Halloween,
that is the best I can describe it.
For a moment I thought it was the grim reaper statue that someone had put in the woods for
a prank, but there was an aspect of realism about it that kept me wanting to go closer.
That kept me from wanting to go any closer.
I was too frightened to go down that path alone, so I dashed to my house which was about
two minutes away.
I grabbed one of my roommates and we drove back to that spot right away.
We were back there within ten minutes of my sighting, however it was gone.
So the statue theory fell through.
It was then that I realized what I saw was truly something strange.
I did some research and found an article about a Mexican police officer which described what
I saw almost exactly.
However this creature flew through the air and attacked this police car.
In a way I regret not trying to get closer to it, but when I read how the creature attacked
the officer I'm glad I didn't.
Some other research on hooded beings led me to the links describing reptilian human
oyes that were reported wearing such garments.
Does anyone have anything to offer on any personal experiences or elaborate on this?
That's where that one ends.
That's the creepy comment.
Comment anything good?
That is creepy.
No, I didn't really go through the comments on that one.
Next up we have finally come to Reddit.
Chelsea, we are on to the Ghost Stories subreddit.
This was posted ten months ago by Life Weird 5293.
WTF were those hooded figures I saw as a kid.
When I was a kid, about seven years old, I saw three hooded figures on two separate occasions
and I still wondered to this day what I had witnessed.
Two different attitudes.
Here's to know if anyone else has seen, heard, or anything like this.
So the first time it happened was at night.
I had not long gone to bed and was just laying there quietly waiting to fall asleep.
I used to be quite scared of the dark when I was that age as I had already had a few
paranormal experiences by then so my parents would leave the hallway light on for me and
my door open a few inches.
The way my bed was positioned against the wall I could see down past my feet through
the doorway and down the hallway.
All of a sudden I saw three hooded figures coming down the hallway in single file towards
me and then turning into my parents room.
The third one stopped for a moment and looked into my room straight at me and that was when
I screamed for my mom.
The second time was a few months later and during the daytime I was just chilling in
my room alone playing with my toys when something caught my eye in my parents room.
I turned to look and saw the three figures walking in single file again.
Both times I only saw them for a few seconds.
Of course I was scared cause that's not normal but I didn't feel threatened by them.
They were quite small, maybe five feet or so and they looked quite like monks.
The clothes did anyways.
I couldn't see their face as it was just blackness.
They moved in the same way monks walked like slow deliberate paces and heads kind of down.
My dad was fighting with the council at the time to stop them from cutting down the lovely
big oak trees in front of our house and he thought that they might be spirits connected
to the trees in some way.
I don't know who they were but it was very strange and I can still remember it so vividly
30 plus years later.
I love the dad's insight on that one that it was spirits connected to the trees.
I also actually really like that the background I gave on the historical reference of hooded
figures matches those guys to a T. Came in a group of three about five feet tall that
I think he could be right on that.
Yeah, that's pretty either that or the parents were up to something but yes I mean if I was
up to something I'd probably be like they're probably connected to the trees outside.
However, creeping on the last.
So Chelsea the woods are alive and well with robed figures.
If I was to encounter any type of figure I would hope that it wouldn't be robed.
Hell even a naked figure is probably a better one to come across in my mind.
Probably because it's obscuring exactly what is standing behind the rope.
Yeah.
So there's all this mystery which makes it worse.
The imagination always makes it worse.
Whatever it is that's standing there behind the rope could be a skeleton, could be a werewolf,
could be a little person.
You don't know.
It could be two kids in a row.
Who knows exactly trying to sneak into a movie and it just makes it worse when you don't
know.
I mean I'd rather just have a skeleton standing there than no I would I would that way I know
what I'm dealing with but they're creepy and I'm gonna say I'm surprised.
I know we always say stop talking about what is it called again all those up tails how
duck tails but I was surprised the Druids never came up because in my experience so
that was the Druid which we have brought up on an episode before.
Yeah.
Let's just refer back to that one real quick in which we also brought up the duck tail.
And with that we you guys got a lot of listening so we won't keep you too much longer.
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.
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