And That's Why We Drink - E274 Psychic Clouds and a Literal Goldmine

Episode Date: May 8, 2022

In episode 274, Em learns science again and teaches us all about the Stone Tape (not Stone Soup) Theory, which attempts to explain how hauntings work. Meanwhile, Christine covers the 1976 Chowchilla Kidnapping, AKA the largest mass-kidnapping in US history. Listen… All we know is we’ll be celebrating Edward Ray Day around here from now on. And don’t forget - everybody needs a thneed… and that’s why we drink!

hi em hi orstein nice shirt thank you is that warner brothers fire department yeah it's the one it's the fire department that's on the actual lot oh that's cool i didn't know they i mean it makes sense they have that i didn't know they, I mean, it makes sense they have that. I didn't know they have that though. Well, they've got every, well, yeah, all movie theaters are, not all movie theaters, all studio lots are required to have a fire department and some, there's like a list of things that they're required. One of them was like a gym, which doesn't totally surprise me because i guess if you're like if it's like

an action movie and you're like offset but like you have to go to the gym and stuff like in between scenes but they don't want you to drive all the way to a gym and everything so you have to like be able to get ready right there and oh god there's a whole list i uh it fascinates me every time but yeah there's always a fire department because studio lots are tricky to navigate. And if something catches on fire, you don't want to have a fire truck going through a maze trying to get into the studio. It's a fair point. When I was, uh, when I worked on a lot, I, um, I just remember them bringing llamas in for fun one day. And I was like, this is cool. You know, if they're going to bring in llamas, you just have to expect that there's going to be like

departments of all sorts like governmentally funded departments are also involved yeah sure yeah yeah that makes total sense did which was the show that had the llamas on um i believe it was gamer's guide to pretty much everything on disney xd oh right you were on a disney show so that makes total sense that there'd be like funky fresh things to keep the kids happy. Just funky llamas, you know. Did you get a picture with the llamas? I did, actually. And I got a picture of it eating my hair.

It was a very adorable photo. Oh, that's nice. I know. That was one of my very few good moments working on set anywhere. Yeah. Well, that could be a whole thing we talk about, I guess. Yeah. stay tuned for the after we haven't fully come up with a name for the after convo the after math i don't know

we discuss math topics the after everything but math i don't know um oh why do you drink christine also thank you for complimenting my shirt. I feel like I don't get a lot of fashion compliments these days. You're always getting, I told you I liked your pastel shirt last week. I'm always complimenting you. Pastel shirt. Yeah, you had a hoodie that was kind of like Easter-y pastels. Oh, yes, obviously my Easter pastels.

You got to have one. You got to. Do you like my shirt? I love your shirt. Oh, I really do love your shirt. I was just going to blindly say yes, but, uh, well, I actually was thinking before we recorded and we were just on zoom. I was like, oh, you never really wear that color. That's a nice color on you.

But I didn't know that Alcatraz was the situation. You know, it's funny. Cause somebody mailed this to me and I, I'm such an idiot. I never like write down. I don't know where to write them down. Even if I did write down who sent what, I don't think I would be able to keep track of that piece of paper. It would just be a disaster. But somebody mailed this.

And this is my proof that when you guys mail us stuff, like we really do appreciate it. Even if we don't, you know, write thank you notes. I don't know. Did I say this last time on the air? I don't remember where I said this but um at our one of our last shows that we did someone like hand wove me a Captain America shield blanket and I sleep with that thing all the time yes that's right and oh my god yes and I have a um is that the same one where it was the the mothman uh yeah someone uh crocheted me a

thneed or maybe it was for Eva I don't know but I have it now and it's a thneed. Or maybe it was for Eva, I don't know, but I have it now. And it's a thneed and Blaze keeps telling me to stop saying thneed and I won't do it. Honestly, it made my whole bottom half of my body perk up, like in an uncomfortable way. The way that you're saying that, my whole body is like, like my stomach's twisting. It's like such an uncomfortable sound.

Well, you put words to probably what blaze is feeling every time i say it you really i i've never actually heard a word come out of your mouth so gross my whole i'm not kidding when i say my whole the whole bottom half me like my toes curled out of fear like that was like i say that word more often than i think most, than the average human. That's worse than the M word that everyone hates. Yeah, it is. You're an evil monster. A moist need would be really the worst. Girl, okay.

Okay, let me look at my shirt here. It says Alcatraz and somebody mailed it. And it has like the list of rules or whatever. What does it have? It says every word except that awful one that's happening. I can add it. I have a cricket machine. Can you imagine?

Okay. Oh, this is funny. I never actually really looked close enough. It's like a, a, what do you call it? A touristy shirt. So it says Bayview, 24-hour security live entertainment

bars in every room that's funny it's such a dad joke it took me a second i was like bars all the fish you can eat all drinks are on the rocks oh boy uh lifetime guarantee or your money back and there's an asterisk that goes nowhere so i don't know what that's about uh let's see four reservations call 800 alcatraz this is so fun um so anyway someone mailed us this or mailed me this to my p.o box a long time ago and um i never really get to wear it so here we are i that was truly it's like one father got together with a bunch of other fathers and they got to each say one thing and then they wrote them all down on a list on that shirt and then they had to burn

it and say you're never allowed to say those jokes again so here i am continuing their legacy but that no the color is really nice and you i actually really was thinking earlier oh you that's a good color on you because it reminds me of that jacket you got a while ago that has pink and then that blue on it i think it's your like when you're trying to be sporty it's your adidas thing oh god well i probably haven't seen that in a long time adidas pink and blue situation am i crazy you know i don't know maybe i'm not crazy you do have something that's hot pink and that color combined on the same jacket or fun it's your sporty adidas thing i'm not losing my mind here there's you have a a pullover or something that matches everyone else in your family if you

got it for christmas or something oh that teal thing yeah i bought that a long time ago yeah yeah yeah yeah i know what you mean i don't know where that is yeah you're right i did absolutely have a teal and a hot pink sweatshirt every time you wore it I was like it's shockingly amazing looking on you that's so kind of you at my goodness wow if that shirt jogged the old the old noggin so I gotta find that um how are you and why do you drink this week man I got a lot of stuff going on um they're all like stupid things that are like i've come i've solely made up in my head like uh one's pokemon cards i did i'm like feel guilty for how much money i recently spent on pokemon cards and then i went back and looked and some of the cards that are coming in are the wrong ones so i was clearly like just buying things and not looking hard enough at the details. And like, I'm buying things like,

so half of my like big purchase, not half my big purchase, but like two or three of the cards I got that are like, I've been collecting for a while now. So the, the cards that I am collecting are more like 30, $40 per card. So that means I spent like at least 150 bucks on cards that I already have so I just feel very silly about that and then um I had to go to the dentist yesterday and they had to like fill my face with Novocaine they give me like two different shots two or three different shots of Novocaine and here's the silly thing so I'm still an update on my heart is that there really is no update, but I'm still taking medication when I tore and then on a very as needed basis,

but I'm trying not to like do it all the time. So I hadn't taken any propranolol or anything and I was at the dentist and the Novocaine apparently has a lot of epinephrine in it. And so in the middle of them, like drugging me up i had a stupid heart thing happen and i had in my with my whole mouth by the way like just completely like just numb and like my mouth i sounded gross i was like and i had to tell like, I don't know how to explain this to you, but I need to turn upside down on this dentist chair. So at least you were in a dentist chair.

Could they flip you upside down? Uh, I, I did say like, uh, I, there was no classy way to do it. I was like, this is going to be a weird one. I don't know how to tell you this, but, um, I have, I have a heart thing and it's kicking in and then she was like oh like there's a lot of epinephrine in the linovacaine maybe i just injected you with this oh no and i was like then you know what this is your fault as far as i'm concerned so you don't get to judge me when i flip upside down so she was a homie about it but it was a really embarrassing way to because then i also panicked in my own head of like oh for, for the, what if it happens again when like, she's like fist deep into my mouth. Oh God, Em.

You know what I mean? You paint such a picture. I don't know how to stop it. So you're going to have to deal with it. But that was like a truly, like, even if that's a gross image, my anxiety had made it a really bad image in my head of like, there's going to be a bunch of tools in my mouth., there's certainly gonna be blood in my gums. And like, it's just gonna be a real nasty mess. And I'm not going to be able to communicate fast enough that I can't breathe. So it turned into this whole spiraling situation. So the dentist was no bueno yesterday.

I'm sorry about that. And then, and then I've got one other thing. But first, do you have any reason why you're particularly drinking? I'm out of wine and I'm pretty traumatized about it. So I don't know if this counts, but I have a whole thing of grape juice here, which is technically wine. That is a very large container. Is that a Fiji bottle like filled with apple juice? What is that?

Yeah, it is. Oh, it's literally a fiji bottle i was like that's so holy crap that's great juice well yeah so i really wanted well i wanted to set your own heart off with this fucking thing of sugar you have in your hand right now i'm not gonna drink the whole thing i've i've this is actually i've refilled it to the brim so i do like okay what the fuck is going on okay so i really wanted apple juice and uh it was very late at night so the only thing that was open was like walgreens and then all they had was apple grape like white grape juice apple juice yum but it only came in the tiny little mott's bottles and i was like i

don't want to do that so i just i just poured all them into one bottle you poured little bottles into a giant fiji bottle i see okay yeah just to like and by the way it went perfectly because this is a 32 ounce bottle and they gave me a four pack of eight ounces and i was like oh my god we're not at the aftermath yet so i would keep this conversation until later. I don't know if you want to hear it again. But it's, yeah, I'm realizing how chaotic that looked as I, like, held a water bottle full of apple juice. You were like, is this wine? I was like, I don't think so.

Not from my experience. Hey, you know what? A bottle this big full of grape juice, as far as I'm concerned, is my version of a wine bottle. Oh, wait. I know why I drink. Sorry. It just occurred to me. It's because that there it is. Wow, you just gave me a perfect example. Basically, I drink it. I'm going to keep it short. But Blaze has a new hobby. And I'm very happy for him because like, you know, I'm all about it. I have some terrible, like terribly ridiculous hobbies, including talking about Thneed. So he deserves to have, he deserves to have his own, you know, interest in hobbies. Right. So he's collect or he's into bourbon now. Cause we live in Kentucky.

That sounds right. Yeah. Like, so it's kind of fun. I'm not really a, I don't really like dark liquors very much, but I'm trying to learn and appreciate. And, you know, there's a couple places nearby that do like tastings and like distill bourbon. And it's kind of has a very cool history in Kentucky, especially. So it's an interesting hobby. But it means that he is going around a lot and like either trading bottles with people. He's in like some hey i have a bottle i could trade with him oh my god you're gonna get in that weird fiji bottle

it also has a very interesting history if he wants it very interesting history yeah it has a it has a fruity aroma i don't know how to describe bourbon but it looks like it could be bourbon right it does well yeah a little bit i don't know anyway if he wants it just let me know i can ship it to him i'll tell him that i ordered him a new bottle and i'll give him that and so here's a here's the thing that's um grinding my gears is that i had all my i mean i don't have very much booze well that's a lie i don't have your face what lies are you about to, I don't have very much booze. Well, that's a lie. I don't have your face. What lies are you about? I don't have a lot of, like nice liquors or anything. So I don't really drink that much liquor. But I have like, you know, a night like a bottle of Tito's and like

a bottle of gin and you know, whatever. And I have a bottle of Margaritaville tequila for when I pull out the the Jimmy Buffett Margaritaville maker yeah and so um I have a couple of those things up on like the bar shelf we have well the other day Blaze got out a ladder and every time that happens I'm like why don't do this what are you doing anytime someone pulls a ladder out in my house I know nothing good is happening so also you're you have one of those houses that has like freakishly tall ceilings so when I hear a ladder the the range of possibility is really scary it's dangerous yeah and so he's climbing this ladder and all of a sudden he's like oh i'm taking down all your

liquors and putting all only my bourbons up here oh that's a fun little risky thing to say on top of a ladder what a risky game and so i was like oh that's fun for you um and i was of course i was like no yeah go for it it'll look better anyway than my weird coffee flavored Patron that I got pressured peer pressured into buying in college and for some reason still have so I know it's disgusting so I have something you could put up there well that's what I'm saying is now that it's filled with all his beautiful nice bourbon bottles it's nothing like super fancy or anything but it's like you know they're he just collects different types and stuff and um he put all of my nice bottles of nasty sticky stuff um like just kind of down and so now they're I know how that feels coffee maker so I feel kind

of like an alcoholic now because you just walk into my dining room and like there's just like titos and then you walk into the kitchen there's like margaritaville because we've just kind of like an alcoholic now because you just walk into my dining room and like there's just like titos and then you walk in the kitchen there's like margaritaville because we've just kind of spread them out so i'm trying to figure out how to live in this new environment of lays is created um and it's it's good he's gonna kill me for saying this on the show because i was very supportive of it but um you know this is no i i honestly i i also i get it in a way that I don't think even you were alluding to because I can't relate to the bottles. I'm sure they're very pretty bottles. I know alcohol, like the, I know alcohol. If I know anything, it's alcohol.

Well, I know that like they all like try to outdo themselves with the packaging and it looks very pretty. So I am completely positive that the shelving looks nice. But as someone who is like a minor control freak about things, I would hate to see my things moved. And Allison loves to play that game because she knows it pisses me off. Oh, that's fun. We're like, I think her idea of fun is moving something slightly just to see how long it takes me to realize it. And she's shocked every time when i realize it in like 30 seconds what is this i'm like allison who do you think you are like there's uh i made our home look lovely and this woman this witch decides that she wants to move things around on the bookshelves a little too often for my liking because i can never

i don't like change and so i need to eventually prepare for the change but her favorite thing to do is like fuck things around like there's she she left and there's just like new books I've never seen all over the place and it's ruining ruining what you know whatever the the feng shui or whatever the term is it's ruining the vibe of the shelves and so and by the way I've had like a month and a half with her not here to fix it and i just won't do it because i am a control freak but also very lazy and now i've gotten used to how it looks what a combo oh yeah yeah she wins she wins i guess she wins and like to be fair i'm saying this even though i basically have control of where

everything goes at any time like it's not like he would ever be like, you can't put that there. So I'm complaining in a way that I probably shouldn't be complaining because I'm a person who would say you can't put that there. So I'm, I mean, it's nice to know you're the nicer one between the two of us, but I would certainly find a way to like cause a ruckus about it. To be fair, he's not wrong. His bourbon does look nicer than my sticky coffee flavored tequila. So I think if you're describing yours as sticky, that's all I needed to know. Yeah. You're already on his side. I know it's okay. Anyway. So sorry, that was a long tangent, but, um, I'm excited to, to get into the tales today, Amethy. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, the thing I wanted to say before I get in is I kind of want to, I owe you an apology

and I owe, I think everyone an apology. A lot of apology. But so what are we talking about today? Well, so this is a while ago now for us, but by the time we're recording this, uh, the Barbara Carlin episode came out this Sunday. So as far as everyone knows, that was the, oh, sure. The newest episode. So sorry that there's been a few episodes in between, but we've been backlogging.

Anyway, but I just wanted to apologize because so many people on Instagram have been so lovely and wonderful and posting like, oh, this is my favorite episode you've ever covered like which is I don't think we've I've ever gotten I don't know if you're being tagged in those things but I have not been tagged in more things in a long time where people just have like such a kind reception to an episode and so I was like psyching myself up and I was like oh man like everyone really loves it like I should go listen to this one and like see what was so great about it and I gotta with everyone. I feel kind of icky about how it got handled. I just feel like I usually am more impartial. And I feel like I was really leaning into the fact that like, this person could, or very well might be the reincarnation of Anne Frank. And I realized that that's like a big leap when

realistically, I mean, there's a, there's a lot of evidence pointing to it according to all the sources I read. And I did, I just, for the sake of this little PSA, I even tried looking up like skepticism and criticism of the other side, because, you know, she may very well have been like grifting or like you know exploiting the fact that like there were holocaust victims and claiming to be one and so right um so i just felt i just felt bad that i hadn't addressed that side of it because i feel like usually i'm i'm pretty good at i guess saying allegedly more often and i feel like usually I'm, I'm pretty good at, I guess saying allegedly more often. And I feel like I just really leaned into like her definitely being Anne Frank versus me saying like, Oh, you know, there's a good chance that that's also not true. And she could be,

you know, profiting off of saying she's a victim of the Holocaust. And like, so I don't know, I just felt really icky about it. I and like I said, everyone else has been very lovely. As far as I know, I mean, I looked at Facebook, and then I didn't look anywhere else, because I am scared of Facebook will cover it for you. If something bad is me, okay, you'll find it there. So Reddit, when we used to look at that terrified me. So I don't even want to know what's going on over there. But or even YouTube, I don't want to know what's going on on YouTube. uh or even youtube i don't want to know what's going on on youtube but at least on the facebook group everyone seemed really lovely i was getting a lot of instagram reception so i think i maybe i'm being my own worst critic and i i i hope nobody else feels like i missed the mark but i was just listening to it and wasn't very proud of the fact

that i didn't address like the complete opposite side of how this might have gone which is that there's someone who's like tricking everybody and claiming to be a famous person that was like that had a really traumatic event right it's I don't know I just felt really gross about it so um and actually so I apologized uh on the Facebook page I was really feeling so paranoid about it. Whoa. I was just like, hey, thank you everyone for saying nice things, but I just feel a little weird. I'm just going to address it on the next episode just for my own peace of mind. And someone actually, her name was, or their name was Georgia.

I don't know what your pronouns are, so I don't want to assume. But Georgia was able to also find an article because I was desperate to find um opposition to information that I had said in the last Barbara Carlin episode weirdly I couldn't find a lot of stuff about her not being considered the reincarnation of Anne Frank so now I'm kind of freaked out that nobody's addressing the fact that she might not be. Maybe some people just think it sounds so wild that they don't even acknowledge it. You know what I mean? Like it's such an extreme thing to say that I wonder if people who don't believe it are

like, oh, that's ridiculous. And just, yeah, I think it's worth arguing. I also think like maybe everyone did what I did and like they just got really into like the supernatural part and totally neglected the like, very likely part that maybe she's not Anne Frank. So anyway, I was I wrote in being like, I'm looking for like, sources and like, I can't find anything on my end. I typed in like, Barbara Carlin skepticism or criticism, I wasn't getting anything. The only thing that someone could find was Georgia, who showed me a Newsweek article that kind of expounds on when she met her, the man that would allegedly be her cousin. And I found a lot of sources where when he was asked, point blank, do you think that this woman is your cousin Anne Frank? And he straight up said, yes.

So that was the story I ran with last time. But there's this other article in Newsweek where he ended up kind of backing away, it seems, from that opinion, where this is a quote that he said later on when asked about Barbara Garland. But he said, she regards herself as the reincarnation of Anne Frank. We know her very well. There's nothing I can say to her assertion. It's her story. There are things in life that we do not know. It could be, it could not be, I don't know. So all of a sudden he seemed more doubtful in this article, which thank you, Georgia, for finding

this for me. That was the only thing I could find that suggested anyone was having, like, documented doubts about it. But then I also remember that when this guy originally came out as, like. He got a lot of flack. He got a lot of flack to a point where he almost had, like, a heart attack and he had to go into hiding. So I don't know if this was after the fact and he felt like he needed to. Anyway, this is all totally just for my own

peace of mind and I was feeling really stressed out about it because I feel like I didn't know that if I I felt like if I'm aware that I missed the mark someone out there probably thinks I also missed the mark I think part of it though like I was also kind of playing devil's advocate I feel like I played that part because we were talking about this and I was like oh I'm always so skeptical of these stories and that kind of opened up the position for you to be like, but also there's this, I feel like we played both sides to each other almost. Like, I feel like I opened up for you to almost defend her position

because I was being like a devil's advocate a little bit, which doesn't leave much room for you to be devil's advocate to your own story. Well, I always, you know, I had a fun time talking about it with you. I, and I don't think you did anything wrong. Maybe I didn't do anything wrong, but in my own head, I was just like, this feels kind of icky or like, I feel like, you know, especially cause it's about the literal Holocaust. I just feel like it's never wrong to be, to lean into being more sensitive about that. So I just, I, I feel like I didn't live up to my own standard. So I just wanted to apologize to anyone if they felt weird and I'm maybe in my own head about this, but I just, I didn't feel right not addressing it.

Well, I'm glad you said something for your own, uh, maybe I should, now I'm scared to listen back. I'm like, maybe I should listen to episode. Probably not. your own uh maybe I should now I'm scared to listen back I'm like maybe I should listen to episode probably not well I mean truly I've only again I've really like avoided looking too far on the internet but anything I've been tagged in people have said such lovely things that I really might be the only person out there but I still you know we have a platform and if I felt weird about it it would have been wrong for me to not say something. So that's just me being probably over the top and dramatic and sorry. What else is new? What else is new? Okay. So here's a, speaking of being dramatic,

um, I learned science again last night. Not again. So here is me trying to go again, learning science, learning science, just to forget in 24 hours. And then I'll have to learn all over again to teach you something else in the future. Well, okay. So this actually was suggested by, this happened in the same run when I was on Instagram and I saw people tagging me and things. This is from Yvette who suggested that I cover this topic. So thank you for that. This is the stone tape theory. Yes. Oh, you know what this is? Okay. Yes. We've talked about this on the show. If we did, I really didn't know anything about it. I know I defined it for you. Cause I said

something about stone tape theory. Cause I was covering the Dorothea Puente house. And I was like, yes. Do you know much about stone tape theory? Cause Zach Bagans just briefly mentioned it. And you were like, not really. And I just gave a cursory, at least my cursory understanding, which I'm sure is very limited. And then I said, you have to cover this someday. So sorry, Yvette. Okay, I said it first. Just kidding. Yvette's actually your undercover name. I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, that's my other Instagram. So, okay, well, hey, now that you know what it is, I'm basically teaching myself and everyone. No, no, just vaguely. I only, and it's been a while. So, so I'm very

excited. I've always wanted you to cover this. Well, I feel like when I explain, uh, any theories and like, I don't know if science is the right word. If pseudoscience is involved at all, I feel like I find myself over explaining. So I'm apologizing in advance if I do that, but I was trying to make sense of it in my own head. So if I sound redundant, it's because this is how many times I need to type it out. And so like, you're too stupid to understand. It's because I know I am too stupid. I needed to, I needed to type it out like five different ways for it to make sense of my head. So, okay. The stone tape theory, which I keep in my own head calling the stone soup theory. And I need to get it together.

I keep, you know, stone soup, the show or the play, like ironically stone soup is a play. And the stone tape theory is named after a play. I'll just say, wait,

seriously. Isn't stone soup a book by like tommy depaula if it's a book i've only ever known it as the play i was stuck in in kindergarten okay you were in the play yeah that's that was like that at my school that was the play when you got to kindergarten and you got to be in stone soup forget about it i love that well stone soup i was wrong it's a european folk story so I'm sorry that I said it was Tommy DePaula. It's not before people get mad. Okay, your turn.

Okay, here we go. So the stone tape theory is a theory for residual hauntings and why they may exist. It's shockingly, I don't know if anti-paranormal is the right way to say it, but it kind of debunks ghosts in a roundabout way. Really? So it's a theory for residual hauntings and it's basically that stone and foundations of a place can absorb energy from events for the place's history.

Okay. So if something particularly tragic happened, that energy might go into the minerals of the area and it's kind of holding on to those memories. Right. Well, you just covered a story about limestone, right? We talked about how that has allegedly legend you probably discussed this so sorry no you're on top of it so this in theory is especially true for events with really strong emotions or trauma connected to them and it gives the this energy more power um so the what it would explain why where there are hauntings and really tragic areas it feels creepier because uh there's more energy connected

to that land and the trace memory is stored in this energy that's been absorbed by the stones can replay themselves on loop under the right circumstances or for the right people uh like i said it makes sense then why houses are so commonly haunted because so many memories are created here. So those trace memories could be stored within the walls of the home pretty easily. It also makes sense why creepier areas with darker pasts like prisons or hospitals, it would make sense why they feel so creepy on their own because they probably have some darker memories attached to the foundation. But this also explains the claim that it explains why if there's a residual haunting in a house, you might not actually be seeing a ghost

because the stone tape theory claims that these aren't ghosts. They're just images of previous energy playing as if a recorder was stuck on repeat. So I feel like, I mean, which isn't that shocking to me because I feel like that's how we've always kind of described residual hauntings. Like, Oh, it's just like a part of time on, on loop replaying. Yeah. But instead of thinking of it as an actual ghost or a um an intelligent energy think of it more as like fingerprints of someone that was once there

and it's just kind of sitting there so uh the concept of the stone tape theory is that the energy being inside the foundations of the building, um, is often compared to a magnetic tape recorder. Oh, and that sensitive people or people who are more connected to the spiritual world are able to witness the playback while others can't got it, which also explains why some people experience these hauntings and others don't because if you're not particularly in the mind in the headspace to access this information then you wouldn't even know what's happening in front of you but other people can all of a sudden see something in a in a house and it's it's almost like they can see the feedback while others can't. Right. And just like you mentioned, the preferred minerals for the stone tape theory

are said to be quartz and limestone because they are considered spiritual conductors. So if you're in an area with more quartz or limestone, there's a better chance of them more easily absorbing energy from the events that have taken place in that area. Right. Right. Okay. So, uh, as for the history of the stone tape theory, the idea goes back to the 19th century with a guy named Charles Babbage.

And he is also fun fact known as the father of computing because he was credited with the idea of the programmable computer. So, so for those people who are like, this isn't science, well, here's your science. Yeah, he's certainly a man of many hats. So this is back in 1838, and Charles Babbage had a belief that, quote, spoken words leave permanent impressions in the air. Even though you can't hear them, their energy lingers. So that just gave me goose cam for some reason.

I kind of like it too. He was saying like, it's, it's the most forceful as it's coming into existence. So you can hear the sounds when it's coming out of your mouth, but over time the sound fades away, but the particles still move on. And so it's always around so he actually

he said since the energy continually floats about people can still tap into and experience these memories if they wanted to because those words are technically still existing they're just harder to hear. Interesting. And this, he actually called, in one of his books, he referred to this concept of, you know, spoken words still existing and lingering among us. He said, the air itself is a vast library. I thought that was super cool. I was going to make a really stupid joke about having a library card and I'm not going to do that.

So, uh, I don't even know where I was going to go with it. I was going to just say it on the fly and be like, oh, and it's not worth our time. Okay. So this concept of energy you're putting out there or memories of you, even if it's something as common as like, you know, just your own spoken words. If that energy remains in the world forever, if your memories at even such a basic level are never being destroyed, this concept is also connected to psychometry. Do you know what psychometry is? Not really. I feel like you've described it to me before but i don't remember it's um a fancy way of saying like when people can touch an item and

they can like they get flashbacks yeah yeah uh so it's when objects have energy or history connected to them which certain people can access when touching it so it's a lot a lot when like certain i don't know if mediums is the right word or. Yeah. I feel like with mediums, you use, sometimes they ask you to bring an item from the loved one or whatever to, so they can.

Yeah. Yeah. So if, yeah. Or even like, think like Phoebe from charmed, how she touched something. She would have like a flashback.

I've never seen that show. If you had said Phoebe from friends, I would have been on board with the understanding, but of all of the friends, Phoebe buffet would have been able to do it i think i would have believed it would have been like oh i don't remember that episode but yeah well if you're a charmed fan one of phoebe's things was she would get premonitions from touching uh an item that had some sort of dark history to it so um that's truly in the most basic definition that is psychometry. And so these concepts kind of connect with each other that memories are always absorbed into things if they're important enough or if they're emotional enough, events will always stick with the things around it. So psychometry came about in 1842. It was coined by a guy named J.R. Buchuchanan and he referred to psychometry as the potential for

mental fossils which i think is so cool also interestingly throughout this all of my um research it seemed like a lot of people who um are involved somehow in stone tape theory. They all started with like an interest in either geology or archeology. And so I felt like there was kind of this ongoing unspoken theme about everyone referring to these memories as mental fossils. Oh, especially when we get to people trying to explain the actual science of this, as well as skeptics trying to explain why it's not technically science um because they were all saying like if this were real fossils where like an event was imprinted onto a rock we would be able to believe it and measure it and see what's going on but if these are mental fossils we can't measure that fossils so anyway i just Measure that. Mental fossils. So anyway, I just thought that was super fun. It is interesting. And so at this point, psychometry is a thing that's being discussed.

Charles Babbage is talking about how, you know, words always stay in the world and maybe that energy is always around us. And around this, the time that these two guys are talking about this stuff, this is the first wave of spiritualism. So it's the mid-1800s. So this probably also helped fuel their concepts or at least kept them in the zeitgeist being talked about. And following the first wave of spiritualism was the creation of the SPR, the Society of Psychical Research. first wave of spiritualism was the creation of the SPR, the Society of Psychical Research.

And by the end of the 19th century, a lot of the researchers, especially at the SPR, were trying to scientifically explain much of the supernatural world. But one of these concepts was something they ended up calling place memory, which I think kind of stems from psychometry. So if psychometry is being able to touch items and have, have a flashback of, you know, moments that that object experienced place memory is a much more general version of that, where if an, I, if something happened in a location by you being in the, in that you might be able to um see residual hauntings and okay and yeah relive part of that time the way that i wrote it down is that basically place memory is a much more general version of the stone tape theory where the stone tape theory says like energy is absorbed into the foundations and the minerals of the land. Whereas place memory is more like, if something happened here, you might experience it here.

Okay, I got you. It has nothing to do with the minerals. The idea is that gifted people may inadvertently gain access to old events in this space, especially if that event was tragic or significant. And several SPR members studied this. Many believe that items and places all hold past events. And some thought everybody has access to these. Some people thought only if you're truly gifted. Some people thought if you are putting out intentions, you might be able to experience this.

Some people thought, you know, you might not even realize you stumbled upon it. But if you, even if you're unaware of it, you might have done something that lets you gain access to this information. Right. So they were all over the place doing studies on place memory, trying to figure out why some people can see this and why some people can't or what they need to do to open, open, yeah, to access it. And place memory remained a theory for decades, but it kind of was untouched for a little bit until the 1940s when it was reignited in the SPR, because that was a particular passion of the new president of the SPR. He loved talking about place memory. And so when he became the new president of the SPR in his like literal presidential address to the organization he like

straight up wrote about it so I will say he must have talked about it enough or brought it back into the zeitgeist like enough that 10 years later there was actually um there was like tv shows discussing the place memory. I don't want to get away from the SPR president too much, but I do want to say in the 50s, there was a whole TV show where it was like all about like spooky stuff. Like it was like a paranormal show. of their episodes talked about like this storyline of uh spies finding out our government secrets because they had been able to record them on like crystals it was like oh and then in that same episode i think it was like a piece of rock from mount vesuvius had actually like recorded people's voices when it was lava but so what's interesting is we, so we're talking about items,

uh, attaching memory to them, but we haven't even discussed the, like the, the idea of the stone tape theory hasn't come into play yet. So it's interesting that. Yeah. All the way in the fifties,

someone actually came up with a storyline of like, Oh, through crystals and lava rocks, which we can record memory. It's like a porous rock and also a crystal like quartz that's really interesting it's just it's just super creepy to think that like later there would be a whole theory about how stones in particular can record memory but we had it had never been discussed yet so fascinating i just wanted to bring that up because they're around the same

timeline so sure um i don't know if someone from the spr was also a tv writer and was like the president of my club won't shut up about this we should write an episode on it we should definitely uh do a volcano you know that volcano episode we've been planning i have a plot twist i have just the thing um so okay so the the new president's coming in his name is hh.H. Price, and no, it is not Harry Price, I looked. And it's not H.H. Holmes, I'm assuming. It is not H.H. Holmes. It's their baby, H.H. Price. Oh, what a combo.

So, like I said, in his presidential address, he was so invested in reinvigorating the crowd about place memory that he wrote all about it his address was literally titled haunting and the psychic ether hypothesis hypothesis wow and thank you for that wow that was me in the audience wow can you imagine finally becoming like the president of like a really important organization to you and just you're the whole paper you write to welcome yourself in is about the psychic ether, which like, yeah, I can imagine. As I said that I was like, yes, that is what Chris even do.

So in this paper about the psychic ether, where he's talking about place memory and locations holding on to old energy. He suggests that there's a psychic ether or a realm in between our worlds or between space and time where all traces of all memory and experience are stored. Wow. And so the way that he describes place memory is that there are some people who are more connected or more in touch with themselves. the way that he describes place memory is that there are some people who are more connected or more in touch with themselves. And when they go to locations or touch certain objects, they are able to interact with this realm and pull out traces of history when others can't.

Wow. Okay. That's really interesting. Yeah. So, uh, he also considered, uh, hauntings. I think he was one of the first, first people to suggest that, oh, well then hauntings then think he was one of the first first people to suggest that oh well then hauntings then are just memories kind of either seeping out of the ether or you're able to unlock them and gain access from this in-between world so when people are seeing a haunting it's more like they're seeing an overlap of two worlds at the same time right or, um, it just implies that really powerful energy that's just kind of being stored there and waiting to be experienced can only happen if you're on, if you're tapping into this in between. Okay. That's cool. So while HH price is claiming that the psychic ether could explain

hauntings and residual energy, there's another guy, uh, at the same time who's like i don't know if it's a psychic ether i feel like it's more energy fields and so his name was tc lethbridge so uh tc i think he was like ah the psychic ether is like a fun idea but i really want to try well he he's it sounds like he was actually one of the sources i read so that he seemed like kind of arrogant so i can tell just from this very bullet point i'm like this guy cute look president of the spr my turn you did such a good job trying you know i guess the his reasoning was he was like i want something a little more scientifically measurable and so he was like the psychic ether is like a good jumping off point but i want to try to find something that you know has more concrete

evidence and his idea was that it would be energy fields he okay which i guess is fair i mean we still work with emf fields now to go go sunning i would argue maybe the ether is an energy field but you know whatever honestly i'm right there with you i think they should have like combined their interests yeah uh so he thought energy could he thought that it must be energy fields that are holding this the memories of past experiences because he thought that energy could be stored in energy and that memories could be in the EMF fields. His argument was that if people already know that fields of energy exist, even though we can't see them, then it makes sense that they could hold other energy we can't see.

Okay. Fair. Sure. If there's already invisible energy at play, might as well throw more on there. Sure. Right. It sort of reminds me of like a spectrum of light where like you can only just because you can only see certain parts of light doesn't mean they're not there so maybe the same with energy i don't know i don't know hey the best part about

this is it's all a big old theory so nothing either of us say can be wrong i guess right this is all uh a hypothesis if you will yes yes yes uh so he somewhat bridged his opinion with hh price's ether by describing these fields as uh a surrounding ether oh so now he's like well it's sort of an ether i feel like you could hear him go well technically well we get well yes well yes so yeah yeah totally i get it he he described this ether as surrounding significant items or places but he these items had to be nearby an energy field or something like that he thinks that um or his his he posits i guess is that posits that's a great word him he posits that uh these energy Is that the right way? Posits. That's a great word, Em. He posits that these energy fields are made through vibrations and frequencies. And if certain people are sensitive

enough to sense these vibrations, or if their vibrations sync up with the energy, then maybe that's how there are these memory transferences that show themselves as residual hauntings. Okay. Okay. So I do like that idea of like, either you give off the right vibe or you don't, and the environment will let you know if you're worthy enough to show you the ghost. I think that's like such a secret club way of putting it. Absolutely.

Either you fit in or you don't. Either you can see ghosts or you can't. It's not up to me. But I do like the idea of it being based on vibrations. And if we happen to sync up or overlap in a certain way, it could explain why some people can't see these hauntings and others can. Yeah. One of the arguments for why this theory wouldn't hold up about energy fields is because energy needs to – the energy would need to continually be strong enough to keep playing its events for people. So like these trace memories, how often can they really show themselves?

Yeah, if they're getting weaker over time or whatever. Exactly. Yeah. Exactly. can they really show themselves? Yeah. If they're getting weaker over time or whatever. Exactly. Yeah, exactly.

So the theory or the way that science would explain it is that it would get weaker over time unless it was like getting charged regularly. True. And so TC came back and said, Oh, these energy fields could potentially recharge themselves through ions in the air. Okay.

Also that's us. We're in the audience being such assholes okay i'm just like we're coming up with a lot of words that like i don't think i've any full backing ions in the air got it this sounds like something when you when people try to set market like a hair dryer like it ionizes in the air and you're like what is that it sounds cool i guess maybe you're telling the truth but i don't feel confident in my own understanding of the word ion to know what you're talking about and therefore i'm gonna be the asshole because i don't understand and then i'll probably buy it because i'm still convinced yeah i still want to see what this energy field's all about uh and then of course we wouldn't see it goes and he'd be like it's because your vibes yeah i'm not in the fucking club so he said that uh so the energy

could keep showing itself if this if these energy fields are able to recharge themselves with the ions in the air and i think he was also saying something about like gifted people's energy if if you're exchanging vibrations with this thing you could almost charge these spaces yourself to be able to see the playback okay i see so you're bringing the energy into it as a gift yeah almost like me i wonder if it was like oh the memory or the traces are always kind of at 1%, but if you walk in and have the right energy, you kind of charge it a full blast to see it, and then it dies away until the next person with a lot of energy can show up and charge it.

I don't totally understand, but I dig the idea. It's certainly original. Yeah. So through this idea, TC states that if all of this is true, then hauntings aren't actually ghosts, but recorded images second time. I feel like they're all landing at the same place. They're just trying to all figure out the how. Well, they're all trying to have their own unique approach, I guess.

So exactly. They got it. I think he was actually maybe the predecessor to the official stone tape theory because he's the first one to really address minerals in his idea. Aha. So he believes that certain minerals and water and really anything that has something to do with nature or getting back to like the original roots of our world, they increase the power of an energy field. Therefore, your chances at a memory being stored there or being easily accessible to show up as a haunting, they're more likely to happen if this energy or this event happened around a place with heavy minerals.

Okay. Which I guess that makes sense if a memory is coming back to nature that it would be more easily absorbed within nature yeah uh this would also explain why spiritual vortexes exist because if they're usually around streams and woods and dirt with natural minerals in it then that's just like a breeding ground for storing trace memories of spiritual moments interesting okay okay uh he also says that he thinks water uh is a big conductor for spiritual energy which is why he thinks a lot of places that are usually really dark and damp um have a lot of hauntings

because he thinks the water in those areas is keeping the energy more alive that's interesting what's funny though is he then i don't know if it's really funny but i was like oh i had what a weird offshoot thought he thought that um because water molecules are might be what makes these these trace memories accessible he assumed that humid areas would probably be more powerful or able to store more memories and i just my first thought was like shouldn't florida then be like so fucking haunted legitimately was just thinking huh swampy places like florida must be i guess if you think i know i was gonna say there are a lot of spooky things going on in the deep south but i also think there's another reason for that so i was gonna say

there's a lot of possibilities here i don't know if it's just the water in the air that's causing that, but okay. I can't be helping, I guess. Sure. Sure. Uh, but so that also,

that makes me think though, I, this isn't in the notes, but it makes me think like, so in spaces with more water, shouldn't things be much more haunted to us? If water is what stores all this stuff, like shouldn't like the beach be a fucking nightmare or like like maybe there's not as much happening on the beach.

But if you're in, say, like Alcatraz, shout out to my shirt. That's true. Surrounded by water and rocks. Surrounded by water and rocks and where a lot of emotions happen. Maybe that is a combo. It would explain why it's one of the most haunted places. Maybe if there's a beach where a lot of horrible things happen, then that might be more of a. maybe if there's a beach where a lot of horrible things happen, then that might be more of a,

I also then wonder what his thoughts were on like day by day weather. Like if there's a storm outside, does it, Ooh, does it increase the likelihood? Or cause I would think like somewhere like Alcatraz where there's a lot of water at all times surrounding a place that had a lot of traumatic events. That makes sense as its own standstill continuous haunting but like what about a place that doesn't

seem to really be haunted if there's all of a sudden a thunderstorm is that enough water and enough energy to almost bring out some like more faded memories you know like so would not haunted places become kind of haunted that's a good point and there are also a few very um haunted spots in places like arizona that are deserts so i wonder i well i wonder the minerals in the dirt maybe oh okay i don't know i just it's something to think about or like what about a blizzard when there's snow everywhere does everything become slightly more haunted right does snow count yeah if it's us in the audience when they're like any questions and we're like what about snow what if i spit on you a hundred times do you become more haunted i'm

confused let's try it out anyway i just it was an interesting conversation of like well water is pretty darn accessible like if am i more likely to have a, a spooky experience after I get out of the shower? You know, like it's like, yeah. Like how much water do you need? What's the limit? Yeah. Anyway, that's very interesting. A lot of it's very silly, very silly offshoot conversations, but still I think valid. Cause I feel like we're really skimming the surface here, not to play on words here with water, but, uh, I, I definitely have things I'd love to ask him. Yep. So he also thought just like how water might bring out more energy, he was afraid that, uh, a lot of places might snowball into really terrible places if there was already one negative

experience or a negative memory attached to that place because he felt like people could feed off of that energy. So in a place that maybe something really dark happened or something really creepy happened, he was afraid that history might repeat itself and there might be darker things that happen there. Or let's say there's a place where people, um, go to maybe, you know, unalive themselves. Then maybe that energy would linger and people would go there and feel

particularly sad. Maybe there would be a higher likelihood of other people having some sort of ideation in that space. He was afraid it would become a snowball effect that events would affect other events right okay okay which is an interesting thought i hadn't thought about a scary thought too scary thought yeah but it would make sense too why there's a lot of really creepy creepy places that you look around you're like i don't know why this place feels so fucking creepy and you just don't feel good you're like something my mind is affected.

And something could have happened there that now is affecting you. So in a way he was kind of right of like events. I can see that, yeah. Like I said, a lot of people in this world also happen to be like archaeologists or things like that, that happen to be TC. Because he was a former archaeologist,

this explains why he often combined his, his beliefs of like energy and memory traces, why he would put them back in nature or use minerals as the way to describe what was going on. In 1961, he ended up writing his first book about this stuff called ghost and ghoul. And it's about memory being stored and being able to be accessed via energy. And he ended up writing other books as well. But in his writings, people can see that TC ended up getting his information or he cited sources, including the SPR, HH Price. So we know where he got all of his beliefs or his understanding from. We know that he was looking to them for information. And interestingly,

he ends up becoming inspiration himself. So 10 years after his first book, uh, a play by the BBC was on television as a Christmas ghost story. Yep. And it was called the stone tape, not the stone soup. It was called the stone tape not the stone soup it's called the stone tape i can see your gears in your brain just going okay we're on track i almost said stone soup at

like full speed ahead and my brain had like had to like go into like automatic braking to be like tape oh man but so uh yeah so tc got his inspiration from like the SPR and the thoughts of like the early 1800s, early 1900s, came out with his book. And only 10 years later, because they're so close to each other, a lot of people believe that he was the inspiration for the BBC play The Stone Tape. Okay. And that is where obviously the name of the theory comes from. It comes from the name of a play that had to do with this concept. And so the stone tape, it came out in 1972 and a very, very unbelievably quick summary is just that scientists move into their new facility and during renovations, they find

out that there's a stone staircase and the stone staircase is very haunted it's almost as if it has absorbed the past events of this house and so now they're experiencing all the spooky stuff i like that i kind of want to watch it it's apparently on youtube it looks very cheesy so 70 baby, I literally think that like their way of special effects back then was they put up a projector on the stone staircase in the movie and they were like, okay, that's the ghost pretend that it's haunted. So this was the first time that people had really seen an example other than that one time there was a TV show back in the fifties about lava rocks and all that. That seems to have been forgotten to time, and I stumbled upon that random fact,

and I was like, oh, so technically the stone tape wasn't the first example of a haunted stone. We should be talking about these lava rocks, and the theory should have been named after that, but whatever. whatever. So, uh, up until this point in 1972 place memory or, uh, hauntings being recordings of past events in a location, it was very broadly just considered place memory,

but the stone material in this movie being what held energy is kind of what created the stone tape theory. Okay. Where they were like, Oh, like we can now pinpoint it on minerals and rocks and things that have to do with nature, and that could be why these things are happening.

Even though this movie is officially what coined the theory as the stone tape theory, and it came out after T.C. had written his books, many still credit books. Right. Many still credit TC for the term. It's like he almost like retroactively was given the credit for coming up with the term stone tape theory. Okay. Because he was the first person to incorporate minerals into his theory and things like that.

I see. So people are like, oh, stone tape theory, kind of like what that guy TC was up to. And so he ended up getting the title, even though it had, he never mentioned stone tape theory. You know what I mean? Right. I get what you're saying. Cool. Since this time, that's the history of it. But since this time, stone tape theory has been a point of discussion in the paranormal world, especially since the seventies, when this movie came out and now there was a coined term for it. Um, people also are regularly looking into place memory and just trying to learn about that. But as for the stone tape theory itself, it's been around for about 50 years as something that people talk about in the paranormal world, as well as in theoretical science, because those folks are skeptical. So yeah, I have a feeling. So as for,

uh, those who are, before I tell you what the skeptics think, I did find some people who are based in science and were also open-minded to the concept of the stone tape theory being a thing. Um, I'll tell you a really good quote in a second, but I found this one example that blew my mind. I think this is a paranormal investigator who was like a guest writer on the website. I hadn't seen any of her stuff before. And I just really like this idea of how to explain stone tape theory in today's world. She said that stone tape theory is more or less telepathy interaction or tapping into the collective mind to see memories of a place. And then she used the example of smartphones as stone tape theory.

So she said, think of a smartphone as being your mind. It stores all of your information, all of your pictures, all of your memories, videos from yesterday, you know, your thoughts from your conversations from a couple weeks ago, your new blah, blah, blah, your nudes. It's like your smartphone is your mind. And then the rest of this is just one big quote, because I did not want to butcher this, but I just loved how it was written. However, your smartphone has much greater reach than that being much greater reach than just outside of your mind. Sure. You can upload memories to your cloud for your own personal storage, or you can share those memories on social media for others to access through their smartphones or their minds.

All your friends on Facebook can access your memories and even a little data. And if your security settings aren't great, even those that aren't your friends can access it too. So when you arrive at a location, the location itself could trigger your unconscious mind to look up information that's been there before, kind of like Googling information or looking up someone else's social media for info. And that information is in a format that relates to our psychic sense. And all of a sudden there are ghosts appearing. in a format that relates to our psychic sense and all of a sudden there are ghosts appearing so it's just almost like you're like airdropping information to different phones pulling it from the cloud but it's a yeah kind of a mental cloud a psychic cloud a psychic cloud it was just it was such an interesting way to explain it to people of like oh even though if it's not your memories

you can still access it if someone else has been there and like left their bluetooth on you know it looks it's like it's like a uh a physical physical explanation of it yeah i just thought it was such a such a great way to explain it also there was a podcast called ghost hunting in new england and they actually interviewed a theoretical physicist about stone tape fury who And he seemed very open. I don't know if it was like, he knew he was a theoretical physicist coming onto a paranormal podcast, but he understood the assignment.

He was very on board to at least play devil's advocate. This is a quote from him about it. By the way, a lot of this is now just about to be quotes because I didn't want to butcher what scientists were saying. Um, so when asked about stone tape theory and if it were possible uh he seemed like he could be swayed either way based on evidence but this is what he said when someone records anything digital they manipulate tiny bits of the magnetic field on tape when talking about how, um, the stone tape theory is similar

to magnetic tape recording. When someone records anything digital, they manipulate tiny bits of the magnetic field on the tape. So someone can come along and replay all those bits of information. Well, stone has tiny bits of metal, iron, et cetera. So in some way, the information imparted on those stones can be replayed something could something could potentially be imprinted on a stone and replayed and if you're going to say it could happen to stones it could happen to crystals or anything that has a chemical or atomic configuration to it anything configurable can store information and so i don't know if he was fully saying yes, but he was saying like, I mean, that could be the science. He's at least leaving the possibility open.

Yeah. Yes. I appreciate that. And then he also came up with this really great analogy of like back in the day when you would record on magnetic tape instead of just like recording on your phone or something. um, on magnetic tape instead of just like recording on your phone or something, but like recording, uh, like when you would have a, have a cassette tape and you would want to record on top of music that already existed. Yeah. He said one way that he looks at stone tape theory is that if you keep recording on top of old songs and then you want a new songs, you record on top of that one, you record on top of that one. There's always going to be little traces left of old songs and then you want a new song so you record on top of that one you record on top of that one there's always going to be little traces left of previous songs and

if you listen hard enough you might be able to hear old songs playing through a note or two yeah and so he was like that might be what stone tape theory is when you see a residual haunting they're just traces left underneath what's already well underneath what's happening right now. That is so fascinating. I had never seen it in so many analogies, but every single one of them made me think about stone tape theory differently, which was so fun. There was another open-minded devil's advocate scientist

named Don Robbins, which actually now I'm kind of terrified that this might be the same person from that interview because his name was also Don. So it might be the same person, or there's two people named Don out there in the world of science who are okay with this. But scientist Don, he suggested that when it comes to the idea that crystals might be able to store information,

he said that, quote, defects in the crystal lattice of minerals allows for reservoirs of energy, and the crystal's architecture creates a vortex of energy at the heart of the crystal where memory traces can be stored. These traces could be accessed by producing a resonating sound wave or just physical pressure by something such as walking on the ground. So even if you're, that would explain why if you're walking in like a desert or if you're walking in a cave or an abandoned place, if you're just underneath your shoes, if you're accidentally crushing minerals that might have energy within them, you could be releasing memories. Well, this dawn seems a lot more open like he was like this is how this works i feel like the other guy was like potentially it could happen i feel like this guy's much more uh i would love to see the don's duel about me too memories within crystal formations so now uh real quick before i'm done i'll talk about the um the skeptics uh that i or at least

the arguments against stone tape theory so like i said a i'm just going to do a quick science recap about magnetic tape recording just so people know what that's about because i tried to learn what magnetic tape recording is and that was rough boy by way, I want to give a shout out for these last two parts. There were, they were excellent. Um, I don't, I don't know if debunking or, um, skeptical, I don't know what the right word is, but these two articles were so good at trying to give true scientific understanding to what stone tape theory could be or why stone tape theory does not work like oh i feel like they just did such a good job of trying to break it down of like well if this is real then this would have to be real but also it might not be real because this isn't this so shout out to the ghost in my machine and higgy pop which higgy pop fucking nailed it and

both of them both of them i was like i don't even know how to break these down into other notes so i'm just going to be reading up excerpts from sure these websites because i like they were just so perfectly written nice um but ghost in my machine tried to explain why stone tape theory is similar to magnetic tape recording. And in the most basic way possible to explain how sound is recorded on tape, because trust me, I'll never truly know. Basically, you're converting electrical signals or your audio. You're converting electrical signals into magnetic energy. audio, you're converting electrical signals into magnetic energy. And so the magnetic energy imprints on the tape, which is covered in magnetic particles, which I guess is to absorb the energy. And if you ever want to play it back, you take that imprint and convert it back into electrical

energy. Oh, interesting. I don't know if you follow that. I barely followed it. As much as one can, I think. Yeah, Sure. So when it comes to stone tape theory, it's kind of the same concept where energy from an emotional event imprints information onto an object, and then it can be played back as energy again. So it's just reconverting itself into energy. Got it. Which I feel like I've said that a thousand times in this episode, but I need to keep saying it. So I remember what's going on. Yeah. Um, everyone else is just here for the ride while I teach myself. So what makes a magnetic tape recording and stone tape theory additionally similar is that if energy is best or that the energy is best absorbed through minerals. So just like magnetic tape actually has magnetic particles on it. Minerals such as quartz and limestone are best for energy storing.

And here's a quote. This is due to magnet. This is actually a quote from one of the Dons. This is said to be due to magnetic components and rocks making them similar in nature to videotape which is also magnetic so it makes sense why the two of them have been compared so many times but as for um the skeptics out there the main thing that they say right off the bat is well it's unfair to call stone tape theory a theory because it's not a scientific theory and uh it's more of a whimsical pseudo pseudo scientific idea and it's rude i yeah well they were like well what is a theory and um there was

one uh scientist i think a scientist i'm pretty sure she's a scientist uh named sharon hill hill and she did like a whole 24 25 minute long video on youtube describing stone uh tape theory and was basically like a theory is a well-tested model that you can use to predict future observations and because you can't really ever predict residual hauntings immediately out the window before we even get into minerals and all this stuff. Sure. Um, some of the explanations for how this theory works from people who are believers in this or want it to be true one day, or maybe we just haven't figured out how to totally use stone tape theory, but the arguments for it so far have been energy fields, different realms, frequencies, crystal science, and then also quantum entanglement, just like a smattering of us. Just throw that in there. Just a spooky

entanglement. And the despite all of these actual scientific concepts being used as potential explanations, the main issue for stone tape theory is that there is no measurable way to record, store, retrieve energy. There's just no way to do it. So there's no way for us to collect data on this. It's all mainly a guess because at least with magnetic tape, there is something that you can see after the fact, but there's no way to, which makes sense. No way to collect emotions and events. I understand. Yeah. Some believers argue, well, energy can't be destroyed. So even if we haven't figured out a way to do it yet, there is a way to store and capture and retrieve these things. But, uh, the counter argument is human emotions and human events aren't in that same

playing field. Even if energy can be destroyed or can't be destroyed, emotions and human events aren't in that same playing field even if energy can be destroyed or can't be destroyed emotions and events were never categorized as energy so that's fair another skeptical look at it is that uh several notoriously haunted places are on top of sites with no special mineral properties so if we're saying that you have to have certain minerals they're holding energy so that a residual haunting happens you got to be able to explain things like gettysburg which is incredibly haunted but the leftover rocks that are there have minimal quartz minimal limestone so how is it that something so powerful it was almost like they were pro ghost for a second because they were like well it is super haunted which is

famously not in florida on it and also like not covered in snow or showers i'm interesting just explain yourself is what i'm saying it's just dirt over there but um some believers even say that stone or rock maybe they can capture memories through some sort of geomagnetics that we don't know about, which sounds like a, I don't know if geomagnetics is a real thing, but it feels a little like a conspiracy theory. It does a little bit, doesn't it? But so when people say like, oh, well, through geomagnetics, maybe there's a way that like, you know, all the minerals are all interacting with each other and we're unaware of it. But the counter argument to that is that, quote, Earth's magnetic field is not strong enough or precise enough to imprint a distinct sound or image into existing crystals. Which is fair enough.

I guess. Yeah. also another argument, uh, about how hauntings could exist, but not through stone tape theory is that these could all just be optical illusions and people have been primed about what they might see because they know they're going into a haunted place. So all of a sudden they're seeing things that doesn't have anything to do with stone tape theory.

It would just be basic psychology of like being primed into the experience. Okay. Um, also there was, this is a list of several questions that I found on several different sources. I just kind of put them all together. But one of the bigger arguments with scientists is that the following questions remain unanswered

and they are very valid, quantifiable questions that stone tape theory should be able to answer. But since we don't know these answers, we can't even begin a scientific framework to study this. So some of the questions I found all across the internet were how do these images, like truly how did the images get recorded into stone? Why do some events get recorded and others don't like what's the, what's the limit? What's the line between yes or no? How do these images truly play like back to people? How often do they, do they die out? Um, and then rocks and buildings, if they can remain for hundreds of years, but eventually erode, do the memories erode or as something gets older and creepier,

does that give it more power and it ends up being stronger while things erode? Why do we only see an apparition and not its surroundings as well? If it's a whole memory. Yeah. Which is super interesting to me. Cause like, if you're watching a,

like a home video, you see the whole background. You don't just see a person standing there. Right. And then can memories get overwritten if something else happens? Interesting. Or do, let's say, two traumatic things happen in one space. Do they start playing on top of each other, kind of like how music recording on top of each other, you'd still hear different traces of both?

Or does one cancel the other out because one's more powerful so i just thought those were all maybe not all of them are quantifiable questions but they are certainly solid questions yeah um so then the i think the rest of this is all is a whole quote from higgy pop and that's the rest of my notes but i bring it home higgy pop higgy pop if you don't put that on a goddamn shirt okay so this was just one big quote kind of explaining some other questions that scientists would have about stones and energy holding on to old memories. Okay. One issue with stone tape theory is the energy source, real energy. In order for the human eye to see something, there needs to be a source of energy. A stone can absorb energy

if the sun shines on a rock all day and the rock gets warm and even when the sun has gone, the rock will slowly radiate that heat over time. Even molten rock emits a glow or constant light, but it doesn't project a replay of the sun moving through the sky over the course of the day so interesting i thought that was super smart of like okay like that's a memory and we're not seeing it we can feel it with our hands traces of it but which by the way kind of proves psych psychometry if you can touch the

rock and feel the experience of the heat then right almost i come what about psychometry where you touch and you say oh i see this person's hair color and stuff i feel like you're right kind of disproves that but it does prove that yeah it still retains signs of that memory that's so interesting um and then uh higgy pop keeps going on with, meanwhile, in a cold, dark basement, the stone of a building would hold very little energy. Which, by the way, is interesting,

because if it would hold very little energy, but basements are some of the creepiest fucking places, then that... And maybe because they're all wet, you know? Uh-huh, maybe. I don't know. Meanwhile, in a cold, dark basement, the stone of the building would hold very little energy in the form of heat without a sense of energy.

I cannot replay or project anything stored in it. The bigger problem is that after the energy is released, it would be gone. Perhaps if there's enough energy captured in the stone, it could manage to replay itself a few times, but eventually the energy would run out and the stone would no longer be able to play. This is also where the stone tape and real magnetic tape differ. One can replay itself multiple times, whereas a stone might not be able to. The theory further falls apart when you realize that ghost hunters don't limit stone tape theory to just stone. Many also believe that other natural materials such as wood,

the ground, even water can hold memories. It's part of a wider theory called place memory. Wood and soil holding memories is understandable as a hypothesis because they are static at a location, but water doesn't make any sense. So this also debunks TC, who thought that water was all over the place. Yep, yep. But water doesn't make any sense. While flowing water is often said to stir up paranormal activity, it's hard to understand how this would work in terms of stone tape theory when water molecules in the liquid

would be flowing away uh only to be replaced by others so if water holds a memory but then it goes down the river that memory is gone so how could it keep replaying itself i and i do understand the skepticism there yeah anyway all of that to say, those are the main arguments against it, which are all very valid. And that is the history and detailing of the stone tape theory. That was so fascinating, Em. I have been wondering if you had covered this for a long time. So I'm very excited that you did.

It was a full hour of notes on my end. So I feel a little embarrassed. But it was, I'm sure it could have been dwindled down and I repeated myself a million times but honestly I needed it um so maybe someone else did but no anyway that was that was my best attempt certainly I think it was very well done and it it it needed to be restated a couple of times, I think, because it is kind of a complex thought. I think it was, it's not, I feel like the concept is pretty obvious. It's just residual hauntings.

But I feel like the, the how of every person's theories kind of throws me off because some people, I don't know. Yeah. And then when you get into debunking it, adds more complex i gotta say there's nothing scarier than having to teach someone something you don't know anything about so i just and well welcome to our job i know but i just like if i'm ever repeating myself a lot and even you the listener is thinking like oh my god shut the fuck up know I, it was necessary for me to keep saying it because I'm teaching myself as I'm teaching you sometimes. So. Well, I think you did a great job.

Thank you. And I'm glad you finally got your stone tape theory episode. I'm very pleased. And I think it's very fascinating. And we talked, I talked about in the Dorothea Puente episode, I don't remember which one it was, but that was one of the main theories there. So if anyone wants to go listen to that, you can find it on Em's list of episodes that they put on our website. Thank you. I'm sure it doesn't get overlooked. In my head, it gets overlooked all the time. So I'll take the credit.

Thank you. You said that a few weeks ago. You're like, it never gets enough credit. So I'm trying to shout it out as much as I can here. Oh, thank you. I appreciate it I have a story for you I'm gonna teach you about something that I learned about on TikTok yay no way look at you you fun little mom listen do you I know when I first started uh was when I first started having a baby when when the baby was born, I remember you saying something like, well, now you're never going to be caught up on all that.

All I do is sit on TikTok because if I'm up breastfeeding, if I'm up like doing anything, it's the only thing I can do that's not like too mind numbing that I'm going to fall asleep. So I watch TikTok all the time. So jokes on you, Em. I am very hip. Oh, okay okay i don't eat my words you took it back immediately um so there's an account called rob and hayley and uh so there's this tiktoker who has a podcast called inhuman a true crime podcast and uh they covered the 1976 chowchilla kidnapping do you know about this at all i've never heard the word chowchilla in my life no oh well it's a town in california so is it yeah so chowchilla kidnapping this is um the largest mass kidnapping in u.s history what yeah and i

had never fucking heard of it i don't even think in my head i it occurred to me that there could be a mass kidnapping because right i feel like that's like i don't know i feel like that's a wild concept yeah i feel like that's i don't know i feel like just a wild concept. Yeah. I feel like that's, I don't know. I feel like the kidnapping, okay, whatever. I never, it never even occurred to me. Well, I hadn't heard about it either. So then when I saw this TikTok, I was like, well, okay, I got to dig into this. So I thankfully, thanks to this TikToker was able to find a lot more information and use their podcast, which was really helpful. And I'm going to cover it for you today.

So the 1976 Chowchilla kidnapping. I also have some photos that I want to send you as part of this to just give like. Oh, OK. So we're not at the photos yet, but when I do send them, I can send them to the group chat and then maybe we can put them on Instagram when this episode comes out because... Okay, cool. Yeah, I'm opening up my texts now. Sweet, because it deserves some visual explanation here. Cool. So this story takes place in Chowchilla, California in 1976, more specifically July 15th at 4 p.m. Okay, that sounds like it's right after the school, right after school time, right? Yes. And it is July, but it's summer school. Oh, okay. Okay. So school bus driver, Frank Edward Ray,

also known as Ed, was driving 26 students from, who went to Dairyland, by the way, great name, Dairyland Elementary School. Sounds like a made-up name. Sounds like where I get my best ice cream. Yeah, isn't that? Yeah, that's a thing. Okay. So Ed, the bus driver, was driving 26 students from Dairyland Elementary School home from a summer class trip to the Chowchilla Fairgrounds swimming pool. So they were all on this field trip for summer school at at the swimming pool the ages of the kids were between 5 and 14 and yeah there were 26 of them as they're driving down the road suddenly a van pulls up and blocks the path of the bus the van's windows were painted black

ray stopped the bus and was confronted by three masked men's men's three masked men with guns oh god the man held so the guy the main guy with the gun held the gun to ray while another got into the driver's seat of the school bus and took over driving and the third man followed behind in the van oh my god already fucking terrified well also like i can't even first of all i can't imagine being a child seeing this and like you're but then on top of that imagine being ray being like if i fuck up a child could get hurt like yeah it's it you're suddenly like the all i get into this later too but you're the only adult with 26 children and you're really at least the only adult not involved in you know

committing this crime um yeah so uh the men so it's kind of confusing his last name is ray but his first name is ed so if i had right those up it's because he's been quoted as right and ed so the kidnapper drove the bus to a secluded offshoot of the Chowchilla River where another van was waiting. And the men then forced Ed and the children into both vans at gunpoint. Yeah. And they forced the children to jump from the bus into the vans so that they wouldn't leave behind any footprints on the ground. Wow. So it's very well thought out, too. So like, yeah any footprints on the ground. Wow. So it's very well thought out, too.

So like, yeah, it's very planned. Yeah. Oh, my God. They then drove the vans around for 11 hours with Ray and the kids in the back. And just like a side note here, inside the vans, the kidnappers had constructed these makeshift jail cells by installing wood paneling and painting the windows black, like I mentioned earlier. So nobody could see in or out. There was no air ventilation. There was no food, water, or toilets.

I was going to say 11 hours for, like, children. And, like, you don't get to go to the bathroom? Oh, my God. Here's the first picture. This is just a picture of inside the let's see if this goes through and these pictures are all from uh 48 hours and they were featured in a cbs news article so just to give credit where credit is due so here's a picture of the inside of these vans so it looks so i for a second was thinking jail cells like

individually where they somehow fit all 26 into their own individual cells it's basically it's they walled up everything in the van so they couldn't see where they were going right it's like one big box yeah exactly and there were two vans so they split the kids and ed up into these two vans i almost like can you imagine being in the truck without ed and like that's really looking for an adult i was thinking that too you're in the one without an adult in it i mean all of it's terrifying and imagine being ed not being in the other van being like what is happening to those fucking kids those other kids i mean the pressure alone is is just this dude's already a superhero in my eyes yes yes and he does um become obviously okay well

we'll talk about it so they drove around for 11 hours in these horrible vans and they ended up 100 miles north at a rock quarry in livermore california where they finally stopped the bus driver ed and the children were taken out of the van one by one and sent down into a hole in the ground. This gets so batshit crazy. They soon learned they were inside of an old moving truck that the kidnappers had buried 12 feet underground. What? Yeah. Wow.

That's beyond anything I thought of when I said like, oh, wow, they are very well thought out. They literally buried a fucking truck. Buried a truck i'm sending you a picture of like the underground uh this is what they were led into oh it's so scary so i mean freaking creepy i didn't imagine it looking nice but like just putting an image to it it's just awful oh my god are those toilets i assume. Here's a picture of the toilets. So to give you a little bit of detail here, the children found containers filled with water for them to drink. They also found boxes of cereal, peanut butter and loaves of bread. And the kidnappers had installed makeshift toilets in the wheel wells of the truck. And I'm going to send you pictures here.

They also installed. So here's the water jugs. Also pretty gross, but at least there was that, I guess. And then here are two of the, or here are pipes. They had two ventilation pipes that were running from above ground to kind of bring air into the truck. And like not even great air and like the water jugs are dirty and yeah it's the whole thing's dirty gnarly yeah i can't wait to find out what the fuck the motive was isn't it just nuts like i can't even imagine like why would you need all those children why couldn't you just take the bus driver or i mean right there's a lot of lot of questions. So this is where they end up these poor kids and

Ed. So Ed tried his best to keep the kids calm again. Like we said this already, but he was the only adult. There were a couple of kids who were in their early teens. So like 13, 14, but most of the kids were younger, the youngest being five years old. Um, and he tried his best to just keep everybody calm. After being in this hole underground for almost 12 hours, conditions started to deteriorate. Sure. Yeah, understandably, the roof started to cave in, which is terrifying. And they were running out of food. Meanwhile, the kidnappers, so we're going to kind of cut to here, the kidnappers had left the quarry. They drove home and they called the Chowchilla police to give their ransom demands. Oh.

So that was their plan. They just trotted on home and used their own phones. I know. I'm going to give them a phone call real quick. I feel like for all of the thinking they've done so far, they didn't think like maybe we should use like a nondescript landline or something yeah it falls apart really quickly but uh for what it's worth the switchboard at the police station was so overloaded with calls from people looking for their children that they couldn't get through to give their ransom demands to the police. Oh my God. So they took a nap. Oh,

okay. Okay. Now we're going to cut to Ray and Ed, Ray and the older kids. So Ed and the older kids who were in their early teens, like 13, 14, 15 stack the mattresses in the truck so that some of them could reach the opening at the top,

which had been covered with what they found out soon was a manhole cover and then weighed down with two 100 pound industrial batteries holy crap so they are like locked in there with with this have at least 200 i don't know how much a manhole cover weighs but at least 200 pounds uh plus a manhole cover i'm gonna look it up because i just also like i'm thinking imagine the um how much does a manhole weigh such such a gross question um a manhole weighs weighs 250 pounds oh dear, dear. Holy shit. So plus the other 200 pounds. So like 450 pounds. Yeah.

Forget it. And I was going to say, imagine like, I can't imagine being obviously Ed, who like feels responsible for 26 people, also being the sole emotional crutch for all of these children. And having to be calm. emotional crutch for all of these children and how you're getting calm while you're getting no like i'm sure he's doing nothing but panicking and all these like children are probably like clinging to him but also imagine being like one of the 13 or 14 year olds who's like has some semblance of awareness that like yep i am one of the older people here like it's it's up to me to help ed yes i'm like now the adult in the situation for lack of a better word yeah god exactly so that so they kind of teamed up which ended up being

great so they ray and the oldest boy who was 14 his name was michael marshall spent hours trying to shove these heavy 450 pounds heavy items off of the opening of the top of the truck and they eventually and again they're like piled up on mattresses so it's not like they have like a ladder or anything uh they eventually managed to actually wedge the lid open with a piece of wood and move the batteries and then they were able to dig they had to dig their way out because there was still debris from this quarry covering the entrance so 16 hours after they had entered this truck they were able to break free and dig their way out and pull all the children to safety thank god i can't believe that that's i really thought these people are not coming home yeah i don't know if i would have been able to cover it if

all all of them fair but no but it's a fair point like it sounds so like doomed i feel like i feel like that is a good um test that like if christine chief is talking about a group of children in a true crime story chances are they're gonna make it because otherwise christine would already be a mess so i would have passed that tiktok right on by um so they had been stuck in this ordeal so they've been in the truck for 16 hours but they had been stuck in this ordeal this whole thing for 28 hours so at this point they've been at least ed has been up and in like panic adrenaline mode for 28 hours fried finally thank god make it out of this truck and they begin walking toward the guard shack at the quarry and they later talk to the guards who were just in shock seeing this man and 26 children like emerging out of the

quarry imagine where did they come from so the kids were taken to a local jail because it was the nearest place that could hold them all in like a safe place. They were given apples and soda and they were examined by doctors. There's a lot of photos of this too online. And it's, you know, it's sweet because the kids are so happy to be rescued. And it's all, you know, it's from 1970, the 1970s. So it's kind of old school, but the photos are, there's still plenty of photo evidence of all this. They're examined by doctors. The kids were very relieved and patient, but they were antsy to get home. Obviously, they had to wait four more hours until they could be reunited with their families. And at this point, they had to

board another bus, terrifying, last thing you would probably want to do and they were sent back to chow chilla to meet their families and there are also photos online of um they were in the cbs news article of them reuniting with their families which is always a at least a comforting image to see in a story like this so police immediately obviously went to the quarry to search for clues and they unearthed the trailer that had been buried 12 feet underground so i have a photo of that yes please how on earth did they even it's pull that out of the ground how did someone bury a truck in the ground that held 27 people and i'm pretty sure this was a criminal minds episode and i remember thinking yeah right and like apparently

it was based on a true story okay yeah like how do you even find enough dirt to cover the truck well i guess in a quarry oh okay fair enough just mountains of dirt but yeah wow oh that's so just so so grim yeah it's so you can see it's a moving truck or like a storage truck that they had just buried underground. And then at the top there is where they were able to break free. So really, really, really terrifying. OK, it's almost I mean, I know in the moment it must have been even scarier of like, oh, the ceiling literally is falling through and I have all these children on me. But hey, like if that didn't happen, they might not have had a way out.

Exactly. I mean, thankfully they were able to, to, thankfully there were mattresses to climb up, you know, and be able to get the purchase to push 400 pounds off you. Just to think something as simple as like, if there weren't mattresses, like they might not have made it. They wouldn't have made it. So here's the, here's what's happening. We're going to cut back to these kidnappers.

Okay. So the kidnappers had taken a nap. Unfortunately for them, they had overslept and they woke up only to find on the news that their victims had escaped this truck. Sorry. Can you, sorry. Like like thank god that happened by the way but can you imagine having like this whole plan you clearly put so much thought into like burying a fucking truck how stupid and just to be like oh god like i took one goddamn sleep and

we overslept yeah yeah there you go wow okay so they they woke up on friday evening and we're like oh shit our victims all escaped so now we're going to get into the answers to these questions like what the hell were these people thinking who are these people so eight days after the kidnapping 22 year old richard schoenfeld turned himself in and less than a week later Richard's brother James Schoenfeld and their friend Frederick Newhall Woods the fourth okay who were both 24 were captured Schoenfeld was captured in Menlo Park and Woods in Vancouver British Columbia so there's these two brothers Richard and James and then there was this guy Frederick so it turns out Frederick Woods the fourth was the son of the quarry owner so they were on to him because he had keys to the quarry and he would have access

to burying a truck underground and not many people would so it turns out all three boys were from wealthy families who lived in San Francisco's nicest suburbs. And security guards had actually seen the three men digging in the quarry months before the kidnapping. So they were already planning this months in advance. So investigators got a warrant to search Fred Wood's father's estate where they found all sorts of evidence. One of the most important being a piece of paper titled Plan. Okay. Wow. How direct. Okay. one of the most important being a piece of paper titled plan okay wow my god how direct okay it's written in pen uh it sets out how they were going to commit the kidnapping and what they would do if something went wrong they also i guess they didn't have a plan b for falling asleep but oh

well oh well they also found the ransom note, which says, I read the ransom note. It says, we are Beelzebub. They tried to write Beelzebub. And before Beelzebub, they had like crossed it out because they'd spelled it wrong. And then they spelled it wrong again. And I was like, nice try. Isn't there that show like Dumbest Criminals or something? It really has that vibe for sure.

feel it has that vibe for sure also like there's there's nothing more threatening than as than if you think you are calling yourself beelzebub i'm sure you think you're really hot shit and so there's nothing less threatening than not knowing how to spell it crossing it out and writing it again on the same piece of paper getting a new piece of paper i'm'm like, come on. This feels like a kid wrote it. Plan. We are Beale. Nope, nope, nope, nope. We're Beale. Plan. And they had planned on asking originally for 2.5 million, then they upped it to $5 million. I guess the reason they needed this money is they were like deeply in debt. And James Schoenfeld later explained, we needed multiple victims to get multiple millions. And we picked children because children are precious.

The state would be willing to pay ransom for them. And they don't fight back. They're vulnerable. They will mind. They won't mind. No, no. Sorry. They will mind.

Like, oh, mind your manner. Like, they will mind. They will follow the rules. They won't mind. That's what I thought. You said, like, they'll get it. One day when they're in debt they'll understand like what that's so fucked up they will like mind our rules and stuff like that i see i see they're obedient um yes exactly so perhaps creepiest of all they also found a note with a list of all the children's names and ages

uh and it later they later found out that they had written these down as they pulled each individual child from the van. So as they pulled them from the van and put them in that hole, they had them give their name and their age. They had a whole list for the, I don't know, ransom purposes, I guess. Wow. And I don't know if you're going to answer this, but so that were they just waiting for any old school bus to cross them like because it sounds like they didn't know who was on this bus yeah i don't know if i think they probably knew you know i'm not sure and they must have known that this bus was driving down this secluded road because they had everything planned as far as like pulling into the road in front of the bus they planned uh maybe they didn't

know the names of the children, but they probably knew there was a summer school and they probably knew there was a field trip going on. Because it's not like all these kids were on the same bus every single day. They just happened to be on a field trip. So they must have planned that part out. Yeah, I don't know. And then gotten the details from the kids as they were in the middle of this process. So all three perpetrators pleaded guilty to kidnapping for ransom and robbery, but they refused to plead guilty to infliction of

bodily harm because if they were convicted on that in conjunction with the kidnapping charge, there would be a mandatory sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. So all three kidnappers were eventually sentenced to life with the possibility of parole. And as of right now, 36 years after the kidnapping, one of the brothers, Richard Schoenfeld, was granted parole in June of 2012. And then three years later, his brother James was paroled. And Rick even said that when their victims ask questions, quote, we apologize again for putting them through that ordeal. So that's the brothers. Now there's Fred Woods, the fourth, who was the son of the quarry owner. And he is now 67. He's the last kidnapper in prison.

And he was denied parole on October 8th, 2019 for the 19th time. Yeah yeah and here are some of the reasons for why he's been denied parole uh continued minimization of his crime as well as disciplinary infractions for possession of contraband pornography and cell phones uh in addition to that in 2016 a workers comp lawsuit filed against woods also revealed that he had been running several businesses, including a gold mine and a car dealership, from behind bars without notifying prison authorities. A gold mine? He's just casually sitting on a fucking gold mine? Maybe he could afford a lawyer with that gold mine. I don't know. You would think so. What does that mean? I don't even, whatever whatever he's also the heir to two wealthy california families the new halls and the woods is so he already has like trust funds from

both of these families and yet now he decides he needs to be running a gold mine from prison whatever i mean he's still he's still up to his crafty ways i guess but like yes but also like dude like i don't know i also i was not expecting even the brothers to be able to get out but i guess if they've they're actively making amends with people and all that yeah and so i guess one of the brothers gave himself up so i bet that gave him a leg up as far as like getting paroled. And the other brother seems to be, yeah, repenting in some way or to have acknowledged, you know, how bad this was. So, yeah, you're probably right that that's why they got, you know, paroled eventually. But Fred, it gets even worse because so as I said, he's the heir to two wealthy California families, the Newhalls and the Woodses. So he inherited a trust fund from his parents that was described

in one court filing as being worth $100 million, which now is approximately $113 million. And although Wood's lawyer disputed that amount, that's the information we have as far as a court filing said so he does have a lawyer who said it's not that much but we okay then how much is it we don't know gotcha uh he's married three times in prison and he has purchased a mansion about 30 minutes away from prison so oh just for just for other people to use i guess i guess just empty for him in case he convinces someone to let him out i don't know i was gonna say like what you couldn't just like rent it like a super small apartment for starters like you also think like why would you want to live 30 minutes from prison i i would want i would buy a mansion in bermuda and be like let me out i

have places to be. I'd buy my own island or something if you got that kind of money. I'd be like, no one's going to tell me what to do over here. Yeah, get me out of here. But I guess that's where he wanted it. What a wild way to use your money. And I don't feel that bad about my Pokemon cards anymore. You shouldn't.

I think you're okay. You know what? I certainly didn't buy it a very unnecessary. I mean, I did buy a very necessary purchase, but nothing as expensive as a mansion I can't use. And you probably helped fund, what was it? Where did you buy them? I eBay them off of people who are selling their collection. So people are, you're helping people who are selling their stuff. I mean, it's not like you're buying them off, you know, Amazon or something.

That's true. That's true. Yeah. So as for the hero of our story, good old Ed, Ed Ray, the bus driver, he was obviously revered in town. He helped, not only did he help the children escape, he helped them keep calm and, you know, safe, feel safe, at least safer while they were all in this 28 hour ordeal. So he received a California school employees association citation for outstanding community service. And over the years he kept in touch with many of the children that he helped save, which is very sweet.

And a lot of them over the years reached out and connected with him. Well, that's very sweet. But also I kind of have to say doug like that like can you imagine being five and as far as you're concerned this man saved you like i would your life yeah i would totally there's no way i wouldn't have a relationship with him as long as he was open to it but like yeah imagine like also i know we've talked about this already that he was like the only adult there but yeah him reaching out and staying in touch with the kids i what a weird relationship that must be to have trauma bonded with children and like they're the only ones who can understand and yeah most of them are little you know he really

is a hero holy shit i agree so uh he kept in touch with a lot of the kids. He did pass away in 2012. But in 2015, Chowchilla named a local park Edward Ray Park. And I know. And every February 26, which was his birthday, was declared Edward Ray Day in Chowchilla. And Ray Day. That's so fun. Edward Ray Day. Yeah. And it's funny.

Somebody in the comments was like, of course, he was a Pisces. So the aftermath. Obviously, it's a happy ending in the traditional sense. But hey, we got a bus full of kids traumatized for life, right? So there was an article written in 2001 in the San Francisco Chronicle. And 2001 at this point is 20 years ago. So it, even though it was like a modern article written about, you know, obviously, this is now 20 years later, but at the time, the kids, some of the kids being interviewed were about 30. And, or like in

their 20s, I guess. So one survivor, Laura Fanning said, we had a lot of therapy afterwards, but I still have these dreams that happen around every July. So she was five when the incident took place. And she was known as Laura Yazzie at the time, she was the youngest victim on the bus. And she described herself during that experience as quote, completely scared. Now i have these dreams of dying dracula is chasing me and he has a dog and then the dog comes up and bites me so as she's i think part of the reason to sorry this is just kind of like a thought i had in an interjection but the relationship that ed is having with these kids it seems like oh well duh But a lot of the kids afterward did not want to ever revisit or touch this again. So I think a lot of them didn't want a relationship because they just didn't even

want to think about it. And he was maybe a trigger. I didn't even think about that. So yeah, I take back my duh. Sorry. No, no, no. I mean, it's a good point because like, of course, that connection would be there. But I think some people, I'll have an example in a minute, but some people were just they don't even want to talk about it to this day. So Laura also said, and the fears come out in other ways, you hear about a school under assault, like Columbine, and if you're one of the Chowchilla victims, it gets to you more than it does to the average parent or child, which makes a lot of sense. You're seeing children as victims, and you're thinking wow that was me that could have been me like you know i understand the terror of of that i can't imagine also them

becoming parents and like now yes like having children and seeing their kid go off on a bus to school like i'd be like oh like i wouldn't be able to process that yeah it's funny you say that because uh one of the parents said that they do not let their children on buses. They just can't do it. Fair enough. I don't blame them for one second. Yeah. So yeah, there's a lot of some people can't get on buses. They don't let their children on buses. It's a lot of aftermath, you know psychologically so victim 33 year old john estabrook who was 33 at the time in 2001 uh politely responded to a request to talk about this by saying i'm not interested in getting back to that i'd rather put it all behind me fair enough fair enough his wife

uh says that now well this was 25 years later so, she said, there are certain songs that come up. There's one I sing to my daughter, and it turns out that when they were all trapped underground, the older victims were entertaining the younger ones by singing. I know. This one gives me goose camp. And she said, so I was singing If You're Happy and You Know It, Clap Your Hands, which is a bizarre song to sing in the bottom of a pit. And John said, honey, that's not a good song to sing in the bottom of a pit and john said honey that's not a good song to sing can you sing something else yeah so even though he's you know putting it all behind him there are certain things she's learning as his wife that like she needs to avoid to like

you know help him still stay it's so sad that one of his triggers is that he can't even sing the song if you're happy and you know it right my god like just something and also that goes back to us talking about how the the oldest kids on the bus felt responsible to help where they were like okay like we're gonna entertain the little kids so they don't cry that's i can't even play games and sing songs and like they had to put their own fear aside yeah it's really frightening um they did actually do a study on these kids uh and it was i believe released in the 80s and this study found that the kidnapped children suffered from panic attacks nightmares involving kidnappings and death and personality changes many developed

fears of such things as quote cars the dark the wind the kitchen mice dogs and hippies. So it's like, Oh, honestly, now can I use my duh? Because like that, I feel like that's so fricking valid. I would be shocked if they didn't have a fear of the dark or just getting on a road, just like driving in general. Are you kidding me? I would never want to be on a road. I never want to leave my house. I haven't heard about dying and I've never been in this situation. I can't imagine. I'm surprised agoraphobia isn't on there, like just never wanting to leave your home. It could be. There were definitely some instances that happened. Well, I guess I'll read it exactly from the quote. So I guess one of the survivors shot a Japanese tourist with a BB gun when the tourist car broke down in front of his home because he was responding in like just fear-based response to this.

Many of the children continue to report symptoms of trauma at least 25 years after the kidnapping, including substance abuse and depression. And a number have been imprisoned for doing something controlling to somebody else. That's a quote. Oh, yeah. Interesting angle. that's oh yeah interesting angle um and what was learned from the after effects suffered by the kidnapping kidnapped children has guided the treatment of young victims of trauma since the kidnapping so it's at least done good in that small way well not small way a big way um and in 2016 the 25 surviving kidnapped children settled a lawsuit they had filed against their kidnappers which good for you

because this guy has 110 million dollars behind bars and his has a goal a literal gold mine like and he's also like still minimizing the whole issue and ask about it exactly so they did receive money as part of frederick uh paid out of frederick woods trust fund um and although the exact settlement amount was not disclosed, one survivor stated that they had each received quote enough to pay for some serious therapy, but not enough for a house. So,

which is so ironic because this fuckers actually just buying houses for no reason. Mansions. Yeah. You should be buying each of them a mansion. I agree in Bermuda and Island. I don't know something. Um,

and this is my final point here. When they asked Ray in this San Francisco Chronicle article what he took away from the ordeal, this was before he passed in 2001, he reflected for a long time. He then told the reporter he had learned one very valuable lesson. Don't stop the bus. Whoa. And that's the story of the Chowchilla kidnapping. Wow, that's, I don't know bonkers wow that was a that was i mean when i say a good story i hope you know what i mean but that was oh i mean i know what you mean yeah super eerie i really i just feel so bad i feel so bad for those

kids i can't yeah the fact again it's one of those things where like because it is relatively recent it's harder to be able to remove the reality from it which which shouldn't be happening anyway but it's it's because it's people are still alive from that time it's you know what i mean like yeah it feels more visceral. I don't know. More powerful, more eerie, more it can happen to you. And yep. Yep. Oh, it's just, if I just, I just another thing for, I guess you to be terrified of now that you have a child too. I know. It never, it never ends. Um, and I mean, one of the reasons I bet that this hasn't been as extensively maybe covered, um, or known about is maybe because thankfully everybody physically survived the incident. I wonder if, you know, obviously if everyone had died,

that probably would have been a much more, I don't know, widely spread story. But it's just such a crazy story for me to never have heard about doing this show for five years. I'd never heard about this. It's just baffling to me yeah and also i just like how you said earlier i mean it's the like the largest mass kidnapping yeah in u.s history at least it was at the time i'm not sure if that's let's hope let's let's hope right i know but like the fact that yeah the fact that no one has even talked about this or like even knew about it i guess the narrative would have been really different if everyone died yeah which also makes me feel kind of sad that like what because they survived like this shouldn't be mentioned like no exactly

exactly it's the only thing i can think of that as a reason why this hasn't been more widely spread. Um, so at the trauma, I can't bury it alive. I mean, terribly. So, oh my God, that's the story. Um, so, ha ha ha. Thank you. Well, that was, that was a, that was a good one, but wow. I just, I'm sure. I don't know. I don't even know what to say i uh what did you think of it as a mother going in is did it affect your did it paint your image differently um i don't think so yet i think i think it's still removed yeah i think it is still removed and i think it's just because the my baby is still a baby and i can't really imagine putting her on a bus. I think on when she's older, and I'm like sending her out into the world, these kind of stories will probably hit home a lot harder. Like, a paranoid parent, I'm like, I feel like you have every fucking right. I feel like there's no such thing as too paranoid of a parent these days. I'm like, you know what? It's so hard to not be scared. Yeah. Unfortunately, you might as well be scared of everything. Like there's,

there's always reasons. It's hard not to be. That would justify why you feel that way. Yeah. Yeah. Boy. And like you said, I'm scared to just leave my house sometimes. So I don't, I don't even, I can't imagine having to worry about another person living a life. Oh my God. Separately from you. Yeah. But anyway, that's the story.

So I guess now we're going to do our little bonus thing for Patreon. Oh yeah. If you haven't tuned in in a while, we're now doing additional content on Patreon where after we record, we just hang out for a little, do a little chit chat chat and maybe i'll talk about my gross fiji water bottle again full of grape juice we can i don't know we can only hope that that doesn't happen so and that's why we drink grape juice out of fiji bottles no thank you