And That's Why We Drink - E357 A Millennial Pause and a Scythe Tsunami

Episode Date: December 10, 2023

Welcome to episode 357 where we're definitely not threatened by all of Em's healthy developments... This week Em takes us on another 101 deep dive, this time into the world of psychopomps, specifically the lore of the Grim Reaper. Then Christine covers the mind-bending tale of the disappearance of Steven Kubacki. And is it really just all about the psychopomps we meet along the way? ...and that's why we drink!Don't miss us back on tour this winter and spring with the last round of our On the Rocks live show! Get your tickets at andthatswhywedrink.com/live

hey you know i thought we were on zoom and i was waiting for recording in progress and i was like i was waiting for the glitch so me having like the ultra millennial pause was actually on purpose. There's going to be one day like a thing, like a fun fact where it's like, did you know, like millennials who are now 900 years old, their behaviors were all tainted by COVID-19 and all the bullshit they went through. And now they have all these weird tics, like pausing when something starts recording to wait for the little lady to talk we're gonna be so unhinged the millennial pauses I blame snapchat for that or maybe old school instagram because that's like when was the snapchat pause because both of them when you used to press record it took a second before it would actually start recording and so oh my god you're right you're right you're right you're right you're right you're right so that's where i think the millennial pause came

from but uh the thing that scares me more is the millennial zoom like apparently we like nobody zooms anymore like zooms in when you're when you're like telling a video and then like it gets like really like you get to the climax and then you zoom in on your face wait you don't do it anymore yeah that's a no that's a full fucking no you might as well be a boomer i thought you meant zoom um the the zooming the camera then zoom when you're recording like when you're telling a story on your then i thought you meant as well be a boomer hey don't hate on zoom i won't i'm just saying the younger kids do come on and zumba zumba zumba zoom what is um what is your day looking like today send it to zoom i guess we're still hawking

i guess we're still saying a damn hawking i're still hawking. I'm just saying a day I'm hawking. I'm singing. What are you asking me? What do you want to know? What's your day been like today? Okay. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Okay.

Hang on. I'm going to do the millennial pause and make sure that there's, like, an even space for me to get ready to talk. And then I'll do it. Ready? Christine, what's your day look like today? How has your day been? Let me zoom in real quick so wait that's so embarrassing I used to zoom all the time on my video we all did that's

that's probably what yeah um yeah okay so I was gonna say that my day is fine thank you for asking i was awoken at noon 11 54 by blaze with a giant cup of coffee and i was like wow i've entered a parallel world where everything's great yeah it was because he's been sick for like 10 not 10 days but like maybe a week or over a week i don't know and like so sick that he was not getting out of bed and i was kind of juggling everything solo and i think he felt bad about that even though he didn't have to feel bad about that because he was not getting out of bed and I was kind of juggling everything solo. And I think he felt bad about that, even though he didn't have to feel bad about that because he was sick. But today was the first day he felt like 100%. And so I was like, man, back to my dream life of sleeping till noon, getting coffee delivered. So yeah, life's good. Thank you for asking. How are you? I'm good. Again, parallel worlds, life's good. Thank you for asking. How are you? Uh, I'm good. I, again, parallel worlds because I've been waking up without an alarm at 7 a.m.

What? For days now. For what? I honestly don't know. It's some combination of jet lag plus staying up plus it, it wasn't like I tried for this. It kind of happened and now i'm riding the wave until i you know fall into my usual congratulations thank you it won't be forever i know that it never has been but it's not a phase mom well it's here i've been waking up watching the sunrise i've been eating like the healthy behind the smog yeah yeah darker smog is becoming lighter smog um i have been drinking a lot of water and drinking smoothies a oatmeal today i

got work done before we recorded what it's like the twilight zone no i feel weird now i feel uncomfortable i do too to be fair i'm like i wish i miss i miss the days and by days i mean like last week when i would wake up at 10 58 and we would start recording at 11 that well that's my norm i'll be honest like i was so excited because i texted you oh sorry guys i need five minutes i lost track of time and i was like look at me giving m five minutes to sleep and then no you were working and i was rolling around in my bed like like humpty dumpty well usually usually when i see are you there sorry yeah oh that explains it i usually when you text and say oh can i have five more minutes i'm like oh she's a goddamn queen i'm like listen i just i love to sprinkle around my generosity

i'm just kidding every now and then i like to pretend that we actually were going to record at 10 but then you had to make us wait until 11 and so then i'm like oh thank god that's literally how my brain works too i'm glad that we're both so equally unwell um except for now apparently i'm threatened by all of your like developments your healthy developments you've had a lifetime of this let me have three days before i know no i'm very i'm very happy for you um and i'm proud of you that's that's awesome um and you know what i just realized speaking of like healthy things and non-healthy things um i realized i had a reason i drink this week specifically and it's because it's finally happening and i'm what what i have a bunion

oh well join the club i think i have a bunion i Oh, well, join the club. I think I have a bunion. I don't know. I got something going on, but I don't know what it is. Okay. I thought you were going to just call me the Crypt Keeper again and go on a whole thing about how old I am. No, I don't know the difference between all the feet things, but I do know my great grandma

had bunions. And one of the last conversations she had with my aunt was, when I go, you'll probably be next to get my bunions and one of the last conversations she had with my aunt was when i go you'll probably be next to get my bunions and then you wonder what they're like passed down in the will well then lo and behold like a week later my aunt started getting bunions so i'm just like waiting for the day that it's my turn but i've got like i've got a bump on my on the bottom of my foot that's never gone away and it where on your foot? The middle. The palm. No, no.

A bunion is like where your big toe, like this bone where your big toe is and your big toe starts to lean inward. Oh, I don't have that. And the bone kind of juts out. Oh, no. Mine are straight as an arrow. They're the only straight thing about me. You know what I've got a problem with with my toes, though? fucking caveman toes i've got like that big old thumb could use my toe as a hammer toe you know i know well she's sturdy i can stand real good on her md of hand foot and mouth again um because you did

you did have that so that i know this this bump has been here for years i think it's like is it a corn is that what it's called maybe or a wart i don't know but okay whatever okay so let me tell you about a bunny okay so i i knew my mom always had i didn't know what what they were called but i knew my mom always had that pain in her foot and she has all sorts of foot and ankle issues she was run over by a motorcycle one time it's a long story but so she has these like bones sticky and so but they're they're they often happen because people wear like high heels or you know a lot and that's how it often happens and sometimes you have to get them like surgically surgically corrected your dry had that she to get them removed really so i certainly have never i wore high heels like two times in my life and i fell both times so like that is not my issue um i don't know why the universe

has bestowed this upon me but it hurts like a bitch and does it really hurt is it just because you can feel your toe shifting no it's like the bone like shifts outward so it's like just really i don't know but um this is what i've become on black friday here we go i went on i went on to drscholls.com and bought a bunion corrector for 30 off bunion corrector that sounds like you're like a brace for your toe it is oh okay so you put it on your toe and then it's overnight you sleep with it on and it like pulls your toe out does it hurt yes oh if it's gonna hurt either way you might as well just like no no it hurts you know when something hurts like in a good way where you're like okay it's like correcting itself oh yeah is that a thing that everybody else understands or is it okay yeah so it's sort of

like it's just like ah okay it's getting it's the right direction now but does it i mean is it like only temporary or can it actually like cure it without no i think it can prevent it from getting any worse because like i guess a bunion is fine it's not it's like you can prevent it from getting worse if you catch it on time but if you do not here i'll send you a picture of your own bunion no no no oh i was gonna say i'll send you a picture of my thing if you send me a picture of your thing i'm just showing you like what they look like let me send you a picture of my thing okay so you can't even see mine that's a thing it's like you can't see it i just feel it see you can see mine but you can't even see mine that's the thing is like you can't see it i just feel it so you can see mine but you can't feel it for me oh i can't feel it at all

we're just taking feet pics i literally i'm in the middle i'm like oh my god is this one sexy or no is this wart on my foot sexy i guess guess to some people, maybe. I hope the listeners are using their imagination to paint a picture of what's happening. I feel like it's not even a good picture. Well, then I don't want it. Put the ring light on it. I'm trying. Come on. Okay. I think I got it. Did you get the picture? did you get the picture look that good well whatever i'll send it to you anyway did you get the picture i don't know i'm sending you mine first and then i'll see

if i got it uh your picture that's not my feet those are your oh they're not your feet those are not your feet those are old lady i'm sorry those are not my feet. Those are your feet. Oh, they're not your feet. Those are not your feet. Those are an old lady. I'm sorry. Those are not my feet. Jump scare, girl. Oh, my God. I'm so sorry. It looks like the nail polish that my stepmom had in her cabinet from like 1977. That like pink, shiny, lead-filled.

So that's what's happening over time? That's what your feet are going to look like? Yeah, that's kind of how it... That's like a bad bunion. So see the picture of the bone, though, up there? Yeah. Oh. Yeah. It's kind of how it, that's like a bad bunion. So see the picture of the bone though up there? Yeah. Oh, yeah. It's like curving.

It like curves outward and it hurts like a bitch when you wear shoes, like certain shoes. Em, where is this lump you're talking about? Exactly. That's what I'm saying. Like mine looks like fucking nothing compared to yours. Okay. It's the little tiny white dot. The little white dot.

See him? Yeah. That just looks like a little callus or a wart. Yeah, that's a wart. Yeah, it feels like, I don't know if it's a wart. It feels like a callus inside a layer of my skin so it can't, like, come out or be, like, buffed away. Like, it feels like a lump of, like, hard skin. Weird.

Yeah. Anyway, it's nothing compared to that. It just, it's, like, very painful. I bet. It looks, I mean, it's like very painful um yeah bad it looks i mean it's like i mean your bones are bending so it's probably yeah it's like it's not great and so i probably have to see a podiatrist i can barely get out of the house to go to walgreens i don't know how i'm supposed to go see a podiatrist but like that's what my mom told me to do so anyway that's why i drink because i'm old and it's all happening and And I bought Dr. Scholl's on Black Friday.

So you know what? That's me. That's the real me, people. And you can't take that from me. I like her. My aunt has the same little, I don't remember what it's called, but I told my mom about it one time. And she said, not my Seattle aunt, but another aunt has the same thing that i have and she straight up like i mean this is very her personality so like i'm not very surprised but

like she literally carves it out like it's like a fucking exacto knife and just chisels at her own goddamn foot and i'm like that i'd rather just have the bump but thank you yeah that's crazy what i would do but it's certainly not recommended and also that sounds like a wart because if it keeps regrowing like that there's there um there's people who like will like try to like get their own ingrown toenails out with like like knives and stuff and like cut yeah i do that yeah do you oh yeah i'm like a sicko i i'm of course it has to hurt and it's so dangerous and it's not safe and i do it anyway but like with um with like one time i had um water in my ear did you put a knife in your ear what what's going on what are you talking about? It was the week I met Blaze and I googled how to get water out of your ear.

And I said, you know, go to the doctor and lie on your side. And you said, OK, step two. I said, none of these are going to work, obviously. So I found another website and it said to put some lemon juice in there. So I was like, OK, great. So I put lemon juice in my ear. Is like okay great so i well i don't think so because all of a sudden i realized oh i can't hear at all anymore like i literally filled my whole ear with lemon juice and then it just was full like it didn't it didn't come out so then i'm sitting there and i'm texting my new crush blaze and being like

who's working as an emT and like driving ambulances all day. And I'm like, I just want to watch it in my hair. Like, you know, that would be the most like psychotic thing of like, you just want to hang out with him. So you made yourself an EMT victim or a patient or whatever. I said, I called his and they, they, he drove an ambulance, like four senior citizen homes. So I would have had to like call his company and be like, come get me. And so then I Googled how to get lemon juice out of your ear. And it said, put hydrogen peroxide in your ear. So I said, OK.

So I poured hydrogen peroxide in my ear. It's not funny. And I know, like, Blaze does not like when I talk about this. It, like, really upsets him because he's like, this is so bad. And, like, you really could have screwed up your hearing forever.

And not only your hearing, but, like, that's, your hearing is pretty damn close to your brain. Like, you could have just put a bunch of lemon juice in your brain. Are you actually allowed to put hydrogen peroxide in your ear? No, you're not supposed to put shit in your ear. You're not even supposed to put a Q-tip in your ear. Like, you're literally not.

And I'm sitting here pouring, so I'm, like, pouring. And, you know, my moms, they had those little paper cups for brushing your teeth. I was living at my mom's. So I, like, filled those with lemon juice and those with lemon juice and then i poured them in my ear and then i can feel my ear i couldn't hear it was like the most it wasn't like you know when you get a lot of water and it's like pretty or or an earplug it was like worse like i genuinely you could like set off a firework next to this ear. I could hear nothing. And I'm like, cool. I've totally destroyed my hearing.

And I'm like really making, like, I'm one of those people who when I do something and I try to correct it, I then just make it worse and worse. Like I just keep digging the hole deeper. Like I just, I don't know. It's hard for me to get out of that self-defeating cycle. So then my mom had to take me to the urgent care. And so then we went to the urgent care and we didn't realize it was indigenous people's day back then still considered Columbus

day. Um, and so we got there and we like walk in the urgent care and there's like nobody there. And we're like, that's weird. So then we walk around, we're like ringing the bell. I'm like calling their number. Nobody's there. And we and we're like that's weird so then like we get the nerve to like open the door to the back and we start wandering through the urgent care and we're like hello is anybody here i checked the fridge um someone had brought baby carrots lunch and i was like oh put those in your ear okay i probably would have been safer honestly and then we wander around. Nobody's there. Eventually, we find a security guard outside and he's like, oh, shit.

The morning guy wasn't supposed to unlock the door. They're off work today. And he's like, don't go anywhere in there. And we're like, we would never go into the fridge and look at what they're bringing for lunch. What? I can't hear you. What? Sure. Yeah.

Whatever you say. Anyway, I forget what happened but um i eventually obviously repaired it um and i also just go away on you think or it was like no i had to go get like um i think i had to go to an ear nose throat and like get it fixed it was very bad don't you guys do not follow i know this is so duh and everyone knows this but don't don't like follow medical advice on medical quote-unquote advice from the internet don't cut out your ingrown toenails or your warts don't pour lemon juice in your ear i know that this is a controversial statement but don't do it

i feel like that's my psa as soon as the doctors say like oh Leona has an ear infection Blaze is going to grab her like it's up like she's a million dollars and she's gonna go I got it don't come near her okay also what we do in my family for ear infections is something that really bothers Blaze because I thought it was normal now I need you to know tell me if this is normal it's not what yeah i was gonna say you can probably already answer that question um so we would always my mother would always microwave an onion and then okay so i'm already getting a vibe that you're like what are you talking about evo can you weigh in is this something your family does or is this really

just like an unhinged thing that my family i think i've understood the the the rationale of like it could absorb something like it absorbs absolutely not okay cool cool so that's that's a big no um uh yeah that okay so microwave an onion and put it in a hot towel and then we would like wrap it around your ear not a whole onion i mean sorry a half an onion right god forbid i feel like i understand okay shut up i mean like because then the onions actually like you know has it and flat yeah anti you know it's i have i think i understand that like the the fumes and the steam and the layers of the onion maybe the wives tale is that it absorbs any moisture left in your ear or something.

But no that's not like a normal thing I grew up hearing. Okay okay because Blaise's family loves to say oh let's just strap an onion to her head and I'm like you guys are so rude but also it's very funny and so i get like mad and i laugh at the same time and then um oh m this is not a joke i just googled onion on ear overnight to see like what the internet says right the first thing that comes up as the recommended says one method calls this is called ear infection home remedies from everydayhealth.com one method calls for heating an onion Ear Infection Home Remedies from EverydayHealth.com. One method calls for heating an onion at 450 degrees Fahrenheit for 15 minutes. Then once it is cool, cut the onion in half and squeeze the juice into a bowl.

Put a few drops of the onion juice into your ear. Shut up. That can't be real. Why does everyone tell you to don't do this? That's like Madame Zeroni from Holes saying like, oh, onions cure everything. Like that's crazy. Find me the onions. Yeah.

I have heard other like home remedies of like you put like Vaseline on your feet and then you put socks on your feet, which like sensory overload. Jesus Christ. I do that. I also know about like putting a cup on your head after you've been outside for too long and it supposedly sucks the heat out of you so you don't get sick or something. A cup? I like how the cup is so ridiculous.

It's supposed to catch the condensation or something. That's insane. All I know is I didn't experience any of these. I had a mother who was the worst nurse on earth. Aww. She openly says anytime my kid was sick i immediately did not want to be a parent anymore i didn't want to deal with it what did she do and so she just like didn't want it like she was like i don't

want to she would throw me a four pack of jello chocolate pudding and she would and when i say throw i mean she'd open the door throw it and then slam the door shut so she didn't catch whatever i had that's like fucking what's it called schitt's creek when she's like she like doesn't want to go near her and she's like mommy i'm sick and she's like yes darling and like truly like i can't like perfect perfectly taken right out of my childhood. It makes sense why you have Lucille Bluth as her contact photo. Every now and then, my mom would scream up, are you done being sick? And then if I said no, she'd be like, okay, well, stay up there then. I guess I got to go buy more pudding packs.

Well, so now, Pavlovianly, the only thing that makes me feel better is when I eat chocolate pudding. Okay, that's actually very sweet. Well, so now Pavlovianly, the only thing that makes me feel better is when I eat chocolate pudding. Okay. That's actually very sweet. I mean, listen. Okay. I don't know if your mom was the worst nurse ever, but my mom put onions on my head that she got out of the microwave. So, you know what? Like, she thought she was being a great nurse.

I don't know. A searing hot onion taped to your head does sound pretty bad. Right? It's like, why didn't she buy me a pudding pack? You know? Like, I don't know. A searing hot onion taped to your head does sound pretty bad. Right? It's like, why didn't she buy me a pudding pack, you know? Like, I don't know. I got to tell you, the pudding made it worse because it just created more mucus. Oh, yuck. By creating more mucus, I was clearing my throat more, which made me have a sore throat for longer.

So it actually is very not good for you. I will also say the one thing that really used to bother me that my mom would do when we were sick. And by the way, I have like chronic sinusitis or whatever. Like I get sinus infections all the time. And as a kid, I got them constantly. And the one thing my mom would make us do also is like the metal bowl of boiling hot water. And then you put a towel over your head and you have to just like breathe the steam in i hated that um i think that was that that one actually does i think

work because it's like just steam my equivalent to that was just going and standing in a hot shower the same thing yeah my mom was like we're not wasting hot water. You can put your head in this bowl. And I was like, okay, cool. Fantastic. Yeah, we were a Vaseline family. Or not Vaseline family. What was it? Vaporub. A Vaporub family.

I love a Vicks Vaporub. I still put that on Leona's feet sometimes. I don't know if it does anything. I don't think it does. But it makes her laugh. Like when she's sick, I mean. How funny. What a sad game. She's like, what are. Like when she's sick, I mean. How funny. What a sad game.

She's like, what are you doing? I'm like, I'm fixing you. I do think I really can only use Vaporub when I have like a really stuffy nose and everything. Because apparently, fun fact for some of you people out there with heart conditions, Sudafed and Usinex are bad for you. Like they make me give you heart palpitations um and i realized that pseudofed in it vapor up no oh i thought you were saying you can only i can't take pseudofed or um mucinex for sinus stuff which is why i rely on vaporub because uh understood i took i took i think i took both of them at one time which was like big old problem um but all of a sudden i thought i

was having like an svt episode and i was like what's going on and apparently um i don't know if this like has to do with svt if you're like a heart expert please weigh in but uh ever since covid i have a sensitivity to epinephrine and it gives me really bad palpitations. I feel like a panic attack. Oh, shit. And I guess Sudafed has that in it or something. So fun fact. Anyway, I guess that's why I drink.

I can't take fucking Sudafed. That is fun. Congratulations. Thank you. And now I'm actually going to Instacart some pudding today because now I'm in the – I was going to say, I'm going to instacart some pudding today because now i'm in i was gonna say i got me i'm gonna instacart one onion and you can have um your pudding and we'll be we'll be healthy for the rest of the year it's like our vitamin c it's like actually

just chocolate goop and um yeah also an onion in my ear just like just you know let it placebo effect i gotta tell you christine the you really couldn't have segued into my topic better um oh i know because i was told to say all of this okay so i say that because this week, I don't know how people feel. Please weigh in. And by the way, weigh in kindly because I feel like I'm doing something nice. But if you don't like it, I'm open to criticism, but kind criticism. But I'm really digging these one-on-ones because I never knew how to bring them in as topics. No, I love it.

I mean, I love it. I don't know what the other people say. I like it. But if our audience doesn other people say but I like it but if our audience doesn't like it you know I'm happy to change things up I just thought like oh there's so many categories I want to cover but I it's kind of for me it feels like my band-aid over not knowing how to cover smaller topics but if I branch out and make them into like big bigger concepts it's easier to talk about it but so anyway this is another 101 and because we've been talking about our illnesses and our past illnesses and what we

do when we're sick uh we are going to talk about the grim reaper so gasp which by the way we're not really going to talk about the grim reaper away, but we're going to talk about who he is as a concept, which, um, a grim Reaper is a psychopomp. Did you know that? No, what's a psychopomp?

I've heard that word and I love it. And I have no idea what it is. So, uh, psychopomp is the umbrella term for creatures like the grim Reaper. So we're going to do a one-on-one on that and the grim reaper makes a little feature at the end so um so here we go i love when you do a little gay scream do it again wait no oh okay it sounded more like a but... I think that was a psychopomp, right? I don't know what a psychopomp is.

It was an animal escort to the psychopomp, I think. It was an animal meeting the Grim Reaper for the first time. Yikes. Okay, so a psychopomp. It is spelled psycho and then P-O-M-P. And it is Greek. Love it. Or it comes from the Greek word psychopompous, which psych or psyche is for soul, mind, spirit. Pompous is for guide, escort, messenger.

So it ends up being a literal spirit guide or a soul escort. I love that. So I guess when we're saying things like, oh, I'm talking to my spirit guides. Technically, you're talking to your psychopomps. But I. Yeah, I am. Technically. So, yeah.

So psychopomps, they are your soul's escort and they operate in liminal spaces, which fun fact, liminal comes from the Latin word meaning threshold. So now you've got a soul escort who operates within the threshold of life and death oh my god all my favorite buzzwords i know i feel like i just like typed in every word i could think of psycho um so psychopomps appear across many cultures and religions throughout history but the psychological theory for why they exist like the grim reaper or um you know a lot of people will say like even like a black dog is an escort and on your way to death um the psychological theory is that psychopumps are imaginary concepts that we've created to help us accept death.

And it's a lot like a near-death experience where you all of a sudden see a bunch of stuff that isn't there. It could be your brain, like the chemistry of your brain just going fucking haywire and like you're hallucinating. you're hallucinating or these are concepts that we talk about when we think about death and to help us reconcile the impossible and the unavoidable we've come up with guides that are more experienced than us who can help us along the way so we don't feel alone right right so they're essentially a created comfort and the guide uh or a psychopump how do i say it there's psychopumps and then there's a subcategory of psychopumps called a sympathetic psychopump and sympathetic ones it's i mean as stated they're sympathetic to your situation they don't take pleasure the other ones are all bitchy or what oh oh i see like there's like some

where like the thought these days is a lot of people have different opinions of like even the grim reaper we're like oh he enjoys bringing you death and he enjoys taking you to hell looking for victims right right right okay yes i got you versus a sympathetic psychopomp who takes no pleasure in pain or fear um sometimes they've even expressed hating their fucking job, being like, look, it's not my fault. I'm just here to help. I'm an unhated intern. I just tried to climb the ladder.

I don't know what to tell you. I took something on Indeed, and I ended up here. I don't know. I got signed onto a millennia-year contract. I don't know how to get out of this. Oh, it's going to be tough. I'm going to go drink for Zip Recruiter if you want to be the next Grim Reaper. They'll be much nicer, I promise.

A sympathetic one only. Sympathetic psychopomps only. But yeah, so they're, I guess because the, at least the way I'm understanding it, is that psychopomps are sometimes seen as bringing you death or being the reason for death or you can negotiate your way out of dying and they can do something about it but sympathetic psychopomps are usually the people who have no control of your death they just appear after it's already guaranteed and they're going to help you out in in this transition so um so it's not their fault that you're dead they just like have the weird bad job of like being the next person you see after it's happened um right okay

so sympathetic psychopimes they're often found in art and literature throughout history and they've been used forever and uh in different ways for us to demystify death um this is like by the way a major oversimplification this is 101 not an advanced course um but a lot of people think that they're just creations of our mind to help us figure out you know what it will be like when we cross over but to some people it's not just this imaginary concept for some people the psychopomp is actually a very real being and the thought i guess is that like well if souls are real it's not a far stretch after that to assume that someone would you know be employed to help the souls as they're going from one place to another i don't yeah i don't think that's a wild thing to believe at all yeah i don't think so i mean

if you're if you believe in souls you believe that there are multiple places that they go there's got to be some vehicle that takes them there that you go somewhere then it's not like that far fetched to say and someone helps you get there right like right yeah part of that process or like or if you don't what if you're a soul who doesn't know i mean i guess you could then have the thought of like well maybe souls inherently know where they're supposed to go and we are just unaware of that but you could also argue well they don't know where to go next and if they don't have a guide then maybe that's what makes them wandering souls and that's how we get hauntings and ghosts and

because someone never came for them you know we could get really like trippy deep into it if we'd like but after hours after hours actually want to trip trip it out i love tripping out with you okay yes um so anyway a lot of cultures think there must be a guide or an escort to help you figure out your next steps and one of those uh this is my personal favorite and uh there's people is it scandinavia where there are death messengers and psychopomps like um valkyries which i don't know if you know anything about valkyries but i have a personal love for them because there's a marvel superhero named valkyrie i know about the marvel thing vaguely yeah but i know a personal love for them because there's a marvel superhero named valkyrie i know about the marvel thing vaguely yeah but i know that they're also like a creature

and i can tell you with a hundred i can tell you with a hundred percent sointancy christine that you're in love with valkyrie you're in like in love like would leave my heart just fluttered is that pseudofit or am i in love with a valkyrie no it's tessa thompson and she's incredibly mask but she's like so hot and thor ragnar no not thor ragnar and the last thor she kissed a girl on the hand and then in the marvels which just came out last week she it is heavily implied that they're dating she even kisses brie larson's cheek i lost my goddamn mind and when she becomes uh the ruler of asgard when thor decides that he's going to retire he says like oh you're going to be the queen of asgard and she goes

i'm going to be the king of asgard i know she's she's so hot. I just, of course, looked it up, and I'm sweating a lot. I'm sweating a lot. I'm sweating a lot. The thought of her looking me in the eyes is, I mean, there's no faster way to me meeting the Grim Reaper. I would just collapse. She's my psychopomp, okay? Am I allowed to choose my psychopomp, or do I have to just wait and see? Girl, guide me.

You know what I'm saying? Just wherever you need to take me. Take me to the king of ragnarok i'd be like yes my king yes my king okay anyway so this is embarrassing if you'd like to like see a very very subtle gay undertone um in a recent marvel movie go watch the the Marvels, which by the way, it was amazing. And she kisses Brie Larson on the cheek and you know how I feel about Brie Larson. So that was an experience for me.

Well, well, well, moving on in Scandinavia, Valkyries are their psychopomps where Valkyries are at least in Marvel. They are a fully female army um but they fly down uh they fly down on horses and they collect other warriors who have died in battle and they collect the warriors who are worthy of joining them in valhalla and they bring them up on their horses and prepare them

for any future great battles and they'll always look over their their people in uh so that's one version of a psychopomp and then in voodoo there's a powerful figure named i think i'm saying this right i tried i researched uh baron samdi and he's this figure who's said to be in a tux and a top hat and he guards cemeteries and he guides souls to the other side he's this figure who's said to be in a tux and a top hat, and he guards cemeteries and he guides souls to the other side. He's also said to watch over your grave to make sure that nobody uses your body remains for magic, which didn't even think about that, but I'm glad he was on top of it. No, I respect that, but also, like, immediately no. I don't want a top hat man in a cemetery.

It sounds—no, no no i'm sorry sir but i'm not really interested in your services thank you you know i first of all i feel bad that if his job for eternity is to be in a fucking suit like that's awful but oh that's true i also you're right i don't want someone in a tux watching over me in a graveyard because if things if you got to get dirty at some point like i need the guy in jeans and a shirt with holes that's what i want if he's gonna throw his body over mine on a graveyard like this other guy's gonna be like this is new this tux i just i just pleaded the pants i don't want to do that you know oh no i dropped my cuff link let me look through it through the dirt it's like oh man they just

stole my arm for a spell thanks a lot i appreciate that he's taking his job seriously but like i need you to get down and dirty and it's not showing that okay the funny part is that is not at all where my head was um my head was more like oh this sounds like the hat man, like a shadow person. And I'm terrified of it. Oh. But but also talking about his shiny, shiny shoes. I was like, well, shit, you're right. He's not it's not really ideal workwear either. Now that you're saying it, I we could flip our opinions because now I don't want the

hat man standing over me for eternity. How scary. But you know what? If he's going to be the hat man, maybe I do want him in a tux that he's afraid to get dirty. Maybe that prevents him from getting near me a little too close. You know, I can't decide anymore if I like this or hate this. Maybe he's that unpaid intern who like showed up who shows up with like way overdressed and the other interns are like come on like you don't need to wear like a tie to work every day we work at like a reality tv show or whatever you know what i mean like maybe it's like we work on survivor take your top we work on protecting the cemetery the tv show take off we work on naked and afraid take your clothes off oh man then he'd really stand out

um speaking of which he does he reminds me of like that kid that we all knew in high school who like for some reason was always in a three-piece suit like what was the what was going on there for what it's like if you wanted attention you got it but also if you didn't get attention you have to figure something out about your clothes and it's not good attention unfortunately i i don't know what to tell you yeah it's like can you imagine having to change out of your sweaty pe clothes and put that back on oh my god oh christ yeah so those are just some examples of psychopomps i also wanted to bring this in because i think you'd like this some psychopomps aren't even human or human like um one common psychopomp is bees because they are for some reason said to travel in liminal spaces and in some cultures seeing a bee flying by a recently buried body means that

the soul is leaving with his b escort to the next world oh and then the bee like falls in your apple juice and you're like well shit and then you're like i fucking stung me um not again which i like to think is like if i had one last moment on earth and you were there i'd be like bee escort fucking stinger just see what happens oh stinger you know you know what um fuck you also, don't bees die when they sting you? So that would really be unfortunate. Oh, yeah. And then you're like really stuck there forever. For your soul.

So, yeah. Why don't you try it, Em? You have your escort sting me and then you're stuck here forever. Yeah, never mind. In Western Europe, speaking of the bees, in the 18th and 19th centuries, beekeepers were actually said to be guides for the guides and uh beekeepers would inform the bees of important life events so when they were doing their beekeeping stuff they would talk to the bees about what's going on in the world and if someone in their family died a person had to go tell each of the beehives

so that way they could get ready to go help escort the person they love to the other side i'm like getting a mo that's like very touching yeah yeah just another reason to save the bees everybody right i'm like well that's not good news for us save the bees save your soul you know wow that's the new now we'll finally get that change.org petition going. I'm just saying if this is true and we get rid of all the bees, then we're all going to have to haunt Earth forever because nobody brought us somewhere else. Yeah. I mean, I know that the other reasons bees are being saved are not nearly as important, but we should finally, finally pay attention. This is the one I care about for sure.

Yeah. pay attention this is the one i care about for sure yeah um also in parts of asia birds have been depicted as psychopomps i guess because they can travel between spaces so technically they're a liminal creature because same with birds that they can be on land or in the sky um and they're same as bees yes same as bees that they're both they are i don't know what the right word is i feel like i feel like there's got to be a word for like uh you know how like bipedal flying animal yeah like i feel like a flying animal should have like a name like inter travel or inter like they can be on land they can be aerial animals aerial animals like how like there are like some water creatures like isn't it

amphibians where they can be on the land and in the water yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah i feel like those are all considered liminal animals because they can go between two worlds right that's kind of really cool um so our frogs could frogs be a you know anyway as long as it's not a goddamn fish i'm fine um sometimes okay this part is where it gets sad all of a sudden but then we're gonna shift real quick so just hold on for like a second no no like i mean hold on because it's about to get bad and then it'll be okay um but sometimes humans sometimes humans, because they were so, uh, convinced that animals could be helpful escorts.

Oh no. They would. Yeah. Often they would create psychopomps out of living creatures, AKA they would kill an animal. Um, after one of their loved ones recently died to then, I guess somewhat force this animal to be the

escort um for the soul but i think that i think it was supposed to be really kind and sweet of like oh our kid just died so let's kill our pet or something and then the pet and the kid can be together you know it's like oofa doofa like the very first initial thought was sweet and then they go like oh no no no no no too far too far yeah yeah yeah yeah so anyway shifting gears now let's talk about one of the first famous psychopomps which is uh in an egyptian deity named anubis and again i'm pretty sure i said that right i looked up several i know about anubis a bit okay cool um so do you know how to describe him do you know what he looks like yeah he has um the body of a human and then the head of it's either like a is it a coyote or is it it's a

very good christine well it's a it a jackal, but you're very close. Oh, a jackal. Okay. And he's also known as the god of the dead. So he's not just responsible for the dead, but he's also the god of embalming, burial rituals. He would perform rituals himself while bodies were being prepped. He would guard burial sites.

And because of all this, he was also an escort for souls to their next place while protecting them on the journey because i guess on that journey your soul could bump into other spirits and things like that and he's the one that would i guess i don't know tell you like don't talk to that guy he's a little fucking crazy you know and then the other guy's like um you have the head of a jackal okay right i'm. I'm not one to judge. You're called the god of the dead. I wouldn't want to be you. Okay. Go off, king. But so anyway, he would protect you from other spirits on your way to the next place.

And after guiding you through this part of the afterlife, Anubis would then take you to your judgment ceremony. I feel like you probably know way more about this stuff than I do. So I'm giving like the most oversimplified version. I'll be honest. Like I learned a lot of it from that rituals episode we did where we talked about. Oh, really? I'm pretty sure it was on rituals, wasn't it? Where we talked about like the Egyptian Book of the Dead and like how you were supposed to learn all of the different trials and tests that you'd be put through in the afterlife. You have to weigh your heart and a feather or something i don't know um but yeah i feel like i learned a lot about that from from that rituals episode so well all right i think you hosted that one so congratulations you're my

you're my ultimate teacher yeah if you would like a more in-depth version by the way please go listen to the rituals episode because this is not this is not the researcher looking for i'll tell you that over there there was a whole team of researchers and here was me and sersha which love you sersha which is still a good we can't compare to them yeah uh so okay so anubis would take you through the afterlife and then he would take you to the judging the judgment ceremony, which is where you would have to confess all of your wrongdoings to 42 judges. And then Anubis would take you to a weighing ceremony, which is you just mentioned. So here is at the weighing ceremony is the goddess of truth, balance and justice. And she would put your heart on a scale and weigh it next to a feather wow okay i

remembered a lot more than i thought i thought i was just making shit up but okay great nope you nailed it and also i remember us having some sort of commentary about like weighing your heart against the feather but if your soul's heart is balanced with the feather if it's in balance and light is a feather light is a feather lays a feather then you had a good life you've got nothing really weighing you down see and you would live in peace forever if you did not confess everything at that judgment ceremony and you had more shit that was on your heart and it was heavier than a feather then it was fed to ahmet the devourer of the dead so um it feels like we go from zero to 60 so fucking fast it's like lay your heart you can live happily ever after or you're the destroyer of worlds it's like

holy crap it's like wow we're as light as a feather psych the devourer of the dead, is going to come leave you in eternal darkness. Nice try. So, and his name's Amit, A-M-M-U-T. He has the front legs or the front half of a lion. He has the hind legs of a hippo. And he has the head of a crocodile. And I think the three were to represent the three biggest, at the time, during ancient Egypt, the three biggest man-eating animals or the three biggest threats to man wow okay so um that's why he would eat your heart and then leave your soul forever um yikes so there you go so that's like a lot of pressure i am glad i don't have to um

that was not the belief pressed on me growing up. That would be too much, I think, for my poor anxiety. Yeah, it's a lot. Now there's a more modern belief of this called, I think I'm saying it right, chemetism? Chemetism? Chemetism? And it's where Anubis is still seen as a psychopomp, but this time he's seen as much more kind and comforting.

In my mind, the original version of him didn't seem all that menacing, but I guess this is an even more comforting version of him. At some point in history, there are some people who actually combined Anubis with the Greek psychopomp Hermes. So they ended up becoming their own mishmashed figure with each other which they're both protectors of souls and messengers right hermes is the the god of messengers yeah um so it made

sense why they kind of got morphed into one but yeah i mean even earlier when you were talking about how they can be sympathetic, I like, my thought was don't shoot the messenger, you know, they're just there to like guide you. So that does. Yeah. Weirdly fits.

Yeah. I, I mean, it makes sense if, um, just different cultures have a protector of, of beings, you know,

just trying to get from one place to another. So why wouldn't you just kind of accidentally conflate them over time? Um, Hermes, which as many of us millennials probably know as it's pronounced hermes you know what don't even fuck with me because i literally i was like i know it's hermes because i watched hercules but hermes i have only ever heard the Kardashians say that word. So I know that they're different things. I like how I said it. And then I was like, is that even how you say it? I don't fucking know.

That's the fashion company, right? Yeah, it's the luxury brand. Yeah, I would not know anything about that. Yeah, me neither. Hermes. Hermes. But yes, I know it as the little blue guy in Hercules with the wings on his ankles. Love. Gotta love him.

Gotta love him. He gave me a lot of like nerdy dad. Actually, he reminded me a lot of Tim. Maybe we should go back and watch that. Oh my God. Can you go Google image him? Because he reminds me of my memories. Like my stepdad?

Yeah. Oh, let me look it up. Hermes from Hercules. I like how I think I like how I'm like Google don't worry I'm not googling Irma's scarves and Google's like we know we know we have your search history oh my god does he look like Tim yes but like in like in in like a very like rude way. Like I don't think Tim looks as like. They have the same energy. It does look like a caricature of him. Yeah, it looks like a caricature.

And like he his face isn't quite so weird. It looks like a cartoon, like a like an overdone cartoon. Like a weirdly animated version. Yeah. Anyway, I meant that with love, but it does kind of actually match i see it i see it i see it yes i don't mean to give him a complex now but i think he'll be okay because he's a stepdad and i feel like he's used to this kind of bullshit this guy does kind of look like nerdy stepdad you know like i mean a hundred percent yeah he looks like he collects trains

in the basement and knows the perfect route to all the halloween houses so you're excuse me so so sue me now you're like getting defensive okay so besides those he looks like he knows how to insulate a basement window okay so exactly exactly let's go for it so um he looks like he would be in love with women named bernada i don't know what to tell you so well that that's a given i need bernada to look up that picture and tell me if she's just like head over heels for this how are you feeling does this uh is there a tingly racing yeah normal thing to ask my mother yeah she's not my mom i'll ask her bernata what's going on

what's shaking that that you're right that makes it much more normal of a question yeah anyway he's conflated a lot with anubis for people who don't know uh about hermes he's uh has a lot of roles which that seems to be kind of the vibe with greek mythology it's like never just like the god of one fucking thing some multitaskers and not like and maybe there's a connection i'm missing but i feel like a lot of the greek gods their roles were not even it didn't even make sense next to each other it was like oh i'm the god of electricity and i'm also the god of legos it's like what the fuck like they didn't make sense together in my head so so anyway hermes he was known most as the uh god the messenger god or the protector of messengers when they were on their travels but he was also in charge of like livestock and merchants and uh he was uh the god of shepherds which i guess in some way they kind

of overlap but it's a quite a stretch in my brain to get there um this over time the particularly him being a protector of messengers on their travels that morphed into him being a soul guide or a soul escort because he was a guide for the dead trying to send messages. That makes sense. Messages. Messages. Am I okay? Messages. Messages. Messages. Shut up.

My brain truly is unwell. Messages. I heard it. I knew it was wrong, but I didn't know how. You nailed it. You nailed it. You nailed it. So apparently, I didn't know this, but this feels like a Christian thing. I guess sheep and livestock in general becameepherds you to heaven. So that would make sense why a messenger or like a companion would be a shepherd.

Yeah. So my next note is he especially became known as a guide for the dead when sheep became associated with the human soul because he was the god of messenger. I can't do it. And of sheep. So it's just like. Right, right, right, right, right. That makes sense. They ended up overlapping later.

Yeah. He was known to escort souls to the River of Sticks, which I've never actually covered that in depth, but I would like to. Yeah, I would love that. And this is, so he would get you to the River of Sticks and then he would get passed off to another psychopomp and his name was karen literally karen um i don't even want to know it just feels like the challenges are getting steeper but um for real so uh the river of sticks was because water is seen as a liminal space a lot of times in the greek underworld the river of sticks splits the living from the dead it's the river between the living and the dead okay um karen's duty was to get your soul across the river of six so hermes doesn't have to cross you he just

gets you to the river and then karen brings you across i see and that's pronounced karen i don't know why i thought it was oh oh yeah it's with a hard k but it looks like sharon how do you spell it sharon with a c sharon oh okay wow but it's karen wow i hope i'm just doing that right but look every video i saw was said k. Listen, I think I've just never said it out loud. The comedy writes itself. Yeah. It does. Wow. Um, so fun fact, this field,

by the way, even if it's not pronounced Karen, this right here gives some fucking Karen energy because she, and she, I think it's a he, but, but I hear Karen. I'm like,

okay, girl. Um, I literally just Googled the name and it was like depicted as a shriveled old man. Well, that'll do it. So Karen is the whole thing is Karen's going to get you across the river. But Karen doesn't do it for free. Karen's like, I need to make this even worse for you.

Is that why you put those on your eyes? What? Coins? Mm hmm. Oh, look at you. I'm telling you, I know I said it before that just this whole I just love it. So it is customary or it was customary for a long time, maybe in some other spaces that when someone dies, their loved ones will bury their body

with a coin either in their hand and their mouth on their eyes a coin somewhere on them so that way when the soul leaves the soul has these coins to put in their little soul pocket and give to karen as a you're right they're very karen energy it's like yeah but for a price i don't do this for free like and also like i don't think you can go backwards once you've already gotten to like as far as the river of sticks so like good point if you it's like going to like the movie theater and forgetting your cash and it's like well go home because you're not gonna watch in the hallway yeah wow well everyone else we've already determined is an unpaid intern and then karen shows up and it's like gimme gimme like geez she wasn't gonna stand for it she said

not in this economy absolutely not not in this economy so if you don't pay karen it is one of the thoughts is that you now haunt the river for a hundred years before you can cross yourself oh no which like are you kidding me like in that case can one soul bring extra coins and then that way when you get to the river sticks you can like someone else can bum a ride take a penny leave a penny yeah just dump a bunch on the on the floor let people like if they need them they got them that now explains why they need people guarding the cemetery and the bodies because all the damn coins don't take my damn coin because i gotta get on that boat well this is where i gotta pay the carol toll to get across that you gotta pay the it was what is it you gotta pay the no i'm thinking of the cheese tax to get in the cheese tags you gotta pay the troll toll to get inside that boy's soul soul soul pole

gross um anyway here we now talk about our personal favorite cycle pump uh the best known and the the best of the west as i'm gonna say the best known in western culture uh with the grim reaper yes yes yes of the west he is a skeleton in black robes carrying a scythe uh and we get this image of the grim reaper or honestly he's so popular now that people just call him death um he's been around since the 13th century when there was a story of three men who found animated corpses like just fucking still alive just dancing around and these corpses were there were three men allegedly there were three corpses and i guess they were either ancestors of the men or other stories say that these were their future bodies and it scared them so much and made them want to embrace life.

The art based on this story started coming out. People started making paintings of the story, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the first known piece shows animated skeletons and they were the first to represent death as a being. So that's where we get the skeleton then in the 14th century there were a bunch of italian frescoes that started depicting death as a figure carrying a scythe so that's where we get the scythe okay um and soon after these frescoes were painted um italy came face to face with the bubonic plague or black death which took out the number is as a crazy wide range but there are some that say 20 some say all the way up to 65 of europe was wiped out um which i did look up not that i thought that we were anywhere near this but just to give people kind of an understanding

yeah of covid i i don't i never thought covid was as bad so i don't want people to think that was where my head went but um since covid began it's estimated uh by the world health organization that three million people died in the world okay and what was the number for for the bubonic plague yeah they say somewhere up to 200 million oh okay wow yeah so wow the number goes up to 200 it's like between 100 and 200 but it's fucking covid who you know so like this is uh it was a big big big big deal more than half of the the just europe alone was wiped i mean it's probably like i mean this probably going to sound fucking ignorant as shit, but like, considering now we had ways of understanding disease and medicine and vaccines, like, no wonder it was so much higher back then, you know? Like, we were lucky to be able to.

Oh, I've thought that too. It's like, if it were, you know, the 14th century. It's probably a really similar concept. Yeah. I can't imagine. I mean, I don't I don't know anything about this. So I am blindly just so ignorantly giving a statement here. But I feel like if with all of the hard work people put into COVID and three million people still died, if we didn't have any of the resources we had. I would imagine it could have gotten up to at least 10 million people. But I also don't know. I mean, I'm sure there are like actual estimations, too. I'm sure people have done the actual research on this.

But yeah, it's kind of scary to think about. Like, thankfully, we were able to, you know. Yeah. Stop it where it, well, not stopped completely, but, you know, at least prevent it from getting that bad. A lot of us did what we could. That's how we can get it. That's a good point. But anyway, that was, I mean, beyond significant and jarring for people of that time.

And in the face of such monumental loss, and this was right after those Italian frescoes came out that were really popularized of death carrying a scythe and being a skeleton. So in the face of such monumental loss, people were now forced to reconcile with the likeliness of them dying at any moment. So people started making a lot of art and writing a lot of literature about death. Figures of death became very popular in folklore. figures of death became very popular in folklore and uh it would just escorts coming to you to bring you to death or bring you somewhere after your death was just incredibly popular wow and one example of all sorts of cultures just creating new lore after the plague, um, is in Norway.

There was a story of like, people often see an old woman with a broom and if she comes to your house and she sweeps the porch, then everyone in the house will die. Or another one is if she knocks on the door with her broom handle, however many times she knocked is how many people in the house will die another uh type of lore that people started spreading was that people would see ghostly kids walking from house to house and cursing those living there with the plague so if you

saw these little kids you might get the plague but i probably actually had some truth to it because there were a lot of orphaned kids looking for food and shelter. And if they were carrying the sickness from their parents who just died, they might accidentally be bringing the plague to your home. So there was some truth rooted in a lot of the stories that came out of it. But there was also one cautionary tale that came out of, I think it was a newspaper article. I think it was. But there was one man who claimed to see a man with a scythe riding over the water, mountains and valleys, and where he rode by the plague followed after and did its work. So this was the beginning of a rumor or a story that kind of snowballed.

of a rumor or a story that kind of snowballed and it was no longer the grim reaper or whatever psychopomp you are aware of they're not coming to find you after you've already died this story now suggests they're bringing the death with them right okay so this is the beginning of the grim reaper and all psychopomps being like the reason you die. Like a bad guy. A bad guy. Art started depicting death as a singular figure collecting souls with his weapon. A lot of people said that the weapon of choice was a scythe because scythes suggest that the dead had reached the end of their growth and it was time to harvest them into something new.

Oh, oh, I just got goose cam. So another example is like with grass, you cut it with a scythe because its time is up and it becomes hay. And it becomes hay and then there's new growth. And there's the circle of life. Ooh, by the way, just side note real quick. A couple of people I've noticed asked,

what the hell is Goose Cam? Like, I can't find the, like, they say it all the time. And I'm like, it happened in one episode. And I feel like if you missed that episode, then, like, you have no idea what the fuck is going on. It's kind of how we say it because we were recording for one of the first times. And we both shouted Goose Cam at the same time because we both had goose bumps and we were trying to show the camera. So I've just seen a few of those messages and I've not been able to respond not had the time to respond so if you are one of those people being like what the fuck are they saying yeah it's just goosebumps

but on camera on camera it's just stupid i don't know but it got so in our heads that we can't stop saying it so that's yeah it's just another word for it now at this point yeah um yeah glad you got some goose cam this episode because uh i always wondered why he was known to carry a scythe and i had no idea that it was representative of the harvest of life to me no it never occurred to me that's that's really cool honestly nowadays if i see a scythe in real life which like by the way almost never happens but i wouldn't even know what it was actually for i just assume it's for death oh shit like oh so anyway uh now the idea of the psychopomp in general is this skeleton holding a scythe and he's bringing death to you he's not just coming to escort you to your life okay but in 1847 is the first time we get his name the grim reaper in what year sorry

1847 oh wow so he went a long time without a name or that official name he went a long old time they just thought like oh that guy that guy yeah that fucking guy yeah it like, who invited him? He just keeps showing up. So he appeared in a Christian devotional text, and it was originally in German, but it got translated to English, and the English translation became The Grim Reaper. Grim because it means uninviting, bleak, and dreadfulful and reap because it means to cut and gather a crop for harvest yeah makes total sense mm-hmm and it's a very catchy name grim reaper like you know i my favorite thing especially in the more recent marvel stuff is that uh the characters aren't starting out with their superhero name it's like you you're getting to see the origin of how they even got their name oh i like that and like there's actually in are you trying to get in my head i feel like i feel only for the marvels because i loved it so much okay fine including

actually an example is in the marvels uh there's one oh my god i'm so in love with her her name in real life is tiana paris and she plays photon but in this the most recent movie she doesn't have her superhero name yet and there's a whole running bit throughout the movie of like what are we going to call you what are we going to call you what are we going to call you so imagine being the grim reaper and you're like eventually i have to have a fucking name and then they pick grim reaper and either you're for it or you're you fucking hate it so much it doesn't matter because you're stuck with it baby yeah it's like it's like at least kind of badass if you had to wait centuries for the name it's not the worst one i by the way when i was googling tiana paris um i my computer was like

oh we know what you're googling and i was like how do they know that and then i was like oh because i've googled it every time you've said like oh i've i'm in love with her and i'm like oh right i've googled her many times because you every time you mention her i google her and i'm like yeah it's truly in love i literally i don't think i know a more beautiful unbelievably beautiful like it's like it's just unfair she had to have like agreed to a curse or something yeah yeah yeah there's no goddamn reason someone should look like that naturally it's crazy not okay um and plus that's the same movie that valkyrie kisses brie larson like it's like literally like you're clearly getting in my head okay i see it happening

and i can't do anything to stop it i and you know what as you should that's exactly right so um okay so anyway so now that's how we get the name grim reaper from 1847 uh unlike earlier psychopomps there who were just only escorts now that he's got the name on top of everything else i mean the name grim reaper certainly doesn't help his reputation um he's now known as like not just your escort but the killer the one who comes to take your life before he escorts it somewhere right but as the plague kind of faded away and it died down a little bit the depictions of death became nicer because it wasn't during such a heightened time so the grim reaper eventually becomes more of a sympathetic psychopomp like the rest of them.

And Death, as he was also known, is seen as especially kind to being an escort when it comes to certain types of people. So like if you're a young mother or if you're a child, he's not just like this evil thing that's coming after people. He was kind of depicted as like he is he's understanding and empathetic to people who need him to be so if you're a grown-ass

adult with no kids i guess fuck you but yeah fuck you you're getting psyched i did i did want to mention it just because this these are my notes so why not uh In the 20th and 21st centuries, The Grim Reaper then ends up popping up in a lot of popular fiction. My personal favorite is The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy. I don't know if you ever watched that. Did you ever watch that? Yeah, that was a great show. That was a great show. I don't think I really ever watched it much, but I remember when it—I feel like I always thought, oh, I should watch that.

Christine, I actually think even in today, i think you would still love it yeah oh hell yeah okay i'm literally bookmarking right now and they're they're they're really short i think they do like it's one of those like spongebob things where it's two episodes per episode or something love it but they're like little shorts but it's the grim reaper and he's i don't know how but he's somehow assigned to these two children. It's kind of like fairly odd parents, but. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah. Like he doesn't ever actually escort them anywhere, but they're supposed to like, I think, help him escort other people. Right. And they go on many wacky adventures. Yes. But one of the kids is a total idiot. One of them is like just a massive bitch.

Like just like so awful. She's so mean. when i was a kid i was so intimidated by her and i was always afraid i'd meet someone like her in real life oh no you're like the grim reaper take him or leave him but this little girl is i truly not and i i can't remember but my childhood memory of it is that even the grim reaper was scared of her so like oh well okay that explains a lot anyway i'm definitely gonna go watch it after this because it was i'm gonna watch it too it's so good i remember it being so good at least um okay so then the last thing i'm going to say before um it's your turn is that i in the world of religion um although there's no

official angel of death in the Bible, it has become a popular Christian belief that certain archangels escort the dead to heaven or personal guardian angels are assigned to us. In Islam's Quran, there's a reference to a psychopomp where it says, the angel of death who has been charged with your souls shall gather you and then you shall be brought back to your Lord. Um, so there's at least a mention there. And then many people in general just kind of have associated psychopomps without actually knowing the word for it with their own loved ones. I mean, me included, um, where you just think that like, oh, when you die, the people you love are going to help you over to

the other side. So in that way, we've created our own belief that psychopumps are just people who love us. Oh, I like that. And I don't know if that's more of a Western culture thing or I don't know what it is, but it's the way I grew up at least where it was some vague understanding that people who you loved who died before you

are next to you at all times. And I mean, it's also been told over and over again with people with near-death experiences that they like see their mom or they see their grandparents like waiting for them. And yeah, yeah. I feel like I've even recently listened to some podcast episodes that featured people who do work in hospice or do are death doulas. And i feel like one of the resounding patterns that i notice is that people tend to on their deathbed tend to see like past loved ones it seems to be a very common yeah being reported yeah so yeah so i i really like that idea with this topic because it makes psychopomps not feel like this like big like overwhelming topic it's like they're people who we love could be

that it's more uh approachable or uh yeah more digestible easily relatable yeah relatable um and then the last thing i wanted to say which feels a little bit like a plot twist to me is that there are some cultures who see who don't see others as the psychopomps but see ourselves as the psychopomps including things like ourselves as the psychopomps. Oh! Including things like Dia de los Muertos, where we invite the loved ones back home. A lot of people will lay bright flowers and incense and candles to guide the dead home. So that makes us the psychopomps.

Oh! To have them, to be able to get them to cross over back to the other side for a day. Wow, that's kind of beautiful. Yeah. So everyone can be a psychopomp. I could be a psychopomp. You could be a psychopomp.

That's why I installed a mirror above my bed. Yeah. I'd like to invite all the spirits. What a fun tie-in to last week's episode of the mirrors, because depending on which direction you're going in the mirror, everyone's a psychopomp. Either you're taking me or I'm taking you. If you're not putting sheets all over the mirrors and reflective surfaces you're a

psychopomp my friend or a psychopath for sure or a psychopath or both they don't not mutually exclusive and uh that is psychopomps oh wow em that was cool i don't think i ever knew what a psychopomp was or at least i never heard the word oh really i definitely heard it but i just was like wow that sounds intimidating so i don't i'm not gonna know i just don't know um and little did you know maybe you were the psychopomp all along that is the most beautiful thing you've ever said to me maybe it's all about the psychopomps we meet along the way you know wow we were the psycho psychopath okay i need to stop we were the psychopaths all along okay what um am i have one of the weirdest stories ever today uh yeah it's a

mystery and it's like much more light-hearted than oh literally every other story i've covered but it's still a creepy mystery so i'd like your input and i i'm curious because it does you know touch on more of your it like kind of is a gray area between your and my topics a little bit like it's sort of kind of some people stretch it into the paranormal space um So I wonder if you've heard of it. It is the disappearance of Stephen Kubacki. Not even a little bit. Okay. Wow.

Okay. Wow. Wow. Wow. I do wonder a lot of times, like when it comes to you telling a mystery or like some like. Yeah. I always wonder at what point are you going to give up and you're just going to start reporting on things like Clifford the Big Red Dog and his missing bone. it's like i guess that is the day a crime is a crime okay

crime is a crime is a crime clifford okay oh clifford my pal all right this is the disappearance of steven kubaki uh m i'm so curious to hear your thoughts on this okay so i'm just gonna jump right in okay so stephen kubaki was born in 1954 in chickpea massachusetts which at the time had about roughly 50 000 residents when stephen was six years old his family moved to south deerfield massachusetts and that's where he grew up his mom worked as a secretary at the university of massachusetts his dad worked at a tire factory. They were pretty lower middle class, like just your classic modest family in Massachusetts, like pretty standard American fare. And around middle school, Stephen found out about a high school nearby called the,

it was not called the exclusive but it is an exclusive school called the deerfield academy preparatory school which sounds like something out of a cartoon sure does deerfield academy preparatory school and just for shits and gigs he decides to apply so he does this sounds like something m would do by the way he does and This sounds like something M would do, by the way. He does. And he gets in and he's like, oh, OK, I guess I go here now. That's how I got into Boston University. Thank you so much. I mean, literally, it's such an M thing. Meanwhile, I'm over there like obsessively researching every like footnote on the website and like copy and pasting it into a document like a lunatic.

pasting it into a document like a lunatic. When my mom found out, because we did the orientation or whatever, my mom came with me, and they said that only 15 people get into the program every year. My mom looked me dead in the eyes and went, how the fuck did you pull that? And I went, I don't know. In front of everyone. I was like, I really didn't see this coming either. I really didn't expect us to be in Boston this year, but here we are.

Maybe I got in and then the universe was like or maybe i was like so dead set on going and like so dedicated to my application that the universe was like all right we got to push m there too so that they get this podcast started in a few years and then you were like i guess i'll write my name down and they were like shit we've got to get eminent at this program i was like all i gotta do is bat these brown eyes of mine and just see where it takes me. It worked. Honestly, embarrassing for me that I worked so hard to get in.

But man, boy, am I glad those big brown eyes did the trick, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Baby browns. Those baby browns. So in any case, he gets into this exclusive Deerfield Academy preparatory school and he suddenly finds himself at this like prestigious school that rarely but occasionally admitted low-income students like him

so most students were wealthy most of them were actually even legacy like you know generations who had gone there um and so he graduated from there but he he has just since described he had described himself as somewhat rebellious and like skipping class and stuff. So he wasn't like dedicated to his schooling there. He just happened to. Is this just a story about me? What's going on? It is you.

I think it is. I know every time I'm saying something out loud, I'm like, oh boy, here we go again. Then it kind of changes because then he went to a christian college called hope college in michigan in 1972 um but while he's there his studies are like kind of all over the place he's pretty scattered he changed his major several times now we're getting back to m again uh changed his this kid has adhd i just know it i just know it I just know it. He's got a ukulele in the corner. He claims he's going to sell some electronics next week. I don't know.

He has one of those things, those sweaters you had that had all the weird stripes. What were those things? Those fucking college kid sweaters. Oh, well, they're called Bajas. Yeah, I truly lived in mine. My entire college closet was about 20 different Baja sweatshirts and nothing else. I feel like any college picture I've seen of you, you're wearing one of those. Yeah. Yeah, I was totally, I mean, obviously I was friends with all the stoners and the partiers and the not go to schoolers and the stay up till 3 a.m.ers.

And the sororities and the fraternity. And then somehow in a sorority. I was just like all over the place. Well, how I got into the sorority is an interesting story, but that's for another day. Oh, you did it to me now. Okay, great. Well, I'll be awaiting that for a future listener episode. So he's not super focused.

He changes his major several times. In 1974, he decides to go to Germany for a year and study at the University of Freiburg, where he studied psychology and even parapsychology. And literally what is going on, what is going on? And that is the study of mental phenomena which are excluded from or inexplicable by orthodox scientific psychology, such as hypnosis, telepathy, etc. Mostly the things M covers on the show. So I guess I have a degree by now. No, I guess you. What what is that 10 000 hours malcolm gladwell like come on yeah i mean i at least have my associates there's no way at least at least so back in michigan um when he'd spent a year abroad in germany he came back to michigan and

switched majors again uh sersha put in here supposedly at least a dozen times. That's how often he switched. Sorry, say that again? A dozen times he has switched his major. ADHD, my friend. I got to be honest. Just all over the place. And his class credits covered hugely varying subjects. So at one point he quit college and went on some adventures, traveling a lot, returning to Germany for a bit.

went on some adventures traveling a lot returning to germany for a bit he was back in michigan again in early 1978 when he decided it was time to go on a solo adventure he decides he wants to go cross-country skiing alone on lake michigan i don't know now yeah yeah this is where i think we both diverge from this guy because like have fun dude it's i would be like did you know it's really cold out there like did you know alone alone i'd be like my feet hurt just thinking about putting them in boots absolutely i have a bunion you want me to go which means one day i'll have two oh Oh, no. Say it ain't so. Say it ain't so. Put my Dr. Scholl's bunion corrector on and let me watch grim adventures of whatever the hell.

Okay. So anyway, back in Michigan, he decides he's going on this solo adventure to go cross-country skiing, which, by the way, have you ever gone cross-country skiing? I think you know the answer to that. It's a firm fucking no. Listen, sometimes you and I are full of surprises that we've never known about each other so as i told you recently an old episode you claim to have run five miles a day so i don't know if you were that was another time that was another time okay exactly that's why i thought i'd ask maybe i'm open to what do you know the difference between like just skiing and cross country skiing yes what is the difference if i've ever gone cross country skiing i don't even want

to hear the yes but christine have you ever gone cross country skiing i have not but i was very close to it many times because my dad and stepmom tried everything in their power to get me to go cross country skiing as a kid and i was like i, I won't do that. I will not participate. Like I will go skiing down a hill. What's the difference? So cross country skiing is like you're skiing on like flat, like you're like pushing yourself along in the snow, but like on ski little skis. And so you're like, it's hard work. Like it's really, really, really tough because you're not going just downhill like gravity, right? You're going over the meadow and through the woods. So it's like ice skating with skis.

Yeah, but not fun and not fast. And it's difficult. Is there like a goal to get to or you're just like essentially taking a fucking walk? No, you're literally just like taking a walk like in the woods like my family used to go cross-country skiing like out in the woods and would just like shuffle along and i was like why would you ever do this why would you make walking harder it's already not fun yeah if it's like where you have to like use your legs to like really move like you know you're not just like never going down a up where gravity will help you you have to kind of like really use your it's a lot of work and i was like i'm not interested in that um i would like to find i don't even actually care to find anybody who would be able to tell me what the

fun and that is i don't care like there are people who do it like on olympic level and stuff it's just it's a lot of strength you need a lot of it's too much i don't have any of that desire or will or strength so that's a no can do for me that's a not happening not happening at least downhill i don't have to do anything that's exactly it at least downhill they can put me in a little chairlift and carry me back up like i don't put me in a stretcher and take me all the way home you're getting home uh flat one way or another or at least on your butt yeah uh i even have some of those old like uh snowshoes like the um those like crazy snowshoe tennis rackets yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah so is that wait so wait hang on So then what's the difference between snowshoeing and cross-country skiing?

Oh, maybe I'm thinking of snowshoeing. Oh, my God. There's no imagine. I've just gotten like blast on the Internet. I mean, they sound like the same thing, but you use different different shoes. It perhaps because I feel like it's pretty similar concept oh man now i need to figure out uh okay this website says snowshoeing and cross-country skiing both stimulate our minds bodies and souls i'm like that's not helpful to me at all and it's also wrong hang on

it's also a fucking lie stimulate my soul please my soul? Please explain. Okay, hang on. What is cross-country skiing? Yeah, cross-country skiing is more difficult to learn, is more athletic and rigorous. Snowshoeing. Snowshoeing also seems not fun. Yeah, I think that's... You're just like, you're walking without being able to use your ankles. Yeah, I think that's... Yes, I think that's more're just like you're walking without being able to use your ankles yeah i think that's yes i think that's more like just for for funsies so maybe i'm not thinking of

cross-country skiing through the woods at my house i think i'm thinking of snowshoeing through the woods at my house no matter what it sounds like the same level of entertainment so yeah i feel like uh i don't want to participate in either one. So, you know what? I apologize for the confusion, everyone. We still didn't really even answer it, but let's just keep it that way. I mean, honestly, I'm sure some people are, like, screaming at me. I apologize. I don't know the difference. I just know my stepmom does

both of them, and I refuse to do either of them. So, you know, here we are. Fair enough. Okay, so he wants to go cross-country skiing by himself on Lake Michigan. Right. Okay. Alone.

And so it was February at this point and much of the lake was covered in a thick layer of ice. Now, this is a note that Saoirse put in, which I was very grateful for because I don't think I realized the extent of my lack of knowledge on the topic of the Great Lakes. Do you know much at all about the Great Lakes? Because I have a lot of fun facts. I know there's five, seven. Well, that's not one of my fun facts.

Oh, okay. I'm like, let me teach you all there is to know there are five great lakes i don't even know oh there are five uh yes but then hydro lot whatever i don't know i'm not i'm not gonna answer any more questions okay okay q a over so there's there's lake superior there's Lake Superior. There's Lake Erie. I don't even know. Yeah, those are true. Those are both true. Lake. Five Great Lakes. There's a Huron, I think, right?

Yeah. And then there's Ontario and Michigan. OK. OK. I think it spells homes. Isn't that what it was? Oh, yeah, that sounds right. OK.

Anyway, that's that's if you want to know the extent of my knowledge that oh i have to know that fun fact eerie and what's the s one superior superior wow okay so anyway i have some more fun facts for you here um i could use more than half of one that'd be more than one wrong fun fact. Okay, got it. So the Great Lakes region actually experiences some of the most extreme weather conditions in the entire world. Okay. Hmm.

Okay. Several cities along the lakes rank among the coldest cities in the United States with temperatures plummeting to record lows like negative 40 degrees Fahrenheit. Oh. Which, another fun fact, is actually the same in Celsius, negative 40. Oh, that is a fun fact. Right? Also, the Great Lakes are fucking huge. Lake Superior, for example, contains 10% of all surface freshwater on Earth.

Holy shit. Right? I still don't even know what that means my brain can't process wow it sounds like a lot uh so the lake sizes and depths create conditions for unique climates and weather phenomena like the lake effect and the lake effect uh if you're not from around this area which i am a couple hours away so i definitely know about it but it generates enormous clouds that carry severe weather inland creating the snow belt yeah the snow belt is the reason i will never ever ever live in cleveland nor will i understand people who live there it is a cool town love that for you

it's too cold that and buffalo i'm like those are like such extreme cold and snow and i just want nothing to do with it fair enough um they're in the snow belt so anyway this is basically a multi-state area in the path of the lake effect with the snow belt um which gets pummeled by snow storms blown inland from the lake so for example in 2001 montague new york near lake ontario in six days got 10 and a half feet of snow like that's outrageous and that's not even a record in the area so just like another fucking day you know wild um lake michigan also creates something i never heard of called pneumonia fronts yikes nope don't know what that is i don't want to know a rare phenomenon where temperatures near the lake suddenly drop dramatically in under an hour.

So I think when I researched it, it said the temperature can drop more than 16 degrees in one hour. Oh my God. Like, think about that. It's like, it's 50 degrees out. And then like a few minutes later, it's massively dropping. So pneumonia fronts are a phenomenon that happened here. And it reminded me of a phenomenon we learned when we were in Salt Lake City, or were supposed to be in Salt Lake City called a bomb cyclone. And everyone in the area was like, Oh, yeah, another bomb cyclone. And we were like, I'm sorry, what are you saying? I've never heard that word in my life. I was like, what the fuck are you saying? Those are two bad words. And then they're put together and everyone

was like, whatever. And I was like, we have to be on a plane. Why are you making that face? And I was like, okay, I'm the idiot, I guess. Imagine if I just called it like a fucking, I don't know, grenade hurricane. And everyone's like, whatever, whatever, whatever. There's a scythe. Earthquake. What happened?

I was trying to come up with another weather phenomenon with the word scythe. And I couldn't think of it. Scythe tsunami. A scythe tsunami. That's it. That's the one. So, oh, wait. Interestingly enough, my next bullet is about ice tsunamis. So you're pretty fucking close.

Wow. Look at me go. They have. OK, so this area literally has something called pneumonia fronts. Ice tsunamis. I mean, it's just why? Like why like no i don't like any of it so these pneumonia friends come in they also experience ice tsunamis which are also called ice shoves and what happens is that extreme winds push enormous sheets of ice and boulders inward onto land that can destroy houses nope like they just like bring a fucking bowling ball of snow in and just pummel your house down okay this is like normal life up there are you guys okay up there i feel like this is just all so bad it sounds i don't imagine okay so i know when i lived in virginia which does not compare to any of this shit um we had like random snow days and like now

in california a lot of kids get fire days which i was new to me i didn't know about that shit until i got here and uh now i'm wondering like how many different types of days do the kids have yeah and they probably don't get any fucking snow days they're like oh come on unless there's a pneumonia front coming they're the only kids who i think like can say days they're like oh come on unless there's a pneumonia front coming they're the only kids who i think like can say that they actually like walked uphill both ways in an avalanche or something and i have to believe them and they had to wear snowshoes because how the fuck else would you get uphill both ways that's how they're also good at the cross-country skiing i'm understanding now it's just actually self-preservation it's survival not fun i'm sorry

i hate it on everyone who cross-country skis i think you know what? I do, as I get older, as I age and my bunions get worse, I do appreciate the like aesthetic or the experience of an outdoor nature walk in the evening. Like I love, I get it now. When I was little, I was like, no, don't ever make me leave the house. But I can understand the enjoyment of like walking outside I'm not there yet but I can't wait you know I can't wait for the day it's more of a theoretical thing right like will I go do it probably not you know what I'm so far I'm cool with a well hang on let me be specific I'm cool with a sitting on the front porch with a cup of tea watching nice watching something for maximum 20 minutes to a half an hour yeah but but i wanted to be specific because sitting outside implies that i'm cool with picnics and i fucking hate a picnic no no no no no no i don't want that

don't even try to let's go leave our comfy couch and sit in dirt no thank you um but we can eat snacks right here okay it's like the fridge and air conditioning is here why on earth would i go into a hot space where i have to change clothes to do it and then sit on the grass yes and what if it's wet outside and now i've been now i'm in a mud puddle no literally you sit down then you're like shit i have to pee well sucks for you sucks for you now you have to wait because god forbid you get into your car you have to load everything back you have to drive all the way home you have to find the back no no no no no no no no i like sitting on a porch during a rainstorm that's as far as we've gotten oh that's as far as we've

gotten maybe a bonfire love a bonfire think about a screen in porch on a summer storm night oh yeah that that that's that's but to go outside just to move my body i like just a no yes no i get it as as someone who's been trying to really um work on ways to like habits to like better my experience of the world i've been trying to go on a little more walks like even with geo just like around the block and i'm like i can see how that is refreshing and whatever even if you don't want to do it but not when it's fucking two degrees out or negative 40 for that matter um so in any case uh this is a very unique and fascinating place to live and i mean if you live there and you love it like fucking more power to you okay i'm not hating on you at all like i'm so impressed when people like i can't even think of living in california anymore because i have

just such a fear of earthquakes but like it's a great place to live. I'm not shitting on the area in general. I'm just saying not for me. So in any case, it's wild to live there. It's like very unique, very intense, obviously, very extreme weather conditions sometimes. So, you know, he decides he's going to go do this cross-country skiing on the Great Lakes on Lake Michigan. Now, there are actually indigenous peoples who lived in the area, the Anishinaabe, and they have ice fished on the lakes for a very long time. And that's, you know, they were clearly able to make the area work for them. And, you know, ice fishing, I always found really fascinating. And today, approximately 600,000 people

live along the lakes in the U.S. and Canada. So they must love it, okay? I'm not... Listen. They're eating it up over there. Not me, though. They're loving it. And I'm happy for them, okay?

That's all I'll say. Stephen was basically just one more person in a very long line to decide to venture out onto the ice in February of 1978. But Stephen didn't come home from his multi-day trek. And his family, of course, understandably, got worried and raised the alarm. On February 20th, he was reported missing. And authorities pretty immediately launched an exhaustive search and rescue effort to track Stephen down, especially obviously knowing February in that area can be extremely dangerous and every second counts to finding somebody.

And in one of the police reports, as they're trying to track him down, one friend interestingly said, oh, Stephen had a couple girlfriends in europe maybe he went over to europe and just forgot to tell anybody um but that didn't end up being the case but okay uh sir should put a funny note that's like i guess it would be a fun way to be remembered that you had three european girlfriends right uh you know at least that got in the news right like At least it was like everyone kind of high-fived for a second there. They're like, oh, hell yeah, bud. So that didn't end up being the case. But anyway, searchers scoured the frozen lake on foot by

snowmobile, even by helicopter. And of course, their own safety was at risk. The ice was covered in snow, which means that hazards like thin ice cracks, holes, and deep crevasses were not able to be seen. So you wouldn't know if you were walking over a patch that could crack right underneath you. According to post-colonial ice records that started in the mid-19th century, Lake Michigan is actually, another fun fact, the only lake of the five Great Lakes that has not frozen over completely. Ever? At least since the mid-19th century that we know of. Wow. So it has gotten close, but it's never hit 100% surface ice, which means there are places to fall into the freezing water, which could be fatal, obviously, especially if you're by yourself.

So hope faded as time went on with no sign of Stephen and a few days went by and his family started to fear the worst. And that is when the searchers discovered his skis and poles abandoned on the ice. his skis and poles abandoned on the ice now his skis were set up in sort of like a cross motion like he had stuck them in the snow and hung his backpack on top of them okay and shortly after that they found his backpack nearby as well and it was a total mystery as to why he would abandon his equipment. But they did see a trail of footprints. So there was a 200-yard trail of footprints in the snow, which stopped suddenly as if he had just vanished into thin air. There were no other prints, so it was hard to consider foul play, like that somebody kind of came up at him or was walking with him. Or like an animal chased him. Oh, right, yeah yeah or an animal got to

him exactly and so with no answers authorities decided that the most likely scenario was that steven had walked away from his gear to investigate something and then fallen into a crevasse and drowned beneath the ice like and it wouldn't be the first time it's a really dangerous area and again you're going solo you know um so they thought that must be what happened. And with the way, even though they couldn't see, you know, cracked ice, ice can move on the lake, especially over days, over time. And perhaps there was an opening he fell into that had shifted and was not visible anymore. and was not visible anymore. So with that kind of being the conclusion, Stephen was officially declared dead in a tragic accident at just 23 years old. They closed the case. Newspapers reported on it. All further searches were called off and his family began to grieve. It was a total shock to everyone who knew him. Hope College held a memorial service for Stephen's fellow students to mourn him and the school granted him an honorary diploma. His friends and family tried to grieve and move on, but they faced that same issue that we see a lot with missing persons cases where there's just not that closure of being able to bury a body or being able to say goodbye one last time or you know or

at least just know what happened it's sort of like this big hanging question mark and they had to live with that they couldn't figure out why did steven abandon his equipment and walk away like what would he have been looking at to take off his skis and wander in a different direction without his backpack um my thought was like maybe he saw a cute bunny rabbit i don't know like i feel like my thought was like what if maybe he like wanted to go pee or something and he just like yeah that's fair kind of dash i guess i guess you wouldn't have to like take off all your equipment though right like your backpack especially if you're you have a male body you could exactly i mean exactly whip it out on the skis like i

don't think you need to even like remove anything but what if he needed to go number two oh okay that's a good point m i wouldn't want to do that on skis no i would but just for shits and gigs you know literally for shits literally just for the sh, no, no. I didn't think of that. That's a great point. So like maybe he had to go poop. Okay. Maybe he saw a cute bunny rabbit is what I still think. And he was like, come here, bunny rabbit.

I don't know if you want to like eat it or something, but maybe, I don't know. There's a lot of reasons he might've kind of just wandered away for a minute and maybe could have fallen in or who knows what. The other thing was, how did he end up under the ice when searchers didn't find any openings near his tracks and the snow was undisturbed by major ice shifts? But again, you know, could be explained that maybe it just so happened to be covered up in a way they couldn't see it. And also Stephen, as his family claimed, had the skills and experience to avoid such accidents.

Like he went on this trip solo, but not unprepared. He knew the dangers of it and he was pretty well versed in this kind of a solo trek. So people thought, was it foul play? Was it suicide? There were just so many questions that his family had to live with because the case was closed. that his family had to live with because the case was closed. But others began considering it a cold missing persons case because they just could not accept the drowning explanation. Some people thought maybe this was like a cult thing. Maybe this was a foul play.

Somebody, he met up with the wrong fellow snowshoer and got kidnapped, you know, who knows. But there was no way to really find answers. And they may have been left wondering forever, except that on May 5th of 1979, which was 14 and a half months after Stephen's disappearance, a driver picked up a hitchhiker who asked for a ride to the nearest payphone. And Stephen's dad was at home in Massachusetts, about 700 miles from where his son had disappeared 15 months earlier, when he got a phone call from his son Stephen. Oh. Who said, I'm alive.

What? What the fuck? So what happened not only was he alive he was right nearby in massachusetts like i think it was 20 miles from 40 sorry 40 miles from his dad's house did he glitch in the matrix what the can you come pick me up yeah he's like can you come pick me up? So Stephen was legally dead, like without question. It had been 15 months. He went missing on the ice. Case closed. His family was trying to move on.

And then all of a sudden he just pops right back up, not only in their lives, but 40 miles away, like nearby in Massachusetts. And this is what happened. His father was like like where the hell have you been yeah what the fuck dude like dude you really scared the shit out of us like the whole town grieved like what is going on this was national news so he asked his son what have you been doing for over a year while everyone mourned you and had services and tried to move on? And Stephen said, I have no idea. He did glitch in the Matrix, didn't he?

He had to have. So according to Stephen, he could not remember anything from his absence. He had woken up in a field in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, and this was 720 miles from where he had been skiing. What? He had been skiing in Michigan and he woke up 720 miles 15 months later in a field in Pittston, Massachusetts, 720 miles away. And do we know when he woke up, did he know how much time had passed or did he think like a day went by? He did not. He thought it was only a matter of hours or days. He had to find a newspaper to tell him the year.

This guy fully was abducted by aliens. Is this not so nuts? I mean, he was standing. Everything looked fine. Standing in the middle of a field, your footsteps all of a sudden go missing in the snow. And then you show up in a random field. Is that not aliens? Right. 15 months later.

And the other weird thing was that he showed up in a 720 miles away from where he went missing, but really close by to his aunt's house, which is also odd. It's like maybe did he know? He remembered something about an address yeah yeah like did he recognize the area but also you know he woke up in a meadow which is so random like he didn't wake up on a bus you know on a bus bench or like yeah in a in a motel room like he woke up in the middle of a field which is so weird um but there's a little bit more to this which they're clues but honestly in my opinion, they just add more questions than they answer. But in any case, what he told his family was that

his memory ended on Lake Michigan 15 months ago and then began again when he woke up in a meadow in Pittsfield, Massachusetts, about 40 miles from his dad's house. he was wearing clothes he'd never seen before oh what yeah yeah and he had a backpack that he did not recognize it's almost like the aliens black eyed kids to him and like they were like i don't know you had something that looked like this let's just put it back on you and it was just like pulled from a wardrobe of other abductees yeah and it was this one was like paw patrol and he's like wait my backpack my backpack was spongebob you assholes where does this paw patrol backpack come from so yeah he wakes up with this backpack he's never seen before and inside the backpack is a random series of maps that he did not remember owning as well as some hitchhiking signs essentially like where he would

write the names of different towns presumably he said presumably it was i was hitchhiking signs essentially like where he would write the names of different towns presumably he said presumably it was i was hitchhiking like you know it said like uh salt lake city like and he would stand along the side of the road in the 70s and get a ride so the maps um included sacramento san francisco reno ne Nevada, Chicago, and the state of Utah. What? And so if he was hit. It basically insinuated that's where he had been traveling. And if he was hitchhiking to those locations, someone knew who he was if they were giving him rides.

Or somebody. Yeah. Like you mean somebody had met him. Like somebody would have. In a year and a half, he had to have talked to somebody. Or at least made some acquaintances yeah you'd think so so very very odd uh in addition to these maps he also had 40 in cash new glasses which i'd like to know if those glasses were the same prescription right as old ones because that i'm curious about that uh sneakers and a t-shirt from a marathon in Wisconsin I first of all there I would there's nothing I would try to forget harder than running

a marathon but like I if I had a shirt from a marathon you know that's the first thing I'd be telling everyone about there's no forgetting that I wonder if if I wonder if I don't know. My very, very first thought in the beginning of all this was like, could he just be like faking it to like get out of like getting in trouble for being gone for that long? That's definitely a major theory. But also like I mean, there were no security cameras back then. No like CCTV to like track him because otherwise be like, where did did the skis go do we know where the skis went so they he didn't have any skis on him so those were just the ones that they had found remember after he disappeared they found his skis and backpack so they had those in their possession the police um or maybe they had given

it to the family by then but on your note of like no security cameras and it's hard to follow up on things, people actually went to I think the his mother, I believe, hired a private investigator to look into this. And the private investigator went and asked for went to that marathons. that marathons yeah and asked for the roster or something planning group and asked for the roster and so i was listening to a podcast called uh red web which i'd never heard of and basically their name is like the red string like oh they cover like online like conspiracies and fun things like that it was actually a very fun show i can't believe i've never heard of it but they covered this case and they brought up some really interesting questions like you know going to the marathon asking for the name but then they also made a point of like if he was in some sort of fugue state like maybe he signed up with a different name and then one of the other hosts was like well then maybe they should go through and find whose name doesn't match any real person

you know maybe that's the person that signed up as him but also then another host made a good point of well it was the 70s you probably could just walk up and be like i want to be in this marathon right right you know who knows like it's like i don't think things were as strictly monitored in the 70s as they are nowadays um like you could probably just join a marathon and get a t-shirt back and also probably back in the 70s I don't know if they were really keeping rosters after the day of wouldn't they just throw that thing away really yeah well and they did have the roster and they did give it to them but like his name was not on there like his his legal show his pick I would I mean I don't know

how in-depth this investigator was allowed to be but I wonder if they how many people were on the roster and could he show each of many people were on the roster and could he show each of them a picture of the guy and like, oh, does he look familiar? That's a great question. There's so many things where I'm like, man, I wish somebody would have asked this or that or the other. And I don't know if they did ask, but I don't have the answers because that's a great idea, like to to ask the people who participated, like, hey, do you recognize this guy or the people who doing who are doing signups, you and and also his um to do a marathon it's not like he was kidnapped and then taken hostage like it sounds like he really was just living life like it's yeah a marathon's not something that you're usually

forced to do in a show like i don't know 48 hours i've never watched that show but like one of these like crime shows like running a marathon seems like torture, but in a different way than being abducted. You know, it does. It does seem like he was just kind of just had still had free will and just no awareness. But he clearly had enough awareness. It reminds me kind of like did he like maybe he previously fell somewhere on the mountain and no one pay attention like him hitting his head on a rock. And then maybe he had that situation where that one guy walked around before he died and like he was like doing dishes and shit like with a major head injury and nobody noticed yeah like

but like it sounds like you know what i mean well one that's interesting you say that because one of actually steven's own theories has been perhaps he fell through the ice and his body went into a state of shock and like elicited some sort of fugue state and like he went into such shock that he wandered off i mean and perhaps another thing the red web podcast mentioned too is like maybe you know with hypothermia where you kind of enter this state of being so hot that you strip your clothes off like perhaps he was taking his clothes off he needed clothes he found this t-shirt this marathon t-shirt at like a thrift store you know it's it's so unclear like how he ended up with it um but there is another little caveat to that, interestingly, because you said like, oh, well, you don't

usually just run a marathon, you know, like out of the blue. And that's exactly the point. So here he did, I think, like one interview ever on this one. Wow. And it was the week he was found. And this is the rare interview I found. So I went on newspapers.com and searched for this. And this is from 1979. It's the Waterville, Maine Morning Sentinel. And the article says, I have some really vague feelings, Stephen Kubacki, 24, said in a telephone interview Sunday from his father's home here. I have some running shoes. I feel like I've done a lot of running. I also have a marathon t-shirt from Wisconsin. I don't know how I got it. So he feels

like he's been doing a lot of running, which seems like, what does that mean? But also what a weird thing to say, but I guess maybe you can like your body feels sore. Saoirse was like maybe sore calves. But my thought actually was like, maybe he has like some subconscious memories. Like, oh, I remember like running shoes. I remember running a lot. Or my thought would even be like as the person who used to run five miles a day, like you, when you do get into running. You have the stamina. When you do get into running, like you very, into running like you very like it becomes muscle

memory very quickly so maybe he tried running recently and then he was like oh i'm like much better at this than i remember and it was yeah yeah yeah that's what and then the red web folks are like they should do a test like like time him you know see if his strength has improved like i don't know and they said he did lose three pounds uh in the time he was gone maybe from running i don't know uh but his memory he says i just have vague feelings which is kind of creepy i have vague feelings that i've done a lot of running which is like oh it's kind of creepy that's so weird though like you can he can almost tap into his subconscious right i wanted i want him to do a hypnosis like a regression

um he said the last thing he remembered was feeling cold and scared of being lost oh and that's the last thing he remembers before waking up in the grass and maybe he maybe that's what he um also took all of his equipment off for maybe he just needed to like stand somewhere and try to figure out where north was or something yes yeah and somebody they also said that you know maybe he wandered off to get his bearings like he was lost he was afraid of getting lost wandered off to get his bearings maybe could he see chicago from where he was standing like could he orient himself and maybe he fell maybe he hit his head maybe he fell into the water um and his body went through shock and this sounds this sounds really stupid

but like what was that other case we covered where like all of a sudden a fucking owl was involved like is there a staircase like could a vulture or something have grabbed him this is so weird the red web literally brought up the staircase and i went that's random and then you just brought it up with the owl if like a big ass bird just saw like one tiny little thing moving around by itself and without any defense like could have picked him up as food and then dropped him and gave him a fucking head injury like you know i don't know if it would have been able to pick him up i feel like it could have at least gotten him to the top of a tree and then he fell or something like could have grabbed him for a second and then let go. Is it like a thunderbird?

I don't think birds can pick people up. I don't know. Birds are kind of freakishly strong. Babies they can pick up, I think. But I don't know. I have no idea. But my my first thought was like if his if it's not an alien abduction, which I'm not totally voting that out. But like if his if he's walking and then all of a sudden his feet just vanish, it's not even like there's signs of him falling or there's signs of him running in another way or signs of someone behind him or an animal.

His feet just go away like that's the air, my friend. That's where you go. Like either a UFO beamed you up or a bird picked you up but you couldn't go anywhere else unless you are superman and you fly away well the thought was that he fell like into you know the ice cracked underneath him i feel like i'd like to see the actual footprints because what i'm envisioning is perfectly clear shoe prints and like yeah in which case it's a little more blurred than that i don't think it's necessarily like a very but i don't know because i don't have photos of it and i'm not really clear on how the footprints like how abruptly they stopped i mean like you say it could have been a crevice and like he fell but maybe caught himself but had his hit his head on the way down so he was able to physically get

himself down but he did the damage had already been done to his brain yeah yeah yeah and it's like a fuchs it's either a head injury like guaranteed in my head it's either a head injury aliens or a big ass bird. It's one of those three. There's no other option. I think you're the first person to bring big ass bird into it, but I love it. So he said the last thing he remembered was being feeling cold and being scared of getting lost in the frozen darkness. And then the article goes on.

I was lying on the grass in a meadow when i woke up kubaki said i didn't know where i was i was wearing clothes that weren't mine i started going through a pack which i assumed was mine and i found maps i would guess i was hitchhiking i didn't know what the date was until i walked into town and got a newspaper so totally like just erased his memory um a newspaper published a heartwarming photo of Stephen beaming as he embraced his father with a tagline reading reunited. Obviously, the entire county or country wanted answers. You know, had Stephen escaped kidnappers, a cult? Was he a fugitive? Was it a hoax? Like what was going on? Was it aliens? Ancient M and ancient alien theorists say yes, it was.

Stephen, unfortunately, had no answers. He insisted again and again he did not remember a single thing from the previous 15 months. So reporters seem to think if they just had a little time with Stephen, they could get a little more insight, crack him a little bit. People suggested he go see a psychologist, but he said there was no point. He was totally sound of mind. Sure, he was missing 15 months of his life, but he's fine. He's thinking clearly. He was not interested in seeing a psychiatric professional, so he did not. He also said, you know what? I have no more information than you do about where I was. So sorry, there's nothing to crack crack and he shut down any further interviews or conversations so that kind of does take away it's frustrating but it does take away the like

skeptical side of he's doing this for attention or something to like because clearly he was not participating in any of the interviews right so Kubacki uh told a reporter that he believed his blackout was caused by exhaustion and exposure and that he would see a doctor for that, but he would not seek any psychiatric health. And in one quote, he said, my father was going to sign over the house to me. I had three courses at school and no trouble. I left a romance in Germany. There was no trouble with girls. I had a job lined up with the Holland Sentinel newspaper.

That was kind of his explanation of like, I didn't run away on purpose, you know? Right, like I had things going for me. Yeah, exactly. Imagine the girlfriend finding out that he's still alive after 15 months and has probably already moved on. Yeah, what the fuck? But apparently he had three of them, so I'm sure he's fine. He's fine.

Yeah. But apparently he had three of them, so I'm sure he's fine. He's fine. So Kubacki ended up not taking that job, but he actually had been awarded a bachelor's degree in absentia from Hope College because he had vanished and they had given him like an honorary degree thinking he was dead. It's like in memoriam degree yeah yeah and so apparently this is pretty wild but it's kind of just a side note fun fact apparently even the detectives who investigated investigated his disappearance had doubts that he had actually drowned from the start and so they actually sent his dental records to chicago to see if Kubacki might be among one of John Wayne Gacy's unidentified victims. Holy shit. And like obviously he was not. But apparently the way that this scene had been like left was so unusual, as you kind of mentioned with the footprints, that they thought maybe he ended up as like the unwitting victim of John Wayne Gacy. You know, that's how confusing confusing this all was.

So as you can probably guess, he became extremely overwhelmed by the attention. Stephen declined all further interviews. And after a few days of national coverage, the press sort of gave up and Stephen's story lost momentum and people simply moved on. Like I said, he'd been given that honorary diploma when he was missing and apparently the dean's first inclination was to let him keep his diploma but then they took it back and said no you didn't earn it that's so fucked up it's like you haven't been through enough so they said you have to it's up to you they said you don't have to do anything but it's up to you if you want to finish your degree oh my god that's so mean to be fair he only had a couple courses left um he had

enough credits to graduate in 1979 with a bachelor's degree in german studies and that was the only one he had enough credits to because he had switched so much so he just went with it and a few years later he earned an MA in linguistics at Ohio University then he attended a PhD clinical psychology program in New Mexico where he studied philosophy and psychoanalysis as a Fulbright fellow in Germany wow and then yeah became a doctor like a psychiatric doctor psychiatrist, and eventually a professor and a psychology department chair. So like, and he apparently has said, yes, I recognize the irony in this, that I refused to go see a psychiatrist in the 70s. And now here I am. Yeah. So I thought that was pretty interesting. And, you know steven has led quite an impressive career

academically in varied disciplines but he continues to be most famous not for his accomplishments but for his crazy disappearance although his story has faded away um and you know it happened in a time before internet forums it has since popped up in unexpected places. And this I would like you to imagine being in class and this happening to you. He's in grad school. He's in a psych class. And he opens up an abnormal psychology textbook on a chapter on amnesia and sees himself in the textbook. So, like, it's got to be really trippy. It's got to be really trippy.

And Stephen, who's now, of course, an expert in the subject, said it is not ethical or professional to diagnose somebody at a distance. So I agree. They shouldn't have said he had amnesia. This is what he had. And we put it in the book. He was not diagnosed. He never went to a professional. So I do find I agree with him him that's not really quite okay um but then of course the internet came around and the story started popping up on conspiracy forums

people suggested steven was a victim of something i wonder if you've heard about called the michigan triangle no no okay so it's basically the great Lakes version of the Bermuda Triangle. And I wrote, M, please cover this. Because just on the basics of what I heard, like overview, like missing ships, strange disappearances, airplanes vanishing. I mean, very Bermuda Triangle, but like in the Great Lakes area. area. So cool. Definitely. I would love to hear about that because you've done the Bridgewater Triangle. Yes. Interestingly. Oh, you know, we should check if the place he woke up was in the Bridgewater Triangle. It was in Massachusetts. Interesting. Maybe a little Pukwudgie picked him up and carried him away. Oh, you know how they like maybe they all carried him like a whole. Yeah. They just like Gulliver's travels one finger at a time. They all they all carried him like a whole. Yeah. They just like Gulliver's travels. One finger at a time. They all they all got him. Pukwudgie Crossing, Bridgewater Triangle.

And what's the town? Pittsfield, Massachusetts. Oh, no, I don't think it's in there. Well, I tried. If you guys know, let me know. OK. Yeah. Oh, wait. maybe it is listen if i just cracked something open you just let me know everybody wide open everybody

wide open uh wow wow okay i think i'm gonna say yes i'm gonna say yes with ancient alien theorists and m say yes yeah so speaking of ancient aliens um he was featured in an episode of ancient aliens that i watched last night uh cool yeah uh they barely mentioned him i watched the entire hour-long program and was like am i mistaken and then like after one commercial break they were like also this guy disappeared one time and it was like 30 seconds and that was the extent of the mention and um he he wasn't in it it was just like his story like i watched it to think like oh maybe he talks as a talking head in this program right but someone just talked just narrated it about him yeah got it um so i did learn a lot about black holes that exist on earth allegedly so uh you know got it i'm on it i'm on it worth

the watch okay so others began leaning more toward natural explanations um you know because everyone else is saying alien abductions portalsals to other dimensions, black holes is the ancient alien theory, accidental time travel. But some people said, you know, maybe this is a true crime story. People have considered cults, mafia ties. I mean, clearly the police were considering John Wayne Gacy. Some thought maybe PTSD induced amnesia from a traumatic event like an attack or a kidnapping. But either way meanwhile steven continues to thrive in his career as a clinical psychologist and he is one of the most

notorious missing persons cases in history who's not and he's not even missing like that's the craziest part he's back and it's so frustrating because he's back but he we still don't know what happened which is like oh man i don't know i feel like part of me feels like maybe there is something true crime or, again, aliens, because for him to be so, for him to have feelers like, oh, I think I was running. I think I've been blah, blah, blah. And for him to be like, I don't want to know the rest of what happened. Yeah, it's like he shut it down. It's like he knows.

I don't know if this is true, but it feels like if he could kind of have little moments like that where he has his feelers on. Like an inkling. It sounds like he knows something really traumatic happened and he does not want to face it. Yes, that's a really good point. He's like, I have these vague recollections, but like, I don't want to go to see a psychiatrist. I mean, he's literally like the department chair and a doctor of psychology like he knows how incredibly useful that science can be and he still wants nothing to do with it his whole fucking the industry the field he's in he does not want to partake in it well just wait what have been

recent updates i know and these updates have occurred since most of the sources that, you know, I've watched and read about. So this is pretty new. All right. For a long time, he said he ignored all of the internet era media about him, but he started working with an author named Dylan Quarles, who hosts the Missing Enigma, Missing Persons Investigations. And when they linked up, Stephen was floored by the interest in his case. He told Dylan in an interview, I was actually amazed how much was out there. I couldn't believe it was out there. According to Stephen's website, the hashtag Stephen Kubacki has been viewed more than 2.3 million times on TikTok and more than 6.5 million viewers have watched the many YouTube videos featuring Stephen's story. So for decades, Stephen maintained that he had no memory of what happened in those 15 months and the world was left to speculate. But god steven has announced that he plans to release a book about his disappearance in fact he says he has recovered his memory from that time he says his story involves the following oh my god is it all of them? Is it big ass bird?

Is it big ass bird, aliens, his head, everything? What if it's just the following? One big ass bird. Well, then I'd say, yeah, we knew, dude. We knew. He said the story involves hallucinogenic drugs, revolutionary organization a terrorist in training spiritual experiences alternate realities and the french foreign legion and now i have a quote from sersha where i laugh i guffawed i laughed out loud because sersha wrote in its own bullet.

What that could possibly mean is anyone's guess. Yeah, right. And I put quote Saoirse. Like, what the fuck are you talking about? So I actually have had another theory that I mean, it's just like such a like a like a flippant. I didn't even say it because I thought that it would have been canceled out. I thought that it would have been canceled out but my other thought besides like bird or aliens on how his feet just left my thought is like what if like a helicopter picked him up and I know that's stupid but they would have had like evidence of like if a helicopter was in the area or people would have been able to say like oh I dropped down a ladder for him but like my but if we're talking

like terrorist in training maybe it was like a spy mission and he Mission Impossible. Or or terrorist in training. Maybe someone did fly up around and like he got like pushed into the crevice and then they flew away. I don't know. But I thought I did think helicopter for a second, but I feel like that could have easily been you know figured out but you know i'm thinking helicopter but wouldn't the helicopter blow the snow over his footprints away not if the helicopter was really up there and someone on a one of those fallout ladders climbed down i think even with a fallout ladder you think isn't there still quite a bit of i mean

maybe not i mean you know me and all my helicopter experience i that's true i should not i should be bowing down to your knowledge i don't know why i'm second guessing you at all um yeah okay hold on can you run through that again there was i would love nothing more okay and i will say drugs sounds obvious that feels that feels clear to me okay i think we all kind of thought in the back of our mind that was a possibility sure hallucinogenic drugs a revolutionary organization a terrorist in training spiritual experiences alternate realities and the french foreign legion so So spiritual realities? Spiritual experiences and alternate realities. Both of those also feel like they could just be drugs. Exactly. I was going to say a lot of that

sounds like it could be lumped in with hallucinogens. It sounds like he was just, I mean, it was also the 70s. He could have just been on acid and had thought he went to an alternate realm and had, even today today a bunch of people parentheses men uh take acid and they're like my life has changed but really i know the meaning of life yeah but really they just like experience empathy for the first time well and i feel like if you take by accident if you take um not ketamine whatrooms? No, it's the one that people occasionally take too much of and then have a psychotic break. Ecstasy? No.

It's the one that starts with a D. I don't know. Okay, well... Man, I took so much duh. Man, I was so fucked up on duh. Duh. Oh, I need more of that duh. Eva, do you know?

Duh. I need more of that D. Duh. I need more of my... I literally can't think of a drug. I can't think of anything that starts with D. Okay. Sorry, guys. Jack, you can delete all the you don't want that i mean i do i just don't know if anyone else

wants it i really can't think of anything like dmt oh dmt so i've heard stories where people who have either been tricked into taking too much dmt or have been uh like accidentally dosed incorrectly um or who've taken just too much dmt um have had like breaks from reality that can last a very long time like very long time like months so you know perhaps he was on a drug and it and that would explain why he came back and he said i don't want to talk about it because like probably doesn't want to talk about being on drugs in the woods and the the drugs make sense for the memory but the feet thing i i do think it's a big ass bird or an alien i i can't i'm stuck on the i'm stuck on or maybe it was a combo of drugs he fell hit his head

and the drugs and the hitting his head at the same time really rattled something in there and he couldn't remember for a long time yeah it could be that too I'm looking up um yeah that's why people say like portals and all this but I mean I just I'm looking for any information on the footsteps and i just can't get a better understanding of that's the if i were an investigator that would be the thing that keeps me up at night is the exams those damn footsteps the footprints in the snow are like really confusing the memory part can so easily be explained for me either as a head injury or drugs that part i'm like not even worried about it's like how the fuck did he get from the middle of the snowy field to nowhere no no no no it was

so that's the thing is he was walking toward the edge of the lake oh right and then he would have fallen in right right so the weird part it says the weird part is this is from ultimate unexplained.com the weird part is the 200 yard set of footprints in the snow that led to the edge of the lake the prints abruptly stop at the lake edge which which led authorities to the conclusion that Stephen had fallen in the lake, got caught under the ice and drowned. Like perhaps he had stepped onto the lake and it had cracked, you know. Right, right. So that's that I feel like could make some sense. Yeah, but still, I don't know. I don't know. But as Serge

just said, what that could possibly mean is anyone's guess. I guess we'll find out when the book comes out. But then also that makes me think, like, did he ever actually come up with the I'm not trying to be one of those people, I swear to God. But I just the thought does linger for a second where I'm like, now that he knows that people are still talking about it, is there like, is this a money situation, you know? I mean, you'd think maybe, but let me finish the bullet points because it gives a little more information. Okay. So this revelation has led some to speculate that Stephen never lost his memory at all. And this was all just fraud. Like he just was, you know, perpetrating fraud. fraud but of course others still hold on to theories about cults and domestic terrorism especially with like the byline he gave

and the hints sound like there was definitely more crime involved than aliens or time travel but unfortunately we do not have a release date for the story because even though the book is finished it has yet to be picked up by an agent so oh really we we don't know when it'll be published if it'll ever be published um but the name of the book is the disappearance quote what really happened to one of history's last unexplained mysteries so uh that's that story and you know i a few. He finally did an interview. I think they said like his first interview in 45 years. But he the YouTuber said he they had a very strict rule that he could not discuss. He would not discuss what happened, like the disappearance and stuff.

So the interviewer had to be very like tiptoeing around anything what do you even interview him about them like I know it's not what the interview would be about I don't know I didn't watch the whole thing because it was right before we recorded when I found it um and it said here see it was on the missing enigma is the YouTube channel but um it gives more insight into him as a person and like his experiences in life in general um and the interview is with him and the author that is helping him write this book so you know if you're interested you can go check that out but uh I just don't know I just don't know it's just very't know. It's just very weird. You know, I think this is one of the first times that we've had, not one of the first times,

but it's one of the only times, and that's why I drink history, where both of our stories were pretty lighthearted. I was actually thinking that. I was like, when you started yours, and I was like, wow, this is kind of a weird, like they kind of hold hands and fit together. What a fun little kid friendly, and that's why we drink episode, I guess, as I talk about the Grim Reaper. Well, yeah. Who knew that would be the light, most lighthearted of all our shows? I know.

Wow, good story, Christine. You know I love a mystery, but you know I hate a mystery too. I know, same here. But I do like a mystery where they say, guess what? Answers might be coming soon. I do wish that his byline to his book was like the French Legion, the terrorist organization and a big ass bird.

I feel like I know M's never going to let go of that theory. You could probably prove to M in every scientific way that it's impossible. And I would be like, yeah, I see your point, but I'm pretty sure there was a big ass bird. I'd be like his memory is still patchy. Like, I know there was a bird there. Yeah, it must be. Oh, well, thank you, everybody, for listening to another episode of And That's Why We Drink. Drink.

And if you'd like, for some reason, more of this, you can join Patreon and go check out our after hours where we keep talking but it's somehow less structured than this so um go ahead and do that also we'll probably discuss some alien stuff because i want to talk about this whole abduction i'll probably google whether a bird can pick up a person so you know those questions and more will be answered we also should have mentioned at the beginning of this episode that we are on tour or we're about to go on tour so please go get tickets uh if we're in your area we will be very close to um every location we mentioned today um we'll be near a bunch of triangles and uh and come see us wait

why don't we look we'll look that up in the after hours we'll look up the uh if our live show is in a triangle oh yeah if our live shows are in the triangle but also if that pits town pits whatever place is in that triangle okay and that's why we drink