Chilluminati Podcast - Episode 256 - Ghost Photos and "Thoughtographs"
Episode Date: July 6, 2024This week the boys check out 2 of the more well known Ghost and Paranormal Photographers David Rountree and Ted Serios. We're Ted Serios you guys. MERCH - http://www.theyetee.com/collections/chillumin...ati Special thanks to our sponsors this episode - All you lovely people at Patreon! HTTP://PATREON.COM/CHILLUMINATIPOD Babbel - http://www.babbel.com/CHILL Hello Fresh - http://www.hellofresh.com/chillapps Jesse Cox - http://www.youtube.com/jessecox Alex Faciane - http://www.youtube.com/user/superbeardbros Editor - DeanCutty http://www.twitter.com/deancutty Art Commissioned by - http://www.mollyheadycarroll.com TED SERIOS PHOTOS -Â https://cdm16629.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/Eisenbud/search TED DRUNKENLY SCREAMING AND USING HIS POWERS - https://youtu.be/xgUr8lx5IA8?si=pZpqhrbZpiOyKbIp&t=251
Transcript
Discussion (0)
Hello everybody and welcome back to the Chiluminati Podcast episode 256.
As always, I'm one of your hosts, Mike Martin, joined today by the OSHA and May of LA.
OSHA?
Jesse and Alex.
Like the work-
OSHA and May?
OSHA?
OSHA and May?
Oh, you're talking Star Wars.
Alex has no- this might be the first time Alex doesn't know this reference.
I thought you were talking about the like workplace safety org OSHA.
That's what we're referring to the Star Wars version.
The workplace safety and May is the Marine Aquatics environmentalisms.
Yeah.
What about those, what about this non non-military contractors though, man?
Someone's got to think of the Quad people.
They live under water. Who is OSHA? Who is OS that from the acolyte? Yes, they're both from the acolyte
I'm so I'm so glad to be free of the shackles
It's so nice to know that I don't have to watch that and no one will get mad at me
I love that instead we shackle you to the patreon because you are forced to shill every single week. Here's the thing
I like showing about the Patreon.
I like telling people that we are punk rock as hell and that we don't ask for
money in return to listen to the show,
but we just ask that if you can support the show that you do and that there's
lots of goodies for you to get for doing that in the same way that a tote bag is
not worth a1,000,
but you get one when you help out PBS.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah, yeah.
So, head on over there,
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There's so much going on.
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There's no joke here.
This is just what's up.
This is just what's up.
I'm no alien.
I'm no Sasquatch. I'm no government plant.
I'm just a man.
I'm just a man.
You think you could be all three of those at the same time?
You think it's possible?
I'm just a man out here trying to get people to come together to support.
Is that true?
I'm just a man with blue skin who can climb around.
Keep saying it in a way.
I just don't know.
The more you say it, the more I start to not believe you just Henry McCoy the X-Men
I'm just a meta human. No, please support us. I love you. Thank you. I'm an eternal
We were just talking about the Eternals anybody know. Oh, wow. That's surprising
What a surprise you just if I said I have not seen the Eternals
No, but would it surprise you if I told you that the Eternals as a concept was based off
Chariots of the Gods?
I learned something.
Bam.
And we're back in the Chilumanati podcast.
Bang.
Yeah.
I would say with confidence that the things you get at our Patreon as rewards are better
than the things you would get in a tote bag at a video game convention like PAX.
That's true.
That's true. I wouldax. That's true. That's true. I would say that's true.
Not quite as cool as Black Bolt, the comic book character,
but actually much cooler.
But everything is cooler than Black Agar Bolt again.
Everything I had literally forgotten entirely about that man.
And I will again after the show is done.
Everything is cooler than Black Agar Bolt again.
How is he your favorite character?
Does it make any sense.
Let me tell you something.
The silence that I am taking on this conversation
speaks volumes and is just exactly why
Black Bolt is the coolest.
Much like him, cause he can't talk,
cause if he does, your face will explode.
Oh, he can.
That's the point.
He can and he doesn't,
because he doesn't like to bullshit around.
He's the, he's the fucking cool, he's the coolest.
He is not the coolest. He coolest he sucks dude he absolutely sucks
do you know what his powers are? do you know what his powers are? he can manipulate
if he opens his mouth and shatters the world
no that's just one aspect of his powers you know why he has a little tuning fork on his
forehead other than that it's the coolest thing that's ever been on
someone's forehead because it was the 60s and like people be crazy he can control
electrons bro yeah why does he need that on his hand he Red because it was the 60s and like people be crazy. He can control electrons, bro
Yeah, why does he need that on his hand? He used this to be like again?
Let me just stress to everyone this would be like if spider-man's real name was spider gar man again
It's just an accident doesn't just an accident. He doesn't speak English.
It sucks.
He doesn't speak English.
The man's full name is Black Hero Bolt again,
and he was like, my superhero name, Black Bolt.
That sucks.
It's terrible.
It's just a nickname, like how my name's Alexander,
and everybody calls me Alex.
It's the same thing.
My name's Mike, and everybody calls me Mathis.
That's a mistake that you made.
It's true.
It is a mistake.
My name's Jesse.
Everyone calls me Jesse.
So let's pass the thing.
It's not even a mistake I made. It was laziness. My name is Jesse. Everyone calls me Jesse. So let's make a mistake. I made it was laziness.
It was 2004.
I didn't know what to name my World of Warcraft character.
So I hit random and it gave me Matthias.
That's not late.
And I hit deleted the eye and then now the math the sense like that's the same exact
lore as Monchi.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I don't know who that is.
She's that like Korean like she's like the Korean like cooking like home cooking
Like she's like the Julia Childs of Korea. She's amazing. Oh, that sounds fun. Yeah, no else is fun
Today's topic gentlemen. Oh, wow. What that what a segue. Oh boy today. It's
This was an episode of a reminder as to why I these kinds of episodes aren't done too often because as much as I love ghosts,
hauntings, and all that good stuff, there's not a lot I can dig my teeth into kind of like in terms
of like good detailed narratives like the Borley Rectory when we talked about that.
Question, is it because ghosts are intangible so you can't put your teeth in them though?
Is that why?
Got me, you got me.
Do the teeth go right through them?
I'm so shocked that of all the things
Ghosts are the one you're like, I don't know guys
Not about believing like about finding like specific stories worthy topics
Within the ghost lore. You just don't want to tell a good ghost story is what I'm hearing
Yeah, well like there's a bunch of good ghost stories, but those last like five minutes
You know, when is it not?
When is it not like well actually the little sister was going into the other room and like just reading
Reading everybody's wallets like it's literally ones we did we dove into like and had photos of like they're tough
But there was a topic I had brought up a while back that I forgot we hadn't gone into and that was of
something called like a ghost photography and we have a lot of kind of photographs out there of
Really well known ones like there's the one of the white lady of the library like that's a really popular
Ghostbusters and the Brown lady, which is another one is like a really popular
Ghost photo I could be remembering that wrong. Jesse gave me a look but you know what one always
Lights me up is the one that's like a family photo and they're all sitting at
the, at the table together. And then there's like an upside down guy.
You see that one? Yes, I know exactly the one you're talking about.
And there's a couple of them too, where like, there's like a photo of like old,
like high school, like sixties or fifties photo.
And there's like a fricking face just like in between two people, the back row,
like those are fascinating.
Yeah.
Some guy who died on Dead Man's Curve.
Wait, what was that?
I don't know if I've seen that one.
I have to look, I probably have, but it's been so long.
It's just always some guy who like just died.
Is it a reference that I don't understand?
It's a reference.
It is a reference.
Okay, gotcha.
See, that tells you, I don't know what you reference.
It's a reference to America.
It's just a reference to our history as-
It's like Americana.
Yeah, like Dead Man's Curve
is like that. Well, yeah, but you're like, you're a man who is taken from the 50s and
forced to be in modern 2020s. I will not deny that I am dressed in a actual historically
real Hawaiian tour bus guide 1960s resort shirt right now. I'm not gonna say that I'm not wearing that right now.
But Dead Man's Curve, tell me when you recognize this,
is that famous curve where all the badass boyfriends
go and die on their motorcycles in the songs
when it's like, what happened to your boyfriend?
Oh, he went on Dead Man's Curve and he disappeared
on prom night and I never saw him it's it's
dead man's curve that's all it is.
Gotcha.
Yeah and then he shows up in the boyfriend's back and now he's a ghost.
Is that where is that where Suzy Q died in the at home Disney movie Suzy Q played by
the actress who was the pink ranger in Power Rangers?
Amy Jo Johnston?
Yeah that's right.
Yeah Amy Jo Johnston.
That's right.
You know she like went on to like direct.
Is that a correct memory?
Yeah that's 100 percent right.
And I think Jimmy Olsen is in that.
If I'm not wrong, I don't know.
Is he? Oh, I could not remember.
But yeah, a long time ago, Jimmy Olsen from countless times.
Yeah, Dean Cain.
Anyway, the chaos of this episode continues.
Yeah. Well, it represents the chaos of the research that had to be put in.
Can I ask a question about ghost photography real quick?
Yeah. When you say ghost photography, is it a thing like fairy photography where we're
talking about, there's like people who like regularly produce ghost photos or are we talking
about just like instances of like, like incidental ghosts appearing? Are we also talking about
people who just take a photo and then input, like use the exact same thing,
take another photo over it. And then they're like, it's cause during, there was a time
period people did that for fun. Like they would make ghost photography for fun as like
a goof. Like that's the thing people do.
That was like one of the first iPhone, that was one of the first iPhone trends was like
a filter. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Today. Well, Alex, you're closer with the
first one. We are going to be talking
about two individuals who have
claimed in the past over the course
of years of being able to take
photos of ghosts
and paranormal things, weird stuff.
And we're going to be talking about
these two individuals by the name
of David Roundtable,
not Roundtable, Roundtable
spelled like Roundtable, but without a D. That's all. Roundtable. And Roundtable, Roundtable.
Spelled like Roundtable, but without a D, that's all.
Roundtable.
And then another man by the name of Ted Sirius.
It's Sirius without the U.
Very bizarre names, both of them.
These guys are both body statures.
I literally just realized their last names
are both words with one letter removed.
Checking human vocabulary dictionary.
I am Mr. Sirios.
I am Mr. Roundtable.
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before we dive in obviously a big shout out to the main sources for this the book paranormal
technology understanding the science of ghost hunting this is written by David roundtable
himself discussing the tactics and the technology behind the camera he uses to take these photographs
and a little bit another book by the name of the world of Ted
Sirios, which we'll get into in the back half.
We're going to start with David Roundtable and David Roundtable is fascinating
cause he's still around today. He was part of a TV show called ghost stalking.
I think it was called. He has an IMDB page. You can go look at.
I need to look up ghost stalking because that is one of the best names for
there's like ghost hunting and ghost adventuring, but ghost stalking because that is one of the best names for there's like ghost hunting and ghost adventuring but ghost stalking is absolutely hilarious just
the concept of like we're gonna haunt them but like creepily I found its ghost
stalkers not stalking ghost stalkers I mean wait the reason the reason ghosts
are saying boo is cuz they're like disappointed in you for stalking them
they're like they're like boo the you for stalking them. They're like They're like boo
The life of a ghost is perpetually being thought think you're being like stalked by humans
That's probably what it feels like in some of those like jails and shit where there's like always people
Yeah, I think it's only five episodes as well. I don't think it's very long
I think six episodes one season 2014 there you go produced by Nick Groff of ghost
Adventures. Oh, yeah, he was that Oh yeah, he's the sensible one.
We won't be talking about 2014. We're gonna go back into the 1980s. Remember those days?
I was born so I don't.
I probably have one or two memories of those days.
Jesse, do you have memories of the neon soaked decade of the 1980s, man?
I mean, yeah, but I lived in I spent the 80s moving from California
San Francisco to well Pittsburgh San Francisco then Virginia and then I moved
to Ohio in either the late 90s or late 80s early 90s I don't know well I moved
around a lot I did not I have no memories of fancy I memories of like the
country of Virginia,
like living in like Blacksburg where they were still building roads. Yeah.
No. Okay. So I don't have, I don't have like no York 1980s.
I don't have any of that. I was,
I was a kid riding a bike on dirt roads and into like mud pits for fun.
That's the vibes. The 19 errors, the era of shoulder pads.
This is the era we're starting our story in today.
It's in this era that we find our first figure, David Rowntree.
Rowntree was a man of, I guess like paradoxes.
He was, and this is important to note, a self-proclaimed scientist who also embraced the spiritual traditions of the native American wolf medicine.
And with a background in physics or so he claims, he spoke, he speaks of quantum entanglement,
unseen energies, and, uh, with a cold kind of boring demeanor also explains the mechanics
of his spirit camera as he calls it, which was a curious
contraption shrouded in a bunch of mystery as is a ton of round trees life.
So much so that round tree claimed that he was in the military and went off to Vietnam
and did all of these things, earned these like medals and none of that can be found
and he's in a years and years ago, he said on Facebook,
basically like, I don't let my, as it's always been,
I don't let my life be an open book
with a smiley winky face at the end,
when people like were calling him out
about the military thing.
So we're looking at a possible case
of stolen valor amongst-
We're talking Tropic Thunder, baby.
Yeah, well, yeah, a movie I haven't seen, but I understand the plot of.
Um...
That's so...
That's so nice that you've learned little, like, tricks to help you get through life.
Yeah, yeah.
You're really doing it, bud.
Having no culture.
Yeah.
You really, like, take the sting out of that when I find out.
Yeah, that way.
Yeah.
Um, yeah.
And so, in that, like, his camera was mysterious, like the way it all worked,
a lot of things lacked details with the exception of his scientific explanations quote unquote
as to what ghosts are and a bunch of other stuff that we'll get to in a little bit.
It was said that his camera was capable of capturing not just the visible spectrum of light,
but also the ethereal emanations of spirits and those unseen energies that purportedly lingered
in haunted places and clung to some of the living.
This is literally the recent haunted mansion film also.
Like now, yeah.
I've not seen that either.
It's all right.
That's probably fine.
All right, cool.
Yeah, I figured that was fine to miss that one.
Jamie Lee Curtis was great.
That's good to know.
Roundtree's photographs were often grainy and indistinct
Depicted shadowy looking figures glowing orbs, which also the fact that he uses glowing orbs as evidence
I'm gonna stay out here and say as some of the lowest
Lamest most easily described away fucking forms of ghost evidence ever does it's of orbs are dust bugs close to the lens
Reflecting light like a piece of particle
far away. Like it could be literally so many different things and people, like just orbs
are nonsense. I'm sorry. Orbs are nonsense. Okay. Now that that's off of my chest, I appreciate
that. And he also like, he claimed that these were otherworldly apparitions, images that were genuine glimpses into the
spirit realm with photographic anomalies that couldn't be explained any other way.
But obviously there were skeptics on the other side that said this was all deliberate manipulation
and the fact that he wouldn't show his camera would disprove for them.
The debate went on for a long time and skeptics dismissing roundtree as a charlatan believer hailed
dismissed him as a charlatan while there are still a section of believers that consider him a
visionary within the realm of paranormal science quote-unquote
Whether his photographs are genuine or not
They definitely ignited a conversation as we've learned many many times
That's all you really need to get a contingent of people on the internet to believe everything
you say no matter what.
It just doesn't fucking matter.
Roundtree claims to have invented a camera that was capable of capturing quote unquote
ectoplasmic energy of spirits that was tapped into quote unquote deep seated yearning.
Now what the fuck that means?
Why they stick around. They have an unresolved thing they're yearning for.
Deep-seated yearning.
Come on, man, get with Ghost Lore, dude.
How do you know so much about Alien Lore
but you don't know about Ghost Lore?
He only has so many move slots.
I'm surprised you made that contact.
I'm surprised you made that connection.
This camera he promised would revolutionize
our way of understanding the afterlife,
offering not just confirmation of its existence finally, but potentially a new way to interact with
those who had passed on, which you can see those who may be in a form of grieving and
not able to let go can see this as a way for them to cope.
Maybe there's a way I can still communicate with them.
It resonated enough with a public that was already captivated by the idea of near-death
experiences, spirit communication through the decades that we talked about that,
of course, this new technological way of talking to people that was kind of like a new spirit
board, I guess I would consider it.
Hook people. Hook, line, sinker. Were you going to say something, Alex? I apologize.
It's just the same old grift. Like it's so it, this one particularly makes me mad, like this type of grift where
people prey upon people's like, sort of like interest in the afterlife and spirituality
and like the fear of, you know, and the loss.
It's just, it's just a whack one.
It's just a whack one for people to ever use in marketing for anything.
And we're like, think about it, We're in the eighties right now.
You know, this is like the perfect time for like, uh,
it was like the perfect cultural and technological landscape for somebody like
this with a camera that can capture,
capture photographs of ghosts and shit to come in and just kind of scoop up on,
on that, uh, rising popularity. Um, it was with the advances in photography,
imaging, uh, technology that fueled speculation
of the potential to capture fleeting glimpse
of the paranormal that hooked these people forever on.
This was the rise of, and we're looking at a new rise
as well around this time of new age spirituality,
spirituality and the resurgence of interest
in ancient traditions created another kind
of ideal environment for this hotbed,
for this thing to just take hold the way it did. But Roundtree's path to becoming this kind of public
enigmatic figure behind this quote-unquote spirit cameras, me a lot of quote-unquotes,
was anything but like conventional. The man was born in 1954 in Suffolk, Virginia. His early life
offered little indication of the path that he would take toward this. He wasn't a guy who was like out there trying to entertain people, trying to like be a person
of focus, get people's attention. None of that seemed to be the case. He displayed an
early aptitude for science and technology. He was very fascinated with science, eventually
pursuing a degree in electrical engineering. However, his interests extended beyond the
confines of traditional education.
His fascination with the paranormal blossomed during his formative years, fueled by a mix
of personal experiences and a voracious appetite for literature on the occult and unexplained
phenomena.
He recounted tales of childhood encounters with unexplained phenomena that left a lasting
impression with him.
These experiences included things like fleeting glimpses of shadowy figures darting across
his periphery vision, whispers that seemed to emanate from empty rooms, and the unsettling
feeling of being watched in the dead of night.
While some might dismiss these experiences as a child's overactive imagination, for
him they planted the seeds of curiosity and a yearning to understand what the nature of
these anomalies might be and their potential connection to the world beyond the one he
was existing in.
Was there an afterlife essentially?
And if true, if we take that as true, I mean, that's the best, I mean, that's kind of what
you would hope for from somebody who's experiencing these things to like go out and try and figure
out what's going on as opposed to somebody like me, who would probably just be truly too terrified to act on any of it and never,
ever really. Like the fact that Alex,
you have that story of like the whispering woman in the other room.
If I was actually dealing with that all the time, I feel like I would leave.
I don't know if I can handle it. Has that actually continued?
Has that died down?
Yeah, it's, it's, uh, it's Yeah, it's not been happening as much.
No.
I don't know.
The energy has shifted.
Interesting.
Interesting.
No, it's like, but like for him to get scooped up by this, to hook him on this.
Yeah, I can see this happening.
And as he delved deeper into this stuff, Round worldview began to shift and he started bracing a more
holistic understanding of reality that incorporated both
Scientific principles mixed with spiritualist beliefs which to me sounds like he tried mushrooms for the first time and saw God
And so now he's ready to like start combining them who hasn't to be honest true
I have not gone that far and you know, I maybe. Maybe it's time I go have a conversation with God. I did some data or
I don't know what I mean. How many mushrooms do I need to eat? I was on a hubby bar, I
think. And I saw like a porcelain deity in the toilet. That was pretty wild. I'm sorry.
I'm sorry. You have to elaborate. No, he doesn't. Was it a hole? Was it a face? It was like
a whole person. You know, okay, this I've told this story before No, he doesn't. Was it a whole, was it a face? It was like a whole person?
You know, okay, this, I've told this story before somewhere, I'm sure, but you know,
I've never heard you see a porcelain figure in a toilet story.
So you know that type of like, like Japanese theater mask or whatever, that's like a nice
shirt, like a Kabuki mask or whatever, but it's like just white.
It's very like simply smiling, like very, very like thinly painted little like closed eyes
that almost look like they're smiling,
like they're like seagulls.
Yeah, that's horrifying to see in the toilet.
No, but it's not the whole face, right?
It's just like as if the eyeball itself
went up against the bowl, like a huge face.
And then it told me I was never gonna be sane again
and this was how I was gonna be now.
What the fuck?
That's horrifying!
Holy shit!
Yeah.
But I was playing Street Fighter IV at the time, and it was also high!
And my name was very high!
It was fucking wild, dude!
That's not, that's not, that's, it's not real.
Did you go back to playing Street Fighter like I'll be no
I threw up all over the room if if
if I
Considering that I was high is like saying like oh well like that bird was flying at the time
Like I don't know like the part that's like if I was a if I was if I was a priest or a cop and I was
High and I saw this and be like oh, it's cuz he did the drugs and he didn't know what he was doing. He lost his mind. I think you're saying you're a veteran.
Yeah, I think sometimes veteran of the of the of the pot wars. Yeah, I go. Yeah, drunk with the drug wars
Oh my god, the drug wars. I'm TI 85 calculator. You're a veteran. How did you see my I fought for pot, dude. I
fought for pot
Oh pot, dude. I fought for pot. It's fucking insane.
Oh, God.
You know, I don't know if I want to get that high.
I'd have to take that many mushrooms. I'm good.
I don't need to see it.
I pitch I pitched a sketch to Smosh one Smosh one time.
That was like a trailer for a movie about like it's like a like fascist
takeover kind of movie, except it's the people who like took over who smoke weed and they like make you like they torture you.
They like get information out of you by giving you bong rips and the
revolutionaries like listen to country music and shit like like pop country
music and they like like really boring food and stuff.
I love that. Yeah. Anyway, anyway,
curiosity and thirst for knowledge led him on his own spiritual journey.
Exploring diverse traditions from around the world, he delved into the mystical teachings
of Eastern philosophies, the ritualistic practices of ancient cultures, and the esoteric wisdom of
Western occultism. However, it was within the shamanic practices of Native American wolf medicine
that Roundtree found a profound sense of belonging and purpose.
The wolf revered in many Native American traditions as a symbol of intuition.
And if I got this wrong, please correct me.
This is just from what my research got to me.
It was yeah, it was a symbol of intuition, loyalty, a connection to the spirit world.
And for Roundtree, it resonated very deeply for him.
He was drawn to the concept of a reciprocal relationship between humans and nature, where
all living things were interconnected and interdependent.
Again, man had a mushroom trip.
The worldview challenged the dominant Western paradigm of separation and domination, offering
a more holistic understanding of existence.
That's kind of where he was taken.
Ground Tree was particularly fascinated by the shamanic belief in a spirit world that coexisted with the fairs physical realm and we learned all about
that in pray
2006
Alex yeah, we learned all about that actual spirit world. It was a it's a realm in hand
But you traverse it could traverse it you can shoot spirit be a seal yourself in it
It used to help old shamans solve puzzles
Spirit beings to heal yourself in it. It used to help old shamans solve puzzles
to progress through nature.
And even while he was there, he didn't believe it was real.
It was a very fascinating story.
Yeah, this is a realm inhabited by your ancestors,
animal spirits, other supernatural entities.
He saw shamanism as a way to bridge the gap
between science and spirituality,
to reconcile his rational mind with his intuitive sense of
something deeper that we aren't able to get to in our physical world.
And so through his study and practice of wolf medicine, I keep wanting to say world medicine,
wolf medicine, Roundtree sought to develop his own intuitive abilities and tap into the
wisdom of the natural world and the spirit realm.
He embraced this journey,
a practice of entering altered states of consciousness
to communicate with spirit guides,
gain insights into hidden aspects of reality.
Roundtree believed that these practices
could not only enhance his understanding of the paranormal,
but also provide him with the tools to capture
and interpret the elusive energies of the spirit world.
Roundtree's immersion in wolf medicine
was not just merely an intellectual
exercise. It was a transformative experience for him that changed how he
interacted with the world as a whole from then.
And so we're going to dive into just a little bit about what he explains and he
describes how all this shit works.
I just, before we do this,
I just want to do something a little ass hole, just a tiny bit,
ass hole for our listeners out there.
Go back to what Mathis just said.
Go back, clip out what he just said about this dude's origin story about like how he experienced some things he couldn't understand as a kid
and he spent the last X number of years of his life trying to find some sort of answer for what it all meant in both the physical and metaphysical realm
and sort of come up with this sort of like unifying theory of existence.
Take everything that Mathis just said, verbatim.
Go to Reddit, if you would.
Copy it all down and then anything that sounds ghost or metaphysical related,
input a UFO thing.
How dare you.
And tell me it doesn't sound like the exact same shit.
The exact same shit.
The exact same shit. That's so delicious. The difference is there's no fucking government wing trying to explain ghosts.
How do you know there isn't a government wing trying to cover up ghosts, bro? You shouldn't have said government with so much stink on it so quickly.
Cause they're terrible, then they're doing a better job at keeping this shit secret than the ones that are doing the aliens.
You really want to do this to the episode right now, Jesse?
I'm just saying it's the exact same trying to find a purpose in those universes. at keeping this shit secret that the ones that are doing the A-list. You really want to do this to the episode right now, Jesse!
I'm just saying it's the exact same trying to find a purpose in those universe as a ghost man. Nothing happened in my life that I need to explain.
I'm not saying it's a you thing. I'm saying it's all searches for something bigger than us sound the exact same if you just say it that way.
I dare you. No, sorry. Yeah, I took that personal. Now we're not friends anymore.
I'm just saying please take it to the reddit and just replace ghost stuff
With UFO stuff and it will sound the exact same. It was not equally crazy. God damn you Jesse. God damn you
That's so funny, dude
As round trees knowledge of both science and spirituality deepened he began to envision a way to merge them
So he believed that the tools of science could be used
to explore and understand the spiritual realm
to provide tangible evidence for the first time
of the unseen forces that shaped our lives.
This ambition would ultimately lead him
to develop his spirit camera,
a device that he hoped would bridge the gap
between these two worlds.
He was most, now the issue with the spirit camera is,
as I said earlier,
Rountree was notoriously secretive about the inner workings
of his spirit camera.
And while he often spoke in very broad terms
about its ability to capture ectoplasmic energy
and electromagnetic fluctuations,
he never once provided a detailed technical explanation
of how the camera functioned.
Some of the explanations he did offer though, vary in depth.
And so one of the things he says is, Rountree claimed to use a special type of film and
filters that were sensitive to specific wavelengths of energy emitted by spirits.
However, he never revealed the exact specifications
of those materials.
Fucking Doctor Who writer or what the fuck?
Yeah.
He reversed the polarity of light
and was able to see ghosts.
Yeah, well, yeah, exactly.
It's exactly that kind of shit.
He also mentioned incorporating electromagnetic sensors
into the camera to detect the subtle fluctuation
in energy fields that he believed were associated with paranormal activity.
And he also emphasized the importance of intuition
and ritual in operating the camera,
suggesting that it was not merely a technological tool,
but also a spiritual instrument.
So it's a mole, it's a mole.
Have you ever seen Fatal Frame?
Yeah. Sure.
Yeah.
There you go, right?
There you go. There you go, right? There you go.
There you go.
That's all you need.
Fatal Frame is one of my favorite scary games, period.
Too true.
So good.
I couldn't get through it as a younger,
like a younger kid.
It was too scary for me.
It's terrifying because it's,
you only see the ghost through the camera.
That's terrifying.
It's like Five Nights at Freddy's took that moment
and made it a whole game, basically.
Like the fighting ghost moments, if you think about it.
I'm genius like that, thank you.
This lack of transparency about the camera
obviously fueled skepticism and speculation
about its authenticity.
Critics accused him of using
conventional photographic techniques
as Jesse was saying earlier as we were getting into it,
how popular it was before to just like
create fucking ghost photos out of just filters and shit
Such as double exposure long exposures to create the illusion of ghostly figures
Others suggested that the images were simply artifacts of dust light reflections or other mundane phenomenon
That would make sense for like the orbs and shit
But he refused to divulge the specifics of his camera even under all this accusation
Which ultimately contributed to the ongoing debate of the legitimacy of his work.
But he did quote-unquote explain the science behind everything that he was taking photos
of.
And that we're going to talk a little bit about because that's the best part of this
whole fucking thing.
Roundtree frequently described ghosts as electromagnetic anomalies or energy imprints left behind in
the environment by people or
events with strong emotional charges.
He theorized that these imprints could interact with the electromagnetic field, potentially
explaining phenomena like electronic device malfunction or unexplained temperature fluctuations
that are often reported in haunted locations.
He further proposed that these energy imprints might be accessible through the manipulation
of the electromagnetic field or through a phenomenon known as quantum entanglement.
Quantum entanglement is a well-known documented principle that we've talked about before where
basically two particles become linked in such a way that they basically do the same shit.
Roundtree suggested that perhaps a living person could be entangled quote unquote with
a deceased loved one's energy imprint allowing for a form of communication or perception.
Makes sense right?
Obviously.
Done?
Okay wait say that one more time.
Roundtree suggested that perhaps a living person similar to quantum entanglement could
be quote unquote entangled with a deceased
loved one's energy imprint, allowing for a form of communication or perception, like
being able to perceive them.
Like getting their spirit stuck on your shoe as you leave a bathroom.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Like you like, then you just see it.
That checks out.
That checks out.
And then you just see it.
I think you got that.
Yeah.
Now, Roundtree, as you as mentioned here, kind of drew upon quantum physics a bit, particularly
leaning on the concept of entanglement to explain paranormal phenomena.
He suggested that particles could become linked in such a way that they could communicate
instantaneously across vast distances, which we've been described or rather explained to
by other people who are much more like scientists than us, that quantum entanglement doesn't actually mean
communication, because once you measure something, measure it, the thing automatically becomes
it.
So unless you can influence the way it's going to become when you measure it, you don't really
have any way of like sending information over
that quantum entanglement, if that makes sense.
I think I think I'm explaining that in a way that is terrible, but maybe right.
I think I'm I think I'm with you, to be honest.
Yeah, so I'm trying.
I love this shit.
And so when people actually put like right out like what it's about, I try my best to
understand.
But yeah, he drew on all this shit.
And he's suggesting that the particles could be linked in such a way that they could communicate
instantaneously even across vast distances and this he believed could
account for the ability of spirits to manifest themselves in different
locations or influence events in the physical world. This is why he's saying
we can see one person like a ghost of somebody here but maybe a minute or two
later you might see them like down the street or something like that, or even further away.
Because quantum entanglement means they can be anywhere at the same time.
I don't know what he's trying to say.
That's what quantum entanglement means.
No, that's what he's saying it means.
Is that?
Is what I'm trying to understand.
All right.
Regardless, there's more shit.
Like another key element in round trees theories was the role of the electromagnetic field,
EMFs.
He believed that spirits could manipulate these fields to communicate with the living
and that his camera was designed to detect these subtle fluctuations.
Quote, spirits are able to manipulate electromagnetic fields to create a variety of effects, including
moving objects, making noises and appearing as apparitions.
My camera is able to detect these changes in the electromagnetic field and capture them."
End quote.
So, you know, no explanation as to how.
Just it can do it.
He also believed that electronic voice phenomena, EVPs, were not simply anomalies or glitches
in the recording equipment.
Instead, he proposed that they were the result of these electromagnetic fields operating within the audio frequency of the spectrum saying, quote, EVP or electronic voice phenomena was
created by EMF or an electromagnetic field that propagates into the audio frequency spectrum.
EVP occurs in a very localized area.
This is supported by the fact that two people adjacent to one another can be recording the
environment with audio recording devices and one recorder will pick up an EVP while the adjacent one may not."
Yeah, he suggests basically that EVP as a localized phenomenon is just maybe tied to
locations or events within the field of activity.
It feels like he's directly addressing just every criticism of ghost hunting with like
a lore, like Star Trek warp
drive based answer. Yeah yeah Technobabble on his way out of this shit correct. He also introduces
the concept of paranormal event horizon to describe the point. Yes Alex is more accurate
with everything you say like this man is just like every buzzword that ever was. I'm going to include it in my theories.
Oh, you are 100% correct.
Yeah, this concept of the paranormal event horizon is to describe the point where the
energy of the living and the deceased could possibly interact.
Quote, by studying this point, which I have labeled the paranormal event horizon, I have
been able to formulate first a hypothesis and develop it into a viable theory." End quote. And
while he doesn't really define what this is, it seems to be a
theoretical boundary where the laws of physics, as we
understand them, just break down, allowing for the
interaction of these different realms of existence.
Okay.
What you wouldn't expect is that there are also wormholes
involved in how ghosts interact
with us.
Roundtree often.
What?
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So Roundtree loved to cite the work of Stephen Hawking to support his ideas about wormholes
as well saying, quote, the truth is wormholes are all around us, only they're too small
to see.
They occur in nooks and crannies in space and time. He
believed that ghosts could, that's the end of the quote, he believed that ghosts could
utilize these microscopic wormholes to travel between dimensions or communicate with the
living. He also suggested that quantum entanglement was also part of the wormhole thing.
Are we going to find out why ghosts would choose to do this?
Cause that's the only way that's like,
that's like asking us why we choose to interact in a 3d physical way.
Jesse. Oh wait, nevermind. It's cause they're wants.
I forgot because they have wants and needs and they exist in a realm beyond.
They want to resolve their problems. Yeah.
Ghost lore. I got it. Don't worry. I'm back in.
It's the same as the Casper movie basically. Exactly. Yeah. Ghost Lore. I got it. Don't worry. I'm back in. It's the same as the Casper movie, basically.
Exactly. Yeah. You got the skinny ghost, the fat ghost and the buff ghost. Yeah.
Are you talking about fat so stinky and stretch? I am. In fact, I am. Yes.
So he wrote two papers, at least that I could find both in 2014, that I will not tell you I
read all the way through, but I read a chunk of they're really fucking long I'll give you the link to it afterward
But basically in these papers he draws upon established theories and physics like Einstein general relativity string theory
But applies them in ways that would make ancient aliens proud
You know like just jumping to conclusions with these things keep some of the key points that he makes are
with these things. Some of the key points that he makes are, Rountree kind of describes wormholes as theoretical passages that could connect
different points in space and time potentially allowing for travel between
universes or dimensions and he suggests that these wormholes could be
formed through the interaction of cosmic strings which are hypothetical
one-dimensional objects that may have formed in the early universe according to my
Google research on what fuck cosmic strings are he also says and proposes that exotic matter a
Hypothetical substance with negative mass not dark matter
The different exotic matter right? It's exotic. Yeah exactly build different
Yeah, sexy matter is also what it's called in the science world.
Yum, nurse. No, not erotic matter, exotic.
It's a little dangerous, a little strange.
Like, what's that about?
That's like the introduction to every mini-sode.
A little dangerous, a little strange. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh. Ooh He said that this exotic matter is a hypothetical substance with negative mass.
It's necessary to keep wormholes open and stable.
And he suggested this exotic matter could be present in the spatial area between universes.
So I guess there's like space between universes, which I wouldn't that mean that that's another
universe like I don't know.
I'd like I don't really you know, I got to tell you this is where my, uh, this is where my, the limit of my knowledge is, to be honest with you.
I feel like you put your breath of comic knowledge could help here.
I, you know, if this were the DC universe, there's something called the bleed that exists between universes that's not quite a universe.
But I seriously doubt-
By DC logic, it's possible. I seriously doubt that the bleed is,
I feel like the bleed is not gonna hold up
to like physicists.
So you know what, let me know, physicists.
If you're watching this, do a little cursory research
on the bleed as described by Grant Morrison
or somebody like that.
And let us know what you think.
Challenge Gauntlet Throne, I love to learn.
He also draws upon the concept of resonance.
That's when two objects vibrating at the same frequency influence each other.
And he suggests that cosmic strings could resonate and entangle leading to the formation
of wormholes.
And then he also believes that paranormal phenomena such as ghosts and UFOs could be
explained by the interaction of energy or entities within these wormholes.
He suggests that the energy of the deceased could utilize wormholes to manifest in our
reality.
It's a fucking a whole lot, dude.
It's a lot.
Like, in some quotes I got here, like he says, quote, so what if two tiny strings approach
each other?
So if, as the two strings approach each other they begin to match
frequencies until they intertwine
at resonance.
This could be the genesis of the
formation of a wormhole.
He also says paranormal phenomena
regardless of the area of study
are highly transitory.
They come and go much like a
wormhole.
What if these wormholes are the
conduit between our world
and the next.
What if man. What if somebody came to my house and kiss me on the lips right now?
What if?
Let's leave it there.
What if?
I'm just asking, you know?
Yeah.
Obviously this round tree is kind of just a blend.
He just blends scientific terminology that he thinks he knows with esoteric concepts
that he thinks are real and creates his own kind of science out of it and that's kind of all we know about
Roundtree and even if you look for some of his photos it's hard as fuck to find
because most of them are in his book and nobody really has a has his book but you
can buy his book for $21 I think on Amazon is what it is or I think it's 10
bucks for Kindle. That's a good deal.
That's a subway full on.
Yeah man.
That's topic number one.
The next one is the best of the two.
Boys, Ted Sirius is an absolute favorite of these two guys.
He is dead serious like, but just about like what he did and what photos round tree.
Yeah.
Like do we have any photos or anything? Like do we have any examples?
We haven't seen any of his work go buy his book. He has examples in his book
Well, do you have you seen them? No, I did I
No, I did not I don't have the book. I didn't fucking buy is there's no images on the internet of his of his photos
I tried and the only ones that are out there are literally blurry messes
that are undefinable as anything.
Like there's, it's like a brown blur.
That's just the whole photo.
His is more about the lore.
Absolutely correct.
Okay.
Ted Sirios, I've got you some evidence.
Wait, hold on, what year was Roundtable?
We're like 80s-ish, 90s-ish.
He's still obviously around today.
You can see a picture of him.
The man looks like he could take me out with a single punch. But he could have influenced the Casper movie.
It's very possible. It's actually possible. Fatso Stinky and Stretch could have been,
you're not wrong. Thanks to Mr. Roundtree. So Ted Sirios is a name I'm assuming rings
no bells with you. It sounds like when you're trying to tell somebody that you are dead
serious but you like want to cross your fingers. I am Ted Sirius. I am Ted Sirius. Yeah. I am Ted
Sirius right now. Listen to me. I am Ted Sirius. Oh, you thought I was serious? No, I was talking
about that UFO photographer or ghost photographer. Ted Sirios is a man whose story takes place two decades prior,
the sixties. He was a man who caused quite a stir locally.
This man was an unemployed bellhop from Chicago who was known for his heavy
drinking, boisterous personality, and accusations of being a con man.
Ted. Me. It's me. being a con man. Ted.
Me.
It's me.
Super well liked clearly.
Sorry.
Yeah.
No, your editor Ted.
Oh yeah, Ted.
Yeah, I was just joking.
No, this is serious.
Yeah, no, this is serious.
But at the end of the day, Ted claimed to have a rather unique talent.
The ability to create images on film specifically Polaroids
Using only the power of his mind and thoughts
He could transfer he claimed okay his thoughts on two pictures. Okay, and what did he call them?
paranormal rights, uh
Ted's okay. Wait, hold on. What is it? He puts he puts his hands on the Polaroids and they come on the Polaroids?
I'm gonna go over how he does it.
I'm gonna call them brain pictures. Brain pictures.
Come on, Paranormaloids is right there!
Paranormaloids sounds like-
Alex is closest.
Paranormaloids sounds literally like one of the villains who would attack the mystical city of Atalan in the Inhumans.
Take that idea of like, it's a hilarious name,
but you're closer with your guest, Alex.
He called them Thotographs.
Thotographs?
Yep.
So yeah, he's-
Octographs.
And he probably pronounced the real word, Thotographs.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Ted Sirius?
You may have, you may have.
Who was Ted Sirius when he thought of golf? These are called Thotographs. What's fascinating about Ted Sirius? You may have. You may have. He was Ted Sirius. He was Ted Sirius.
He was called Thottelweiss.
What's fascinating about Ted Sirius compared to David is that he went through extensive
amounts of like tests, controlled tests by researchers and a bunch of shit.
We even have it on video, but we'll get to it.
It's crazy.
Yeah, this man, unemployed, drunk all the time, super boisterous, not super liked, but still,
uh, he was, uh, he claimed to have this ability. Some accused him of being a con artist,
basically around the thoughtograph, not prior to all of this, but just because of his thoughtography,
if you will. Um, they called it an elaborate trick. Uh, but now Ted wasn't like, you know, he wasn't like David where he's like pretended he's
like a scientist.
He's not a self-claimed scientist.
He was just a regular dude who stumbled upon, according to him, this supposed ability after
a night of drinking with friends into a near blackout state.
That's how we figured out he had this ability.
According to Ted's recollection, the story goes that he was out sharing drinks with a man by the name of George Johans, a former employer who also dabbled in hypnosis.
How does one dabble? How does one dabble in hypnosis?
You know, just dabble.
There is a time, like the 60s, it's honestly, I'm sorry if we don't really talk about it.
Are you about to tell me that in the 60s people dabbled in hypnosis?
It was a hugely popular thing to do and it like so and it was like really dangerous in the wrong hand
Not a super villain type like emotionally abused people, you know kind of way. Okay. Sure. Okay. Yes. I'm back in board
I thought you were like in the wrong hands hypnosis is dangerous. I'm Ted
Sorry, I'm still in like my script mind right now. I'm still in my script mind.
Yeah, so he's drinking with his buddy George and as the night wore on, the conversation
turned to the unexplained and the potential for psychic abilities.
In a playful moment, Ted grabbed a Polaroid camera from the table that I assume is one
of them was theirs, held it up to his forehead and jokingly declared his intention to project
his thoughts onto
the film.
And much to his surprise, and everyone else's astonishment, when the Polaroid developed,
a faint image had materialized.
It wasn't much, really blurry, indistinct, but there was a pattern to it.
It was enough to plant a seed in Ted's mind, really.
In his drunken state.
Could he really actually be influencing the film of his thoughts with his thought?
No, dude, that was probably needed.
And so he was like, let's find out.
Although initially blurry and indistinct, this unexpected result, and we're looking
at like 1961 ish at times, this unexpected result sparked his curiosity and ignited
the fire within him to do more
of this.
He became, again, he's unemployed bellhop, so you know, he's got a lot of time on his
hands to fuck around.
He became obsessed with trying to replicate the phenomena that he claimed happened during
that night of drinking, convinced that he had stumbled upon a genuine psychic ability.
Fueled by a mix of excitement and skepticism,
according to him, he continued to practice with the camera,
often under the influence of booze.
He was usually drunk when he did.
Under the influence of booze.
Yeah.
Over time and with persistence,
the images that he was taking became clearer and clearer.
Some captured recognizable shapes, maybe objects,
while others remained really abstract, blurry,
hard to define.
The results were inconsistent,
but the occasional clear image was enough to keep Ted fueled
in his belief in his abilities and spurred him
to seek out further validation and to keep seeing
if he can make this thing work.
Now, we'll get to the pictures at the end here.
He took over 1,000 photographs, not just on his own,
but people who were testing him, researching him,
and they are banked in a college website
that we'll be looking at at the end.
Can't wait, hell yes.
Ted attributed the initial discovery
to the hypnotic suggestions of his friend George,
who had previously used hypnosis to allegedly help Ted recover repressed memories.
Whether hypnosis played any genuine role or simply acted as a catalyst of Ted's subconscious
like to explore this shit remains like nobody will know.
And needless to say, this caught the attention of folks interested in the paranormal.
Some were convinced Ted was the real deal, a psychic pioneer.
Others, while they were a bit more skeptical, thought that Ted was just clever trickster pulling a fast one on the public
for a short 15 minutes of fame. A clever trickster, dude. Yeah, dude, a trickster god. But whether like
whether or not like you believe that his story is undeniably fascinating.
After his initial discovery,
Ted was all in and pushed further into thoughtographs that he'd been creating.
After a little bit of time Ted had settled into a sort of ritual that he would
do to create these thoughtographs.
These are the things that he figured out that just worked.
You know what? Thoughtograph graphs is starting to become catchy.
I know it's great.
I actually like it way better than paranormal roads right now.
I know paranormal roads is better, but it's like a video game that costs 25 cents in 1973
that you played like with other grown adults with no stigma because video games are so
new.
So first step in this ritual, the pre gaming Ted ever the showman would make a grand spectacle of consuming
Copious amount of amounts of alcohol to get this going and he had dubbed
Him getting drunk to do these what the booze was. He called it his film juice
So healthy, you mean that's no that seems like an alcoholic
Daddy, this is film. Just this is Phelps juice.
This is my Phelps juice.
This is I gotta have a pictures don't happen.
I have a phelps juice.
This ship was essential to his extra sensory perception.
The more inebriated he became, the more his confidence seemed to soar.
It was almost as if the liquor in his mind acted as like a psychic lubricant.
It's soothing a pathway between his, his like thoughts and that filter.
Most people have before you say a thought that allowed him to break open his
psychic powers in his mind and at,
and like allowed him to do all these to get his thought of graphs on blank
Polaroid films. Um, and that's also important to remind,
like even a lot of these tests were done, it was with blank Polaroid films.
They weren't like used Polaroids.
Obviously, of course, skeptics would scoff and mutter about all this nonsense.
Obviously.
Yeah, obviously, their theories revolving around lowered inhibitions and the loosening
of fine motor skills, even hinting that the possibility that the alcohol itself was somehow
altering the developing Polaroid chemicals.
They were saying that maybe the alcohol fumes are like fucking up the Polaroid.
But that was that was part one. Part one. Get fucking blast.
But even then I must stress if it does turn out that alcohol fumes messed up Polaroids,
that's like when Gandalf blows a ship out of smoke.
Like that is a trick unto itself.
That is very impressive.
If nothing came out and he moved his fucking cheeks
like that, I would be impressed.
So I want to also go on to move on to this
before we go to this next part.
There were multiple ways he was tested as well.
One, the main way we're gonna get to,
but there are other times where he was literally
miles away from the person who was taking the picture
with the Polaroid.
They were on a phone call and then he would tell them when he felt it was time to take
a picture.
We'll talk about that.
But the big thing skeptics, skeptics latch onto is the thing that he ended up calling
the gizmo.
The gizmo kind of showed up a little later as he was kind of trying to figure out how
to make this work.
And the gizmo is, is a cylindrical piece of plastic tubing
that he held up to the camera lens like a magic talisman.
And it kind of was like what Ted's like secret weapon
in a way, skeptics whispered, it was a mere distraction,
like a magician trying to conceal trickery.
And like, you know, basically like you're distracted,
you're distracted by him being drunk and obscene while the gizmo had maybe an exposure or something inside
of it that when the picture was taken, fucked with the image in a way that was creating
these illusions. Ted insisted it was more than that. According to him, it was like a
focusing tool. It was allowed him to kind of like focus his thoughts to be like, this what I want to do almost like a physical representation and D&D wizards have talismans
to focus on to get a bonus you know if you want to think of it like that almost like a way for him
to get his thoughts into one place. He said it helped him concentrate his thoughts visualize the
image he wanted to project onto the film and then somehow inexplicably channel that mental image onto the film itself.
The exact workings of the gizmo, like nobody knows, it's like really just theories from
skeptics as to how this thing worked.
Some speculated it contained a special lens or filter, maybe a technological dude ad that
somehow aided in the photographic process.
Others believed it was imbued with some strange psychic power, a totem that enhanced Ted's
abilities, but Ted himself remained coy about its secrets too, preferring to let the gizmo
add to the mystique of his performance.
He didn't do himself any favors when it came to the gizmo.
With the gizmo in place and a Polaroid cartridge loaded, Ted would then assume his signature
pose.
Eyes closed, face contorted in concentration, body seemingly vibrating with psychic energy,
and he would mutter incantations,
mumble incoherent phrases,
and occasionally let out a dramatic groan or sigh.
But all of this came after minutes,
sometimes hours of these other people in these tests
being berated by an incoherent,
drunken, swearing Ted who was Ted, who is removing articles of clothing
one part at a fucking time in his drunken state. And there are these sound real man
just in his pants, just screaming at this at the researchers before he would take the
picture. And what I mean by he would take the picture. Are you saying pants like British
or are you saying pants like slacks? Are you like pants like his underwear like as like how British people say that or like slick paint like slacks like pants
We understand them gotcha. Um, there is uh, there's a bunch of videos of it
I got I lost it cuz I fucking my computer rebooted. I have to find it in a second
But there's one where he's screaming at the camera
Basically, the way he does it is he's like all he's got the camera up.
Someone's holding the camera close to him.
He's in the video I saw he had a shirt off.
He was swearing or whatnot.
And then it was time to focus.
He was like kind of like trying to steady himself.
He looked at the camera, squinted and did like that, like I eyebrow up,
like kind of like his dream works face, but angry.
And then he holds up the plastic
gizmo and goes and then he like head butts the gizmo and then they take they take the
picture in that moment and then the picture comes out and it gets developed right there
and that's what he does.
I know you cannot see what happens in these episodes.
I know I know.
But Mathis just articulated it and portrayed the entire scene and some of my
favorite Mathis acting I've ever seen. I think I did a pretty good job too. He did the eye thing, he did the like dance, he smashed his head against it. Very good.
Here, here, I got the video. There's gonna be annoying commentary over it. So you can just like, I got I got a time stamp. Yeah, I got a time stamp. Um, but there's a bunch of clips of him being tested on
Oh, yeah, he does just headbutt it. Yep
You see them the there's multiple researchers in there. There's multiple people in there like four or five people
He gets a cigarette and he pulls out a big bottle takes a swig
So this guy's just winding everyone up. Yeah
This is like that guy that like went in and like was getting
interviewed for the thing that like Irish guy and he like got like a free meal.
Yeah. Later on at five minutes or so, he's in just, he's in the room for the matrix.
Yeah. I saw this. And he is, it's a more modern version and he's taking his thing and he's screaming and it's, I mean, it's a thing. All right.
But it's also, it looks entirely like performative art.
It feels like a magic trick. Yeah.
Um, there is, uh, one of the people that ended up getting really involved with him, um, was a, another doc, a doctor by the name of Jewel Eisenbud.
Um, and because of all the skepticism and whatnot
about the gizmo and all this shit,
they said, and they quote,
I hereby state that if before any competent jury
of scientific investigators,
photographers and conjurers,
any chosen by them can in any normal way
or combination of ways duplicate under similar conditions
the range of phenomena produced by Ted,
I shall one, abjure all further work with work with Ted to buy up and publicly burn all available copies
of the world of Ted Soros. Three, take a full-paid ad and popular for you know
like that typical stuff and then four spend my time for the rest of all my
life selling door-to-door subscriptions to this amazing magazine that he was
like basically but you know he's like anybody can do this fucking just show me
replicate what Ted is doing and
I'll be my words
Never really happened as far as I could tell nobody came forward with an ability like that similar were to Ted so
continuing on
the gizmo plays cartridge loaded like I said, I did he did all that shit and
he screams winks headts the damn thing,
picture is taken, and during this,
even while the picture was developing,
a constant stream of muttered words, phrases,
like just out of his mouth, barely audible whispers,
others bordering on shouts and obscenities.
Observers believed these were words
of encouragement to himself.
They thought maybe he was like hyping himself up
to take the next picture, hyping himself to focus. I think it might've just been really fucking blasted
because the man was drunk as hell. This is fascinating. So apparently in the same video
you sent, it goes on to talk about the amazing Randy, which I don't know. I feel like we did an
episode of the amazing Randy, but maybe not either way. Love the amazing. I feel like every episode
is kind of an episode about amazing randy in a way amazing
Yeah, very fun, but apparently he took up the offer and was like sure. I'll do that then cuz that's his whole shtick
He's like I actively try to prove frauds wrong and
When he said okay, I'll do it they gave him such a like absolutely insane set of conditions
He's like dude a faraday cage. He has to get super drunk and be naked.
And the camera has to be way far.
He was like, yeah, all right, no, I'm gonna fuck off.
Well, I think there too, I mean,
not saying that was ridiculous,
but we have on video how it was being done.
Like the research was being done.
I feel like just mimic what's on video.
Do it that way.
I mean, I think that's why he was like,
you're setting up, like let me just do what they did in the video and I think they tried to make it more yeah. Yeah
I'm like you don't have to be drunk like maybe that's like a little far but if you can mimic it.
That's part of the process maybe it does loosen up the inhibitions. I don't know. Maybe it does.
You're right. I'm not touch sorrows about this. I don't know why I asked. I don't know why I asked.
Obviously he also like apparently there was notations
of he groaned and he sighed a whole lot too.
I don't know how important that is to know,
but I found it entertaining.
He groaned and he sighed a lot?
Yeah, over his, yeah, during the testing
and the experimentation.
But over his time doing thoughtographs,
like I said, he created over 1,000 different photos.
And I'm gonna have, who wants to read this quote?
This is from Jule Eisenbud about what happened
when pictures were taken.
It's a short quote.
I got you.
I got you.
Good.
When he was hot, when he was in the groove, what happened was,
the first he started alternating whiteys and blackys.
Blackys is total obstruction of the light, no light. Whiteys is total overexposure,
which shouldn't have been. Then the pictures would start getting darker and darker and
darker and then it would start to imprint people or scenes.
Yep. And that's basically what he said. Basically, this is the long and short of how it went
down. But there was still, like I said, if you had doubt about the gizmo, there was a
second method that was used. While still absolutely shit-faced the whole time, Ted would be miles away from the researchers who were conducting these experiments but be on
the phone with them. And when Ted told them to, in that moment, they would snap a picture with
the Polaroid camera, which then ended up being pitch black, even though the room that they were
in taking photographs in was lit fine and there was no obstruction nor was there a gizmo in front of the camera.
Ted would continue making thoughtographs all the way from 1963 is when this really kind
of took started to 1967 when his final thoughtograph would be an incredibly clear image of curtains
and you could probably Google it and find it.
And while that might to some words like, oh no, that means it's curtains for him.
He's going to die.
Ted actually lived way longer.
He made it to 2007 before he passed away.
But he was never able, after that last image of curtains,
he was never able to produce thoughtographs after that one.
But that's not without trying.
There's actually videos of him and more modern videos and older age trying to do it
And it just wasn't happening. He couldn't do it doesn't even look like curtains the curtains photograph
I mean it if if you told me it was curtains, I would be like, oh, yeah
That's a picture of curtains
But like there's some airplanes some of the weird ones that were talked about
The two weird ones that I can remember anyway, and I couldn't find them digging through a thousand photos.
There's supposedly one where there's a picture
of like a Mounties station in Canada,
but the word Canadian is like spelled incorrectly.
Like the letters are all jumbled.
And there's supposedly another picture of an airplane
where their landing gear, whatever you call those things
at the bottom are swapped.
They're like mirrored and they're like wrong
or they're reversed or something.
Very kind of like bizarre.
There's also pictures of like Denver Hotel and stuff that you can see.
But yeah, this is a thousand photographs.
I'm also going to link this to Dean just so I have it.
And yeah, as for his, yeah.
And then when it came to like him being unable to produce anymore,
there's no single explanation he provided.
He goes as Siri, as he gained more attention. He also faced
increased scrutiny from skeptics and researchers who were
determined to debunk his claims. Maybe this with a
heightened awareness on his potential like trickery if he
truly was doing some shit was enough for him to be like got
to stop now or they're going to figure it out. It's very
possible. I mean, so look at these images, some of them are hyper clear.
Yes.
One marked federal building,
straight up just says federal building on it, right?
Some are clear shit, some are not.
Some are like a dreamlike middle ground.
And I'm really curious,
cause they have, if you click on it,
it says federal building.
I'm like, okay, so what, you know, what was the,
there's always information about the photograph, where it's from,
what it was taken on that kind of stuff.
But then there's nothing on here that says this is how it was produced.
Right? So this could be one of the ones where he was right there or the ones
who was far away. Like what was the, you know,
was he just drunk in a room and he smashed his head against the tube and then
this showed up? Yeah. I mean, that's all of them basically were headbutt ones,
except for like the one test where he was super far away,
but I don't know what images those are. Where was it? You know what I'm saying?
Yeah. Like, I don't know what,
what did you do the test outside of the federal building and they just took a
photo of like that kind of thing. Yeah, exactly. I don't, uh,
most of the photographs, the ones that were tested were taken in like a room,
like the one that was in the video. Yeah. like a room like the one that was in the video
Yeah, like all those the ones that are in the video
That's kind of how those were being done and they were getting supposedly getting images of things that were far away
Which is why skeptics have breakdowns of how the gizmo would work because they have video of how the tests are being done
so it has to be if it's if it's a
Con thing it has to be involved with his gizmo in some way or something that he's doing that is not obvious
When you're watching a video, there's got to be some kind of microfiche type something along those lines. Yeah, like I did
There's a there's like a photograph of like how people imagined it would work. Yeah. Yeah, there's something like along these
I'm also very interested in this one. That's like a drawing. Yeah, I don't know
I saw that I don't know what that's from off top of my head
I don't know one that's like a drawing? Yeah, I don't know. I saw that and I don't know what that's from off top of my head. I don't know if that was like why they drew it and like something he saw.
It says it was a tie building prediction that he made.
Yeah, there's the gizmo.
Like someone has like a kind of like a slice like what would it look like on the inside?
But basically all it's showing is that there's like a lens at the very front of it that's like concave.
And then further back would be the image.
I just feel like that would be obvious. It's bizarre. Regardless, it's a it definitely's like concave and then further back would be the image. I just feel like that would be obvious.
It's bizarre. Regardless, it's it definitely was like in 1967.
For whatever reason, it ended.
So it is a testament to like theatricality and like selling something like
this guy just fully committed to this stupid ass thing.
He get wasted so that he was acting weird and then he would like free lunch and shit. Yeah. And you did this like perfect ass thing. He'd get wasted so that he was acting weird. And then he would like-
He'd get free lunch and shit.
Yeah, and he did this like perfect little thing.
It's literally just like that Irish guy in that,
do you remember what I'm talking about?
There was like that Irish guy.
Yeah, it was that Irish guy that they like brought in
to like ask him about something.
And they were like making fun of him.
I forget what the episode was,
but they were like making fun of him because he was Irish.
It was definitely like a racist.
But the whole point was that they like made him sit
through this whole interview and like while he did he like ate like
Every piece of food and asked yeah, that was taught wheat that was brought up on this before yeah
Yeah, talk about that. Yeah, it's exactly the same thing as this except this guy just like never took the money and ran
He just kept he just kept going he just kept kept going cat
Just tried to see how far he could take it and then he and then I think the fact that the last one is curtains is like just too.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Cute. It is. Right.
Like that's what I'm saying, too.
Like I I, you know, as we wrap to the end of this,
as we are at the end of this, rather for me, I I think his is the most
entertaining story and of the two, the more convincing one.
But there it's like you can see how this would have gotten.
There's a movie here, you know?
Yeah, there's definitely a movie.
There's a movie.
But you can definitely see how he could have been fucking with them in like.
Sure. Like literally, yes.
Figuring it out.
Mm hmm. Yeah.
But that's it, boys.
That's the end of ghost photography or whatever.
I'm going to call this episode.
Those are the two most well known ghost photographers that have existed. And
it's just another one of those, another example of why it's so hard to fucking do anything
substantial in the world of the ghost realm, because evidence is impossible.
I, I, I want to challenge you on this. This episode inspired me to do an episode.
Okay.
I, there's a topic you brought up in this episode that I've wandered about for a
long time of the origins of it. I'm not going to get any deeper,
but I want to do an origins episode. They give it like Wolverine. I love it,
but I don't want to think about it like that as an X-Men fan.
I want to be excited about this,
but it's, I want to do an origins,
I want to do an origins of something and you've inspired me that's exciting it's ghost related even better
I love it well that's it for today's episode boys next week range for Harry
returns as we finish the story of range for Harry and Aaron returns for that and
that and that's how you could tell he's really into that story because wow
To come back for more
For more range for Harry I literally said it was like hey people loved if you ever want to come back and do more like happy to and he
Was like I would love to I'm like alright more range for Harry, but yeah, that'll be next week
We're gonna go do mini so right now for patreon.com slash children on pod where you can go support us
Thank you so much for listening. We love you on the pod where you can go support us thank you so much for listening we love you we appreciate you goodbye anyway me and my wife were sitting outside indulging on our
porch one night enjoying ourselves i needed to go to the bathroom so i stepped back inside and
after a few moments i hear my wife go holy shit get out of here so i quickly dash back outside
she's looking up at the sky in the fall.
I look up too, and there's a perfect line of dozen lights traveling across the sky. So Thanks for watching!