Chilluminati Podcast - Episode 269 - The Bell Witch Haunting Part 2 - Ol' Sugar Mouth

Episode Date: October 13, 2024

Mike, Alex and Jesse go into part 2 of the Bell Witch Haunting and deep dive the events of the haunting itself. Special thanks to our sponsors this episode - MERCH - http://www.theyetee.com/collections/chilluminati All you lovely people at Patreon! HTTP://PATREON.COM/CHILLUMINATIPOD Jesse Cox - http://www.youtube.com/jessecox Alex Faciane - http://www.youtube.com/user/superbeardbros Editor - DeanCutty http://www.twitter.com/deancutty Show art by - https://twitter.com/JetpackBraggin Sources - The Bell Witch: An American Haunting                 The Bell Witch in Myth and Memory: From Local Legend to International Folktale

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Hello, everybody. And welcome back to the Chulamati podcast, episode 269. As always, I'm one of your host, Mike Martin. Today, joined by the Dwight and Angela of L.A. Jesse and Alex. OTP. I got to say, I'm going to be real. I'm the Angela in this situation.

Really? Yeah. I get like, okay, if Dwight had taste, that's me. Because I'm just as mad as Dwight. I just like cooler shit. So I get away with it. You're better with your anger, though, you know? If Dwight had weed?

If Dwight had weed. Has Dwight had weed? That's not, they didn't, they didn't, the best, my favorite episode is when Dwight finds weed on the Yeah, yeah, he's trying to get somebody arrested and basically. Yeah, it's good. It's a good episode. Yeah, it's great.

All right. Well, yeah, I'll take that. I'll be Dwight multiple times, okay? I'm sorry. It's one of the few things I have a deep knowledge of. A deep knowledge on choice. I originally know. And then as time went on, yes.

God bless. I was forced. I had never seen the office. and I was like, the person I was, well, the person I'm with still, but dating was like, you have to watch the office. So we started watching the office. And then I started really liking the office after a couple seasons. And then it was by choice.

Welcome back to the Chulminati podcast, everybody. We're not an office breakdown podcast, but we will be when we run out of topics to cover here. That's what's next. That's what's right behind the paranormal shit is just an office breakdown podcast. Yep. Because by that point, all of the original cast members will be done with their various versions of office breakdown podcasts because there's one for everybody out there. And then it'll be a void for us to fill that we can jump in and take.

That's, look ahead. Long term. That's such specific, weird business plans. So, I would have said poor business plan. So presumptuous about what people are going to care about in the future.

Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I just kind of know. You just know. You just know. Yeah.

I do. So don't worry about it. I've got us covered. That's what we're doing after that. And then after that, friends, re-listen podcast. I would rather shut this whole thing down than get into like the will they won't they of Ross and Rachel. Don't care.

Do they care that? Don't care now. Nine seasons. Go through. Anyway, Alex, the way they can keep us away from that is what? The finest website ever made. Are you guys hearing these dogs that are going insane outside my house right now? It's so crazy.

Outside your house. Okay. Yeah. They're just revved up because they aren't on Patreon.com slash Chulamani Pod. That's what's going on here. Let me tell you because they don't, they just found out that because they're not on there, they don't get ad free episodes. They just found out they don't get a minisode after every episode.

Yeah. They found out they don't get that sick ass art every month from Mel. You know what I mean? They're pissed. They don't get the brand new show. Rotten popcorn just started. Tons of movies on there that aren't available for public consumption. Actually, it's mostly episodes of the X-Files, but still, there's more of those coming, too, because Mathis has never seen it.

Or as he likes to creepily say, every single time, he's an X-Files Virgin. Do I? So come on down to patreon.com slash Chiluminati pod for a rip-roaring old time. We're not anything but what you make us, folks. Remember that. That's very true. Remember that. He's correct.

Remember that. Remember that while we're going through part two of the bell witch haunting. Are your boys ready to jump back in? Yeah. This is one of the most, this is one of the most interesting stories because of how the, the vibe is with this person. The vibe with this person is so large and unbelievable that I have trouble believing,

like what is true, how crazy these stories are. It might as well be the gritch sometimes. The ghost bit doesn't seem to be connected with her at all. Yeah. So last week we did, our episode was very, much focused on the two main individuals that are involved john bell and kate bats old kate who would eventually be known as the uh oh yeah the bell witch the reason that this all took place we very much went into our history while i was going to have today be the final piece much many things ended up on this

show this actually be a part two of three we're going to go deeply into the haunting itself this week the very specifics of of a lot of the things and as we go along the reason i kind of decided to go with a part two of three is because as we start reading through these, there's going to be a lot of similarities to an episode we did a very, very long time ago. Jeff the Mungoose. And that'll become more clear as we go. But this is one of those things where the haunting and the entity itself,

taking as, taken as real, doesn't make a lot of logical sense as to it being like a demon or an actual ghost. And we'll get into it. So let's recap where we left off. We left off last week. This is a squeakle. This is crazy.

You're telling me this is a Jeff the Mongo squeakwell right now? A backdoor surprise squeakwell? It is. It's a backdoor surprise Jeff the Mongo squeakable part of my S7 series, part two of three. Make sure that there's a backdoor surprise Jeff the Mongo squeakable somewhere in the title of this episode. Backdoor surprise Jeff the Mongo Squeakable. You're going to be surprised in some of the similarities. You really are.

In context, it all makes sense. And yet it sounds insane. Right. Exactly. And I know exactly what you're saying. Yeah. So we left off last week with a reverend showing up, if you remember. Not the reverend from the small town that he lived in, but a reverend that there was a family friend from prior to them moving out from North Carolina to Tennessee. His name was Reverend James Johnson.

And he was close friends with the Bell family and spent a few nights there. Having experienced many different things, the knocking, the scratching, the loud sounds that were being the dragging chains, if you remember that. you know, when you guys asked why chains. Did you guys read the subreddit? You got answers. It feels like everybody feels like it's just Charles Dickens. Right. I mean, I think it was related to like either like the two answers that I saw were related

to slaves or related to like the spirit being chained down in that Dickensesque way to. Right. Right. Yeah. Symbolism. Exactly that. I love the speculation. I appreciate people engaging with culture in that way.

That's pretty. cool, man. Right. Yeah. And with the other parts of the haunting, Betsy Bell was getting slapped across the face. Her hair was being pulled. Her sheets were being ripped off of her bed in the middle of the night. And anytime the Reverend tried to pray this thing away, it would mock him, if you remember correctly. He would just like make fun of the prayers. We're going to get more into that, actually, this episode. Because the things it would do would just constantly taunt the Reverend. Things like saying like, why do you bother James? Your prayers will do no good.

Personal taunts directed at him. Like, James Johnson, do you really think you can stop me? You have no power here, James. And he would just be praying at it. And it would just sometimes mockingly just repeat the phrase back at him. And one of the things it would say was like, Is there any indication of what that could possibly have really been besides a ghost? Like, it's like only something that would happen if it was fake.

You know what I mean? Like it's like a thing that's made just. to like sound like a goat. It's just so funny to me. It's just so weird. And then in mix with the mocking would be more, uh, kind of ominous things when asked what it was.

Uh, Kate, uh, it would say, I am Kate and I have come to torment John Bell and to his death. Uh, another one would be, uh, what are you doing here?

And it responded, I will see John Bell dead and gone. That is my work. And then he would go, uh, say things like you are as powerless as they are preacher. Just consistent taunting of this particular, uh,

of James Johnson, this individual, uh, this reverend that made this journey out to try and deal with this spirit thing that was just kind of just constantly tormenting this family. Now, if you recall, he was, Johnson was there helping the family while he was at a front, because he was out of town and a friend to the Bell family. So when the Reverend had all this shit happened to him, he decided, fuck it.

You know what? Let's just tell the entire town. Let's get everybody involved. Let's let everybody know. And maybe with the power of like the. the group belief in God, a group prayer, we can actually like shove this thing off and then can move this thing. And this is how it almost becomes very, very public. Going back to what Alex was saying a little bit ago about like, what's the deal here? There's got to be something.

I did see a bunch of people on Reddit talking about how potentially there could have been like some abuse involved with what was gone in the household. But the way you just described it seems to me like there was a big public display against, you know, the church, right? And Bell had this whole problem with what this woman was doing. And it seems to me like a lot of people came together to put out some like, I don't know if lies the right word, but cause some drama around this woman and then went into town and said, hey, guys, there's a ghost and it's by this woman. Because they didn't like her, right? Like, that's what it seems like. Sure. That's, and that's absolutely how it seems, especially with last episode, how this whole fucking thing even begins in the first place with that

giant show in the church where she sat on the guy and was just like preaching nonsense at him as he was like suffocating under. Like, yeah, that's how it starts. And that's why I want to deeply dive into the haunting itself, because it very much veers away from Kate Bats and becomes its own thing where Kate Bats is not really a character in today's episode. She's not really. She's not really. around in this episode. And that's what makes it so fucking weird. Thank you so much to today's sponsor, HeroForge. And God, I was so excited when they told me you wanted to do some more sponsorships.

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got a Hero Forge pro subscription. That's the perfect way to keep your minis game just top notch. Check it out. Anyway, thank you, Hero Forge. I can just keep rambling about you forever. I appreciate you the sponsorship. Bye. And so with this Reverend, Reverend Johnson going out, letting the town know, maybe we can do

something about it. This would obviously, the local reverend would hear about it. And he was maybe a little bit annoyed that he wasn't the one that was called in. As he arrived as a very skeptic individual, the local reverend would, try to head over to the house and dismiss the events in the house as nothing more than a prank by Kate Bats. Now, last week, as I said, we talked about how John Bell believed Kate was sending over her slaves to bang and knock on the homestead to make all the sounds of the haunting that were

happening, which was kind of an absurd thought in and of itself. And the local reverend decided to take that idea and he went further with it saying, no, actually, the reason that the sheets are being pulled off of young Betsy Bell wasn't because of a spooky ghost was because Kate had instructed her slaves to come over to the house, climb to the top of the building, drill small holes in the ceiling so that they would then drop fishing line down, hook the bed sheets in the middle of the night, and yank them off of her in that way. And that's how that was happening. What? Okay. So. the faces you're making I was like you got to process that thought not a detective clearly this is someone craziest okay okay so he's telling this to who he's telling it to everyone he's telling

this to like this is what he's saying he's like that's how it's happening and I figured it out and everybody's like yes reverend well right uh he also had before we get to how they responded He also had an explanation for the slapping that Betsy was incurring. See, the small holes drilled in the ceiling were dual purpose. One, for the fishing line and two, for the pea shooters that they could fire through and hit Betsy in the face when she slept. What? This is a lot of work. Like, this is like when, like, this is like when, like, the serial killer, like, has, like a fake version of an app made that's, like, has different information on it or some shit like that.

That's just like so impossibly crazy. Yeah. Yeah. And so, but of course they're like, you know what? Maybe Reverend's right. So they went up onto the roof and fucking inspected the roof for holes and found none. There was no holes in the roof, no fishing line, no pea shooters. That shit wasn't happening.

And this went on, remember for years, it all started in 1817. However, in 1818, John Bell also began coming down with the mysterious. illness that we spoke about last week. The symptoms that showed up that began were minor, but noticeable for John. He would have occasionally occasional dizzy spells and spells of weakness where he couldn't like hold himself up alongside the occasional twitching and swelling of his tongue, making it very difficult for him to speak and swallow every so often. And that's kind of all just starting to begin in 1818.

1818 was also the year their youngest daughter and one of the focus points of the haunting itself turned 13 years old, which means obviously boys that she's an adult and it was time to start getting her courted and married to somebody in town. And they were two people who were very interested in being her future husband. The first was a man by the name of Richard Powell, who was? Let's play guess's age. How old do you think Richard Powell is? future husband potentially of of young 13 year old Betsy Bell 726. Okay, we got what 40 what Jesse? 46 46.

46 Alex, 726. We'll say 70 then. Yeah, sure, fine, yeah. That's works. Luckily younger than both of your guesses, but still not great at the age of 31 years old. So the opposite digits. Yes, very exactly.

I didn't even, I even notice that. Nice job. It's called numerology, baby. And you might be wondering how this man, Richard Powell 31, new Betsy Bell, well, of course, it's because it's a small town and he was her local school teacher. So that's good. Teacher having the hots for his 13 year old student. How did that go down?

So as the story goes, actually, funnily enough, apparently Richard Powell came over one day to speak with the mother. But Powell wasn't actually interested in pursuing the now. newly matured daughter, but it was the mother, Lucy Bell, who actually brought it up. As this, as it's told, he was simply there to discuss her education, her grades, you know, typical teacher, parent stuff. And it was Lucy Bell who brought up her romantic prospects, apparently saying, quote, I know you're sweet on my daughter.

I don't know. It's like the worst. I just can't, I can't imagine a mom saying that to a teacher. It's like, what was. All right. What did? This seems like one of those. All right.

I'm either getting rid of my kid or I'm getting something out of this deal. Like this doesn't seem this is like. I just think it's the at the time. 18 18. I mean, the time was that if, you know, you had a daughter,

you'd get like, all right, yeah, we'll marry him off to your family. And then I get in return. What? Nothing as far as the story goes. There's no.

I mean, as far as I understand. However, like I said, there was a second individual involved in this. Obviously, Richard Powell was interested when it was brought up, but her daughter was already being courted by a different young man, one way closer to her own age, but still not super great. A boy by the name of Joshua Gardner, who was 18 years old. And he was already kind of courting and flirting with Betsy now at this point.

And it seemed like the mother, from my angle and from what I've read, it just seemed like the mom was more interested in her being with an established like man as opposed to, like a boy in her eyes maybe. That was the vibe that was. Yeah. That's how it seemed. Yeah. You want to get a guy who's like has some sort of social standing and money and can take take care of you because it wasn't really about like what she wanted.

Yes. It was about like, look, you're his now. Deal with it. That's exactly correct. I really, that's how it was. But right as their conversations began about Betsy's romantic prospects, a sudden extremely loud scream from Betsy herself in her room was heard. And so the two of them leapt up, ran out from the kitchen and over to the Betsy's room

to see their door was shut and jammed at the bottom with bed sheets. Like it was like almost like forced to stay shut. But there wasn't much as. She was smoking weed in there. Yeah. That's what you see. I think that's still legal in 1818 actually, along with like opium and all kinds of crazy shit. Yeah.

So as they got to the door with a very minor struggle, they pushed. the door open. And it was Richard who was able to get the door open where he saw Betsy on her bed with both of her arms being held up, protecting her face. And that sort of like, no, she's like brought them up to her face to like protect her face from being slapped. But soon after, one of her arms was flung up to the side and a loud slap could be heard as Betsy was whacked by an invisible force like in front of the mother and in front of

Richard. Like as if a force overtook her, pulled her own arm out of the way. She was like invisibly her arm like flying up. And then they just heard up. She got slapped. Immediately following was a brief moment of silence, and then the sound of someone hocking up a really gross lugy, like deep in their chest,

just like, just like bodiless voice of someone just hawking up nastiness. And then all the candles suddenly went out, and the sound of some dude just kind of hawking up like phlegm continued on for a little bit before the polter guy supposedly ended it, by bursting out into laughter and then going completely silent for the rest of the night. It sounds like, it sounds like a drug hallucination. It sounds like they're like, like, there's like a mold in their house that's like going in

their fucking brains and tripping them out. Like they don't sound like, they sound like weird little like like, like, like weird hallucinations. You know what I mean? You just think like there's something in the water in the town is just like, aren't like low dose psilocybin and they're just fucking having like yes it's the one time I had a thing in me yeah I had to think in my toilet that told me I was never going to be the same again you know what I mean I did not have that when I was my bad trip was my legs melting into the floor

over and over again just saying it's not crazy that that that this guy like you know took a sip of water and was like oh shit whoa but the thing is and this is the next part it wasn't just their home it was at it was betsy it seemed to follow her um one of the other things that happened is one of the nights where she was spending the night at a family's friend's house like with her friend the haunting happened there in front of her whole this whole other family she got slapped in the middle of the night there was uh her sheets were pulled out she got yanked across the floor and like it seemed like the focus of this energy at least right now is very heavily on betsy and that like the post like that's what the journals and in one of the books were talking about

is this particular time where she went over to the friend's house and then all this happened. And you got to keep in mind, too, the whole town is now also convinced that this phenomenon is real, the Reverend went around town, letting people know, hoping that it would work out. And everybody in town, and this kind of goes back to your original point, Jesse, it's once they all were well aware of this and seeing it happen everywhere and it not ending, the town began to blame this phenomenon on Kate for the haunting. And this is really the origin where the poltergeist being called the bell witch haunting, old Kate, Kate Bats witch and other things kind of came from this town's understanding of all this happening. Officially also kind of like putting a name on this like weird phenomenon that happens.

And depending on like what aspect you come at this from, some of the more wooey aspects of like naming something can just anchor it further, can like give it more power in a way. And so them almost kind of like putting a name on this almost in the same way. that we kind of speculate how UFOs look the way they do because that's what we're expecting them to look like. They all start putting a name on this thing and it starts acting in a certain way. Maybe that's how it goes. That's again, more than more kind of the wooey side of things. But it's just an interesting like keep that thought in mind as we continue.

Because the whole town now was convinced this was real. And now the bells were running low on options. Two reverends had failed to remove this thing entirely. Nothing was working. And then John Bell thought, well, maybe they should just attempt to try and maybe directly communicate with this thing. If they could figure out what this thing wanted, then maybe just

maybe they could get it to leave. And up into this point, other than the mocking when the priests would like do their prayer, the spirit never actually like directly conversed with them. It was just sounds and weird shit happening and the slapping, but when the priest would pray, voices

would happen. Voices from where? Just like ethereal voices? And like, yeah, just like the voice of this thing responding. to them in mocking tones and mocking the river. So it wasn't coming out of the kid's mouth. No, no, it wasn't like an exorcist, like ventriloquist thing. This thing was happening like out of nowhere accordingly.

So it's like even weird, which is again, very Jeff the Mungoose-like, which is how he spoke was kind of like, you could only hear his voice unless he wanted you to see him. But he was like this disembodied voice from the walls and the ceiling almost always. Again, we'll get to more comparisons as this haunting continues. They're low on options now. The reverence failed. So fuck it, let's try to communicate with it. And so they went kind of the age old now.

We'll ask you a question. You reply and knocks. If you can see how that goes. And they asked very specific questions. The three questions that I read about were they asked the ghost, how many rooms the house had? And it knocked six times for six rooms, which was correct. How many hours from here to Port Royal?

And it knocked seven times for our seven hour journey, which was apparently correct time. And then my favorite. question and my least favorite question just favor because it's absurd to ask but least favor because it's so racist how many people did the bells own and it knocked nine times for the nine slaves that the bells owned so like that's the first communication directly back and forth outside of the reverend mocking uh mocking the mocking the reverence and at this point um Richard Powell uh the 31 year old interest in Betsy had also kind of inserted himself into this at this point he was dedicated to

figuring out why this was happening and to save his poor potential 13 year old girlfriend from this horrible spirit. And this is like the first like recorded ghost bro. And like where he he was like, fuck it. I'm going to try and talk to it in Latin or Greek because if it's a ghost or demon, they must all speak Latin or Greek. And not only am I going to ask it questions, I'm going to answer it and taunt it to fight me.

And that's what he tried to do. The birth of Zach Began's. His thought is like, if he can make it become physical, he'll be able to pin it down and beat it down or whatever. I don't like the thought process there. Pin it down. Yeah, it's like you can physically beat it up. Maybe to some people surprise, after he began trying to speak to it in Latin and Greek, this thing began to speak in return in a clear voice that everybody actually understood English. Him vocally attempting to communicate with it and taunt it seemed to allow it to speak or,

or gave it reason to speak. And so this is really where the speaking communication with this entity began. And this was all through 1818, a full year. After most of 1817, all of 1818, we now move into 1819. Now, mixed with the usual cacophony of noises the bells were used to, they also began hearing a new sound. Muffled whispers around the house of someone that they said sounded incredibly familiar. It started taking on the voice of Reverend Johnson, who was still at the house

trying to make this thing go away. And it was now beginning to- Are you sure they weren't just tripping balls, dude? I wish I could, maybe they were. This is- Like, this dude was slowly getting sick, right? No, no, Reverend Johnson is not. No, no, John Bell. Yes, he's slowly getting sick, yep. And he's like the main witness. He's like the main witness of everything, right? John Bell? No, this is happening to everybody who's in the home and hold on to that thought because it gets even crazier as to how many people start experiencing this shit. So yeah, they begin to hear the whispering voice of Reverend Johnson.

And moreover, the occasional mocking of the Reverend became much more prominent. The spirit also had come up with a nickname for the Reverend when he went about his prayers attempting to remove the spirit. And the nickname for him was old sugar mouth. I knew you'd fucking. Not expected. I don't expect it. Oh, sugar mouth.

Oh, sugar mouth. Caught me off guard. Why did you say it like that? In his name was, Oh, sugar mouth. That sounds like something I would call my wife of 20 years.

That's like, that's like, that's like, that's like off the head, off the dome D&D pull from Jesse. Dude, old sugar mouth. I was like,

so the, this spirit now mocking, the reverend, during his sermons, he would, sometimes the spear would say, well, well, look who's here. Old Sugarmouth himself. Oh, Sugar mouth. Like, carried, like, taunting, like a taunting meaning. It would also often give sarcastic flattery saying things like sugar mouth.

Your prayers are as sweet as honey, but they don't do a look of good here. This thing is amazing. You sound like rogue from the X-Men right now. That's how it is. I just, old sugar-mouth. How do you say old, you're going to go old sugar-mouth? Because how do you say old sugar mouth without that? It reminds me.

It's Tennessee. No, you're totally, Mathis, you're totally right. I remember years ago. This is like 25 years at this point. But WPN, whatever the Chicago-based television network that used to exist, they one time, we're doing like a late-night movie marathon. And the movie, I'm going to get you sucker came on. But the announcer goes, next up, I'm going to get you sucker. Keep thinking about that.

He was the same thing here like, old sugar mouth. Perfect. You have to say it with the twang or you just don't say it at all. Yeah, got to have a little flavor in there or else it does not work. Old sugar mouth. Why don't you sweet talk me some more? No, yeah. Another one was like as it would get his exercise system to get more intense, it would start undermining him saying,

why don't you sweet talk me some all sugar mouth? I'm not going anywhere. Then it would begin to do what a lot of like, Poltergeist do, it started questioning his faith, being saying things like, go on, sugar mouth, say more your pretty words, but they're no match for me. And it's just that over and over and over. The mocking of Bible passages got even worse as at the ends of the reverence prayers, the disembodied voice would then recite the Lord's prayer itself, followed by saying, quote,

in a mocking tone, quote, demons, in the name of Jesus Christ, be silent and go out of this house forever. So it was just doing its own exorcisms. It was doing its own shit after the reverend was done. I was like, and you know, I'll, I'll close this out. That is so crazy, dude. Yeah. And when it, and when it said old sugar mouth and shit, it would take on a feminine voice.

It would become a female. Whose account is this? Like, who is this raconteur telling us this? Remember, these are like their journal page accounts and interviews with people, but the, it's also like decades and centuries. You tell me there's five. journals out there where they're like the ghost called the priest old sugar mouth so the answer is yes because this becomes very public like this becomes a place where we'll talk about but someone for

800 miles away comes down to check it out to check it out for a couple nights like that's like you'll see we'll get there just strange and interesting plant you've got there in the window that's why this is like one of the more interesting old hauntings because of how many witnesses to this thing there were like it's a the stories are everywhere but yeah it would it would mock its own it would do its own the Lord's prayer at the end it would then say that thing about

the you know getting out in the name Jesus's name before you know it would continue insulting taking on a feminine voice when it would insult the Reverend however they would the voice while now directly communicating with them when it was asked questions directly

it still responded in like vague mysterious non-answers like one night it was asked what it was in what it wanted and it answered, I'm a spirit of someone who was once happy, but hasn't been disturbed. According to other accounts, it said, I am a spirit.

I love this last Dubois character you've created. Yeah, so yeah, I guess. I am a spirit from everywhere. I've been disturbed. That's how it's how it's, I don't know what to tell you. It's what it is in my head. Then according to another, it said, I am a spirit from everywhere, heaven, hell, and earth.

Or one time, or the other one where it said, I was once very happy, but I have been disturbed and made unhappy. So, you know, non-answers, just like generic vageties that could just mean fucking anything. Do you feel like that means that it's like more likely like some guy? Like at Knott's Berry Farm, there used to be this prisoner who was like a guy who'd sit in a cell, but he was like a sculpture. He was like a resin guy, right? And he had like a dopey face and he had like a speaker inside him.

And he would talk to the people that were there. there. And so you'd send your kid to go talk to this guy and you'd go talk to this guy in a booth elsewhere. And you'd be like, it's their birthday. Their name is like Alex, you know, and he's turning 10 years old. And then this prisoner would be like, I heard it was your birthday today. You know? And I as the kid, am thinking to myself, holy shit, this thing is real somehow. I don't know. So in my, so my question is, is that what's going on here? Because the guy would like say vague things like, I'd be like, how did you get in jail? He'd be like, oh, you know, a I have stopped, like, because he doesn't want to commit anything,

because he doesn't want to get caught in like a lie. You know what I mean? I say for right now that, that applies, but that changes in a bit. You'll see. You'll see, like, I would say, no. I, if this is what's happening? No, it's not because it does start getting specific,

but in very bizarre ways. You'll see what I mean. I don't want to spoil it without before we get there. So after, but shortly after this thing started verbally responding to questions, after a few days, it suddenly just vanished. It just stopped interacting. It stopped slapping Betsy.

It stopped pulling. Like it stopped everything. All sounds just ceased for whatever reason. And it went away for months. It was gone. The family thought they were free. They thought they were done. That this thing was gone,

that they interacted with it and whatever reason decided to go. But months later, one night when Betsy had a friend staying over, Out of nowhere, Betsy had her, as she was laying down, her legs thrown into the air, while both of the shoes on her feet came flying off and flew up to the ceiling before bouncing down, while the two combs in her hair flew out from her hair and were thrown across the room. And no matter how hard she tried to open her mouth, an invisible force was pressing down so hard that all she could do is muffle and cry as she was trying to like get the invisible hand that was on her off of her. And this, and this began a brand new era of torture for poor young Betsy, as multiple sources claimed Betsy would from this point on start falling into the occasional quote unquote fit,

where she would faint, wake up, gasping for air before being pushed back down. Her eyes would roll back where you would only see the whites of her eyes. And she would begin rocking her head back and forth, desperate, like breathing, kind of irregularly. and they, before she would eventually come to. And this, they said, lasted on average, usually around 30 or so minutes. But for whatever reason, any time this happened after these fits came to an end, it seemed the poltergeist had gained some burst of energy and it would appear every single time afterward.

But unlike before when it would taunt and tease and torture, poor Betsy, this time, after drawing all that energy from Betsy, Betsy going through this, what seemed to be able to to be some sort of seizure, the poltergeist would arrive to rumor monger and gossip about the neighbors in town. We're in Jeff territory, baby. It's Jeff style. We're big Jeffy style now. This is Jeff style nonsense. It would talk about everybody in town who either skipped church, who in town were the alcoholics, who slept through their sermons, who beat their kids too much. And anyone that this spirit deemed was essentially lazy, whiling away, the hours doing nothing productive with their lives.

The phrase who beat their kids too much. Yeah, too much. Too much. Just a little too much. Just a little too much. Often this entity called people in town assholes and unironically claimed the values of living a full Christian life and praising Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior. As demons do.

So what happened? Like the person like who's responsible for this hoax is now like letting the like religious people use the mechanisms of them. the hoax? Yeah, like, I don't like at this point, like the theories are, are interesting because like, I don't know why it would do this, like, what the hoax would be like to just take it to God. Because there are stories of demons who also, you know, who supposedly also mock priests as they attempt to exercise them in prayer. Is it something, is this like a demon kind of doing its own thing and being like, see, I can do whatever I want. I can talk about God. Or is it like more along

the lines of what I think is like that trickster theory, this thing of like unknowable intelligence, that's just here and fucking around because it's enjoying torturing three-dimensional creatures or whatever like Jeff the Mongos. Mr. Mixo pliques, whatever. Yeah, yeah. That's Jeff the Mungus, right? The fact that it would call people in town assholes and then unironically, apparently claim the values of living Christian life is fucking hilarious. And the fact that it just ratted people out for the fun of it, super funny to me. I love that.

The ghost also utterly and thoroughly hated slaves. The poltergeist was wildly racist. so like more so than the bells and like the other people who owned slaves which is races you could get this thing apparently said words and shit to the slaves that even the family wouldn't dare say according to the stories i don't know why if he's a christian i feel like that's just not a very christian thing they uh so they were like so the bells were like you know what let's use this it hates the slaves let's bring the slaves to spend the night in the house and see if we could just drive off the ghost.

Genius. Because it hates the slaves so much. And that's what they brought the slaves in. And all that ended up being was apparently the slaves were just verbally tormented all night by the ghost and just like, you know, yelled at and all the noises still happened. And it didn't fucking work. At this point of the story, it had spread wildly. And instead of, you know, John Bell, instead of closing his doors and pushing people away, as it became the town kind of. John did the opposite.

He welcomed people into his home. He allowed folk to come toward the house, spend the night, investigate on their own, and so on. And before you say, oh, this is where he made money,

you're wrong. I wrote Jesse in the script. You're wrong, Jesse? You're no problem. Jesse in the script. Not only did John not charge a dime, he provided blankets and food for these people. He would cook for them.

According to him, the reason he did this was that he was, he didn't, he had a fear of appearing to profit off of his daughter and his family's misery. He didn't want people to think that he was making money off this. So he like spent money and like fed people and shit and allowed these people to come in. But I don't think it's an interesting way to kind of like handle it. If this is really going on. But isn't that exactly what the Jeff the Mungoose thing did? Remind me, Alex, did the family in the Jeff the Mungus when they allowed people in? Did they charge?

I can't remember. Yeah. I don't think so. I think you could just come by, but there was some sort of scam element to it at some point. I haven't seen the movie. Yeah, I haven't either.

We should see that for rotten popcorn. Yeah. One of these days. Brand new show. Check it out. I wonder. I feel like despite no money exchanging hands, in a world where you're feuding,

I wonder if the idea of being liked is more valuable than money. And that's, that's, you know, this is that the thought is twofold, uh, at least for me is one, I think is that, Jesse. This is a time where demons and all this other shit is stigmatizing wildly to the family. It could be very shameful if this is happening. And the thought is maybe, well, if more people come in and realize it and see it,

there's kind of this offloading of like shame. You're not hiding a secret. You're just opening the secret doors and allowing everybody to see it for what it is. And the other thought for John was maybe if I open my doors to anybody, somebody who can actually help will actually show up. Like, everybody's failed so far. So let's just,

let me just see who can get in here. Like a ghost expert? Like hellboy? Yeah, like a hellboy could show up. Exactly that. Like, maybe that would work.

And a lot like Jeff the Mungoose as we continue, as people showed up and spent time and interacting with this thing, individuals began to ask this creature about the origin of it. Like, where are you from? Why are you here? And depending on who asked, they would get entirely different answers.

Like the Joker in some way, where like, depending on who's asking, you just got a different story. And sometimes it would go as far as asking the person what they thought its origins might be. Being like, wait, what do you think my origins are?

Where do you think I come from? You tell me, you tell me where I come from. Taking like creative writing notes. Yeah, but like, you know, I put myself in that mindset of Jeff the Mungoose, like these weird fairy entities or whatever,

that are here just to like fuck around. And it's like, yeah, I feel like that'd be a question, be like, no, I want to hear your theory. What's the funny little meat puppet think I come from? Like, what's your small little brain like tell you I come from? Yeah, it's like very fay vibes. Very fay vibes. Absolutely. And all of this, of course, would inevitably attract another reverend of the house.

A third reverend to the bell home who has the best fucking name out of all of the reverend so far. This is a reverend James Gunn spelled the exact. the exact same way as the director. Just imagine James Cohn. But in a movie played by his brother. Yes, played by his brother. You're right, correct.

And when he arrived and began speaking with the spirit, he asked it not what are you, where did you come from? He asked, who were you? And this apparently like pleased the spirit. Because now the answer varies kind of source to source, but the general idea behind the answer is the same across the board. it answered, quote, I know exactly who I was. And you, Jim, are the only one who has ever asked me intelligent questions.

And so you deserve an honest reply. I was one of the first white men to explore the region. What? Yeah, that's what it told them. To explore the region? Yes. That's what I told him. Not that Southern woman voice anymore.

Now it's I was one of the first white men. That's what I am. Like, it's like, what? And it went on. The Bell Witch. Yeah, this is like saying this entity makes no sense the further you go. And it went on to say it even had proof, physical proof that it wasn't lying. It claimed that it had proof by saying it had buried a box of some gold in a piece of land.

It gave directions to a large rock that was south of the bell property where supposedly according to this thing, a box with some gold had been buried. now we're in time travel and computer lands too you know what i mean i know but it gets even create like gets even more insane there were some stipulations before it would tell you exactly where it would go the stipulations were that only three of the people could go uh richard betsy's like thirty-one-year-old husband potential to be her brother drewery if you remember that great name for last week. And and the Reverend old sugar mouth himself had to go. Those three were the ones had to go. And they were, they were sent on like a quest. Yes. This thing sent send them on a quest. And when they, the other part of the stipulation was when they found the gold, all of the gold had to be given to Betsy. That was a stipulation. And they all agreed. And the three of them went out to the location that the ghost went. Only three of them. They found. all the rules. And after some time, they found the supposed rock. And it became, uh,

it became a parent where they were sparked supposed to dig and they started digging. And after they kept digging and digging and digging after some time, it became apparent that there was no box and there was no gold. However, drury apparently was not simply ready to give up. And he began digging with his bare hands as he got deeper and deeper. But they never found anything. They got nothing. And when they returned home, sweaty, caked in mud after a long night of digging, the poltergeist broke out, tackling with laughter and began making fun of them for believing a word that it fucking said and loved the fact that they went out and spent hours digging it so much so that when they started asking questions, it just mocked them in reply, mocked their questions.

And this thing found it so goddamn funny that it kind of like, It became a regular story that the thing this, this entity would tell strangers that were coming to investigate the home, talking about how humiliating it must have been for them to be digging for so long. And that he actually begun dugging with his bare hands and, oh, my God, how fucking hilarious it is. It became part of our stand-up comedy routine kind of thing.

It's fucking insane. I just like, you see why I'm like, we got to do three episodes. We got to just really dig deep into the haunting here because it's nonsense. The hardest part for me to like grok, like to get my mind around is like what the vibe is around this house at all times. Like is it just like a fucking theme park at this point? Like are just people coming in and like taking pictures and shit just constantly or like what's the vibe? Yeah.

No. People are in and out spending the night. There are people that are there for like the thrill of it. You know that I mean, again, it's fucking 1818. What the fuck are you going to do with your life? This is entertainment. People go to interact with this thing. Here are the sounds.

They're the people that want to go and see if they can help them in like. exercise this thing or remove this thing, which, you know, fails. Then there are people who are just skeptics and want to go and prove that they're joking or it was all fake and they fail. It all reminded me of the Jeff the Mungoose episode because it's the same thing where they open the doors. They invite people in. And this thing just seems to mold itself to the individual having a grand fucking time doing it, asking insane shit because it would all, but also being like, this one isn't like Jeff the mongoose in that. I remember Jeff was sometimes helpful. He would like leave a rabbit for food.

This doesn't do any of that stuff. But everything else about it is very like just trickster. It's like a trickster. It's just here to fuck around with you until it gets bored. And then it leaves. This goes into that theoretical of like and if this thing, if Paltor guys feed off of like energy and stuff, if everybody expected the curse to be real when Kate Bats does it and it just kind of kind of comes to form just because it's just what people are expecting.

It starts being, you know, it starts responding to some people. saying it's a witch or saying it's a spirit of Cape Bats like it did earlier. It's just weird. It's just fucking bizarre. What became clear, however, as that time went on, this haunting did seem to mold itself to each individual, as we sort of saw with how it describes origin to each individual person. For example, those who showed up with the intent of purging it from the home usually got mocked, teased, made fun of.

The typical thing that happened to the Reverend seemed to happen to those others. However, those who showed up and were skeptical usually had the worst experience by far, having ear-piercing screeches, the screams of their loved ones at a distance that they could never reach, and hallucination so real that it supposedly sent some of them into a broken mindset running from the home in the middle of the night. Like, it hated skeptics, and I don't know why, but if I remember correctly, so did Jeff, right? like Jeff loathed skeptics in the they were the ones he was the one that they taunted the worst yeah he I was going to say I don't know if he loathed them but he was very just rude to them yeah this one seemed to really hate skeptics whatever this thing is and all this time over 18 18 and now most of 18 19 john is continuing to slowly slip into sickness and as the true target of the haunting was still firmly uh he was still very much the true target of the haunting if we're talking if we're

look at the suffering and the illness of this thing as part of this. But this attention of this house over this all these past couple years also draws the attention of a detective Williams from over 800 miles away that caught word of this and had a plan on heading out that way and disproving the entire fucking thing. This is like a reminds me of like a Jesse essentially in that it's like the point here is like there's got to be a logical explanation. there's got to be a reason all these things are happening and he wants to be the one to be able to put his like put the pin on it and i don't know if you want to like monetize off of it or what but it'd be a hell of a fucking resume to add if you're a detective to come out and solve the countrywide haunting that is like got everybody completely enamored with what's going that's but like that's what like professor layton would do that's not what a real detective would do that's like uh well maybe it's like a whimsical magical detective this is an 1820 detective because now we're moving to 1820 detective because now we're moving to 18 20 when this is happening.

Detective Williams was a skeptic and a professional investigator who traveled over 1,800 miles to investigate the claims of the Bellwitch haunting. And hearing about these events, basically from far away in little newspaper articles, I imagine, it's never really specified how he kind of heard about it. But he was desperate to put rational methods to debunk all of the stuff because he figured that all of these strange occurrences was easily explained by hidden trickery or exaggerations by the locals to make it much more exciting to like talk about. And so upon his arrival to the Bell Farm,

Detective Williams began a system, a systematic investigation of the home. He inspected the house, the outbuilding, surrounding farmland, looking for any possible evidence of trickery. He examined the structure of the house for hidden wires or mechanisms that could be used out of sight

that would be responsible for the knock, scratches, and moving objects. Like I imagine he was looking for like a little handle that like was tied up to some wire. wires inside the walls that would like rattle something on the inside or whatever. Your average like Wizard of Oz type set up or whatever, right? Yeah, yeah.

What do you know? You typically do in 1819, 1820. As he continued his investigations, Detective Williams did experience some very light haunting stuff, particularly he heard knocks and scratches on the walls on that first day. He didn't hear the dragging of the chains or anything. So to him, even hearing these things, he's like, well, that's fucking, that's nothing. He dismissed them as just noises as a result of either environmental factors or soon became what he is described as the family still like pulling tricks that he's not able to catch exactly. You know, to his credit, a settling house or what have you, absolutely possible, I think, to maybe explain some of maybe the more mundane sounds of the house, the knocks, the creeks and whatnot.

Especially if you're already primed to hear these things through the lens of I'm being haunted, anything could sound like a haunting at that point. However, it was at night when he went to bed that things kind of went fucking haywire. The bells themselves were woken up to the sounds of a thud followed by what sounded like slapping. They ran to the room, which was where the detective was staying. And as they opened the door, they saw the detective there staring back at them annoyed on the floor. Apparently, what had happened is he got yanked out of bed, pin his legs got. pinned down and a heavy force sat on to his chest and just like pinned him to the ground. He couldn't move and a voice apparently said to him as he got slapped the first time while

he's being pinned. You will never be the same. No, no. The voice is like again, that kind of silly like taunting. Tell me Mr. Detective, which the bells is sitting on top of you right now. Because he believed it was all the bells and now this thing is like invisible force. is sitting on him and the voice comes out of nowhere.

Yeah. And as soon as the door is opened, the force lifts off of him. And that's when he's looking angrily back over at the family. Apparently, just before the heavy force got lifted and before he could even answer the ghost question, the ghost also punched him in the face. What? Yeah. Yeah.

It slapped him, asked him the question before he could answer, punched him in the face. And then the door opened and it disappeared. So like, that's what was like, it didn't care about his answer. It just wanted to fucking hit him. It was being mean. So when the bells flung the door open, the detective looked no worse for wear physically, though he was on the floor looking confused and pissed off, seemingly still blaming the bells for whatever just happened.

But just then, that poltergeist voice came again and it said, don't go blaming them. Now go sit in that chair like a good boy. And maybe I won't knock off your head. What? What? Yeah, I know. I don't. Wait, to confirm.

Yeah. Hughes being assaulted. Yep. And then the door opens, assault stops. Yep. But then after the doors open, everyone heard. Everybody heard. Like, go sit in that corner.

All three of them heard. Go sit in the corner of sugar mouth. No, this is the detective. But yeah, like, it just taunted him. And apparently, he did. He sat in the chair because he just got his ass beat by an invisible ghost. And he waited wide awake until dawn. And as soon as the sun came up, he just quietly got up, got his things, called for his horse outside and left.

That is fucking crazy. It sounds like a good bit. We're just like, you know what? No. I'm good. I'm good. No. As he was apparently leaving the home, he was addressed by the bell witch one final time saying,

quote, you've come 800 miles, but you'll return with nothing. Tell him what you've seen, but they won't believe you either. Oh, I would have been like, you little bitch. Yeah, you know, you say, I'm put down like a little bitch. And that is where we'll pick up next week for the final episode in what gets it's silly now, but it gets dark as fuck moving forward as the focus moves from Betsy to almost John exclusively until John dies about three years later.

This is crazy to me because I thought for sure that you were going to tell me that this is about how like tall tales spread in the press. And it's like not. It's another Jeff the Mongo situation. Yeah. It's just like a bunch of people saw it. It's an insane story. But part of me feels like it still is that where it's very clear.

This is kind of like they went to the community and the community started talking about it. It became a thing rather than actually being real. But then again, everything that we're being told is it happened and no one saw it. I'm telling you it happened. But then every once in a while, it's like, everyone heard the voice. It's like, well, how? How's that happened? Unless they're all in on it. And it's there just to make Kate look bad.

Man, that's a, I mean, that's a dedicated five years, man, of like opening your doors and feeding people. I mean, she had, she had a whole multi-year revenge plot against them. It's true. It's true. So I guess what are you going to do when you have all the money in the world and then people forced to do the work for you? To me, the more I researched and get into, I guess. The more, the more I was putting the episode together, the more it felt like it was like, It really felt more akin to the Jeff the Munger situation than anything else in that.

It just seemed to like bubble forth at a time where also like this Kate character pissed off a family and only leaned on that energy. It's just weird if, you know, taking it is real. But it's the, the rumor mongering and all the weird like non-ghosty demon stuff, that's the part where I'm like, that's so Jeff. That's so Jeff. That's so Jeff. That's so Jeff. That's so Jeff. It's just so Jeff. It's just so Jeff. Yeah, but we'll wrap it up next week with the final part three of the Bell Witch haunting as we move further into spooky October. I'm very excited to continue.

Yeah. Thank you guys so much for listening. We'll have to do a minisota over at patreon.com slash Juleminati pod. We appreciate you. We love you. Goodbye. Anyway, me and my wife were sitting outside indulging on our porch one night and 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 here. So I quickly dashed back outside. She's looking up the sky. I look up too, and there's a perfect line of dozen lights traveling across the sky.