Endless Thread - Encore: Something Wicked

Episode Date: January 3, 2019

"Our landlord isn't letting me talk to you, but it's important we do." This text was written on one of several creepy post-it notes that mysteriously appeared in Redditor u/RBradbury1920's apartment. Who wrote them? Why? And how were they getting there? We get to the bottom of this famous Reddit mystery...

Support for endless thread comes from MathWorks, creator of MATLAB and Simulink Software, to design and develop engineered systems, accelerating the pace of discovery in engineering and science. Learn more at Mathworks.com. Support for WBUR comes from Is Business Broken, a podcast from the Mayrotra Institute at Boston University that explores questions like, why is innovation in healthcare so hard? Is ESG just greenwashing? of course, is business broken? Listen, wherever you get your podcasts. Produced by the I-Lap at WBUR, Boston. Happy New Year, trusty endless thread listeners. Hope you've all done some nice, wholesome celebrating, and now you're moving from 2018 hangovers to bright 2019 outlooks. Emory and I are getting our 2019 ducks in a row. So today, we are going to share with you one of our favorite episodes from last year. It's about one of the most famous Reddit mysteries of all time, and it involves creepy post-it notes, an iffy landlord,

and a random Redditor who saved the day. Take a listen. We'll be back with you next week. We are in our studio, and we don't know who's calling who. Okay. Well, are we rolling? Turns out Ken Roach is calling us. Ken Roach is from Seattle.

He's an engineer, and Ken lives on a houseboat. Or really, it's called a live-a-board. This is an important fact to know in our story today. It is also the reason that Ken gets to tell stories about his life that are related to the movie that haunts pretty much anyone who grew up near Seattle, sleepless in Seattle. There was a Korean tourist guide that purported to show people coming from Korea where the sleepless in Seattle Houseboat was, but they gave my address instead.

So I horribly disappointed dozens of Korean tourists. Okay, he may have disappointed some tourists, but on Reddit, Ken Roach saved someone's life. We think. Ken Roach, username Kakarlak, is part of a now-famous mystery on Reddit that we're about to try to solve. And when I say we, I mean, Amory. Ben. Josh. Amory.

Josh. Ben. Josh? Ben. Okay, this is the perfect time to say that this week, Amory and I have some help telling our story from fellow WBUR producer, Josh Swartz. Josh, if I were going to say, you. had a beat at least this week. I want to say your beat would be like the no beat. This is definitely true.

And you're somewhat new to Reddit, but you really dove into this story, and I feel like this is an example of some of the best stuff that Reddit really has to offer. Definitely. This is top shelf material, which is to say it is an insane original post by a now-famous Redditor. And a kind of insane response from our friend Ken, whose response to the original post is so amazing and maybe accurate that it launched a consistent conspiracy theory. Or maybe a couple of conspiracy theories. And there's also some poison in this episode. Yay, poison. Yay, poison. Also, puns from the Reddit comments. So good. Josh, can we get the basics or some of the original Reddit posters comment?

So I think the first thing you have to know about this story is that this person, R. Bradbury, 1920, wrote a post that begins like this. On the 15th of April, I found a yellow post-it note in a handwriting that wasn't mine. on a desk reminding me of some errands I had to do, but told literally nobody about. While odd, I chalked it up to something I did in my sleep, thinking maybe in my half-awake state, I scrawled it so it didn't appear to be my handwriting. I threw it out and thought little of it.

This is happening apparently in Massachusetts, right? Like, where we make this show, but as near as we can tell because it says like MA in the post? Yes. As a non-reddit expert, it would appear that this story takes place somewhere in Massachusetts. Okay. Which just made this creepier for me. Go on.

So this person, R. Bradbury, 1920, four days later, they find another post-it note in a similar spot, same handwriting as the previous note. Ugh. And this time the message on it says something like, make sure you saved your documents. Ah. So what would be the first thing you guys do in this situation? I would contact my landlord to see if anyone else could pop. possibly have the key to my apartment.

Yeah. I would get some TNT. I would put it throughout the apartment. I would blow it up. And run away. So this is how R. Bradbury actually responds. I was freaked out, but there were no other signs of a break-in. So I set up a webcam in my house aimed at my desk and used the security cam app for it to record after detecting movement. Okay. Because they're kind of...

I think at this point they're kind of scared that the landlord might be... Someone's creeping. Doing this because the landlord also has a key. So then they wake up and find another post-it note. This one, this is definitely the creepiest one, says, Our landlord isn't letting me talk to you, but it's important we do. Now I got the creepies again. I got the pins and needles.

I know this story already, basically. Yeah, it's paranormal activity. That's what it is. But so this person is like, oh, but I have a webcam. I'll be able to see who left it. I immediately checked the webcam's folder on my computer and found nothing from the night before. But my computer's recycling bin had been emptied,

which I'm certain I did not do recently, indicating someone had noticed the webcam and deleted the files. Serious problem. Oh, no. This is not good. After that happened, they wake up another Post-it note. This time, not even inside the apartment. it's just on the outside of their door.

It's blank. Look down the hall. There are post-it notes on the front of all the doors on that floor of the apartment building. Our Bradbury, 1920, decided to post on Reddit. He posts, or they post, to the legal advice subreddit. Right. Which is where people go for legal advice.

Legal advice, yes. And the headline to this post says something like, my landlord is stalking me. Do I have any legal recourse here? I have no proof except for the post-its, but those are written by my pen and on my post-it notes, so conceivably I could have faked them. Would contacting the police get me into any trouble

if they can't determine an outside source for this? I just want to make sure I'm not wasting anyone's time. Should I consult my landlord? Those also living in the complex? I pulled up a letter I received from my landlord back when I moved in, and the handwriting is identical. Could this count as evidence? All right. I guess this is where we should say that the three of us kind of know how this plays out, right? Like, we should admit that.

I just want to say that I did not know this much detail about it. Like, I have a sense of where this is going, but you just strung us along beautifully. Well, the reason this is such... Terrible. Creep-crepally. I mean, the reason this is such a juicy story is because there is actually an answer. And it is pretty satisfying. Okay, Ben, what do we call in this one? Maybe something wicked, which refers to that very creepy Reddit post, but also, well, don't worry. You'll find out.

I'm Ben Brock Johnson, and this is Endless Thread, a show featuring stories found in the vast ecosystem of online communities called Reddit. I'm here this week with producers Amory Sievertson and Josh Swartz, and we are coming to you from WBUR, Boston's NPR station. Okay, so we have this weird story from this Redditor. are Bradbury in 1920, and they don't know what is going on with these weird notes in their house. They think it's the landlord, but there were a couple of other theories. Josh, one of those theories which was suggested in the original post itself is sleepwalking because people can get real weird when they're sleepwalking. True.

And since this was one of the primary theories, at least in the beginning, I called someone who could verify or debunk this idea. His name is Tom Scammel, and he's one of the directors at the Sleep Clinic, which is part of Boston's Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center. I think in some ways what people do when they're sleepwalking is a little bit like what you could imagine somebody doing if they're really, really drunk. You know, they're blundering around, kind of doing stuff

but not doing it well. All right, I don't hear anything in there about forgetting, though. Well, no, though that does happen. But there's a bigger issue with this theory, according to Tom Scamel. He looked at this post carefully, and he pointed out something that made it hard to argue that this was a case of sleepwalking. The thing that I find strange about it is that writing would be an unusual thing to happen

because writing is a very high-level cognitive function, and to see fully formed and sort of good-looking sentences, like our landlord isn't letting me talk to you, but it's important we do. He said it wasn't impossible for this to be sleepwalking, but as an expert reading a post about something super weird on the internet, just didn't think it held water. Fair enough, so we can set that theory aside for now. Which is why, you guys, we need to get back to our man Ken here.

Yeah, let's talk about Ken. Ken is really the center of our story. And Ken responded to that original commenter and got famous on Reddit for his response. And I feel like all the information we've gotten about Ken immediately kind of established him as an interesting character. I'm an engineer. I built control systems for industrial machinery. We mostly supply equipment for Boeing. So he basically helps build planes, but he lives on a boat in Seattle with his wife and a dog.

I tell people you can learn what it's like to live aboard just by moving into your bathroom for a month because it's going to be cold and there's going to be a lot of condensation and it'll be really cramped. And, you know, all your clothes are going to get ruined by mildew. but you know I slide back the the hatch and pop out and I'm looking at Lake Union and the Space Needle and man there's just a smile on my face every day when I when I get up down there even in mid-January even in mid-January I was up late browsing Reddit as one does and I like the legal advice subreddit you know it must have been 9 or 10 p.m. And up comes this thread where this guy is asking a question about a landlord-tenant law.

What was your initial reaction when you first read this post? Legal advice attracts a lot of folks who have emergent mental illness, actually. There's a lot of posts you've probably seen where people are asking, how do I get this FBI tracking bug out of my arm? Or what do I do because people are following me? And if you look at their posting history, it's very clear that sometimes they're posting about their history or their medications, or it's obvious that they're undergoing some kind of hallucination. But this person, I browsed through their posting history, and there wasn't anything like that. But one thing there was was a post where they were asking an interior design subreddit

about how to fit a desk and a bed into a really, really narrow apartment that they were moving into, that didn't have any windows. And it turns out they hadn't actually moved into that apartment yet. Right. But that got me thinking about, gosh, an apartment in Boston with no windows. Yeah, of course they're hallucinating. Their landlord is not coming in and writing notes. but why are they hallucinating?

And here is where the boat part of Ken's story becomes relevant, because part of Ken's experience as a lifelong sailor plays into why he responded to this mysterious person in Massachusetts. Right. Sailors like to tell each other warning stories about what can happen if you're not careful, sort of tales of the open water that scare you into making sure you don't forget something or screw something up. People are in the abstract afraid of dying.

They're in the concrete, afraid of dying. of being naked, confused, and covered in poop. By the way, this did not happen to Ken. It happened to this other sailor at one of the yacht clubs that Ken belonged to. Apparently, the guy was out sailing on a calm day, passed out, and woke up miles away in Falls Creek near Vancouver, naked, confused, and covered in poop. And that sailor's story happened for the exact same reason that Ken one night almost inadvertently killed himself, his wife, and his dog on their boat.

I'd made dinner and, you know, my wife and I had shared a bottle of wine. And I remember thinking, gosh, you know, I'm really over hot, but it's really cold outside. I opened up a little hatch in the forward sleeping berth of the boat. And that bit of ventilation and the fact that we ran out of propane shortly compensated for the fact that I was still running the stove and had forgotten about it. Wow. And so it just popped up when I was thinking about this person's post. Yeah, so can you read your comment on Bradbury's original post out loud so listeners can hear it? Can you just read your comment to us?

What I replied was, you seem sincere, and this doesn't appear to be the plot of a Ray Bradbury short story. It's possible that your landlord is leaving notes inside your apartment, but they don't make any sense in the context you're describing them. It's likely that you're writing the notes yourself, but you are forgetting. Is there a chance you're not getting enough ventilation when you sleep, where there is a carbon monoxide leak in the building? A cheap CO detector, which you should have anyway, is a fast way to find out. You'll also have really bad headaches. So, Josh, Ken posts this comment, then what happens?

Well, our Bradbury starts posting in all the comments on the post, and they say they are actually having headaches, just like Ken suggests, and then they say they've plugged in a carbon monoxide detector, and it immediately reads 100 parts per million. 100 parts per million, which just from the sound of it seems dangerous. Super dangerous. Carbon monoxide is toxic to everyone at just 35 parts per million. And one of the other side effects of carbon monoxide is confusion and hallucinations. So they immediately left and went to stay somewhere else.

It's probably safe to say that can likely save this person's life. But there's something odd about this whole thing that we haven't really talked about yet, which is that we couldn't get our Bradbury to go. on the record with us about this story. Josh, you tried over and over. I did, and I did get a response, a personal message, but the message said, thanks, but I'd rather sit this one out. But carbon monoxide poisoning does seem like a legitimate explanation for this whole thing. And we know this because we talk to someone who loves talking about carbon monoxide as a deadly gas. In fact, she called it a wonderful poison.

I love her so much. Okay, wonderful poisons and conspiracies in a minute. At Radio Lab, we love nothing more than nerding out about science. Neuroscience, chemistry. But we do also like to get into other kinds of stories. Stories about policing or politics. Country music. Hockey. Sex.

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Deborah Blum, I'm director of the night science journalism program at MIT, and the author of The Poisonersand Book. Deborah's book tells the story of two scientists who invented forensic toxicology in the U.S. in the early 20th century. And her interest in the field comes from her own background as a cop reporter covering everything from homicides to fires. If you're a cop reporter, you are going to run into carbon monoxide all the time. If you think about what kills you in a fire, sometimes it's carbon monoxide, sometimes it's toxic chemicals. And even in this country today, there are an awful lot of people who are killed by carbon monoxide. Yeah, like, why do so many people still die from carbon monoxide? Why is this a thing?

Carbon dioxide is a wonderful poison from the homicidal or the efficiency point of view. It's odorless, it's tasteless, it's silent. A carbon dioxide leak is not going to give you any warnings of the fact that it's there. It doesn't go wishing out. It's a slow see. And so you see people, they have a furnace that went bad. They have a boat motor that's leaking. There's a car. or that they forgot to turn off in the garage even. How does carbon monoxide poisoning compare to other types of poisoning? Carbon monoxide at a very high dose is such a potent poison. When the carbon monoxide binds with the hemoglobin in your blood,

it's such a powerful chemical bond that it changes the color of your blood. And your blood will become much pinker, kind of a deep rosy pink. And so when people see the corpse of someone who's died of carbon monoxide poisoning, they'll always say that is one healthy-looking corpse. Wow. So it's like they're rosy-cheeked corpses. Yes, that's exactly right. And so every poison has its unique signature that way.

That's really one of the most notable ones of carbon monoxide is the change in the color of the blood. So we're talking to you, you know, as an expert on this topic, right? And the reason that we're doing that, which I know we've sort of, you have a sense of, is this story that appeared on Reddit of this person who was finding post-it notes that were mysterious in their home. And this random other person who had had carbon monoxide poisoning in the past sort of guessed that this other person might have carbon monoxide poisoning. So does it seem legit, as it were? I mean, does that sound like something that might happen to somebody who was having like a low to mid-level, carbon monoxide poisoning? It does because, again, when you go through kind of the mechanics of this,

you're talking about your brain, which needs oxygen to function fully and to stay sharp and alert and self-aware is being essentially starred by the carbon monoxide of an essential fuel. And I would add to that that if you saw other symptoms related to low-grade carbon monoxide poisoning, you know, I've had more headaches than usual. This person had headaches. Right. Every day when they woke up, apparently, they were having headaches. And that makes a lot of sense because when you are up and about,

you're not getting that same exposure that you would get when you were lying in bed with this steady drip of carbon monoxide into the air. So you would get a higher dose during the night. Now, you're a journalist and a science journalist, so I'm going to ask you to do something, which just give me your reaction to this. The story, as you understand it, does it sound like a plausible explanation that this is carbon monoxide poisoning? Does it sound like a probable explanation?

And I know that we are, we're sort of guessing here. It's a plausible theory for a real life event because, in fact, it ticks off a lot of the boxes of how carbon monoxide might work. So could you actually be right? notes and not know you were writing notes, I would say you could. I would say that's not the most common symptom, but I, that goes back to plausibility. Is it a plausible symptom? It absolutely is.

I mean, this is a pernicious poison, right? It alters the way your brain works. If it does that enough, it kills you, right? But I think we haven't somehow gotten the word out enough. are continually exposed to carbon monoxide still. We still get hundreds of deaths in the United States every year. I mean, hundreds. And despite all that, we never think it's going to be us.

If you were going to poison someone. My editor, a penguin told me never to tell anyone that. Oh, damn it. If I were to poison someone. So here's my best advice if you were suddenly. in a homicidal mood. Pick a poison that you can just get anywhere so no one can say,

why is that person mysteriously going out and acquiring arsenic? And pick a poison that mimics, you know, a lot of natural symptoms so that there's unlikely to be a tox test. I don't know if you have a partner, but I imagine that they're very nice to you. Well, my husband actually said to me,

he goes, if I die of poisoning, everyone's going to know who did it, right? Which is probably entirely true. He's not worried at all. Deborah Blum, thank you very much for talking with us. It's been a pleasure. Thank you for bringing this fascinating story here. Ben, are you planning a murder?

Yeah, what's going on over there? Look, guys, it's just important information to have, okay? And I guess that's a nice way to transition to the very last bit of all of this. This whole story, as strange as it is, might be too good to be true. It might be fake. Yeah, and there are a couple reasons for this. For one, our Bradbury 1920 won't talk to us.

And there are a few explanations for that. I mean, they said in one of their updates that they actually got a settlement from their landlord. Who didn't turn out to be an apartment creeper, but may have been the reason the apartment didn't have the proper detectors. And that settlement might have a clause in it that prevents our Bradbury 1920 from talking to, you know, people like us, because that landlord might still be a landlord.

But then there are the conspiracy theories, too. One, that the username itself is kind of a sly reference to carbon monoxide as a result of lots of forms of combustion. Combustion being, you know, a pretty key part of Ray Bradbury's book, Fahrenheit 451. Like, maybe this is a kind of very well-discized PSA for making sure you have a carbon monoxide detector in your house. We asked Deborah Blum about this connection.

I'm not all creeped off by the Ray Bradbury part of it. I mean, Ray Bradbury wrote some really interesting, troubling stories. I wasn't thinking just of Fahrenheit 4-5-1, but I was thinking of something wicked this way comes. And that would

be a very interesting title for a story like this, right? But Ray Bradbury's science was absolutely grounded. Paper really does burn at 451 degrees Fahrenheit. So I think if you could say nothing else, you'd say he'd love the story. Right. So Deborah doesn't smell a conspiracy. But what about Ken Roach, the guy who seemed very available to talk to us, but who also seemed to suggest details that we hadn't really found in some of our Reddit sifting. Yeah. Also, he says he's a Ray Bradbury fan. He's got

some of Bradbury's books in his boat up in the cabin where he almost died of carbon monoxide poisoning. It all seems almost too perfect. But we asked Ken straight up. How do we know that you and our Bradbury, 1920, aren't actually the same person? You know, good point. I never really thought about that as Fahrenheit 4-5-1 involving combustion. I understand they're doing a movie about it, another, or a new movie. I think Michael B. Jordan is in it, so I'm excited about that.

Are you part of the marketing team for the new movie that's coming at? No, but I saw it on R-slash movies yesterday. But how can you tell that this wasn't some great conspiracy that I was posting both sides of it? I suppose you can't. I like to think that if I was, there would be more drama. That, you know, there would be a first, second, and third act. There would be a hero's journey.

Instead, there's just me and this person out there with a poorly ventilated bedroom. There's a bunch of top comments that are funny. I just kind of want to get your reaction to them. Please. One of them is, sounds like you owe cackerlack big time. He may have just saved your life. Glad you figured it out. And then the reaction to that is, that's because he had adequate ventilation.

And then the reaction to that was enough to air it all out. But he just needed to vent. some. And then the reaction to that is, and this is where the Reddit part of Reddit comes in. It does, doesn't it? The continuous series of puns? It makes me wonder if the whole thing's populated by Canadians. I think we should go visit Ken and his wife and their dog on their boat. Like we could read some Ray Bradbury stories out loud by candlelight. Okay. I just got to make sure he turns off the stove. Wait, you guys don't want to wake up confused and naked and covered him.

poop. No, dude. You're on your own with that one. I'm all set. Good. All right. Well, friendly reminder, folks, install those carbon monoxide detectors. This episode of Endless Thread was paid for by the Coalition of Concerned Americans who are totally against carbon monoxide. Just kidding. Endless Thread is a production of WBUR, Boston's NPR station, in partnership with Reddit. Our show is a dream realized by Jessica Alpert, who, when we ask if she likes the episode, we've put together, she says.

W-T-F. Iris Adler is our executive producer, and she makes sure our stories meet the bar of... Mildly interesting. Mix and sound design by John Parati and Paul Vicus, who, whenever we go to record in the field with them, they remind us... Nature is...

Lit. Our web producer is Megan Kelly, who looks at our attempts at writing web copy and goes... Aw. Our intern is Chris Yulian, who when we put him on a task, he politely says... Hold my beer. This episode came together this week

with lots of help from Josh. Swartz, producer WBUR, who looks at our copy full of SAT words and says, Explain like I'm five. Our advisor is Michael Pope, and we slack him all the time to make sure he's not out of the loop. Our theme music is by Squelcher, thanks to Redditor MXLXTXV for our artwork this week. His artwork is titled Demon. You can find that piece in a bunch of other stuff at WBUR.org slash endless thread. We are also on Reddit.

Endless underscore thread is our username. And by the way, Redditors, if you want to make art for an upcoming episode, or give us a story tip. You can hit us up. You should know our show is produced by Amory Sievertson. I'm senior producer and host Ben Brock Johnson. I'll let myself out.