Haunted Cosmos - FERAL PEOPLE! (S6, E4)

Episode Date: December 24, 2025

Get ready for a wild ride as we tackle a genuinely complex and fascinating topic: feral people!What makes a man a man? What is the image of God? What is its essence? Can we lose it? These are questions that the stories in this episode may conjure in your mind. Join us was we talk about themJoin us at the New Christendom Press conference, The War for Normal, this June 11-14 in Ogden, Utah. https://www.newchristendompress.com/2026Love Haunted Cosmos? Get access to our exclusive show, The Dusty Tome, early ad-free access to main episodes and monthly AMA's with our co-host, Ben Garrett, by becoming a patron of the show: https://www.patreon.com/c/HauntedCosmosBuy the Haunted Cosmos book: https://www.newchristendompress.com/cosmos PS: It's also available as an audiobook!This episode is sponsored by: Gray Toad Tallow. Visit their website here and use COSMOS15 at checkout for 15% off your order. https://graytoadtallow.com/Indigo Sundries Soap Company - Go to http://indigosundriessoap.com and use code HAUNTEDCOSMOS for 10% off your whole order!Armored Republic: Making Tools of Liberty for the defense of every free man’s God-given rights - Text JOIN to 88027 or visit: https://www.ar500armor.com/ New Dominion Design Co. Visit their website here and learn more! http://newdominiondesignco.com/Get all your elderberry products from our friends at The King's Ridge Elderberries! Head to https://tkrfarm.com and use code BRIGHTHEARTH for 10% off!Jake Muller Adventures is an immersive, mysterious, and engaging audio drama. Use code "HAUNTED" to claim 10% off all digital downloads. https://www.jakemulleradventures.com/haunted Stonecrop Wealth Advisors! Go to this link to check out their special offers to Haunted Cosmos listeners today. https://stonecropadvisors.com/hauntedcosmosRose Solutions provides custom website design, website hosting, and website security. Visit Cosmoswebsites.comSupport the show

This episode is sponsored by Gray Toad Tad Tallow, pure and natural nourishment for all skin types. Tonight, we use more racially insensitive accents, and we explore the connection between isolation and men becoming like unto the beasts. There is the story of Italy, Rome, and all her triumphs. The mother wolf stretched out in the green grotto of Mars, twin boys at her dugs who hung there frisky, suckling without a fear as she with her lithe neck bent back stroking in each turn licked her wolfpups into shape with a mother's tongue. Virgil's Ineed, book 8, lines 742 to 747. If you haven't heard the story of Rome's founding myth, let me enlighten you.

Story goes that Mars, the god of war, visited one of the virgin attendants of his temple whose name was Rea Sylvia. The two conceived, and Rea bore two. twin boys whom she named Romulus and Remus. They were born in Albalonga under the reign of the ancient king, Numitor. This king, seeing their divine parentage, was threatened by the boys, and ordered they be exposed on the banks of the river Tiber. This was done, and Rea resigned herself to their deaths. But the boys did not die. Instead, a she-wolf found the twins, and moved to pity, nursed them until they were fully weaned.

Born of the god of war, raised by a wolf in the wild, and brought through adolescence by a shepherd outside the city walls, Romulus and Remus, but especially Romulus, went on to settle the seven hills of Rome. Their legendary story is immortalized in innumerable carvings and statues,

which depict the twin infants suckling at the wolf's breast. Mythic indeed. Or is it? Maybe not. What if I told you, that stories like this, stories purporting to be true stories, show up elsewhere in the strange tale of mankind's battle with the wilds. Welcome to this episode of Haunted Cosmos. It's going to be a,

let's just say, strange one. In the 1300s, the German region of Hess was troubled by strange tidings from its forested hills. In 1304, a farmer was walking the perimeter of his field early in the morning well before dawn. In the dim blue light, he was slow to notice a pack of wolves resting in the woods nearby. By chance, he stepped on a dry branch that cracked sharply beneath his weight, startling the wolves awake. With startled yelps, they burst from cover, scattering across the field's edge. Yet among them, the farmer saw something that struck him with horror and awe. At first, he thought it was a mangy, bald wolf. But as the creature bounded into the open, his eyes adjusted, and certainty replaced doubt. It was no wolf at all. But a boy running with the pack,

a human child. He told his neighbors of this bizarre sight, and soon the whole village was set on watch. Only days later, a hunting party discovered the boy in a cave, sheltered by the wolves as though he were one of their own. When the men drew near, the animals closed ranks around him, snarling in his defense. The boy himself shrank back in fear of his would-be rescuers. But when torches were lit, the wolves retreated. The child tried to escape with them, yet he was slower than his companions and was quickly caught. The hunters handled him gently, taking pains to keep him calm. They offered food, which he refused.

They tried to mount him on a horse, but he couldn't ride, choosing instead to trot on all fours beside them. Only water would he accept and that gratefully. Speech, of course, was totally beyond him. He was taken to the bishop and taught to live as a man, but the process was agonizingly slow. His lifelong habit was to walk and run like a dog, Though clumsy as a wolf, he still outran many grown men and could leap remarkable distances

in a single bound. His manners were dog-like as well. He groomed himself as canines do and loathed clothing, refusing it for many months. With time, however, he learned. Painful leg stints forced him upright, and though they tormented him for years, they trained him to stand and walk. He learned to speak and eventually grew into a relatively well-adjusted man of the region. As an adult, he often recounted his life with the wolves. He remembered nothing before then, believing his family had abandoned him young. His earliest memories were of she-wolves warming him through cold nights and of males sharing their kills from which he learned to feed. He spoke of a pit dug in the Paxe Borough where he rested when they traveled. Though he lived as a man, he confessed he often

missed his wolf family and sometimes longed to run back to them. Yet fear restrained him. Fear restrained him. Fear that they would not know him, and the grim knowledge that his pack was almost assuredly long dead. The folklorist, J. H. Hutton, records a similar tale from 1341. In this account, a boy between seven and twelve years old was found by the King's Guard and the Company of Wolves. Like the earlier child, he was brought before the landgrave, Prince Heinrich, and set to tutoring that he might relearn humanity. Yet this effort fared poorly. He hid beneath benches. snarled and snapped at his caretakers and refused all food. Again and again he attempted desperate escapes,

once leaping clear over the estate's wall in a single bound. At last, he seemed to relent and tried common food, but his body rejected it. Within months, he grew ill and died. In a final turn of Lupine strangeness, a third boy, already 12 years old, was found in 1344 by noblemen on holiday. He was discovered in a wolf's den,

though little else is known if his state at being found or of his adjustment afterward. What is known, however, is that this boy survived into manhood and lived to the remarkable age of 80. Far from mere curiosities, mere tales that raise questions about how many feral people may be hidden in the wilderness of the world, these stories also press us toward more transcendent concerns. They compel us to ask what it means to be human, to belong to the fellowship of mankind, and whether the unseen essence of man might be lost through habitual neglect or disuse. On one side stand the enlightened and purely secular thinkers, men like Rousseau, who argue for the noble savage, a vision of nature as unfallen, and who believe that unmoored from the legalism of man,

the world might yield an Edenic golden age of men like the beasts. From this vantage, the supposed rescuers in the Hesian stories were in truth kidnappers, cruel tyrants, who tore these boys from a life of ignorant bliss and the blessed entropy of nature, only to bind them with cursed chains like society, social norms, and moral law. Opposed to this, however, is the clear message of Scripture, that the ground has been cursed with man, Genesis 317, that his condition is one of discord and sin no matter his upbringing, Romans 1, 18 to 22, and that to be cut off from mankind, to live among beasts in the wild, is itself a curse to be avoided at all costs. Daniel 28 to 37. And yet the question lingers, what do we make of this phenomenon, however rare?

What should we perceive when faced with a human who appears inhuman? What visible qualities mark a person as truly a person? You might say that one of them is community. Humans are made to dwell with other people. Before sin into the world, God said, it is not good that the man should be alone. Of course, he said this before instituting the first marriage, but isn't marriage the microcosm of all community? Without marriages and without the children they bring forth, humanity quickly withers away and dies. So what happens when life is marked by community's antithesis?

Very little that is good. Isolation is as mysterious as it is pervasive. Whether it comes by accident, beyond one's control, or by deliberate choice, it always unfolds into drama of some kind. Perhaps it is the melancholy man who drives others away until he no longer even recognizes himself. Perhaps it is the free-spirited woman who ventures alone to find herself

while hiking across Europe, only to discover truths in her heart she would rather not face. Perhaps it is the prisoner locked in solitary confinement, guilty or innocent. Whatever the case, the result is nearly always the same. The isolated person is diminished.

And so the word is confirmed. It is not good that a man should be alone. Why else would solitary confinement endure as punishment. But since we live in a world infected by sin, we must reckon with what I will call, for lack of a better phrase, exceptions to the rule. What if someone flees into loneliness to escape a threat? What if they're forced into isolation effectively against their will? As we shall see, even when the reasons for hiding may be pitiable or justified, the result remains. Isolation diminishes the one who suffers it. In other words, to withdraw from the world while still living in it,

no matter the reasons, ought never to be the aspiration of the human heart. Isolation for its own sake is a fool's game. Isolation as a last resort is a victim's game. Isolation by abandonment or punishment is among the cruelest games of all. Yet, even with this knowledge, the question persists. What are we to do about it? In late spring of 1920, a group of villagers in West Bengal, India, were scouring the jungle for felled trees.

In time, they entered a section of forest, far more open than what they had searched in the days before. There was no deadfall. A quick survey of the relatively clear ground made that obvious, but there was something else of interest to behold, termite mounds. These structures built from termite saliva and dung can stretch nearly 100 feet in diameter and rise to heights of 12 or even 15 feet above ground.

Now the villagers of Bengal were no strangers to a mound or two. What made this patch of jungle remarkable were two things. First, the sheer number of mounds clustered together, and then second, the strange emptiness of them. Even upon close inspection, they confirmed it was no thriving termite community. It was more like a termite graveyard, or, at the very least, a ghost town abandoned by its tiny architects. As the men wandered among the earthen towers, one picked up a stone and hurled it at the base of a mound. The rock shattered part of the fragile structure, leaving a small hole. Curious, the man stepped closer to peer inside.

But halfway there, he froze. Eyes were staring out at him. He faltered, stunned at how any animal, whatever it might be, had gotten inside. Stranger still, the eyes kept peeking back at him, appearing, retreating, and appearing again. And then he noticed something even more unsettling. The eyes looked alarmingly human. They could not possibly be human, and yet they looked that way. Just then, another villager called to him.

Glancing over, he saw the others had moved on, continuing their hunt for timber. When he looked back at the mound, the eyes were gone. He hurried to rejoin the group, trying to shake off what he had seen, but later that day he told the others, the image of those uncanny eyes gnawed away at him, and he insisted they must return to find out what lurked inside of that mound,

but his comrades dismissed him at once. If he truly had seen eyes, they said, they must belong to some dangerous beast, or worse, to a malevolent spirit haunting the jungle, tempting him to his death. But the man couldn't let it go. He tried to put the matter aside, but his curiosity only grew sharper with each passing day. At last, after days of brooding, he raised the subject again. The initial response was the same. Let sleeping dogs lie and don't upset the spirits, but this time he really argued his case. Exactly what he said is lost to history, much like the man's name.

But whatever his words, they eventually persuaded 16 of his neighbors to join him. It had taken hours of talk around the fire, for apart from the threat of predator or spirit, there was also the practical matter. No one wished to lose a day's work indulging in one man's obsession.

Yet, his persistence went out. And at dawn the next morning, 17 men returned to the abandoned mounds. The man pointed out the hole he had made days before, and together they set to work with shovels. None dared break in directly at the exposed base. What if something dangerous actually was lying in wait? Instead, they spent hours digging around the mound's perimeter

until at last they were ready to break in its far underground edge. The man swung his shovel into the soil, breaking open a tunnel just wide enough for a youth to crawl through. But before the dust even settled, chaos erupted. Two wolves burst from the mound. The first, a male, bolted into the trees and vanished. He was never seen again. The second, a female, snarled fiercely, planting herself at the entrance to guard the home that they had violated. The men backed away, shovels raised. Some urged retreat. Others, remembering the man's claim that the eyes were not dog's eyes, burned with curiosity themselves.

So while several kept wary watch over the she-wolf, a few sprinted back to the village for bows and arrows. When they return, they dispatched the wolf quickly and dragged her body aside. The way was now clear. The man widened the tunnel and stooped to crawl inside. What he saw made his blood run cold. Huddled in the shadows of the mound were two small wolf pups and two human girls. One looked about eight years old, the other no more than two. These were the ghastly eyes that he had glimpsed days prior. The men took great care. They separated the pups from the girls, then released the animals into the jungle.

The man who had first seen the eyes coaxed the children very gently out, He took them into his own home, though he soon discovered that that task was harder than he would imagine. At first, he prepared a small palate on his floor. It was simple but comfortable. Yet the girls, mute and skittish, refused to enter the house. Instead, they curl together dog-like in a crude box beside the dwelling. Food was the next struggle. For days, they refused all nourishment save water.

They weakened, trembling with hunger, yet whenever the man drew near, they sprang away like frightened animals. He was torn between fear of driving them off to die and the dread of watching them starve under his own roof. Now, by this time, the British colonization of India had been underway for nearly a century. Missions and embassies, dotted even remote regions, and West Bengal was no exception. Hoping for guidance, the man called upon Reverend J.A. L. Singh, the Anglican missionary and parish bishop of Midnipur, who also oversaw an orphanage there. Singh came at once, eager to take the children. into the church's care. Later, Singh described the girls in his account to the statesman. He wrote that they were indeed feral, emaciated, covered with sores, barely clinging to life,

their eyes often rolled back like animals yawning or drinking, their nails had grown long and curved like talons. Singh loaded them into his bullet cart for the multi-day journey to the orphanage, and along the way he fed them milk-soaked rags, which they sucked and chewed on with difficulty. Once there, he discovered their craving for meat, but not cooked meat, raw flesh, chopped and bloody. They devour that with startling ferocity, with their eyes rolling backward, with their jaw snapping, and they snarled at anyone who would approach them, thinking that they might steal their food away. They even bit at nurses who were tending to their sores. Soon, the staff learned never to leave raw meat unattended, for the girls would find it and

they would consume it in a frenzy. Singh recorded other behaviors as well. well, their lack of language, their guttural grunts and cliques, their crouched, four-limbed posture, and their refusal of any human bedding. Instead, the elder would gather straw in her mouth and construct it into a rough nest which she would lay down on, and then, only then, the younger would climb on top of her and both would sleep peacefully. To shield them from ridicule, Singh kept the girls hidden from the townspeople and even from many in the orphanage. He hoped that over time they might be rehabilitated into order. womanhood, but the damage of wild living was deep. Their bodies were riddled with infections and

parasites. Their immune systems were very fragile. Seeing someone to the local doctor, whose treatments brought some improvement, the tragedy soon struck. After 18 months, the younger girl succumbed to her ailments. The older survived a little bit longer. Records last mentioned her in 1926, six years after her discovery. She was still alive then and improving, but beyond that, her fate is actually unknown. We can only hope that her remaining days brought her some kind of peace and some kind of joy.

Jingle bell, jingle bell. You did let me finish the instrumental intro. Oh, I'm sorry, I don't remember it. Ho, ho, ho. Guys. Welcome to this episode of haunted cosmos. Why do you sound India? I don't know, man.

Hello, welcome to this episode of Hundred Cars. A lot of Indians in this episode. There are. Actually, really just two. That's a lot. in the cold open. I mean, per capita. That's a lot.

Per capita of what we normally talk about. Hey, welcome to this episode of Haunted Cosmos. I am your host, Ben Garrett, joined as always by my friend and co-host, Brian Sobey. It's so good to be here. What a great introduction we just put together. And also, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas.

Yeah. As you can see, we're very festive here at Haunted Cosmos. We love Christmas. Absolutely. And we're just stoked to be here joining you on Christmas Eve, assuming this comes out on Christmas Eve. And hope that you guys can sit around the fire after your father has read a Christmas story.

And you can enjoy the nightmares that you then get on Christmas Eve from this episode. This total thematic perfection. Merry Christmas, feral people. Feral people. Merry Christmas to all of our feral listeners. Yes, yes. Now, I think we should say.

I want to get into some quick housekeeping before we start talking about this episode. First and foremost, if you want to join Patreon, join Patreon. A lot of benefits there. Do it. You get main shows. early and ad free if you join the top two tiers of patronage. And if you join any tier of patronage,

you get the weekly dusty tome, scripted, story-driven show hosted by me. And I would love for you to join me there. Yeah, absolutely. You're, you're, picture this, listener. You are settled in your chair at the end of this episode. You haven't had enough of haunted cosmos. And you've got your eggnog. You're gnaugged up. And you think like, man, I wish I had a story where it somehow combined a soliloquy on the nature of being with a story of werewolves, which is a common experience that people have. Have we got the show for you? We got a good news for you.

Because look, it takes a lot to keep haunted cosmos going. True. We got a lot of hands touching every single episode that we do here. We got Martina McBride. We got Evan S. Amy Lee. We got all of us here at New Christenum Press and haunted cosmos. Chip in a couple bucks a month and help us make this thing possible. And you know what? You actually gain access.

to versions of our shows that have the best parts, our ads, cut out. Yeah. I don't know why you'd want that. So the product is worse for you. Yeah. I'm kidding.

Hey, something else. We actually, we're actually past the halfway mark of this season. You know, as of this episode. So the season's going to come to a close sooner rather than later, which we're all sad about, of course.

Yeah. But don't threat because we're still going to have some great content for you guys in the off season. If you liked the graveyard shift that was in the off season previously, And who didn't? We're going to do the same thing this time.

And so if you have a story of high strangeness that you have experienced firsthand, we would love to hear about it. Send us your story. Is it Stories at Newchristinem Press? Stories at The Hauntedcosmos.com. Ah, sorry, I got that completely wrong. We'll put it up on the screen.

Stories at The Haunted Cosmos. Dot com. You can send us your story. It doesn't have to be a full scripted thing. It can be. It doesn't have to be. But if we really like the story and we're interested in it,

we're going to invite you to call into the show. We'll let you tell it. to all of the listeners, and then Brian and I will talk to you about it. We'll put up a life-sized doll of you in the chair. Really creepy. And then we'll put a phone in its face that you're calling into. Yes. Like probably something like that.

Yes, exactly. Yeah. Additionally, we have a conference coming up in June, New Christenum Press conference. You can see, we don't actually know the details of it as of the time of recording. So if you want to learn more about that conference and join us in Ogden for a great time, then you can find details in the description below. Yeah, it'll be at Newchristinempress.com. and it'll be like something like a conference link there at the top.

And right now is the best time to get tickets because the ticket prices go up as it gets closer to the event so that we can incentivize people that let us know if they're coming early so we can afford the massive amount of money it takes to put on a conference for over a thousand people. Yes. In Ogden, Utah. So we would love to have you.

We had so much fun at the last one. We're probably going to be running a Christmas special. I don't know that for sure. Yeah, almost for sure. Like it would be weird if we didn't. Everyone does. It'll be in the description. Fourth and forthmost, we are going to be doing a patron giveaway today.

So if you sign up for Patreon within 24 hours of this show dropping, if patron, Patreon, within 24 hours of this show dropping, you're going to get a special Christmas gift package from yours truly here at Honod Cosmos. Brian, will you tell them what might be in that? Just a couple different things that you can expect. You're going to be able to get ripped with Mount Athos, because we're going to send you some of their great protein and supplements in there. You want to know how you become the goat, you get goaded.

By taking goat protein. That's right. And that's what Mount Advo's does. Super clean ingredients. Great products. We love it. We use it. Indigo sundry soap company is going to be putting in some great indigo sundry soap.

Which if you are a feral person, one of our feral listeners, this is a great way to start rejoining society because you stink. Yes. And indigo sundry soap company will not only help you smell better, it will keep the wolf family that's trying to reclaim you into their pack away. we're going to have some great to to to tallow i understand yeah real quick for the for the feral listener let me put this in terms that you can understand now they get us that was that was truly now they get oh good uh yeah we're going to have some great to to comey is all about taking risk that's right and that was that risk paid all great to otallo we're going to have a book of ours i'm just going to move on there's going to be a lot of great stuff from our great sponsors remember our sponsors are

Christian businesses that do great work supporting Christian families and community. So you should support them all the time. Yeah. But this is even a great way, couple birds won stone. Yes. And speaking of sponsors. Before we get into the analysis of the cold open and future stories in this episode, we actually want to take a brief sponsor break. And if you skip it, you will become a feral person. So please don't. Hey, Ben. I just read that our great grandparents probably experimented with butter on their dry skin as a moisturizer. Is that why you look so radiant? Maybe it's grandma's butter recipe or maybe it's Grato Talo. Their Tallow products are 100% organic and naturally contain the good stuff your skin craves. No mystery there. So say Sayanara, Sammy, to

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and that you supported our great Christian business partners. But before we keep going and discuss, Ben, can you just give us like a recap? Because you wrote about an entire novel, about the nature of being, various feral people. Right. What happened in that cold open? And then let's talk about it.

Yeah, so the story begins, of course, with the myth of Romulus and Remus. Where else would you start? Yes. And again, if you haven't heard, Romulus and Remus, born to the god Mars, and they were nursed by a wolf is how the story goes. A she wolf. Yes, a she wolf. And I remember reading that for the first time thinking like, wow, what a imaginative idea. And then you dig into it

and you realize that some people claim that that is actually their life. And so there were three medieval stories that I had to dig deep on the internet to find, but did find them, original sources of Hessian boys within like a decade. Yeah, that was weird. Yeah, it was really actually... The 1300s were a time- a wolf people. Really bizarre. And how kind of those boys were raised by wolves, they had varying degrees of success and acclimating to normal human life. And then it kind of goes into this question of like, I mean at a very basic level, if you find a feral child raised by wolves, should you take the child away from the wolves? You know what I mean? Like is it, it seems like

a basic question. Is it right? Is it rescuing? Is it kidnapping? Depends on who you ask. If you ask the secular humanist, materialist, it's probably kidnapping. Why not? If you ask a Christian, it's definitely, and they're right. It's definitely a rescue mission. But it kind of does get into like, what is it to be a human being? What is the sensory markers of a human? And then what is kind of this unseen, like, can you lose your humanity by just being around animals only?

So we can get into that. But then we talked a little bit about a case from India. again, it was from like the 1920s, two girls, Kamala and Amala, and how they also were saved from living with wolves and had varying degrees of success. And one of them went on to run for president of the United States. I mean, didn't make it, but that's a pretty big jump. No, she stayed a dog.

Kamala Harris. You remember that Trump thing where they were at a rally and Trump was like, did someone bring their dog? And someone yells, Kamala. No, someone yells, Hillary. Oh. And Trump just starts life.

Anyway, very wholesome moment from the presidential campaign of 2016. Yeah. Like, politics is so, like, above it all. It's all about taking risks. It's all about taking risks. Yeah, you know what's funny to me, Ben, and very interesting, is that we actually have an example in the Bible of a literal, feral person. Yeah.

And how it's a curse. Take a minute. Take a minute, listener. Think if you know the story that we're talking about. I'll give you a hint. Give us the hint. Old Testament. Old Testament. Some people might think it's Legion. Not, no. Not quite.

This book of the Bible features the great story of Shadrach Nishak and Abednego. We're narrowing it in. Actually, we're very close to the chapter now. If you don't get it at this point. It happens in chapter four of this book. And it's the book of Daniel. Daniel. Daniel. What happens? The person's name rhymes with Snebba-Las-er. Snally Gastenezer.

It's Nebuchadnezzar. You remember when he's, he's on his palace roof and he's like, I'm so great. Everybody tells me. Everyone's saying it. Everybody says he's ascended above all. My empire's amazing. And then God's like, boom, you're an animal. Yeah.

And he literally, it's like, it's actually kind of ambiguous. Does he literally become a beast? Well, he like goes out. His hair grows long. His nails grow out. He lives like a beast. He eats like the grass. He's on all fours.

He's on all fours. for a 12 month. Yeah. For a year. Yeah. He goes out and God's just like, feral. Dude, I, God was so real for that. He was so real for that.

Nebuchadnezzar was also so real for repenting there. And then he was like chaved and cut his hair nails. What I really love about that story, by the way, like this is crazy to me. He was gone for 12 months, literally an animal. And then he comes back and they're like, great. You're fine. Our king is back. And they took care of him that whole time.

Yeah. They weren't like, should we get a new. They were like Nebuchadnezzar. I can't understand his commands, but he's still... Someone was like, if we do anything to him, when he comes back, we're screwed. Yeah, we're gonna be done so we take, we give him good feed, we good pasture. He's grass fed. He's a grass fed emperor.

Worst case scenario, we eat him. We eat him and we slaughter him at the end of it, you know, be in a worst case scenario. And so that is, that's actually crazy though. Because when you said we're sitting down, we're like, let's plan out this season of Hanuk cosmos. We got a lot of topics on the... the list. A lot of great topics. Yeah. And Ben's like, feral people. I was like, Ben, are you sure about this? We got a lot of great topics here. And Ben was like, did I stutter?

Farrell people is what we're talking about. I was like, all right, man. Like, what happened? What happened to you? And look, if you love this episode, it's all my idea. You need to let us know. If you hate it, Brian was all Ben's idea. No, Brian tried to talk me out of it. Okay. No, it's a great episode. This is a great episode. This is a great. episode and I don't care who says it because one thing it's going to do is right now what we're going to do is I want to discuss the image of God and the various theories concerning the image of God related to the fall of man. Yeah. Because this is actually a question that theologians have wrestled with since the fall, which is the question, what happens to the image of God

in man after the fall? Yeah, after the fall. What do people think about that? Yeah, so there's a lot of different views on that. From what I understand, okay? It's off top of our head. If you're Roman Catholic, yeah, I'm not like grocking this or anything. This is just trying to remember what I've read. If you're Roman Catholic, feel free to correct me in the comments. From what I understand, the Roman Catholics believe that Adam lost the super added gift of holiness, positive holiness, at the fall. And then at salvation, that super added gift is given back. And it's, it reaches its pinnacle when you actually are glorified in heaven. You have to like gain it back in purgatory. There's a lot of stuff that we disagree with, but that's essentially it.

Yeah. So there's the super added gift of grace. Now what that means for the Roman Catholic, this is kind of the reformed critique, if you will, of that view, is that the Roman Catholic believes that grace supersedes nature. So grace actually like undoes nature and is elevated now above it. Okay. And that's what happens. So when the super added gift is lost, man doesn't lose the image of God in terms of his intellect. Altogether. Yeah, altogether. Yeah, all together, which the reformed would very much agree with that. But he does lose the gift of grace that elevated him above nature. All right. And then he gets that back. The Lutherans believed that the image of God was completely lost at the fall. And so those who are unsaved and unregenerate are actually not image bears of God at

all. The reformed kind of walk a middle road between those two lines. The reforms say that the image of God in a narrow sense was lost in terms of positive righteousness and holiness before God. but in a broad sense, intellect, you know. His capacity for moral reasoning, his capacity to do acts of good, even. The likeness, yes. To do acts of civil good. Not acts of good that are untainted by sin,

but acts of still that can be rightly called good. Yes, acts of good, civil good between neighbors especially, but nothing that can appeal to God in a moral sense with any merit. That was lost. But at salvation, that is given back. That's why, you know, if you're a Calvinist, we always say like you're totally depraved. but once you're saved, you're not totally depraved anymore.

Grace restores nature. So you, what we're saying, total depravity is the doctrine. It's the concept that it's not that man is as depraved every moment all the time. Because that would be, like there'd be a lot more blood in this room right now. I would be murdering Ben. Ben would be murdering Martin.

And I would win. Martin would be saying very vulgar things. Like it'd be bad. But what it means is that every part of what it means to be human has been corrupted by sin, including the will, including his morals. social, sexual, psychological, his mind, his body, every aspect of what it means to be a person, a human being, has been touched and corrupted by sin.

So there's nothing that man does after the fall that isn't touched with sin. Yes. He doesn't always do the most evil thing, but he does carry around this corrupted nature with which he does evil in every part of what it means to be human. So in salvation, God restores the natural man. He restores the creational intent, the natural man, to what he was intended to be. And there's a progressive element of this in sanctification that will be finally completed in glorification. Yeah.

And then all vestige of the fall and sin will be effaced will be gone. And man will be perfectly glorified and immortal in his glorified resurrected body. This is why the reforms say that grace, instead of the Roman Catholic saying grace elevates nature. The reforms say grace restores nature. Grace restores nature. So man, when Adam was created in the garden, the Roman Catholics say he was given a super added gift over his nature of positive holiness. The reforms say, no, we actually disagree. We think that Adam, as he was naturally made by God, had that positive holiness and righteousness before God.

And grace restores what he had naturally. So grace restores nature as opposed to elevating it. Now, that's done in a juridical sense upon justification. Yes. Like when you are saved judicially before God, you are. are restored fully. Declared righteous by God. Yes.

And then it's practically worked out through sanctification and ultimately glorification. Now the question, as it pertains to this episode, the question really is, when does man, if he gives himself over,

whether on purpose or as a victim, if he is given over or gives himself over to being like the beasts, like the dumb beasts, when or does he ever lose the image of God?

Does he ever stop being man? Now, I think one thing that you could say to say, no, he doesn't stop being man, is actually Nebuchadnezzar. Yeah. Where that whole time, it was like a work of God. It was very outside the normal course of nature where he was cursing him with the specific thing, showing him what he was like, you know? Yeah.

Like you're being a beast by being this prideful tyrant. And then he restores him back to what he always was. I think, though, that you could also use the story of Nebuchadnezzar. to say, yes, there is a point where you could lose your manness, but perhaps not in a normal course of nature. Does that make sense? Yeah, I would say not only can a person go to a point where they have become bestial, but that whole peoples can. You see this in Titus, chapter one, verse 12. That's what I was looking up. When Paul quotes, I'll just read it. This is Titus 112. Paul's talking to Titus. Titus is basically like a bishop who's going to go to the island of Crete,

hundred mile long island with with the gospel and he's going to establish churches, raise up elders from it from amongst the Cretans and churches there on this island. The Cretans were known as a very wicked people. So Paul says in chapter 1 verse 12, one of the Cretans, a prophet of their own. He's citing like one of their own poets and prophets said, quote, Cretans are always liars, evil beasts, lazy glutton's. And then Paul says, this testimony is true. This is right. Therefore, rebuke them sharply that they may be sound in the faith, not devoting

themselves to Jewish myths and the commands of people who turn away from the truth. And he goes on to even later in the book, it's interesting because what he's doing is he's making a lawful generalization about the people group, the Cretans, because of their sinfulness and their intense sinfulness. For like centuries. A long time. Millennium. They have become like beasts. Yeah. And that's true generally. But has every individual given way to this? No, because Paul then goes, and he says, now find elders among the Cretans who were all the qualifications for elders. So the point being that not only can an individual like Nebuchadnezzar, and that was a supernatural even element of that, but people groups, peoples and people groups can become bestial by continued

stubborn hardness of heart, where they cast off that which separates us from beasts, which is we are dominion takers. We're to be rulers, God's vicegerence in the world, bringing order from the chaos, cultivating a garden in the wilderness. That's what man is supposed to do. When he rejects the worship of his God, he lowers himself to the plane of one governed by his brute instincts, by his base nature, nature red and tooth and claw. He becomes a murderer. He becomes a cannibal. He becomes a liar. He become sexually deviant, all of these different things. So however you enter the theological question of exactly where the line is of the image of God, all theologians, all Christian theologians and scripture agrees that man can become

bastial. Yeah, yeah. Now, that example, though, because Paul follows up that this testimony is true with therefore go and sharply rebate. It seems to indicate that there remains this unseen element that makes a man a man. Like it makes mankind, mankind, where you are able to reproduce after your own kind, even if you're a bestial people. Like, when they became bestial, whenever that was, in God's wisdom, they didn't just start reproducing in a way that made them animals. Like, they didn't start reproducing dogs or cattle or something like that.

They were still men. They were still men. And so there seems to be like a lingering unseen element inside, whether it's biological or something beyond that, that still. causes reproduction after their own kind. And so I think that in that case, it would still be unlawful to treat the Cretans as if they were dumb beasts. Right.

You know, like in your kind of civil relationship with them. But there's another scriptural example that I think just makes this issue a little bit more difficult or makes you be a little bit more thoughtful. And that is the eradication of the Canaanites when Joshua led Israel into the promised land because it's a very difficult passage multiple times in the Pentateuch and then in Joshua, God is telling people, telling his people not to spare any living thing among the Canaanites.

Men, women, children, elderly, everyone, get rid of them all because the sins of the Amarites is full at this point. God was patient for 400 years. 400 years. Now, what's interesting is that it doesn't give that same kind of like post script that Paul gives about sharply rebuking and trying to win them over and things like that, it actually seems to indicate that their humanity is totally lost. Yeah, there's one, there's at least a typological reason when you think about what does Israel, this holy nation of God going into the land,

what does it prefigure? Right. And it prefigures Christ, the true and better Joshua. They actually share the same name. Yeah. Jesus' name is the same name as Joshua. Yeah. So he's this savior who's going to bring his holy nation, which is the church, into the land, which is no longer just the land of Canaan, but the world. The whole world. Jesus says in the sermon on the mount, for example, that the meek will inherit the earth, no longer just the land of Canaan, but the whole earth. And now not just the sons of Abraham, where there were Gentiles who came in, but it was a

minority. Now all of the nations are going to turn and profess Christ, and there's going to be a great multitude from every tribe and tongue in nation. And as they go out there to make no peace with the kingdom of darkness and with sin, but to wage total and totalizing war on it, on the powers and principalities, subduing their gods, subduing the nations not through killing them, but through bringing them to the death of Christ, to die with Christ and to, there is a kind of death, but then they rise with Christ and they become the kingdom, the people, the holy nation, the royal priesthood, like Peter says, and that's

going to swallow up the whole earth. So there was an element of prefiguring and typological nature to this conquest, conquest of Canaan that there are reasons why nothing could be left because the kingdom of darkness typologically in analogy, there will be nothing remaining of its dominion by the time Christ is done. And nonetheless, it also took place historically. It did.

And here's the thing. It is genuinely difficult for us to wrestle with all of that. But the reason I'm bringing it up is to say, if we're saying like, oh, that's bad, it means that we're wrong. Right. God was actually right to command that. Yeah, God was just in all he commanded.

Yeah, both typologically and actually. And actually in history. And we're not saying that like we're going to have the answer right now. But I do think that actually this episode touches on a theme that should feed into how we think through. Potentially trying to understand the wisdom of God there. But the biggest thing that I really want to leave you with going forward in this episode is we touch on it in the cold open. But this idea of becoming like the beast, it includes isolation and includes closing. yourself fall from other image bearers of God, whether corporately or individually. And regardless

of how that happens, like with the two Indian girls, it was tragic. Like, they were probably abandoned, right? And they were a victim. They were the victim of someone else's sin. But it doesn't mean that it was good for them to be there and to be left there. Preserve them from the harmful effects. It lessened their life. How much more so if you intentionally remove yourself from the communion of mankind and willfully go and become like unto the beasts. That actually implicates you in a great sin. Yeah. And some of the next stories we're going to go into now from the Appalachian region of the U.S. get into some legend and folklore and maybe even modern evidence of the actual existence of people who have done this intentionally. Yeah. People who have gone out into the wild and become like

beasts and become like a sort of feral or wild man who sometimes only shows his face to do violence against civilization and then retreats back into the wilderness. So with that, Brian's going to take us into that story. June 14th, 1969, a Saturday in eastern Tennessee. At 4 p.m., Dennis Martin, his brother Douglas, and two friends were playing on the northeast edge of a field, just parallel to the Appalachian Trail's Anthony Creek Trailhead.

Their game took place just inside the tree line, bordering the Highland Meadow, known as Spence Field. The adults, including Dennis and Douglas' father, sat further south in the open grass. In the midst of their play, the boys hatched a plan to jump scare the grown-ups. They would sneak along the forest edge, crawl through the tall grass, and then leap out to startle their fathers. Whether by design or mistake, Douglas and the two other boys headed off at one direction while Dennis took the opposite path.

Evidently, he intended to surround the adults and heighten the prank. But their ruse was hardly as secretive as they believed. Spence Field is a wide, open clearing, where one can easily see from one end to the other. As the boys split and began their creeping advance, the adults noticed at once and joked among themselves about how to respond. Should they play along or feign ignorance? Dennis's father, Bill, chuckled as he watched Douglas and his friends clumsy army crawling through the grass. Then his eyes drifted until he spotted Dennis on the opposite at Flink. Bill laughed again. None of them could manage stealth. It was an art boys had yet to master. With warm amusement and affection for his sons, he turned back to the men beside him and resumed their

conversation. It was the last time Dennis Martin was ever seen. The search that followed remained the most extensive in the park's entire history. By its end, more than 1,400 people, including a detachment of green berets, had scoured nearly 60 square miles of brutal, unforgiving wilderness, yet virtually nothing was found. Regrettably, the official search was called off that September with no trace of Dennis. His fate remains a mystery to this day. The day after his appearance, a witness came forward with a chilling account. His testimony is why this tragedy continues to haunt.

Harold Key, another tourist spending his holiday in the smokies, had been hiking about five miles from Spence Field. Around 5 p.m. on the very day Dennis vanished, Key reported hearing a terrible shriek, a scream like a child in distress. He froze on the trail, scanning for danger. After a minute, he saw a disheveled, shaggy man burst onto the path and run swiftly up the trail ahead. The wild-looking figure, he said, carried something slung over his shoulder, a bundle of clothes, perhaps. But Key only caught sight of the man for a few seconds. Nothing more could be drawn from his testimony. For one reason or another, the Appalachian wilderness inspires some of the most horrific and macabre folklore in the world.

The mountains there are said to be old, perhaps the oldest on earth, ancient and dark. The shadows that saturate the forest floor feel thick and oppressive, almost alive. To the uninitiated, they are a suffocating threat, and one learns to face them with a boldness only after long hours spent beneath their can. When you mix this foreboding landscape with the deep well of lore carried by the first settlers, particularly in the South, the terrifying legends start to make sense. In medieval England, villagers kept wary eyes on the woods, always fearful of wild men, the woodwows who might dwell nearby. They carried this uneased with them across the Atlantic when they made their homes in the Appalachian foothills of North Carolina and Tennessee. From the very beginning of European settlement in the new world, mothers warned children and fathers cautioned wives about the dangerous folk hermits and feral families who live strange preternatural lives in the deepest recesses of the wilds.

And according to some, these warnings were not baseless. Where all myth finds its genesis in reality, and perhaps the feral people of Appalachia are a reality far too close to the myth for our comfort. In the late 18th century, during the budding years of the newly minted America, a doctor and three companions set out on a grueling trek through the wilderness of the Allegheny Mountains in Western Virginia. Having heard rumors of strange roots capable of curing myriad diseases, the doctor was resolute in his intention to scour the stifling forest until he found them. For days, the small party pressed through valleys, climbed steep ridge lines, and forwarded rivers in pursuit of the rumored elixir.

But after a week of searching, the doctor's hands were still empty. One morning, gazing up from the valley floor, he saw a bald peak high on the mountain above. Resolving within himself and convincing his men, he determined that they would climb it. If they found nothing there or along the way, they would turn back the next day. The ascent was no gentler than their previous marches, and the men's muscles shouted in rebellion at being pressed into further search. service. By mid-afternoon, however, they had reached the summit. At first glance, the bald seemed as barren as a desert. The acre or so of grass was so sparse that even the stones lay scattered

only here and there. The doctor walked its perimeter, searching for any sign of something worth the effort that they had expended. At the last, he discovered a narrow path leading deeper into the forest on the far side of the mountain. Clearly, man-made, it stirred his wonder. What sort of men could dwell in such a remote and hidden place. The group followed the trail. After a short descent along winding switchbacks, they came upon a sandstone cave, its mouth covered in strange markings. Believing they had stumbled upon a remote native outpost, the men bristled with alarm. But closer inspection revealed it to be the dwelling of a single occupant and one not prepared for war, for there were no weapons, no defenses, no signs of hostility at all. They waited until,

nightfall for the cave's resident to appear. At last, deep into the night, an old and haggard figure emerged as though roused from a day-long sleep. His hair hung wild and long, his beard equally untamed. His eyes were sharp and clear and undeniably wild. He was, to their shock, no native at all, but a man of apparent European stock. Indeed, he was Anglo, for he greeted them in clear, polished English. The doctor and his companions astonished, pressed him with every question one might ask. How long have you lived here? Why have you remained? The man, in exile, disgusted by society, claimed he had dwelt in that cave without human contact for nearly 60 years. Once their initial shock subsided, the doctor explained their quest for a root that could cure disease.

The hermit considered and shook his head. He knew of no such thing. But he added, he possessed something the doctor might yet find of interest, and he beckoned them inside. Within the cave, lit dimly by torches fixed to the walls, the doctor beheld dozens of hollowed stumps filled with animal corpses suspended in a strange fluid. The hermit explained he had discovered an embalming solution capable of preserving organic life perfectly and indefinitely. The doctor was astonished, and while he and the hermit spoke at length about its composition, and one of the companions wandered deeper into the cavern.

In the darkness beyond the torchlight, he found an animal skin draped across the deeper recesses of the cave. Pulling it aside, he recoiled. Before him stretched row upon row of stump fats, filling the widened chamber for some 30 yards, and these did not hold beasts, but human corpses, young and old, men and women, entire families preserved in grotesque stillness

by this inhuman recluse. The companion fled back to the others and confronted the hermit. The doctor stood frozen in horror at the revelation. The hermit, for his part, only shrugged, let out a laugh and said, oh yes, I collected those years ago. Okay, very interesting story. And what I really love is like just the mystique of Appalachia, where every time I think about feral people,

I think about the Appalachian wilderness. As a kid growing up there, I was always told, like, there's these cannibalistic tribes. There's all this stuff. Watch out. There's actually a crazy story that was in the missing 411 episode that we did quite a while ago now. I can't remember the girl's name. Yeah, remind us. But, man, I wish I could remember her name.

But I can't. Go listen to the missing 411 episode. But basically, she, like, inexplicably went off trail. She was running for, like, days. I remember this. Yes. Through the wilderness. Yes.

And she finally, she eventually was found. and she found like a service road with family and they took her in. And they were like, what happened? Like what I was like, I was being chased by what I, what like looked like people, but they weren't talking like people.

They weren't people. Yeah, and they were stalking me and all this stuff. So anyway, Appalachia crawling. It was Nebuchadnezzar. Appalach was crawling with Feralt. Time travel Nebuchadnezzar in the 12 month. No, do you remember the other story?

No. Missing 411. Kid goes missing. Okay, lock in here. Walk in with me. Kid goes missing. Swampy region. Big Man Hunt sets out.

They're all like looking for him. It's at least a 24 hour period through the night. They're looking for this kid. Finally, a searcher's like miles away from where he went missing. They go out. They come to the edge of a swamp. In the swamp, there's like an island, right? It's just a tree.

There's a tree in the swamp. And by the way, the kid is like four. The kid's four. They find him, first of all. and he says this big, large, hairy creature that walked up right took care of me.

Because he was dry. Took me in. He was dry. He could not have gotten at this point in the swamp. They couldn't figure out how he got there on his own steam. And he's dry.

And he says, so Bigfoot, feral person. Is Bigfoot a feral person? Is Ben's mom a feral bigfoot person? Is Brian's mom a feral fay? That would make Brian a member of the fay. And that would actually, give me lawful reason to kill him right now. On site. Here's the thing. I also theorize.

Theeralize. I theorize that if you took whatever creature that was, which was obviously some kind of benevolent one, it wanted to reenter humanity, it had a pang of guilt, and you washed it with Indigo sundry soap. Wait, which creature? The creature that saved the kid and took care of him. Not only would he become, all the hair would fall off, like he'd come back. He'd probably be one of those guys that does reels on Instagram talking about like business advice. Yeah. He'd become a pillar of society.

He'd probably become an influencer. His net worth, he'd be able to just like text a guy in his, in his network and get a quarter million wire with no questions asked. Because like if you can't do that, then you're basically worthless.

You're kind of worthless. And you should just remove yourself. And it all because of and from society. All because of end go sundry soap. Now let's talk a little bit more about these, these great tragedies. How about the way? Hey, how about the way that that story ends?

Okay. Where they... How did we bury the lead on that? No, but come out of this story and he's like, I've been collecting these for years. For years. I collected those years ago. But to our point earlier,

this guy, like, removed himself from the communion of men. Dude, yeah. And then he becomes, he thinks that he's like elevated above it all. Like, I'm above it all. Classic Gen X. He's probably a Gen X guy.

He's in the late 1800. Yeah, like, I'm above it. love it all. But he actually becomes less man by... He's preserving bodies and stumps. Right. Looking at humans as lab rats. Like he clearly killed him. Yeah. Dude, are all Virginians like this?

Sound off if you're from Virginia. Do you have a collection of human bodies preserved in your basement? I would be shocked if you didn't at this point, given that story. I, too, believe Virginians have probably lost the image of God. Okay. Actually, Virginia, a very noble comment. No, that's crazy. That's crazy. Also, I just want to say, totally happened. Yeah.

Like that whole story. Dude, you want to know where I found that? Where did you find that? Dude, I was like sleuthing. This is probably the most, this episode literally is probably the most sleuthing I've ever gone on one. Did you hike the Alleghenies? I didn't hike the Alleghenies. I've never been to the Alleghenies, actually.

He's leaving some on the field. I have been to Blacksburg, Virginia. Great place. Beautiful Hokie Stone. That's beside the point, though. I was on chat GPT. Okay. Started at the surface of the iceberg.

And I was like, give me some stories of Appalachian feral people. As one does. And it like mentioned this really weird, that story that I said, mentioned it. And I was like, okay,

what's the source for that? I went to the source wasn't there. So I started doing a word search on Google.com. Ancient technique. The ancients once told of a search engine. It was an engine which transmogrified your words into links and pages of information that you could sort through manually. It was insane. And I found this really obscure like blog post where this guy tells the story.

It was on like page two of Google, so you know it's deep. Dude, that is deep. Page two of Google. And well, hold on. And the source for it linked to a jStore.com picture of an old newspaper from the, 1800s that had the story right now. And I could still, you could still read it. Yeah, yeah. So you kind of did go, you were like Gandalf in the, in the lore dungeons of Gondor. I felt like Jason Bourne. Just ripping a heater. I felt like Jason Bourne with, you know, like shaky cam, born movies. He goes

into the internet cafe. And it's shaky cam. He types in one word in a search engine that's not even Google because it wasn't admitted yet. And he's like, do boop boop. But da da da da. Doot, do it's like what it. And there's just, and there's just noises. Ben looked at the newspaper and he's like, Enhance. So anyway, I'm. Evan, I want you to cut in real close to me when I say that.

Enhance. So anyway, that was Ben. The point is I'm basically Jason Bourne. But the, so that story is really good stepping stone, however, to kind of the progress of the episode. We're looking at like what happens when you become like a beast, but getting to the more common thread of what happens with isolation. And before we go there,

Dennis. Oh, dude, I forgot about Dennis. Yeah. Yeah, don't forget about Dennis. Never forget about Dennis. Dude, this is a crazy story. Because this one, this one's 100, someone like,

you get old newspapers. They either happened or they didn't. You don't know. But. No, they happen. Okay. But what's, this story is crazy because the testimony,

like the implication is that there really are wild men in the Appalachian Mountains that have gone back there and have been just existing and they occasionally come out and they like all of the widow's tales of don't just be careful in the woods because they might grab you if you ever hear your name no you didn't because they did a huge search in this area like not a trace no it's a missing 411 style story and tying it back to missing 411 yeah where did it happen great smoky mountains national park

over the mat every national park is over a massive cavern system appalachian region is riddled with caves. Yes, exactly. So this is a hollow earth time. Dude, this is a... Wow. All roads lead to feral people. All roads of high strangeness lead to the feral.

Okay? I think we can all agree on that. And when I say feral, I mean fayroll. They lead to the fay. No, Dennis Martin, real tragedy. So anyway, before we go into this next story, stay tuned for a brief word from our sponsors. Today we are observing a wild big point.

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island for a potential allied invasion by destroying its airstrip and harbor. In addition to this primary mission, Onoda and his small team of men were given leave to destroy any enemy air or marine craft that attempted any sort of landing at Lubang. He was ordered to neither surrender nor take his own life in the event of capture. It was a true diehard mission, and Onoda was honored to receive it. Unfortunately, Onoda encountered superiors on the island who didn't believe his orders were in the best interest of the empire. Thus, he was kept from sabotaging the airstrip and harbor. This ultimately led to Onoda witnessing the successful arrival of U.S. and Filipino forces in 1945. A brutal battle ensued, in which the Japanese forces were overrun by the allies.

Only Onoda and three companions were left who had not died or otherwise surrendered and this small band of brothers fled into the forest to evade capture and to use guerrilla tactics to thwart further allied success so far as they could. With all the bright and flashy headlines of World War II the commitment of the Japanese soldiers to their cause

can sometimes be overlooked but that would be a mistake. These four men fled into the wilderness to evade capture. yes, but just as important to them was the continuation of their mission. They were ready from the first hour to spend all the time necessary in those woods. They were ready to suffer and die of thirst or hunger in those woods before surrendering. And this commitment to death served them well, since it meant that they assumed no one would ever be coming to rescue them. They therefore got to work right away, building a small shelter, collecting water, and figuring out the food situation. In between ambushes on the Allied troops, Onoda and his clan stole rice and cattle for their primary food,

but they also ate pounds of bananas and coconuts each day for each man. It wasn't a luxury existence. There was no romance to it, but it was in accordance with their honor to do nothing else. For those first years, the group successfully escaped every attempt at U.S. or Filipino capture. All the while, they killed dozens of U.S. and Filipino soldiers, and upwards of 30 Filipino civilians in their small war of terror. Then in 1945, they woke up one morning to another group of Japanese holdouts that they had been completely unaware of.

This other group said nothing. Instead, their leader just held out a note with a message written in Filipino that said, The war ended on the 15th of August, come down from the mountains. This unknown group of soldiers believed it was true. Onoda and his group did not believe it was true. Thus the two parted ways, and they never saw one another again. By December of 1945, the Japanese army was dropping leaflets of surrender on Lubang. But even with a signature from General Yamashita himself, sealing each one,

Onoda believed it to be a ruse on the part of the Americans, and he did not yield. For nearly 10 years, the group continued their fight and their general disruption of the now otherwise peaceful island of Lubang. In that time, other attempts were made at persuading the men that the war had ended, but each attempt fell on deaf ears. In 1953, after one man of their team had already surrendered to Philippine forces, another man, Shemada, was killed during an ambush on a Filipino Army mountain unit. Only Onoda and Kozuka were left to fulfill their mission, and fulfill what they did for another 20 years. Then in 1972, Kozuka succumbed to a wound sustained in a shootout with the local police that erupted during one of their rice-field raids.

Onoda was now all alone, and for another two years, he remained all alone. Until the 20th of February, 1974, when the young adventurer named Suzuki found him in the forest and heard this exact story from Onoda's own mouth. After his visit with the last active-duty World War II soldier, Suzuki returned to Japan and hunted down Onoda's former commanding officer, a then well-aged man named Yoshimi Tanaguchi.

Suzuki spoke to the press and to Taniguchi himself. He showed Japanese officials pictures of him with Onoda together on the island, for of course, Onoda had been presumed dead for a very long time at this point, and he urged the government to send him back with Taniguchi so that they could end Onoda's solitary war. The government of Japan harkened to Suzuki and agreed to this proposal. Thus, on March 10, 1974, Major Taniguchi climbed into the mountains of Lubang with Suzuki, and upon finding Onoda once again, issued him the order of surrender.

Onoda, not forgetting his honor, immediately complied and was relieved of his duty. After nearly 30 years of fighting alone in the wild and away from home with no support and no other contact, Onoda gave it up in an instant and he never looked back at that life again. Hero Onoda died in 2014. He was hailed as a hero in all of Japan. As we come out of that story, I would like to begin by

recognizing all of our haters in the comments by saying, Oh, oh, Suzuki. I do not believe the war is over. Oh, I will keep fighting the Filipino. Never surrender. Hey, I saw this World War II documentary one time. We just made Martina laugh. I was going to say.

That's when you know you win. That's a rare Martina laugh back there. Never give up a or never surrender. All of the people that didn't like those ethnic impressions, they're gone. No, that story really reminded me. All the real ones are still here. Speaking of a Christmas tie-in, that story really reminded me of the time. I think I was seven years old or something like that.

And for Christmas, my dad got me a Yamaha Pw50. Wasn't that the name of the guy? Ma'a Suzuki? No, Suzuki was the adventurer. The guy's name. I kept calling him Hero in the story. I'm pretty sure it's pronounced Heru. Oh, no. Hero. Hero, Onoda. Oh, no. Duh. Just don't keep killing a bunch of civilian Filipinos. For 30 years. This guy, by the way, he received a full pardon for all of the first-degree murders that he committed. Insane. Like what you're telling me, Ben, is that if I just go to like Normandy and I just claim like wars back on. Yeah.

And I start absolutely just shedding the blood of, of, of, of, like, of peoples. Well, no, here's the funny thing. I have a high chance of getting away with it. As long as I say, oh, uh, jeunse quo, I did not know that the war was over. That was a weird French German hybrid. Here's the funny thing. Not funny, ha-ha. But funny like, but funny like, interesting.

He, uh, when he, when he finally surrendered, he, he, came out and like all those murders were unsolved. No. So he was like, oh, yeah. No, he didn't, no, he didn't admit to any of them. Oh, he didn't. So the Filipino president gives him a full pardon for all of the stuff he stole, right? All the grain and cattle because he was like, yeah, I stole much cattle.

I had to eat at the rice. And then he went back to Japan immediately. He's like, get me out of here. Yeah, come on. And then he went back to Lodang, Lugang, Lugang. Lou Dang, Martin, do you remember? I think it's Lou Dang Island. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And at that point, they had figured out that he was the one that had killed all of them. Yeah. So all the families of the dead were like calling for him to be executed. They were like, he killed, he killed, he murdered all of our family. Leaves again, goes back to Japan, where everyone sees him as this heroic figure. And basically like, Japan was so real for that for like, hey, this is our guy. We're going to protect our guy. He literally didn't know.

And here's the crazy part. Oops. Oops. I thought that the war was still. I thought these were enemy. I thought that child was an enemy combatant. And then the craziest part is that he was immortalized in the movie The Last Samurai by Tom Cruise. So true.

It's not true. Konichiwa. 100% not true. Tom Cruise actually became Japanese for that role. Yeah, he did. The guy who Tom Cruise plays the Japanese master. Another guy plays Tom Cruise. No.

Many people don't know that. Dude, that is crazy. A lot of makeup. A lot of makeup. No, but, okay, so the, dude, Martin's losing it. Martina's losing it. We're all tired. Because we are, and I can't emphasize this enough, so funny.

And here's the other thing. And not annoying. Okay, ever since the platform where this video is shared, ever since we did just one episode talking about certain things that may have escaped, from something that rhymes with Wynna. Bab, a bab. Something that happened about five years ago.

In, we talked about in something that rhymes with what is on your foot, a shoe. And then what is Mr. Solo? No, like Moulon, Wina. Rouge. A shoe, it rhymes with shoe, Han Solo. So I think you know what we're talking about. The COVID bio-weapons episode.

We went from like 50,000 plus views on an episode up to 100 to like none of them break in 20. Immediately overnight after that one, we took it down. It's a lost episode now. It's on podcast. But here's what we need, guys. This is a call to action.

This is an emergency call to action. I need you guys to tell all your friends to come and watch our videos constantly on YouTube and share them with everybody and think that we're really funny and handsome. That's the only thing that can undo the effects. of the censorship that we are facing. I don't know how we got here to this ramp. Like, you said, by the way, as if it was connected to the topic at all. No, like, dude, by the way, injustices that have been suffered.

Can I say, all those people that got killed by that Japanese guy is similar to what we have experienced here on the internet. Very similar. Very similar. Very analogous. Yes. Can I say the thing that I appreciate about Hiro, Oh no da. Yamaha Suzuki.

Like literally, yeah, Yamaha Suzuki, for like 30 years he was doing this. For 30 years. For two years, he was totally by himself. All of his companions had died. And this random explorer goes and finds me, he's like, dude, what will it take? To convince you. Yeah. And he says, my commanding officer must come and give me the stand down order.

He flies Suzuki, the actual Suzuki. Wait, that guy's name is actually. The adventure's name is for real Suzuki. So let's call him Yamaha. He, okay. So they fly Yamaha. No, Onoda is Yamaha. Okay.

Suzuki, Suzuki. Okay. Let's keep it simple for the, for the listeners. Yeah. Flies back to Japan and he's like, hey, where's this guy's commanding officer? He's like 90 years old at this point. He flies back. They make him hike up this mountain.

This is just about to die. All 90-year-old Japanese men can do this, though. But here's what I love. He gives the standout order in Yamaha. was immediately like, okay, I'm done. Yes, so. Like, I'm convinced. That was it.

Kudos to him for keeping his head, I guess, like both literally and figuratively, well enough to not just think like, well, I'm going to just do this crusade for the rest of my life no matter what. That it's the wildest thing about this story is that every part of it is true. Yeah. Like this is literally, we know this happened. This is an insane story. It's one of the most well-documented stories of Hermit, Farrell hideout, whatever you want to call it.

Ferrell Japanese. Farrell. Oh, I was going to say. You can't say that. That's like saying the N word. Is it? Okay, feral Japanese. I didn't know.

We're going to cut that out. No, we're not. Because I'm about to say this. I watched a World War II documentary where I won't say it again. But this old white guy was like unprovoked. Yeah. He just said like, yeah, we used to always say if you see a Japanese, but he didn't say that. if you see a Japanese, use your knife, go for the throat.

And then like it cut to something else. That was all that was said by that one guy. That was his whole line. The whole documentary, that's all he said. That's really, that's suspicious. But check that guy's search history. When you see the commitment of these Japanese soldiers, you realize why maybe he,

why they had to have that level of aggression. Insane amount of discipline. Like the Japanese people are an incredible people. Yeah. They are so martial, so zealous. Like this, the crazy thing is, I could see other Japanese people having done this. Oh, yeah.

Because they were like, to them, like, think of the suicide. He had three other friends that were with him for 20 years. What? Yeah. It was him and, dude, you clearly did not listen to this reading. It was him and three of his friends, friends, three of his like comrades, I guess. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Brothers in arms.

Okay, yeah. And they slowly die over the course of 28 years. And then Onoda is left for the last two by himself. So it wasn't just him. He was like his lone little hit squad. lot out there. Yeah. It was like, it's a lot like Rambo. Wow. It's like the Japanese version of Rambo. Harry, a Potter. But now as we go into, dude, that was a deep cut. Wow. It's really hard to do. Oh, wow. A boy who lived come to die. As we go to the hot clothes,

the incredible story coming up. What we want, yeah, it's even crazier than this one. What we want you to be thinking about is over against Yamaha, Hiru Onoda, who did not love isolation for isolation's sake, even to the very end. We are going to see an example of a family who were, they were driven into isolation for valid reasons. They were actually victims in a large, whatever the word is. In large part. In a big way.

But over time, they started to just, appreciate isolation for its own sake. Can I tee this story up? Please do it. As you are. When I was a lad, I, here in Utah, I read a lot of books.

Las. I think that's the girl version. Exactly. Okay. So I read a lot of books, you know, as we all did, Hatchett, my side of the mountain,

where the red fern grows, Brian's winter, Swiss Family Robinson, Swiss Family Robinson, Treasure Island, Robinson Crusoe, Treasure Island, All the great.

and I became so obsessed with the idea of pulling on my side of the mountain and running away and living in the woods that I began to collect supplies and build a binder of, I always built a binder if I needed to do something. You're like Leslie, no. Kind of. Of the information that I would need to survive in the wilderness, I was like a Boy Scout, you know, did a bunch of camping and that sort of thing.

So I was like, I'm clearly equipped for this. I was probably, you know, like 12 at this point. And I had been a Boy Scout for like a year. clearly equipped. And I was like ready to go. I planned it. I was getting. And then I thought to myself one day, I was like,

I will just die if I will die. Like, first of all, I'll get caught by the police. Well, on the way. To give a word on how our, so I get it. To give a word on how our Ivy League schools

have really gone downhill. Yeah. There was another man named Chris McCandless who was like a Harvard grad. It was a big tragedy. I don't mean to make light of it. And a crazy book if you want to read it. Yeah,

crazy book, Into the Wild. But he decided to do that. Yeah. Now, he had like literally no experience, but he sold or gave away, sorry, like everything he had, gave away his inheritance, all this stuff to hospitals and whatever, went into Alaska, immediately died. Yeah, he ate a plant that basically prevented him from properly digesting his food and then died of starvation. Yeah. In a bus. So far in the Alaskan wilderness.

Don't do that for the simple reason that you probably won't make it just by practical means. Also because when Chris McCandless made that commitment, it says a lot about our culture that he's lauded as a hero. Yes. For doing this. Like the wanderlust hero. And as big of a tragedy as it is, and it is a big tragedy, it wasn't heroic. No.

It was actually escapism. It's not good. He did not fulfill his duties as a man and a son. No. Now, having said that, let's talk about the fall of Constantinople in 1453. Naturally. In 1978, a deposit of iron ore was photographed in the high-year-old mountain. of eastern Siberia.

Almost immediately, a four-person team of geologists was formed and dispatched to find it. Reconnaissance flights scoured the region in search of a landing site, but suitable ground was nearly impossible to come by. Dozens of passes yielded little more than frustration. Eventually, though, urgency forced the team's hand, and they chose the best of the bad options. On one of those flights, a pilot, pressing his plane as close to the mountainside as he dared, caught sight of something that made him real, a patch of clearly cultivated land. A garden tucked deep in one of the most remote places on earth.

Impossible. And yet there it was, clear as day. Convinced they might find a forgotten village that could guide them toward the ore deposit, the geologists landed in the forested heart of Russia and struck out on foot to investigate. They carried gifts, should they meet strangers, and set out across the wind-dark soil of spring. After two long days of punishing travel, they began ascending the mountain where the pilots had marked the anomaly. The climb was relentless, always up, always grueling. Then at last, and almost by accident, they stumbled upon a trail. Not a game track, but a pruned and cleared path, unmistakably man-made.

Following it, they soon noticed other signs of habitation, a lean-to shed, a bucket carved from a birch stump, a walking staff propped against a stone wall. Pushing through a final tangle of branches, they entered a clearing. At its center stood a ruinous shack, sagging with age. From its patched roof rose a thin pillar of smoke. The geologists felt their pulses quicken. Meeting a stranger in Siberia, it was said,

could be more dangerous than meeting a predator. Still, they pressed on. But before they could reach the threshold, they froze. The shack's crooked door creaked open. An old man appeared, stooped and weathered by years of labor. He was gaunt and ragged. His clothes little more than tatters.

His beard was tawny and wild. His eyes the same. The leader of the group cleared her throat and called out, Hello there, we've come to visit. The man only stared, wary and trembling. Finally, in a halting whisper, he managed, You've come this far. Come in.

Inside, the sight stopped them cold. Huddled around the fire, lining the walls, sat five other figures. An old woman, two men, and two young women, all shrunken and shivering from many winters. The geologists without realizing it had just discovered the last hermits of the modern world. When Constantinople fell in 1453, because of course after that story we're talking about Constantinople in 1453, Russian Orthodox Christians were not surprised. Only 14 years prior, they had watched with disdain as the patriarch of Byzantium rejoined commuting, with the Pope in order to coordinate their efforts in the defensive crusades.

While the Russians certainly understood the political and military reasoning behind the alliance, they felt the religious reconciliation or what little of it there actually was, was a bridge too far. Since then, an entire continent of Russian Orthodox believers has seen their denomination as the sole remaining party of the true church, accusing their Greek and Eastern brothers of allowing heresy into their ranks. In 1551, these convictions were enshrined in the canons of the Stoglov Synod, which formally made Russian orthodoxy visibly unique in its practices and rituals. In the early 1600s, printing technology found its way into Russia. This made the underlying tension within the church all the more palpable as it exposed the wide variation of service manuscripts used by different parishes.

While attempts were made to correct this variation by using the eclectic method to find the original liturgical books, a selection of westernized Christian works also became available to the educated public. This added fuel to the fire, as it revealed a proclivity among many Russian bishops in the late 15th century to accept the supremacy of the Catholic Pope. Conservative Russian bishops deemed this a great apostasy and took it as a harbinger of the end times. Various elders, out of sincere conviction, there can be no doubt, led the charge of piety in the face of coming judgment, preaching strict traditionalism and asceticism to countless followers. At the same time, sweeping reform was being advocated within the upper echelons of the church

by a group called the zealots of piety. They fought for a return to strict adherence to the moral law, a passionate rejection of all pagan syncretism, and urged people to flee from whatever might be construed as conformity to the world, things such as drinking. For their strictness, many bishops associated with the zealots were lynched by common folk. Still, the zealots enjoyed the support of the royal courts. In 1645, Tsar Alexis appointed Nikon, one of the zealots, to serve as patriarch of the Russian church.

Wishing to conform all of the world's orthodoxy to the Russian bent, Alexis urged Nikon to integrate the intellectual rigor of the Greek church into Russian standards for ordination. He invited Greek scholars to Moscow and sought to learn from them. He even went so far as to partially hellenize the Russian service so that it might enjoy a wider appeal in the Orthodox world. At first, this was done with little objection. But after a short while, Nikon began throwing his weight around too heavily. He proved brutal and capricious, even appealing to non-Zellets by most. mocking his own sect. This only cost him the respect of both sides. Eventually, he resigned his

post and retired to a monastery where he lived out the remainder of his days. When Nikon left, even more vitriol against his reforms arose. Some thought the patriarch too strict, others thought him too willing to syncretize with the Greeks. When Zara Alexis invited Greek ambassadors to assist in ruling on the matter, they quickly anathematized any who sought to return to the traditional Russian way and declared the reformed liturgy the only proper mode of Russian worship. With the Tsar's backing, the majority of bishops assented, effectively condemning the entire sect of zealots who had remained true to the cause Nikon had abandoned. As punishment for their disobedience, leading bishops had their tongues removed and were exiled to the Arctic penal colony of Pustozersk.

This brutal display of power was enough to silence most lesser protests. Over the next 20 years, adherence of the zealic cause were hunted by both church and state, tortured, murdered, imprisoned, or excommunicated. Those steadfast believers faced a grim dilemma, one I hope no Christian ever faces, and asked, should we compromise on the liturgical changes and harden our consciences, or should we accept our fate and seek a quick death? Many chose the latter. Eventually, however, a third option emerged. See, Russia is vast, and countless parts of it, especially then but even still today, remain among the most remote places in the world. What if some lingering zealots wondered, they fled there and hid from persecution?

So it was that hordes of adherence to the old ways found untouched or overlooked wilderness and countryside in which to live and worship in secret. Those who stayed behind continued to suffer, while those who fled could practice their faith according to their conscience. They soon came to be known by the moniker, the old believers. At first, the name was one of ridicule, but eventually it stuck even among themselves. Still, the persecution did not stop. Hermitage after hermitage was hunted down and destroyed. Its inhabitants slaughtered without mercy.

The violence became so severe that countless thousands preferred suicide to capture, sometimes throwing themselves as entire communities onto pires they themselves had built. But even for some elites in government, this proved too shocking. In 1761, Peter the third, rose to power and instituted a policy requiring authorities to release any old believers who threatened suicide and not only to release them but to never bother them again. His successor, Catherine the Great, expanded this policy. Old believers were no longer hunted at all. The legislation that kept them from living normal lives was repealed and scrapped entirely. After generations

of oppression, they were officially tolerated by their government. They enjoyed this uneasy peace for several decades until the Napoleonic Wars. In their aftermath, Russia recoiled from the wave of enlightenment sweeping Europe and opted instead for a strict, hyper-centralized autocracy. At first, this did not affect the old believer's freedoms, but it planted the seeds for renewed oppression. The pattern continued. One Tsar would press conformity, the next would relax it, until the conclusion of the First World War. After the October Revolution in 1970, the old believers held their breath. At first they were relieved.

The Bolshevik regime seemed not to care. But once power was consolidated, that attitude shifted. In 1928, state atheism was introduced. Rural peoples, more religious and therefore viewed as barbaric, were officially classified as citizens-worthy only of destruction. Thus, the Bolsheviks began systematically exterminating millions of Orthodox Christians. In one form or another, this campaign of annihilation continued into the early 1970s,

when the Russian Orthodox Church finally lifted the anathemas that had weighed upon the old believers for 300 years. In the midst of these exterminations, many old believers once again fled into the wilderness. In 1936, after witnessing

the murder of his brother by a Soviet patrol, a believer named Karp Lykov chose to join their ranks. Escaping from his hometown of Lykov with his wife and two children, Karp headed east, deeper into the boreal wilderness of the Ural Mountains. They walked until they were utterly alone and then kept walking.

Soon, they were further from human contact than they could have imagined. At the junction where the Aqabon and Aeronaut rivers joined, Karp built his family a ramshackle cabin. After great labor, a homestead began to take shape. The cabin, unimpressive by modern standards, but solid and sanctuary, a rough paddock of fallen trees in closing a garden, and a small clearing for crops that would sustain them.

It was just carp, his wife Akulina, and their children, Savin and Italia. Four years later, another son Dimitri was born, and four years after that, a daughter, Agathia. Six souls, one family living alone in the terrible wilderness of Siberia, all to escape the horror of the Bolsheviks. It began as virtue, but by the end it had become something else. For not a single member of that family saw another human being for 42 years. And when they finally did, it was not of their own choosing, but by chance when the geologists stumbled upon them, as today's story opens. For 42 years, they survived on potatoes, rye, hemp seeds, and berries. During famines, they ate bark and boiled leather.

The last of these famines claimed Akalina in 1961, when she starved so her children might survive until the next harvest. They wore rags and hemp sacks, barked shoes, and cooked every meal in their single iron pot, the only piece of metal they owned. They made buckets from hollowed birch stumps and fashioned crude stone tools. And every day they prayed, read scripture, and sang the chance that had taken them there in the first place. In 1944, after Agafia's birth, they built another cabin higher up, moving into it the next year. Later, a third was built near the river for the suns, both to improve the fish yield, and to separate them from their sisters.

42 years of isolation ended by a single act of providence. Yet the ending was far from happy. At first, the family feared the geologists, but soon they warmed. Their Russian preserved in isolation was archaic and difficult to understand, yet they managed to communicate. They gratefully accepted gifts of tea, bread, knives, and salt. They met, made friends, and then at the family's insistence, the scientists left. The Lycos did not care for the news of peace.

They were content in solitude. But the contact proved too much for their untested immune systems. Within three years, Savin, Natalia, and Dimitri had died. Seven years later, carp followed. Only Agafia remained. She has lived on, sometimes visited by officials or anthropologists, even taking a short tour of modern Russia. But she preferred solitude, and in 2019, she returned permanently to the family homestead.

We do not know if she is still alive. What we do know is that even now, she remains there in silence, alone. Want more Haunted Cosmos? Then make your way over to Patreon, where you can get early access to our content as well as exclusive content in regular dusty tomes and monthly live streams

with Brian and myself. So go to patreon.com slash haunted cosmos and sign up now.