Otherworld - Episode 79: The Chicken Whackers Pt. 2

Episode Date: April 29, 2024

In part 2 of Keegan’s story, he and his friend Grant attempt to leave Grand Junction by hopping a train with the help of a stranger they just met. During this attempt, they begin experiencing a bizarre set of events that they believe may be connected to a group they heard rumors about called "The Chicken Whackers". Warning: This episode contains some content that may be disturbing to some listeners, including descriptions of assault, drug use, and death. Want more episodes? For bonus episodes and videos, sign up for the Otherworld Patreon Check out our Merch Follow us on: Instagram, TikTok, Twitter If you have experienced something paranormal or unexplained, email us your story at [e-mail] To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Welcome to Otherworld. I'm your host, Jack Wagner. This is the second part of the Chicken Wackers series. If you haven't heard part one, you should go back and start there. In the last part, Kegan talked about how traveling around hitchhiking and sort of camping turned into him being just fully homeless. We learned about some of the dangers that you have to worry about when you're hitchhiking and living on the street, mainly people who go out.

looking to pick up vulnerable people with very bad intentions. Kagan and his friend Grant had both separately fled a bad situation with one of their friends and reunited by chance in Grand Junction, Colorado. After reuniting, they went to a nearby park and were freaked out by the fact that every single person they met would not stop talking about some group called the Chicken Wackers. People were warning them about this group. telling them to be careful. Keegan and Grant were very weirded out by this

and decided they need to get out of town quickly, not because they were afraid of the chickenwhackers, but because they thought all these people they were meeting in town were super weird. So they decided to hop a train with the help of a stranger that they recently met. The story is such a weird one. I still don't know what to make of it myself,

but I like the fact that it's extremely different. I also think I like that This one has paranormal aspects to the story, but there's also a lot of real-life threats and danger that exist for a person living on the street. And I think both of those things are all wrapped up together in this episode. So let's just pick up where we left off. By the way, a heads up. This episode discusses a lot of very sensitive topics. It might be difficult for certain listeners.

This is episode 79. the title is The Chicken Wackers Part 2, and you're listening to Otherworld. Hello? Is it Bobby? Yes, it is. At its core, the science, you can't argue. It's not a story about all the science. Up in the sky.

It's almost frustrating that it's happening. I'm going to die. It's limbs were just like wrong. Everybody moves back into the light, even if it takes them a minute. The white pickup truck was driving over the tracks again that were closest to us. and there was a guy in the passenger seat and he had the window rolled down and he was smoking a cigarette

and I could see the cherry on his cigarette and like him hitting it and he was looking like straight at us where we were up against the wall like almost like it was like almost like making eye contact with him and I was like oh they definitely know we're right here at that point that jiggy dude was just like

I got to go which was weird because it was like still like nothing was really going on but he seemed kind of scared so we just stayed there those cars kept going and then it's like totally dark now i'm looking down to my right and like further down up against that wall i can see like a light pointing towards me because there's still like there's a few bushes in between but i see a light like someone's holding like a light like right up against the wall and pointed at us. And behind that, I can see this dude back there that is, this part's, yeah, I don't know. Like, I can really vividly remember what he looked like.

I could see him. It looked like he was holding a video camera. I could see his face and his head like in, it was like the backlight of the video camera of the screen, like shining on him, like that blue light. and he was like almost bald except he has he had like this long stringy hair like a little bit of like barely any hair but it was really long and it just looked super he looked really fucking creepy i could see him with a camera someone else was pointing the light at us and then i think there was like one more person like the shape of someone else down there So it looked like there was at least three people You know for some reason they're they're videotaping us I mean what's going through my head at this point is

I'm running through what everyone has been telling me for the last two days About these chicken whacker people And I'm like Remembering everything that everyone has told me And kind of like I was kind of like fuck this like might be Like something is clearly happening Like I told I was like whispering to Grant this whole time because we were just sitting there really still kind of not knowing what to do.

For some reason I had a feeling like if we got up like we were like about to be like fucking like rushed by a group of people or something. Like there it was like there was like a reason why they were videotaping us and it wasn't good like something was going to happen. You know? it was not, yeah, it was not good. I mean, at this point, I'm thinking, I'm like, dude, what, I mean, who was that jiggy guy? Was he even a, like, traveler? Has he really only been here for two weeks? I don't know.

So we, essentially, I'm, like, whispering to Grant, and I'm like, I tell him to give me his knife. And I get that in my hand. and I kind of just like crawl out from the wall enough to like look up and down either way and I can't see anyone else. So we just get up, we go like around that corner and back into town. Almost immediately we're downtown, like away from that group of people at least. Like I thought I had seen someone like in a tree almost when we were like leaving the railroad tracks. But I didn't really say anything about it.

At this point, we were both just, like, freaked out, we were spooked, but we were still kind of almost, like, laughing about it, trying to, like, make light of it. And, like, I was, I was at least, and, like, making jokes about, like, these, yeah, all these fucking weirdos. Yeah, I don't know. Marty, Marty had his, had a really weird experience traveling with some crazy people. it was a group of people who take advantage of like travelers and I almost thought I was like man maybe this is like the same kind of people maybe this is who he dealt with so we just go outside of like the downtown area and we get to like I think it was like a car wash or something with just like a table and we like sat there for a minute like at this point we just like our senses are like super like raised. Everyone who's driving by, I think they're like watching us. Like I looked behind us and I saw

someone like running and ducking behind a building, but I wasn't sure if it was related or not. But that was pretty much the point where like I was a little more freaked out and I was like, okay, let's just get out of this town. Because like I didn't like what was happening. We didn't say anything about,

oh, is this like the chicken whackers people were talking about to us because that was, I knew that was just kind of like unspoken between us. We were both thinking the same thing. Like, what the fuck? Like, is this, you know? At that point, we just start walking out of the downtown area. One thing was it seemed like there was like a group of cars that would like drive further up. It was like it was really slow.

There was no one out. And then it's like a group of cars would just like drive up somewhere ahead of us. And it seemed like that almost kept like leapfrogging us as we were walking this way out of town. We just keep walking and we're walking for a while. We cut over and we're like walking through this parking lot. And we're kind of just in an area that's like big plazas, huge parking lots. But everything's closed. It's late at night.

It's empty. Like it might have been like a Home Depot parking lot or some shit that we were walking through. But this is when like the first like weird not normal thing happens that just really freaked me out and made me like not know what was happening anymore essentially. We're walking by this tree and like it's it's not a huge tree. It's pretty short like you'd see in like a parking lot and a little median spot. And this Gatorade bottle. just like falls out of the tree and hits the ground. And I was like joking like, hey man, you dropped your Gatorade bottle.

Like there was someone in the tree like fucking like watching us. So I walk up to this tree and I look into it. And I'm like maybe a yard away from this tree. And like what's looking back at me is looks like a man. It's like a man. I can see his eyes. I can see his nose. like his face he has like a really thick beard

but it's it's almost like I can see through parts of him it's like he's like not all the way there like you can almost see through parts of him it seemed like it's fucking hard to explain I don't know it was almost like he was like part of the tree or some shit I saw that and he was his face was like right there like looking at me like eyes nose mouth like beard like thick beard

I don't know It was I mean I just didn't know what I was looking at and he like moved up to get away from me and that's when I

walked in a spiral around to keep seeing where he was going and he just like fucking like went in like a spiral like up further into the tree as I walked around it but the way he was moving in there

was like, it was like he didn't make a single, like he barely made like a branch or leaf move and his limbs were just like bending in ways that were like not, that they shouldn't be bending in. And so he was almost just like silently just like getting away from me as I walked in a circle because I was like, I'm, I didn't know what the fuck I was seeing.

And I was like, okay, yeah, there's literally like people fucking with us. There's people in the fucking trees right now. Like this is real. Like I'm not just seeing shit or something. Like a gatorade bottle just fell out. So that's why I like walk up to it because I'm like, you know what? Fuck this. I'm going to make sure I'm not crazy. And I'm going to look in this fucking tree. And that's when, yeah, that's what I saw. And I know what you're thinking at this point where we're not on drugs. We're not on drugs of any kind. I know what you're thinking and what people would be thinking because it's like it's two homeless guys like obviously they're just like on drugs and I'm just seeing this shit which is why I mean it's it's the reason why

I've been so reluctant to share this with people before in the past because I have shared it to like people who were very close to me like I know when someone doesn't believe me I don't know feeling of like not having people believe you um it just makes it it makes it really hard to want to say anything about it with anyone else because i don't i don't know what the fuck i saw um it didn't make any sense to me but at the same time i know what i saw like i know what i was looking at and i've taken acid before i've been on psychedelics before You know, I've experimented with other drugs. And this was not like, this is not the kind of shit you see when you're on drugs or you're tripping.

I don't know. It doesn't make sense to me. And I don't, like, the question has come up before if we were drugged because of, like, all the time I spit in that park, all the people that were around us. and like how it technically would have been possible but it just like I wasn't feeling anything besides utter fear at this point I mean it was like my own reality slipping away

but it's like there was no other visual things going on like there was no like lights weren't glowing more than they should things weren't wavy like the ground wasn't breathing like it was just like I saw this fucking dude and this tree and it made no fucking sense to me which is why I said nothing I said nothing me and Grant really don't like we don't pretty much almost no words between us this entire time because we're both just going through I mean it it's like a fucking going through a fucking horror movie so yeah I don't say anything to grant about it.

You know, we both saw the Gatorade bottle fall out of the tree. I was the only one who went up to the tree. We both continue walking after this. And this is when, like, this is when, like, something else starts getting in my head. That's, like, not me. It's hard to describe what it was like, but it's like, wasn't a voice. I wasn't hearing voices. but it was like something was like telling me

no matter what happened tonight one of us was going to die tonight and that the only way that I could stay alive is if I abandoned Grant and left him there and like left on my own and it was like either he's going to die and you can leave or both of you are going to die

or you can stay and both of you will die. And this was like this message that was, I don't know, it was like there. It was over and over and over and over again. It was like there was something. It's like, it's super hard to explain. I've never experienced anything like it to this day. It's a very fucking scary feeling having something like that. That's, you know, it's just like these alien thoughts in my head.

I mean, there's like a physical sensation that comes with it of just like, I can remember my chest being super tight. It's like something is like coming inside you and like almost like taking a part of you. This thing, whatever it was, like over time was also like breaking me down mentally like as best as it could. And it was literally just like having something, separate pieces of you, tear them apart. I don't know. It's not a voice. There's no audio involved at all. It's literally like thoughts.

It's like thoughts. It's like this thought that's not mine like going through my head and telling me what's happening, telling me these things. Like I've never had any like serious mental illness like that, like hearing. voices or having thoughts that I thought weren't mine. So this, I mean, this is totally new to me. I don't have anything to compare it to. And have you ever experienced anything like this ever again after? No, no. You know, I've seen therapists in some form, like, since I was a child for my ADHD ADHD and like medication and shit. And I've never at any point been diagnosed with having, like delusional mental health issues

like where there's been separations from reality so we just keep walking our we just want to get out of town we were like gonna stop in Walmart real quick this this like thing in my head is telling me how much of a pretty much how much of a piece of shit I am like my disrespect

for myself for nature for my dog, for like life, for, like, it's like this really weird, like just attacking me on every level. So Grant comes back out and this guy comes up to us and starts talking to us. And he's also homeless. He's like, yeah, I've tried to leave like several times. Like I've went and got like, like, I've had like three different Greyhound tickets. But every time I try to leave, like something happens.

and I can't leave. He's like, they let me have as many sodas as I want. And I was just like, what the fuck? Who, like, I just got the weirdest fucking vibe from that. He was just like, I love it here so much. Like, I'm never leaving. They let me have as many sodas as I want.

And it's like a grown-ass man talking about sleeping, like, inside, like the Walmart, like the foyer or whatever. Well, like, he's like in there. Yeah, that guy specifically. typically was really weird and just gave us, yeah, both of us really weird vibes. So we just kept walking. We left when we kept walking while this like this thing, this thing is like getting worse and worse, kind of almost louder in a sense.

And we just keep walking. We keep walking west, like away from the downtown area. We come to one road that kind of goes off to the left, looking down there there was and you could see under the bridge there were

like three shadow figures they don't look like like their silhouette isn't like a regular person if it is a person like they're in like a cloak or something that makes like their whole figure

just like one just like these three cloaks shadow figures standing there in the road, it was terrifying. And so, yeah, I was like, well, we're not fucking going that way. So we're walking and we're getting to like the end of the town where it's like, we keep going this way. Like, we're going to be away from even like shops, stores and everything.

But like we come to like another bridge and it's just darker beyond that point. like there's no streetlights and walking closer i get this like really i start getting this like bad feeling and like looking on the side of the road there's these bushes and they all look like like screaming human faces and this is something this is something that grant saw too i learned later um and we start getting closer to like where it gets darker and I just start smelling like it smelled like raw sewage almost. It was like raw sewage and like rotten meat, like an awful smell. And which there was no explanation of like why we would be smelling that right at that spot.

At this point, this is when my dog, skinny, he freaks out and he starts pulling me in the opposite direction. And that's all me and Grant needed to be like, okay, yeah, no, we're not fucking going this way. It's probably like three in the morning at this point or something. Yeah, we just turn around, we start walking back. Grant is, he's walking behind me. This thing, whatever this thing is, is like in my head the whole time, just like ripping me apart, telling me how much of a shitty person I am, like how much I've harmed the earth. and shit.

It seems to be coming from like, I don't know. I get the sense that at least that it's coming from the land around us is telling me that. We're walking and there's like, there's like some small trees that we walk past that have branches that are like close to us, but not touching us. And Grant is right behind me. And I hear him freak out like something just like snatched out. him you know I was just like I was like are you okay and he's like yeah I don't know what the fuck that was and we keep walking and at this point this is when that whatever that thing is

starts getting like really bad in my head and like I can tell to Grant is starting to get mentally almost like he's like not there this is when it's like a full like something thing is just ripping me apart, like who I am, like my identity, just like peace by peace by peace. And it's just, it's like the most mental anguish I have ever felt in my life. It's like, this is why I'm convinced. Like I, this was something that was like not me. That was not, this was like something outside of me that was like fucking just like tearing me apart as a person. And like, it was like tearing my spirit away. It was like trying to crush me.

Like, just crush all the light in me. And this is when I stopped walking. And I literally, like, I remember I had like my hands on my head. And I was like, I can't do this. I can't do this. I can't. I was like, I can't do this. I can't.

And like, I remember like, like, leaning over and like rocking. And like, I'm freaking the fuck out. Because I'm thinking at this point, like, if this keeps happening in my head, like, I'm going to, I'm going to have to kill myself, like, as quickly as possible. Because it's like, that's how fucking bad it is. Like, that's how, like, that's how bad, whatever this thing is, is getting. I was reaching a breaking point. It was becoming impossible to endure. Like, it was making every single moment.

It was like living fucking hell. Like, I've never experienced anything like that in my life. And, like, I seriously, like, wouldn't wish that on my worst enemy. Like, I wouldn't want anyone to go through what I experienced. For some reason, in my head, because, you know, before this, I'm not, like, a spiritual person at all. I don't, I'm not religious. I was kind of like, I was an atheist for, like, most of my life. And while it was happening to me and while I was in this moment of like desperation,

I thought about my grandma who had passed recently. My grandma Wanda, she, I don't know. I like thought about her and I was like, I knew how much love she had for me. I used to stay at her place as a kid. Like, and like we'd sleep in the same bed. and every night, every night she would always, she'd pray for everyone in the family. And like, she just had so much love, so much fucking love for everyone around her. I just switched my mind to her.

And I was like, I need to, like, draw on that love. And, like, as soon as I started thinking about her and just, like, focusing on that, whatever was like mentally attacking me started to let go. Once I recognize that like that is working, I get out my phone and I actually call my friend Katie. She answered, she picked up. I was like, dude, if you can just send us like good vibes, I know this sounds super fucking weird,

but just like send me good energy right now. I really fucking need it. For some reason, I was like, I just have to, like, draw on, like, the, like, love that people have for me. And that's, like, the only thing that made that shit start to go away. All right. We'll be right back after this quick break. During all this, Grant is getting... I don't know what's going on his head, but he is just, like, like, he is not fucking there anymore.

Like, no one is home. Like, I don't know where the fuck his mind is now. I'm feeling better. we were walking past the Greyhound station and he starts talking about like oh we should just stop and like get I'll just get like a ticket a Greyhound ticket to get out of here

I'm like no dude I'm like we need no like we need to get out of here like we're not staying here another minute like we need to keep walking I was thinking back to that guy we met before the one who said he bought three tickets but could never actually leave I tell him that and he's kind of just like

Uh, oh, okay. Um, like, almost like, kind of like he doesn't even know what the fuck he's talking about. And he's got this dazed look in his eye, almost like a zombie or something, if you can imagine. I'm walking and we're getting close to that bridge that we have to cross over to get out of town. I'm getting to the point where like I'm a, we're about to start walking over the bridge. and I turn around and Grant has turned around

and is walking back into downtown for no reason. He's just, like I turn around and he's not there and I missed, I didn't even notice

that he had turned around at some point. So he's like, he's like a block away like trying to go back into Grand Junction and I'm like, I run over to him

and I'm like, dude, no, I was like, what are you doing? And he didn't even say anything. He was just like, What? And I was like, we're going this way, man.

We need to get out of here. I get him with me and we're walking over the bridge. And just as we're walking over the bridge, the sun is starting to come up. Like over the mountains. And like we're walking over the bridge and the sun is coming up, like just peeking up like right now over the mountains to our left. And I just felt like I could breathe. And like we get over the bridge and we walk up a ways and it's starting to get light outside. And eventually we stop and we sit down by the side of the road because we're fucking tired.

We've been walking. We walked, I don't know how many miles we walked that night, at least like 10 miles. But we sit down and Grant's like back to himself, like able to talk to me. I'm like asking him, I'm like, do you, do you remember just like trying to turn around and go back into town? And he's like, not really. Well, like, I was like, yeah, dude, you tried to, we were leaving, trying to get out of town. And you turned, you were trying to go back into town. He was just like, yeah, I don't know what the fuck was happening to me.

We kind of just like sit there, kind of just take a deep breath. For some reason, we were, it was like this fucking spell broke after we walked over that bridge, which was also like over those railroad tracks. And like I remember that one woman talking about like, oh, I don't go over those railroad tracks or some shit. But yeah, I don't know what it was about just walking over that bridge and that moment and the sun finally coming up. And it was just like, we're like we made it.

You know, and like one of the reasons why it's so hard to share this with people and like have people understand like what I was going through, Like, to be very clear, I was scared for my life that whole night. I was thinking that we were not going to make it out of there. And it's hard to get that point across because it's like, at no point did it seem like anyone was directly threatening our lives. But it's like that threat was definitely there. Like, there was something that was trying to make us not leave. I'm still really scared.

I'm still, like, I kept having this image of like a pickup truck just like pulling over and people just like grabbing us and throwing us in it. Because that was just like, my fighter flight mode was just like, even after the experience was like very high. Mainly we were just glad to be alive. Like eventually we get out of the valley. There's like a river we find that's like wooded and we just like sit there and fucking chill. and like sleep for a while. That's kind of like the debriefing point and like the point where we're like,

what was that? Like that moment felt like, like it felt like we just went through like a fucking battle or something. We talked to this one homeless dude who's on a bike. We're like, yeah, like we were like followed by these fucking chicken whacker people. And he was like,

oh yeah. He's like, I know all about them. And I was like, really? I was like, what, What do you know exactly?

Okay, I need to jump in here and summarize a bit because what Kegan told me was very graphic. The man Kegan was talking to told him that the chicken whackers sexually assault and murder people as a form of sacrifice. He also mentioned, and something that seems to come up pretty commonly around the chicken whackers, is mind control, psychic attacks, or the ability to get into somebody's head. head. The man said that he heard about somebody who was also homeless that was at a truck stop at the time, and he heard screaming coming from the woods. This guy walked into the woods to see what was going on, and when he got into the woods, he saw a group of people wearing matching clothing in a circle with a video camera filming themselves, abusing a young man. This guy got scared and ran away,

and he later told his brother about this, and the brother said, oh yeah, that was the chicken whackers. Don't bother calling the police. They won't do anything. Kegan said he also heard another story that was very similar to this, a group of people filming, a sexual assault, but this one took place behind some storage units.

There's a couple mentions of this group in the media, but very few. The Grand Junction Daily Sentinel is the only newspaper to have ever written an article mentioning this group, and it's titled simply, Question, Who are the Chicken Wackers? Here are a couple excerpts from that article. It's very secretive, she said. If you don't know the handshake, you're not going to get any answers.

And no, I don't know the handshake. The private investigator said she had never heard where the term chicken whackers came from, but stories say the group originated in the 90s and got its start dealing methamphetamine. Rumors about the group in the past range from human sacrifice to tales of psychological mind games against its perceived enemies. One member of law enforcement recently described the chicken whackers as Illuminati meets Satanism.

Others see it as a boogeyman for meth users. The article also mentions an arson case where the chicken whackers came up in court. The man on trial blamed the chicken whackers for the arson. The chicken whackers were also mentioned in the transcript of a murder trial, of a man who stabbed somebody 27 times in 2003. One of the witnesses testified that the defendant told him the chicken whackers killed somebody he knew and put the head on a stick. He was extremely scared of the chicken whackers before the stabbing.

I was actually able to speak to the journalist who wrote that Grand Junction Sentinel article. She also seemed equally puzzled by the entire thing. She told me that if you talk to any cop in Grand Junction or anyone that's been locked up in the area, they'll know all about the chicken whackers. But outside of that, basically nobody knows what they are or who they are. She also told me that there are a few missing person cases that people commonly blame the chicken whackers for.

There was also a website run by a private investigator in Grand Junction dedicated to the chicken whackers. It has since been taken down. I was not able to find or get a hold of that private investigator and the contents of that website are not visible on the way back machine. After hearing all of this stuff, I was so spun around. I mean, so much of it is very outlandish. But in terms of Keegan's personal experience,

there's not really a way of looking at it where it's not terrifying. I'm sure some of you listening right now might think the shape-shifting satanic stuff is ridiculous, and that's very understandable. but horrible stuff does happen to people living on the street all the time. They are victims of kidnapping, murder, sexual assaults, and other crimes that often go completely unreported and uninvestigated. And I just say it would be very foolish to underestimate the extent of terrible things that

happen to people living on the street. It's also easy to hear this story and be like, oh, they probably got drugged and were hallucinating all of this. even if that's true, it's really not comforting. Who secretly drugged these guys and why? That doesn't really make it any less terrifying. On a lighter note, perhaps the greatest mystery of all is why is this group even called the Chicken Wackers?

What does the name mean? That's really something that I thought I would find out during all of this, but I still have no answers. I think for me, I don't know. know what to make of all of this, but what does strike me is how terrified Kagan is of this experience and how desperately he wants an explanation or answers about what happened to him that night. I can't, there's not a lot that like people told me when I was in Grand Junction. There's been a lot of tidbits I picked up over the internet. Like, there's like two, there's like two,

like more official mentions of chicken whackers. One of them is an article written by the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel. That's literally like question, who were the chicken whackers? And that's an article. And it talks about, if you lived in Mesa County for a while, you might have heard of this group of people and that they're apparently a Satanist cult that got their start in the 1990s dealing meth and dealing in human trafficking. And there's also rumors about, like, something that they, she calls them like a West Slope, which is like the county that they're in is a West Slope,

like a cabal is a word she uses of, like, yeah, of just like Satan worshippers who, deal meth and there's rumors of human sacrifice. And it's all just like, you know, it's the kind of shit where it's, because it's like, we had the whole satanic panic, obviously. And it's like any time I've heard claims of like people being, you know, and it's just shit that you don't think is ever real. So, you know, I don't know how much truth there is to it.

I don't know if there is a group who call themselves the chicken whackers or if that's what other people call them. The other mention of them is from a court transcript from 2003, a man was arrested for like stabbing this dude 27 times. And he stabbed the dude because, It had something to do with chicken whackers and the transcript. And he said that, like, his brother had just died recently, too. And I think it was, like, he thought that his brother, they'd murder his brother, maybe. There was some mention of heads on, like, decapitated heads on sticks. Um, I don't know.

There's, like, there's more mentions that I saw on Reddit of, like, like, this one person who was in jail. with someone who said they knew what the chicken whackers were and there's just like it's where you just get, you get all these rumors but it's like what really makes me

wonder is like specifically that one dude's firsthand account which like his Reddit account is like three years old that posted from three years ago like all of these people who have mentioned this shit like I've messaged all of them and got no response from anyone. And there used to be a chickenwhackers website that was made by a local private investigator

in Grand Junction, Colorado, a woman. And she had made a website that was literally chickenwhackers.com. And that site has since been taken down. And I went on the, do you know what the wayback machine is? Yeah, I went on the Wayback Machine and it's like there's only three like three different little records of it and like none of them like I can't look at what the website actually was It's like my friend Ian who knows more about how the wayback machine works and stuff He says that it looks like someone went back and like scrubbed

Like Like personally like got that information taken down off of there somehow, which I don't know. It's just like, you know, hearing all these rumors really makes me think, like, if there's any truth to what they're doing, like, I don't know, you know, feels like something should be done about it. I mean, this is a lot to wrap my head around. Like, what do you make of this?

like, if it wasn't for the fact that these guys mentioned these chicken whackers, would you have thought it had anything to do with this alleged secret society? Or what would you have thought it was? Like, what do you think it was? Like, what do you feel that it was? So that whole valley and Grand Junction itself is called Grand Junction because that's where the Colorado River and the Gunnison River meet. So there's this huge river junction right there and that whole valley they called like the valley of wandering souls where like specifically where the spirits of warriors wandered i mean what i think is that like there's this energy there and that it takes the form of like what's around it and what it's fed and i think that like at some

point some people maybe got mixed up with like some kind of dark magic shit and that that energy has also just like absorbed like the negative, the evil shit that's happened there. All the bad stuff that we've done as humans, it's that it's kind of like molded together somehow. I don't know. Like there was this there was this kid just recently who like this 19 year old kid just like stabbed this homeless dude to death in Grand Junction because he just like wanted to feel what it was like to kill someone. a lot of like weird evil shit happening for like not that big of a town yeah i don't know i think because there was a human element to what was happening that

night and then there's a supernatural element to what was happening that night and i don't know where those two where one starts and where the other ends you know i mean i will say this that um that whole event brought me and Grant very close to each other. It was something that instantly, like, made a bond. You know, there were several points where we both could have easily left one of the others behind, and it seemed like something wanted us to do that. And instead, we stuck together. and I mean, which we had only known each other for four days at this point. So this is like the beginning of our friendship.

Like he is who I ended up spending like the next two and a half years traveling the country with. Like 24-7 for two and a half years together, traveling the whole country together after that point. Like that was a bonding moment. That was a very like decisive moment for us. and I'll say that and I will say that before this had happened to me I didn't really think much about

you know what's out there in the world as far as like spiritually speaking and it opened my mind up to I immediately thought I'm like okay there's some really weird evil shit out there that I don't know about but that immediately made me

realize I'm like If that exists, there's also good and there's some good energy out there. Honestly, it blew my mind, like, way open to the possibilities of the world, the spiritual possibilities, yeah, which is like a journey I'm still on. I'm still figuring out what that looks like for me. Yeah, I will say that, yeah, like, towards the end, of my traveling, like what once was like something that I did out of choice and that was like an exciting way to see the world slowly turned into kind of a hole that I dug for myself

where I was just homeless and I had no way of figuring out how to get housing for myself. there was a point where I didn't want to be homeless anymore and I also got very wrapped up in addiction that's what ended up taking Grant's life when he was actually at his parents' house he overdosed on heroin and he died and we were supposed to meet up in like a week after that and we were going to try to figure out

getting a place together in Washington and that just, it was not a good point in my life and everything went downhill really quickly from there. And that eventually led to me to my, me having sort of a mental breakdown. And my brother and my sister kind of coming out and picking me up and driving me back home. and I'm super lucky that I had them, that I had people who love me and care about me to be able to pretty much save my life and bring me back home. So, yeah, since then, I will also say that Chandra also overdosed at some point, and it's no longer with us, which was really weird to me.

I didn't even know she, like, we didn't have a history of using anything together. I didn't even know that she, I knew she drank, but. I know she was into harder stuff. And it was nice. I did see her one more time after that point before she died. And it was, she was doing really, really well. And we just happened to come across each other, just gathering out in the desert.

And it was really nice to see her that time and to see her happy. And, yeah, she died, like, shortly after that, I think. but I mean, me for myself, what my life looks like now, I kind of came home. I came back to Central Illinois, and it took me a long time to try to reintegrate to life. Actually, exactly one year ago today, I got, I came out of treatment and I got into the house I live in now, which is actually a sober living house. I live with like seven other guys here. And yeah, I've been, you know, involved in my own recovery since then. And I'm really starting to figure out, you know, kind of, you know, how to live my life,

how to figure out how to find some meaning in my life without having to totally, without having to totally, you know, being able to integrate with like, you know, having a regular job and figuring out that stuff and still, finding some meaning in my life. I'm still working on that. I will say, I do want to say that I really appreciate your podcast and that since listening, starting to listen to your podcast, actually has got me rolling more recently on like a spiritual journey myself of like, like, how important that stuff is to me and like how I really want to, I don't know, like, it's kind of opened up the world to me because

like your podcast is kind of like you've been able to make a lot more definition to like what's out there and like the way I see it is like all these anecdotes all this anecdotal evidence is like you know it's starting to form this picture because I've listened to all your episodes and your Patreon episodes and everything

and like it's all starting to like form this picture that's really, it's really fascinating and it's honestly makes me incredibly hopeful. And yeah, it's kind of been able to take that, you know, from my mind blowing open and realizing there's more spiritual stuff out there. Like, it's kind of been able to give that more of a solid form for me. All right. Thank you so much to Kagan for sharing the story. I mentioned before that I did as much research as I could about the chicken whackers.

partly to decide if I even wanted to put this episode out. One of the main things online about the chickenwhackers is an article in the Grand Junction Daily Sentinel, like I mentioned. I reached out so many times to that reporter over and over again without hearing back, but I finally got a hold of them, and I spoke to them about their experience researching this topic, considering that they're the only one who's ever written about it. They were hesitant about appearing on the episode and talking about this stuff, but they were okay with me putting out our conversation on the Patreon. So if you want to hear that, I'm going to be putting that out later in the week. After talking to that journalist and really sitting with this whole thing, what I think about this entire saga is that something clearly happened to Kagan and Grant that night.

Homeless people are targeted all the time by bad actors that want to commit violence. without getting caught, maybe the chicken whackers and everything we've heard about them is completely real. Or maybe it's sort of a boogeyman that's been formed over the years to blame all of the terrible things that happen to homeless people. Or maybe it's a mix of both. If you were a group of people kidnapping and exploiting people off the street to do some kind of sacrifice, I think it would be very, very helpful if the stories about what you did sound too ridiculous to believe or too ridiculous to report. There's also another way of looking at it where maybe these rumors did start on their own just as rumors, but real-life bad actors came about after the fact and used the fear and infamy to their advantage.

Either way, I think something really terrifying happened to Kegan, and I know that he's been too nervous to tell many people, about this, even his own brother, because of how absurd it sounds. I'm very glad that Kagan reached out to share this story, and I think it's really important to hear the experiences of people who lived on the street because you really don't often get to hear them. This one in particular is very strange and horrifying. But I'm glad to hear that Kagan is doing good and was able to get off the street and get

clean. I know the deaths of his friends were very difficult. And I'm glad to hear that he's doing better. Thank you so much to Kagan once again for sharing this story. If you want to hear that interview I did with the writer who wrote the article about the chickenwhackers, you can hear that on our Patreon. This has been episode 79. The title is The Chicken Wackers Part 2, and you've been listening to Otherworld.

Otherworld is executive produced and hosted by myself Jack Wagner. Our theme song is by Cobra Man. The soundtrack of this episode is by North America. This episode was edited and engineered by Theo Schaefer. Our artwork is by Coltysak Studios. Production help by Nikki Kate Delgado and Haley Pearson. Please show us your support by subscribing, leaving a five-star review, and telling your friends about the show.

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