So Supernatural - DARK WEB: Blank Room Soup (A So SOUPernatural Bonus)

Episode Date: April 1, 2026

Shortly after the launch of YouTube in 2005, a mysterious and unsettling video was uploaded to the site. It featured a man eating soup in what appeared to be a form of torture carried out by people in masks. The video became a series that sparked a lot of controversy. In this episode Rasha and Yvette are joined by Brit Prawat to ask, was Blank Room Soup a hoax or the precursor to something very real and very sinister? For a full list of sources, please visit: sosupernaturalpodcast.com/dark-web-blank-room-soup So Supernatural is an Audiochuck and Crime House production. Find us on social! Instagram: @sosupernaturalpod Twitter: @_sosupernatural Facebook: /sosupernaturalpod Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

It's wild to think how much YouTube has become a part of our lives over the last two decades. Now, it's where we go for our workout videos, our how-to videos, our podcast. I know I go there for all my recipe videos. And then you send them to me. And then I definitely send them to you. It's how so many people exclusively stream all of their content. But YouTube also has a very dark side. and it has since the very beginning.

There's a lot of content that is incredibly disturbing, it's weird, even supernatural. It's one place on the internet where we can go to question the boundaries of our reality, where we can watch videos that challenge our beliefs, what we, you know, truly know about the world. It's also one of the few corners of the internet, where anything is possible. Take a series of clips, collectively known as Blank Room Soup. The first video was posted on YouTube in the year 2005.

I didn't even know that YouTube existed in 2005. But anyway, shortly after YouTube launched is when Blank Room Soup was posted. And several follow-up videos went viral online afterwards. They're mostly famous because, nobody's entirely sure what the heck is going on. They might be a snuff film depicting a person's final moments before they're killed. They might be aliens performing some kind of murderous ritual, which, of course, aliens. We have to talk about aliens, right?

Or they might be something even darker, like a glimpse of hell itself. The most fascinating part is, the questions are still unanswered to this day over 20 years later. I'm Rasha Pec Guerrero and I'm Yvette Jindeele. And I'm Brits. I'm sorry, I just thought so. I'm just fanning girl out right now. Oh my God.

Oh, my God. And welcome back to so supernatural. And I'm like, like, when me and Ashley have to introduce herself to do people and she's like, I'm Ashley flowers. And I say, and I'm Britt, like in real life. Oh, my God. Do you do it? It's my name. It's really hard to not do it.

Yeah. I love you so much. Oh, my God. Well, needless to say, we are so excited to be here for this episode of So Supernatural. Because we are diving into one of the oldest mysteries on the internet, an elusive video, dubbed Blank Room Soup. But before we get into that, Yvette and I have another surprise this week. if you haven't figured it out, we're doing today. Third host, we've officially stolen her from crime junkie. That's right. So she's now ours. I'm so excited to be here. Yes, the one and

only Brit Prey was. Hi guys. This is, I'm so excited about this episode. I can't wait to hear the story. I remember this time of YouTube. So like, I can't wait to dive in. Oh, well, I'm happy that you are the expert because we knew nothing about it in 2005, but we know now. We are relying on you. Okay. No pressure, Rhett. So today we are turning back the clock to the early days of YouTube, which first went live in February of 2005.

And at that time, there were no influencers, there were no ads. The whole YouTube culture that exists today, it hadn't been developed yet. But this launch was still a pretty big deal. And there weren't any other websites that let people easily upload and share their own videos online. Even though YouTube's interface was still pretty simple, pretty basic, people couldn't subscribe to a feed or even watch videos full screen. I mean, I just have to say, I didn't know anything about YouTube until this one over here turned me on to it because you were... I created my own YouTube channel. That's right.

Excuse me. Thank you very much. So sweet. Yeah, but it's the only reason I did it, honestly, it was, and this was in 2013, so it wasn't even in the beginning of YouTube. I didn't even, like I said, I didn't even know YouTube existed in 2005, but I had been on the reality TV show The Biggest Loser. And the majority of us, if you haven't seen the Netflix documentary, I'll tell you. There's a lot of things going on. A lot of things going on. And the majority of us gained our weight back. And a lot of us had weight loss surgery. And none of us were talking about it. So I'm like, I'm going to talk about it. Yeah. You know, I had weight loss surgery in 2013 and here we are all these years later and I've kept the weight off. And YouTube was a platform for you to tell that story. Yeah. And it was for amateurs too. You know, anybody could go on there and tell their stories. I did it with my iPhone. Right. But anyway, it takes about 10 months for YouTube to become, you know, what it looks like today. Yeah. Starts to be. And it gets a little help on November 26, 2005, when a shocking new video gets

posted. It's uploaded by a user named Renaissance Men. The title of the clip is Freaky Soup Guy. It's one minute and six seconds long, but don't be fooled by that short runtime. They still manage to cover a lot in that minute and six seconds. This video opens with a man in a white tank top eating a bowl of soup, and it's in a very stark white room. No to quote. He's sitting at this wooden table under fluorescent lighting, almost like he's in an office building of some kind. You can't really tell. But there's something off about the way he's eating. It's not like it's a muck bang where you're like, okay, I'm watching every movie makes.

First of all, he's not using a normal spoon. He's trying to slurp out of an oversized ladle or some kind of serving utensil. And you can't see the guy's face because they're not. There's a big black sensor bar over it. It's very disturbing. He's sort of panting as he's eating almost like he's out of breath. Yeah, and it's almost like, obviously, he doesn't want to be there. Right.

So he's like fighting it. Like he's almost like he's forced. Yeah. It's really creepy. All you can see behind him is a doorway, but it's completely dark. So you can't tell what's through that door. Okay. However, as soon as the video starts playing,

Someone walks in through the doorway. They're in a costume, black clothes with bulky white gloves, and this is where it gets weird. They're in an oversized cartoonish mask is the best way I can describe it. It makes them look like they have a huge doll-like bobblehead with dark black circles for eyes and no nose or a mouth. The doll walks toward the man and passing them. his back, almost like he's trying to comfort him. But then the man who was eating the soup just starts uncontrollably sobbing and crying. Even though he's clearly in distress, he still keeps eating the soup, almost like he can't stop. Then at about the 45 second mark or so,

a second life-size doll creature appears just out of the way. frame. They're dressed exactly the same as the first doll, and they are also patting the guys back. Then another 20 seconds or so after that, the video just ends. There's no caption, no explanation of what we just watched. Nothing. Which is like a shocking situation. And again, with no context, it's a minute and six seconds. All this happens, but nothing happens. But there really is so much there to unpack, it's just what is it? Yeah. And why are we watching it? And why are we obsessibly watching it, right? Yeah. Why upload it? Yeah. Right. To be watch. To be clear, freaky soup guy doesn't include any

physical violence or anything, right? So he's not being beaten, but he's obviously... But it's still off-putting. Yes, it's very off-putting. Again, nobody gets hurt. There's no blood. There's no gore. And yet, like you just said, it's off-putting in spite of that. I mean, the video itself, as we all have just said, is very disturbing, right? Mostly because nobody can explain why the man is that upset in the first place. And why is he eating that much soup? And it almost seems like someone is forcing him to choke it all down. Because of that, some people watch the clip and they imagine.

immediately think this man is being tortured, right? I mean, I just have to ask you, like, what would your gut reaction be? Do you think? The way he's like choking it down and like then he starts uncontrollably weeping, the fact that his face is covered, it feels, yeah, kind of torturous. Like someone, even the kind of pats on the back feel condescending. 100%. Yeah. It definitely doesn't feel like he's there willingly. Because he wants to be. Right.

Yeah. Or does it feel like performance art? Right. That could be another theory. Yeah. But despite it being disturbing, upsetting and so confusing, people can't seem to look away. And before long, that video goes viral. Which we were talking about this a little bit before when we were talking about this video or this video series. there weren't a lot of videos out there. I mean, YouTube is 10 months old. Yeah. So viral is kind of relative in theory, but also I just remember like seeing a funny video or seeing a weird video even in that sort of like baby YouTube time and sharing it.

And that being the video that me and my friends watched exclusively for a month because guess what? There was nothing else to watch. It was a video on the internet and like we were internet. babies. And so, like, of course it got shared because we were sharing anything and everything that was provoking a conversation. Maybe not a good one, right, but something because there was just, it was so new and exciting to be able to even do something like that. Right. And you just nailed it right there. This is something that's new and fresh. So obviously people are going to be obsessed with it and trying to figure it out. Yeah. But rumors started to spread that it didn't originate on YouTube.

Oh. It originated on the dark web. We've had the dark web that long? That was our question. And in all honesty, I didn't know what the dark web was. I didn't either, because I thought it was just something that was used in, like, TV shows. I didn't know it was an actual thing. So tell me what the dark web actually is.

Okay. Let me just... Let me just... Let me break it down in layman terms. Okay. The dark web refers to a bunch of websites that can only be accessed using the... special computer programs. And they're hidden and they're very hard to find, mostly because people who use the dark web are sharing illegal content. So there is that. So imagine the internet is a city block. You have websites like YouTube, Facebook, or Amazon. And these are like stores or businesses,

right? And anyone can go in and you're pretty safe, right? But the dark web is the seedy back alley that you can only enter if you're up to some shady stuff, right? I didn't even know it was a real thing. I mean, I know about it because we've talked about it before. It's been in cases that we've covered on crime junkie. But it is always, for me, it's shocking to hear that this was something that if it predicates YouTube at YouTube's infancy and it came from somewhere else first, how long has that? been around. Like, that is even wilder to consider for me. Yeah. Now, there's no reason to think

Freaky Soup Guy appeared on the dark web before it was posted on YouTube. But it's not surprising people believe that. But the contents feel a little too creepy to have originated on an easily accessible site like YouTube. Right. Right. That, like, discomfort in the video, it feels icky. As odd and icky as a freaky soup guy is, the mystery is about to get weirder. Because soon after the clip hits the internet, there's more. At least three follow-up videos end up getting posted. And they hint that something even more violent is going on inside the blank room. It's safe to say follow-up videos were created by who,

ever made Freaky Soup Guy, the first video, right? Because of how similar they appeared. For example, the second video is 42 seconds long, very close to that 66 seconds. It starts out the same as the first one with the same freaky soup guy, the same man dressed in the same outfit eating with the same oversized spoon or ladle. This time he's gagging and choking. Like it's difficult for him to even take another bite, but he keeps shoveling it down his throat anyway. But this time, you can see what looks like a napkin and a can of soda on the table too. Then our two doll characters are back. They come into the blank room from the hallway. They stand by the doorway, watching Freaky Soup Guy struggle for a while. One with their arms crossed, another with their

arms by their side. Then out of nowhere, one of them charges straight for the man. And then, of course, the video ends a millisecond before they get to him. And it just cuts out. But right before it cuts out, you hear someone start to scream. And then just like cuts the black. Fade the black. Yep. Whoa. Yeah. Yeah. creepy, right? Yeah. I mean, these characters are already intimidating. Yep. And to just be like looming in the background and then charging at the guy, a scream, and then nothing. Yeah. So we don't know what happened.

And he's in the same outfit. Yep. The table is a little different because there's more stuff on it. Yes. But we don't know if it's like the same day, the same video. We have no idea. Like a new, like a different day, but the exact same setup. Right.

We know nothing. Nothing. You know, I just have to say like I've watched the video and when I look at things, I start to analyze everything. Even how it's framed, like everything. Yes. And I was looking at his hair. His hair looks a little bit longer to me in the second video. Now, I don't know if that's just me.

Yeah, I couldn't tell. I'm watching like for every little detail. Right. Right. And so, but it's hard to say if it's done all at one time or if it's done over days. If it's recreated to look exactly like it. Yes. Yeah. For that creep effect or if it actually is just 42 seconds.

in the same day. Right. All right, y'all, hold on because things are starting to get weird. Even weirder, I should say. Okay. So the third video is even more disturbing than the first and the second. Even though this one is just 11 seconds now. So now we've gone down in time, all right?

And it's shot somewhere very dark and you can't even tell if it's inside or outside. And the clip shows one of the dolls walking with the man in a white shirt and a red jacket. This time he's tied up, he's gagged, and he's wearing sunglasses and a hat. So he's physically disguised right now. But there's no sensor bar because we can see all that. Right, exactly. But you still can't see his face, right? Because of that, a lot of people think that it's not the same man in the earlier videos.

But we don't know. But we don't know for sure. Because we don't know who the first guy was and we don't know who this guy is. Yeah. But the change in the sensor bar makes it feel like, they could get away with it being a different person. Yeah, but we just have to say, though, in the first and the second, it is the same guy. Right.

It is the same guy. Yes. But in the third, we don't know. We don't know. Okay. So there could be an additional guy, but maybe not. But wait, now there's a fourth video that comes out. Okay.

This one is 31 seconds, so it's backed up a little bit in time. It's blurry. And the camera pans quickly, so honestly, it's kind of hard to see anything at all. but it seems like this one, the video is taken at night, the footage captures streetlights and storefronts that are all lit up, and then the camera settles and zooms in on one of our creepy doll characters, who's across the street standing perfectly still, again, with its arms crossed, staring right ahead. The whole thing is super disturbing, and apparently no one,

really knows what to make of it at all, especially back we're talking, you know, early 2000s, when the internet wasn't littered. Like, you were saying, right? Right. There were like seven videos with all these videos. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, so like what do we think was this made up for show? Or is it real? And if it's real, what is it? Right. And why are they doing it? Because this last video doesn't have soup guy in it. It just has the doll. Or one of them. And he's just looming across the street, hanging out. Which even without the first three videos, that's a terrifying video. Like, even without all of the weird soup stuff, just a video of this bobblehead doll, arms crossed in a dark street with like the glow of storefronts,

illuminating him is already unsettling. But if you put it in this series of like three other videos where this character or a character like this character are popping up and harassing a man eating soup? Poor little picky soup guy. Oh my gosh. But again, I go back to is this theater? Are they trying to... Is it just...

Are they trying to just elicit something? Yeah. Right. A feeling. But what is it? It almost reminds me. me, I know you're too young to know this, but the Blair Witch Project. I was young, but I remember it. Okay. I'm not a scary movie girlie. So, no, I'm not either. But I remember

going to it and people were, all of us thought it was real. Yeah. I remember hearing. Because there were handheld cameras too. It was all like found footage style. Yes. And then later they're like, ha ha, just kidding. It was art. So that's what I'm saying. Yeah. So let's get into the other theories. Yeah. Let's dive into the rumors in the series. That's one of them. Well, by the. time the fourth video surfaces around 2010, everybody and their mother, father, sister has a theory about what they're seeing in the series. And some believe that freaky soup guy and the follow-ups are all, we talked about this in the beginning, all part of a snuff film. I just have to say,

in fairness, we don't actually see the man get physically harmed or killed during the blank room soup, right? Which, to be frank, is like the feature of a snuff film. This almost doesn't qualify as one because none of that stuff happens. Right. But we do see someone being forced fed soup in what might be a form of torture, right? Because it all makes us feel very uncomfortable when we're watching it, right? And in another video, someone else who looks different from the guy eating soup is bound and led somewhere dark and we know that he's all alone while he struggles to get himself free.

Correct. So there is that. that feels like he's possibly being led off to some type of execution, right? The theory goes that the people in these life-sized doll suits must have taken at least one man hostage, possibly tortured him, murdered him, and even filmed it all. So this is all, again, rumors and speculation, right? And if the man in the third video really is someone different, that must have been. been done multiple times.

Right. Like that's another person. And if there was more than one, how many are there? Yeah. Yeah. So the clips that made it online could be bits and pieces of the longer, more disturbing and graphic movie of this scenario. Right. But there are also theories that are much more outlandish.

Some people believe the people with the doll like heads weren't in costume at all. Okay. What does that mean? What is happening right now? Wait for it. I'm forgetting that I am on so supernatural right now. Well, hello. You're going to find out why right now. I forgot that there are only questions on this show. Okay. So some people believe maybe this is what they actually look like because they're not actually human at all. I am of a huge, you know, alien believer. But this is very far-fetched. Like, I can't get behind that.

They feel so humanoid, right? Like, if they're actually aliens, they really have that many human-like attributes. Right. It feels unbelievable, like, to me at least. And I'm not necessarily an alien girlie. What? Brit!

I know. That is why. when we did our, remember we had to do the, are you and Ashley or? Right, right. You were Ashley and I was split. I was split. Yeah. I was split, but, yeah.

I think every good pairing has like a girl who's like, aliens are real and one who's like, I can use some more proof. So those tracks, this tracks. She's made me more of a believer, to be honest. I can see that. In all fairness. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay, well, if you don't believe in the alien theory, which I think we can all agree that the three of us don't. And I just have to say these costumes are very cartoonish. It wouldn't make sense for this to be an alien. Like, it doesn't look like a creature. Exactly. Yeah.

So I think we all three can agree that it's probably not the alien theory. Right. Yes. Right. But some people have put an even different spin on this saying these entities are actually demons. So if that is correct, blank room soup might have been filmed in literal hell. And the video could show the eternal torment that awaits you, especially if you've committed a crime or some serious sins like gluttony. Meaning if you were a gluttonous overeater in life, the devil might torture you by force.

forcing you to eat until you're sick and keep up with that torment for all of eternity. Maybe that's exactly what we're seeing in Freaky Soup Guy and its follow-ups, but I have to say right now, then I will be in hell myself because I was morbidly obese until 13 years ago. Here's my issue with this theory is my version of hell is having to upload a video on the internet in 2005. That is like its own circle to me. On like dial up.

Oh my God. Yeah, on my space. Oh, my gosh. No demon is waiting for that upload. This is more incredulous than aliens, you guys. It is not demons. Demons. Demons are off the list. Demon out.

Demon out. No aliens. No aliens. No demons. No demons. Okay. I realize I'm like bashing all the list. all of the supernatural things on this episode, but I'm not buying it.

Let's get to the clues, okay? Okay, okay. So listen up. If you're not buying any of these theories, maybe we should go to the root of the problem, right? The original creator. So sometime after blank room soup goes viral, although it's hard to nail down an exact date, online sluice uncover a major clue. And it leads to the person who may be behind the whole thing.

The YouTube profile Renaissance Men belongs to an animator, a director, a voiceover artist, and a puppeteer named Raymond Percy. If you're a big film or TV buff, you might recognize that name. Because today, Raymond is very successful in Hollywood, right? He worked on movies and television shows like The Simpsons, Frozen, and one of the ones. my favorite and my husband's favorite. And my favorite. Zootopia. Oh. He's flash.

He's the sloth. He's the sloth in Zootopia, one and two. The best one. The best character. Okay, so he's like a person person. Yeah. But in the late 90s and early 2000s, his professional life, it hadn't taken off yet. He was trying to build a name for himself and he did it by joining an experimental

performance art group called the Mutator. They put on edgy, experimental. shows that toured all across the country, and they did this for like two decades. And they're still occasionally active today. So that's what I was saying in the beginning, right? Performance art. Yeah. So that's a huge clue.

Yeah. I mean, it doesn't explain anything. Right. Ish. But like, it seems possible. Yes. I'm like, I want to hear this one out. Okay.

Okay. All right. There's more to it. With the mutator, Raymond puts his puppetry skills to good use. Working with special effects artists, he designed these huge costumes that performers could wear at the shows. And get this. They featured big, bulky heads with black hair, those same eyes, and no other features. Okay.

They also had the black suits and the puffy white hair. So he was in charge of, like, creating these costumes, these puppetry features that just so happened to look just like the, like, looming characters in the blank soup room. Yes, the cartoon. The cartoon doll, bobblehead, puffy hands. Okay. Right. And he's into experimental art. Right.

And where these dolls would come to life. Right. Right. Okay. So he called his creations Ray Ray. And if you take one look at the Rayrays, you'll realize that these are the exact same suits that the doll figures were wearing in the blank room soup. Okay. And once the people online put this all together, they figure, okay, the mystery solved.

Yeah. Raymond must have filmed blank room soup for, I don't know, some. reason and repurpose the Ray-Rae suit during production. Yeah. Right. They're his, they're his. Right. It's his.

Raymond's Ray-Rays. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. So in 2015, one online sleuth messages Raymond on Tumblr. Is Tumblr still around? I don't know. Is Tumblr?

I have no idea. I have no idea. I was on Tumblr. I was on Tumblr. Okay, it is. All right. Oh, it is. Okay.

She puts out a message to Raymond, and she asked if it's true that he created the blank room soup. And if so, why did he do it? Yeah. And what did he have to gain by making such disturbing content? And Raymond actually replies to her message. In the exchange that follows, Raymond says that, yes, he did create the costumes the tormentors were wearing in the video. Okay. Meaning, they're right ways. Meaning, like we said earlier, they're not aliens and they're not demons from hell. They're Ray, Ray, Ray, right?

Great. That's actually a huge answer. Yeah. Right. And he confirmed also that they're just ordinary people in these suits.

To not aliens. They're not demons. Again, this is a huge stride in this mystery. Right. Okay, but listen up. Raymond is also very adamant that he

didn't create blank room soup. Well, then that's another question. He had nothing to do with the videos at all. In fact, he says that sometime in 2005, the Ray-Rae suits went missing after

a mutator show. And he assumes that they were stolen, but of course, he doesn't know who took them or what they planned to do with them. So he has no clue about blank room soup. Until 2015, well, yes. When they reached out. Yeah. So he's like,

yes, those are my Ray-Rays, but I haven't had those for years. Right. And I don't know. Conveniently got stolen in 2005. We still have no answers. Basically. We like know where the, we know, again, not aliens, not demons. And definitely 1,000% puppetry costumes made by this man.

Yes. But he hasn't had, like, he hasn't had them physically in his hands for a very long time. It has no idea who took them, who used them for this video. Yeah. But they were made by him. But they were made by him. So he does admit that. Yeah.

But I have to say Disney or whoever his handlers are have scrubbed the internet with the exception of Reddit. Because if you like Google Raymond Percy, you know, blank room soup, like. It doesn't connect at all. No. Not to him. Interesting. Yeah. The only things that we could find were like on Reddit or different, like nothing.

Nothing official. Nothing in his history. Nothing in like his like experience or resume. I went down the whole. As like someone in sort of like the entertainment industry, he has this history with some sort of theater. Right. The puppetry of it. Yeah. Experimental. Like that probably helped get him to where he is today. You'd think that would show up somewhere in his like Wikipedia page. Even if it's not like, and also these costumes were used in blinkroom suit. Like even if that isn't in there, something about his time with this group. You would have shown up. You would have shown up especially again. Like there's. kind of a through line from his work in this experimental space to what he's doing now.

Right. And I did go down the Reddick deep dive. I know. I don't know how to do it. He did mention his sister got a hold of these suits. So I like need a headcount on these comments. Okay. But I do have more information about what Raymond says about all of this. Okay. His explanation, this we're just referring to the very first video. Okay. So Raymond says that a few weeks after the theft in 2005, he received an email from an account he didn't recognize. It had a video file attached, and when Raymond watched it, he saw the footage that we now know as Blank Room Soup or who we call Freaky Soup Guy. So it was almost like the thieves, whoever stole the Ray Ray suits were taunting him by showing him what kind of violent activities

they were doing with his costumes. According to Raymond, he was puzzled by what he saw, still. He wanted to figure out if this was a tasteless prank or some horrible actual prank. So he ended up like the generation you come from, sharing that video with his friends. He hoped someone could help him figure out who was behind the video and what they were up to. So he's saying that's why he first uploaded. Blank Room Soup to YouTube so he could just easily share the link with friends.

He's claiming that he didn't know that it was public. Because, you know, you can. You have that option to upload private or public. Yeah. Yeah. But he's, that's a stretch too, I think. So is he Renaissance men? He's not saying that he's not saying that at some point in time, he did upload this.

You too. Just maybe not this upload that's connected to the other videos, TBD. TBD. But he says he did it in 2005 and basically he was trying to just share it with his friends. I mean, I'm willing to give him a little bit of a benefit of the doubt. Oh, okay. Because I would like to do more research on if private videos were an option in 2005 on YouTube. Right.

Because YouTube is less than a year old. when this video gets posted. This is true. And again, there were like 15 videos on there. Right. When you're putting it on, like, when you have that access, you're just like, I just want to put my video online. Right. And I don't know if YouTube at that age would have had the forethought of like having that

protected video at that time. Maybe they did, but like without a little Google. Yeah. But is there a click? where you can... Well, there is now. Yeah, in 2013, that that was an option. Yeah.

From my video channel. But did he even have that option when he put it up there? And again, like, it is some new, like, the idea of, like, you know, like a reply all even was confusing. Right, right, right. The idea that you were just like, oh, I can just make a link out of this video that I have on my computer and send it to my friends without realizing how public it was or wasn't. I kind of believe him for 2005. I'm a little torn. Like, I'm, I don't know.

But that's a great point, though. Yeah, that's a great point. But I feel like he's already in the industry. Do you know what I mean? There is like a little bit of, okay, but shouldn't you have known better? You know what I'm saying? Like, that's my, yeah. Did he know it went viral in 2005?

Supposedly, he says he didn't even notice that it went viral. I say that in air quotes. I mean, if he's not, if he's only using the video to, like, share with his friends to be like, hey, did you do this? And he's not necessarily like going back to check the view counts. Would he know? And it's not, like we said at the beginning, it's not the YouTube that we know and love slash hate today. YouTube, we love you. We do love you.

But like, no, like, but with like influencer culture where there's view counts that matter, that count for people. people's careers that you're like banking on if you aren't posting something for that reason you may never think to go back to look at those view counts no I I haven't that's so true you may not know it goes viral if you're just like I just needed a link to send to my friends right I never expected to even watch this video on YouTube ever again right I mean again as someone in like the experimental art world at the time it feels like if it had gone viral he would have been part of that scope of virality, like it would have been sent to him

in one of those awful chain emails that went around, right? Like, maybe not by any of the friends that he originally sent it to, but like it would have come back around to him, especially if he was in that sort of culture or community. It seems odd that it wouldn't have like

circled back and met him be like, how did this even get to you? This was my video. Right, right, right, right. Very good point. Well, the internet disagreed with you, Britt. Raymond got a lot of criticism for his explanation, which I'm actually one of those people. But I'm with Britt. I mean, I now I am. I can see it. Anyhow, a lot of people wondered why would he put something like this on the internet rather than go to the police, right? Let's just consider the timeline here. Supposedly, Raymond received the blank room soup clip in 2005. He then uploaded it right away, never learned who was behind the video, and failed to mention it to law enforcement or anyone else for, wait, 10 years.

So what would he tell law, like, about the theft? I know. Hey, my ray rays were gone. Yeah, my ray rays were stolen. Maybe. Yeah, like, why would he talk to law enforcement? Yeah, I guess, like, the video is disturbing. Yes. And it feels like something bad is happening.

But it's disturbing. being because he made these costumes and now these costumes are in this video. Yeah, my costumes were stolen. I don't know where they are. Someone is taunting me with this video using my stuff and it feels like something bad is happening. I guess, but it also, this is maybe my crime junkie cynicism, but like I don't know how any law enforcement agency would react. Like, how do you write that report?

They probably laugh at you think. Right. I'm not saying that they should or shouldn't do that. Like maybe they probably should take it seriously. But I kind of get his hesitation to do anything about it. To do anything about it because what is there to do? There's more. And this comes in the year 2017.

Okay. That's when a content creator reveals new information that wasn't available at the time of Raymond's statement in 2015. Okay. So, and these new facts suggest that blank room soup might really be footage. from a real-life murder after all. One that also featured cannibalism. So in 2017, a creator with a username, Super Horror Bro, posts a new video on YouTube about the blank room soup mystery.

That's right. And the user claims he's investigated the videos with the help of an anonymous source known only as Enigma. An enigma, in turn, knows a number. another person of interest, an unidentified hacker, who will call Evan for simplicity. Okay. It's no wonder Evan doesn't want to reveal their real name, because get this. They said they stole the Ray Ray costumes from Raymond, and they created the blank room suit videos.

They also share some disturbing details that I'm just warning you. It's very unsettling, okay? Evan says that he and some other collaborators kidnapped a man and his wife. It's still unclear who the couple was when they were taken or why Evan and the others tormented them. All we know is that for a while, the man and the woman were held hostage and supposedly tortured.

Then Evan and their associates murdered his wife butchered her and made soup of her remains. So she was the soup. Yeah. And that's why the man in the original video was supposedly, I mean, which we all watched, was so upset. Yeah. You know, eating the soup. Yeah.

Oh, my God. This, I'm still stuck a little bit on like the trail of people that we had to get to get to the story. I know. Yeah. I know. Because that's a little bit of a journey. For sure. But, like, why is my only question?

Why? And why film it? Why the Ray Ray's? Why any of it? Right. But, like, there's also so many weird elements to this. I agreed. Agreed.

And claim it all those years later. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. He also says that when the Ray Ray Reyes approached him, you know, to Pat his back, that they weren't really comforting him. They were just mocking him.

Ugh. And it's hard to understand why Evan would have shared all of this with Enigma. Like this, like, we just said all this. Like, why? What is the purpose behind all of this? And I just have to wonder what details might have gotten change or, you know, misreported during that long game of telephone between Evan to Enigma to Super Horror, bro. Yeah.

So naturally, people have some doubts about. Super Horror Bros. Claims. And in terms of proof, a super horror bro has nada. Nothing. No proof. So we don't even know if these conversations happen. Right. We don't know if it's real or not. We don't know if Enigma is real, if Evan or Evan's story. Yeah. No idea. No idea. With all of that being said, though, we can verify enigma does seem to be real.

So at least one person with that exact username, it's E, the letter E and then Nigma, posted on a forum discussing their alleged conversation with Evan. And this post was from before Super Horror Bros video ever came out. So that's one kind of valid piece of proof that E-Nigma exists. That they exist, but we still don't have proof of like Evan or these conversations. Right. It's an element of the story existing. Just like it's as much proof as like, okay, and also the Ray Ray, rays are Ray, rays, not aliens. Right.

It's kind of like the same amount of an answer. The validity. Yeah. I mean, Enigma, obviously, like, so if someone does this, right, they're probably doing it for clicks or for the attention. Of course, of course. a possibility. I think that's a given either way. Right. For sure. For sure. Actually, though, in their forum post, Enigma makes even more wild claims about Evan that don't make much sense. For example, they say that Evan didn't only steal the Ray Ray-Rays and send Raymond the Freaky Soup Guy video,

but they also allegedly hacked Raymond's Tumblr, his YouTube, and his email accounts, and posed as him for years. So all these times that we've been saying, oh, Raymond said this, Raymond said that. That is probably why I couldn't find anything on the internet about it. It wasn't necessarily Raymond at all.

But Raymond is a public figure. Right. And if he lost control of all of his counts, he probably would have said something or made a public statement of some kind. For sure. Especially when there's, like, I think you've been able to set up Google Alerts,

for a while. If your name is, like, floating around there with, like, connected to this video, you would, like, find out and be like, oh, that was around the same time. My accounts were act or whatever. Yeah. It's getting really hard to, like, separate him from all this still. Yeah, it totally is. But since he hasn't come forward, we have to take Enigma's claims with a huge grain of

of salt. And they might be nothing more than just a hoax or a sick attempt to get some online attention or, again, for the clicks. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, there are those people who do it just for the attention. And the shock value. Yeah. Yeah. So let's just talk about if it's a hoax or not. As a matter of fact, some people think blank room soup might, all of it just might be fake, right? A way for Raymond Percy to, I don't know, maybe build a brand and get some attention. There is that. I mean, the thinking is that back in 2005, before his career actually took off, Raymond decided to make some creepy videos. And Raymond knew that if he could get under people's skin, he was more likely to go viral. So. I don't want to believe that about

Flashroom Sutopia. But that's kind of where my thing. thought process was in the beginning, that his forethought was thinking this from the get. Yeah. Well, especially knowing how unsettling the Ray Ray's look. Yeah. Yeah. And freaky soup guy. Yeah, but like we know that Raymond made the Ray Ray Ray Rays.

Yes. So something in him. That's a fact. Yeah. Like, we know for sure that he made them and they were involved with that experimental art girl. Yeah. Yes. So he had like, I hate to say like something in him, but like he was compelled to make these creepy characters.

Yeah. Thank you. And so like that alone, to me, makes it totally possible. Now you're coming to my side. Like that he was potentially capable or interested in making this sort of experimental art. And, like, to be completely clear, growing up in this era, like, I remember one of my best friends, Nathan, his little brother wanted to be a filmmaker. He was 13. He wanted to make, like, funny, weird videos.

And he did all the time. At one point in time, he took his parents' camcorder in a Ziploc and tried to film underwater. Very innovative. It did not work. Oh, he was ahead of his time than the thinking. He got in so much trouble. But he did make these weird little scripted vignettes and post them on YouTube in like 2007. And so that was a kid doing that just for fun.

But if you're trying to make a name for yourself in the art world and you already have these creepy characters, I mean, what was, we talked about this earlier, what was viral in 2005 and what did it take to get there wasn't much. Right. But like if you thought you could maybe do it. it with this character you already created. Right. I don't, like, on top of that, he's admitted to putting it on YouTube. Right. Like, whether or not he meant to blast it out there or not. But we're not sure if he admitted it because they're saying that they took over, potentially he got hacked, but he hadn't said anything about it.

Right. I mean, the connection of him making them and all is, like, so strong for me, though. Yeah, yeah. It's so hard to ignore. And it's weird that it's all scrubbed on that. internet. It's scrubbed. Like, there's no connection to him in the race. Especially because if you think about, like, if it wasn't him, maybe they still scrub it, but he addresses it somewhere, right? Right. Yeah, right, right. He talks about it. This, like, wild thing happened.

And now I'm really careful about how my, like, creations are used or whatever. I'm really sensitive to how my creations are represented in the world. And for him to not address it, not speak on it like have it so rame and percy if you want to come on so yeah come on so supernatural and talk to us all about it because you're our favorite and so top for all because you're our favorite utopia if that's not enough i know um but yeah like again i'm kind of i feel bad because i'm on so supernatural but like i'm kind of ruling out all of the supernatural options i think it is creepy Maybe he intentionally made the clips as unsettling as possible, right? Just to say that.

Sure, sure, sure. But then Reiman got jobs on The Simpsons. So he probably needed to keep his new bosses happy by building this new public brand that was more kinder, more friendly, right? Softer, yeah. Exactly, to get away from the mutator side of things, right? So he denied having anything to do with the blank room soup when people asked him about it. And then when the videos went viral, other creators like Super Horror Bro and Enigma may have started to pretend that they were involved. Again, copycats, right?

Inserting themselves into the narrative. Yeah. Yeah. So they get some fame. Exactly. Yeah. Connect themselves to it. And we know a lot about that in different cases, right? Right. And there is a reason we decided to cover this particular topic on April Fool's Day, in part, because when else would we get to talk about a creepy video? That's very likely a hoax.

But also, because this is a day when a lot of pranks and a lot of misinformation are flooding the internet. And while it's important to be skeptical about what you see, what you read, what you intake, especially on April 1st, it's also good to keep an open mind. Well, nothing can be confirmed about this story, and we mean nothing. Nothing at all. We also can't completely debunk it either. Right. Yeah, but that is the nature of the cases that we cover.

This is true. And there's usually an official explanation, right, the very safe and the grounded solution that we've all heard in many different cases. The allegation of pranks and hoaxes. And then there's the supernatural theory. That's why stories like these are so freaking exciting because as long as they have elements that cannot be explained, there's just so much possibility. Yeah. And frankly, if we were to prove tomorrow that ghosts, aliens, or other dimensions were real, that would take a little bit of the fun out of it, right?

Yeah, the unknown is the best part. It's the best part. But I still want our mom to haunt us. I know. I want to know that there's really ghosts. But yes, it is. The unknowing is the best part, you know? For sure.

With all of that being said, if you know me, you know that I'm a terrible, terrible liar. And I have all of these lines on my face because I am very expressive and I cannot hide anything. So I can no longer hide that. We have to share that this episode has been an episode for April Fool. As much as we would love our beautiful Brit to stay with us as a permanent co-host on So Supernatural. We do have to give her back to her BFF, Ashley. We don't want you to go, Britt. It has been so much fun to hang out with you, ladies.

I've wanted to do this for a really long time. so glad we could make it happen. I loved this episode. Like, I love all your episodes, but being on it was even more exciting. Oh, well, you can come back anytime. You are welcome. That is not an April full joke. You're welcome back anytime, I promise. And we love and adore you. And you know, we do. Mahalo, Noah. Thank you, Britt. Thank you, Britt for being here. Yvette and I will be back this Friday with another all-new episode of So Supernatural. And that, my friends, is not a hoax. This is So Supernatural and Audio Chuck original produced by Crimehouse. You can connect with us on Instagram at So Supernatural Pod and visit our website at so supernaturalpodcast.com.

Join Russia and me next Friday for an all new episode. I think Chuck would approve.