The Why Files: Operation Podcast - Stories That Still Haunt the Internet: The Soup Room, The Masked Feast, The Station That Isn't There

Episode Date: July 11, 2026

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Starting point is 00:01:28 Gather around. This happened in Japan in January of 2004. Just past 11 on a Thursday night, Hussumi caught the last train home from work. at Shin Hamamatsu. It was about a 33-minute trip, with a stop every few minutes, and she knew every station by heart. But tonight was different. About 20 minutes in, the train didn't stop once.
Starting point is 00:01:52 30 minutes, 40 minutes. The train just kept going, and Hussumi was getting nervous. Finally, 90 minutes later, the train stopped. Hussumi got off at Kisaragi Station. Hussumi was confused. She never heard of a Kisaragi station. Well, that's because it doesn't exist.
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Starting point is 00:03:20 Start therapy with BetterHelp. Sign up and get 10% off at BetterHelp.com slash Y-Files. That's better-h-E-L-P dot com slash Y-Files. Hussumi documented the bizarre train ride in real time. She logged into two-channel, the biggest message board in Japan. She opened a thread in a channel where people share strange stories, and she was living one. But her early messages were calm and polite.
Starting point is 00:03:52 The way you'd talk if something weird was happening, but you were sure there was a normal explanation, so she laid out the story, post-by-post, as it happened. Has anyone heard anything about the Hamamats train? Did they switch it to an express train? It's not stopping at any stations. Users responded quickly. It was late, but this is the kind of message board that comes alive at night.
Starting point is 00:04:18 I assume he wrote about the train not stopping at stations like it was an express train, but this line had no express. And I assume he wasn't alone. There were five other people on the train, but something felt off. They were all asleep, but not the way commuters doze off. When you fall asleep on a train or a plane, your head kind of just hangs. When you hit a bump, you snap up for a second and then drift off again. They weren't doing this. Those people were out, almost like they were sedated.
Starting point is 00:04:53 Hussumi expected someone to wake up and be as confused as she was, but nobody did the entire time. Nobody on this train is awake except me. I don't know how anyone could sleep on a train. And they are sleeping really hard. I had to check that they were actually breathing. Hussomi was still calm and joking with people on the message board, but it was getting late and she was getting a little worried.
Starting point is 00:05:18 People told her to check with the conductor. That was a good idea. She walked to the front of the car, but the window of the driver's cab was covered. The blinds were closed from the inside. She knocked on the window, politely at first, then harder and harder until she was banging on it.
Starting point is 00:05:39 Either the conductor was ignoring her or nobody was driving this train. She couldn't decide which was worse. She went back to her seat and told everybody what happened. The joking stopped. Then the train entered a tunnel. There was no tunnel on her commute, not anywhere. And this tunnel went on for a long time.
Starting point is 00:06:02 Too long. When the train finally came out of the tunnel, it started to slow down. Her commute is supposed to be 33 minutes with stops. This was a 90-minute ride with only one stop, this one. She got out, but nobody else did. The doors closed and the train with the five sedated passengers pulled away. Her phone buzzed. The message board was going crazy.
Starting point is 00:06:28 People wanted to know where she was. She found the name on a sign and sent it to the message board. Kisiragi. A few minutes later, someone replied, Oh, no. The station was deserted and looked old. An empty Japanese train station was weird enough, but there were no ticket machines, no timetable, no phones.
Starting point is 00:06:56 the area didn't look familiar at all. There wasn't a single house in sight, and it was too quiet. She could see hills far in the distance, but everything was dark. The light at the platform was the only light for miles. She checked the message board again. The internet loves a puzzle, so people went to work. But nobody could find any information about Kisaragi Station. Asumi searched too. Same result.
Starting point is 00:07:21 I've been searching the web, and I can't find anything called Kisalagi. If anyone knows where I am, please post right away. There is no, and there has never been a station named Kisaragi on this train or any train line in the entire country. And it wasn't just a few people searching. Hundreds of people were now in the thread trying to find her. Then came to speculation. She got on the wrong train. Unlikely.
Starting point is 00:07:50 There's only one train out of Shin Hamamatsu, and she was on it. Some said maybe she's in an alternate reality. or maybe in some type of purgatory or liminal space. It certainly felt like it. Then a message shut down a lot of theories. Someone asked, if she slipped into some different reality, how has she been posting the whole time? It's the same internet, the same people since the beginning of the thread.
Starting point is 00:08:13 And even though she was in the middle of nowhere, she had cell service. And that message reminded Hussumi to do the obvious. She called her parents. They picked up right away. She told them the story, and they came to the same conclusion. There was no such place as Kisaragi Station. Her father told her to call the police, and she did.
Starting point is 00:08:34 The police were cooperative at first. They couldn't find Kisaragi Station either, and if they couldn't find it, it didn't exist. The policeman said it was against the law to prank call the police. Assume he apologized and hung up. Her phone was full of lifelines. Her parents were awake and ready to help, the police picked up on the first ring,
Starting point is 00:08:54 and hundreds of people online were trying to find her. But all of them were useless, because the station, the hills, the ground underneath her feet, none of it existed. Then just before 2 in the morning, she heard the drums. There's something about summer that makes me not want to think about what I'm wearing.
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Starting point is 00:10:15 slash the Y files for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada, too. That's QI-N-C.com slash the Y files for free shipping and 365-day returns. terms. Quince.com slash the Wi-Files. The deep sound of Tygo drums was coming from somewhere. And also the ringing of bells, festival sounds. But it was two in the morning in the middle of January. There was no festival. And even if there were, she couldn't pinpoint the direction of the sounds.
Starting point is 00:10:49 They were far away. That's all she knew. So she waited and waited and waited. Maybe another train would come along, but none did. But assume he was. still come and made a practical choice. Follow the tracks. Train tracks connect stations.
Starting point is 00:11:06 The next one might be far away, but it would be there eventually. Hopefully. She started walking, listening to the drums, and posting messages the whole time. OK, I've been walking for like an hour, and I swear someone is following me or watching me, but I don't want to turn around.
Starting point is 00:11:27 Dozens of people type back at her in real time. Keep moving. She did, but she couldn't shake the feeling. Then she heard a voice yelling behind her to get off the tracks. They're dangerous. She turned around expecting to see a station worker. But it was an old man about 30 feet away with crutches standing on one leg. She was about to reply, and then he was gone.
Starting point is 00:11:54 He didn't walk away. He was just gone. Then the message board stopped giving advice and started giving orders. Don't go back to that station. Run and run as fast as you can. But there was a tunnel ahead, and it was dark, but she had no choice. This is the only direction.
Starting point is 00:12:12 So she went in and started walking. Somewhere in the dark, she fell and cut herself. She didn't know how bad. She couldn't see a thing. She was using her phone as a light. She got up and kept moving. When she finally got to the end of the tunnel, she saw lights, headlights, a car.
Starting point is 00:12:29 There was a man standing. by the car waiting, like he knew she was coming. He said she was a long way from anywhere and offered to drive her to the next station. She was bleeding, exhausted, and it was the middle of the night. She got in the car. The message board did not like this idea,
Starting point is 00:12:51 but she told him he seemed okay, he was weird, but okay, he chatted with her for a while, small talk mostly, but then he got quiet. He hasn't said the word in like 20 minutes, He's just staring out of the window driving. He promised to drop me off at the next town. I'll keep checking in. The message board was in full panic.
Starting point is 00:13:15 They were asking her to describe him, describe the car, describe the area, and she did all of that. And she said there was a town right up ahead, and she was looking forward to getting home. It was almost 3.30 in the morning. Then the car passed the exit for the town and headed into the mountains. The man started muttering to himself,
Starting point is 00:13:35 assuming he couldn't hear what he was saying, but she sent a message to the board. My batteries almost run out. Things are getting strange, so I think I'm going to make a run for it. He's been talking to himself about bizarre things for a while now. To prepare for just the right time, I'm going to make this my last post for now. She sent that at 3.44 a.m. and never posted again.
Starting point is 00:14:13 At 3.44 AM on January 9, 2004, Hasumi sent her final message. But the thread stayed open for her. Strangers who watched the night unfold kept refreshing the page hoping for an update. People kept checking in to see if she made it home. The thread never answered. No rescue, no body, no ending. A woman narrated her own disappearance in real time to a public message board. And the last anyone heard from her was she was promising
Starting point is 00:14:42 to run. The thread is still online. You could read every message and watch the time stamps I did, and it's creepy. From the first post at 1114 to the last at 344, and it reads exactly the way I told it. The train she boarded is real, and it runs about half an hour from Shin Hama Matsu to its final stop. Hussumi wrote it for more than an hour, and there's never been a station called Kisaragi anywhere on that line or anywhere. For 18 years, people analyzed the story. They timed the train stop by stop. They compared timestamps.
Starting point is 00:15:18 They tracked IP addresses. Every lead was a dead end. Hussumi was gone and there was no way to find her. But the story wouldn't go away. In 2022, it became a horror movie. When the movie came out, one of the stations on that same line was temporarily named Kisaragi.
Starting point is 00:15:37 They printed, real physical tickets with Kisaragi Station as the destination. They sold out in an hour. In 2004, a young woman spent four hours begging strangers for one thing, away home from Kisaragi Station. She called her parents. She called the police. She walked into a tunnel.
Starting point is 00:15:57 She got in a car with a stranger. She did everything she could to find her way out. 18 years later, people lined up to buy their way in. I've always kept a close eye on my finances, checking my accounts all the time, knowing what's coming out and when, and even when I'm on top of it, I still spend a chunk of time manually going through statements. Now, thanks to Rocket Money, I'm getting that time back. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that helps find and cancel unwanted subscriptions,
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Starting point is 00:17:18 your financial goals faster. Join at RocketMoney.com slash the W files. That's rocketmoney.com slash the Y files. Rocket Money.com slash the Y files. Gather around. This happened in 2005. A one-minute video appeared on YouTube. A man sat alone at a table in a bare white room with no windows and a black bar covered his eyes. He held an oversized spoon and ate soup from a bowl. And he cried, not soft tears, deep, full-body sobs that shook his shoulders and made his hands tremble.
Starting point is 00:17:54 He kept lifting the spoon to his mouth like he couldn't stop, like someone off-camera forced him. Then two figures walked in behind him wearing giant mascot heads. Their faces were white, with black circle eyes and wide frozen grins. And they rubbed his back slowly, gently, but he cried harder.
Starting point is 00:18:24 The video was called Freaky Soup Guy. Millions of people watched it. And a lot of them believed it was that man's last meal. The internet thought it was a snuff film. This was November of 2005, and YouTube was less than a year old. There were no algorithms, no trending pages, no. fact checkers. Video spread the old way from one person to another, usually with a warning attached. Don't watch this alone. Within weeks, forums exploded with theories. The crying man was a kidnapped victim.
Starting point is 00:19:10 The soup was poisoned. The mascot figures were his captors, and the back rubs were mockery. People said the video leaked from the deep web, something dark that surfaced on YouTube by accident. Some claimed the soup was made from somebody loved, and when he finished the bowl, the men in the suits would finish the job. Those figures were the only lead. Identify them, and you identify the men in that room. So people dug, and the costumes turned up fast. The characters were called Ray Ray, and they weren't hiding or obscure. Ray Ray performed in underground clubs all over Los Angeles with a group that came out of Burning Man in 1998.
Starting point is 00:19:51 The group mixed musicians, fire performers, and aerial artists into strange, uncomfortable shows. Audiences squirmed, laughed, and came back the next week. And Ray Ray had a creator. His name was Raymond Percy. And that name might not ring a bell, but you've heard his voice. Percy voiced Flash the Sloth in Zootopia, the Sloth at the DMV window. Flash, Flash, 100-yard Dash. He spent years directing The Simpsons. And one of his episodes won an Emmy.
Starting point is 00:20:23 Today, he makes peanut specials for Apple TV Plus. One of the most successful animators in Hollywood created the figures in the most disturbing video on the internet. Percy sketched Ray Ray in a notebook, and the sketches were of himself. He took his own face and stripped it down to a white mask with black hole eyes, dark plastic hair, and a grin that was too wide.
Starting point is 00:20:50 He said the character came from, A mix of inhibition, a sense of alienation, and a deep-seated need for entertainment. A special effects artist turned the sketches into wearable costumes with oversized heads, white plastic hands, and full black clothing underneath. The proportions were wrong on purpose. The head was too big, the eyes were too empty,
Starting point is 00:21:14 and Ray-Ray looked like a cartoon drawn by someone who was never happy. Those grinning figures in the soup video wear the artist's own face. For 10 years, the video sat there while views piled up, and so did the theories. Then YouTuber Rainbot tracked Percy down through Tumblr in 2015, and he wrote back.
Starting point is 00:21:37 His story went like this. The Ray-Rae costumes were stolen after a show at the Key Club on the Sunset Strip. The dressing room that night was an old RV parked in the alley behind the club, and the door didn't lock. When the group came back after the show, the costumes were gone.
Starting point is 00:21:54 A few weeks later, an anonymous email landed in his box with a video attached, and Percy pressed play and watched strangers wear his stolen creation while they filmed what looked like torture. And here's the part that stuck with him. Whoever wore those suits moved exactly the way they should, the tilt of the head, the slow, gentle hands, they knew Ray Ray's body language, like they built him. And Percy said there were There were more videos, not just one. And the internet accepted the whole story because a theft explained everything. Strangers stole artists' work and twisted it.
Starting point is 00:22:31 Case closed. Then somebody checked the account that put Freaky Soup Guy on YouTube back in 2005, the account that uploaded it on day one. That account was called Renaissance Men. And Renaissance Men belonged to someone we knew. It belonged to Raymond Percy. The people who saw 2008 coming weren't conspiracy theorists. They were just paying attention to the numbers.
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Starting point is 00:24:39 included a link to a Ray Ray MySpace page, and the username displayed on that page was Raymond Percy. The rest of the channel read like Percy's personal blog, promos for Simpsons episodes he worked on, a music video he directed, the victim of the theft uploaded the video himself. And Percy never denied it. His explanation when it finally came was that he posted
Starting point is 00:25:03 the video to share it with his group. Fine. Now, read the descriptions. YouTube was just the start. Percy put the video on Meta Cafe and on Daily Motion through channels he ran under the name Ray Ray TV. On those uploads, he wrote a description, a clip of people who look like us doing something to someone that we would never do. We promise. That's written from Ray Ray's point of view, not from a man reporting a stolen costume, from the characters themselves, playing innocent, with Ray Ray denying involvement in a video
Starting point is 00:25:40 that Ray Ray stars in. The YouTube description was simpler. We don't know what this is. Not one description mentioned stolen costumes, and not one asks for help finding them. Three platforms, every description in character, and all of them uploaded by Percy. And there was a second video.
Starting point is 00:26:00 Same room, same crying man, same Ray-ray figures. This time, one of them charged the man while he screamed. Percy uploaded that one to the other channels too, under a new title, Soup Torture. The video's description was, what's happening in this clip and why do these people look like us? The trail even has a ghost in it. A YouTube account called Adana with no history, no uploads, and the soup video, as its profile, picture. On a year after uploading Freaky Soup Guy, Percy stood on a stage and accepted an Emmy for directing The Simpsons. A third video showed a Ray-Wright figure dragging a rope-tied man
Starting point is 00:26:47 through a backyard at night. The bound man wore glasses and a hat, and he looked like Gil Sharon. Sharon became one of the most respected drummers in Rock. He played for the Dillinger Escape Plan and spent years behind the kit for Marilyn Manson. But in 2005, he was a Jerome played drums in Stolen Babies, and the lead singer of Stolen Babies was Dominique, Lenore Percy, Raymond Percy's sister. The band and the costumes came from the same family. Stolen Babies grew out of a high school performance troupe,
Starting point is 00:27:20 and the skit that gave the bandit's name was written by Dominique and her older brother Raymond. The theft never stopped Ray Ray either. The group had spare costumes made, and Ray Ray showed up in Stolen Babies' 2006 music video, same costumes, same dead-eyed grins. The same obscure art projects showed up twice in 12 months, in front of two completely different audiences.
Starting point is 00:27:46 One went out through normal music channels. One landed in the darkest corner of early internet culture, made for people who stayed up too late, clicking on things they probably shouldn't. Percy told Rainbot he had no idea the video went viral, even though by 2015 it had millions of views. He ran Rayrayworld.com. He ran Rayrayland.com.
Starting point is 00:28:08 He had Ray Ray Rayville on MySpace and Ray Ray Vision and Ray Ray TV on YouTube. The man built an entire online world around this character. And he said he didn't notice when one of his uploads became a global phenomenon. Okay. Whether life serves you an ace or an unexpected backhand, the high-protein yogurt, Oikos Pro, is there to feed your strength and have help you turn every challenge into a smash. Oikos Pro helps build strong muscles and support muscle recovery with high protein and contains
Starting point is 00:28:50 no added sugar because true strength isn't about being able to take the hits. It's about being able to bounce back. Oikos Pro Feed your strength. Visit oikos.ca for more details. There's no record of a police report about the stolen costumes. No insurance claim, no public appeal for their return. The only record of any theft is a message to a YouTube. sent 10 years after the fact. Then, in 2016, the story cracked open again.
Starting point is 00:29:24 An anonymous poster claimed contact with the thief. According to the post, the man who stole the costumes was a hacker who made the videos as an art statement, something about freeing Ray Ray from the corruption of money. And the hacker claimed one more thing. Grainbot never spoke to Raymond Percy at all. The hacker was inside Percy's accounts the whole time, reading his email and answering as his.
Starting point is 00:29:48 If that's true, the theft story came from someone wearing Percy's identity the same way they wore his costumes. The post said the hacker went silent in early 2017, and nobody verified a word of it. So the mystery ate its own solution. Either Percy ran the whole thing from the beginning, or a thief stole his costumes, filmed those videos, hijacked his accounts, and spent a decade answering the world's questions in his name. Nobody's ever proven Percy wore the suits in that room, but nobody's ever proven he didn't. Percy never made another public statement about blackroom soup. He kept working, Disney movies, cartoons for kids, and the video is still on YouTube,
Starting point is 00:30:31 with over 900,000 views on the original upload alone, and millions across re-uploads and reaction videos. For 20 years, people have slowed it down frame by frame. They isolated the audio and listened for a voice off camera. They zoomed in on shadows, hundreds of forum threads, dozens of explainers, and nobody found the answer, because the video never gives one. But Percy told Raynbot one more thing. Over the years, people kept sending him videos, more Ray-ray footage, doing all sorts of
Starting point is 00:31:06 things. He never posted any of it, and never said how many videos there were or what was in them. They're still out there somewhere. The crying man never came forward. His face stayed hidden in every video. Some viewers thought the man looked like Percy himself, but no one confirmed it and no one denied it. Nobody's friend, nobody's brother, nobody's coworker.
Starting point is 00:31:28 Just a man who doesn't exist outside those videos. Whoever he is, he never said a word. He just cried. And the man behind the black bar is still at that table. He still lifts the spoon. He still cries. The hands still rub his back slowly and gently. One minute beginning to end for anyone who presses play.
Starting point is 00:31:50 Twenty years now. And he never gets to finish the soup. Gather around. This happened in 2018. A woman sat in front of a camera with 11 pounds of raw salmon. A blue mask covered everything above her mouth. No name, no face. She whispered two words.
Starting point is 00:32:24 Then she started eating. The channel was Kate Yupp. And over the next year and a half, she posted around 30. videos. Expensive seafood, a blank beige wall, silence except the sound of chewing. Then someone turned up the audio on that first video, and under the crunching, a man's voice whispered into the microphone. The woman behind the mask was never alone. Muckbang started in South Korea around 2010. The word means eating broadcast. People filmed themselves working through huge meals, while an audience watched in real time.
Starting point is 00:33:17 Some came for the ASMR sounds, the crack of lobster shells, the snap of crab legs. Some came because they ate dinner alone, and a stranger eating on a screen felt like company. Kate Yupp fit the formula. King crab worth hundreds of dollars, whole lobster tails,
Starting point is 00:33:34 giant shrimp still in their shells. She tore through all of it with bare hands while the microphone caught every sound. The crack of a little. claw, the wet pull of meat off bones. Her captions stayed cheerful. So delicious. I love this crab. Thank you for watching. But something was wrong. Kate was thin in a way that scared people. You can see her collar bones through her clothes. And she ate fast. Too fast. She shoved food in barely chewing, grabbing the next piece before she finished the last. And the room never changed. Every video, the same
Starting point is 00:34:13 beige wall. No windows, no decorations, no bookshelf, no poster, nothing to show where she was or what time it was. There was no clock, no windows, no daylight. No way to tell a Tuesday from a Sunday or noon from midnight. Most Muckbank creators film in kitchens or restaurants. Kate filmed in front of a wall they could have been anywhere. A room built to show nothing. It felt intentional. Around the sixth or seventh video, the bruises showed up. Deep Purple marks on her arms. The kind fingers leave when they grab you too hard. In one video, her lip was split and swollen. She said it was a cold sore. In another video, she had dark lines around her wrists. Viewers stripped out the chewing and turned up the background noise. They heard a man's voice,
Starting point is 00:35:04 giving orders. Just eat. Swallow. Faster. In one video, someone whispered, I kill you. The word came through clear, even under the sound of chewing. In another video, the table jolted kicked from off-camera the moment Kate slowed down. A dish of food slid toward her, a hand pushed it from off-camera. Footsteps came toward the microphone, then backed away. Someone else was in that room, and they did not want to be seen. Then it got stranger. Kate's profile photo wasn't her.
Starting point is 00:35:42 It was a stock photo of a random woman eating fries. Nothing about her connected to anything outside those videos. She existed only inside that room in front of that wall. But the channel kept growing. 100,000 subscribers, 200,000. The bruises kept showing up. The woman in the mask kept getting thinner. Then people noticed something disturbing.
Starting point is 00:36:07 She was hiding messages in her video descriptions. The 2026 Chevrolet Tracks is the stylish SUV for those on the move. And with the standard Chevy safety assist package, you have the backup to handle every turn with confidence. The 2026 Tracks. Start your build at Chevrolet.ca. In August 2019, Kate posted a video called I Am Alive. She used the captions to answer the growing panic. The first letter of each line spelled H-E-L-P.
Starting point is 00:36:50 Hey, I'm still alive, my friends. Everything is okay for me. Look at me, are you really thinking I am forced to eat? Prawn, just smaller than giant shrimps. You don't spell help by accident with the first letter of four sentences, not in a video called I Am Alive. In other videos, capital letters dropped into the middle of normal sentences, spelled SOS.
Starting point is 00:37:14 The meat is capital S, so delicious, capital O, capital S. In another, they spelled Call 911. Four separate videos carried hidden words. Then a viewer noticed Kate tapping on the side of a dipping bowl in a rhythm that matched Morse code. That comment shot to the top of every video on the channel. Kate pinned a reply denying it.
Starting point is 00:37:41 But those words weren't hers. Someone found an English denial on Reddit and pasted it in word for word. She answered other theories too. When people asked about the mask, whoever was responding for the channel said it was to hide a nose deformity. She had scars from cold sore blisters. When people brought up the tapping, the channel, whoever that was, denied it. But the signs got worse.
Starting point is 00:38:07 In two separate videos, Kate reached into her mouth and pulled out a broken tooth. She didn't stop eating. She didn't flinch. She kept eating with blood around her gums, while the captions. said everything was fine. Viewers called the FBI. They called the police across California. They filed missing persons reports and launched a petition that pulled in thousands of signatures. A million people watched and waited for someone to kick down a door. Nobody came. With no name, there was nothing to open a file on. With no face, there was no one to look for. With no address,
Starting point is 00:38:45 there was no door to find. The mask didn't just hide Kate from the audience. It hid her her from everyone trying to save her. And one detail pointed somewhere darker. In several videos, a toothbrush was taped to her wrist. Not on the table, taped to her body. People didn't want to think about why. People couldn't tell if this was a hoax or real, but they couldn't look away.
Starting point is 00:39:13 On November 10, 2019, Kate posted her last video. Another tooth came loose during the meal. Final caption read, oh my God, I can die in peace after this bite. And then she was gone. My name is Peter Parker, but I'm also Spider-Man. This July, we're faced with a threat. That can be anyone. The world may have forgotten Peter Parker. I'm just a neighbor, friendly neighbor. But he hasn't forgotten them. Sometimes Spider-Man has to do the hard thing. That's my responsibility. Talk to Banner? I didn't know you could get that big.
Starting point is 00:39:56 Spider-Man, brand-new day. In theaters, July 31st. Three years passed and nothing. No uploads, no posts. No sign that Kate Yupp existed anywhere on Earth. The petition stalled. The reports closed. The million people who watched her
Starting point is 00:40:16 drifted off to the next mystery. Then, on October 7, 2022, a new video appeared. Raw salmon, Japanese food. The caption said she was fine, than she was alone in that room. It also said, stop spreading kidnapping rumors. But viewers noticed things.
Starting point is 00:40:36 Her jawline was wider. Her skin tone was different. The way she held her food, the angle of her wrists, small details that didn't line up with the older videos. Nobody could confirm it was the same woman. And if it wasn't, then someone else had the account and the password and the exact same setup. And they wanted the world.
Starting point is 00:40:57 to stop looking. She posted nothing after that. No replies, no proof of life. The channel went quiet again. The internet kept hunting. One theory thought she was a Polish UFC fighter. The bruises fit. The covered face kind of fit.
Starting point is 00:41:13 But that theory didn't hold up. The two women had different moles on their necks. And the fighter's own Instagram showed different injuries. And Kate had a tattoo the fighter didn't. On Kate's wrist was a small heart, looped through an infinity. sign. That tattoo means something. Some people
Starting point is 00:41:32 use that symbol to mean polyamory. To a few viewers, that turned the whole story inside out. The bruises, the voice off-camera, the orders, maybe none of it was kidnapping. Maybe it was a lifestyle choice. Another theory tied her to a teenager
Starting point is 00:41:49 who vanished in California, but that one fell apart too. Kate's channel posted for months before that girl disappeared. Every lead went cold, every theory hit a wall. No missing persons report ever matched her. No police department ever opened the case. Her real name is unknown.
Starting point is 00:42:08 Her face is unknown and her location is unknown. The first video's description was French. The account said, United States. She covered her face in every frame she ever filmed. The mask did its job better than any disguise in internet history. A woman broadcast herself to millions of people and not that one of them can tell you her name. Today the channel has more than 1.7 million subscribers.
Starting point is 00:42:36 Most of them arrived after she vanished. The videos still run ads, and the ads still pay. A few hundred dollars a month, maybe more, but they pay every month and someone is cashing the checks. A frozen channel about a woman nobody can find still earns money. That gives someone a reason to never let the truth out. Somewhere, someone still logs into that account. Every month, they collect the money.
Starting point is 00:43:04 And every day, the algorithm shows her videos to somebody new. Somebody who turns up the volume, leans in close, and hears the voice for the very first time. Just eat. Thank you so much for hanging out today. My name is A.J., this is the Wi-Files, and that was a campfire story. No debunking, no analysis, just a creepy story to scare you in the kids. And that one is true and unsolved. Now, if you had fun, I'd appreciate it if you can like, subscribe, comment, and share.
Starting point is 00:43:44 That stuff really helps. And like most topics we cover here, today is recommended by you. So if there's a story you'd like to see, go to thewifiles.com slash tips or send us an email. We'd love to cover that story. And if you'd like to hear any of these campfire stories expanded into a full episode, there's a few I'd like to do. Then definitely let me know. Remember the WiFiles is also a podcast.
Starting point is 00:44:03 You can take us on the road. I post deep dives into the stories we cover on the channel. I also post episodes that wouldn't be allowed on the channel. podcast is called the Wi-Files Operation Podcasts, and it's available everywhere. And if you're listening on an audio platform, do me a favor, hit the thumbs up or the like or the follow, whatever those buttons are.
Starting point is 00:44:19 Those really do help. Now, if you need more Wi-Files in your life, check out our Discord. We're about to hit 100,000 members over there. It's a lot of fun. It's a really supportive community. There's someone on there 24-7, and it's free to join.
Starting point is 00:44:32 Speaking of 24-7, check out our 24-7, I'm plowing through the plugs. Speaking of 24-7, make sure you check out a 24-7 stream in the Wi-Files backstage. over there we run episodes back to back with some fun content in between and the live chat is super, super fun.
Starting point is 00:44:46 Special thanks to our patrons who made this channel possible and make every episode of the live files happen. Every episode is dedicated to our Patreon members. I could not do this without you. If you'd like to support the channel, keep us going. Consider becoming a member on Patreon. For as little as three bucks a month, get access to perks like videos early with no commercials,
Starting point is 00:45:02 exclusive merch, and two private live streams every week just for you to hear the whistle on my teeth. It's because I'm going too fast. The private live streams are lot of fun for members only my web cam is on everyone on the team has their camera on you can talk to all of us turn your camera on jump up on stage ask a question it's a lot of i think it's the best perk there is another great way to support the channel grab something from the wifiles store that is shop at the yfiles.com you'll find it but if you're going to buy merch become a member
Starting point is 00:45:29 on youtube on youtube members get 10% off everything in the yfile store forever so if you're going to spend 40 bucks on t-shirts and fistible mugs become a member on youtube for three bucks for itself, and that money goes to the team. That's to me. Those are the clubs. I got through them as fast as I could. And that's going to do it. Until next time, be safe. Be kind. And know that you are appreciated. Scenario 51.
Starting point is 00:46:10 A secret code inside the Bible said I would. I love my UFOs and paranormal fun as well as music. So I'm saying like I should. The peach, theory, see, theory. comes the truth my friends and it never ends no it never end Gaddown got stuck inside males hole with mk. Outra being only two of when alone
Starting point is 00:46:56 were the shadow people they're smiling man I'm told and his name was cold like silence and the solar street to have got the secret city underground stations, planet's Earth O2, Project Stargate, and wet the dock watcher.

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