This Paranormal Life - #185 Halloween Special: Ghost Train - Abe Lincoln's Paranormal Presidency

Episode Date: October 27, 2020

Happy Hallowe'en everyone! This year we investigate a paranormal case buried deep in American history. From predicting the future to poltergeists and ghost trains - this is the story of Abraham Lincoln!Support us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to weekly bonus episodes!Buy Official TPL Merch! - thisparanormallife.com/storeFollow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunityIntro music by www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to a special Halloween episode of This Paranormal Life! Welcome to This Paranormal Life on the spookiest day of the year. This is Halloween. You're listening to this, hopefully, boys and girls. Time to shine. Come on out of the shadows, paranormal investigators. It's a safe place. The children beat them back into the shadows. Oh, you're mean. But it is still this paranormal life. This is the weekly comedy podcast where every Tuesday we investigate

a different paranormal tale, case, or claim and get to the bottom of whether it's truly paranormal or not. It just so happens that this week is the most paranormal week of the year. Except I guess it's not really a normal Halloween, is it? It seems like the terror and fear that normally accompanies a given Halloween has spilled over into the whole year. Really, the whole year has been, in some ways,

one giant Halloween. Yeah, but lacking a lot of the pleasantries that come with Halloween, you know, the candy, the costumes a lot of people uh cosplaying as as masked crusaders in their everyday lives yeah it's been yeah it's been a bad year for sure not spooky just bad yeah which isn't what i'm going for that's a good way of putting it maybe that's what we need is to like inject this ha, even if we can't do the normal things, is inject a little bit more of that, like the fun silliness of the paranormal back into our lives. Yeah, that sounds good.

Well, that is what we're going to do today, Rory. We've got a pretty serious case on our hands. For this year's Halloween, I thought what better time to investigate what should be one of the world's most famous paranormal tales, but actually isn't talked about that often. It's April 2nd, 1865 in Washington DC and President Lincoln is working in the Lighthouse. Whoa! We're going straight to the top here. He's at his desk writing an important letter, but he can't concentrate. His attention keeps being pulled away. What on earth is that sound? He strains his ears and hears some murmuring in the distance. He got up from his desk and walked around the room to see where it was coming from.

There were people talking, that's for sure. He followed the sound into the green room. It wasn't coming from there, but it was louder, so he kept following the sound. It sounded like wailing. So as he approached the door to the east room, the sound was getting louder and louder. He could hear sobbing, crying. He opened the door and couldn't believe what he was seeing. There were dozens of people standing around crying and talking and wiping the tears from

their eyes. And on the other side of the room There was a group of soldiers guarding a coffin. He pulled a soldier by the door aside and demanded What happened who was dead in the White House? The soldier slowly turned to face him the president He was killed by an assassin What? Lincoln gasped awake. It was the middle of the night. He was drenched in a cold sweat.

He felt confusion, fear, and relief all in equal measure. He hadn't died at all. But what a vivid dream. That's terrifying. His wife Mary woke at the sound of him startling. What's the matter, dear? Nothing. It's nothing, nothing dear just a bad dream and he lay back down again staring up at the ceiling he was clearly rattled by this dream but when the morning came he resolved not to tell anyone about it

lest it give the nightmare more power over him. He buried it in his mind and got on with his day. However, a week later, the dream hadn't left his thoughts. It was haunting him. He couldn't quite shake it. And a few days later, he just had to get it off his chest, even just to hear someone else say that it was nonsense. So he was at a dinner with his wife mary and a couple of close friends then at a lull in the conversation he opened up about his dream how you bringing now you sliding this one into the conversation you know they're talking about the weather yeah and maybe you know some important stuff about i don't know the civil war or something yeah they're like it's a really tough moment now. We have the actual...

You ever dream your own death? Mr. President, sir, I didn't realize you're actually here. You mentioned... What? I'm sorry, did I interrupt on everyone's dinner? No, no. I'll just leave. I'll just leave. I'll leave you to it. Don't worry about it. Seriously, though, you ever dream your own death?

I haven't no not personally i remember when i was as innocent as a young babe and i hadn't dreamed my own death do you want to talk about or do you not want to talk you got an extra plate around here i'm pretty hungry actually in fact i feel like i'm the president i probably shouldn't have invited to this dinner yeah i'm sure we could get something together yeah actually if you're just not eating you eating the chicken wings because actually i could just i could just eat that did you hit your head recently or something you're acting pretty strange for the president of the united states on account of me being here in my boxers and briefs yeah and mentioning that you were killed in kind of man

just wake up in the middle of the night hungry and afraid scared of death does this have anything to do with the executive order you signed? Creating the Dream Police? Because that was a bit of a weird one to talk about in the meeting and none of us really understood what you meant. Well, I just think it's pretty pressing on account of I don't... I can't control what's going on in people's heads, can I? But I should be able to as a president. To a certain degree.

You have to understand, though... What if they're thinking about breaking the law? What if they're thinking about committing crimes? You're saying that I can't... I shouldn't be able to stop that? Seriously, the chicken wings? Could I get a bite? The meeting was more about distributing wealth.

Mary, pass me the chipotle mayonnaise. That would be great. Don't pass him anything, Mary. The meeting was more about... I'm sorry, I'm the president of this white house he's not even anymore this is this is after his first uh term dream police get him we're all awake sir so at a lull in the conversation he brought up his dream about perceiving seemingly seemingly, his own assassination. He described to them as real as real life itself. He had seen his own coffin and his own family and friends

mourning him in the East Room of the White House. Whilst they were surprised by the story, they assured him it wasn't a premonition. People have nightmares all the time, not least stressed out presidents with the weight of the world on their shoulders. It seems natural to stress about these things. Yeah, presidents probably have a ton of crazy dreams. You know, they're bombarded with top-secret information day in, day out. There's a lot of information going in. It can't possibly stay there. Yeah i have bad dreams sometime and i'm a i'm a a cushy little

city boy sure you know what's my stressful situation my macbook runs out of battery and i'm waking up in the middle of the night just like powering it on make sure all my premiere pro projects have saved your iphone is in a coffin and you turn to a soldier what happened whose phone is that why it's yours oh i wake up sweating remote control turn on my hue lights via apple watch to make sure everything's fine in my comfy london apartment what a tough life i live your google home mini asks you rory we detected an elevation your blood pressure is everything okay nothing google home mini please go back to standby mode yeah that's my version of it is i'm just going to bed one night and i just go hey alexa you ever dream about your own

death i'm worried about you rory referring to local mental health services. No, Alexa. Not again. It was just a joke. Never mind. They've blocked your number. Good, I suppose. Fine. A couple seconds later, I'm like, hey, Siri, do you ever dream about your own dad?

I heard that, Rory. Just stop listening, Alexa. This is between me and Siri. Oh, hey, Rory. Me and Alexa are actually pretty worried about your health no you too siri you were my one friend left as you know things are bad is that all of your home ai gathered together to give you an intervention if bixby hasn't got my back i don't know who to turn to i'm you know listen, I too am a city boy. I'm all for the technological AI revolution.

I don't mind if they take my PIN number and social security information. But I mean, today, me and Danielle, we woke up. We wanted to listen to some music first thing this morning. We were like, oh, yeah, I always forget we have a Google Home. Hey, Google, you know, play songs by Jack Johnson or whatever. And it basically proceeded to go sure playing songs but there was a problem try again soon okay that that's never mind there was a problem try again soon i was really hoping you were going to be like it was like you woke up and

you're like oh yeah we have a google home we don't have to set it up ourselves hey google search porn hub for big booty bitches it's like max volume searching porn hub for big booty bitches it's like searching favorites under folder porn under folder big booty bitches under folder delete when i die under folder wipe when i die under folder do not open even if i die like that's you know that's not how folders work the folder isn't an ai the very least you shouldn't put them all on your desktop if you wanted to hide them that bad we won't have porn collections anymore we're part of the generation that uh won't have it won't have that to leave to our grandkids it's depressing state of this world what do you mean no hand-me-downs you know going back a thousand years i mean

people just had to get excited looking at corn in a field that was really as scintillating as it got you're just walking down the street one day passing a corn field and you see an ear that you're just walking down the street one day passing a cornfield and you see an ear that resembles a very large penis you're like i'm just gonna i gotta go take a i gotta go take a piss over here in the cornfield it's the middle of harvest we have very short amount of time to yeah don't don't get all this delicious giant corn harvested the dude runs into the cornfield and just here oh and like crows leave the field you're okay yeah everything's fine don't wait up come out behind a minute come out smoking what do you think is the the sexiest non-sexual thing um watermelons for sure maybe ice cream for some reason yeah milk features a lot

milk yeah milk is one of those ones where it's like, this is revealing something about me that should stay buried. If you're like looking at milk and getting excited. Corn, obviously. Over on cornhub.com. So Lincoln's friends managed to convince him that this was relatively normal. He shouldn't worry about it. And feeling somewhat better that he was able to tell someone he was able to forget about his dream that evening.

Three days later, in the presidential box of the Ford Theater in Washington, D.C., John Wilkes Booth burst through the door and shot President Lincoln at point-blank range, fulfilling Lincoln's own prophecy. You're like, what? What? There's no way lincoln well we have talked in a in a another episode about that actually being the work of a time-traveling assassin uh who was sent back in time from the future to assassinate these theories could all overlap that's an interesting let's let's put a pin in that okay Okay, I'm happy to do that. The dream Lincoln had had only two weeks ago was now a reality, and the nation went into mourning.

What do you think about that? Is this true, that he publicly spoke about having a dream about being assassinated? Yes. That's insane. So the story of Lincoln predicting his own death came from a pretty good source, Ward Hill Lammon, Lincoln's old law partner bodyguard and friend it's a good combo but he's smart strong and loyal i love it his old law partner bodyguard an enemy but even so some doubted that this really happened maybe people just don't see

lincoln as a mystic or being that way inclined they see him as like a man of action a man of logic and the law but it turns out this was actually just one of many such dreams that lincoln spoke and wrote about so in 1863 about two years earlier he wrote to his wife while she was in philadelphia with the kids saying put tad's away. I had an ugly dream about him last night. Whoa, he's big into dreams then. Not only that, but on the morning of his assassination, he told several of his cabinet members the same story. So this one is guaranteed set in stone true. You know, last night I dreamed I was sailing across a huge unknown body of water at a great speed.

And you know what? I've had that same dream the night before every important event of the war. Whoa. He believed in dreams, which definitely lends some credence to what his bodyguard friend was saying. It seems likely that this bodyguard didn't pick this story out of nowhere. It's pretty good that he kept most of this quiet publicly. Because I think, as you said, you know, we think about Lincoln, we think about a logical man, a responsible man. Honest Abe.

Honest Abe, who, you know, the nation to to be reunited as the united states of america it would be so weird if during the gettysburg address you know he was like what was it four score and seven years ago we stand on this great land fighting for america's future reminds me of a strange dream i had last night. You were all there, burning in a pile of bodies. I was a clown. I had shoes made of snakes, and I was drinking tree bark. People are trying to cut the cord on the microphone. They're trying to get him off the stage.

No one's questioning the fact that microphones don't exist, and he somehow has one. They're just trying to smash it. What does it all mean? I don't know. If anyone can help, write me a letter. It's like this was supposed to be you kind of hyping us up for battle. We didn't realize it was more of a kind of public forum where you were looking for help with your dreams.

The battle is important, too, but my dream also. Where are the rations? Yeah, you promised us that there were going to be rations here at the Gettysburg... That's actually why a lot of these guys came down. I had a dream. No, we don't... Where are the rations? We're around the corner. Really close.

Okay, but that doesn't really help us now. Because we've been fighting this war for a very long time i implore you all to dream of rations a lot of us don't get the chance because war is a 24-hour occupation you understand you understand we've we've got enemy soldiers uh from the republic from the south coming it's kind of condescending noise that you're making what we're trying to talk about billy here just lost his legs, by the way, last night. The cannon just blasted to pieces.

Oh, did he? He was told there was going to be crackers. Billy, did you dream? Billy, did you dream of losing your legs? That's what I want to know. Billy's just like completely out of it on the floor. He looks like a dreamer. But seriously, to address the issue of the rations,

we don't know where they are. We believe they aren't far away. You need to hold your heads up high and believe that we will get through this time. There's military rations leaking out the back of his tall hat. Into his mouth. Delicious, delicious rations. What was that? Nothing.

He's got the rations. No, no. That's What was that? Nothing. He's got the rations. No, no. That's a dream you're having. So this story kind of opens up a whole can of worms. It's one thing to have a stress dream before a big event like a civil war. But is it even possible to predict the future through a dream? But Lincoln's paranormal story doesn't end with his death, not by a long shot Rory. After he died, it had already been around three years since

his son Willie sadly passed away. So when plans were made for Lincoln to be finally laid to rest in Springfield, Illinois, his son was going to join him on the final journey to be interred with him. The Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, arranged a funeral train called the Lincoln Special. It would travel 1,654 miles across America along the exact same route Lincoln traveled when he became president. Oh. From Washington, yeah, it's quite sweet. From Washington to Baltimore, Philadelphia to Harrisburg, New York City to Albany to Buffalo, Cleveland, Columbus, Indianapolis, Chicago, and finally Illinois on the 3rd of May, 1865. With his coffin on the train? His coffin and his sons on the train.

So everyone can kind of give it like a salute. Exactly. Thousands of people lined the tracks all across those miles, both day and night to pay their final respects to President Lincoln. That's sweet. But Rory, I'm not telling you this to lecture an American about American history. There's something very paranormal about this story. Every year since 1865 to this very day at the end of April, the ghost train of the Lincoln Special travels this same route. Wow.

The legend goes that if you visit these railroads in the middle of the night, your watch will stop running. The air over the tracks will become cold and sharp, yet just next to it remains warm and still. The clouds cover over the moon, leaving the railroad barely lit when the ghost train flies through as fast as it did in 1865. That's crazy. Some say that you can hear sad funereal music coming from the train. Others say you might hear a ghostly train whistle

as it approaches. Others claim to see it coming because of steam coming out of the top. Some even see skeleton guards on board wearing blue uniforms. So apparently to this day, some... Not even ghosts. Skeleton soldiers. Yeah. This is crazy. It's kind of terrifying.

Apparently to this day, some communities in the cities I mentioned hold stakeouts at the end of April to try and catch a glimpse of the ghost train. Wow. I mean, it's kind of a hard thing to miss. I mean, just set up a webcam. Yeah. Livestream the bish. It's not like, you know, maybe you catch a glimpse of a ghost

walking down your stairs or around the corner or something. Drew! Drew! of a ghost walking down your stairs or around the corner or something megaton train like pounding its way through the american countryside playing some sort of funeral procession on horns yeah thousands of skeleton soldiers aboard saluting firing their old-timey pistols off into the night sky you know they're doing a skeleton laugh of course yeah absolutely raging it's probably the similar sort of vibes that you would get in uh disneyland's pirates of the caribbean ride they're like swigging rum all hanging out singing shanties yeah honest is at the top he's break dancing on the roof of the train car. Have we had ghost vehicles like this before?

We have done stories of ghost cars. I believe we did a ghost car on a highway. We had ghosts on a plane. Not quite a ghost plane itself. Yeah. But this is definitely the biggest. We've done haunted boats as well, but not really ever has the biggest we've done haunted boats as well but not really ever has the actual vessel itself been haunted yeah this is cool this is really cool i feel

like there's definitely something about these old vehicles they're allowed yeah you know like you can like a ghost train that's actually a phrase you've heard before in movies and media and books. Yeah. Whereas, you know, ghost electric scooter. Yeah. Ghost Uber. Ghost Tesla. Doesn't fit. Not a sexy, not a very sexy combination of words right there. Maybe not enough people have died in those things yet.

Probably enough people have died on segways. Yeah. There should be some ghost segways. Skeleton guards riding segways through London city center. That would be great. Maybe when Elon Musk dies, there'll be like a haunted Tesla that'll drive around. Who knows?

So true. I plan on dying on a skateboard at a ripe old age and haunting skate parks around the country. That would be pretty badass. Pretty rad. You would officially be a bro ghost. Boo, dude. Boo, dude. Like, boo. you would officially be a bro ghost boo dude dude like boo i want to know what happens if you jump in front of this ghost train whoa like if you tried to if it was going past you managed to

match the speed on like a horse and you jumped across land on the train and you're going with i did wonder this can you board the ghost train? Like, is this like a f***ing Easter egg of the paranormal realm that this thing, if it's doing the same route, presumably it stops. Yeah, it's got to fuel up. At those old locations. Souls. If you go to the old school Columbus, Ohio train station, can you get on board? You know that the second you manage to hop on board the train you're like i did it i got on board the ghost train you look down skeleton hands like ah shit well what did i expect actually there's like another guy beside you jump on the train yeah

me too four years ago i've been here ever since it's pretty good crowd it's a pretty good crowd there you go hand you like a little skeleton grog. You're fine. Okay, fast forward the better part of a hundred years, Rory, and Queen Wilhelmina of the Netherlands is sleeping in a bedroom at the White House on a royal visit. When, a little like

Lincoln himself did all those years ago, she startled awake. What was that noise? She heard some footsteps and commotion outside her room. Was something wrong? In the darkness, she stepped carefully towards the door where the sound of footsteps finally stopped. So she stopped too. Then she jumped back a little, but thought, whoever is there, this must be important. If they're waking Queen Wilhelmina in the middle of the night in the White House, it must be important.

That's how she talked. I've got it on good authority. She unlocked the door to her bedroom and swung it open. There stood Abraham Lincoln in a coat and top hat, staring at her. She immediately fainted. Of course. It turns out that it isn't just Lincoln's train that haunts the railroads of America, but Lincoln himself has been seen many, many times throughout history in the White House and beyond. Wow. President Truman and his family regularly experienced poltergeist activity in Lincoln's bedroom. Theodore Roosevelt's secretary actually ran screaming from this bedroom once, claiming she had seen Lincoln sitting on the bed putting on his boots.

Roosevelt himself actually claimed to have seen the ghost of Lincoln elsewhere in the White House. Also, his valet once also ran screaming from the White House after claiming to have seen Lincoln. Wow. So either there's a very good Lincoln impersonator somewhere hiding in the White House in the f***ing vents like Die Hard, or the ghost is there. I didn't realize the White House was such a home for paranormal entities. Apparently it is. I guess a lot of stuff has gone down there. Hundreds of years of important people coming through and some people dying.

President Lyndon Johnson claims to have met the ghost of Lincoln in the White House during a particularly dark night of his presidency. He allegedly just started talking to Lincoln pretty casually. And he said, Lincoln, how did you handle such an unpopular war, the Civil War? Because at the time, Johnson was handling the Vietnam War. Right. He said Lincoln just replied, don't go to the theater. Yeah, that's pretty good. It's a pretty good little quip, ghost quip.

Yeah. He's got a little sense of humor in the afterlife. Finally, one night, Winston Churchill himself was walking around his bedroom in the White House, naked after taking a bath, smoking a cigar, and drinking scotch. He was alarmed when he walked into the bedroom and saw Lincoln leaning on the fireplace. Also naked. Churchill. Scotch in hand.

Man of great taste, I see,ill churchill tapped his cigar ash out and said good evening mr president oh you seem to have me at a disadvantage and he says lincoln simply gave a little chuckle and faded away that never happened until he disappeared completely that never happened no one is no one's saying that when they see a ghost. No one sees a ghost and taps out their cigar ash. I know. Naked. I mean, he was drunk all the time, so.

Yeah, that wouldn't make me handle the situation any better though. Didn't even have to be a past president. I would reach for my revolver. Yeah. If I was Churchill at that point. If I got out of the shower and the ghost of a milkman was standing there being like, Hey, Rory. I'm not going.

Mr. Milkman. The gunny of that milk. I am throwing fists at this bad boy. And you know they're going to go straight through him and into the walls. Yeah, you're going into that fireplace. Yeah yeah i would not no one would handle this situation this calmly but still interesting that even if it is bullshit even if his reaction to the ghost is bullshit why the f**k would winston churchill lie about seeing lincoln in such an embarrassing position yeah naked yeah that's pretty bad that's like being like oh george washington appeared to me while i was taking a dump in the white house

toilet what do you do do you stand up you raise to attention or do you remain benjamin franklin himself caught me j and o and interestingly uh apparently he hasn't much been seen in recent years. One of the last major official sightings was in the early 1980s when a White House operations foreman saw him sitting in a chair at the top of some stairs. But otherwise, to my knowledge, Obama hasn't reported seeing him. Trump hasn't reported seeing him. All the kind of latest presidents haven't come clean on that one.

But maybe it's just not in vogue. You know, back in the day, people believed a bit more readily in the paranormal. Maybe you would just get laughed out of office if you said that stuff. Maybe he stopped coming back. It's not fun anymore. The White House is such a sad place. He's like, it's not even worth going back to haunt people he's like they've got a lot they just talk about drone attacks yeah and like

fake news it's kind of boring it's really bad i'm gonna go back to the ghost train that's at least fast look at it seems like it seems like the only way we're gonna get to the bottom of this case folks is if we get the chance to investigate the white house maybe we can be the first paranormal investigators in history to investigate the white house interesting and there's two ways that's going to happen one the first joint presidency i mean i don't have the citizenship but i really feel like this podcast could pull some strings if we get if we get married you could get a green card interesting we could do that first gay paranormal investigator president we're taking a lot of boxes there i really think that's going to resonate with a lot of people a lot of different communities uh would you like

to be president or first man uh it seems like a lot of pressure i feel like i could take over first man judy's little bit of you know what do you do a bit of charity work here and there write a book after the first term tell kids not to eat so much garbage and then you're pretty much golden i feel like that's kind of it yeah it feels like the it feels like the other job you age quite quickly yeah i'm not maybe i'll actually go first man and then maybe you can do the president thing i mean you know i'm not american i don't listen i'm not familiar with the worldly ways yeah of all the states and i think it's more you're you got like a good vocabulary you're very like well spoken i think uh i'll let you i'll let you have that one

really what do you plan on doing as first man as first man i'm gonna bring in a lot of changes first one casual fridays wear whatever you want to the white house in the white house just in the I'm going to bring in a lot of changes. First one, casual Fridays. Wear whatever you want to the White House. In the White House? Just in the White House, not worldwide. Okay. That seems like a lot of work. And if it works in the White House, we'll roll out to the state of California.

Sure. Maybe do that. And that's going to be probably like the first year. See, those kind of executive decisions, I think, would have to be made by actually the executive office. You know what I mean? Like by the Presidente. Right. That's more your turn. So I actually, yeah, you should probably do mean like by this the el presidente right i feel like that's more your turn so i actually yeah you should probably do that then i probably won't even

do that you know me uh i'll just keep the place i don't have the mindset for those meetings and no no you're like sure you're actually you're pretty smart i think you're smarter than also my golf game is whack you know i can't play with all those those secret service guys i think they probably i think you'd be fine i think you'd be totally fine so i think you probably if you do the president thing and you like make all the hard decisions and all that kind of stuff up in front of the camera and then he doesn't it doesn't really matter that much then we can like split the money because i think he gets like a lot of money the president but if we go splits you know he does actually you know maybe i could do this executive office

deal because actually he makes quite a bit of cash so uh you know i'll obviously kick you an alliance but sure i'll be really how much is it actually the president thing you don't need to worry about it as first man you know you just i'll just set up a bank account for you and stuff and i'll actually i'll just give you an alliance every month maybe if it's if it's a couple grand it'll keep you know you'll have plenty of money maybe i will do the president thing actually no but it's not that much money it's actually it's really more public service so i don't think don't worry about the money i mean i don't have like i wasn't i wasn't married necessarily to the casual fridays thing yeah and you know no that's great i think i think the white house

would appreciate that i think those staffers no no maybe on a casual friday and that could be your your impact on the world i think i might do the president powers you'll do fine on a couple of thousand dollars a month you'll have all the stuff you need think I might do the President Powers. You'll do fine on a couple of thousand dollars a month. You'll have all the stuff you need. Think, all the food, accommodation, all paid for.

You've got pocket money, you know what I mean? But me, I'll be making the real investments, I guess, kind of business deals, setting those future speaking opportunities

for large banks up in the future. I mean, I could be, I could be making some good money in four years time. So I'm first man then?

I think so. F***. What do I get get paid is it a lot as first man as first man nothing what well it's not a job unbelievable unbelievable i actually i'm gonna new executive order from the first man himself. I don't know. That's how it works. New tax on the 51 states. I don't know. First man needs cash. I don't know what the 1% is, but I feel like I want to be in it. And I don't feel like I am.

And I should come first, really, as the man, the first man. You're telling people what to do. Of course, you're the 1%. First day in office i'm like mr president kit should we go to the theater tonight like it's in the corner butt naked scotch in hand it's a trap don't do it i know a guy a theater buff who would just love to meet you. He has a private booth and all. It wasn't that good a pun and I heard you cock your rifle when you said it. And Rory, thus concludes the tale

of the paranormal presidency of Abraham Lincoln. What a case. What a case. I found out a lot today. A lot about, well, not a lot about President Lincoln or American history or anything really. But I did not know that so many people what a case i found out a lot today a lot about well not a lot about present lincoln or american history or anything really but i did not know that so many people claim to have seen lincoln's ghost in the white house you know we talk sometimes about the pedigree of our witnesses we love it

when a policeman a fireman a teacher a lawyer someone who is respected in their local community or society claiming the paranormal a podcaster perhaps the highest of all certainly it doesn't get much better than several former presidents their aides their secretaries their wives that's pretty much as authoritative as the paranormal claims get it's true they really have nothing further to gain they're the president of america if anything they have a lot to lose every time they say the word ghost publicly their net worth decreases by about 10 percent yeah it's a dicey dicey the less you say the better i think. If Obama had said the word ghost once during his first four years, he wouldn't have got the next four years.

Yeah, very true. So that's kind of cool. But of course, at the end of every episode of This Paranormal Life, we do have to come to a conclusion as to whether our story is truly paranormal or not. So I feel like we've got to rein this in a little bit. There's a lot to get through. We have not only the premonition by Lincoln himself, but the sightings of Lincoln in the White House and a ghost train, a full on ghost train. Yeah. I think

we can break this down into a few problems. And I think I do have problems with some elements of this story. The ghost train is so fascinating and so delightful. I would love to see that thing. I would love to see evidence of that thing. Sadly, I did not see any evidence of that thing. And I looked. So I'm not convinced on the ghost train, Rory. Yeah. But I think our best chance of a yes here today is,

did President Lincoln paranormally predict his own death? Ooh, that's a great question. Framed in a way that facilitates a yes as well. That's what I'm saying. Because if he did on record have a dream that he died two weeks before his assassination. Creepy stuff. Creepy stuff. We saw something similar in the episode we did recently about James Dean and his car.

episode we did recently about james dean and his car where um the actor who played obi-wan kenobi basically told him point blank that he would be dead in seven days almost inflicting the curse which did eventually come true unfortunately we're seeing a very similar thing here yeah we haven't done a lot of research on this podcast on dreams yeah kind of like there's more room there for sure yeah to investigate what they are what are dreams good question we have i don't know because i don't have any have you ever tried to do um lucid dreaming before never it's pretty cool i did i tried to do it once because there's a bunch of like tips yeah tricks on like ways to um kind of get better at it uh i think one of the ways i might be wrong here but one of the

ways is like drawing a symbol or like a letter on your hand in real life and then uh when you're sleeping if you check your hand and see that there's the letter on your hand or there isn't the letter on your hand something about that like helps your brain identify that you're consciously like awake in a dream yeah which is really cool it's the dunk in inception it's the spinning top in inception yeah yeah if the spinning top never stops it's like i'm in a dream and then you can do whatever you want it's like gta with all the cheats on you can fly you flying cars you've got a rocket launcher you're stealing cars killing people and then like slow pan back to your house the spinning topper stopped you just didn't wait long enough it's the real world you gotta be very careful you don't jump the gun on the whole dream

thing you know if you like if you pinch yourself and you don't jump up in bed, you don't go straight to dual wielding katanas. I am God. No. Yeah. Do not do that. Pinch yourself a couple more times. Yeah. You got to be sure.

Get a second opinion. Because you don't want to like be at the end of the day where you got a five star wanted level and they're breaking down the doors and you're like, all right, when do I wake up? You're on the dock. the gavel comes down life in prison five lifetimes in prison you're sitting there like the joker laughing to yourself you fools you think this is real life do you i'm taking a cat nap on my lunch break at work you losers you slap yourself nothing happens they're putting like the the noose around your neck everyone's there watching this monster die and you're like it doesn't matter because the symbol on my hand isn't here it's like it's obviously there it's just been smudged, like, grotesquely.

The people in the crowd, they're just like, we need to delete that WikiHai article. Not a lucid dream. It's created a lot of psychos. So, Roy, what are you saying? On the topic of, did Lincoln predict, paranormally, his own assassination? Yay or nay?

I think it's an interesting case this week. Lincoln predict paranormally his own assassination. Yay or nay? I think it's an interesting case this week. I'm actually more on the fence about this one than I thought I was going to be. He, if he did indeed have this dream before he was assassinated, then

yeah, technically he did predict his own death. the only problem is figuring out how that happened and whether or not it was something paranormal or kind of like a freak accident you know because i i've had i've had weird dreams before very few of them have come through uh but then if it did happen like i had a dream i was like oh man i had a dream i was like eating this amazing chicken burger all the toppings lettuce garlic mayo it's good there's some good fries as well and then you know the next day i ordered that actually doesn't work because then that's just me ordering one on delivery so i didn't really predict it i dreamt

i was hungry and i ordered a chicken burger yeah that actually don't. Yeah, that's not quite the same thing. It's like if I ordered a cheeseburger. And then the next day I was like, I woke up. Because that's impossible to wait. No, I can't order that. I don't know. I'm kind of on the fence here. So I'm going to listen to what your conclusion is.

It's a yes, my friend. Double yes, guys. If you think this is a double no, you need to wake up. You need to wake up from your little sheltered life. The past president of the United States of America dreamt about his own assassination. He was a dream weaver as well, my friends. A dream master. He literally was surfing dreams in the days up to

his own death he was telling people about it he's like yeah i'm always sailing across this vast ocean the night before a battle and then you think it's any coincidence that two weeks before his assassination he tells his bodyguard he dreamt of being assassinated that's crazy he's like you gotta learn how to come into dreams man um they're killing me in there i need a guy my wife didn't do shit last night uh you know i think it's easy to say this could just happen you could have that nightmare who the ever dreams they're being assassinated i don't ever think I've dreamed I've died before. Yeah, let alone been murdered. Let alone been assassinated on the job.

And then the chance that that happens two weeks later? That's crazy. Personally, from researching this story, I think this guy, he was tapped into the world of dreams. I don't know how that works. I don't know if it's some kind of mental dimensional time travel in his sleep, but he was able to tap in to a little nugget of information from the future. And that, my friends, to me is paranormal. I've never dreamt I've been killed before,

but as someone who knows what it feels like to have their brain think it's been killed, it's a pretty scary feeling. And by that I am referring to, I don't think I've told this story in the podcast before, but I basically at work was playing games on a VR headset. And this is a true story. I don't know why you're laughing. I was playing a game where you play as a mafia member. Yeah.

And there's a moment in the game where you are tied to a chair yeah getting interrogated and at one point uh the kind of mafia gangster who's interrogating you grabs a knife and if you don't do the quick time action fast enough he runs at you and slams the knife into your stomach and i was so immersed in the vr at the time that i can't even explain pissed yourself crying the whole thing please no please no uh my brain thought i had been stabbed and my my body went like weirdly cold i'm not even i'm not even making this up it was the weirdest feeling in the world like watching this big like muscle-bound bald man like because it's

set in like it's like cockney gangsters in london yeah it's real yeah he's like run around he's like you're gonna get one you little bitch and he ran in and he shouts me with his and as soon as the knife goes in i was like like my brain thought i was going to die and it lasted for like a second yeah and then it was you obviously it's vr so it doesn't matter but uh i can imagine that's exactly what abraham lincoln felt in that dream he jumped awake just like i did when i took off my vr helmet um it's a powerful feeling powerful feeling yeah so i'm thinking if that's my vr helmet um it's a powerful feeling powerful feeling yeah so i'm thinking if that's coming to you in the form of a dream and it probably wasn't coming to them in the form of a virtual reality headset that's paranormal you heard it here first folks

there's the first double yes in some time so listen we gotta celebrate it we gotta let's get the music going on On Halloween as well. Shit. I love it. You came through. You didn't disappoint. Let's pop the bubbly, guys. Get the trick or treating sweets out because the kids aren't able to come around.

Let's eat it all ourselves. They'll die. Thank you so much for tuning in and listening to this one. I hope you enjoyed the tale of Lincoln's paranormal presidency this week in this paranormal life. We hope you're having an amazing Halloween out there, enjoying the spooky season and all it has to offer. Stay safe, enjoy yourselves,

spend time with your loved ones, and investigate the paranormal, god damn it. Yeah. And if you are having a lucid dream, as we said, maybe before you do anything too drastic just give it give it a couple minutes give yourself a couple slaps and a cold glass of water to the face just just double check before you do something you can't take back and then sure go loco go absolutely buck wild three years ago i started a podcast in a dream and it turns out it wasn't a dream.

It was reality and a nightmare. Three years later, here we are. In the real world, I'm a stockbroker. I have a comfortable, quiet life. We ain't got anything to plug this week. We just hope you all enjoy your Halloween. Let's round out with some shout outs. Thank you so much to Mike J. Pool. Mike J., I'm going to need access to your pool because just like in inception i need to fall backwards into a tub of water to awaken from this dream my friend thank you to paul anderson paul never falls he's like a cat he always lands on his feet you can push him you can shove him you can throw them off a cliff and they'll always land it's like one of those little clown toys that just wobble but never perfect center of gravity exactly it's pretty it's pretty impressive and i push them pretty hard thank you to jimmy diesel

dickinson jimmy diesel sounds like the name of uh kind of like a new yorker car mechanic he's like hey my name is Jimmy Diesel. Bring your car in, 20 minutes, bing bang, good as new. It's just a hammer. He doesn't have any real tools. By car, I mean gun. And by gun, I mean drugs.

Talking to a cop. Thank you to Stock Loan. Come on down to Stock Loan, Stocks and Loans. Whatever you need, Stocks and Loans. Whatever you need. Stocks, loans, we got you covered. Interesting. Great.

I actually need a small loan to finance a car from Jimmy Diesel's. Of course. Can I get a small loan of maybe around 2,000 pounds? Will you be paying with stocks or loans? Hopefully I won't be paying with anything because i actually need the money up front you know right we only accept payments and stocks and loans well actually if you need some kind of insurance sure i i actually do have stock in um a number of lucrative would you take uh uh what do you what do you trade in uh amazon stocks you have amazon stocks i have listen i don't want to really get into it but uh jimmy diesel hooked me up but he

actually trades in pretty high high value stocks he was an early investor in ovens how old is he old enough to remember cooking with a toaster all right thank you to angela marrero angela marrero i dare you to spin this spinning top and go loco when you realize that you're in a dream once again please wait until it's all good well no it's spinning can't you see it's spinning. Can't you see? It's wobbling. It's wobbling, Angela. Come on, Angela. Time is ticking.

You gotta go. If it's a dream, why is time ticking? Steal me a TV, Angela. Thank you to Seamus Lehane. Seamus tried to blame us for a lack of eggs in the paranormal commune just because on Halloween night, sure sure we took all of the commune supply to go egg houses that didn't give us candy and we had promised them that those eggs for breakfast the following day exactly but sure no eggs but look at all the candy we got three

snickers bars and some maltesers loose maltesers not bagged thank you to goody glaz goody glaz is such a goody two shoes they've known they've been dreaming for the last five years but they still keep turning up to their nine to five every morning oh wow plan is safe this can't bear to just you know go a little loco not even a little bit loco on a fr night. Fair play. No, no. Staying in, getting the groceries. Thank you to Harry Dawson. Harry Dawson has a hairy claw, son. Whoa. Just one, though.

He's completely normal, but one big hairy claw. So is that... I mean, it's paranormal, but is it... Is he a cryptid? Or is he just a guy with a claw? That's disturbing. Yeah. I mean, there's one part of him we should kill, but the rest is kind of fine, I guess.

You're saying he should have no hand instead of the claw? Maybe, I don't know. Trim the nails at least. Thank you to Dan Percival. Dan Percival is the worst of all we went to we went to go egg his house halloween night the little bastard just caught every single egg perfectly and cooked him up in front of us and on top of that we didn't get any candy and he had the gall to redistribute the eggs amongst the nation listen those were our eggs to destroy, Dan.

Thank you to Marcus Goss. Marcus Goss is at a loss. Literally. He went to a casino, took out 200 grand, went to the roulette table. 200? You could get that from an ATM? He went to the roulette table and said, put it all on purple. And they were like, sir, that's not a color on the board.

And he rolled the table himself which activates the uh the spin you he walked up to the roulette wheel and threw down one of those black credit cards that has no limit yeah he said it all i'm worth on blurple and they were like jesus man we added a purple since you were last here, but Blurple, you're killing me with this. Thank you to Barnaby Rowe. You reap what you sow, Barnaby Rowe. And Barnaby reaps corn. Sexy, sexy corn. Jesus, that is pure smut, Barnaby.

Thank you to Ben Crutchley. Ben Crutchley lives Dutchly. He cycles a bike. He smokes legal weed. That's a pretty good life. All you need is weed and speed. It's a pretty good life. In brackets, bike.

Fast bike. Thank you to Cameron Moyle. Cameron Moyle is hammer and soil. It's an anger release that kind of like de-stresses him. He just gets a big old hammer and pounds soil pounds coal into diamonds that's how strong he is yeah yeah wow thank you to rodrigo rodrigo where did we go last thing i remember we're all taking a cat nap around the commune headquarters and now we're tumbling through infinity uh after committing a gta

style crime spree um i'm starting to think we might be dreaming hope fingers crossed thank you to anna anna is a pretty good planner she starts off her day pretty scheduled uh nine to uh 5 30 is uh not giving a f**k about jack and she does whatever she wants i mean it's mostly it's quite planned though isn't it if you if she clocks off at 5 30 from not giving a f**k oh yeah and then you know it's after that uh i think like 5 30 to depending if it's a weekend or weekday obviously she'll go to bed at different times but pretty much like 5 30 to the end of days is not giving a shit about anything but then bedtime bedtime is very strict bedtime is like 11 like lights off at 11 30 okay she that there's no twist there she really likes it because she's black eyed drunk. Thank you to Jack O'Dell. Oh, hell. It's Jack O'Dell.

That's what they say when he walks into a party. That's rude. Because this is the son of a bitch who always thinks he's dreaming. He's laughing like the Joker. He's got a butterfly knife. He's like, nothing really matters. Why did you come to the party? If nothing really matters, why didn't you stay home?

Or go fly to the moon. If you think you're dreaming, don't come to the party. nothing really matters when you stay home or go fly to the moon you're if you think you're dreaming don't come to the party really matters like also not what the joker sounds like have you seen the batman movies he doesn't do any of this thank you to demi squires demi squires is semi-retired so not not fully retired, still working a little bit. Working like a dog. Oh, that's not semi-retired. From 9 to 5.30, she's mostly not given a shit. But then 5.30 to the end of the night, she's working.

She actually clocks on as a nurse in a local hospital. Works pretty hard. Semi-retired, as I said. I don't think that's retired, technically. I think that's still employed. Well, you know know spend a lot of time not caring giving a shit hopefully not at the hospital i'm mentally retired but physically i still have to go to work that's great semi-retired because mentally i don't care because mentally i That's the kind of like... That's the kind of like slogan you see on like a... Like a bumper sticker or like a university dorm.

Semi-retired because mentally I quit. Thank you to Callum. Callum is insistent that you call him. Don't text. Don't tweet him. Don't slide into his DM insistent that you call him. Don't text. Don't tweet him. Don't slide into his DMs. You gotta call him. Why is that?

I don't know. He just likes the human connection, I guess. It's not weird. It's like a sweet thing. Yeah, it's a sweet thing. To be so uptight about it is not sweet. He's very aggressive about it. Yeah, for sure.

I told you to call me. I told you to call. Mom. Thank you to call mom thank you to charlotte perry charlotte perry inventor of perry perry chicken wow big move the perry empire that's incredible as it were she can't stand the stuff though she made it on accident she was trying to make uh porridge one morning and uh accidentally made a a chili chicken sensation. Incredible. What a beautiful mistake. Thank you to Louis.

Louis knows everybody. You just bring someone up to him and you say, Louis, who dis? And he'll tell you who they are. Interesting. That's it. That's all he does. He doesn't have many other abilities. That's a cool skill though.

Yeah. You gotta be like, who is Lewis? Who is? And he'll tell you. I don't tell you. And sometimes you point to yourself and you go, who is Lewis? And he says, you is. And you're like, I meant more like, who am I as a person, Lewis?

Like, I feel lost emotionally. Yeah. Like, I don't really know why I'm here on this earth anymore. And he's way out of his depth because he doesn't know any about this. He's like, I don't speak English. I just know people's names. Thank you to everyone we've shouted out this Halloween. And thank you to everyone who supports This Paranormal Life

and listens to us and comes back every week and makes the show what it is we couldn't do without you. Listen, Halloween's like our f***ing Christmas. Yeah. It's a time to celebrate. So thank you so much for coming along for the ride. And we hope you have an amazing time. We'll be back next Tuesday with a a brand new paranormal tale see you then creepy