This Paranormal Life - #194 Cursed House of 1000 Ghosts: The Winchester Mystery House

Episode Date: January 5, 2021

Today when a billionaire needs a home they buy a luxurious mansion in the Hollywood hills, but back in the 1800s the richest woman of the day had a different set of priorities - she needed a home for 1000 ghosts of the damned. The result is one of the most twisted and bizarre haunted houses in the world. This is the story of the Winchester Mystery House. Time for Rory and Kit to investigate.Tickets for 13th February live-streamed investigationhttps://comedy-festival.co.uk/event/this-paranormal-life-live-online/Patreonhttps://patreon.com/ThisParanormalLifeYouTubehttps://youtube.com/thisparanormallifeTwitterhttps://twitter.com/ThisParaLifeInstagramhttps://instagram.com/thisparanormallifeSecret Society Facebook Pagehttps://www.facebook.com/groups/thisparanormallife/Edited by Kami Tomanhttps://TomanEdits.comIntro music: https://www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Are bugs a type of alien? Will dogs ever be able to learn English? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This Paranormal Life! Yo! Heyo! And welcome back to This Paranormal Life, the weekly comedy podcast where every Tuesday we investigate a different paranormal case, tale, or beast, and get to the bottom of whether it's truly paranormal or not. As always, you are joined by myself, Mr. Kit Grimmelvenner, this guy across from me as well, Mr. Roy Pars. How are you doing today, Roy? I'm doing okay. I'm doing all right. I think it was maybe one podcast ago, two podcasts ago, we recorded at that optimal time. You know,

it was an early morning session. We had our coffees bright-eyed ready to dive into a paranormal investigation uh for context and the people were loving it by the way the people they're like best episode yet i don't know you you guys have tapped into some newfound energy for context this episode is recorded late at night yeah we both just ate enormous burritos i've got to catch a flight tomorrow morning and And two hours ago, my phone got stolen. I was mugged on the way to this podcast recording. You didn't tell me any of this before we started recording. So if you are in East London and you stole a man's phone.

Okay. And you listen to this podcast. There's no way he listens to this podcast. I'm going to kill you. I was actually going to say that I'll take the phone back and I won't do anything. But it's murder. It's murder. Yeah, 100%.

Because, listen, I sympathize greatly. I just wish maybe we had talked about this before the show. It's too late. I mean, do you need to call the police or something? It's fine. I actually already did. I actually have my phone tracker up right now. So if they go online

we'll be able to locate the phone so stay tuned this is really this is a live investigation we're investigating where the f**k my iphone is which is much more important than the paranormal by the way we care a lot about the paranormal but where rory's phone is you know how much i care i'm a paranormal investigator who called the cops i invited the man into my house yeah listen this is a really interesting dynamic to the podcast hopefully we'll get some news on that yeah in the meantime we're gonna investigate the paranormal as usual that'll take my mind off of the situation so that's fine i mean you're looking at your well sure i need to be updated i need to be kept up to date with it it's currently offline the erase is pending okay so uh we'll just yeah i'll just i'll put that down we don't

have to think about it you're gripping it real hard as well i just like to know if where it is is all thank you so much to jared mccormick keith boggins and andrea gerton for sending this one in to this paranormal life podcast at gmail.com thank you thank you kid as well for checking that i could not i'm currently locked out of my email accounts. So thanks, everyone, for sending that in. Yeah. I mean, you do have a laptop, though, right? Yeah, but I don't like to do emails on that. I like to do my emails on my phone.

Okay. It's fine. Fair enough. Forget about it. We don't even bring it up anymore. Let's start. Should we start over? Or do you want to keep going?

I mean, you're looking at Twitter right now. Yeah, of course. On my backup phone. I'm on my backup phone looking to see if i can find my new phone let's just push forward let's push forward sure we're in the late 19th century in new haven connecticut usa they didn't even have phones our story begins with a woman named mrs winchester sarah winchester mrs winchester was a woman beset by tragedy. First her father-in-law died, shortly followed by her own husband to tuberculosis, an all

too common fate at the time, and then most cruelly of all her only child, leaving her alone. Now if the Winchester name sounds familiar, that's because it was one of the most famous names in 19th and 20th century America. Mr. Winchester invented the repeating rifle, one of the most commonly used guns across the West for decades. Oh yeah. And that meant Sarah Winchester inherited half of the Winchester repeating rifle company. It was definitely... That was a piece of information lodged in the back of my mind. I don't know if it was from playing video games or something.

It was 100% from playing Red Dead Redemption. Oh. The Winchester rifle is a rifle used in both of those games. So, yeah, probably. There you go. This is the exact era we're talking about. So, I think it was started around the late 1860s or something. This was the f***ing AK-47 of its day.

Right, right. Reliable. Could fire off more rounds than you would possibly need in a couple of seconds. And after all these tragic deaths, seeking answers to her deepest questions, she visited a psychic to learn more about the spirit world that she could now feel was there. The psychic explained to her that her suspicions were correct. She was cursed. Her whole family had been cursed wow she was being haunted by all the souls of those who've been killed by winchester rifles oh okay i was gonna say you know it's pretty much in a um in a psychic's best

intentions to claim that you are being cursed and you'll need to come back every monday tuesday and thursday for uh uncursing sessions which will be charged for 5.99 an hour yeah yeah but that's a pretty cool backstory at least if you're gonna make something up right the psychic was like she was google searching on her phone by the way yeah back then uh don't bring that up again actually and she was like oh hell yeah this is the honey yeah oh my god yeah an absolute a war criminal just walked in what do they call them whales whale just swam in yeah it's good that other professions don't work that way at least if a mechanic tells you your car is jacked you can at least get a second opinion there's no like paranormal

explanation for what's going on there that might require sessions monday through thursday yeah yeah you're not gonna be like if a psychic is like oh you're cursed you're like i'm gonna go see just one other psychic oh no no no no no do you know what it's gone and i did it for you so actually you owe me the curse removal that was pretty fast i actually don't i don't feel any difference i work fast all right do you do you How do I pay you? Close the doors. Close the doors. I feel like she's not going to pay.

So let's just close the doors. No, I'm going to pay. If you know me that well, and you do because you read my palm, then you know I'm a woman of my word. I know you very well, Jasmine. Emily. No. It was neither of those, so I don't know why you slid to those.

It was an A when I sat in? Yeah, no, I've got a good memory as well as being a psychic. Do you remember my second name? Right, right, right. Something, it's coming to me, Tompkins. Tompkins. Very popular name. You actually made a name?

Isn't it Tompkins? You made a big deal out of it when I came in because it's named after a pretty big rifle. Oh yeah, Kalashnikov. No. Oh yeah. Jasmine Kalashnikov. I said Jasmine wasn't right. The same curse that had taken her loved ones away would come for her too. However, there was one way she could escape death. The psychic explained that if she built a house for herself

and the spirits of her family and the spirits of all those killed by the winchester rifle and if the building of the house never stopped no ghost could settle there and they would let her live oh okay this is a pretty interesting take on things yeah you've incurred deaths through your family loosely let's say so there's homeless ghosts out there and you need to house them or else they're going to come for your ass. It's a pretty interesting concept and also a very specific cure to this paranormal illness. Yeah. It's quite weird. I don't know why a psychic would recommend something like this unless they were like, you need to build a big house.

And beside it, a real big guest house and i'll stay i'll maybe stay in the guest house for a little while to keep an eye on things yeah kind of bodyguard situation the the psychic doesn't seem to benefit much from this at all it's just a very creative way to i guess at the very least keep her mind busy keep her preoccupied interesting so you're saying the psychic could be playing psychotherapist also? Yeah, but like psycho-therapist. Yeah. Not like psychotherapist, you know, like a crazy therapist. But still helps them though. Sure, yeah, trying their best to help. Well, this is gonna take a dark turn. Oh no. Thankfully, building a house was pretty easily accomplished by Mrs. Winchester. At the time, she had an income of a thousand dollars a day.

Now that sounds pretty deece. A thousand dollars a day? To me and you, right? In this day and age, a thousand dollars a day. Jesus Christ, that's an iPhone 12 Pro every single day. You don't even need food if you've got that. That's nuts. Not like you're hung up on the whole phone thing at all. No, no, that was just a totally irrelevant um you know fact that i just pulled out of air but seriously though if those things are sold out everywhere so if someone has a connect they could let us know yeah that sounds pretty great right you're you're you know you're cranking out over a quarter million dollars a year and these are old-timey dollars as well so presumably that's like a million twenty six thousand dollars a day you're kidding me she owned 50 holding in the winchester repeating rifle company and she inherited 20

million dollars cash wow in 1900s money worth over half a billion dollars today oh my god making sarah winchester one of the richest women on earth. So she moved, needless to say, she moved from New Haven. She was like, this is the only good thing to come out of this f***ing curse is I get to leave Connecticut and move to Santa Clara, California. Alright.

Where she bought land to build her mansion. She hired a team of builders and carpenters to work day and night. We look forward to working with you, Mrs. Winchester. Our team can start on Tuesday, but we'll have to pause work from Thursday on account of some bad weather coming in. I'm afraid not. I need you working on this house 24-7. I don't mind the cost, but you can't stop work on this house. I'm just anxious to finish it, you see. 24-7? Even if I wanted to, I don't have enough men, Mrs. Winchester.

I trust this check should suffice for now? Holy! You know what? I'll find some extra hands today and we should be able to keep this show running. Thanks, Mrs. Winchester. Love the builder's poker face there. Yeah. Holy f***ing s***. I've never seen six figures like that before. Not in 1900. No siree. However, immediately, many of the laborers were puzzled when they realized there wasn't even an architect

on this job. She was designing things like f***ing Little Wayne strictly off the dome, freestyling it. Oh, wow. Not only that, but the builders were being instructed to create designs which made no damn sense. There were rooms with windows looking into them from other rooms inside the house. Staircases that led to nowhere except a sheer drop. And doors that led straight into brick walls. In short, she was building Bowser's Castle from Mario 64. The never-ending staircase.

The fake doors. Yeah, paintings you can jump into and become really small. A visionary. Turns out the architect was Shigeru Miyamoto. This is nuts. Very odd stuff. But I guess, yeah, if you have to keep building 24-7,

eventually... It's going to stop being good. It's looping in on itself. Yeah, that's correct. It's going to stop being tasteful at least. Rumors and legends started circulating about the curse, that she was the sole survivor.

The only way for her to outrun this curse was to trick and confuse the demonic spirits that followed and haunted her by living in a house that was big enough to house all the lost spirits that have died from her family's rifles and too confusing for the demons to haunt. Oh right they're getting lost they're taking left turns right turns they need sat nav in this son of a bitch. even the materials she wanted the house made from didn't make any sense she instructed that the house be made entirely out of redwood trees except she hated redwoods and insisted that it be stained and styled so it looked nothing like

redwood all in all they ended up using 78 000 liters of paint just to cover every inch of wood. Oh, do you think that's just to keep construction going? Yeah, maybe. Yeah, if you can think of a great reason to have more workmen in 24-7. Yeah. When it was, let's not say completed, but at its largest size the house was seven stories tall with land covering an area over 160 football fields in size what the house had 161 rooms 40 bedrooms two ballrooms oh my 47 fireplaces don't give the ghosts a place to dance you need to be building two prisons for all the ghosts put a chapel in there at least no ball rooms yeah you just you want a swimming

pool filled entirely with holy water yeah this is dangerous maybe that's like a distraction they get them in and they're like oh when we find her in whatever room we're gonna haunt her so is that a ballroom holy shit look at the polish on that redwood this is dope we've actually got a spa just for ghosts oh all right i haven't been a spa in 800 years 47 fireplaces 17 chimneys with evidence for two more two two basements, three lifts, and over 10,000 panes of glass. How do you have two basements? That's what I thought. By definition, that doesn't make sense.

Do you mean two floors? Whenever you're worth half a billy, whenever you're in the Tres Comas Club, you get two basements. And finally, the piece de la resistance. No mystery house would be complete without an organ in the attic. Oh, God. In the attic as well.

To get a feel for this place, Roy, will I show you some pictures? I'd love to see this, yeah. So I'll start by showing you the outside and then we'll go inside. Here's an old-timey photo of around the height of its uh construction all right wow i mean this is this is incredible it basically it it looks like a little town the whole thing looks like a little town like kind of the ones you'd see at like universal studios or disney world it looks like you're looking out over yeah like a roof skyline of a little town this is crazy so many floors and so many different bits of the building it's not what

you might imagine seven floors the whole building is seven floors it's it's like everything was built without thinking of the next thing standing next to it yeah i mean it's pretty cool i especially like the big kind of spire towards the back which almost looks like a church chapel yeah maybe she did have a chapel after all towering over things i mean it's a it's certainly a spooky vibe and yeah if you knew the layout of this place you should be able to outmaneuver a thousand lost souls on the regular this is like a house i would design in the sims when i was like 15 years old yeah whenever you use the cheat code for unlimited resources yeah and you don't have to worry about shit you're removing doors so the sims all pee themselves and except she's doing exactly that but for ghosts so let's journey inside all right hey we got a lot of good physical evidence

on today's case kids handed me an ipad uh with a lot of pictures from the interior of the house usually you know he would just like airdrop them to me obviously different different circumstances today but this is fine it's totally fine whatever we can make do sure with this one you seem to be having difficulty though navigating it well it's pretty big it's like you've never used i'm not used to anything other than the phone before it's just it's like a it's it's too big frankly i mean this is a i'm just curious what was your screen time like you know over the last couple years you know use nothing i couldn't tell you i couldn't tell you they the bar is just maxed out okay Okay. Which I think was like a glitch or something, but it's fine. A lot of different, the interior design of said castle is a bit all over the place, which is fine. I guess if you have to keep construction rolling 24-7, we're seeing a lot of dark wood against white walls, beige and blue, fireplaces, stained glass windows almost i mean is this somewhere judging from

those images is this somewhere you would like to live not necessarily this is like someone turned on all the lights in like the the um haunted mansion at disneyland this is so weird here's just a picture of stairs leading to the roof no opening no hatch just a plumbing pipe at the top this yeah that's crazy yeah vibe is all over the place i mean you know i'll i'll give them a little leeway that i'm sure every building from the 1900s look looks a little creepy when you turn all the lights on like you say but the organ is totally unnecessary it looks like a quintessential haunted house yeah complete with oil paintings of little girls on the walls um this is very much like a level from resident evil yeah that's a great way to describe it and like you say rory it wasn't just the building itself

but the interior was decorated elaborately she had countless stained glass windows installed and her favorite designs for these windows were spider's webs and the repetition of the number 13. This is actually a motif all through the house is her obsession with the unlucky number 13. On one floor there are 13 bathrooms with 13 steps on the stairs that lead to the 13th bathroom and 13 windows found inside. 13 wall panels in the room preceding the 13th bathroom. The carriage entrance hall is divided into 13 sections. There are 13 rails by the floor level skylight in the South Conservatory. 13 squares on each side of the elevator.

13 holes in the sink drain covers. 13 glass cupolas in the south conservatory 13 squares on each side of the elevator 13 holes in the sink drain covers 13 glass cupolas in the greenhouse there are 13 hooks for her 13 different robes that she wore okay and even chandeliers that would normally hold 12 candles we're modified okay all right why is that, do we know why? Is that understood why? No. She just loved this number. Now, did she love it because that was her lucky number before her life went to shit?

Right. Or is this tapping into something else? This is like, you know, using the evil eye to try and ward away spirits. You're trying to use an unlucky number as a, as an omen. Again, something that might just off-put these spirits yeah that's true i feel like if you're already a ghost you're not going to be off-put by unlucky numbers and things like that yeah i'm scared of demons so i'm just going to put on acdc on the hi-fi yeah carve 666 into the walls and they'll hate that it seems like

they'd be pretty on board with it if they're demons haunting the mortal realm that's like a big well that's like their mcdonald's m glowing in the night welcoming them in yeah it's true it's just something we don't know and it said that her behavior was affected by the curse too not just the design of the house she had to accommodate good spirits as best she could and at the same time trick the bad ones.

There were almost no mirrors in the house whatsoever. In all 160 rooms there's something like three small mirrors. Right. Apparently because

spirits don't like them. They don't like mirrors? Because spirits don't cast they're a bit like vampires. They don't cast a reflection in them. So it's almost as if it reminds them that they're dead oh okay i can i can get on board with that so for this reason all her servants and maids learned to carry pocket mirrors in their uniform if they ever wanted to check their appearance because in mrs winchester's house

you can't just like walk into the bathroom and see if there's something stuck in your teeth right she wanted no mirrors to welcome the ghosts in exactly okay you keep it up it's a little confusing right demons aren't ghosts in very rarely in this paranormal life are people trying to invite ghosts into their home yeah it's kind of this is not a funny challenge to have and she was going over and above trying to be a good ghost host. It was alleged that she was even throwing dinner parties for spirits that lived in the house. She would like set out all the plates and cutlery and everything for a massive dinner party just for spirits to swan in and feel like they were having a ball. That's pretty creepy.

But when it came to evil spirits or demons this is where the impossible confusing design of the house came into play if she felt she was being followed she would just dip into a secret corridor or down a set of stairs that didn't lead anywhere and come straight back again throwing the spirits off the scent that's a good idea look you're basically having a paranormal house party. And anyone who's thrown a house party knows sometimes word spreads. Things get out of control. Even if you only invite the good ghosts, a couple bad ghosts are going to find their way inside.

It's the big worry. It helps that they can go through walls. But what this means is while you're throwing that paranormal party and that beautiful ball is going down, if there's a couple undesirable spirits, you know this house, you know the blueprints, you know the walkways, you know all the secret passages, you're able to escape them. Again, they can go through walls. It's very hard to escape a spirit or a demon. It's an impossible task.

You're a human, they're a demon. You're not going to win. But she's definitely done herself some favors. Yeah, she's definitely putting some stumbling blocks in their way. I do love that idea of the ghosts coming to the party and, like, texting Mrs. Winchester. Like, hey, Mrs. W, really excited for the party. Hey, listen, I got a couple boys who would love to come. We could bring a couple girls as well.

Are they girl demons? They're, yeah, they're pretty bad, actually. Were they at least killed by a Winchester rifle? Because that's a big... It was on the criteria. It was on the RSVP. Were you killed by a Winchester rifle? They're from the French Civil War.

I can't lie to you, Mrs. W. Before the Winchester rifle. Get out of here. It's a recent rifle. There's not that many ghosts. Is that a bayonet scar? Get the f*** out of here. We don't put those on our guns.

Get the f*** out of here. Ghosts't put those on our guns. Get the f*** out of here. Ghosts are coming from the future. From the robot wars. Trying to turn up to the party because they heard it was like the most lit ghost party in this dimension. I was killed by a Winchester 4000. A gun so sharp it cuts through time. If you could give me the details of the Winchester 4000 because that sounds like a lucrative kind of business offer for us, but otherwise, get the f*** out of here.

And throwing demons off the scent, this is the exact same reason there were 40 bedrooms. She wasn't having that many guests. The story goes she wouldn't sleep in the same bedroom two nights in a row, just in case the spirit or demon worked out her routine. Right, okay. She's like Jason Bourne in her own house. A nomad, yeah. right okay she's like jason bourne in her own house a nomad yeah crazy she's like coming down to breakfast she's got the mini kellogg selection

box of cereals she doesn't want the ghost to know that she eats cheerios every day yeah she has to be prepared to move on to a new kitchen with new cereals jesus christ she has to burn down the old kitchen eat cocoa pops the next day. It's a life on the edge, truly. It truly is. I mean, this is a pretty interesting idea though, isn't it? I'm reminded of the Prince of Persia game, Sands of Time.

Did you ever play that one? I don't think I ever did. This is the one where, you know, you'd be fighting, sword fighting, and then if you got killed, you would use your Sands of time to rewind time and then enter the fight again oh that's cool the premise of this game was that the prince himself was being he was cursed at the beginning of the game and they said it is your destiny to die

you cannot outrun your destiny and he was like watch me look at this and then the rest of the game magic sand asshole you're being hunted by a demon. The demon does not sleep. It does not rest. Jesus. You've got to run the rest of your life. And he's like, yeah, but I'm not going to die. So.

Can you only use it for death? Or could you like, you know, eat a delicious box of like McDonald's chicken nuggets? And then you're like. And then you can just enjoy them again and the wizard who gave you the sands is like 10 generations of wizards have protected the sands for you to save your life and save the planet is that nugs you punch the wizard then reverse time it's like it never happened you can't be mad. I'm going to go jack off a thousand times. See you later. We picked the wrong prince, I think.

So just the same way, the Prince of Persia had to keep running. I think it's actually the exact same plot as well of the movie It Follows. Great movie. Fantastic movie. Where if you bang someone, they get the demon.

Yeah, when you describe it like that, that's not really doing it justice. But it is a sexually trans... It's an STD. actually transmitted demon yeah it is actually uh this is like a twist on all that yeah she's trying to outrun fate but for in her own house in her own damn house my flat has basically two rooms so i would not stand much of a chance i think finding off this you're not like throwing the demon off the scent by like like hiding behind the fridge door for a second and like i don't know getting into your shower sleep in the bathtub a different kind of disaster struck in 1906 of course the san francisco earthquake struck the winchester mystery house heart did i mention they call it the winchester

mystery house that's its name is that a retrospective name or yeah during creation she didn't come up with that okay uh the earthquake hit it hard and it lost three of its seven stories overnight like that that's great though isn't it that's a really good excuse for more construction you're like oh no we're gonna be going all night now with this little son of a bitch that's a great point she was probably trying to summon earthquakes. But while much of Northern California was destroyed by this mega quake, the mystery house had been built using a floating foundation. Don't ask me what that means,

but apparently it means it could withstand most of the earthquake where other buildings are toppling over. Hmm, interesting. And on the topic of kind of world-ending disasters, she also owned a houseboat that she kept in San Francisco Bay, which, granted, isn't weird for someone as rich as her at this time. But what is weird was it was called Sarah's Ark. 13 sails, 13 wheels.

That doesn't even need wheels must construct forever uh she reportedly kept it as protection in case there was a second biblical flood i think something is not right here and she wanted to be prepared like noah i feel like this someone needs to step in and help the situation but i feel like all the people that are involved in this madness are the ones getting paid to do shit so they're not necessarily going to say no you don't need another floor no you don't need an ark to survive a biblical flood yes you do have to keep having your fortune told by me the witch no one is stepping in and being like there's something not right here you need to

take a second and stop building houses and she's like interesting thought how about i pay you a million dollars to say the opposite of that done this is the problem yeah sadly sarah winchester died in 1922 oh no you might have got the picture some of this was towards the end of her life yeah i think it's fair to say that whatever curse started off all this started you know 20 30 Oh no. You might have got the picture. Some of this was towards the end of her life. Yeah. I think it's fair to say that whatever curse started off all this started, you know, 20, 30 years previously, you know, she was in a good place. You know, whenever she came up with the Ark, Sarah's Ark, that was towards the end of her life.

How old did you say she was? She was in her 80s, I believe. She lived to a decent age. That's a good run. That's a high score. All of her possessions after her death were passed on to her niece as she had no living immediate family. As one final hint of her obsession with the occult and the number 13, her will contained 13 sections and was signed 13 times. Wow.

It took weeks of removal's people traveling to and from the house to empty it so the goods could be auctioned off but bizarrely despite the house being her life's work the will made no mention of the house whatsoever it was as if it never even existed wow how weird not to mention something that enormous. That's crazy. For sure your will should contain something the size of 160 football fields. You wouldn't forget that, would you, in a will. Wow, that's so strange. As if she doesn't even want it touched. Yeah. And for this reason, it ended up being, I think, auctioned off to a local businessman. I think everyone assumed the house was worthless

because at this point it had been rocked by the earthquake, probably needed a ton of work. Right. She had built it all f***ed up. No one ever wanted to live in it. I think they sold it for $130,000 at the time. Wow. Granted, more in these, in today's dollars,

but not at all what it was worth. Yeah, yeah. But I feel like I'm getting sidetracked, Roy. Crucially, is this house haunted? That's what we're here to talk about today. After all, it's sometimes said to be home to over 1,000 different ghosts. So surely we can find at least one.

Many investigators and psychics have spent the night in the house conducting experiments trying to prove this one way or the other. Thankfully, the Winchester Mystery House people, whoever works there today, they've done a pretty good job of documenting who's experienced the paranormal inside the house. And while there have been a number of recent TV investigations capturing the occasional bump in the night or orb on camera, the most interesting stories come from a few decades back. For example, in 1975,

California's then most popular psychic investigator, Jeannie Borgen, conducted a seance in the house at midnight with the help of one other psychic, Joy Adams. Joy reported, as Mrs. Borgen was walking around the room, it suddenly appeared as if her face had aged. Her hair appeared to turn grey, and deep lines creased in her forehead. She felt staggering pain and was unable to walk. It was as if she was having a heart attack, and she started to fall. She screamed for help. She then woke a short time later, breathing normally and feeling no pain. She told everyone that she had felt a tremendous build-up of energy and that the spirit of Mrs. Winchester was overpowering her.

But also claiming she found, quote, no violent spirits, just one very gentle ghost. So apparently mid-se seance she wasn't just possessed by Mrs. Winchester but she started to turn into Mrs. Winchester. Transformed! That's terrifying! But then kind of interesting at the end so she has this paranormal

experience but she also claims that there were no violent spirits. This house is supposed to have a thousand spirits. Yeah, yeah. The only ghost she came across was Mrs. winchester there's some irony there yeah that's pretty poetic that's beautiful actually you spend all your life trying to you know fend off your demons till you become you are a demon maybe you become a demon of course um that's pretty terrifying i think we can all learn a lot from that, actually. Very true.

Another group of researchers from the Nirvana Foundation claim to have even caught the sound of the organ being played on tape all the way back in 1981. Did the organ smell like mean spirits? That's pretty good, actually, yeah. The Nirvana Foundation smells like mean spirits? I'm into that, yeah. That's pretty uh yeah don't interrupt though you know sorry i was in the middle of it and uh that's it that's better than any joke i've come up with this episode and we do need it because it's been bone dry so far but uh you know just time and place of course yeah i just thought

if i didn't say it then it wouldn't make any sense to say it later in the podcast so we can cut this in one i get that okay i get that yeah so um and they caught the sound of the organ being played in tape and uh hopefully it may be uh what'd you say um well i said it's like teen spirit no no i mean the song is smells like come as you are not the nirvana song that's a different one why are you you're wording this like you're gonna know in the edit you're gonna cut me out and say it like it's your line tee me up here because well no but it's been bone dry i haven't had a joke all episode i'm getting pretty anxious about it to be honest sweating my dick of balls off so you're gonna take my joke and you're gonna cut me out in the edit listen just do me a solid you've had a

ton of listen you're a funny guy all right all right all right you can take the joke you can take the joke the joke is they're called the nirvana group so i said does the organ smell like mean spirits oh yeah yeah yeah okay instead of smells like teen spirit this obviously will be smooth in the edit oh yeah sure go on go take the just yeah go for it take it and when they listened back to the tape they said oh shit that organ smells like team spirit you can't you can't do it like that why not because they didn't say that did they stop stop the tape you gotta work it in like it's a natural like i did like it's a natural thing right well i'll just you can't because i'm pretty sure he didn't go oh

shit this isn during the investigation funny anymore let's just let me worry about the edit bro all right yeah i said the line so we got the line is there the joke's there it's hilarious everyone's gonna love it we'll cut it in at some point all right fine sure you know but i wasn't able to get my hands on that recording uh and it is difficult for us to verify a thing like that 40 years later um that we don't know who was in the attic that night yeah that's true especially let's face it when the nirvana group are trying to sell a book around the same time pretty convenient if they do end up with a recording of a ghost playing an organ that would definitely help sales they were probably in the winchester

house and were saying hey spirits come as you are you know dude i said don't interrupt it's just another nirvana it's just another nirvana joke you you cut it so you got credit for the first one so let me do this i'm gonna need credit for that one too you're gonna take the second one don't listen don't get mad about it you know what i mean it's my episode i need listen i need to come on man to be funny something i need to be funny as well you know what i mean i gotta tell the episode. I need... Listen, I need to call... Come on, man. You've got to give me something. I need to be funny as well. You know what I mean? I've got to tell the story. There's no way I can deliver that, though.

So... So you're just going to cut it from the episode? Honestly, I think it's best if the balance is right of the comedy. Because, listen, I tried the other one. I couldn't do it, as you saw. You bombed that one hard. The delivery was gone. We have to cut it.

I'm actually going to probably take a lot of you out of this episode all that's left is me complaining about my phone this is you and me talking about my phone for an hour uh update on the phone it is still missing it is still turned off no one asked okay just yeah just because i have it open here so that because i feel like we're getting like close to the end and I haven't done a lot of updates. So the race is still... Right, you're close to the end, so you will have all the time in the world to look at it. The race is still pending.

They have turned off location services, so I can't find it. I mean, by the time people hear this, you will be enjoying your new phone? You don't know that. You don't know that. But that actually brought me some comfort, actually, the way you framed that.

So that was pretty good. Okay. It just feels disingenuous to make people worry about this when you'll be already enjoying a new phone by the time you're saying it's weird for like people to donate like more money on patreon to help me get my that would be wrong that would be super weird yeah like because i'm not even saying that that's like a crazy idea if you want to do it you go ahead and do it please no you know you know we can even make it like a tear you don't make it like a tear you know make it like a tear like even get me a better just get kit to forego his cut is that i'm just putting it out

there that's crazy because i could actually get a couple phones now i think about it if kit just doesn't get paid that's what the people are saying hashtag cut kit out however i will say some psychologists have a very different explanation for why the Winchester Mystery House feels haunted. They talk about something called legibility. This is the human brain's ability to make sense of a space. In essence, this is how easy it is to get lost somewhere. This apparently plays a big role in how comfortable we feel in a given space. You know, so a cave equals cozy. Winchester Mystery House equals scary.

Oh, yeah, okay. That makes sense. Of course the Mystery House is the exact opposite of legible. We have staircases going nowhere, windows looking into brick walls. Our brain tells us, stay out of here. We won't be able to find our way back out if we get in there you think they would almost be illegible you know in turn when you think of like because legible am i is that the right word i'm thinking of when like someone's handwriting is nuts it's bad it's illegible illegible yeah so the mystery house is illegible right it's illegible you're right okay okay but i will say as a cool piece of first-hand evidence,

Andrea Gerton, who actually emailed us about this case, one of our listeners, they said, As a small anecdote to add in, I had a roommate that worked at the mystery house for a while. Not construction. I hope. I think he's a f***ing ghost. 1900s Californian builder.

He said guests all the time would tell him how cool it was that they had actors in period clothing on the premises they didn't employ any actors right no he believed them to be the ghosts of sarah and her maid that's terrifying pretty cool little nugget though yeah so a paranormal sighting so convincing that you think that is hired actors walking around the mansion. That ghost needs to like tone it down a bit or something.

Or step it up a bit. Because yeah, imagine you saw a ghost. That's pretty crazy thing. Imagine you've seen ghosts so convincing you didn't even bat an eye.

You're real, right? Let me touch you. Let me grab you. Oh God. Not again. This is my fifth podcast with a ghost. Your phone was a ghost this whole time. Feels like it.

Disappear from my hands fast enough. If I catch you, I will kill you, by the way. Sorry. And listen, this pretty much sums up all the evidence we have for the Winchester Mystery House. I do want to leave you with a fun fact i love that you brought up not just the i think when you first saw it you said this place could house a thousand ghosts that's literally what people say about this place that's the legend that it holds a thousand ghosts but not just that you said this looks like a haunted house from disneyland haunted mansion in Disneyland is actually based on the Winchester Mystery House.

Wow. Walt himself designed it that way. The story goes that the original plan was for an abandoned looking building. But Walt hated all the blueprints because he didn't like the idea of there being like an ugly busted house in Disneyland. Right. being like a ugly busted house in disneyland right so he visited the winchester house and was fascinated by the idea of a beautiful grand house that could still be terrifying for other reasons they even advertise that it's haunted by 999 happy haunts reference to the thousand that are supposed to live at winchester wow almost implying that you're the new ghost as well when you when you go on the ride whoa man

that's pretty cool dude these edibles are written deep bro did you also know that um i might be i hope i'm not talking out my butt here but uh rasputin a portrait of rasputin was uh once in the disney haunted mansion did you know this and they uh eventually decided against it not being rasputin so they painted over uh the portrait to change it um but it's still the the portrait of rasputin let me see let's hopefully i'm not talking about ras i wanted to show us uh a photo again i've been there but i had to be reminded what the Haunted Mansion actually looks like. You definitely get the vibe. It's, um...

Oh, yeah. Very similar. Same kind of architecture. Super grand. Really beautiful. I love the Haunted Mansion. I love Disneyland, man. Dude,

whenever you go in the... You go from the foyer into the first room and the moment that lift kicks in. So good. Oh my God. It's so satisfying.

It's incredible. It really makes me. I was looking it up as well. There's like haunted mansions in all the different Disneyland's. So I've got and I see the haunted mansion in Tokyo. That would be incredible. Yeah, I was right. At one point, Rasputin, the unkillable Russian mystic, was a portrait that was right at one point rasputin the unkillable russian mystic was a portrait

that was hung at the i believe it towards the end of the haunted mansion in disneyland california wow and then eventually uh i don't know why but they decided to change it and turned him into what is now known as the ogre it's almost the exact same yeah it's still just a dude i mean for reference that was the uh original okay if anything he looks even scarier but they've kept rasputin's famous eyes like the ogre has really creepy eyes yeah rasputin famously these piercing dagger blue eyes or whatever yeah i just thought that was a very cool interesting fact pretty damn cool hey i'd love to do an investigation in disneyland oh that's a great idea haunted disneyland i bet there's some paranormal stories from disneyland the kid that got eaten by an alligator in disneyland florida did that happen yes oh my god i don't know that's not just

paranormal that's just sad but hey what i do know about the winchester mystery house is that if paranormal evidence in the form of an indisputable photo or a video is going to show up it's going to be from one of the hundreds of visitors a day that the house has been receiving now for years all right what do you make of this one off the top like like little wayne like sarah winchester off the top of your dome uh it's a great story this one's been floating around the uh the inbox for a while now and frankly i didn't have the balls or energy to touch it so um congratulations kit for a fantastic and thorough investigation into a case that is long overdue frankly uh we are definitely not the first to touch this one but i think we will definitely be the definitive voice on whether or not the Winchester mystery house is truly paranormal.

Surviving members of the Winchester family, listen up, because we're about to get real. This might come as a shock to you. I appreciate all of the physical evidence that was provided today. Pictures of the house, the blueprints, the interiors. It was all fantastic. While it is an incredible story, what we're missing out on today is photos of the paranormal. I mean, you said it yourself that this place gets hundreds and hundreds of visitors every day. The guests are so convinced that there are spirits

walking these halls, they thought it was hired actors in period clothing. If you're there, presumably with a camera, why haven't we got more evidence on camera of paranormal activity this is the elephant in the room this is the thousand ghosts in the room and i do love that we have some pretty much first-hand evidence from one of our own listeners that's that's as good as it gets but, we come up against these cases every now and again where the footfall on these paranormal haunted locations is so massive that it becomes even more problematic that we don't have those videos. We don't have those photos. It's hard enough sometimes to prove that a ghost is real.

If you're claiming a thousand ghosts are living in this house, and yes, to be fair, it is a very confusing house. Lots of entrances and exits but you should still at least have quite a good amount of evidence to back up those claims it's so true you know i've said it many times in the podcast before i can't wait for us to go investigate this one ourselves this is so doable we just buy a ticket for like 10 bucks go to silicon valley we'll investigate Facebook while we're at it. Yeah. See if I can get my goddamn login again after I've been locked out.

Okay. Sure. But yeah, go and then go to the Winchester. If we have time. If we have time. Yeah. We need to do all that other shit first. This is a very doable investigation.

Yeah. I think, you know, people have asked that question a lot. You know, would you guys ever consider doing investigations in person and uh yeah i definitely think we we do consider it and will consider it and um hopefully this will be right up there on the list we'd love to see that day but until then for me it's going to be a no what about for you rory i think based on the evidence that has been provided to me today it is unfortunately also going to be a no damn yet again foiled we are in a drought my friend absolute dry spell when was the last yes that we had hell guys i hope you enjoyed the investigation into the winchester mystery house and thank you so much again to jared mccormick

keith boggins and andrea gerton for sending this one into this paranormal life podcast at gmail.com if you've been there there's every likelihood that some of our listeners have been to the house already let us know and now have you seen anything in the fucking Rasputin

Peyton let us know we'd like to go there too if you work at Disneyland and can hook us up with some free tickets again get in contact

not with me with Kit I don't have my phone right what about email your laptop all that stuff they have all that

information it was all on the phone so I'm gonna have to phone. Right. What about email? Your laptop? All that stuff? They have all that information. It was all on the phone. Okay. So I'm going to have to start fresh, my friend. Final update of the episode. The phone is still turned off. Location unknown.

I'm guessing I'm just going to venture a f***ing gas at this point. Yeah. That I'm guessing you usually do all the editing of the podcast on your phone. On my phone. Right. So I'm going to have to pick that up. You're going to have to take this up. Also, my notes for next episode, they were all on the phone. Okay.

So I'm not going to be able to host at least for like three weeks. Yeah. If you could just take almost all the responsibility. I'll buy you a phone. No, I insist. Okay. That I do this myself. Right.

With the help of our patrons. I'm sure everything will be fine. And if you can't get enough of this paranormal life please head on over to patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life where like rory says i won't promise that we're gonna throw him a couple bucks to to solve his phone situation but you can get access to over 35 full bonus episodes of this paranormal life these are the most exclusive and important investigations in tpl history available exclusively to patrons and are unlocked for just five dollars and at 20 bucks you can buy a this paranormal life commune t-shirt those bonus episodes are like the secret menu at starbucks you know no one even knows about them you just

have to show up and say like can i get a can i get a unicorn latte keep your voice down yeah of course you can have it and you get cream with it of course i'd love one with whipped cream you want the sprinkles i didn't even know that was a thing sorry sorry if you go up to the this paranormal life patreon page you hand over five little buckaroos and you go can i have a couple little bonus episodes like yeah don't keep your goddamn voice down yeah here's 30 of them they're all gold you're gonna love them it's a pretty good exchange i would say also for the record please do not send uh us money online for me to buy a new phone i am a grown baby boy and i will buy my new phone myself so thank you we shouldn't joke yeah i feel really bad if anyone was genuinely gonna send money

it's fine and if you follow us online you might have seen that we are doing another live show oh yeah it's been a minute for obvious reasons but but we are back, baby, at Leicester Comedy Festival 2021. On Saturday, 13th of February, 2021, at 2.30 p.m., we will be doing a live investigation. But Kit, I don't live in the UK. Why do I give a shit? Go f*** yourself. No, no, dude, I'm trying to tee you up for the virtual.

Yeah, and you're behaving like a hater, and that's something we hate. Why do I give a shit? Go f*** yourself. No, no. Dude, I'm trying to tee you up for the virtual. Yeah, and you're behaving like a hater. And that's something we hate. No, no, I'm trying to. The haters, they're always trying to. Jesus Christ. They're commenting. No.

Listen, those comments, man. I'm trying to tee you up to bring up the fact that you can also get virtual tickets online. What the f*** is a virtual ticket? All right, this isn't going to work. I'm trying to tee you up, bud. Explain what the shit oh sorry sorry the virtual ticket is um is uh it means that you can buy a ticket online for the show and it's so cheap that even a little a little piece of shit like uh this guy over here kit greer that's quite enough all right i'm taking it back no no dude virtual ticket is it i was teeing you up so you could tell the price of the ticket

for the low low price of five pounds boom that's a steal you can watch us do a live investigation in leicester comedy festival 2021 from anywhere from the moon maybe not the moon actually i shouldn't start with the moon that was ambitious uh from america from canada from france tokyo anywhere so it's a great idea if you you know i don't know if you have you and your partner you and your friends want to do kind of a live watch along that's the way to do it so please follow the link in the description of this podcast and it's also on our socials i believe it's our instagram bio link you can click that and then book your five pound ticket to watch live it's very close to our 200th episode as well isn't it it is right okay good i thought i made that up for a second

and i should say i believe the physical tickets for that event are sold out with COVID and all those restrictions. It's going to be incredibly safe, but incredibly limited amount of seating available. But if you don't give a shit about Patreon, don't give a shit about live shows and just want to follow us on Instagram or Twitter or any of the others, please head on over to twitter.com forward slash this power life instagram.com forward slash this paranormal life all the links are in the podcast description below and connect with us send us your thoughts send us your theories and as always we're on youtube posting highlights of this paranormal life every week twice a week where you can watch the finest moments of this paranormal life in hd hope you enjoyed every episode in 2020 We're so excited to be kicking off

a new year of paranormal investigations. Boom! We'll be back next Tuesday with a brand new investigation. See you then. Bye-bye!