This Paranormal Life - #250 The Winsted WILD Man - Real Gorilla-man Or Just A Guy?

Episode Date: February 15, 2022

Sure, Bigfoot is synonymous with the Pacific Northwest of the United States. But do you really think a beast that bodacious would be able to stay in one location? That he wouldn't want to travel east at least once to try a New Haven-style pizza? Enter the Winsted Wildman. In the late 1800s a gorilla-man cryptid started terrorising the people of Winsted, Connecticut. But is there any truth to this paranormal claim? Time for Rory and Kit to investigate.Buy Official TPL Merch! -  thisparanormallife.com/storeSupport us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to bonus episodes!Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunityAdvertise on This Paranormal Life via Gumball.fmEdited by Kami TomanResearch by Amy GrisdaleIntro music by www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Why is the Mariana Trench so deep? Does Santa really have claws? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This Paranormal Life! Hello! And welcome back to This Paranormal Life. This is the weekly comedy podcast where me, Kit Grimm-Molvena, and Rory Powers investigate a different paranormal case and try to get to the bottom, the end of the show of whether it's truly paranormal or not.

Rory, how are you doing today? I'm doing great. It's good to be back researching a new paranormal case. We're, you know, sometimes we have to record this podcast early in the morning where we're kind of rushing about. We've been up late researching the case. We're up early preparing the case and presenting the case. Today's a little different. We're kicking back. We got two beers. We're ready to just really take our time with this one and have fun investigating a brand new paranormal tale. It's pretty rare that a paranormal investigator gets to have fun full stop. Yeah, you never really get to put your feet up. You know, I like to refer to paranormal investigators as the fourth emergency service. We should realistically be available if you dial 999.

So much like a fireman or a policeman, I keep a pager stuck to my belt just in case we get a call. Kind of like 21st century Ghostbusters. Who were in the 21st century? So I guess like Ghostbusters. Oh, actually, things pinging now. All right. Well, we're in the middle of a show. Speak of the devil. We're in the 21st century. So I guess like Ghostbusters. Oh, actually things pinging now. All right. Well, we're in the middle of a show.

Speak of the devil. We're in the middle of a show. So I think mute it. Family of four in grave danger. I'm going to check that later. Yeah, turn that off. We're working. It's time to dive into today's case.

To begin today, Rory, we need to go all the way back to August 28th, 1891. We're in a picturesque little New England town called Winstead, Connecticut. It was right before the turn of the century and right at the beginning of the birth of modern America. Ooh, very cool. It was an era of hope. America had independence now.

New technology was changing the lives of Americans all over the country and women were just several decades shy of being given the vote. That's embarrassing. There were new and exciting ways to get around, and our story starts on one of these cutting-edge new vehicles, a motorized coach. The delighted passengers were cruising along the highway

at the fastest speed the engine could take them, which at the time would have been anywhere from 10 to a blistering white knuckle 30 miles an hour. Woo! So realistically, not fast at all. But they were enjoying the trip nonetheless. Nowadays, a kid could do that in Heelys. You could do 30 in Heelys.

Even in my day, as children, we were constructing giant slingshots and slinging our friends across the town like in a giant trebuchet. I like to imagine that these 1800s Americans, they were passing out, eyes watering, teeth chattering at the sheer speed. I guess they had trains. That's probably the fastest they went before that, right? I don't know if they even had trains, man. I think they had those carts with a little seesaw that you had to pump up and down like in f***ing Looney Tunes. Right. Motor vehicles didn't become widespread in the States until the 1920s, so being ferried

around in anything that wasn't being pulled by a horse was still quite a novelty. The wind whipped through their hair as they laughed, zooming along the road on their way into town. But the merriment turned to fear in an instant as an enormous, dark shape suddenly bolted across the highway in front of them. What on earth was that? It had moved in the blink of an eye, like a nimble-footed deer trying to escape the clutches of a sprinting wolf, only it had been on two legs, like a man. Once it made it across the road, it leapt high into the air over a fence on the other side.

Oh my god. So this has very little to do with cars and humanity's achievements regarding travel. This is mostly to do with this f***ing beast, man. Keep an eye on this beast though, because if he gets his hands on a motor vehicle, it's over for these b****es. The passengers had only got a brief glimpse, but each and every one of them knew what they had seen was not part of the normal North American wildlife. It looked like a great ape of some kind to me. Perhaps a gorilla. I don't need to explain to Rory how people feel when they see a gorilla man. It's very true.

People go nuts. Word of the unusual sighting soon spread. It made national headlines in the New York Times. Today may have marked a sighting of a gorilla that escaped a circus last winter. An entire carriage of witnesses claimed to clap eyes on a loose, bipedal beast on the outskirts of Winstead, Connecticut. The tropical ape fled from its captors in South Norfolk more than 18 months ago. Local authorities urge anyone with knowledge of such an animal roaming free to come forward post haste. The article finished with a short note

claiming that a few local residents thought it not to be an animal at all, but a grizzled wild man known to live in the area. Oh my God, well, that took a turn. Yeah, you think these people are just like us, but living in a community with a local wild man? Yeah, was that an option? Was that one of the options?

Like, yeah, well, it could be a loose animal or Chuck. It might be Chuck now that I think about it. Is that just what happened if you just stopped going to school one day? You just became a local wild man as you grew up? Why do you think they want us to go to school? So that we don't tap into our true monkey powers. That's why they make you learn math and all that nerd shit so you don't realize you can run around on two hands piss on tree trunks and eat mushrooms and freak out personally i'm trying to unlearn everything i've learned in

school you said this was the late 1800s so i'm assuming that this is a time where sure it might be bizarre to see a gorilla running across the street in the middle of America. But this was also probably a time when there weren't as many rules around the wildlife that you could keep as pets. Every neighbor on your street was Joe Exotic. They were riding to work on the backs of tigers, jousting each other on ostriches. tigers jousting each other on ostriches. Not a lot of people know that the founding fathers of North America, they were borderline Pokemon trainers.

They brought about six exotic beasts each, and they would battle them amongst each other to settle arguments and disagreements. And they actually built it into the Constitution. I know a lot of you are probably sitting there thinking, that's not true, but when was the last time you read the Constitution? Yeah, Second Amendment. You have the right to bear arms.

You have the right for the arms of a bear to destroy your enemies. We really got to get the word out in that one. It's a lot lesser known. Needless to say, New York Times readers across the country scoffed at the thought of this local wild man and simply hoped the escaped circus beast would be brought under control soon. And again, we're talking about the old days.

So brought under control means we hope that real soon he's rescued if you catch my drift. We really hope the little Rory and Kit who escaped from uh p5 in primary school will be brought under control asap before they transform into wild men like we'll take every precaution necessary to make sure that they're rescued safely loading grenades into a launcher as he's talking he's putting on rambo face paint licking a knife with his tongue all right well even if you're gonna kill them don't do all this weird shit beforehand at least pretend like you don't want to do it honestly it it really pains me to have to go after them like this ladies gentlemen the hunt begins all right all right and i cannot stress enough what kind of cartoon-ass era this was.

He went straight to place bananas under a box with a stick and dynamite waiting for the beast. I hope that's true. Cut to a week or so later in the nearby district of Colebrook. A Mrs. Culver is carrying a load of washing to hang on the line, but when she looked out the window, she saw something curled up on her porch in a deep sleep. Thinking it was a local dog or an animal, she thought twice about going out just in case, and instead of bothering it, hung the clothes indoors and went to bed. The next morning, she'd all but forgotten about what she saw until she went downstairs and looked outside to the backyard.

Oh, it's a bit dark in here. Let me open the drapes and let some light in. That's much better- The memory of the previous night came rushing back to her when she saw the hairy figure still slumbering on the deck outside her back door, but now in the light of day, she could see it was huge. It was clearly the beast everyone had been talking about. We'll send somebody right out. What's he doing? Is he being aggressive? Causing damage? Don't laugh at my voice. I sound just like my father and my father before him. I don't want to talk about your voice.

There's something incredibly dangerous and threatening happening to me right now. All right, very good. Because I was bullied about it from a very young age. Something I'm quite sensitive about. Okay. Can you help? Well, that depends, madam. Is my voice funny?

No. If you could just come help, officer. it sounds like you're laughing i mean you can't be serious you really can't what's so funny about a man who was diagnosed with a condition known as child voice there's no way that's a real condition you're saying my doctor made it up to get rid of me because my voice was that strange the beast is crawling through the window right now i need you to help all. All right, ma'am, we're on our way. Six officers rushed to the Culver home to try and catch the animal and countless civilians joined them in the hunt along the way. What you're going to need in this situation is a little piece of paranormal hunting equipment that I call a baseball bat. You creep up on this little weasel and you clobber it into dust okay so a couple

minutes ago you were criticizing the people of this age for being too violent in their handling of the situation yeah but you want to hit it with a bat if it stayed the night on my porch and it's a 12 foot beast if you have a window of opportunity here to kill it you gotta you gotta take it it hasn't hurt anyone yet, by the way. And sure, if you've got that bat cocked up above your head and in that last moment before the hit, you realize maybe it's not 12 foot. Maybe it kind of looks like a guy.

Maybe you recognize his face. It's too late. You've got to follow through. It's absolutely not too late. You've only cocked the thing back. You don't have to follow through. Who knows what the beast will do when it wakes up? Just close your eyes and swing.

So Rory would have really- Who knows if it knows your name? Who knows if it says it's your neighbor that was locked out of his house? Close your eyes and swing. This is getting too personal. Rory really would have fit in in this vigilante mob. And by the time the police and the mob stepped onto the property, there was no beast in sight.

They spread out and combed as large an area as they could with the manpower at their disposal, but to no avail. Wow, that's crazy. What do you think, Rory, so far? Pretty creepy stuff, no? I love it. It's been a while since we've investigated just a pure cryptid case. A story of a furry, bizarre little beast that is terrorizing a local town in America. I feel like that's, you know,

that's right up there with the most popular paranormal cases that we come across. Absolutely. It's our roots. We're returning to our roots. It's nice to be back. Would you have handled that situation any differently? From Mrs. Cul culver the witness or from the police either one you know if i was in mrs culver's position uh this is a really great

reason to own a dog because like i said like the founding fathers intended dogs are pokemon they can fight your fights for you that's really not true so in this instance if you think there's a deadly animal outside that is a threat to you and your family just shove your dog outside let them investigate that's a terrible idea you've owned dogs as well which is worrying dogs have teeth they can fend for themselves we have teeth not sharp ones though i like to think you open up that door and boot a two-foot pomeranian into the yard look at the very least spare him it'll buy you some time as the beast devours little chichi that's exactly what i was worried about uh what about you would you have handled it any differently baseball bat probably okay in the morning you know

i'm gonna let you sleep tonight but if you're still there in the morning, you're getting the bat. I do feel like that is an American thing more than a British thing to keep a baseball bat in the boot of your car. Yeah, for road rage. I had a baseball bat. Well, I had a baseball bat in my room when I was growing up. That was like my defense tool. So maybe it is an American thing. I don't know what they have over here.

Knives, probably. We just keep a teapot full of hot tea near us at all times. Right, the British, yeah. So that if there's a home intruder, you can go, get back, fiend! And scald them with some Earl Grey. We have packets of biscuits, bourbons, custard creams. But when you go to offer them to them, they've actually been out for a little while and they're quite hard to bite through. So it could cause them slight inconvenience or indigestion once they eat those biscuits.

And it'll really, you know, won't get rid of them, but it'll make them think twice about staying here because the biscuits are bad. And that to British people is a fate worse than death, truly. Bad biscuits. Another traditional one would be to, if a home intruder comes in and tries to rob your house, that you leave a broken umbrella by the door so that when the gentleman home intruder leaves your house, he naturally goes to grab the umbrella. And then on the walk home, he gets a little wet because the umbrella is broken. It's great stuff.

And that's comeuppance for murdering you and your family and stealing all your things. What I like to do is on their way out after, as you said, they've murdered my family and often my pet. I'll get my butler to give them the wrong jacket when they're leaving. But he won't even notice until he's in the rain and he tries to put it on he's like oh this isn't my my jacket and i've locked the doors he can't get back in again you are dead though i'm not dead but my family and loved ones are dead and my possessions have been stolen oh that's okay then yeah yeah yeah and of course i gave him a spare key in case he wants to come back because that's just polite yeah yeah so but he looks silly in that jacket he really does you have to make sure he has a glass of sherry before he leaves as well because you can't simply can't send a gentleman out into the night without

a little after dinner drink i've never experienced a cryptid sleeping on my porch before but one time when i was in my third year of university we came back from a house party. And, uh, one of the girls that I was living with at the time, we were all like, Hey, that was a great night. Uh, good night. We're battered. We're all going to go to bed. And, um, and then she came into my room a little bit later and was like, Hey, there's a man in my bed and I don't know who he is. And that's the crucial detail. We all found it. Cause we were pretty drunk at the time. We were like, this is the funniest thing in the world. Right. So we went in and turned on the lights and there's a man in her bed.

Don't know how he got into the house. Nobody recognizes him. And it was, I guess, some really drunk person who, because at the time we were kind of living in this student estate where if you've ever lived in one of those before it's kind of like a lot of houses that all look identical on streets that look identical sure one time i was shopping and i came back and just walked into the wrong house because i hadn't gone just a single street up and walked into the identical house so this person had done a similar thing he had crawled in the back window gone into what must have been his room in his house but he

was so drunk that he just didn't realize it was a girl's bedroom went into the bed and and passed out uh so i reached for the bat of course i battered the f***er we very kindly escorted him out and got him back to his his house but you know, if I hadn't have been absolutely shit-faced, I probably would have treated the situation very differently. And I would have been a lot more scared. I might have involved the police at that point. Exactly. So, you know, in all honesty, I can say I probably would have been a bit more reserved

if I was in this situation. That is wild. The next sighting came in August again, but in 1895, about four years later. Local man Riley Smith was out on a hike with his bulldog. Riley was having a great time, wandering through the woods, breathing in the scent of nature, and picking berries directly from the surrounding vegetation. Very peaceful, relaxing walk. That's a nice walk you have going there. It would be a shame if something were to happen to it. As he scanned the immediate area for the juiciest looking fruit bearing bushes,

he was alarmed when a huge, hairy creature burst out of the greenery across Riley's path. I actually managed to dig out a newspaper report from the time that read, Last Saturday, select man Riley Smith went up to Colebrook on business. Mr. Smith, while there, went over to the fields and began picking and eating berries from the low bushes in the field. When just then, a large man, stark naked and covered with hair all over his body,

ran out of some bushes at lightning speed, where he soon disappeared. Select man Smith is a powerful, wiry man, and has a reputation for having lots of sand. And his bulldog is also noted for his pluck. Was that money back then or what is that? But Riley admits he was badly scared and his dog was fairly paralyzed with fear.

Apparently his Select Man was an elected member of like a council. I'm clear. I'm obviously not talking about that. We don't know what having sand means. I've got to guess it means balls. You're like, oh yeah, just to clarify, berries are like candy from the wild. I obviously mean the sand.

What the f*** is sand to these people? I love that they say that the bulldog has a reputation. He's noted for his pluck. What does he have, a purple heart or something? How do they know that this dog is brave? I was like, I know what you're thinking. A dog would normally be scared as shit, but this dog is the f***ing Jean-Claude Van Damme of dogs.

This hero dog was left sandless after the man attacked. That almost sounds like a rapper thing you know to be like i got bags i got green i got sand you know almost like a way to like express like how much drip you have how much ice you have how much money yeah i could see that sound what would that be though sand i got realistically cocaine, probably. Which actually puts a new spin on things. Farmer Riley, notorious sand peddler. The next week, the following article ran. The story of the wild man caused quite a little excitement about town.

The wild man was remarkably agile, and to all appearance was a muscular, brawny man. A man against whom any ordinary man would stand little chance. He was leaping high in the air, emitting fearful cries, and suddenly he disappeared into the woods. Mr. Smith is a man who talks little. He is a man of undoubted pluck and nerve, and his word is first class. When Mr. Smith says he saw the man, he saw him, and there can be no question about it. Quite a number of men in Winstead today stated to us that they were ready to go and hunt for the man.

Well, gentlemen, the way is open. If he's still there, he ought, for the sake of the isolated farmers there and womenfolk, to be captured, dead or alive. Wow, an open call to the hunt. I might have added the dead or alive bit, but the rest is true. Wow. Okay. It seems like what we're witnessing here is, interestingly, someone who is repeatedly referred to as a man in appearance and height and everything else,

but who possesses some sort of supernatural either strength or speed or kind of carnal ability you've hit the nail on the head there are clearly two conflicting reports one that he is full beast and one that he is full man yeah and i think this is like the parable of the three blind people describing an elephant they you're thinking about mice one touches three blind mice one touches the trunk one touches the tail one touches the body and they all are describing a different thing yet it's the same animal and plus like with their little mice hands they probably can't even really feel much i think it's a different story what are you the three blind mice i didn't i never said mice once you're the one who's intent on talking about the three blind mice.

You said it was the parable with the three little blind rats. I didn't know. Or something like that. We have to move on. I didn't say anything about that. You're saying that there's a different story involving three blind not mice? Yeah. Quite a famous one.

And what? We see how they run? No. They meet an elephant for the first time. That's the whole story. Where does the farmer's wife even come into it? And the kitchen knife? You have to move on.

Okay. I'm just confused is all. The very same month, it was sighted again by a coach full of people. In fact, a wild man was seen on the exact same isolated stretch of road as he was the first time around. This is when people really started to lose their shit. Wild speculation flew around like schoolyard gossip. The townspeople were certain they were being plagued not only by one, but several feral people. Whoa. The local farmers were especially vocal, convinced these wild men were responsible for theft of livestock from their property. He's been stealing cattle from our farms. He got into our chicken coop last night. He stole

my wife. Gary, for the last time, your wife left you, and it wasn't for a wild man. You need to respect your decision and move on. Well, I'm pretty sure he took half of my stuff. Gary, again, that's just how divorce works. He took the kids Monday to Friday. The kids come back slathered in fur and berries. The freaking wild man needs to take better care of my

kids. Don't give them to the wild man then. You are a bad dad. He's the only daycare in town. He's the only daycare that accepts berries as payment. I don't got much more.

Rory, we've been paranormal investigators long enough to know what happens next. After a handful of sightings of a mythical being, the residents of the area get whipped into a frenzy and the next step is, uh oh, you guessed it, a wide scale vigilante hunt. This really worries me because in the past, whenever the vigilante hunting group dad squad go out into the woods and track down beasts, usually the step that follows this is them dragging the corpse

of a smelly, rabies-infested animal to the mayor's office and claiming that's the beast. You know, whether it's like they're hunting a dragon or they're hunting some sort of, like, wolf. Usually it just involves them presenting a dead animal. In this case, we're talking about something that's been referred to as a human multiple times. On many occasions, sure.

So I am very worried about what corpse these people are going to drag to the mayor's office. That's a great point. Because all of a sudden, when you're whipped up into enough of a frenzy, every man starts to look a bit feral. Didn't shave this morning? That's pretty beastly of you, Eric.

Got a five o'clock shadow? Get in the cage. Your breath stinks, Michael. You're f***ing cryptid. Don't even think about eating a raisin. You berry-loving f***. It's an M&M, I swear! Get him!

Two days later, several hundred armed men took to the woods between Winstead and Colebrook after the event was advertised in the newspaper. So irresponsible to advertise this. It's like having an open invitation Facebook event. Look, they didn't have TV. They didn't have the internet back there. And most importantly, they didn't have porn.

So these guys were just itching to go out and hunt something. Jacked up, ready to go. They had just invented coffee, but had no porn to let out all this energy on. So they had to have a vigilante hunt. A group of men were scoping out the grounds of Beardsley Farm when one man spotted a set of tracks. Look here, footprints. Sure enough, there was a set

of prints left by bare human feet outside a stone cave. So you know it's human feet. You know it's a human. They all know it's a human. And what's more, they were fresh. The hunters followed the tracks into the cave. Inside, they found more tracks. Fresh

bones and a single shoe. It's hard, isn't it? I don't really know who's in the right here. Is it the hunters who clearly know they're hunting a man or is it the man who clearly should be hunted? Who appears to be treating other humans like KFC chicken meals. It's hard. I don't want anyone to win. Was this the lair of the Winstead Wildman? The cave was within a few miles of the most recent sightings, and the gang of hunters decided to wait and stake out the cave until darkness fell. But the Wildman didn't appear.

Disheartened, the men trudged home in the dark, their path lit only by a few flaming torches. One of their number was so fed up he started sowing seeds of doubt among the ranks. You know, I'm starting to think there was no wild man to begin with. It's probably just old man Jenkins going loopy coming off the booze. Or it could be my ex-wife, dressed up as a seven foot beast. Gary, are you still here? Go home, you're killing the vibe! Anyway, no, you're wrong. Riley Smith would have recognized him. Or Mrs. Culver. Wait, did you all hear that? Someone was walking through the undergrowth not too far away. Who goes there? The hunters at the front of the pack raised their flaming torches aloft to illuminate the path ahead. A nervous voice

called out from the darkness. Don't shoot! It was a young couple on their way home from a romantic picnic. In a cave? No, this is in the forest on the way home from the cave. Okay, thank god. When quizzed about the wild man, they said they hadn't seen him, but had stumbled across a ramshackle

cabin deep in the woods. The couple gave the best directions they could muster and hurried away from the many rifle and shotgun wielding hunters as fast as their legs could carry them. If she calls you back after that one, it's for real. The gang was on the trail and within minutes were outside the tumbledown structure, right where the young lover said it would be. And there appeared to be somebody inside. Deciding it was best to utilize the element of surprise, the men burst in through the front door, weapons raised.

I just wanted on the record, this is a home intrusion. There is zero evidence that would lead us to believe that the only thing we know about him is that he's fucking wild. You've just broken into a house that someone has in the woods. No matter how ramshackle the inn is, if it's got a door, you're not allowed to enter. It's a house. The wild man who lives in the woods probably doesn't reside inside this cozy little cabin. Sure, it's one thing to have guns raised in the cave with the bones on the floor but at this point they're just they don't

want to call it a night without hunting something so they're just breaking into houses on the way home this is admittedly the pitfall of the vigilante mob is they can easily get a bit carried away mobs are very very easy to rile up and very difficult to dissolve. You guessed it. There was no wild man. It was just an old man. An old man they probably gave a heart attack, to be honest. In the hut was local hermit Mort Pond. Okay, well, never mind. He was well known by locals and didn't remotely match the description given by the growing number of wild man witnesses. locals and didn't remotely match the description given by the growing number of wild man witnesses mort ponds that's a wild man get him boys that's the name of a wild man mort pond he has pond in his f***ing name he lives in a pond that's like name's dirt puddle uh couldn't possibly be

the wild man you're looking for i'm a city boy you know me wall street blackberry the whole deal guys is there any chance mort is the wild man we're looking for it's like he's literally sucking the flesh off of uh some bones as we speak mort mort loves bones he's a quirky guy he's loved bones for as long as we've known him. I do like sucking bones. And it's right, the number of witnesses was truly growing. As the days went on, new reports continued all summer. On the 30th of August, the wild man was seen by a pair of New York women vacationing in Connecticut. Their description deviated slightly from the others, though.

According to them, it was clearly a gorilla. They described large white teeth, black hair all over, a muscular form, and about six and a half feet tall. Wow. Even Mrs. Culver had another sighting, but it was slightly different again. She said this figure was dressed in ragged clothing. He had long black hair, a bushy beard. She estimated him to be 45 years old. Weirdly specific. A local man, George Hoskin, said he saw the wild man sneaking out of his chicken coop with two hens under his arms. The chief of police, Steve Wheeler, claimed he tracked a gorilla man into a swamp before losing his trail. Another witness, Jim Madra, proclaimed he took a photograph of a man with a massive hair in his head, but none on his body. Alright, now they're just describing a guy.

Yeah, especially the dude who just came out of a farm with two chickens in headlocks. That's not the work of a beast. A beast eats the chickens then and there. Feathers and all, yeah. Like a fox. Mrs. Culver saw a guy ganking a TV from a local Best Buy. Jim Madder tried to explain

why his picture looked so different to the others by claiming his camera was, quote, so frightened it couldn't see straight. That's not how cameras work. Not even in the 1800s, that's not how they worked. That's you, brother. Don't put it on the camera. Now, if that was the last anybody had seen

or heard of the Winstead Wildman, we might not be talking about it right now. We would have chalked it up to mass hysteria or whatever the f***, but it wasn't. Almost 80 years later, here we go, on the 24th of July, 1972, a couple of 18-year-old lads named Wayne and David

were hanging around one of their houses. Their ears perked up when they heard some odd grumbling noises coming from the back garden. They headed out to investigate and were stunned to see an eight foot tall, hairy humanoid emerging from the woods at the bottom of the yard. It walked into the neighbor's barn where the teens watched it wander around for 45 minutes before it disappeared back into the undergrowth. God, that's a long time. I mean, they must have got a pretty clear view of this creature.

Because at this point, he's not jumping out. He's not terrorizing them. He's just walking, walking into the barn, walking out of the barn. Like an NPC in a video game. And two years later, a group of four teenagers were parked out by Rugbrook Reservoir when they spy a huge hairy creature stomping around on the shore. They estimate it to be six feet tall and weighing around 300 pounds.

They run to the nearest road and flashed on police officer George Corso. They described what they saw and told him that it made a sound like, quote, a frog mixed with a cat. Okay, boys, sounds weird as hell, but I'll come take a look. Hop on into my cruiser. You can point it out to me. The young men reluctantly agree, but only if the doors and windows stay shut and locked the entire time. Officer Corso can't believe how agitated they were

and got more and more frightened the closer they got to the water. You boys really shouldn't be out this late. Ring a bell. Sorry, officer, what was that? Nothing, just, uh... Meow, rivet. You don't know what kind of stuff's out here. Meow, rivet.

We're gonna get out. Y'all got any flies or catnip? Either's good. There it is, officer. Where? I don't see it. Right there by the reservoir.

Get us out of here now. Policeman can't see whatever's upsetting the guy so he just takes off hoping they'll calm down. He returned the next morning but didn't find anything. Hmm.

Rory, this is a f***ing buttload of different sightings. What do you think we're dealing with? I appreciate that you've thrown in some of the more contemporary sightings that had happened recently, but I think it's worth bringing up

possibly the most contemporary sighting of all time, which was, I believe, in Dublin, witnessed by a young boy oh i didn't know about this one a very handsome young boy uh brave trustworthy who witnessed something very similar that's weird i'm just checking my notes but i'm sure i don't have anything come across uh like a story that contemporaneous you're gonna love this then this is gonna be great you'll you'll definitely want to hear this uh for those who have listened to the podcast before you may or may not know that uh i am that boy and it was me it was my first ever and possibly only genuine paranormal experience that i've had in my life

what do you mean what what wow that you would i don't want to hear this you i don't want to hear my story my investigation into the winstead wild man that you would just like i ask your thoughts and you just you just like a switch goes in your brain that just says i can peddle my f***ing personal agenda it's not an agenda it's a paranormal story i can derail it's very much on the rail it's not derailing at all you're doing a whole story about a gorilla man and i have a personal story about a gorilla disappointing. Super disappointing. Listeners at home, I'm sorry that Rory just wants to, like, he can't just stick to the story that we're investigating.

He has to just, like... You should see a therapist about this story. I have, actually. I have. Good. Since I was a child after the event. Well, it didn't f***ing work because you can't move past it. So I just thought it was relevant to the case. I saw a gorilla man. You're talking about a gorilla man.

I thought it was relevant. There isn't. These stories have nothing alike. Nothing. Well, I'll just say, how about this? Some of the testimonies I've heard from the people involved in these cases has reignited an experience from my past and made me relive the fear that i experienced on that day how about

that is that fine cammy if we could just cut the last two minutes we'll forget just just cut from the bit where i asked rory what he thought and he tried to ruin the podcast and then we'll just go from here so there's a few different theories as to what the winstead wild man could be great can't wait to hear this well don't f***ing great all right so you're not happy to just sabotage it through the actual derailing the story you want to sabotage it through your sour mood you f***ing sour patch kid how do i win here do i can i tell the story be excited about my story for me why can you be happy for me i just think uh i don't think you have the authority to come down on this conclusion because you haven't come face to face with the beast you haven't seen the beast in real life

uh unlike me but it's fine you know if you want to take whatever little whatever whatever little cushy information you got in your cozy little london apartment tucked away in your safe room then yeah let's hear it just because my apartment is cozy doesn't mean that i'm not on the bleeding fucking edge of the paranormal just because i yeah investigate the paranormal in my onesie on my ipad with a hot water bottle under my ass and a hot chocolate with marshmallows by my side. You think that makes me less of an investigator than you? You must be too hot. How cold is your apartment? Just because I have CBBs on the television and I go to bed at 6.45

p.m. because I get tired after my hot chocolate. That's really early to be going to bed. You think that that makes me less of a f***ing expert than you yeah i genuinely think it kind of does that's a weird routine to have as a grown man by the way do you say cbb's the children's network i like children's cartoons because they make me feel cozy and comfy inside all right you're doing a baby voice by way, towards the end of that sentence. Just because I use a baby voice, do you think that makes me less of an investigator than you? You f***ing piece of shit. Okay, don't swear in the baby voice. You f***ing little asshole.

It's one of the weirdest things I've ever heard. I think you're a poo-poo head. I really think you're a poo-poo head for this. More accurate, but still offensive. I suck your girlfriend's nip-nips. All right, baby, but still offensive. I suck your girlfriend's nip nips. All right, baby, that's enough. I will punch a child.

There are a few different options for what this thing could possibly be. All right, let's just get it out of the way. Number one, is it a monkey? No. Could be. Some people did describe a gorilla. But the problem is this happened over such a long period of time. I think I said 80 years at the least when a gorilla's lifespan is really only around 40. Researcher Amy points out that the Guinness World Record is like 64.

I didn't know that. That's really interesting, actually. Not to mention, it probably wouldn't last that long in just the wilderness of its non-native habitat. Plus, are we just going to ignore the fact that people called it a man referred to it as a man someone said it had a beard i'm not saying i think this but one of the most popular and prevailing theories of the day was that this was an escaped mental patient from litchfield sanitarium which was nearby wow that's uh incredibly rude and offensive that's so offensive we'll just move on good lord uh well to be fair i don't doubt that um uh education around people with mental illnesses at this time in america was incredibly incompetent well you know there was a period of time where it was like if you had any kind of difficulty in learning or brain development whatsoever, you were just locked away like a prisoner.

Sure, they didn't know how to deal with it. So it's not beyond the realms of possibility that there's someone who... It would certainly explain a motive for why someone would be just living outside of society completely. Yeah, but again, it doesn't answer really any of the other features. Which leaves kind of only one other option, is that this is a paranormal cryptid, some kind of gorilla wild man

on the loose. It's true. Unless there is another option where it was just a series of animal attacks. What kind of animal, Rory? Bear, maybe. Wild bear.

Seven feet tall, glistening abs, I think they said. They definitely did. They said muscular several times. Well, bears are muscular. Under all the fur. I believe there are conditions, though, that make bears and other animals not look and act like bears like rabies and other diseases that'll that'll start them ribbiting like a frog and meowing like a cat

yeah uh i don't know i'm sure that there are sort of um you know dangerous diseases that animals can catch that make them go cryptid mode what i do know is that you're absolutely right this did get completely out of hand uh much like previous investigations the vigilante squad um went loco and sad to say they got carried away and apparently blasted an innocent donkey to smithereens i'm sorry that's not funny. There's just a lot of funny words in that sentence. That's not even, how did that happen? And there is naturally some temptation to say that maybe this was a scheme. We've had it before where people are trying to drum up a lot of hype about some kind of cryptid and then capitalize on it and sell it as part of a freak show or

something like that. And certainly we do have some evidence in a local paper a reward for capture of the creature um it writes please have a very strong cage ready as we expect to have the this individual uh exhibited in a dime museum so people were already planning on traveling and showing this thing as an exhibit. In a what museum? A dime museum. Dime. Got it.

I thought you said dying museum. No, that would be sad. It's like tour around really sick animals. Finally, I should point out that one of the prevailing modern theories is that the Winstead Wildman was the invention of the first journalist to report the first sighting. His name was Mr. Stone, and he went on to write a lot of bizarre stories that also weren't true. Including talking dogs, a river that ran uphill, a chicken that laid red, white, and blue eggs on the 4th of July, and a cow that would produce ice cream if it was put in a freezer.

Why did you think this was necessary to include that in the episode? I just, you just introduced him and discredited him within four seconds. But does that get rid of all the other witnesses? Um, no, it doesn't. But it does raise a certain question that, you know, as we said, this is a time before really before photographs, accurate photographs. This is a time where random stories were getting written up in newspapers just from, quote unquote, trustworthy locals. So any evidence that were presented with from this era has to be taken with a grain of salt. any evidence that were presented with from this era has to be taken with a grain of salt.

This is the sad reality of doing a case set at this period of time. Rory, we have taken you on quite a journey through 1800s Connecticut and many sightings of the wild man. And at the end of every episode of This Paranormal Life, we do have to decide whether the aforementioned story is really paranormal or not. In the case of the Winstead wild man, what are you saying today? Even his name is the wild man. So surely the underlying understanding is that he's not paranormal. He's a wild, even if he is a man, it's a man. It's a gorilla man. Okay. Well, he's not called the gorilla man. Lots of people describe him as a gorilla man. The gorilla man that i saw was not a wild man it was a gorilla man that ran like an ape and this is you talking this is you in the fetal position in the back of a policeman's car lock the windows officer what i saw was not a man um and i actually was there to play baseball

so maybe that's why my defense mechanism has become a bat who knows that's really interesting actually this is really stuff that my therapist should have got out of me but i guess a podcast is kind of the same thing as therapy so it feels like you should be paying me for this shit it's your episode so don't put it on blast look i even though i am a strong believer in the existence of some sort of gorilla man i don't see enough evidence in today's case to say that this wild man truly existed truly spanned all these years and really is paranormal i think that is more than fair. We've had so many stories like this in the past. One that comes to mind is the Beast of Exmoor. I mean, that's one where the f***ing military

moved in to the Moors and tried to hunt this beast. Yeah. There was no evidence for it really ever. And the same thing is happening here. Many people are swearing to have seen this thing, but the description is so kind of vague i have to agree i think what we're looking at is a classic kind of bear raiding people's f***ing bins and then running away and people thinking it's a it's a human i mean i i don't know whether there was bears in connecticut someone in connecticut

will correct me but fine fill in the blank some other animal it's just a classic story of creature gets spotted dad squad gets riled up into a frenzy and a donkey gets shot a tale as old as time and this episode is sponsored by brooks donkey sanctuary charity we need to stop the abuse of donkeys by vigilantes. We really do. It sounds like we're agreeing, Roy, today on a double no. It's a double no, unfortunately. Yikes, another double no for the books. I'm not saying no to gorilla men existing.

I'm saying no to this specific wild man existing. I hope you've enjoyed this dive because i've got some pretty convincing evidence of gorilla men existing specifically an entire team of little league baseball players write up this story i'm presented as a real episode don't hijack my episode i'm sorry i'm sorry just sometimes i need to vent and get it all out of my system because i worked really really hard. Don't do the baby voice. Big brother. I worked really hard, big brother.

This is all. You're a piece of shit. I'm making this episode. And I don't want you f***ing it up, okay? Sometimes I need to say the last bit in an adult voice to really drive it home. I wish you said it all in an adult voice. Don't apologize for the only bit that I like. Apologize for the baby part. I don't apologize for the only bit that i like apologize for the baby part i won't apologize for shit a roller coaster of emotions this week thank you to amy grisdale

for researching this episode and to cammy toman for editing it you know i can't deny that probably some of you want to hear rory's up story about a gorilla man. You know, I can't promise anything, but if that story is ever to be recorded, it'll probably be over on Patreon. Patreon.com is the place where we put the kind of too hot for TV episodes

that don't make it to the regular feed. It's true. It's also where our listeners can support us in making the show so that we can keep doing it and investigating more vigilante mobs i want

to tell that story as badly as you guys want to hear it but if i do it on a public podcast when that thing goes live on a tuesday there's going to be an fbi red dot site on my forehead ready to take me out so i gotta be careful to be honest i'm gonna have a nine millimeter pistol pointed at your head if you post that to Patreon but that is where it would go down over there there's about 50 full length bonus episodes into really wild topics for just 5 bucks you get access

to the whole bloody thing go over and check it out patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life like I say hope you enjoyed this week's investigation we will of course be back next Tuesday with a brand new paranormal tale

and until then remember to live fast investigate and die young babies no this is the worst