This Paranormal Life - #258 The GHOST STATIONS of the London Underground

Episode Date: April 12, 2022

The London Underground is the oldest subterranean railway in the WORLD, so you can imagine since its creation it's been home many paranormal sightings. Tracks have been built on top of plague pits, 'ghost stations' lay abandoned underground and there's even stories of a bizarre, experimental railway that KILLED the few passengers who managed to ride it. Grab your oyster card and mind the gap, it's 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 can't I order from the kids menu? What are they hiding? What if the earth is flat and round like a pizza? All of these questions you can find the answer to on This Paranormal Life! Hello and welcome to This Paranormal Life, the comedy paranormal podcast where every week myself, Officer Rory Powers, and Lieutenant Kit Greer investigate a brand new paranormal case and come to the conclusion as to whether or not it is truly paranormal. We are two men who have dedicated our lives to the paranormal. Unwillingly, we try to live normal lives. I was a school teacher for 27 years, starting from the young age of three, where I took it upon myself to teach the kids around me what the teachers weren't telling

them about the real world. That's right. I did actually join the force. I pledged my life to protect the citizens of my hometown. A lot of people were worried about that because they weren't even recruiting for the force. You turned up to the interview with a lot of weapons that definitely weren't regulation. And I couldn't protect them. No, you injured yourself. Many died, and I believe they're goose hunting me is what turned me into the paranormal investigator I am today. So life has this funny way of working on it. Your audition for, quote, The Force was a 47-minute nunchuck demonstration. And on minute four, you hit your own nuts with the power of four men. I did.

Keeled over in front of them, crying in a ball. Slightly embarrassing to admit also that I assumed that The Force involved using The Force from Star Wars. involved using the force from Star Wars. So almost out of f***ing hemorrhage trying to use my force will to get them to agree to let me join. Showing up to a police station. I want to join the Jedi Council. All right, come to jail.

Go into the prison cell because there's something wrong with you. And until we figure it out, you're arrested. Point being, we don't want to be here. And yet we are. It's our punishment that we must stay here in the world of the living and tell you about the paranormal. And that's what we're going to do today on today's episode. Our story today is set in England,

a place with a rich history, especially when it comes to technology, but not iPhones or PlayStations or any of the cool shit. It was the birthplace of the steam locomotive, the lawnmower, and the world's first mass-produced toothbrush. Not necessarily exciting, sexy technologies in 2022, but at the time, a steam locomotive was just about as sexy as it got. Oh yeah, steamy at the very least. For anyone who lives in Britain, it shouldn't be surprising that we basically got to medieval level technology and said, we're good, we'll stay here. Yeah, we basically got up to the point where we were technologically advanced enough to sail to other countries and steal their shit.

And then it turns out you don't have to invent things yourself when you can just gank it from other civilizations. But we're not talking about the British Museum today. No. Today we're not even staying on the surface. We're going underground. Okay. Where one of England's greatest inventions is located.

That's right. The London Underground. Oh. It took me way too long to figure out where you're going with that, but I'm here for it. Yeah, something that we use almost every day. Today's story is actually a listener recommendation. It comes from James Nichols,

who emailed in to thisparanormallifepodcast at gmail.com, and he said, Hey, I very much enjoyed the British Museum episode and it got me thinking, what about an investigation of the London Underground? There's meant to be all kinds of weirdness and hauntings down there. There's even a bunch of abandoned stations. That sounds cool. That sounds creepy. That sounds relevant. We've had some experience on the London Underground. So that's what we're doing today. I'm excited. Let's dive in.

The year is 1992, and the supervisor at Becantree Station was sitting in his office, monitoring the station on the late night shift. Now, the late night shifts were pretty uneventful. There were only a few staff members working, and typically, wasn't much going on. On this night, the supervisor was finishing off some paperwork, getting ready to head home. The office shared a door with one of the platforms, so every time a train arrived at the station, he could feel it rattle on its hinges. But for the first time since he'd worked there, he felt the rattle, but noticed no train arrived

at the platform. Hmm, strange. But it could have been a train arriving on another track, so he went back to work. Then, the rattling again. The man stared out the door waiting for the train to arrive, but nothing. This happened a third time before the supervisor started getting uncomfortable. He knew that there was another member of staff working upstairs, so he left the office to see if they knew what was going on. He was walking along the empty platform, heading towards the staircase, when all of a sudden, he had this feeling like someone was walking behind him. Whoa.

The supervisor slowly turned around to see a woman with long blonde hair standing behind him. Hello? Can I help you? That's when he noticed the woman had no face. What? Which I think you would notice pretty much right off the bat. He must be a fan of the ladies with the blonde hair because he noticed the hair, first of all. Gorgeous hair. Beautiful flowing blonde hair.

Sure. Shoes, 10 out of 10. They must have been designer, honestly. Right. Her handbag, gorgeous. I think it was a Chanel handbag, literally glittering. Face wasn't one, of course.

So I guess... Wait a minute. Hold on. That is't one, of course. So I guess... Wait a minute. Hold on. That is, no, not your normal tube passenger. Granted, I do often refer to people who ride the tube as monsters. Faceless monsters, yeah. But this still takes the biscuit. There's the legend that Londoners on the tube are very unwelcoming and

unapproachable, but usually they have faces. Usually they're still human beings and they don't want to eat your soul. I walked on the platform, got to the staircase, but I just had this strong feeling that there was somebody walking behind me. And basically at that point I turned around and I saw an image of a woman. She had long blonde hair, probably about half way down to her back and she had no face, it was just like a blank where the features would be. And the funny thing is every time I tell this story I always get goose pimples and I've really got them now as well because I know

that I did see this image of a woman anyway by that time I've approached my member of staff and and I remember his exact words he said to me you look as if you've seen a ghost and and I said to him I think I have and then he says to me oh is it a woman in a white dress? I said, yeah, how do you know? And he goes, oh, I've seen her as well. Wow. That's a pretty cool firsthand testimony. Can you believe it? You know, today's podcast, folks, we're trimming the fat. We're trimming the fat.

We're getting straight to the point. I feel like you've heard this show enough that we're like once upon a time a hundred years ago no i'm about to tell you about ghosts and i'm going to show you videos and pictures of ghosts and we're getting straight into the point conclusions maybe right now are we ready to come down is this a benefit of a case like this it's happened so recently too it's cool to it's it's one thing to read about these stories and for us to talk about them on the show. But when you hear the person who experienced it, retelling the events, it does make it a lot more believable, doesn't it? Let me tell you, no one who talks like this

could tell a lie. It's a very trustworthy voice. Whenever I tell you this story and I feel the goose pimples, that's how you know it's a real ghost story. You're going a little Michael Caine there. Listen to me, son. Whenever you see that white woman, and you feel the goose pimples. That being said, I would have pushed this specter onto the tracks if that was myself.

Double check, though, about the face before you go for the push. Right. They weren't just wearing a mask. You've got to be really careful. There was no mouth. And get this. They just had a weird blank underneath where their eyes were.

Today, Kit, we are investigating the London Underground. Possibly the most haunted transport system in the world. Wow. Behind maybe ghost trains. Sure. Second most haunted possibly. Presumably this list also doesn't include the locomotive ride on Splash Mountain, where I'm sure more people have probably died in the clutches of those gears

than anyone on the London Underground. Yeah, I don't know if you can consider roller coasters a mode of transport. They do, well, they get you from A to A. So I guess maybe that doesn't, they infamously loop back to where you started. So I'm not sure. I guess they kind of are. No, this is really interesting.

I mean, the London Underground is actually a lot older than people think it is. Oh yeah. Dates all the way back to 1863. Sheesh. Crazy, right? It was actually the very first subterranean train network in the world. Back then when they started it,

wooden carriages lit by gas lamps were pulled beneath the city by giant steam engines. Oh my God, I would love that. Isn't that terrifying? I think that's how like the f***ing orcs from Lord of the rings get around by mordor i was gonna say it's very bloodborne or something uh that would be wicked i wish they'd bring that back yeah even as like a novelty it's like do you want to like get the the train that will get you to oxford circus in five minutes or have you got a tuppence and then you can ride on the ghost train the candlelit carriage ride that would be very cool and this is the ghost train, the candlelit carriage ride. That would be very cool. And this is the

interesting thing about the London Underground. Because of how old the network is, many of the stations have a rich history full of tragic events that transpired inside of their walls. Totally believable. Me, dropped my iPhone and cracked it in my Lens station. Tragedy. Yeah, sure, that is a tragedy. The ones that I'm referring to, a little bit more dramatic than that. Or, oh, I could do one better. Leicester Square Station was eating a gravy chip

on the tube and got some on my trousers, ruined them. Absolute tragedy. Yeah, fine. Well, that's just a bad thing that happened. The trousers didn't recover. And on some level, I also didn't recover. I'm talking more about like throughout history,

like great battles that took place. Hundreds of people dying, passing away. Fires, electrical fires, that sort of thing. Not you spilling your takeaway off your jeans. More specific before I made myself look like an ass. Yeah. But also don't diminish my problems because it actually cost about 80 quid to fix my phone screen. I know that you live such a cushy life that those are the great tragedies that you've suffered.

But still, even to compare your life to the lives of these people is completely insensitive. Also, don't feel too sorry for me because I stole someone else's phone on the way out of the station to make up for it. Then I got the chip and gravy to celebrate. The most haunted of all may be Aldgate Station in East London. During its construction in the 1980s, workers on the site started to discover bones buried in the ground. Oh, shit. Not what you want to find during a construction job. And this is somewhere you've spent a lot of time too.

This was my station I used to commute to every day for three years was Aldgate. They carefully began gathering the pieces to figure out what it was. I've got a skull over here. I found a collarbone. I've got another skull. I've got a third skull. By the time they'd finished excavating the site, they had

uncovered over 1,000 bodies. Oh my lord. This is what I'm talking about. This is the level of tragedy that we're talking about. Alright, you're gonna need to go back and delete the shit I said about my personal tragedies. This is dark. Historians believe what was

uncovered was a plague pit. Whoa. Basically a mass grave where people who had died with the plague were tossed, maybe burned. I don't know how they dealt with people who had the plague back then, but basically buried in these huge graves where they would just toss in hundreds of thousands of people. I like to think that in the scheme of the construction of the London Underground, this is quite recent, that we're coming across these mass graves.

I like to think that like a hundred years ago when they were digging these tunnels, they absolutely came across a couple skulls and were just like, whoa, we're going to pretend I didn't see that. Just keep digging, boys. What did you find over there, Terry? Nothing.

Smashing it into dust. F it's a rat skull tiny pieces uh yeah i mean we're gonna go on to it later but pretty much one in every three tube station was built on a mass grave okay you don't need to be a paranormal investigator to know that's a bad idea. If you look out the window on the tube, it's basically the fucking Paris catacombs. You're going through Skull City. It's the tunnels of hell, my friend. I guess this is the risk you run

when you just go down. Yeah. Yeah, you go down. You're going into history, basically. London is an ancient city. You know, it was, I don't know, founded by the Romans or some shit. london is an ancient city you know it was i i don't know founded by the romans or some shit uh you know there's there's ancient city walls lining the city um we've been burying people for a very long time here yeah so there's going to be a lot of

bodies down there totally i mean and this is the thing as well with with things like mass graves it probably wasn't really a thing at that point where aldgate station was was like a field in the middle of nowhere they were like we'll never build out that far dump them dump them there in aldgate and now aldgate is like right in the heart of the financial district yeah i always find it so funny the way the map of the city has changed over the years somewhere that's considered incredibly central today, like Trafalgar square. They'll be like, yeah. Uh, even though this is right next to, um, Buckingham palace, uh, technically 20 years ago, this was considered Ireland, right? Yeah. This was a three day carriage ride from the Tower of London.

60 people died one winter trying to make it 40 minutes down the road. Yeah. It was so far and treacherous. Yeah. Greenwich is technically Australia. It used to be a very small place. This is the great thing about the London Underground. Sure.

Is it cursed and built on the backs of many, many graves? Yeah. Can I get downtown in 25 minutes? Sure. That it cursed and built on the backs of many, many graves? Yeah. Can I get downtown in 25 minutes? Sure. That's pretty great as well. I tell you, you're going to want to get the gravy chip at Leicester square.

Just don't wear anything stainable guys. Don't wear your white chinos. Don't do like me and saunter in, in an all white suit and ask for the graviest chip they have looking like colonel sanders i say i say i say can i get the graviest chip that you have on offer a bunch of police officers storm into the building that's the guy who stole my phone well i say i will be taking my leave well officers there must be a mistake.

Yeah! I hit them with my cane. With this in mind, it may not come as a surprise to hear that Aldgate Station allegedly has gone as far as to have a logbook for ghost sightings. Holy crap. And travelers, along with staff, have claimed to see specters roaming about the station. And that's dangerous, because these aren't the ghosts of people who were, like, killed on the tracks 30 years ago. These are the ghosts of plague-riddled medieval peasants who are sprouting up from the ground like daisies, and the first thing you see is these

giant mechanical beasts roaming the ground on rails. They're going to be startled. They're going to be scared. It's so true. We've talked about this kind of thing in the past. You know, there's levels to the different kind of ghosts you can come across. You know, like you're probably not going to run into the ghost of Dave, the banker who died five years ago after having a heart attack on the tube. It's probably going to be Sven,

the Viking warlord. Or Bartholomew, a peasant who was so infected by plague that his body basically exploded in a field one day. How do you think his ghost is going to feel when he rises from the grave and sees an oyster card

for the first time in his life? He's going to freak out. He's never seen anything that thin before if he sees anybody's ipad he's gonna go loco and start haunting the shit out of anyone that's on the tube he comes out of the ground sees someone with an iphone 13 you can't even handle it he's screaming shooting beams out his eyes he's running to one of these ghost peasants much like our original ghost sighting he's they're like looking at your face all right evan checks out here looking don he sees you're wearing air jordans oh he goes insane from the sheer swag you're wearing colors he's never seen before the even the nike tick

is so finely sewn onto the garment that he can't handle it he wore a burlap sack for 22 years and then shit himself and died he's never seen crocs a pair of crocs would melt his face although it's gone from like this very specific haunting to just what it would be like if any medieval peasant saw the fashion of the 21st century. There's just something so funny about it because like everyone can understand, like, wouldn't it be crazy?

Yeah, if an ancient person saw an Apple Macintosh computer. Sure. The sending and receiving of information wirelessly through the air, sure, would blow his mind. But let's be honest, a lot more boring things than that would also blow his mind. A f***ing Oreo would send him to the moon. You'd never see something like that in your life, that's just black and white. Just a bag of crisps. They would have never seen so much salt in one place. Men and women were murdered for more salt than that

back in ancient times they would have been murdered for so much as a bag of cheetos it's true it's true this is why it's dangerous is because now you've got ghosts roaming the tracks in a place where there's high speed rail so if someone gets someone gets spooked, falls backwards, boom. Guess what? Now you're a ghost, buddy. So I hope you like the ghost that spooked you, because you're going to be spending eternity together. Get ready trying to imagine what Yeezys look like in the year 3000, because you've got to prep your mind now.

And that's just Aldgate Station. There are so many paranormal stories about the London Underground. There's honestly no way I think we could tackle them all in just one episode. King's Cross is reportedly haunted by the victims of a fire that broke out in 1987. Apparently a woman can be seen screaming like she's on fire,

but when guests rush to help her, she just disintegrates in front of them. Christ. Terrifying. That's terrifying. Very dramatic. Bethnal Green Station is reportedly haunted by those who hid there in the underground during the Second World War. Passengers and staff have claimed

that they've heard distant screams and sobs of frightened children, even when there's nobody in the station. That used to be my local station, and that is a very real, very sad, very recent story. I thought you were going to say, and I've heard it, brother. A lot of people died down there.

To be fair, like, you've spent enough time in the tube to know that you let a lot of sounds just pass you by when you're in the underground. Oh my God, yeah. It's a multi-mile long network of cavernous tunnels with sounds echoing around.

If I heard an ancient Roman child screaming through the abyss, I would just assume it was a modern living child. Yeah. You just crank up your Spotify and keep scrolling Twitter. It's nothing. When I first moved to London, I had no experience on the tube before. So I was kind of thrown in the deep end,

commuting every day on the central line to Oxford circus. And there's parts of those rails that are so old that this may come as a surprise to tourists who come visit and they don't really know what to expect. There's parts of that journey and parts of that tunnel that sound like a banshee being tortured, like screaming through the windows of the train sure to the point where my apple watch will start pinging me being like it's too loud you're damaging your ears

being on this this train right now yeah and it's been like that for years and years yeah it's the it is the downside of having such an old uh train network like there'll be bits where if you're traveling with someone, you'll just be like talking, chatting on the tube and full minutes where neither of you can speak anymore because the wailing is so intense. You wouldn't be able to hear the person even if you're screaming in their ear. I'm not exaggerating here.

And we're all just assuming that it's like, I don't know. It's a bit where the wheels grind against the wall for some reason. And that's why it's loud and not that there's a carriage of banshees you're plowing through a plague pit at 60 miles per hour it literally is just like yeah so i think uh we're going to be going to that uh show later and it'll be cool to pick up oh here we go don't look don't look out the window don't make eye contact

and then i think we'll probably be able to get home before the tube shuts down, which would be nice. It's exactly that intense, I promise you. But we just assume, again, it's something with the rails. They're not oiled up. They're not running smooth. It's just an old system. So what we're saying is paranormal entities could be hiding in plain sight down there. We wouldn't even know. What we're saying is paranormal entities could be hiding in plain sight down there. We wouldn't even know.

In 2015, construction near Liverpool Street Station unearthed, yeah, I guessed it, more human remains. Okay. This time up to 3,000 bodies. F***ing hell. Another station, Elephant and Castle, is widely considered to be one of the most haunted stations in the whole tube system, partially because it was built on a plague pit. They, at this point, they were doing this on purpose. I don't know.

Surely they weren't just putting a pin in a map randomly and they just hit every plague pit in London. I assume if this is how things have worked out, London has to be like 90% plague pits. Because there's no other explanation, honestly. I think if you just dug anywhere in Greater London, you would hit hundreds of bodies. And as I mentioned at the beginning of this story, there are a number of abandoned stations dotted throughout the tube network.

These are aptly nicknamed ghost stations. Wow, this is nuts. This is crazy to think that, I guess it makes sense. Originally, there were some that have been shut down over time. New ones were built, so old ones were decommissioned. But they still exist underground. This is so trippy because, like, the names of tube stations are so like built into Londoners heads. Do they have like names that are just lost to time? Yeah. In fact, one of them, which is

going to be particularly relevant because we've talked about it a lot weirdly on the podcast recently, is the British Museum Station. Oh. There was once a tube station that led right to the entrance of the British Museum, and it was one of the largest in the network. Wow. And I'm going to guess not one of the least haunted. Oh, of course not. You can't get that close to an ancient museum and not have a bit of a ghost leak going into your tunnels.

I mean, there was even a rumor at one point, which I think was popularized in maybe a movie or a TV show, that there was a secret passageway connecting the empty platforms to the museum itself. Specifically, of course, the ancient Egyptian section.

Wow. Not sure why they would have needed to build that, but according to the legends, it is true. Like a hidden panel, you know, you push in and you can get an entrance down into the tunnels. Oh my god, that would be so cool. It would be so cool, wouldn't it? Locals from the time claimed that while the station existed and was in use, it was actually terrorized by the ghostly figure of an Egyptian princess. Oh my god. And this is particularly relevant

because they say that she would rise from the grave late at night to wail and scream into the tunnels. Dude, if I was an Egyptian princess, last thing I remember, I'm getting my feet rubbed, eating grapes, basking in the beautiful Egyptian sun. And then I blink.

Apparently I died. I wake up'm i'm covered in chip gravy sauce with shit munchers passing me by on the london underground i'm trapped in the underground forever i would be wailing and screaming every day for the rest of time and as we said that's what the london underground sounds like it sounds like an egyptian mummy screaming from the afterlife. I feel like I need to have a little hunt online to see if I can find an audio recording that someone's made of like the screeches of the two. Should be easy to find.

But just to give you an example of what that sounds like, I'm going to insert the clip right here. Didn't that sound like an Egyptian priestess screaming from the other world? It's terrifying stuff. The station, like a lot of others, was shut down. Some people say that it was because the mummy's curse was making people disappear off of the platforms. Okay, I'm just going to go ahead and guess if we look through the TFL transport for London records,

that isn't the official listed reason for why they closed the station. They probably will come up with a different reason. The ghost was disappearing passengers. You can't say that obviously in the newspaper. Right. You say the toilet overflowed and destroyed the station. Sure. Yeah.

It's like when you hear in a, if you're ever in like a large supermarket and you hear like on the phone, like could Mr. Black come to security? It means like there's a bomb in the building and they're just making sure no one freaks out, but the staff needs to know what's going on. In a lot of these stations, the story is the exact same. Ghost passengers seen boarding the trains, bizarre figures walking across the tracks, people dissolving into thin air. Incredibly paranormal stuff. But one of my favorite cases came from 1978.

This story is genuinely incredibly interesting, and as soon as I heard about it, I was like, this could be a whole podcast in itself. Okay. about it, I was like, this could be a whole podcast in itself. Okay. It's the story of an experimental railway from the 1860s that was shut down in secrecy. The tale originated from a woman who lived in Crystal Palace. For those who don't know, Crystal Palace is an area of London, not a palace that you can live in where ancient Atlanteans live on the surface. One day, while having a peaceful stroll through the park, the ground beneath her feet started to feel weak.

Then suddenly, it gave out, and she dropped down into the earth, hitting the ground below. When the dust settled, she carefully raised herself to her feet. Hello? I've fallen into a tunnel! No one could hear her screams up above, but the light from the hole was just enough to illuminate her surroundings. She turned around to see if she could figure out where she'd landed. And that's when she saw it. Oh, oh good heavens!

In front of her was a dusty old Victorian carriage filled with skeleton passengers. No, there's no way. They died in the carriage? The woman claimed that they were in their seats, fully dressed in Victorian era clothes. Oh my God. She fell into an Indiana Jones movie. Isn't that insane? It's like a Goonies-style discovery.

But I guess not as great as a Goonies-style discovery because instead of like pirate gold, you've discovered a carriage of ancient Victorian peasants. And their gold at that point was a f***ing penny. Not everyone more than 50 years ago was a peasant, by the way. They were in my eyes. Medieval peasants, Victorian peasants, 1980s peasants. That's what I call people from the past. Now, sure, the woman never gave any proof of her discovery and no carriage of skeletons was ever found. But this story didn't come from nowhere. In fact, the legend of a missing carriage of skeletons was ever found. But this story didn't come from nowhere.

In fact, the legend of a missing train of skeletons buried in the park had been around since the 1930s and was a common ghost story for school children. While it does seem like a bit of a tall tale, it's actually not as unbelievable as you might think, because in the 1860s, there was a project called the Crystal Palace Pneumatic Railway, an experimental rail system that used vacuum and suction power to pull carriages through an airtight tunnel. Oh my God. This was a real thing. It actually operated for two months in 1864. Wow. And what a two months. What a two months in 1864. Wow. And what a two months.

What a two months. We've lost a couple thousand passengers, but the ones that did make it had a surprisingly pleasant journey. Its maiden voyage was so successful, it sucked the flesh right off the passengers' bodies. They started as

fully living humans in one end and a carriage full of skeletons just arrived on the other side. They're like, oh, we need to calibrate the vacuum. Don't stand too close to the window because if the window isn't entirely closed, you will be pulled out the gap in the window and turned into Corgetti. I love the idea of them starting this up.

They've got a carriage full of the public there to be excited, try it for the first day. They're like, all right, hit the button. The carriage just descends into the tube and the guy's on the phone. It's like, all right, Craig, I just sent them. Let me know when they arrive at the other side. Craig's like, all right, sounds great. All of a sudden he just hears the rattle and then a carriage full of just dead bodies arrives on the other side. Greg?

Greg, can you see them yet? Greg? Greg? Now you'll need to give that old lady in the back of the carriage a hand out. She's got a real bad hip. You'll notice as a tree we brought some of the local orphans as well. They'll be there right at the front of the carriage Craig. They're going to need some assistance. Their parents

are actually waiting at the other side to pick them up. And in the middle row is a bunch of local war heroes who are just retiring and just wanted to it was their retirement wish to just see the new fantastic Crystal Palace pneumatic

f***ing carriage. It's a highlight of my job, Craig, getting to show these people this wonderful new technology. Craig? You there, Craig? If you can't remember any of that, it's a little confusing. Just ask the mayor, of course, who was with the conductor right over the front. Oh, and I forgot to mention.

One of the passengers was telling me he just figured out the front. Oh, and I forgot to mention. One of the passengers was telling me he just figured out the cure to cancer and he was on his way to the patent office to tell the world. He said he was going to take the tube and I said, my friend, no need.

Free of charge. The pneumatic railway. Half the time. Twice the speed. Your secrets are safe with us. How's he doing, Craig? He's like, you must know that they're all dead. You're asking me so many questions about how they're all doing.

I just wanted to hear you say it, Craig. I just wanted to hear you say it, seeing you, how f*** we are. It's either that or Craig goes back to the start and the guy who invented the railway is standing there and he's like, well, I'm excited to hear. Did the skeleton tunnel work? Skeleton tunnel? You knew? Yeah, I thought we were taking the flesh off of human bodies. No! My wife was on that train. You put alive humans in there? What were you thinking? It's a train! Of course I put humans in there.

He like looks up. It's been there the whole time. A big banner. Opening day. Skeleton tunnel. When did you put that up? How did no one see this? I designed that thing to put dead cows in to strip the leather off them.

The guy's like, I mean, if you're upset, just send them back down. You know that's not going to him back down you know that's not gonna fix it you know that's not gonna fix the problem they're gone the flesh won't come back uh yes as i said this was a real thing or at least it was for two months in 1864 not much is really known though about why the railway was shut down. Because as we said- Craig kept it that way. He really did. As we said, there's a lot of talk of skeleton carriages, no skeleton carriages, despite the one in this story

has ever have been proved to have existed. But I don't know. I do find that really cool. The fact that there could have been at some point this crazy experimental railway, maybe something had gone south maybe as you said a carriage had veered off the tracks or crashed people were buckled in they couldn't escape instead of dealing with the pr backlash they were like patch the hole boys and just pretended like the whole thing wasn't commercially viable that is super fascinating because the regular London Underground

has been around for such a long time and you assume it's never worked any other way. Yeah, from the brief research I did, it seems like this small experimental railway was almost a test to see if it would be eventually rolled out to the main network. And from what I read, it seemed like there were just a lot of complications. Like the ones that we are thinking about, even as you said, it's like, is this really safe to have basically people traveling in a vacuum, especially if something goes wrong inside of these airtight tunnels? There's really nowhere to go. You're stuck inside the tunnels. So I can see, honestly, why this thing didn't get rolled out

to the greater tube network. All right, I've just sent them on their way. Craig, you remember to replace the oxygen tank, right? Right? Yeah, I feel like if your new groundbreaking mode of transport requires an oxygen tank, you're moving in the wrong direction. You're definitely moving in a... Right.

What if a subway system was outer space? Exactly. Unnecessarily dangerous. It's better to go back to wooden carriage and steam locomotive at that point. But look, I want to end on a positive note here. Not all of the terrifying ghosts and busloads of skeletons are evil. Some of those that we've talked about are just poor spirits stuck roaming the world of the living. And might even, at some point, save your life.

If you head on down to Aldgate Station, one of the stations that we mentioned right at the start of the podcast, that yes, was built on human remains. Granted, huge plague pit. There's a very famous story from a century ago of an electrician that was working on the live rail. While working away, he accidentally slipped up and grabbed the wrong piece of metal,

unloading over 20,000 volts of electricity into his body. It's the one thing they tell you not to do. Now, I don't really know a lot about the voltage of electricity. When a number gets that huge, it kind of means nothing to me. But it's worth bearing in mind that a shock of 50 volts or more is enough to kill the average man. So 20,000 volts would. It should do the job.

Pop goes the weasel, is what happens. You're cooked like a chicken. We mentioned ghosts earlier evaporating on the spot. Yeah, this definitely makes sense. But believe it or not, the man's eyes didn't explode out of his head. He survived. When his co-workers were asking him about what happened, he claimed that while the electricity was coursing through his body, he was comforted by an elderly woman. She held him close and stroked his hair until the ordeal was over. Wow. Some say she was an angel. Some say he suffered some kind of electroshock fever dream and just hallucinated the whole thing.

Sure, 20,000 volts, you'll see God. Yeah, but either way, surviving that is nothing short of a miracle. That is really cool though. It does sound as if he was shocked to the point where he could see through to the other side. It's a pretty crazy story. And a pretty dope superhero origin story. He's Pikachu for this. Yeah, you get zapped that hard,

you hope you walk away with some powers. It must be very comforting to, you know, come face to face with death like that and not be faced immediately with demons in that moment right before death, but instead by carrying angel ghosts. Yeah, that's probably the best thing that can happen to you if you ever got

given that amount of electricity. Have you ever been electrocuted in your life before? Oh, yeah. You're a little kid and you too excitedly pull your Nintendo out of the wall and accidentally grab the prongs on the plug. Of course. Sure. Is that the worst that you've ever had? I think so.

I don't think I've ever got any worse than what you would get out of a wall socket. A little zap. What about you? Electric fence. I feel like that gave me quite a bad one before. You know, that's quite a common thing in rural Ireland is electric fences to like keep in sheep or animals. And Rory's apparently. Yeah, this is my back garden.

I should have clarified. My parents, I'm a free range Rory. So they'd let me go out and like just uh eat grass piss uh and then now you try to make a little escape and you get zapped but it's fine sure i think uh i think i've told it on the podcast before but the the most elemental damage i've ever been dealt in my life was uh burn damage when i tried to flip pancakes one year on International Pancake Day. In the process of a flip, my greasy, greasy hands that had been buttered up with pancake mix and batter.

Shouldn't be, by the way. Like if your hands get covered in butter, stop, wash them, and then go on to fry the pancakes. I'm more like dripping in syrup. I'm just like a slippery little oiled up boy. And I try and flip this pancake. You're like Winnie the Pooh. You haven't even made the pancakes yet.

And you're just putting your fist into a pot of maple syrup. I've got a little red crop top. My little belly's poking out the bottom. You didn't even know it was Pancake Tuesday. You just thought you had a rumbly in your tumbly. I set my hand on fire. Oh, bother. Red crop top.

No trousers or underwear. But I was flipping the pancakes and because of my greasy slippy hands the the pan slipped out of my grip went flying in the air i kind of went autopilot mode and i was like oh no the pan's gonna hit the tiles on the floor save the pancakes gotta save the pancakes so i grabbed the pan with both hands of course hot boiling pan that had been cooking pancakes for like two hours and completely destroyed my hands so badly that uh that night i had to sleep on my bedroom floor with my hands into spread out like jesus christ with my hands in two buckets of water so embarrassing it was incredibly embarrassing did you at least eat a pancake in the end i couldn't

pick anything up for 48 hours, Kit. I was just eating whatever happened to be head height in the fridge with my mouth. There are people out there, though, that have been struck by lightning. Yeah. Like even multiple times, I believe. I remember reading about a guy who had been hit like three times or something insane. And he was just like, yeah, my fingernails don't grow back anymore. That's crazy

you it's there's something cool i think it's you can see people who have been electrocuted really badly before and it's like you see the lightning pattern like on their skin and yeah the scar it's crazy it's nuts but it can have some very uh very scary effects i like that i just can't wrap my head around it i'm like damn that's crazy that must be like drinking five coffees man no it doesn't give you energy he almost died that must be like when you're hung over and you get that ice cold mcdonald's sprite it's like uh no it feels like your heart is made of needles this is you in hospital he's got every limb outstretched and wrapped in plaster he's like not really no it was and wrapped in plaster. He's like, not really. No, it was really sore, actually.

That's crazy, man. It must just feel like when you're on a roller coaster and the adrenaline's pumping. It's like, no, it felt like my brain was made of razor blades and just existing was pain. Cool, dude. So like a monster on a sunny day. But one of the ones with like crazy caffeine flavors, like two monsters.

You're thirsty. Just leave. Yeah, flavors, like two monsters. You're thirsty. Just leave. Yeah, honestly, it's nuts. But you know, we're early on in our lives. Maybe there's still time to be struck by lightning. I think if you want it to happen, you can make it happen. I definitely, I remember once playing baseball in the middle of a thunderstorm, Twilight style, and just being in the middle of an open field holding a metal rod being like this is a terrible idea this is how someone gets superpowers or dies or this is how someone either dies or hits the sickest home run in the world their electric bat makes contact and sends the

thing to the moon so i appreciate today was a little bit of a mixed bag talking about different stations, different specters, different parts of history. But I think the main takeaway is that these stations have been around for so long. They've been a part of London's history in so many tragic and gruesome ways that similar to a haunted house, these stations have become haunted over time by the people who have suffered misfortune inside of their walls. So what are we thinking? Could there possibly be ghosts, spirits, or miscellaneous wandering the tunnels of the London Underground? To give people an idea of the level of shit that's been going on in the vicinity of the London Underground stations.

I only found out recently when I was traveling on, I can't remember if it was the Finsbury Park station or Seven Sisters, but I was actually bored waiting on you because you were late. That's fair. And I read all the little plaques and bits of information around the station.

How late was I? I wasn't that late, was I? absolutely uh i was late today as well to this one this makes me feel extra bad yeah i know everything about this part it's on now too um they had they had a plaque and this is a cool piece of information for anyone visiting london lots of the stations have like cool mosaic patterns when you come into the station yeah and they might depict some kind of image and most people don't really care to notice what those images are what they represent but they were pointing out that each one has a different meaning and that is tied to that place and as i say either finsbury park seven sisters i don't remember but their emblem that the

mosaic had was two pistols crossed whoa and they were like yeah that's because this used to be the city limits and if you wanted to jewel another gentleman you would come here and shoot each other yeah and it was legal this is what we're talking about this is how old that this this network links back to this is the history that took place you know know, inside these walls. What you're saying is that train station was built in the runescape wilderness where you could battle each other out for loot. Or at least honor. So look, clearly there are many, many good reasons for there to be ghosts on the underground.

I think that's something that like kind of blows people's minds, especially when they come from other countries that maybe don't have as long a history as even, let's say England does where, I mean, there are pubs in London that you can go to and it'll be like, yeah, you know,

Jesus used to drink here. He did. He did. He loved it. He would order waters waters which we all knew was a trick because there was always wine by the end of the night bastard um but yeah it'll be a pub and they'll be like yeah this is um established in the 1500s 15 26 sure and it's like that's older than some countries in the world we're talking about america yeah let's say it

which is it's bizarre it's bizarre. It's crazy. But here's maybe a little issue I have. Clearly, there's a ton of experiences, a ton of witnesses, but there really should be because millions of people use the tube every day. Yes. There should be millions of paranormal experiences on the london underground yeah this is where uh this is where the problems arise we have millions of people using this network we have the span of 80 so years um why aren't more people having these encounters why isn't there more evidence every tube station is littered with cctv cameras so if there's a skeleton army wandering around the tracks we should be able to see them at least once if there's a skeleton army wandering around the tracks we should be able to see them

at least once if there's a woman with no face floating through the halls that dude was talking about he couldn't have been talking about more than 20 years ago right i don't remember what date we said at the beginning of the story but there were cameras for sure yeah that's a great point unless they just weren't on cctv when he went back to check but yeah i think this is where we're going to end up today you know the tube because of its history and just how old and creaky it is it's kind of a spooky place a lot of those old stations but realistically if they were haunted or cursed or had any kind of spiritual activity, we should have a lot more evidence. You know, normally, Rory, we're far too lazy to possibly investigate this firsthand. But today, we actually have to do it ourselves. Right after we finish this recording, we have to take, I think,

three trains. So who knows? Maybe the world of the paranormal and the spiritual will call our bluff. Who knows? Maybe the world of the paranormal and the spiritual will call our bluff. It's true. I also, it's worth noting, there are tours you can do in London. I don't know if they're specifically ghost tours or historical tours, but you can see some of these ghost stations and go through some of the tunnels, the disused tunnels. That's wicked. I did it once, weirdly, for a press trip for a new X-Files audiobook that was coming out. And they were like, we're going to do a fun experience.

We'll take you down into the tunnels underneath London. And it's very cool. And I definitely recommend it for people who are maybe visiting or live here and want to experience some of the creepier side of the London Underground. But again, even when I did it, didn't find any concrete proof that these tunnels were haunted. So unfortunately, I'm going to lead the charge here today.

I'm going to say it's a no from me today. Guess it's a no from me too. Damn! But what a great case. What a great story. And thank you so much to James Nichols for emailing in that suggestion. Guys, if you have something that you want us to investigate, whether it's a story you're interested in or your own paranormal experience, maybe you're living it. Maybe you're in your

closet right now with a knife because there's a banshee in your living room. What you need to do is email thisparanormallifepodcast at gmail.com and in six to eight months, we'll give you all the advice you need. So just make sure you have some snacks and water if you're in the closet hiding from the banshee. Sometimes we won't get back to you. Sure. I mean, call the emergency services.

Sure. First, because we're not going to help you in the short term. Well, let's not say that. Just don't call the emergency services because we will at some point, maybe,

hopefully. Dude, the last four people who called, they were in a bad way. They were in a bad way by the time we got there. Yeah. It was over.

It was over for them. When we got there, it was a carriage full of skeletons. It was way too late. If you catch my drift. They called us to uh crystal palace park we just looked down the hole saw the skeletons and we thought all right it's a bit late

i'll tell you what my voicemails and email inbox is like a plague pit because it's full of people who needed help keyword needed yeah this podcast was built on top of an ancient spam folder where we send all of your emails so rude so rude to all the lovely people that listen and support the show um thank you guys thank you let's build let's build on that note on the note of uh thanking you for listening to this paranormal life to be clear we do read the emails we just can't reply to all of them yes um and we love getting emails because that's where we find out about a ton of cool cases

that we've never heard of before. Even like today's one, where I knew that there were some stories about the London Underground. Didn't know it went to this length and had this cool a history. And I didn't know about the f***ing skeleton railway. A personal favorite of mine.

That thing is really cool. And you should definitely read up about that because there's a lot of interesting articles. I think someone even wrote a fiction book about it, which is very cool. That's wicked. But that is today's episode. That is your weekly episode of This Paranormal Life. Guys, thank you. We know that there's a lot of paranormal podcasts out there. It's a competitive market. So the fact that you've decided to sit down and listen to us, that really means something. We really appreciate that.

We started this show how many years ago? Four years ago? Five. Five years ago? Really? Oh, God, that's so long, isn't it? Boy, you've changed your tune. Yeah, it's like totally off mic. Wait, what the f***? We've been doing this f***ing s*** for five f***ing years yeah it's it's it's always been

fine i mean i'm sure we celebrated four years last year i wanted i don't be you were in the middle of like thanking the listeners just keep just keep with that this was just like some little thing i was just trying to do to just make a bit of cash. All I wanted was enough money to make more pancakes. I had a rumbly in my tummy and I wanted more pancakes. We recorded and I cropped up for the first six months. Thank you for listening to the show. We appreciate you guys. Whether this is your first episode or whether you've been here from the very beginning,

we have a blast making this show every week and it's just the best time and we appreciate it. If you love this paranormal life and you want to become a bigger part of the community, we've got it all ready for you. We are on Twitter. We are on Instagram. And actually, most interestingly,

we are back on YouTube in a main way. We've been uploading weekly clips from the show, not just video clips from the episodes, but vlogs, music videos. We joked on the episode where we did the unlucky mummy about me actually going to the museum,

breaking in, and trying to steal the mummy. That really happened. I vlogged the whole thing. It's a very good video. It's a great video and it's all on YouTube at This Paranormal Life. A lot of people listen to this podcast on your iPhone, so if you have the YouTube app, go check it out. There's a ton of really funny stuff there. And all the links to our social media and everything are in the description of this podcast.

So if you can do it in your app, just swipe up and click those links. Wow! But Kit kit what if i want to listen to more this paranormal life what if i don't want your shitty youtube videos shit out of luck bud wait till next week uh are you sure there isn't are you sure there isn't any other way i could get an episode uh i don't know how there would be if we haven't made the episode yet. So you just got to be patient. Patience is a virtue. Are you really? Let's say I wanted bonus content from the show.

How would I get that? Email me and write me a check. And if the number's high enough, I guess we'll record something specially for you. Okay, I don't think it's quite getting the hint here. What I'm trying to talk about is Patreon. Patreon.com. It's like OnlyFans or something, but like for... That's exactly right.

Yeah. And if you want to see the audio version of our genitals, head on over to Patreon. Oh, well, don't say that. Don't say that. The audio equivalent of OnlyFans. If you want to listen to our sexy nudes, head on over to Patreon.com where for as little as five bucks, this is the digital This Paranormal Life store where you can give us a few extra bucks to help support the show and get some really cool rewards. like as I said bonus audio we have 50 episodes I believe currently over there of

unreleased secret tapes declassified oh no sorry still classified information and it's it's a

it's a great place where a lot of our community hang out so definitely go check that out thank you once again for listening to this week's episode of This Paranormal Life we will be back again next Tuesday with a brand new paranormal tale.

I hope you have a great week and we'll see you then. Bye-bye.