This Paranormal Life - #261 The BLOODsucking Vegetable Man of West Virginia

Episode Date: May 3, 2022

As children we were all warned to 'eat our vegetables', but what if the tables were turned and the vegetables decided to eat us? This was the horrifying reality faced by one man from West Virginia in 1968. Time for Kit and Rory to investigate one of the strangest tales in This Paranormal Life history - The Vegetable Man.Support us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to weekly bonus episodes!Buy Official TPL Merch! -  thisparanormallife.com/storeFollow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunityAdvertise on This Paranormal Life via Gumball.fmResearch by Amy GrisdaleIntro music by www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If the earth has four corners, how can it also be round? Does rubbing your eyes too hard transport you to another dimension? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This Paranormal Life! Hello! And welcome to This Paranormal Life, the weekly comedy podcast where every Tuesday we investigate a different paranormal case and decide by the end of the episode whether it's really paranormal or not. Whoa, whoa, whoa. This isn't This Paranormal Life. The artwork is different, buddy. You guys notice something new by any chance? Oh yeah. You didn't realize, but it's the paranormal equivalent to Christmas morning. We come bearing gifts. morning. We come bearing gifts. Welcome to This Paranormal Life 2.0. That is right. Today marks a new and golden era of This Paranormal Life. We've been making the show for damn near five years at

this point, and we thought it was time to shake some things up. Yeah. So you may have noticed when you clicked on this episode, we have brand new artwork. Woo! We love the new artwork we hope you like it too but right that isn't the only new thing around here. What else has changed Kit? Guys we have relaunched the This Paranormal Life Patreon for as little as five bucks you get This Paranormal Life ad free plus a monthly bonus episode. Whoa. We've also got a ton of new rewards we've got a brand new weekly show called the tpl after party slow down chief you're blowing my fucking mind here it's right for years we've been doing a once a month bonus episode which we have loved making and thankfully our patrons have enjoyed listening to but we got more for you how about a weekly show it's true we always talk about on the regular show how we don't really talk that much about the behind the scenes of

the podcast our personal lives we keep it to the paranormal uh and we keep it pretty focused whereas the after party is a chance for us to tell you all about the making of this show the bits that got cut from episodes uh what's going on in our universe. And yeah. It's literally raw, uncut footage from behind the scenes. And we're very excited to be bringing it to you. If you want to hear us say f*** without the beep, you're going to want to listen to the TPL after party.

There's no censoring, that's for sure. We've also got a monthly raffle. That's right, a real world IRL raffle where you can win actual props used in episodes of This Paranormal Life, like the Ouija board or the cursed voodoo doll. Yeah, we have a whole shelf basically filled with amazing props from the history of This Paranormal Life. And it's been fun to hang on to them over the years as kind of like little mementos of our time. but we realized it would be even more fun to give them away to members of our community.

Finally, last but not least, we have a limited edition Knight of the Commune collector's coin. This thing grants you access to the new headquarters of the Paranormal Commune when it's completed construction. Please note, construction may not be completed within your lifetime,

but this thing is sweet. Yeah, it sounds like this is a joke, but I cannot express just how real this thing is. We wanted to create something as stupid and high-end as this for quite a while, as like a cool little piece of merchandise you can get as a reward for being a member of the Patreon. And so we created this actual, it's like a medallion. It is enormous. It's like a commemorative coin. It's so cool. And the design of the coin is insanely cool. It was actually created by a member of the This Paranormal Life community, Adelaide Maxwell. It's filled with like a ton of Easter eggs. You're going to want to go check it out. We put a lot of heart eggs you're going to want to go check it out we put a lot of heart

into creating it and hopefully it shows so if you want to go really crazy and get all the rewards on Patreon that we've mentioned plus the coin

you can do that so we're talking a whole new weekly after party podcast ad free episodes patron only raffles the return of shout outs oh my god

which you might hear at the end of this podcast. All of these available right now on patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. If you were ever on the fence guys about joining the Patreon, hopefully this is the moment that it becomes truly worthwhile. It goes without saying that this paranormal life will always be free to listen to in all of the places you have been listening to for years on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and everywhere else. This is just... Whoa, whoa, whoa.

Sorry, what? Huh? It's free for some people? They don't have to pay... It's free to everybody, but... They don't have... All right. See, now you've lost me.

Now I was on board with the whole Patreon thing because... What do you mean I've lost you? I've lost you from the whole premise of what we do? How does it work then? I think we should do this off mic because you have very basic misunderstandings about life. I'll turn this off. No, no, no, no.

Dude. How does it work? Why would you turn off your mic? How do I get my money? What an insane thing. Dude, this is a very crucial announcement we're making. You said off mic. You said you want to have it off mic.

Jesus, man. This is a crucial announcement. I don't want You said off mic! Okay, no! Jesus, man. This is a crucial announcement, and I don't want you to f*** it up by arguing with me about how the show runs. I'm just confused how I get my dollars is all. To shut Rory up, head over to patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. Like I say, this is for if you have listened to this paranormal life, you love the show, and you want to hear more. This is the place to go.

So while we're super excited to talk to you more about what we're doing with Patreon and the new look of This Paranormal Life, we do have an episode to get to. It's true. So let's dive right in to today's case. Let's go. The first episode of TPL 2.0 is going to be, I can just tell this one is going to be one of our best. Like a groundbreaking case that probably involves government conspiracies, legitimate evidence, maybe crime scene photographs. I might need to just walk back some of those statements because I don't want people to get the wrong impression, why it was coming, because I spent a lot of time on the rebrand.

Sure. Like, yeah, i have a script like obviously there's a finished script for today's episode but just like you know the shout outs and like the coin and like that all took like yeah but priority number one is obviously maintaining the quality of the main product which is the show sure it just like you said stuff about like evidence and like a coherent story or something. So that might be a tall order for today. That's the bare minimum, I think, in terms of orders. This isn't necessarily written in English.

It was mostly copy pasted from a Chinese newspaper I found online. Okay. Okay. I find the Chinese a bit tough, though, to like read. Yeah, why post it then? Why read it and why copy it? If you knew this was going to be the first episode to kind of set the tone moving forward into a new generation of podcasting,

why have you picked a story based entirely in a language you can't read? I have been doing Duolingo and Mandarin Chinese. I thought I would have learned a bit more by today turns out the things written in cantonese i know i i'm pretty sure i could pick out some so like that's um this is our worst episode by the way i need this is all being cut so i it's translate all right i i don't really know what's happening right now Shoot I mean I have a case ready to go No no

I could probably just do one I have got it You don't You clearly don't have it I just need a little bit of help With the pronunciation is all What do you think, bud? You think people are going to think that was you reading it?

That was a woman's voice. It was me. What are you talking about? What do you mean it was? That was a female robot. Okay, what is that? Okay, that's more than enough. I insist you start the episode.

There. You know what? I think I got it working. I'm going to fire the entire thing into Google Translate. You guys aren't going to notice a thing. Okay. Like many times before, we start today's case in West Virginia. It's 1968 in the woods on the outskirts of a town called Fairmont.

It was the middle of July, and how better to spend the warm summer afternoon than some good old American hunting. Nice. Local Air Force veteran Jennings Frederick was out in the forest, shotgun in hand, pistol in holster, and beer in the back pocket. Very nice. He was out to bag big game. But hell, if he couldn't see any, medium game would do just fine. And hell, after a few more Budweiser tall boys,

just about anything would start looking like big game. I don't know my hunting turns. What is game? What is that? Game is just the animal you're shooting. Oh, that's just a broad term for beast? I know in the UK, game would generally be like birds that people would hunt, like pheasant. Or the electronic store where you can buy Xbox and PlayStation.

Rest in peace. Game. It's not closed down. We still and PlayStation. Rest in peace. Game. It's not closed down. We still have games. It might as well be. Big game, I guess, would be deer or moose. I headed into game, shotgun in hand, beer in the other, and got a copy of Red Dead Redemption for $2.99.

I was hunting big game, namely Grand Theft Auto V. I'm going to need a big game for a big boy. Pistol in one hand, chalky milk in the other. I'm going to need a big game for a big boy. Here's Lego Star Wars Saga. Very nice. Very good. We're kidding around and painting quite a stereotypical picture here.

Jennings was actually equipped with a bow. He was an experienced hunter. He was barely swigging from the natty ice in his back pocket. Very cool. He was making his way through the trees quietly, his eyes constantly darting back and forth. When your eyes are trained to look for wildlife, it becomes hard to miss movement in your line of vision. But he lost all concentration when a deeply unsettling sound reached his ears. It was a high-pitched jabbering, almost like a record player running too fast. It was unlike any sound he'd heard in nature, and it was the last thing he'd expect to

hear out in the middle of nowhere. It was coming from the west, and couldn't have been more than a few hundred yards away, judging by the volume of it. He wanted to call out to find who was out there, but a voice in the back of his mind told him to keep quiet. Was it the record voice? who was out there, but a voice in the back of his mind told him to keep quiet. Was it the record voice? Don't even fucking try and do anything. I'll lay you out. It was just a man in the river just talking barely out of the water.

Keep saying it was drowning, drowning. What could it mean? Help! He was listening to his gut, and his gut was afraid. He stood still, wondering whether he should investigate or nope, utter their like. Probably we all would have done in a heartbeat. Yeah. He couldn't leave now. The mystery was too tantalizing.

He began to creep towards the sign. As he got closer, he was growing more intrigued by the unique noise. Which one is it? Is he peacing out, or is it too intriguing to peace out of? This is the hunter mindset kicking in. Sure, a little bit of Dutch courage from the American beer in his back pocket. He can't resist. Imagine the stories he can tell the other veterans down at the drinking hole

if he posts a photo of whatever this f***ing big game is. That's true. Yeah, I mean, it's one thing to like go back to the local tavern and like lay a buck down on the table. Again, I don't know hunting terms. I think that's a deer. But if you come back from the woods and you drop down a six foot gray bug with three eyes, that's pretty baller.

If you could flop that down on the table and say, look what I picked, it doesn't get much bigger game than that, boys. Now, at first, he'd half expected to find just a couple of kids messing around with a wind-up gramophone or something. Now he could hear it with more clarity, it sounded less like a record player and more like a living creature. Worryingly like a living creature. He was still scanning the landscape with his eyes, but couldn't see anyone or anything. As far as he could see, he was surrounded by nothing but trees, but suddenly he saw motion up ahead. Looked like a slender tree branch swaying in the wind, but it was moving too much for the gentle breeze floating through the

forest. He crouched down and dashed forward, zigzagging from tree to tree to get closer to what he'd seen. He was sure it had been right at the base of the big pine he could see from his vantage point. He couldn't get much closer without risking giving away his location, and by now, he'd seem like a grade-A pedo if it actually turned out to be a bunch of kids. It's true. He kept crouching and staring at the spot the weird wavy tree had been. He was still listening out for the increasingly familiar yet strangely unearthly

noises he'd been hearing. The next one would surely put him on the right track. His blood ran cold. This thing was right behind him. Oh my god, you picked a bad weapon, sir, to take with you into this situation. Because like, sure, to be ready with a gun, it's having your finger on the trigger. But to be ready with a bow, the bow has to be strung back, right? Like ready to go off at any second. Right. And the only way to get it unstrung is to just do the motion of exactly what would happen if you release the arrow. is to just do the motion of exactly what would happen if you release the arrow.

I think I've watched enough Looney Tunes to know that at this point, the monster just puts his finger on the arrow and Jennings just flies back. Right when it's launched. He whipped around and fell back in surprise. It was a creature with long vine-like limbs, with what appeared to be clawed suction cups at the end of three slender seven-inch fingers. Whoa! It was tall, too, well over seven feet. It was humanoid in shape, but the proportions were way off. It was so thin it reminded Jennings of the reeds around a riverbed. The arms were no thicker than an inch wide, but the most unusual

features were by far the eyes and ears. They were glowing different colors in waves, oscillating through red and yellow. The eyes were large and slanted, glowing in sync with the tips of the ears. Jennings was terrified. He could do nothing but stare at what his brain interpreted as a walking plant. What the hell? What does he think a plant is? He said this was borderline a circus wheel rotating on top of a f***ing tree. But vines for arms

with thorns on its fingers. You said suction cups on its fingers. Thorn suction cups. And its arms only an inch wide. when it did move What? Its arms were only an inch wide? Yes, its arms were no thicker than an inch wide

Oh Jesus Because they were like vines Okay, sorry, did you just there's so much stuff being thrown at me that is like I'm gonna need to see at least an honest interpretation Well, you're gonna need going to need to get it together because the descriptions keep coming. When it did move, it seemed weak, frail almost, even weaker than a

living plant at full health. What do you mean? Weaker than a living plant. But he was still too scared to move. He knew the monster had seen him. They were staring at each other right in the eyes. A sentient being

is stronger than a f***ing daffodil, than a dandelion, than a regular living plant. It started babbling again, this time with more urgency than before. It got higher and faster, and suddenly he realized he could make out words.

You need not fear me. I wish to communicate. I come as a friend. We know of you all. I come in peace. I wish medical assistance. I need

your help. He does sound sick. Bro, if I don't think my bow could kill this thing, I'm taking my own life. If I see, if I hear that inside my head,

I shouldn't be allowed to go back to society. I'm just screaming, throwing my Zippo lighter at him and hoping for the best. Wow. Jennings could hear the same odd jabbering in the background, but the message rang in his head as if it had been beamed by a radio mast. It felt like a telepathic communication that played aloud in his brain. The call was coming from inside the house.

Well, actually, it was coming from this sentient vegetable, which had been edging closer to Jennings the whole time it was sliding into the DMs of his mind. He wanted to run, but it was like his legs had forgotten how. But there was no more time to escape. At that moment, the tree man lunged at Jennings, wrapped its creepy limbs around him, and pulled him into a bear hug. He struggled against it but couldn't fight. He was bound too strongly. Well, that's a goddamn lie, because only moments ago you said that this creature was weaker than a living plant.

It was f***ing drawing him in. It was trying to lure him in. I could escape the grasps of a tulip. Well, what if it's the power of a tree? They're pretty powerful. Imagine they could move. Oh, that's true. But you said his arms are no more than an inch thick.

Yeah, but an inch of pure mahogany. Okay. I'm starting to think maybe there's some paranormal forces maybe at work here. Yeah, you said it, not me. In the very limited dialogue this creature had, it said, I am ill, I am sick. So the fact that he still can't overcome it. The creature's face loomed as it bent towards Jennings

until they were almost nose to nose. The flashing eyes drew him in, almost hypnotizing him into submission. They danced into different shapes, slipping between colors in the most mesmerizing fashion. Then the thorny claws that tipped his fingers pierced his skin. Jesus Christ. He could feel the pain,

but was too enthralled by the pulsing light beaming directly into his eyes. The suction cup fingertips pressed against him sharply. It was draining the blood from his body. Whoa. He could feel it happening. His heart was beating at full pace and his strength was waning with every pulse.

Then just as suddenly as it leapt on him, it released its grip and Jennings slumped to the ground. He saw it dash up a steep hill nearby and disappear over the top like a flash. Once it's got a little human juice in him, this thing is like the flash. It's like f a little human juice in him, this thing is like the flash. It's like f***ing NOS in Fast and the Furious. Wherever it was going, it was doing so in a hurry.

It appeared to defy gravity. Each step covered at least 25 feet of ground. I would love it if he's approaching him and he's like, you know, his weird psychic voice is like, Please, I am weak. Let me just have a little suckle on your human nip nips. And he goes over and then after like drinking a little bit of your blood or whatever, he's just like, oh, yeah. Oh, that's that's the good stuff.

That's the good stuff. Mate, thank you. Cheers, buddy. stuff that's the good stuff mate thank you cheers buddy um yeah i actually have to usually i'd talk a little bit after this but i'm slammed today man so uh yeah catch you on the flip one leap just disappears over the tree line thanks to be an absolute legend cheers to that suckle in your nip nips not not a phrase you want don't don't tell people i did that by the way someone to say to you yeah jennings stayed on the forest floor feeling too light-headed to get to his feet he lay still connecting with the earth and catching his breath but the ground beneath

him started to vibrate something big was powering up he felt like he was lying on an airfield runway while a helicopter was taking off a few feet away from him. He was desperate to head up the hill and see what was making the racket, but he didn't have the energy to move. It was the plant. He heard the mechanical whirring fade into the distance, though he couldn't see anything through the thick cover of trees. He was sure of what he could hear, though. Some kind of craft had left the ground on the other side of that hill. Okay, okay. That wasn't going exactly where i thought it was you know usually when we're when we're talking about a creature like this it is a cryptid uh or some sort of weird creature that

lives in our world like the lizard man or you know the mothman or even like bigfoot for example um but what we're seeing here, what we're hearing about in this story, sounds like it isn't naturally of this Earth. It came on a craft. F*** no. It's got a taste for nip-nips, but that's about the only thing it likes about Earth.

You better hope it doesn't make it back to its own planet. Because once the word gets out about human nip-nips, there's going to be a lot more plant people in the forest. Because if they learn that there's, be a lot more plant people in the forest because if they if they learn that there's what seven billion people on earth there's 14 billion nips on earth the plant people are coming imagine you found out there was a planet full of walking sentient red bulls and you could just walk around and suck them dry and they're pretty much powerless i'd want to go no no i disagree i don't think anyone would want to suck on a Red Bull's nips.

I didn't say they're nips. I just meant if there was a planet that you could visit. You're a freak for energy drinks. That's your problem. I'm not going near any Red Bull. Anything. Imagine there was a beer planet or something where all the beers were just walking around clinking into each other.

Imagine the f***ing Nesquik bunny lived on his own planet and you could suck him off and get chocolate milk. No, stop it. You're just naming beloved mascots of drinks. Also, you know this planet has cows and we don't do that. We mechanically milk them, pasteurize it, and bottle it for sale. We don't get down on our hands and knees and suck their teats. Everything you want on this mythical planet exists on our planet,

in a store that you get for money. You don't have to jack it off into your mouth. I almost insist that I do. I insist that I do. He lay on the ground for another hour before he had the strength to stand up he eventually made it back to his car and drove all the way home not daring to look back he planned to keep all of this quiet from his family i would but his bizarre injuries gave it away i would love to see how that conversation went down at the dinner table that night by the way everyone just sitting around eating quietly.

His brother is like, oh, Jennings, that's a nasty little graze you got on your knee. Did you trip over on your hike in the woods? All right, fine. A sweet potato f***ed me. A romaine lettuce assaulted me. A carrot sucked me dry. Like what injury could have possibly made him come clean about this whole story? Yeah.

It's like, oh, could you pass the potato chips? Nips? What about my nips? They're fine. They're untouched. But what about your nips? You tell me about your nips. We're talking about nips so much.

Yeah, this is a hard one to, you've had too much happen to you. I think maybe if that was me i take that one to the grave i don't know if there's anything in my life that's happened to me so far that i'm taken to the grave but for sure that would be one of them i think he laid on in the forest floor for long enough he can convince himself it was all a dream but he did tell his family what happened but he kept it quiet from everybody else for years for fear of ridicule. So we know where the family reacted, by the way. Of course, the last thing you want is some sort of like enormous podcast to air this story in front of its, frankly, millions of listeners across the world.

Michael Smith, whose name will remain confidential through the podcast. Michael Smith, whose name will remain confidential through the podcast. The witness, Michael Smith, whose nips, we're told, are named Tia and Tamara. He eventually did tell a reporter, and the story lives on, even now that Jennings has sadly passed away in 2012 at the age of 62. His obituary said that he loved art and was known to be able to draw anything he saw. Ironically, and unfortunately, I wasn't able to find a Jennings Frederick original of what he saw that day in the forest. Hey, if you go through something that traumatic,

maybe you don't want to relive it, even in sketch form. That makes sense. That's it. Maybe it was all just too frightening to recall. And to this day, Jennings Frederick is the first and last person ever to report an encounter with what has come to be known as the Vegetable Man of West Virginia. Whoa. Also known as the Veggie Man.

All right, that's a little less intimidating, but let's go with the first one. Rory, this happens to you in the forest. What are you doing? I don't even know why you think I would have a response to that. This is such a bizarre, abstract situation. It's very hard to, like, come up with an impromptu response. I don't know, man.

I think, as I said, shy of putting that arrow through my own skull within the first 30 seconds. I would simply fall on my sword. Yeah. I would probably take this. I'm telling'm telling you i take this one to the grave fair fair response to what just happened i think if i had seen this creature between the trees uh moving silently or if i'd maybe just heard the noise maybe i would regale my my fellow lads down at the pub with a spooky story you know being, of being out in the woods. But if a freaking dandelion kissed me in the bushes and then took off on a jetpack to another

planet, I'm, I'm, I'm maybe, I would definitely question my own mental fortitude. Yes. Yes. Did I slip over and eat a berry? Yeah. did a berry even fall in my mouth while i was yawning maybe a loopy berry uh it's the dog in yeezys effect we've it's a scientific principle rory coined first here on this paranormal life yep that if one was to see a dog wearing yeezys walking down the street one would just keep that information to oneself because it would be too strange and too unbelievable for anyone else to believe. Life is simpler if you just don't tell that story. And that's what we're kind of dealing with today. This is beyond bizarre. So Rory, since we know there's only been one sighting of the vegetable man of West Virginia, it won't surprise you that information about this case is pretty limited.

But yet, there's plenty to unpack to really analyze this like a paranormal Sherlock Holmes. Really, in paranormal terms, there's only one possibility for what's going on here. This thing's an alien. Yeah, I think based on the noise of a craft departing at the end of this exchange, it's got to be from another planet, if there is any explanation. Which is interesting because of the way this thing interacted. There's layers to it. These aliens have managed to reach Earth and encounter Jennings. But clearly, this isn't the first time they've done it. They've made contact before. They obviously understand human anatomy because they knew to go for the nips and they knew they wanted blood and who to get it from if you were an alien would you just drink the body fluids of the first creature you you stumbled upon probably not the veggie man must have done this before yeah i mean it's a it's a

it's a thing isn't it that we always say, aliens, if they're coming to another planet, they'll maybe, like, take a form that is less threatening. Because if we saw them in their natural form, it would blow our minds. Of course. So, yeah, who's to say this dude doesn't look very different, but he landed in this forest, and he was like, I will look like one of them flower head vine arms. He just turned himself into like a vegetable. And then he's like, sees a human and he's like, oh, oh, you, that's what you guys look like.

Oh, right. I don't have time to change again because I got to get out of here. But sucky, sucky, and I'm off. It's 100% true. Yeah. That's an interesting point to think of later. Is this his natural form or is this his Earth form? Another huge clue is that he could communicate in English.

The Veggie Man may have been in possession of alien technology. They can speak any language, a bit like Google Translate at the start of this episode. Or they might have just been to Earth enough times to learn the language. The exact words they said were, You need not fear me. I wish to communicate. I come as a friend. We know of you all. I come in peace wish medical assistance i need your help which to be fair is like grade a duolingo tourist level language i need hospital help me please yeah hello thank you my name is plant my name is plantany i need juice. But interesting that they say we know of you all,

so their race has gathered knowledge of life on Earth. To some degree, yeah. This wasn't like a crash landing or something. But then why was he in such need of medical assistance if then he got it and then he was like, all right, now time to get back in my ship that's functioning fine and get out of here. I guess that is the assistance he needed.

Blood. It was just a bit of yeah i mean blood transfusion i guess researcher amy points out that maybe the most telling behavior of all was that it lied did it it said it came in peace and then attacked him well i didn't attack him that's like uh a pet thinking it's being attacked when it goes to the vet and needs an injection that's going to help it, you know? Well, yeah, but Jennings didn't get help. It was the other way around.

But I mean, if he's like, look, I come in peace, as in like, I'm not going to cut your head off or anything. I just need a little nip action. It sounded like he was just trying to get the human to calm down so he could get his blood or whatever he wanted from him and then get out of there. But apparently this indicates a high level of intelligence because I didn't know this. Apparently there's only a couple of animals on Earth that are smart enough to be able to lie.

Can I guess? Go for it. Monkey, for one. No. Because some of those little f***ers, they've tricked me in the past. Huh? I don't want to get in. Let's just breeze past it. Dolphin.

We can breeze past it, but I feel like you should qualify like a monkey tricked you. Multiple times. Yeah. Dolphin. Multiple times? Is dolphin one or is it not, sir? Actually, it's the fork-tailed drongo, an African bird. bird okay are there

any more because my second guess is chimp basically another monkey gorilla i'm just listing all the f**kers who've beaten me in f**king blackjack games through lying no less when i fell into that monkey enclosure and i was in that headlock getting punched in the nose I don't want to be offensive here all the monkeys start to look the same I don't know what a chimp is I don't know what a gorilla is I don't know what a f***ing armadillo is whenever you're getting slapped in the dick by hairy primates you're not stopping to think about the delineation of which species is which right Right, yeah. It's like, oh, actually, that wasn't a chimp.

That was a baboon. It's like, it doesn't matter because their fists all feel the same. I'm starting to think they were dangling that banana in front of me just to get me inside the cage. So I'd say, yeah, they're pretty good at tricking people and lying. So Rory, you have firsthand experience, it sounds like, that you might have also been tricked by the Veggie Man in this situation. Yeah, if that had happened to me. Now, interestingly, while no one else has seen the Veggie Man per se, he wasn't the only person

who'd seen something unexplained. His own mother had actually been witness to something fairly similar in her youth. Information is very thin on the ground, but from what I've been able to piece together, she saw a bizarre demonic figure tethered to a flying saucer hovering over her home. But pretty interesting that mother and son both saw, over the course of their lifetimes, UFOs. Yeah, that makes it a little more worrying. Huh?

If it's like, I don't know, if it was like a neighbor that had seen it, it's like, oh, now we've got multiple witnesses. And it's like, mother and son and child all saw it. It's like, alright, maybe don't let them have high caliber weaponry. Because I don't know if,

I don't know what's going on with their family. They didn't see the same thing. It sounds quite similar, though. But like if you're... A thin dangly beast on a UFO. But if your mother saw that, if you were going to make up a story, would you really invent the Veggie Man of West Virginia?

That's a really good point. I mean, we talked about this before. A lot of paranormal stories are so unbelievable. There's almost like a scale where it's like the more unbelievable they are, the more believable they become. 100%. In a weird way because, yeah,

you would not tell your friends and family about this story. You would make something else up. You would say, I swear I thought I saw a bush move or a tree grabbed me or something like that. You're not talking about the vegetable man who then took off in a flying saucer. That's weird. So Rory, in an absence of more witnesses,

in an absence of more physical evidence, in the spirit of trying to solve this mysterious paranormal case, I thought it might be a good idea to go digging for some similar creatures to see if there's any connections out there. Yeah, that's what you kind of have to do if you're dealing with a story

where there's only been one encounter. A one and done. You know, I found a list of plants that humans have grown in space. Of course, the most famous alien cannibal plant is the one from Little Shop of Horrors. His telepathy was a lot more straightforward. He just said, fade me Seymour over and over.

I did find one interesting thing that E.T., the alien from the movie E.T., is a plant. What? Steven Spielberg confirmed it in an interview saying that E.T. was neither male nor female, that he was a plant-like creature. That's such an unnecessary thing to have to clarify.

Like, no one really needed to know that. It's like, oh, um yeah a bit of lore et's actually a carrot i just wanted you guys to know that it's like all right well that doesn't change anything it's like uh he's like ask stupid questions that get stupid answers bitch next reporter it's like um you know the cant Cantina band in Star Wars, the style of music that they play, canonically in the universe, instead of jazz, is called jizz. I'm not making that up. All right.

George Lucas is like, yeah, it's a genre in space called jizz music. It's like, all right. Like, sure. Okay. That didn't need to be different at all. It could have just been jazz or space jazz. He's like, no, it's semen. They're like, please stop talking.

Just stop. You're ruining it for everyone. You might have guessed that if by now... Did I mention Jabba the Hutt is a f***ing lettuce? And when the Cantina Band... Stop talking, George. When the Cantina Bandina band is yelling at this point when they break out guitars it's called spunk music spunk rock spunk rock you could just

hear the booing and the in the in the reporters cried rory you might have guessed that by now if i'm talking about 1982 family sci-fi adventure classic film et the extraterrestrial that's my way of telling you there's no real sightings of similar creatures which is wild in itself because there's so many stories of cryptids out there but we couldn't find any more on blood-sucking alien plants but i do realize that we're lacking the physical evidence to prove that jennings really got sucked off by a demonic salad so we have no other choice but to ask the scientific question. Is it possible that a f***ing courgette on another planet gains enough intelligence and resources to mind read, build a space program, travel to the other side of the galaxy

in presumably a giant grape-shaped spacecraft just to suck the blood of humans? That's why I'm going to show you five of the most intelligent and terrifying plants here on Earth to inform your decision about whether there's any more terrifying ones on other planets. Sure, that makes sense. You know, we're only calling this guy a vegetable because that's what he is on our planet. You know, who's to say on his home planet, those are the guys walking around and there's a bunch of humans standing in fields like trees. That thought didn't come together quite as coherently as I planned.

That really made more sense as an abstract thought. It's quite terrifying. I do wish to move past it. I'm just imagining you pick their fingers as fruit or something. Yeah, let's not dwell on this. That's genuinely pretty weird. Number one. We have doll's eyes.

All right. Good Lord. This almost looks like a fungus, like some sort of thing that would grow out of a dying tree. It's pretty horrible looking. Looks like DNA. Da nugget cells. This is a type of berry that looks like eyeballs on the end of flesh-colored stems,

watching anything walking past them. And if you're dumb enough to try eating something that looks this cursed, you guessed it, they cause heart attacks and death. That's fair. But not sentient, just poisonous. True. Number two, the corpse flower. Have you ever seen this one before?

Whoa. All right, Kit's showing me a picture of a flower. And flower is an understatement. This looks like a fountain with a huge big red basin at the bottom and a jetting upward pillar, essentially, of just yellow, almost petals or a stem. It's enormous. It's like the size of like two humans. It's the biggest flower on earth.

And it attracts insects to devour by smelling like rotting flesh. Oh my God. So pretty smart. That's borderline a lie. Yeah, yeah. That's, I guess, tricking animals, kind of. Number three, Jimpy Jimpy.

He sounds like he could be friends with E.T. E.T. and Jimpy Jimpy go to Earth in E.T. 2. This is a leaf. You're showing me a picture of a leaf, a spiky leaf. Well, you better knock that idea out of your head if you ever go to Australia because this stinging leaf triggers an intense allergic reaction which causes excruciating, debilitating pain for months. People have described it as like they're being burned by acid, electrocuted or squashed by giant hands.

Whoa! Weirdly specific, the last one. Many people have reported pain for years afterwards, and there are several accounts of horses mad with pain jumping off cliffs. Oh my God. That's awful. Dude, Australia is something else, huh? Good thing it's not real. We come from, you know, grew up in Northern Ireland. We're quite lucky that the wildlife there, both in animal and vegetable form, really can't deal you a lot of harm.

Yeah, the weather will kill you. But the animals, the fl will kill you, but the animals and the flora and fauna won't. The closest thing we have to that is a nettle, which feels like you're being crushed by tiny hands, baby hands, you know? It's still pretty sore and inconvenient, but not enough for me to jump off a cliff. Like, I'm pretty sure the biggest predator in the UK is a fox. Or a child predator. Okay. Roofing on. You didn't specify what kind of...

Number four. This is just called the pain bush. Okay. I knew nettles would make it to the list at some point. I don't have an image. Number five. You don't have an image of the pain bush? The castor bean.

Okay. Is it a bean that while you're eating it is like, he's scooping me up. He's going for the mouth. It is a full spoon right here. Castor bean. All right. You've got images, privileges revoked.

Oh, come on. Let me see the bean. Let me see the bean. I wish I hadn't seen the bean. Why? It's a gorgeous bean. You're showing me two things here. That's the plant. That's the bean. All right It's a gorgeous bean. You're showing me two things here. That's the plant.

That's the bean. All right. That's the bean from the plant. Okay. Okay. It looks pretty scary and alien-y though, doesn't it? Yeah. Very red, very bright, very spiky.

Also, the text you didn't read out that I can see on the document is just, imagine a bean, dot, dot, dot. That can kill. Well, it can. Does it kill you? Is it poison? They're made of pure ricin. Oh, dot. That can kill. Well, it can. Does it kill you? Is it poison? They're made of pure ricin. Oh, yeah, that's not good.

I think this is the type of bean you would have fed someone in Roman times to kill an emperor. Right. You drop one of those in their wine and it's game over. Or if you get real good, you could flick it from a distance

straight into the emperor's mouth. Unfortunately, in my research, I found everything but a plant that can suck blood. But surely if this crazy shit is what plants are getting up to on Earth, maybe this is what they're getting up to in the Andromeda galaxy. There's at least one radish piloting an X-Wing. Is there no plant that can do that? Because I guess what's the closest, like a leech? That's like a vegetable that was

granted animal privileges just about it just graduated like last summer it's uh yeah it's provisional license yeah there is many legends throughout history of man-eating plants yeah through lots of different cultures it's a really cool interesting idea i even think it like features and things like pokemon right you've got like um the plant pokemon that can like sap the life out of things leech seed yeah with with vines and things but um it actually doesn't exist in the natural world if you i i know because i've done this before what are the what are the a venus fly trap yeah you know that's one of the famously one of the more carnivorous plants because as you know they trap flies um then close when the fly is is near them and then using i don't know some sort of acidic properties uh yeah liquef liquefies it

and and eats it essentially and i wonder i wonder if you had a big enough Venus flytrap and put a human body in there. I think, again, this is the premise of Little Shop of Horrors. Yeah. Can I Google that? Will I get on a government list or will I be arrested immediately if I Google, could a big enough plant dissolve a body? There's only one way to find out. Could a giant Venus flytrap dissolve a body? This is extra worrying because we're

actually currently recording this in the Warner Studios in London and I am using their Wi-Fi. Here we go. Gizmodo.com. Can a Venus flyt trap digest human flesh? I'm under arrest apparently. The police will be there in 40 minutes. It is locked. Venus fly traps can digest small pieces

of human or animal flesh. Truth is somewhat stranger than fiction. I mean this story is I admit laughably insane.

Yeah. And yet here on Earth, we have plants that can, according to gizmodo.com, partially digest human flesh. You won't be laughing when those Venus flag traps

are essentially nipple clamps latched onto your body in the dead of night. Rory, you may have sensed from the first five minutes of this episode that we are hamstrung with this investigation into the Veggie Man by a lack of physical evidence. Jennings is the only person to ever see it, and he did not get photographic proof.

He did not make an illustration of the thing. And yet we're still left with a compelling story, a story that seems too wild to be fake. What do you make of it? Before I come down on any conclusions with this case, there's got to be, is there even like an artist's interpretation of the creature? I know we said we don't have one from the actual witness, but I feel like if this case is famous enough, there's got to be something. I'm going to Google it. Okay. Kit has sent me two pictures. The first one, great. This is exactly what I needed. It helped me really kind of envision what this creature was.

Looks a bit like, almost like a giant grasshopper with some human properties, very thin, weedly, almost like vines that have come to life with this terrifying, bizarre head. Yeah, it's a lot less vegetable-like when you see the artist's interpretation. You start to realize this is just the name that he gave it, but it's not the whole story. It's really more of a terrifying beast.

Yeah, it is really not very funny at all. If you had seen this thing, you would be freaking out. And then picture number two that he sent me. This is more of a, just to tee it up me this is more of uh just to tee it up this is more of like a literal interpretation okay uh this is a man well is it yeah oh it is could be encrypted it is this is a man dressed in a vegetable suit made of vegetables so he's got carrot fingers uh lettuce legs it is terrifying terrifying. It is, actually. A six-pack made of half-sliced tomatoes.

Yeah. And I don't even know. His hair looks like broccoli. Yeah. So I think that's probably less of a realistic interpretation of what the creature was. You know, somewhere in between the two, probably. Let's hope not.

So that's great. That actually does help me bring this creature to life a little bit better in my head. Usually if we're investigating a big case that's quite popular and there's not a lot of evidence, that's quite damning. Today we don't have a lot of evidence, but there only really has been one person who's ever seen it. So that does kind of check out. Does that make it enough to go on to believe? Really, no. And normally on This Paranormal Life,

we tend to spend some of the end of the show talking about the different, more logical conclusions for what happened. There ain't none. No, alien is the only one. It's a really black and white decision. Did the vegetable man of West Virginia truly attack Jennings that day?

Or is the whole thing a lie? I think at the end of the day, we've had alien and extraterrestrial cases with more witnesses and more credible evidence that we've said were no's. So I don't know if I could go on record today and say, based on this one guy's story with this one creature, that I truly believe that it is real i need more unfortunately i more strongly believe that men in this world are loco than the vegetable man is real and running around west virginia yeah uh it sounds like we are coming down on a double no today you

can give us a double no but you cannot dampen the fire in our hearts of launching this paranormal life 2.0 rory is it good to be back oh yeah you finished your vegetables now it's time for dessert thank you to emmy grisdale for researching this episode so we so hope you've enjoyed this first foray into an investigation under the banner of this paranormal life 2.0 with the new artwork with the new patreon rebrand and we hope that you will head over to patreon.com forward slash thisparanormalife to check out all that new shit. We have ad-free episodes. We have the monthly bonus episodes you've come to know and love

alongside a new weekly TPL after party podcast. Hell yeah, which we're going to record in just a second. That is exclusively on Patreon. We also have the exclusive patron-only raffles where we raffle off every month a piece of this Panama Life history. That could be, like we said earlier, a Ouija board. It could be a prototype of some merch or anything cool that we can get our hands on. Soon we're going to be raffling off the aura glasses that we used in the first episode of this year. Not to miss out mentioning the Knight of the Commune limited edition coin that is only available on Patreon. And lastly, many of you who've been with us for a long time will remember that Patreon shoutouts were a big part of this show. We used to end every episode shouting out our patrons and we had to put a pause on them for a long time because uh we were insanely oversubscribed uh we ended up doing

something like 1500 over a few years it was it was nuts yeah i remember we we basically had to stop the tier because you crunched the numbers one day and you were like if we delete the tier this month we will just from the amount we have right now be doing shout outs for the next six months yeah yeah just to clear the backlog so we realized we did have to stop them and figure out a new way that we could bring them in in a way we could handle it and so everyone could get a great shout out that they enjoy and And hopefully we've done that. So we're excited to bring them back. I am.

I'm genuinely excited. I used to love doing shout outs. It was always such a weird, fun thing to do at the end of the episode. I remember people saying like, weirdly, sometimes the shout outs was like their favorite bit of the episode. So I am very excited. So you can head over to patreon and the shout outs pretty much have their own tier when we stopped doing shout outs the last time we did a call out and

said hey if anyone feels they missed theirs from the last time or if they signed up not having got the memo on patreon that we weren't offering them there for probably a year or so yeah that is cool we want to honor that so i do have a short list of people who we owe shout outs to and we're gonna do this month if you still feel you've missed that list or if we've missed you out apologies something too bad no no no apologies things do you miss the boat no no no it's been these people have been patient patiently winning for a very long time well they can wait a longer. So things do slip through the cracks. Just ping us at the end of this month if you still feel you've been owed yours

and we will get that to you. This Paranormal Life podcast at noneyourbusiness.com. Okay, that's quite enough. And you'll get an automatic reply of the middle finger emoji. And if all of this talk about shout outs is going way over your head because you haven't heard them before, well, you're in luck because we're going to start them up again right now at the all of this talk about shout outs is going way over your head because you

haven't heard them before, well, you're in luck because we're going to start them up again right now at the end of this episode. Remember, patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. The links to everything are in the description of this podcast. So special thank you to Trinity Hoyem. Hoy am I doing, Trinity? Thank you so much for asking. No one ever asked me, Rory never asked me anymore. God damn. About Hoyer doing? Hoyem I doing, Trinity? Thank you so much for asking. No one ever asked me anything. Rory never f***ing asked me anymore. God damn. About how you're doing? How am I doing? Okay. How are you doing?

Terrible, Rory, because you never asked me. Exactly. And I actually have a few bones to pick with you, you son of a bitch. Are you happy, Trinity? I'm gonna be hearing this for infinity. Thank you also to George Carboni. George Carboni, no stranger to a roni he keeps a six pack of corona on his belt at all times it's like a bullet belt but he's ready to

rage it's a little surprising to hear that because as a seven foot walking skeleton uh i don't know how he even drinks it that's why they call him carboni yeah the liquid passes right through his ribs and just leaks out of it. That's how good that stuff is. He even won it in the afterlife. Thank you also to Devin Putman. Devin's called the Putman because whenever they're on the green, it's going in the hole.

Oh, yeah. They're the putt master. Of course, getting to the green, sure, takes a couple hours. Not a driver. Not really. Doesn't really know how a couple hours. Not a driver. Not really. Doesn't really know how to play golf. Sure. Sure.

Doesn't know which side of the fucking racket to hold. If there was some kind of weird game where it was like a relay race and someone else could do all the other shit. Yeah. But don't get me wrong. Tiger Woods takes lessons from Devin on this shit. Oh, as soon as Devin's on the green, yeah. But don't stand behind them when they're driving off the tee

because you will get hit with a f***ing nine iron. Thank you to Andrew Gorham. Andrew, of course, famous for trying to create his own line of miniature paintable statues called Gorehammers.

Oh. Yeah, similar to Warhammers. Right, sure. I thought that's what I was thinking. But his, obviously, were banned for being quite sexually explicit. Oh. It was more pornography in tiny miniature form than it was some sort of like collectible

game that you could play. That's, wow. I mean, cool, I guess. Not really. Some really, really borderline inappropriate stuff. And it's like, it doesn't matter how small you make it, Andrew. If people can still see what's happening, it's still illegal. Because it's just flesh color.

Just one paint tone. Thank you also to Joshua Baines. It pains me to know that you didn't get your shout out for so long. Thank you for not complaining too much. Oh, I think he did. He wrote several letters of complaint, a few formal ones, a few legal letter,

cease and desist letters as well. Okay. I was trying to just do like a pun like. No, he's, his lawyers actually, we've got a call in five with his lawyer. He's very litigious. Yeah.

That's insane. Blaine. Yeah. Jeez. That's insane. With Blaine, yeah. Jeez, that's... Yeah, it's not entertaining. That pains me to hear it does. I've got to get on the first train out of here because I don't want to go to jail. That wasn't a pun. I really don't want to get in any legal trouble.

Needless to say, we have to go. We're keeping it short and sweet for shout outs this week but we are going to be doing more every week from now on thank you so much for tuning into this week's episode of this paranormal life 2.0 oh yeah let us know what you think of the artwork let us know what you think of the new tiers on patreon and everything we're doing so we'll see you on tuesday for a brand new paranormal tale we'll see you on Tuesday for a brand new Paranormal Tale. We'll see you later in the month for this month's bonus episode. And we'll see you on Friday for the first edition of the TPL

After Party. Very exciting. Bye-bye! Yeah, I watched that show growing up. Sister, sister, do you know how much I missed you? So good. Sister, sister, do you know how much I miss you? So good.