This Paranormal Life - #278 Lavender Town Syndrome - The Hidden Pokemon Music That Made Children Go Insane

Episode Date: August 30, 2022

When the first Pokemon games were released in 1996, children across Japan couldn't WAIT to get their hands on a copy and begin their adventure... but the mood of the game shifted as soon as they reached a location called Lavender Town, a place where dead Pokemon are laid to rest. It's said that SOMETHING about the original theme music even sent children to the hospital... but is it true? Let's investigate.VOTE FOR THIS PARANORMAL LIFE IN THE IRISH PODCAST AWARDShttps://www.theirishpodcastawards.ie/vote/Support us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to weekly bonus episodes!Buy Official TPL Merch! -  thisparanormallife.com/storeMedium articlehttps://medium.com/truly-adventurous/project-poltergeist-745f2d498849Follow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunityAdvertise on This Paranormal Life via Gumball.fmResearch by Amy GrisdaleEdited by  Louis BlatherwickIntro music by www.purple-planet.com  Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Was one of Batman's parents actually a bat? Can ghosts sit on chairs? All of these questions you can find the answer to on This Paranormal Life! Hello everyone and welcome back to This Paranormal Life! Sorry, my voice cracked. It cracked. We have to start over.

Okay, well we're not because we're rolling what was the shit again about batman what was one of his parents actually a bat i didn't read the comics i don't know did his mother or father have sex with a bird do not speak ill of the dead rory that is not funny welcome to the podcast this paranormal life is a comedy paranormal podcast where every week we investigate a brand new paranormal tale case claim beast and come to a conclusion at the end as to whether or not it truly is paranormal what was the second question we can't keep going back to the questions i feel like i can i've had a lot of caffeine i feel like i can knock this one out

chairs yeah ghosts can go sit on chairs i don't want you to think about them too much because they were kind of just flippant questions that I threw out at the start. Actually, it's not as easy. It's not as cut and dry as I thought. This might take some time.

That's not today's investigation, by the way, is whether or not ghosts can sit on chairs. We are here to discuss a paranormal tale that is actually suggested by our very own listeners.

Ooh. We are talking about LeAndy Wu, Douglas Hawthorne, and William Erie. William Erie. William Erie. William Erie? Why do you guys have psycho names? That's a paranormal name.

They all asked us to cover a story called Lavender Town Syndrome. Now, since these emails, we did briefly talk about it on a bonus episode. Some of our listeners may remember that, but it was a small part of a larger episode that tackled cursed video games. And since reading these emails and getting these requests, I realized we didn't really get to do it justice and give it the full TPL treatment for such a cool story Hey brother, you don't have to convince me to talk about video games So let's do that today our story today begins in the Kanto region of Japan in

1996 February 27 started like any other normal day the staff at the district hospital were busy as they always were roaming the halls, tending to various injuries and illnesses. But this was about to be no ordinary day. Dr. Takahashi, please come to the main desk immediately. Out of nowhere, patients began pouring into the hospital. Some were crying, Others looked nauseous. But the strangest part of all was that they were all children. That's a dark day in a hospital.

I wonder what has happened. Some sort of playground explosion. Some sort of nursery explosion. I don't know, things that would only affect children. Right, sure, all the children heard a nursery rhyme that was so atonal it caused them to become violently ill. Some sort of party clown rented out for a birthday party who tried to inflate so many balloons he exploded. Right.

By midday, there were more than 100 kids in the ER, each with hauntingly similar symptoms. They complained of migraines, nosebleeds. Most were crying and vomiting. It was overwhelming. Wow. And, you know, Rory, I don't know what you were like as a kid, as a young lad. I know for one, I was always hamming it up. I was always making it up, trying to get out of school. Like, oh, my tummy hurts. Oh, no, not just attention. I wanted to get out of detention and stay at home. Okay, right.

I was trying to not go to school, is what I'm trying to say. Make up any illness. I'd be like reading the encyclopedia being like, mother, I have dengue fever. I can't possibly go. It's like, you don't have goddamn dengue fever. You've been nowhere near a jungle. Yeah, you were always trying to hit that sweet spot as a kid that was like too sick to go to school, but not sick enough to need medical attention and be proven a liar.

Yeah, and not sick enough to not be able to play video games all day. Yeah. Oh, well, I think my eyes are fine. So maybe maybe a little Smash Brothers would help. I seem to remember and we were definitely way too old to be playing this old trick, that me and a mutual friend of ours both were conveniently off sick from school the day Halo 2 came out. I got Spartan fever. I'm going to take some time off. I took a sticky bomb to the gut, mother.

I've got diarrhea. All right, Jesus, too much information. What I'm trying to say is kids are always hamming it up for their kids, trying to pretend they're sick, but it actually sounds like these kids are genuinely ill. Nosebleeds, vomiting. Hard to, not impossible, I will say, but hard to fake. No. Yeah.

Harder, definitely, than Spartan fever. When the doctors finally found one child who was able to speak, the child only said one word. Pokemon! Alright, they're faking it. They're just trying to play Pokemon all day.

Get your ass back to class. This is just what we were talking about. I mean, I feel like these kids weren't faking it to play Pokemon because their symptoms meant that they landed in hospital. Right. So maybe they pushed things too far, but it seems like all of them have been affected some way by the video game franchise Pokemon.

So what happened to these kids? Let's dive back to earlier that day. When I said February 27th, 1996 was an ordinary day, for video game fans that wasn't entirely true. Because that day was the first release of the original Pokemon games, known in Japan as Pocket Monsters Red and Green. Pocket Monster. Buy red or buy green. It's a little different. Oh, my God. My memories of coming across Pokemon were much later than this.

I don't know when exactly, but we were presumably only five years old at this point yeah just started school so to think that pokemon was already out was kind of nuts well it had a snowball effect where it was released in japan as a game then you know we had the show the cards the pokemon cards i feel like that was the biggest one that really took over to the point where like a lot of schools in the uk, our school had to ban Pokemon cards. Right. Because there was like a f***ed up, it was like a currency in the playground. Kids were jumping

social statuses just in one afternoon by opening up a card that had a shiny Charizard in it. And we can't let the children move social status we have to keep the strict hierarchy of nerds and jocks and bullies i actually had one of the most traumatic experiences of my life was involving pokemon cards where uh one day i remember uh taking all of my favorite cards to school with me to show off mistake a mistake from the jump we're talking i think i had a shiny blastoise i think i had i had some shiny some rares real stuff that i had collected over a long period of time and you're not letting these things out of your sight you're like a fugitive from the jason bourne series you've got like a briefcase handcuffed

to yourself and everything goes great i go to school i showed it off to all of my friends uh i came back i got changed out of my school clothes went upstairs and realized immediately that i had left all of my pokemon cards inside of my school uniform trousers, which my mom had just shoveled into the washing machine. Mother! So I bolted downstairs and like a mad scientist halfway through an experiment,

rip open the door to the washing machine, water pouring out of it, searching in the darkness, pull out a pair of soggy trousers and I'm on my hands and knees giving myself to the lord just say tell me they're fine tell me they're fine and i'll give you anything he's not talking about cars he's talking about abracadabra growling pikachu his favorite his favorite pokemon and i remember putting my hand into that pocket and pulling out a lump of cardboard.

A shiny limited edition lump straight from Japan. Ironically, even the water Pokemon got f***ed up. The Blastoise was destroyed. It was super effective. It was super effective. And I remember just sitting there holding my soggy trousers thinking, I don't want to live anymore. I don't want to live. Wow. I don't want to live anymore i don't want to live wow i don't want to exist anymore this is the end of my life and then the next day beyblades came along and i forgot

about the old soggy lump uh we get accused a lot actually in the comments and reviews of being i didn't realize this but of being a heavily 90s focused podcast um we can no longer refute that claim. When you're doing a whole episode on Pokemon. When Pokemon was released, it was the must play game of the year. It was the games that launched the entire Pokemon franchise. Children all over Japan

were itching to get their hands on the game and dive into the world of Pokemon. And they did. The games were released and immediately the children started their adventure. They picked their starter Pokemon, they left Pallet Town, defeated a few gym leaders, and then something changed. The children reached a certain location in the game, Lavender Town. Now in a game about cute creatures and fun adventures, to this day, Lavender Town sticks out like a sore thumb. It's a creepy haunted town that is also home to a place called

the Pokemon Tower, a place where they essentially bury all of the dead Pokemon. Right. Something they didn't even establish could happen up until that point yeah up until that point they actually refer to when pokemon um collapse in battle they would they would actually say oh it's okay they fainted oh they just fainted you can revive them don't worry they just fainted oh yeah his eyes rolled back into his head and he's starting to smell funny but he just fainted give him a kick poke him a few times he needs poke the. He just needs a glass of lemonade. Maybe every time you go to the Pokemon Center where they heal

all your Pokemon, they're like, give me the little guy. Here we go. Alright. Here he is. It's like, my Rattata had a stripe on his tail. I think you're mistaken. This is your Rattata, sir. Here his tail. Oh, I think you're mistaken.

This is your Rattata, sir. Here you go. No, no, no. He is. Because I also call him Freddy. Freddy, he's he can do tricks and shit. And this Rattata is. No, I'm pretty sure his his name is Greg.

Greg. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's what you told me. He responds to Greg. There's Greg. This Rattata is angry. He seems angry to be with me now. You're asking too many questions, bud.

Listen here. This is like the f***ing Apple store. You hand me a broken iPhone, I open the drawer, and I give you your iPhone. For all intents and purposes, don't ask any questions. Just take the f***ing ratata and leave. It's a creepy place. It's a super creepy place. In the bonus episode uh you referred

to lavender town as vietnam for six-year-olds what i did yes as in it being something that you never forgot the first time you went into lavender town right you weren't there man yeah it was the look the feel the sun the music. The sound, the music. The music, the music indeed. As we said, all of these children were enjoying the game until they reached Lavender Town. As soon as the town's music started playing, these children went wild. One parent said her daughter started screaming out of nowhere. Another said his son was screeching like a demon. Oh my god. It was almost as if there was

something about the music in that town that was making these children go insane. The story goes that things got so bad, the original cartridges were quickly recalled and the theme music had to be replaced. Which sounds crazy, I admit, but it's not that unrealistic because it wouldn't even be the first time that the company retrospectively changed Lavender Town. I don't know if you played any of the remakes of those original games, but the Pokemon Death Palace in the original is now changed into a radio tower. What? That just plays like Pokemon Radio. What? Yeah. This is political correctness gone mad.

In 500 episodes, or we haven't done that many, 300 episodes, I've held my temper. No, you haven't. About political correctness gone mad. You absolutely haven't. But this is the last straw. A radio tower? Are we... Listen, we cannot believe that these

Pokemon do not die. Where are they buried? Where are they buried, Rory? I need to know. I think in the basement of the new radio tower, there are a lot of tombs. Right, it's a Pokemon burial ground. It's very cursed. Yeah, essentially.

Still cursed. It's true. I mean, if these Pokemon are basically just animals, like rats and birds, you're going to step on one now and again. Your rat's going to kill one of them. Some of them are f***ing caterpillars and worms. Like, they'll just die from the sun. Some of them are tiny. Some of them eat the others, for sure.

I mean, there's birds and there's bugs. What more do I have to say? You're telling me Pokemon don't die when I just put my f***ing Caterpie out against essentially what is a dragon? What is a mythical dragon? Don't tell me he didn't curb stomp him. There is a meme that circulates sometimes

from the Pokemon animated series where you can see Ash Ketchum and his pals Misty and Brock all sitting around eating. They're camping out and eating and they're eating what looks like fried chicken. And Pikachu just has a really sad look on his face. Yeah, because that would be like a Pidgey or something. Yeah, like a bird Pokemon. Yeah, isn't that kind of f***ed up? Yeah, I follow a couple of accounts on Twitter and stuff and they'll

tweet like trivia and easter eggs from old Nintendo games and Pokemon games and stuff and there is kind of a running theme actually that even just for cultural differences they'll often change things between regions like maybe lines of dialogue or things that might seem

a bit too, like, I don't know goddamn X-rated over here um they're kind of okay with in japan and vice versa yeah so they definitely have recalled things in the game before and changed it yeah even with localization uh it makes sense because as we know especially in those early games even if you read some of the pokemon descriptions some of them are pretty creepy shit yeah that's right i mean the famous one is a Pokemon called Cubone, who's a cute little, what the fuck is he? He's like a little meerkat, a chubby meerkat.

Something like that. Whatever. And he's got like a little skull on his head and he has like a little bone. Sure, where did he get that? I don't know, but. Yeah, the skull is not part of his attire. It is the skull of his dead mother that I think he wears on his head.

The bone is probably hers too. Let's get Cubone therapy. He needs therapy. Don't wear your mother's skull. Just give him a hat. Give him a fedora. It's very sad. Don't give him a fedora. It's very sad. Don't give him a fedora. Now, on the bonus episode, we did play the alleged original Lavender Town theme. But seeing as we're covering the case again, and many of you may not have heard it yet,

I think we need to listen to it again right now. I'm ready to lose my marbles all over again. Now, I'm going to make a little disclaimer. On the bonus episode, didn't phase me at all. Didn't have a problem with it. Okay. Uh, but I listened to this earlier once again with headphones on and it made me

feel physically ill. It was, and sure. Was I out last night? Yeah, you betcha. Did I have a couple of cocktails and a few beers? Yeah,

I did. Right. You were already hugging the toilet bowl this morning, just listening to the Lavender Time theme tune. It's like, I know I ate six raw frozen chicken nuggets right before bed, but honestly, I think it's the Pokemon theme music that's making me feel so bad. Funny side note about me going out last night. I didn't really plan on, it was a fun event that I went to, but I didn't really plan on boo boozing that much and this morning i woke up none of my alarms went off i went to check what time it was and how long i'd slept in and i was wearing a watch made of candy so i looked down

i was wearing a thong made of candy that's a true. Is that the end of the story? Well, I ate it. What else do you want from me? Jesus Christ. I think I got a goodie bag on the way out with a candy watch in it. And I was like, I'm going to rock that. I broke into a children's birthday party. I got so drunk, I broke into Willy Wonka's factory on the way home.

Yeah, you eating frozen chicken doujons was just you, again, broken into the frozen section of Iceland. Alright, alright. Without further ado, let's play the music. As I said, if you're listening to this on headphones, proceed with caution, ladies and gentlemen. Ride that volume. Here we go.

It's a lot more unpleasant than I remember, sure. It's so awful. Oh, God. That's the highest noise I've ever heard. Properly piercing. Ah! A digital gong of some kind. Good Lord.

That actually makes my stomach feel unwell. It's horrible. It's properly awful. I mean, when you hear this story, you're like, this is insane. There's no way that that would ever happen, that music could make people feel that sick. And then you hear a song like that. Why did they think that was okay?

You just went to Pallet Town. Your mother kissed you on the forehead and said, pick a little friend to live with forever. And you go on an adventure and it's like, hey, welcome to f***ing Sin City, where a ghost is going to take your wallet and the spirits of the dead just roam around. It's terrifying.

Yeah, it really makes you call into question, what does the rest of the game hold? Whenever I get to Cerulean City, are they going to teach me about Class A drugs? Yeah. Whenever I get to the Indigo Plateau, are they going to teach me about class a drugs yeah whenever i get to to the indigo plateau are they going to teach me about sex this game is not suitable for children apparently welcome to cinnabon island where war crimes are legal okay this is dark i don't i don't know what got lost

in translation there where they're just maybe Maybe it was different departments working on it. So someone was working on Pallet Town and the happy little intro themes. And they were like, oh yeah, Craig's in the basement working on Lavender Town. No one's seen him for a couple days. He only had one job, which was to write a spooky song. And he's been cackling like the Joker so much, no one wants to go down and tell them we've shipped the game already. Yeah, yeah.

It's absolutely bonkers. It is worse than I remember. There are also more layers to it than I remember. You kind of hear it and you're like, okay, this is unpleasant. Ooh, that's new. That's new. That's another layer of unpleasant. And then it keeps changing and getting worse.

Yeah. Now, I will say, what we heard is allegedly the song that was originally on the cartridges before it was shipped. So by the time we got our hands on it, it was the Mickey Mouse Disney-fied version. Yeah, which was still genuinely, I mean, a lot of it was what you heard there. Very similar, maybe just without some of those high pitch frequencies and awful gong hits. The start of it has sort of whistler vibes. Yeah. hits the start of it has sort of whistler vibes yeah uh the uploader of that video wrote a huge long description and some of it was definitely interesting to read they said be careful around

animals because it causes them to flip out okay my rats freaked out when i played it on the speakers. You're a rat. And people have told me that their cats and dogs freak out too. Interesting. Maybe it has some of that high frequency material is just piercing to a dog or cat, which is much more sensitive hearing. It could be. Now, despite us just listening to the theme, I felt a little sick, but neither of us dropped to the floor, started vomiting,

or had any medical issues that needed attention. That's a great point. And there are two explanations for this. Firstly, it is believed that the unsettling music

in Lavender Town, as we said, contains a high-pitched tone undetectable to adult ears. Oh. That's why it was only children that appeared at the hospital. Adults couldn't even hear it. We thought that sounded messed up.

Right now, there's an 11-year-old boy listening to This Paranormal Life who's paralytic on the ground. We might have just killed him. Oh, no, little Timmy. Wow. That tracks. Yeah. That tracks. Because not only are we both not children, am I right in saying that both of our ears are massively f***ed up? Right. We're both sitting

here with hearing aids. I have two stories about this. I'm not going to derail this for too long, but yes, in short, both our hearing is f***ed up. Whenever I was at university, my lecturer summed it up as humans can hear technically on paper anywhere from 20 hertz to 20,000 hertz. But he said, if you've ever been to a rock concert, forget about hearing anything above 17k. That ship has sailed. Right. Now, as musicians, our hearing is probably a bit worse than most recently because the tour was coming up i i have gone deaf a couple of times in the last couple

couple years um thankfully mostly just due to earwax um and i really didn't want it to happen before our tour started ironically people tried to warn you a lot before it got bad, but you couldn't hear them. So you just kept on your ways. So I wanted to get it sorted. So I went to, I don't know. What do you want from me? An ear doctor?

Is there a name for that? And they stuck a Hoover in my, have you ever had this done? They stuck a Hoover in my ear and sucked it out. No, no, I've never had a f***ing ear doctor Hoover my holes before. Well, she was just on a back alley. They just pay her in unmarked cash notes.

So, to be fair, maybe not a real real doctor but it was over in seconds um and i paid the doctor and i kept my shit in the down low about how much i was internally losing it i felt like i was going insane i felt like one of these children vomiting and nose bleeding everywhere right i i walked out of the doctor's office like an alien gray pretending to be human. I don't know, because your ears and stuff are so connected to your balance, an internal kind of navigation. I like fell off the curb in the street immediately. It was like I was in a war zone. My ears ringing.

Like I could hear bees talking to each other I could I could see the color of the wind uh it was unbelievable the difference it made we said it's like in all the movies when uh when Peter Parker wakes up after being bitten by the spider and he can hear like a bank siren going off three streets away and you're like what the is happening this is wild what an amazing experience you don't get to do that a lot in life this is my psa if anyone has had any issues and they're putting it off i highly recommend uh getting it done but i also know why the science tracks because i am a current owner of and i know people are gonna kill me for this but um my wife and i are now owners of like uh a like garden cat alarm thing um that basically we stick on at night and it plays you're a monster a sound that only cats can hear you're

you're a monster you're an animal uh how dare you like this is genuinely gonna get me cancelled but what do you want me to do they keep diarrhea over our bins sorry to the people eating their lunch again trigger warning but i keep i keep going into my driveway to find liquid shit all over the place and the garden we can't keep saying skip ahead if you don't want to hear this because there's going to be in the end four minutes of listenable podcast left for those i don't know what else to do uh so we felt that the the the most pet friendly way of doing things was a gentle nighttime alarm that says off uh but it's that you turn it on and it makes like a it's the the same concept. It makes a high-pitched noise that, to be fair, you can hear it a little bit, but it's higher than adults are supposed to be able to hear.

Yeah. Remember they installed one of those outside the shop by our school? Because children were just, we weren't even loitering. We were just outside the shop and they were like, that's enough. You kids are diarrhea- to be fair to be fair we're playing pokemon and vomiting everywhere uh yeah i actually went to that shop very recently it's still there after all these years can you can you hear the uh weirdly i i can yes so i don't think this is a very exact science i'll say that much okay yeah maybe you can tune that frequency

so it's kind of hard to get right i do know that it affects you a lot a lot the older you get like the drop off after like 40 50 years old is severe yeah well i mean my hearing is is shot as well completely i don't i still to this day don't know what was wrong with me when i was born the doctors are still trying to work that one out. But something was wrong with one of my right ear. So even now, my right ear is like 60, 70% hearing, like permanently. It's just worse than like my other ear.

And I remember I had to have like five or six surgeries for them to just like save it so it wasn't gone by the time I was 12 years old. Wow. And it was one of those times where I'm so young that I didn't really know what was going on. All I knew was every time I went to the big hospital, I got another video game from my parents. Unfortunately, one of them was Pokemon. Lavender time took another 30% off that year. was pokemon lavender time took another 30 off that year i remember i remember like being in the hospital bed uh in like a full gown my ass out uh playing need for speed underground on

game boy advance having the best time ever and like looking through a hospital window into the next room where my parents were talking to the doctor and my mom is just crying and i'm just having the best time ever i'm like this is awesome uh yeah they did a good thing which was never telling me actually what was going on that's some good parenting right there yeah i think even when it took me till i was like 19 years old where my mom was like was like oh yeah if something had gone wrong in one of those operations uh the right side of your face would have been paralyzed forever wow i was like i didn't need to know that so thank you for keeping that away from me as a child yeah all i know is

i drank some night night juice and woke up playing super mar Mario World I came to Halfway through Abe's Odyssey It's fantastic So hey There's good reasons why The song necessarily Isn't affecting us

To the fullest potential The second reason As to why It maybe didn't affect us Is cause as we clarified In the bonus episode The story is widely accepted as fictional. What?

That's true, yeah. It is... I feel like you just led me down a garden path for 25 minutes and then beat me over the head with a 2x4. And shit all over your bins. Look, I will say, even though it's mostly regarded as a creepypasta, there are still plenty of people out there who genuinely believe that parts of the story are true.

I mean, as we said, it's not beyond the realms of reality. We already know that the Pokemon Company have retrospectively changed parts of Lavender Town. Is it crazy to think that they did change the music? Well? is it crazy to think that they did change the music well oh that's a rhetorical question sorry did you say something i can barely hear you but what look i i'm in agreement uh this is uh entirely possible you know rory let me pause at my own hypothesis here is it possible that this is one of those games of telephone that, you know, maybe a genuine and non-paranormal product recall

led to, you know, fictitious claims that it was something more salacious than it really was? Yeah, and I mean, so much of this story is kind of based in reality. I mean, also in the bonus episode, we talked about the, I believe, now banned episode we talked about the uh i believe now banned episode of pokemon the tv show that when it was broadcast on television gave a bunch of kids seizures because of the animation pattern uh that's a real story children genuinely uh had to be rushed to hospital after the episode so it's like it's almost as if that story became twisted and wrapped up in

the creepy atmosphere of lavender town yeah there's just something in pop culture too to the episode so it's like it's almost as if that story became twisted and wrapped up in the creepy atmosphere of lavender town yeah there's just something in pop culture too and in our collective conversations about it that it feels very tempting doesn't it like parents love to look at these things for children and try and perceive a dark side to them you know it's like all the stories in the the 90s in the uk tabloids about like the truth of the Teletubbies. Like, you know, Tinky Winky killed himself. Like all these like f***ed up stories. Even D&D, you know, when D&D was huge

and parents were like, it's devil worshipping. It's like glorifying evil. Yeah, there's just scare around the next big thing, isn't it? I mean, the pokemon series as a whole has some of the most famous and widespread paranormal stories online one of the most popular is the story of pokemon black a bootleg version of the game that was allegedly found at a flea market in america with no explanation of what the game was oh Uh-oh. It's just a black cartridge with the Pokemon logo in it. The game, when played...

Pikachu has a gun. It's a very... It's called black because it's like a f***ing film noir. Ash Ketchum is a hard-hitting detective on the streets of, not Kanto region, but Chicago. Yeah, not to be confused

with Detective Pikachu, which is a legitimate Pokemon game. This game was essentially the same as the original Pokemon games. You start in Pallet Town, you meet Professor Oak, but when it's time to pick your first Pokemon, along with the original three choices, there's an option called Ghost. Okay.

This creature only has one attack called Curse, and when it was used in battle, the screen would go to black. You'd hear the enemy Pokemon cry out. And when the screen came back, it was gone. Okay. So this is like Pokemon meets Death Note. Might I say, these Pokemon aren't fainting. They are disappearing off the face of the earth.

You're not even beyond killing them. You are banishing them to hell. Right. Beyond the radio to our basements, just shadow realm, basically. And if that wasn't already kind of against the rules of a Pokemon battle, you could also use curse on trainers. Oh no. You could send humans to hell using Ghost.

Again, widely believed to be a creepypasta, but I love those kind of stories. It's so fascinating. I'm sure someone has probably tried to make this. You know, people make, like, hacked bootleg versions. Like, isn't there a version of Pokemon floating around that's, like, some kind of, like, Vietnamese bootleg where all, like, the dialogue is wrong.

People put in spammy dialogue. I mean, again, that is based in reality. I know people that have bought kind of fake import versions of the game from like different countries where, yeah, the dialogue has kind of been localized. But it's all over the place. And it's really it's not creepy, but it's really funny to play through because you have no idea how the English is going to be translated. Yeah. I remember some charity gaming streamers that I used to watch all the time called Extra

Lives. They once got their hands on, I think it was Pokemon like Vietnamese green. Yeah. And, you know, you'd be talking to one of the trainers and they'd be like you know good fight time for pokemon make sure to load up on volcano bake meat mother you're like all right like this is awesome this is better than the original games it's just it's hilarious but again there is a creepy dark side to this but let let's circle back. What about Lavender Town Syndrome? Could it really exist? Could a certain sound make people go crazy? Let's look at some examples. Between 2002 and 2012 in the Philippines, a karaoke version of My Way by Frank Sinatra for some reason made people fight each other. All right, that is just alcohol, I'm pretty sure.

That's nothing to do with... What could possibly... A karaoke version also is just an instrumental cover. That's a really good point. Look, maybe there was something about the f***ed up midi. I think they actually had to ban it for many years to stop these fights from breaking out. I mean, I guess it's a pretty annoying song for someone to like, if they're out of tune.

Yeah, it's definitely not on the same level as hearing the music and the pupils in your eyes roll back and you become a fighting machine. We also investigated in an earlier episode the cursed Japanese Kleenex ad. Of course, a classic. Which, if you remember, featured the song It's a Fine Day by Miss Jane. It's a fine day, people are the weirdos.

Awful song. Awful. Genuinely terrifying. Which has been quite a cool one for this paranormal life lore because some of our listeners will occasionally hear the song out and about or on tv or something and they'll be like cover your ears because it's really weird when you hear it out of context and you just it's like you're a sleeper cell and you're just like hold on what the what's happening yeah why do i this? You feel like it's in the middle of fucking inception.

And that's the song that triggers you to wake up that you're like, oh, my God. Oh, my God, it's real. And it's interesting, Kit, that you brought up activating a sleeper cell, because when you think about it, that is another example of audio being used to trigger some kind of response. being used to trigger some kind of response. It's called the concept of a trigger phrase, which is used a lot in popular media where a sleeper cell or some sort of Manchurian candidate can be activated by hearing a series of words in a certain order.

I think one of the most famous ones probably now is the Winter Soldier in the Marvel movies. Bucky Barnes, who's activated by, yeah, hearing a collection of words, homecoming, foxtrot, rusted, you know, and then he just activates as a war machine, basically. What a bonkers idea. Is there any truth behind that one?

You know, I did look into it, and if there is, it's deeply classified. It seems to be a very popular thing in fiction. So it's hard to say if it really did come from somewhere. But from what I could tell, I don't think there's any real world examples of this being used. I mean, you go back to Project MKUltra and some of that shit. Who knows? Genuinely, they probably did try some weird stuff like this.

But maybe these people are hiding in plain sight. I mean, I don't know if you've watched that MF-fr deron brown but he's pretty good at the old trigger phrases he walks up to people says sleep and they collapse all right that is not magic that is dark arts like it's not okay voldemort shit right there you can't just walk up to someone and say, sleep, and make them drop to the ground. That's the next best thing to telling your ghost Pokemon, curse, the screen goes black, and you wake up playing Need for Speed Underground. It's a good thing that he wants to be an entertainer.

We have said it before. It's a good thing he's a nice man. Dude, I would use that power all the time. I would walk into McDonald's and just say, burgers. And they just start handing them over. Go to my boss, money. I'm sure that, I mean, you don't even have to have a job or a boss to do that. You can just go to a bank.

That's true, yeah. With a gun, you can say money. I don't know to what extent our american listeners are aware of derren brown but i very much recommend him i i we talked about him on the case about levitation yeah yeah and and i'm biased as someone sitting here in great britain but um you know i think's, I think there's more to it than like your Chris Angels and your kind of TV stuntman. Like, I've watched his live shows. I've got friends who went to his,

I think I have one friend who was a volunteer on one of his stage shows. Yeah, he's still sleeping, by the way. He never woke up. It's been six months. It's not okay. His parents are waiting by his bedside with a new video game but he's yet to wake up jesus christ yeah i don't know what's going on there the thing

is he claims to come clean at the start of all his shows he's like look this ain't magic this is i can't remember what he says exactly but he like, this is a combination of the power of suggestion. Right. It's like mind tricks. Priming. Yeah. Neurological conditioning. Da, da, da, da, da.

I'm just like, all right, wizard, get in the sack. Yeah. Well, what's that phrase? Technology. Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Thank you very much. And you could say the same thing about mind games. think it was dumbledore who said that one yeah i remember in that episode being very skeptical of the concept of levitation right up until the point where you showed me a video of him

in the studio and i was completely won over uh so I mean, you are right. There is maybe, yeah, we're kind of edging into hypnosis here. But, again. True. Can words, can sounds control or activate the human mind? Were all of these children basically sleeper cells? And as soon as they heard Snorlax, Gyarados, Pikachu, they were all activated? They were activated to go buy more pokemon merchandise uh then of course we also have the brown note uh a legendary note so low that it

how can this be relevant how can this be relevant to i think that's what's playing out the cat alarm in my garden because those cats it hasn't stopped them remotely in the slightest i wasn't gonna bring it up by the way but if you want to stop a creature from shitting i think the last thing you should do is blast it with a sonar beam if you're that's gonna make me shit that'll make me shit yeah they basically lock eyes with me through the window while crapping i think there is a brown note situation going on. I'm sure a lot of our listeners are familiar with this one. A quick fact check will reveal that it is not real, the brown note.

There is no note low enough that, what was the idea? It vibrated your bowels? Yeah, it hit a resonant frequency of the human digestive tract. That would just make you poop yourself immediately on the spot. I have definitely listened to it full blast at like 13 years old as well. You found it? I've been searching, brother. I think if you just plug it into YouTube, it's like you can simulate it.

It's not to be confused with something called brown noise. Sure. Which is a noise that people use for meditation. It's a different frequency. Don't get those mixed up. Don't be sitting there cross-legged on your yoga mat and play the brown note. Because that's going to be a messy, messy meditation session. Oh boy, hope that thing's waterproof.

I'm sorry to the lunch enjoyers out there. This is a crass episode. Normally it's not this bad. I did not realize it was going to be this crass this week. Although the idea of music affecting someone's brain does sound crazy, there are parts of it that might not be that crazy after all. You might be familiar with this kit, but many people believe that the original

Lavender Town theme, the one that attacked all of these children, was an early example of something called binaural beats. Right, right, binaural beats. Where two separate tones are played into each ear at slightly different frequencies. The tiny difference causes a mismatch as the sound travels to the auditory part of your brain stem. This sounds like nonsense, but it is the exact opposite. It is actual science. I believe then in that process your brain creates a third frequency to try and fill the gap in between the two that are mismatching. And binaural beats are used for all sorts of things.

Some people say they can help you sleep. Others say that there's ones that increase your memory or your IQ. I found one actually on YouTube that was just like, this will get you cash. And I'm all here for like i'm all here for the manifesting and the meditation aspect of this but some of the comments were just like i listened to this at 8 p.m and the next morning i found gold it's like i don't think the music did that right ironically the only sound that you can listen to that might get you cash is the audio to a gary v motivational video yeah uh so even though i am skeptical of some of the benefits of binaural beats it is a real thing

at least on paper some form of it is a real thing it is this is a rabbit hole i have gone down there is an enormous black hole of binaural beats kind of strange paranormal pseudoscience on youtube alone you can find videos where you can manifest just about anything there's even entire communities of people that believe that all instruments in the world are out of tune because in modern music for hundreds and hundreds of years, we've tuned the note A to 440 hertz. But people are like, no, the true resonant frequency of of the earth if we were to line up with that is

actually 432 hertz or whatever um so people have uploaded catalogs of music where everything's detuned what they believe is the true frequency of the earth um oh i see it's very strange i mean you know what i will say is all this kind of audio stuff is in the scheme of online nonsense is all extremely harmless. We say that as two people who have, as they say, gone down these rabbit holes, listened to a ton of videos. I've sat there and tried to make myself shit myself. It didn't work. Spoiler alert. Yeah.

So you can really give it all a go when i was reading about this uh i read a few articles about there's a whole subcategory of these binaural beats that essentially are supposed to get you f***ed up right audio drugs yeah that they're like will replicate the effect of like lsd or weed or something just by listening to this mishmash of frequencies and i mean without getting too hippy dippy here i mean this is not remotely a new idea like this all goes back to let's say religious or spiritual traditions of using noise to affect your consciousness totally the um that's where the um comes from yeah the um in yeah, the um in, you know, Eastern meditation.

Think of... They were trying to get f***ed up. They were trying to rage. Those ancient monks were trying to go wild. They were shotgunning white claws and umming till sunrise. Perfection and enlightenment, actually. Yeah, so... They were getting f***ed up on that holy wine.

You know it. Well well that much is true so i think it's safe to say that you know there is a certain element of truth when you ask the question can audio whether that's binaural beats or i mean even uh there were articles saying about well yeah music can actually affect the brain even in the form of when you put on your favorite song, dopamine is literally released. It makes me happy. Yeah, make you happy. Like there is science behind that. Whenever I listen to Gucci Mane, I want to take cocaine. You know, these are real effects. It is. But unfortunately, I think that can't be the conclusion of this week's episode. If we want to keep this paranormal, we have to look at this sensation in a much more dramatic fashion,

which is not necessarily Lavender Town because we all know it most likely isn't real. But do we think, Kit, that there could be some sort of audio, some sort of music or sound that could make a human go buck wild, drop to the floor, nose bleeding, vomiting. I mean, if it's loud enough, like, like, have you ever seen, have you ever seen the biggest speaker on earth? And they're like, right. It could detonate a human it would just melt your brain it would melt your head so a double yes is what you're saying

what I'm saying is if we're just talking volume or something it's not paranormal do you think it's paranormal? no we're not talking about just how loud it is if it could kill someone we're talking about a paranormal effect a supernatural effect that it could happen,

whether the audio is cursed. No. Okay. Now, as I said, we are both very hard of hearing, so we're coming from a place where regular audio barely affects us. Right. So there could be people out there who had a genuine reaction to the Lavender Town music or have had some pretty paranormal experiences with binaural beats. If that is you, do get in touch. Email us in at thisparanormallifepodcast at gmail.com.

But unfortunately today, when we look at the Lavender Town theme and the paranormal side of music, Is this something really that can activate something inside a human? Can music be cursed and spread around through paranormal means? No, that's not what we've seen today. And we can continue to investigate it. But for now, it's going to be a double no. But thank you so much, everyone, for listening to this week's episode of the podcast. everyone for listening to this week's episode of the podcast i will say if you enjoyed the video game chat do check out uh the bonus episode that we did hosted by kit where we covered i believe five different haunted video games in one episode there's a lot of fun stuff there or you can even

go back and listen to the episode that we did on Polybius, a machine that apparently existed at one point that was created, I think, by the CIA. We never really got to the bottom of it, but it's a great story. It really is. Here's a paranormal sound for you. Did that do anything? That was just you screaming. All right, let me try this one. Creepy.

More. Yeah, I'm sure. Again, not necessarily paranormal, just the noise. What's happening right now? I'm trying to scare the cats away. I feel if I can record this and blight out the speakers, they might f*** off. It wasn't paranormal, but I tell you what, Kit, it is a great way to get people's attention so that we can plug our Patreon.

Oh! That's right, folks. As I said, we have a ton of amazing bonus episodes over on Patreon. But that's just the, that's not even the icing on the cake or the cake itself. It's ice cream on the side of the cake. With maybe sprinkles on top. I'm lost. Yeah, the analogy is kind of getting away from me.

What I'm trying to say is there's a whole plate of desserts over on Patreon. We have extra bonus episodes. We have TPL merchandise that you can get. And of course, you can listen to every episode ad-free for those of you who want to just get straight to the juicy content. It's very true. As I said in recent weeks, you know, if you're enjoying this part of my life, if you enjoyed this episode, all the main episodes are free on this main public feed.

But we make another five episodes a month between our bonus episode and our after party weekly episodes. Five episodes that are only available on Patreon every single month. I mean, that's a lot of this part of my life you could be missing out on. You want to hear the whole backstory as to how Rory woke up wearing a candy watch? That's on the after parties on Fridays. X-rated, baby. It gets a little sexy, let me tell you. It's all there over on patreon.com. Do go check it out because also on one of our tiers on Patreon, we give shout outs to the lovely people that support us.

And that's what we're going to do right now. So special thank you to Serena Lakehan. Serena Lakehan lives on a Serene Lake. Man. It's placid. It's very chill. They go paddle boarding there. Ooh, what a life.

What a life. Can you fish there? Can you live off the lake? Serena does it sometimes with dynamite. Really likes to f*** shit up down by the lake. I thought it was like a nice, chill lake. Thanks also to James Shaw. Come on down to James Shaw's Saws.

You can get bone saws. Saws for wood. That shouldn't be allowed. Bone saws. Did I say that one already? Yeah, it was the only one you said. Saws for things other than bones. Human flesh.

Is any saw a bone saw? Maybe that's a question when I get down to the shop. James loves talking about this topic, actually. Thanks to Marissa Broom. Marissa Broom, unfortunately, retired when Marissa Hoover really hit the scene. Most people were like, ah, Mrs. Broom, you're great. We've been big friends since day one, but Mrs. Hoover is really all we need now. It's a dying art.

It truly is. Out there with the milkman, the miners, coal people. Have you thought about fishing with dynamite? There's a great place. You should give it a shot. Yeah. Career change. How about sweeping the bottom of the ocean?

Thanks to Oscar Ponce. Oscar is a doctor. And if you go to him with like any kind of scar on your body, he can kind of repurpose it into something else. Like, you know,

when you get a tattoo covered up and he'll turn it into something else. Like what? Like a bigger scar. Whoa! Keep the bone saw away. Thanks to Tom Kirkpatrick.rick proud owner of tom's bombs

a store doing very well in the local fishing towns uh we're yet to kind of understand why that is uh or why so many of my crabs and shrimp have come in pieces tiny tiny pieces tiny pieces but tom glad to see things are doing well for you do you have a license for those thanks to Tyler Pruitt Tyler Pruitt's been through it

oh my lord this guy has seen my goodness every hardship that could befall a man I mean Pokemon cards lost in the laundry

Pokemon cards lost on a gutter in the street so mostly Pokemon cards related Pokemon cards yeah yeah yeah absolutely

Pokemon cards he bought fakes online like this is he hasn't been through everything hard shit never let alone hardship hard shit how about that has he ever been through like divorce no no he's a billionaire he's had an incredibly gilded life okay form of the silver spoon in his mouth so like he's had loving parents then as well oh everything could possibly no employment struggles no he's six nine jacked full ride scholarship all through college yeah it's mostly the pokemon but the pokemon stuff he's been through it tyler keep your head up bud thanks to crazy jim crazy jim is exactly the guy you want to talk to whenever you're just uh traveling town to town and you go to the local bars and they're like, who's that guy?

Oh, that's crazy, Jim. Yeah. All right. I'm getting a drink for me and Jim because I need to hear everything that he's been up to for the last few years. Jim's got some stories. Thank you, Charles Rice Rice Charles Rice is a rice salesman Working out of Indianapolis Rory would you like some brown rice Some white rice What can I put you down for today Shit I didn't know I was buying I don't need any rice

Why did you come here Why did you come here I just Sorry Sorry you came to the rice store And you don't Well I assume maybe you also did, like, beans and things. Like, I didn't know it was just rice.

I would rather die than sell beans. How many grains can I put you down for, sir? By the grain? Lock the doors. You must buy a grain. Okay. A grain of rice, please. That will be $10,000.

Okay. Thank you to Kylie Martin. You know, Kylie was actually, I spent a lot of time researching these kind of strange noises we were talking about. After years spent researching the brown note, they actually accidentally stumbled across the white note. Kylie did?

Yeah. Wow, what does that do? It sends you straight to heaven. Oh, okay. Well, you do die in the process. Right, and shit yourself. Yeah, but it's a guaranteed fast pass. Do not pass go, do not collect 100, just straight to heaven.

If there was a note, if there was a white note that could send you to heaven, but you're guaranteed to go to heaven, but you would die and shit yourself yeah on the way out would you listen to it uh I would just

it would be like my suicide pill I would just keep it on me at all times then the moment I was in mortal danger I'd be like I

queue up the airpods get the airpods in cause that's like everyone wants to go to heaven it's the good one mhm but if it exists then you've got like a good shot of getting in anyway if you're a good person so do you like gamble it and try and get in or do you you have a shit stain you have

you have a good question said many times how you would try and scam your way into heaven. As a joke. As a joke. Thanks to Dan McNaughton. Dan just opened up a rice store in town. We should go. Bad idea. Why so many rice stores? I need rice. I need rice, dude. I've got a small deposit on a house in my pockets burning a hole,

and I want some rice. Get the house, obviously. No, I want some nice rice, dude. Dan, I want nothing from you thanks to james dean james dean himself the legend hey let me tell you buddy thanks for listening to the podcast i actually have my own little bastard uh i bought a sports car back in northern ireland a little convertible that um if the white noise doesn't get me, I'm going to heaven in that thing. So thanks for listening. Kind of alike you and I.

Yeah, I'm falling in your footsteps. Thank you to Michelangelo Paris Chica. Michelangelo wants to know where you can find a Paris Chicas. He's single and he's ready to mingle. I couldn't recommend more of the rice store that just opened down the street, Michelangelo. Oh, yeah. The girls are loving it. They have ladies night on a Tuesday.

The bar is buzzing. Lots of rice wines, sake on offer. Thanks to Monica Gonzalez. Might as well call her Bomica because she's throwing so many grenades in that lake. We're going to be eating tuna steaks for weeks. I've had it. I need to see a permit. Where did you get this?

Who is selling all this high power weaponry? And why does the lake deserve it, Bomica? Thanks to Peg, brackets, the twins. Peg, I think this classes as some kind of federal tax evasion. A single Patreon account for presumably twins? Twins, yeah. I'm reporting you to Uncle Sam. And yes, as I said, Kit and I are technically registered as a charity and also as a dog.

Don't say that out loud. Technically we're a dog. Technically we're guide dogs. So sure, you know, everything's not quite kosher with us and Uncle Sam. But I really think if we report you guys, we might get some credit.

Thank you to everyone who supported us on Patreon, and thank you to everyone else who just tuned in and listened to this week's episode. We will be back on Friday with an after party. We're going to have a bonus episode later in the month. And of course we will be back once again with a brand new paranormal tale.