This Paranormal Life - #282 The Tobacco-Loving Sea Demon of Lake Koshkonong

Episode Date: September 27, 2022

This week we dive into the not-so-deep lakes of Wisconsin, to investigate an evil, tobacco-loving monster that hasn't seen the light of day for almost 100 years... no we're not talking about Kit, we're talking about the SEA DEMON of lake KoshkonongSupport 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 GrisdaleEdited by Louis BlatherwickIntro music by www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens if the earth starts spinning in the wrong direction? Can swallowing an eraser cure lead poisoning? All of these questions you can find the answer to on This Paranormal Life! Hello loyal commune members and welcome back to an episode of This Paranormal Life, the only podcast on the internet technically registered as a church so that we don't have to pay any taxes. That's not what we tell our subjects on tax day. Well, yeah, of course, because...

Sorry, I was supposed to say that bit quiet, right? Yeah. We're a church. We're a church. You know, it comes with lots of benefits. Of course, the tax-free thing is great. You have to pay taxes. If we weren't a church, why would I be wearing robes?

Exactly. Why would we have so many boxes of wine and crackers? And another one, do we eat most of the wine and crackers also? Yes. But that doesn't mean that we're not a legitimate church. So if you could all rise right now, as I read from the book of Carl, he was one of those disciples that didn't get talked about much. And as Rory reads, please put your hands in the air, close your eyes and do not mind the

rustling around in your back pockets that you may or may not feel. That is the... It's the hands of the Lord. The hands of the Lord rummaging around. The needy, weak hands of the Lord. The hands of the Lord. Rummaging around. The needy, weak hands of the Lord. No, this Paranormal Life is a podcast hosted by myself, Roy Powers, and the man across from me, Kit Greer. Every week we investigate a brand new paranormal tale and come to a conclusion as to whether or not it truly is paranormal. Ladies and gentlemen, this week's podcast is a Rory Powers original investigation. Because I felt like it had been a while since I

got my hands dirty. Excluding, of course, last week when I dropped my air pod down the toilet. But today, they're dirty with real bog water. That's right. Dirty brown lake water. This is too much. How did you think this would be entertaining? Because today we're investigating a paranormal creature that resides in Lake Koshkanong, a creature known by many names.

Some call it a demon. Others a sea beast. But I call it dead meat. Because I'm about to drag this motherfucker onto the land and expose him in front of the paranormal world. Using the medium of podcasting, of course. It's a metaphor. Not actually.

You're not actually getting your hands dirty. I'm scared of boats and demons. So I will not be going anywhere near this thing. Because Rory is talking a big game while he's reclining in his lazy boy office chair, drinking a hot cup of coffee. This is the equivalent of me talking shit about the creature on a Reddit post and then it turning up at my door. Tell him I'm not in.

Tell him I'm not in. Tell him I'm sorry too. I won't write anymore. Our story today begins in Wisconsin, 1887, and two hunters by the names of A.I. Sherman and Charles Bartlett were out on Lake Koshkanong, floating on the still water, looking for ducks to blast into smithereens. It was the 1800s after all.

Something like 50 to 60% of the U.S. workforce was employed in duck blasting. Not even hunting, just destroying them. Don't get better than this, eh, Charles? Sure don't, buddy. Two dudes out on the water. What more could a guy want? A woman? Yeah, a woman. That would be great. I am incredibly lonely. Suddenly, the two men heard a light splashing noise coming from somewhere on the lake. Oh, shit. Get the guns ready, buddy. It's duck hunting time. The men raised their guns and gazed down the barrel. They panned their surroundings, expecting to see some sort of animal just begging for a little double barrel surprise but there was nothing at least nothing

above the water oh no down below the surface something was moving but it couldn't have been a fish it was too big an alligator a shark some kind of prehistoric megaloduck. Let's not dive that far. A 30-foot quacker. It looks like Donald. It might even have the same clothes. This could be the equivalent of the two, like in the sci-fi movie, where these hunters think that they've been killing all the battle ducks. But then they're like, oh, my God, those were just the recon ducks.

That's the mother duck. And it's like the duck the size of a planet coming in. Inception horns, guong. Oh Lord. They didn't know what this thing was. I mean, this is also a lake, so your options are kind of limited here. It's not going to be a whale or a sea cow.

Can sea cows live in lakes? Probably not by definition. I am already in over my head in marine and aquatic questions i don't know all right i thought you'd at least have some theories as to what as to what it was you just asked me the pretty specific question and i just froze up i just froze up so don't ask me too many scientific questions dude because i don't know i'm not a scientist like i'm a paranormal investigator like ask me about like kind of ghost living a lake actually i don't know but all right

animals do i get stressed okay my blood a little bit of context to this the doctor said that my blood pressure is very high incredibly unbelievably high for someone your age that doesn't sound like a medical term it sounds like he was kind of being spiteful. He actually gave me some shades on the way out. He was like, if you see anything too bright, I think it will surprise you and spike your blood pressure. You are on the brink of death. The irony is your future is dark,

so you do not need the shades. I don't need shades. So just don't stress me out. Okay. With these kind of, I just get need the shades. I don't need shades. So just don't stress me out. Okay. Okay. With these kind of, I just get stressed if I don't have answers. All right. I will say very little has happened so far in the story.

I mean, nothing really stressful has happened. You asked me if a sea cow. If a sea cow could live, I can't even say it. If a sea cow could live in a lake. I don't think so. I'll take the lead on this one. I don't think so. A sea cow?

I don't know. I don't know. Do they need salt? Okay. this one. I don't think so. A sea cow? I don't know. I don't know. Do they need salt? Okay. Well, we can look. We can Google that question later. I don't want to raise your blood pressure. So if you're happy, we'll just move on.

Things are going to get crazier though. I need you to be aware of that. So he told me to do some deep breathing exercises. I told him I worked with a real pain in the ass and he said, you're not going to last until Tuesday. So rude. Just keep it light. You're being a pain in the ass, by the way,

because you shouldn't have started the podcast if you knew that you had these ongoing medical issues that meant you couldn't answer questions. We'll just get through this. If you feel like your heart's going to explode, just have a safe word. You're just going to need to cut out the deep breathing. Okay.

That's hard to cut out. It's so... Move away from the mic! Like, I'm gonna f***ing die. I'm about to f***ing die. I can't cut out words. I can't cut out this amount of noise. He's such a f***ing pain in the ass, man. I can't do it. My heart's fine, but he's a pain in the ass. I can hear you. I can't do it. My heart's fine, but he's a pain in the ass. I can hear you. The two men were frozen, afraid to rock the boat and attract the attention of whatever this lake beast was. As it continued under the water, the men got a better look at what this thing was, and they couldn't believe their eyes. It was enormous, like a giant serpent. Its 35-foot body silked through the water,

creating waves that rocked the boats as it passed. That's not a duck. The monster floated right by them and headed further into the lake, leaving the two men safely with their lives intact. Or so they thought. Anime style. The top half of their body slid off the bottom half. They didn't realize it had sliced them to bits.

The sea serpent just briefly unsheathed its katana. And the two men sliced in half. As I said, these were not normal men. They were hunters of the most dangerous animal alive. Ducks. A creature that has mastered three modes of transport, ground, water, flight, and they've done it all through just eating bread. They are kind of OP when you put it that way.

Although, I don't know that you even need a gun. I'm not a hunter, but I don't know if you even need a gun for that, for hunting ducks. I feel like they could probably just... Oh, I thought you meant for hunting a 35- snake beast and i'm pretty sure you do yeah you're gonna need a bigger gun if anything a cannon probably you need to be in a pirate ship to take this thing on hey hey i know that thing looks scary and yes we should probably swim to shore, but hear me out. What if, instead, we sneak up behind it and shoot it in the back of the f***ing neck? Are you crazy? We don't know what this thing is and you want to shoot it?

Use your head. It could be bulletproof. We better use dynamite. Good idea. In a burst of bloodlust, the two men rode furiously towards the creature with the hopes of blasting its head off and dragging it back to shore. This is why the Loch Ness Monster doesn't want to surface, folks. Because if this is the reaction of humans, stay underwater. Also, this is why Nessie lives to this day, because we don't have a Second Amendment.

Right. If there was dynamite freely flowing in the hills of Scotland, Nessie would have been gone a long time ago. Can you imagine being a sea beast who has lived underwater since the time of dinosaurs? And you're like, I'm going to pop up. I'm going to pop up and just see what's going on up there. And you dip your head out and you are face to face with the barrel of a shotgun looney tune style okay i'm going back down i'm going back down i'm not coming back up again they rode and rode into the lake but the creature was too fast it could tell that they were coming

from a mile away before the two men could even get close the beast was gone this is the bit in the movie where they're like it turns out it's not just massive and ancient and dangerous it's also smarter than us yeah i feel like living in water probably helps because it's like i could maybe feel the vibrations and the ripples and shit. No, I really think it's playing 3D chess. It's 10 moves ahead. I can hear their thoughts, maybe. Okay, I wouldn't go that far, but I think it definitely... It would make it paranormal.

I think it's already paranormal, but I don't think it needs to be able to fly and read minds necessarily. So they headed back to the shore and returned to the town empty-handed. Well, not entirely empty-handed. They may not back to the shore and returned to the town empty-handed. Well, not entirely empty-handed. They may not have captured the beast, but they did capture the imagination of the local townspeople and tavern dwellers, regaling them with the story of their heroic battle with the beast. It really was a different time. Today, we do things for the ground. We take pictures of ourselves, put them online

in order to get internet points from strangers. Back then, it wasn't much different. You did it for the tavern dwellers. Yeah, you did it

for the shanty. Do it for the shanty, the pirates would say before they did something f***ing stupid. Right. Before they planked on El Capitan or something because you know if you did

something dumb enough and legendary enough they'd be like bro people are going to be singing about this shit for years yeah jump off the mast head or something you know do it do it everyone's like egging him on do it for the shanty yeah and that's why you know so many pirate tales have been immortalized they were just early viral videos, basically. You didn't get likes or retweets. You got pints of grog at the tavern. You got bought pints. When you went to the local grog hole at a port, everyone would just be like, dude, have you heard the latest shanty?

Sing the shanty. Show them the new shanty. They'd all sink it. They'd be like, that's crazy. You know, that's how it would kind of spread it was a simpler time there's kind of tiktok-esque shanty dances yeah that are viral in each tavern i might start saying do it for the shanty that's a cool phrase i like that a lot so here they were in the tavern regaling the locals with the stories of their heroic battle so there i was knife in one hand bible in the tavern, regaling the locals with the stories of their heroic battle. So there I was, knife in one hand, Bible in the other. The beast was swinging at me with more hands than a German wedding. Sherman here was captured, wrapped up in the creature's tentacles

so tightly they'd suck the clothes off his body. Well, that's not entirely true. Butt naked and afraid, Sherman here cried for help like a newborn child. No, no, that's not entirely true. But naked and afraid, Sherman here cried for help like a newborn child. No, no, that's not how- The creature's intentions were clear. It was mating season, brother, and Sherman was on the menu. All right, I'm going home. News of the sighting spread like wildfire. The story was even retold in the Watertown Republic newspaper.

As the story began to grow and the rumors began to spread, more and more witnesses started coming out of the woodwork. Witnesses who I guess were maybe too scared to bring up the fact that they saw something like this themselves long ago. You know, if you have someone now who is openly admitting that they saw the creature, maybe that would make you comfortable enough coming forward and saying, okay, if we're all talking about it, I actually saw it too. I didn't want to tell anyone because I didn't want you all to think I was crazy,

but I also wrestled with the beast. I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying. There's probably, you know, some couples out there or some parents and children, for example, where maybe one person in the family saw it and all the others talked them out of it. They're like, are you? Shut up. Are you crazy?

It was definitely a twig or a duck. And then they hear this story and they're slapping the other person. They're like, what did I tell you? I saw this shit. Yeah. Why didn't you let me tell people? Everyone's loving this shanty. Damn it!

A local farmer from the west side of the lake said that he had a small drove of pigs that were feeding down by the banks, when all of a sudden something emerged from the water and grabbed them from the shore, pulling them deep into the lake. Most

terrifying of all, the bodies were never found. Damn. Eaten whole. Yeah. Bones of all, the bodies were never found. Damn, eaten whole. Yeah, bones and all. That's weird. I don't like that. Yeah, it'd have to be pretty big. I mean, that's kind of like crocodile behavior, right?

Do we have crocodiles in Wisconsin? Well, Jesus, I have no clue. Possibly. But also, crocodiles don't, like, they're famously bad eaters. What? Because their mouths are just like a f***ing snap, snap, snap. You never invite one to a nice restaurant. Their table manners are very poor.

The only thing I know about either crocodiles or alligators is they can't chew properly. Okay. So that's why they grab onto shit and do the gator death spin. Right. Is to rip flesh off of things. Yeah, you don't need to chew if you can do a gator death spin. It's like a fucking Pokemon attack. That's how I eat my quarter pounders at 4 a.m. after a drunken night.

I do the Rory death spin, which isn't so much eating as trying to roundhouse kick the cashier to take as many fries and Big Macs as I want. Yeah, Rory in the back of a McDonald's is a bit like a bull in a china shop. Just shit flying everywhere, tables smashing and crashing. I say, I'll have three happy meals and you'll have the Rory death spin. And I try and do a roundhouse kick. You haven't even bitten anything yet. I spin and I try and do a roundhouse kick. You haven't even bitten anything yet. I don't know if they have alligators,

but I don't even think alligators or crocodiles eat bones, Kit. Don't ask me. I'm not a scientist. That wasn't even a question. I'm not. I don't know what animals do what. All I know is the paranormal. And the more that I think about it,

the more my blood pressure is going up. It's going up! You shouldn't be on this podcast if you don't even know shit about real animals. Do you have a paper bag or something? Because this is Christ alive. I'm going to need some water.

I give you a paper bag and you put it over my head. I just can't look at you. I can't look at you and my heart rate starts to f***ing spike. Another nearby fisherman claimed that one day while out on the lake, him and his men felt a strong tug on their nets. Holy s***.

We got a big one. Quickly, boys. Haul in the nets. They pulled and pulled, fighting against the mysterious force. Then all of a sudden, the ropes went slack. When they pulled the nets out of the water, they discovered that whatever they had caught had managed to rip through their industrial fishing nets.

How industrial was this fishing net in the 1800s? It was, it was... I'll be honest, I threw in the 1800s. It was, it was. I'll be honest. I threw in the word industrial into the story. I don't know how industrial anything was back then. I think it was hay knitted together with lettuce. I mean, look, they're obviously taking this net out often into this lake to catch fish. They've never had a problem with it since.

into this lake to catch fish. They've never had a problem with it since. How is there going to be some sort of trout or salmon big enough to rip through this net? I need to know if there's crocodiles in the lake. I need to know. All right. Are there crocodiles in Wisconsin? No, this is not helpful.

Siri's going to be like, Wisconsin, known as Crocodile USA, home of the crocodile. Oh, f***, all right, that doesn't help. Lake Koshkonong, also known as the Crocodile District. Damn it! I appreciate that Americans are going to think I'm dumb as hell. You're right.

Crocodiles do not live in Wisconsin. Apparently they live very far away from Wisconsin Because Wisconsin is very far up north Almost bordering with Canada And from my knowledge Crocodiles are mostly down south Florida Georgia

Texas possibly That being said Fox News in 2022 Said that a pet alligator escaped and was running around Wisconsin. So is it so impossible? Yeah, no, people didn't have pet alligators back then, I don't think. Yeah, we're talking about 18, what, 87. So I think we can rule out crocodile or alligator.

Another reason why we can definitely say this isn't a crocodile or an alligator is because on many occasions when this thing was seen, it was described as being between 18 to 12 inches wide. Pretty wide for a crocodile. Okay. And 40 foot long. I see the wide

the width of this thing is really negligible. Doesn't matter. The 40 feet long is the headline. Let's not bury the lead here. It's a slinky. It's a bloodthirsty slinky. I actually have an artist illustration of this creature,

which will help, I think, really nail the fact that what we're dealing with here is not something we've ever seen before. Okay, this could be really helpful for illustrative purposes, given that I am hell-bent on comparing this thing to a crocodile. Okay, it's Nessie. It's Nessie.

But a different kind of Nessie. You know, it has... Is it? It has, like, slug tentacles. Or slug antennas. Well, the slug antennas are a bit weird. It's essentially an eel, a sea eel, a conger eel. I don't know what that is.

But 30, 40 foot long. The conger eel is presumably an eel from the Donkey Kong universe. Yes, obviously much bigger. This is quite an artful interpretation, I would say. It is, yeah. It's like a watercolor gauche painting. They didn't have pictures. Weirdly, also in a lot of online articles,

the monster is also depicted as looking like this. Why did you show me this? Just because we have varying information from different individuals, so it's good to... You have to know that this is bad for the case, right? Then I'll delete it. Then I'll delete it, all right? No, no, because it's too late.

I'll delete it from the edit. You can't delete it from my memory. I'll delete it from the edit. I'm not going to let it go. You have to know that, that I'm going to bring this up against you and against the case later on. Then give me back the iPad.

Give me back the iPad, I insist. It dr zoidberg from futurama is standing waist deep in a lake this is like the judge being like you know for your first bit of evidence you shouldn't have submitted the murder weapon with your fingerprints on it then i'll then i'll. I'll take it back. I'll delete it. I'll take it back. It's like, that's not how crime or government works. Now, before we go any further, I think it's important to talk about the lake itself because that'll help us realize how possibly insane it is

that people think a creature like this lives there. Not impossible, but pretty crazy. Okay. The lake is over 10,000 acres, and the visibility is recorded as being very low. So it is possible that a creature could easily hide there in the lake. Okay, so 10,000 acres. I'm not a scientist, but... We know.

We know, by the way. I just want everyone to know because I don't want any undue expectations on me as a paranormal investigator. I'm supposed to know how shit works. But acres? I think. That's big. 10,000 acres is very big for a lake, yeah. And visibility, again, not a scientist, but you said per, so it's murky and muddy.

It's murky. It's muddy. Great place to hide. One problem, the recorded max depth of the lake is seven foot. There's no way. There's no way. That makes it a little harder for an enormous sea beast to hide somewhere. You mean to tell me...

It's a puddle. It's a large, dirty puddle. You mean to tell me... It's a puddle. It's a large, dirty puddle. You mean to tell me that Sherman could have borderline stood up in the lake if he'd fallen in? They arguably didn't need a boat at all. Seven feet? Are you seven foot?

I don't think so, motherfucker. Little five foot one piece of shit over there. I'm sorry. That's an ocean to you, brother. Five foot one? How about add three inches to that measurement Motherfucker I'm 5'4 I thought you were talking about your dick

Because How about you add 2 and a half inches Of hot sausage meat To that measurement brother You must know that's not a large penis because that thing is three inches tall. But uh-oh, the most important thing is three centimeters wide, motherfucker.

Oh, you want to see a sea snake? It's not a height word. You can't add your penis length to your height. Now, while claims of this monster's existence did surprise a lot of the locals, to others, they knew exactly what this creature was. The monster of Lake Koshkanong. All right, that figures. That's right.

The origins of this creature actually date back all the way to before European settlers even arrived in Wisconsin. Back then, the region was home to the Potawatomi tribe, and one of their villages was nested right by Lake Koshkaron. In theory, a great location to be settled. Fresh water, fish, protection from possibly a mythological sea beast. It's a great place to be. Settle right next to fresh water. Back then, the visibility was perfect. It was a lot of hunter trash and pollution from Europeans that turned it into muddy, murky water.

Yeah, it used to be 35 foot deep, glistening water. It was beautiful. As long as the tribe could remember, they had been warned about, quote, the demon in the lake. Ooh. The legend said that the creature was known to overturn canoes and drag anyone on board all the way down to the bottom of the lake and devour them below the waters. Jeez, it's crazy how everything that gets dragged on don't come back up. We're not even talking about getting bashed about like an angry octopus.

They are getting consumed to the point where nothing floats back to the top, which is pretty scary. Most interestingly, it's also said the creature has a hidden underground cavernous home made out of white clay. At the time, it was believed that many water demons would carve out homes under the water and then seal them up with white clay, which was, according to the legends, their shit. Okay. I mean...

They poop white clay. Yeah. I mean, that seems believable from a nature standpoint. It also meant that if you were someone who ever discovered white clay nearby on the banks of a river, could mean there's a sea demon nearby. Jeez. So we're getting some pretty interesting terminology being used. Demon would indicate it's evil and it's bad.

Yeah. But it also does seem to be like an animal, a cryptid. Yeah. You know, I think its description and title changes from the cultural viewpoint that you come at it from. You know, to these native tribes, it was described as a demon because maybe that's how they kind of viewed these spirits. You know, then, you know, Europeans come over and they are like, it's a monster. That's where our viewpoint comes in. But it does have very many, does have a lot of different names.

To Sherman, when he was on the water, he prayed to it as a god for mercy. viewpoint comes in but it does have very many it does have a lot of different names to sherman when he was on the water he prayed to it as a god for mercy now even though the monster of lake koshkaron sounds like a pretty mean character it's not entirely evil there is a way to cross the lake without being attacked and that is to offer up a gift to the creature, specifically tobacco. Whoa. Yeah. Curveball. That kind of caught me off guard. What's this son of a bitch doing with tobacco? He's underwater. He can't even smoke it. Who is this aquatic Yoda who lives in a little home made of clay and sits around smoking tobacco all day. I know. I also love the idea of just traveling across the lake and it's getting to the point that it's so casual.

You're just flicking cigarettes in as you pass. That'll do. Three today. You'll get four on the way back. It seems to keep them happy. I'll tell you a way to safely cross the lake. Stilts. This shit is two foot deep.

Just run real quick. You'll be fine. You probably won't even fall in the water. It's said that you can give anything of value as a gift, but tobacco seems to be his favorite. Very interesting. I'm going to venture an argument that this may also reflect the cultural customs of the times. That tobacco might have been important and valuable and cherished to the indigenous people. Yeah. And probably the people shortly after. But I wouldn't be surprised if Sherman and Charles were offering up like holy Bibles

and gold or something. Yeah. He loves gold. Yeah. I don't think the request for tobacco came from the creature. It's not like he popped out and was like hey guys uh just so you know um anything is fine really money gift cards but i will be buying tobacco with it so we could just cut out the middleman and just if you want to give me tobacco that would be great anyway

see you later give me tobacco right you think it was more of uh the one time someone put some tobacco in the lake they didn't die and then that became the superstition ever since. Yeah, maybe someone was attacked by the beast and they did that cool action hero movie thing where he's like bleeding out on the boat about to get whacked by this sea creature. And the dude or the girl's like, if I'm going out, I'm going out smoking.

You know, it lights up a little cigarette and the smoke kind of fills the boat and then the creature dies down. And then it lights up a little uh a little cigarette and the smoke kind of fills the boat and then the creature dies down and then it's like hang on a minute and i flicks a few cigarettes into the water you want one too girl and then you know and the creature's happy with it and that knowledge gets passed down you have to know this is a nut story right the scene you depicted right now is this what you going to ask me to say is a yes? I'm not saying that happened. I'm just having fun telling these wild stories.

The creature we're investigating is a very real creature and you're about to find that out, Kit. Because it's wrath, it comes for us all. Unless you got tobacco. Unless you got a snooze pouch. Most people in the tribe believed this story, or at the very least, they didn't want to chance it. But two brothers weren't having any of it. A tobacco-loving demon at the bottom of a lake? F*** off. They wanted to prove to the whole village that there was nothing

to be worried about. Stop wasting your tobacco. So they headed out onto the lake to test the demon. It's not a good sentence. You deserve whatever outcome happens here. If you wake up in the morning and choose violence, you wake up in the morning, you're like, today I'm going to test a demon. That's what I'm going to do. Priests don't do that. They don't go, I'm going to test the demon. I'm going to test a demon. Yeah. That's what I'm going to do. Priests don't do that. They don't go, I'm going to test the demon. I'm going to see how strong he is. I'm going to poke him a little. I'm pretty sure even Richard Dawkins doesn't test demons. Even the people who don't believe in any of it don't run around just like,

I'm going to kick a black cat in the head, smash a mirror, and walk under a ladder just to prove a point. Yeah. Just flick a cigarette in the water. What is the big deal? It's better than possibly being attacked. But they were that confident that this thing didn't exist. So the brothers placed two canoes on opposite sides of the lake.

They decided they'd each take one boat out and meet in the middle without making an offering. Then they would continue onward to the other side. If they arrived unharmed, they would prove to the whole village that this demon in the lake was simply make-believe. As the two brothers began to slowly paddle across the lake, a crowd gathered nearby the shore. Some hoping to see that the demon truly didn't exist. Others hoping to see two dudes get wrecked by a water beast. Well, they're sick f**ks because that's bad.

The two men reached the center of the lake and still nothing appeared. The onlookers from the shore couldn't believe it. All that tobacco wasted. One of the brothers cried out, There, don't you see? There is no demon in the lake. We made it out here to the center without a gift and nothing bad happened.

But as he preached from the boat, storm clouds started to form above them. Uh-oh! Craig, where's the tobacco? Water in the lake began to churn, rocking the canoes from side to side.

Now if someone could come out with tobacco. Everyone starts walking back to the town. No, no, please. The brothers had to hold onto their canoes just to try and stay above the water, but it was no use. A huge wave formed and slammed into their boats, knocking them into the lake. When the storm had calmed and the water had settled, there was no sign of the men. Just two empty canoes floating lifelessly in the lake.

Jeez. The next day, a scream was heard. Locals rushed down to the banks of the river to find the lifeless bodies of the two men, their mouths, noses, and ears packed with white clay. White shit? There's shit in their mouths? That is so f***ed up. I mean, the disrespect.

This is a demon. I'm convinced. It's very, it's making a statement, isn't it? If he's known for eating the bodies in every last bit, he's trying to make a point here. Their mouths piled up with steaming white clay. Oh, God. This guy does not want to be pushed about. He really doesn't.

Now, obviously, a lot has changed since then. As more and more settlers moved to the lake, sightings and attacks by the creature slowly faded. And the legends of the demon of Lake Koshkonong slowly began to fade. As years went by and more people moved to the lake over the centuries and more speed boats blasted over the surface of the lake every weekend. I think it's a combination of that. And once a demon shits in your mouth, you really don't want to test it any further. It's proved its point.

Let it be. Let it do its own thing. Don't try and cross the lake at all. It's not worth it anymore. Agreed. Luckily, the creature was immortalized in one form by a museum curator called Charles E. Brown, who during his life around the 19th century... Charlie Brown?

Oh, my God. Charlie Brown stepped into the story? This story is insane. Charles E. Brown. His faithful hunting dog, Snoopy, once saw the beast on the shores. Charles E. Brown wrote a series of... Can I say no now? Can I say no this early in the story?

How dare you? You son of a bitch. How dare you? We're not even done. I'll shit in your mouth. Open up. Get ready for a serving of white clay, asshole. I've been eating cashews all week.

Open your f***ing mouth. Charles E. Brown. Charles E. Brown, a traveler, a scientist, an explorer, not from peanuts. Sure, he wore shorts and had a little curl on the top of his head or whatever the f***. And he was four foot two, but he was a man.

He was a man and he was an explorer and but he was a man he was a man and he was an explorer and he wrote pamphlets in the 1930s about bizarre legends

throughout the state of Wisconsin hmm and believe it or not Wisconsin has so many different lake monsters that Brown actually wrote an entire pamphlet

just on them wow Wow, that's pretty interesting that so many monsters could fit in seven feet of water. Well, I will say there are more lakes in Wisconsin that are much deeper. Five foot lakes, six foot lakes. Yeah, the whole nine yards. Brown claimed that the first Wisconsin lake monster was believed to have been sighted back in 1882 and was known by the locals as Rocky, the Terror of Rock Lake. Alright, pretty unimaginative name, but fine. Well, it's kind of like the Loch Ness Monster. That's quite a boring name when you think about it.

They call it Nessie. So this is just Rocky, the Terror of Rock Lake. Yeah, I guess everyone's pretty unimaginative that way. However, that sighting that we talked about in 1887 with the two duck hunting brothers was really the last time that the Lake Koshkanong monster was reportedly seen. Some people say it vanished when more people moved to the lake area. Others like Kit ask the question, how does a giant sea beast live in a seven-foot lake? But others believe the reason that no one has seen the creature since, because he moved to

another nearby lake called Red Cedar Lake, only eight miles away. All right, coming in from a skeptic point of view here, it's a little hard to believe that part of the story because red cedar lake is even smaller probably even more shallow and it isn't even connected to the first lake so unless this giant snake son of a bitch hitchhiked on the back of a school bus for eight miles i don't see how he could have possibly gotten from one lake to the other unless he has some sort of paranormal abilities that we don't know about. Right. Unless he was Ponyo style put in a bucket and carried by a five-year-old child. Charles E. Brown. Charles E. Brown. The reason that people think he moved to this new lake is because it

has also had a bunch of monster sightings and it's connected to a third lake called Lake Ripley which has had even more monster sightings. Something's going on in these lakes because we don't have a ton of lakes here in Northern Ireland at least but we do have one massive one which I think is uh the biggest in the uk and which one is that loch nay so you got loch ness has the monster and loch nay over here um it's definitely got to have some monster sightings but i mean yeah we don't we don't live that near it but it's not that far away it's like 45 50 minutes away or something and, I don't think I've ever heard of a monster there. That's true.

I feel like if there was at least one word would have traveled up the road. Yeah. I mean, so the lakes that we're talking about today, a lot of people will know them as, I believe, the Great Lakes. That is what they're known as because where they are on the map, I'll bring it up so I can show it to you. But essentially, it's in that kind of region between the US and Canada where there are a series of just enormous lakes. Lakes so large that I think, you know, if you're standing on one side of them, it's the ocean. It's just nothing onto the horizon. Yeah.

There you go. You can see them all around there. I mean, they're basically the size of entire states. Huge. There's Wisconsin. And as you can see, even up there, it's bordering on some of these huge lakes. That is Lake Superior. Mm-hmm.

Okay. Yeah, it is true. We don't have anything like that. And Lake Michigan, to be fair, huge and very bordering on Wisconsin. That's actually true. I've seen videos of people doing things. Like there was like a crazy video

of that guy who does like ice surfing on like Lake Michigan in winter. It's really just where it's like the lake is almost all frozen over, but he still goes surfing. Wow. That's pretty cool. But, you know,

we don't have anything like that here but I guess the lake is so big it has its own kind of waves. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I never really thought about that. I mean, that's what we're talking about here. Well, not this lake specifically. It's very, very shallow. Extremely shallow.

Think of a Pringles tube. That's the kind of depth we're working with here um but you know this isn't the first time that we've covered uh these types of like sea beasts or sea serpents before we recently did a bonus episode on a creature known as the ogopogo which guys i laughed at the name as well the first time I heard it. It sounds like a snake had sex with a pogo stick. Okay. And someone threw it in the bottom of a lake. Sure.

But that actually turned out to be a double yes. Which we don't normally do at all. We don't normally have any conclusions on bonus episodes. But there was some evidence that was so convincing that I swore down and dropped to my knees and prayed to this creature wherever it is. So it isn't the first time that we've been convinced of the existence of some sort of lake monster. And the fact that there are so many sightings in Wisconsin, you know, you could say that that makes it a little bit less believable because you're saying this monster's hopping from lake to lake, like it's a goddamn plant leapfrog all across america or you could say that maybe

there is some sort of prehistoric creature that has existed in this area for so long and that's why we're still seeing them just located in this region in a series of different lakes maybe this monster we're talking about, you know, isn't a water demon that the tribes have to give tributes to. Maybe it's just some sort of ancient dinosaur that has stood the passage of time. This is the leading scientific explanation for Nessie and its ilk is the living fossil hypothesis

that there is some kind of animal out there, some kind of cryptid I suppose, that has evaded capture and exhibition in museums and has survived from ancient times through to today without being spotted. You guys know about the ocean? That place is f***ing

weird, alright? There's a lot of mad s*** down there. I've seen the little mermaid. Right, but we're not talking about the ocean that place is weird all right there's a lot of mad shit down there i've seen the little mermaid right but we're not talking about the ocean to be clear a jamaican crab that's insane that's a children's movie so is it so crazy to think that there could be bizarre out of this world creatures living at the bottom of lakes granted maybe not seven foot deep lakes but other lakes that have gone unexplored. We have to know it's bad if your best evidence is to point to places that are not where our investigation is and saying, could be possible somewhere else.

Not here. God, no, not here. Somewhere else, maybe. Scientists say that we've only explored 5% of the bottom of the Earth's ocean. What would they say about lakes? 1%? 0%? No, probably more. Probably more. We don't know.

Because they're smaller. The waters are muddy. They're muddy and swampy. I feel like there's nothing else I could pull out of the bag here. The problem was when we did the Ogopogo episode, which was very similar in theme, we basically got to this point of the show.

Right. And then you dropped the most convincing paranormal evidence I've ever seen on an episode of this podcast. Right. It was a 180 twist where you went from angry and about to leave the studio to, as you say, on your hands and knees, pray into the Ogopogo. It was the equivalent of us talking about bigfoot and then your final reveal is you've got him on as a guest right and he comes into the room and he pulls up a mic it was so convincing and i'm not saying i'll just set up the ipad because it sounds like

we're getting to the evidence portion so well we've had we've had some of the just i'll set this up so you can airdrop anything you got just send it across to me and i'll put it up on the big screen here well i mean it's really cool and I'll put it up on the big screen here I mean it's really cool because we've actually seen a bit of evidence so far which was the illustrations that I showed you

of the sea creature the drawings that I showed you the water color yeah yeah yeah we're going to need something better than that champ we're going to need some video and the second picture I showed you as well I'm just going to pretend you didn't you in fact said you were going to need some video. And the second picture I showed you as well. I'm just going to pretend you didn't. You, in fact, said you were going to edit that out of the podcast.

So the fact that you brought it up again is worrying. I ran out of time. So I couldn't edit it out. So I have to bring it back at the end to try and make good use of it. Okay. So just a silver bullet anytime you're ready, bud. Thoughts? You've got to be.

Hold on a second. Sorry, my f***ing... Your doctor? Is it your doctor? My Fitbit is pinging me that my blood pressure is catastrophically high. Yeah, there we go. It's got a notification. Rory is being such a royal pain in the ass.

You need to leave the room. All right, we gotta wrap this thing up. Look, I admit, it's not a good sign for a case if one of your key witnesses is a mother f***er called Charlie Brown. That's usually not a good sign. But look, I like this story. I like it a lot. It's in that sweet spot where we have possibly what could be a real world creature combined with folklore and ancient stories. creature combined with uh with folklore and ancient stories uh it's somewhere in this sweet spot between a real dinosaur beast and ancient lake demon where maybe the real world and the

mythology are just blended together in the muddy swamp waters for sure no i'm not getting at you but is that just where we find ourselves is it one of those beasts where there's just next to nothing in terms of physical evidence? A hundred percent. You know, photos. Ogo Pogo, we had the video. I think we even covered Morgar, the sea beast. And we had pictures. There are a ton of different creatures like this that have at least had a photograph taken of them.

Yeah. But what did I say? The last sighting was in 1887. The fact that it hasn't been seen since then either means it never existed or that bitch died. It had a lot of tobacco and its heart popped in the rivers. And I guess that's kind of our choices today that we have to come down on because whether or not it did exist and it is paranormal, I don't think it's around today. All right.

I'm going to lead the conclusions this week. I feel like you just did. To make it easier on Kit. It is a no for me this week. I love this story and I think it's really fun. And I like the idea of having to offer up gifts and tributes to a creature in the lake. That's such a cool idea for a story. So I love it.

I think it's fun and whimsical, but I don't really believe it's real and paranormal. I agree. Listen, we've been around the houses with these here sea beasts and clearly, if we're zooming out far enough, clearly there is some kind of ancient memory instilled in all humans to look out on a big body of water and worry about what lies beneath.

Clearly, there is some kind of recent evolutionary history of said beasts and serpents that we are supposed to be scared of. And maybe that means to this very day we imprint that memory, that DNA memory onto what's happening out there in the world. But when we go down there and look with cameras and videos and scientific boats and crafts, we ain't seen nothing. Yeah, and it's not that deep, as we said. So you should be able to find something. We don't need a James Cameron-esque submarine. We just need a snorkel.

So I guess it's a no today for Yamboy. You don't even say it. No one, neither of us know even know its name. That's the problem. The Koshkanon monster. Koshkanon monster. Koshkanon monster. The sea demon, the lake beast.

It has many, the chain smoking. I think it was once referred to as a nicotine fiend. Right. He's got a lot of titles, but today its title is not real. Thank you so much everyone for listening to this episode of This Paranormal Life. Even though it was another double no, I hope you had fun along the way. We need to get this beast off the smokes. We want this thing to last for a long time.

We need to get it on the f***ing Zaza, on that Cheech and Chong. Maybe swamp to a vape, a smokeless alternative. Maybe edibles. Who knows? Not a snooze patch. That almost killed me. So I do not want this thing to have a burlap sack full of tobacco inside of its mouth. Yeah, that would probably be a good way of killing it instead of PNT, actually.

Guys, did you know that there's another lake that you can investigate and it's deeper than seven foot? It's actually 40 episodes deep. It's actually 40 episodes deep. It's actually more than that I think. It's actually 50 episodes deep. If you have got tired of the 7 foot muddy

Tuesday episodes of This Paranormal Life and you want to dive into a glacial pool of fresh content, you can do that over on Patreon.com. Forward slash This Paranormal Life. This is the best way to support the show directly with a little bit of cash every month from as little as $5. You get access to a huge amount of stuff,

bonus content, extra audio, and you also get every episode of the show ad-free. Huh? That's right. So if that interests you, why not head over to patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. Kit, just for an example, what did we use the Patreon money for this month?

So people can see where their support is going. Smoke. Okay. I took up smoking. I told Kit that this case involved smoking and he said he wanted to do some first-hand research. port is going. Smoke. Okay. I took up smoking. I told Kit that this case involved smoking and he said he wanted to do some first hand research. Oh yeah. I've tried them all, brother.

Tried them all. I was thinking maybe you could talk about some. I even tried some ones they took off the market some years ago. Because we bought some new stands for the mics. Legal ones. And we got some new cards for the cameras as well. You ever heard of angel dust? The drug?

I've graduated from smokes. I went through the harder stuff. Investigating Angel Dust does sound like a possible paranormal case that we could do. Oh, if you dip a cigarette in PCP, you'll see demons. All right, let's go. This went off the rails. And they'll shit in your mouth. They will.

That got off the rails pretty fast. But head on over to patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. Because one of the cool rewards that we offer over there is getting a shout out at the very end of the episode. You're damn right, Rory. So let's give a special thank you to the Hacking Doge. The Hacking Doge loves fracking loads. All right, that's questionable. Doge loves fracking loads. Alright,

that's questionable. Because, you know, the commune currently is having a bit of an energy crisis, much like most of the world. Most of the world, yeah. We get most of our energy from the chupacabra. We captured him and we put him on a hamster wheel. But as you all

know from living there, he's loose. He's loose. So fracking is the new... You the new you would think there's some in between there's some midpoint between fracking and the chupacabra but there isn't we haven't cracked nuclear energy yet here we think that's even we think that's probably too dangerous for the commune thanks to chris mcnair chris mcnair lives in a lair um layers have gone out of fashion a bit haven't they yeah well you can kind of just lives in a lair. Lairs have gone out of fashion a bit, haven't they? Yeah, well, you can kind of just call anything a lair, right?

Your house can just be your lair. No, no, no, no, no. Lair is typically gothic architecture, dark brooding, only candlelit. Gargoyles. Coffins. Goblets of blood lying around. Oh, that sounds weird. Someone maybe needs to keep an eye on this, dude.

Oh, fair. Did you say blood goblets? Yeah. Now you mention it. Thanks to Louisa Byrne. Louisa is who you go to if you need something burned. You know, old documents, new documents, classified documents, bodies, evidence. All right.

Okay. All right, all right, all right. Anything you need to be destroyed and not even burned. Sheidence. All right. Anything. All right. All right. All right. Anything you need to be destroyed and not even burnt. She's a fixer. She's a fixer. Yeah. Even if you just need like somebody alive burnt. Stop talking.

Okay. Stop talking. You're incriminating yourself. I was hoping you meant DVDs. No. Thanks to Christina Beck. Christina Beck loves fracking. A lot of fracking enthusiasts here in the commune.

It is a questionable, dirty way of generating energy, but we have hired many fracking engineers. Mrs. Beck, actually, if you could maybe join the Chupacabra hunting team, that's really the priority right now, not the fracking, because he's taking out a lot of our civilians. Thanks to Rebecca Hunter. Rebecca Hunter, just the type of person we need. Come this way, come this way.

Rebecca, we have a certain paranormal entity loosing the commune. Not saying what it is. But it rhymes with Smupacabra. And until we get the little thing back on its wheel, you ain't charging your phone. You ain't turning on the lights. So, Rebecca, I think it's best if...

Why are you here? Take this pickaxe. Go get him. Thanks to Jeremiah Cook. Jeremiah Cook, you are the exact person that we need in the Paranormal Commune why so? to cook the books that's right

we need an accountant to make some numbers if HMRC are listening I said at the start that we are technically a charity but they're asking for tax money

and we don't have it so we need you to cook the books Jesus Christ so many things to cut out from this podcast thanks to haunted world of cw cw your world's about to get more haunted because there's a fucking chupacabra on the loose and i know he's a goat sucker but when you're as angry as he is everyone starts to look like you're at risk of getting sucked, I'll tell you that. We're at suck level midnight, which means

everyone's at risk. Sucking is at an amber alert in the commune, it is. Thanks to Jamie Gustafson. Good old White Clay Jay. That's right. We have some sneaking suspicions that he is not in fact a human at

all and possibly a 40-foot sea serpent. Okay. Well, that's quite a leap. What evidence do we have? Their shit. Oh. What? White clay everywhere.

How do you know that? It's a duty as king. As duty king to inspect the commune toilets. I'm moving on. I have to. Thanks to Karen Placencio. Karen Placencio, we need you to silencio because the chupacabra is listening

and he's here and we need to keep quiet. It's like the quiet place around here where if you so much as step on a twig, he's going to get you. I don't think you care enough about the situation. I don't think you care enough. Care enough. Yeah.

Very good. Thanks to Charlotte B. you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea and ice cream? Yes. We can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Charlotte B. Are you perhaps

the Queen B? If that is true, get out. Get out. This is a commune. Buzz off, actually. It's run by two kings. We don't need a queen. We don't need any more royals. They already don't like the royals right now. They don't like having

two kings hoarding water and energy. So we can't have another royal in the mix. Thanks to Foolheart. Actually someone with the heart of a fool is exactly what we need right now because we need a volunteer someone who's going to put on the suit of armor

and we've trapped the chupacabra sorry this is live updates we've trapped the chupacabra in the grand hall and we need someone to go in with a suit of armor and take a few beatings granted while we load up the cannons to try and take the bitch out that is about a 45 to 2 hour minute job Take a few beatings. Yeah. Granted, while we load up the cannons, to try and take the bait shot.

That is about a 45 to two hour minute job because they say- You need someone to keep them busy. So full heart, do some dances, try and avoid most of it. And of course, if we miss another two hours, probably three, maybe. Three, look. I'm tired today, so.

The armor's thin too, so keep running. Thanks, lastly, but not leastly, today, to Costa Ketzlis. Costa, you gotta catch this Chupacabra! Foolheart is dead! He took one hit and dropped! It's all on you now! The suit of armor was borderline tinfoil. The Chupacabra's nine inch blades cut

through it instantly. It is pretty far away by this point so if you're comfortable with it we will be loading you into the cannon and hoping to Looney Tunes style launch you at the beast. If you have any problems we'll hear about them after the cannon

launch. Thank you so much to everyone for tuning in to this week's episode of This Paranormal Life. Namaste. We'll keep you posted with the Chupacabra updates, but I'm sure there will be good news next time, and a joyous report of the new fracking initiative

taking place inside the commune. Running a country is harder than it looks. It really is. It's really hard. I don't even want to talk about our 7 foot deep moat because we can see everything in there and it's dark it is dark there's no water left it's all beast

it's all demon we have a moat of beasts just a giant snake pit which I guess does the job but like it's a lot of mouths to feed It's just a giant snake pit. Which I guess does the job. But like... Yeah. It's a lot of mouths to feed. And if you don't feed them, they start to feed on each other.

It's a whole thing. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of This Paranormal Life. That wasn't so bad, was it, Kit? Your heart rate is doing fine. You're doing all right. Just don't ask me any more questions. Don't even ask me if I want a cup of f***ing tea because I'm on the edge. I'm on the limit.

The show's over and you got through it so everything's okay, right? It's just looking at you is sending it spiking so I just only need to keep my eyes down and... Alright, alright. Can you put the bag back on your head? We are about to... Can you put the bag

back on your head? Alright, alright to... Can you put the bag back on your head? All right, all right, all right. Fine. It really does help. It's f***ed up, but it does help. Is this the way you want to end the forecast? This is. No one can even really hear what I'm saying.

It is. I'll take it from here, baghead. All right. Well, don't be rude about it. Thanks, everyone, for tuning in. Actually, I could get used to this. I really could. You do.

You host half of the episodes. There's nothing to get used to.. I really could. You do. You host half of the episodes. There's nothing to get used to. I mean the bag. I mean the bag. Okay. See you next week. Bye-bye, folks.