This Paranormal Life - #337 The Giant's Ring - Ancient Home of an Irish DEATH CULT?

Episode Date: October 17, 2023

In 1855, two young boys exploring the Belfast countryside discovered a suspicious hole in the earth. As they explored deeper, they realised this wasn't just a cave, this was a TOMB. The boys had just discovered The Giant's Ring, an ancient neolithic site that's home to animal sacrifices, human remains, druidic rituals, and a mysterious alter that traps children in an inescapable fog... Let's investigate!LIVE TOUR - https://www.thisparanormallife.com/tourFollow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunitySupport us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to weekly bonus episodes!Buy Official TPL Merch! - thisparanormallife.com/storeIntro music by www.purple-planet.comResearch by Amy GrisdaleEdited by Philip Shacklady Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Did jellyfish come to earth on an asteroid? Can a pair of shorts become so long that they're in fact trousers? All of these questions you can find the answer to on This Paranormal Life! Hello everyone and welcome to This Paranormal Life, your favorite paranormal comedy podcast where every week myself and my accomplice kit greer dive into a brand new paranormal tale and come to a conclusion at the end as to whether or not it truly is paranormal there's a lot of paranormal podcasts out there and they all enjoy taking their time discussing all of these encounters all these sight, all of these events in the past. But very few have the straight up nutsack to decide once and for all whether it is paranormal or not.

It's so true. If you even watch an episode of Zach Baggins or Most Haunted or whatever, nine times out of 11, they're going to, at the end, give some wiffle waffle to the camera because they don't want to offend the living or the dead and say like oh I guess it's inconclusive inconclusive oh sorry guys

you know maybe the audience at home could make up their mind f*** that what is the point of being an expert being a paranormal investigator

if you just can't just lay down the law exactly this is like being a judge in court, but you're too much of a coward to also be the executioner. Yeah, well, we don't execute people in this country anymore, thankfully. We don't execute people for crimes?

No, haven't done it since, I think, maybe the 50s or something. So why do I obey the law? Why do I do what other people tell me to do? I thought they were going to kill me. There's a lot to unpack there. Yeah. Ideally, you have an internal moral compass. No.

But there's also other punishments. I can never die here. If the moral compass, that seems to have just gone way over your head. So there are other punishments. You will go to prison. You'll go to prison if you do a terrible crime. Yeah, what are they going to do? Kill me there?

It doesn't sound like it. No, they won't, but it will be bad. Oh, live in a tiny box and eat two bad meals a day? That's what I do in London right now. I guess that's true. And you do kind of just work out as well, which you can do in the prison yard. Yeah, I go to the yard and kind of do some bicep curls, some crunches. Let me try and put this in words you will understand.

There's no Starbucks. I don't want to go. Yeah, exactly. I need to be a free man then. So yeah, that's why you can't commit crimes. No more cold brew. Oh, shit. Okay.

I'm going to straighten up then. That actually sounds pretty bad. You did ask a question at the beginning, which I was exhilarated when when you said it because very infrequently do i have an answer to your intro questions but today i do the one about shorts versus trousers oh uh whenever i was last in london with my wife and kid we were walking back to our hotel we were staying and my wife kind of elbows me you know to do the universal language for get a load of this without saying anything. And it was like a family of tourists. And they were like walking away from the hotel.

Mother, father and teenage son. This guy who's about like 19, 20 years old is walking along. It's a really hot day. And I think my wife whispers something to the effect of like, are those shorts or trousers? And he's wearing, I've got to choose my words carefully, but the longest shorts I've ever seen. These things, I've never seen anything like it. Long, baggy shorts. Where did they reach? How far down?

Three quarters of the way down the calf muscle. Okay, well, three quarter lengths exist. They were quite popular when I was a teenager. Longer than that. Longer than three quarters? It existed in a kind of Lovecraftian nether region between three quarter lengths and full length trousers. Neither capris, nor cropped jeans, nor three-quarter lengths. It was perfectly in the middle, the intersection of all of these. Right.

That's the strange thing. If they're not long enough to feel like trousers, but not short enough to feel like shorts, what are they called? What is this thing? It was one of the most paranormal items of clothing I've ever seen. I wish I had taken a photo, but they got away too quickly. What is this thing? It was one of the most paranormal items of clothing I've ever seen. And I wish I had taken a photo, but they got away too quickly. Extra big shorts should just be called longs.

That's what we should call them. Because they're not short, they're longs, but they're not trousers. I digress. It was just another crazy day in 2023. Well, hey, luckily where we are today in this story is also full of weird and wonderful people. Today, Kit, our story is taking place in Belfast, Northern Ireland. Whoa. That's right. The capital of our homeland. Now, if you haven't been to Belfast before or Northern Ireland, it's a very interesting place. I recently, while coming back here for a recording trip,

arrived at the train station in Belfast, I believe on a Friday night, not any special occasion, not a holiday or anything. And I saw a horde of the most drunken people I've ever seen in my life. We're talking about people who have reached the stage of intoxication where it is essentially 28 days later. They don't even look like they can remember their own names kind of stumbling about. And I remember talking to my mom about it when I got home and saying there were these hordes of drunk people and this elderly woman just walking around the train station with a Bible praying for everyone. And my mom was like, that's so weird. Was she

a priest or from the church? And I was like, she was the drunkest of all of them. She kept dropping the Bible on the floor and like struggling to pick it up. I didn't know what I had walked into. It's a very strange place. Yeah, that is just about the most Irish scene imaginable, really. Just, you know, revelers, party revelers, people drunk off their head. Not surprising in any part of the UK or Ireland or really any country. But just that combination of religiosity and drunkenness. That's very Irish. Basically, I felt like I had flown into the village from Bloodborne.

This was some sort of night hunt. The beasts were out and there were priests wandering the street trying to purge people of the cursed blood. It was very strange. And it's pouring rain, thunder outside. There's old cathedrals on the streets. Yeah, it was very strange. The it's pouring rain, thunder outside. There's old cathedrals on the streets. Yeah, it was very strange. The ticket collector on the train.

You can't even see his face. His leather cloak is so long. And he's got an oil lantern. It is a bit like that. I mean, you actually just got back here. We're in Northern Ireland right now recording. You just got back here, yeah, the other day. And you were kind of in shock. you could probably hear it on our recordings, that it'll start like bucketing rain and then stopping again and then starting again five times through the duration of a podcast.

To the point where it makes you feel like you're going crazy. And it's interesting you bring that up, Kit, because very violent and mysterious weather changes actually play a big part in today's story. Because as we said, Northern Ireland is an ancient and beautiful, mysterious place with a lot of paranormal history and folklore. And we're going to be investigating one of the most terrifying mystical ancient sites today. Right after a few words from today's sponsors. And a reminder, you can get every episode ad-free, no ads at all, over on patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. Today's story is a first-hand witness testimony that comes from an individual who visited Belfast

in the early 1990s, which is actually around the time that I had just arrived in Northern Ireland as a child. So true. The man wrote, I was in Northern Ireland at age 10 with my older brother and younger sister. One day our mom and aunt took us to a place known as the Giant's Ring, a Neolithic monument not far from Belfast. Now Kit, I'll show you a picture of this site in a second, but just so our listeners at home can imagine what this location looks like, this is an enormous ancient circle overgrown with grass. The sides of it kind of rise up and then fall into the hollow middle where you can kind of walk inside. It essentially looks like an overgrown fort. And just to give you an idea of how old this place is, it was built around 2700 BC,

meaning it's older than the Egyptian pyramids. Mamma mia. Yeah, I know that the pyramids are often kind of a point in the past that we recognize as very old. Is that true that the pyramids are only, they're more recent, a couple thousand BC? I thought they go back a bit further than that. You want me to check? Go on then. thousand BC. I thought they'd go back a bit further than that. You want me to check?

Go on then. The history books generally point to 3200 BC as the approximate date when many of the pyramids were under construction. So that's older. Huh? Now BC! Because it was

3,000 years before Christ. Before the current era. Then you can find a different site. Because isn't that what they always say? That Cleopatra lived closer to the iPhone than she did to the's famed pyramids were constructed from roughly 2500 to 2490 BC. Okay. What did I say?

2700. So I guess that is older. The ring, the giant's ring. Well, I mean, if you can't think, you first gave me a date which was older for the pyramids and then kept looking until you find a date which was younger than the giant's ring. Tread lightly. Okay. Tread lightly, motherfucker.

All right? All right. Hey, this is just a little early on in the story to start poking holes in an ancient archaeological site. You heard me. We're in the greatest country on earth. I am all for cooking the books and moving around a couple of numbers. No, we're not cooking the books.

No, no, we're not. a couple of numbers to make it sound like Belfast is even more dope than it actually is. I see what you're doing here. Sorry, sorry, I didn't realize what you were up to. I'll not interrupt. Now that is one way to describe the site. Our protagonist today said

imagine a donut lying flat with a piece of cloth over it and it's about as big as three football pitches. In the middle of the ring was a stone menhir, which if you don't know what that is, a menhir is essentially an upright stone of some kind placed in the earth. Kind of like an obelisk. The man said, it was a beautiful sunny winter's day when we were there, and my mom and aunt stayed near the car while my siblings and I ran around the site. We walked up to the top of the circular hill and into the middle of the ring. As we were looking at the men here, our surroundings suddenly became very cold and foggy.

Soon we couldn't see the hill that surrounded us. My sister started getting upset, so we decided to walk her back to the car to take shelter from the weather. We walked into the mist in the direction back towards the car, but somehow ended up coming back to the men here. We must have gone the wrong way! No, we definitely came from that direction! Come on, let's just go. It's freezing. Our protagonist said that every single time they tried to run off in a straight line, they would always end up back at the men here. That's insane.

Now, we did a while back cover a case set in, I believe, Russia, where, you know, when the fog descended, I think the men involved traveled back in time about 700 years. So, granted, we don't know what time period they're in, but I think as long as they don't end up in a kind of medieval battleground, they're doing better than them.

So, hopefully, fingers crossed, they're still in the present day, but, yeah, this is a bit troubling if they can't get away from the giant's ring the kids were starting to get really scared they tried to leave over and over again so many times it felt like more than an hour of time had passed the youngest sibling was starting to cry so the older brother came up with an idea. The man wrote, crying and screaming, but soon enough he calls out and says he's found the hill. My sister runs off into the white mist in the direction of his voice, and I'm left alone standing next to the men here. I've never been so afraid in my life. When they finally called for me, I ran like the very hounds of hell were behind me. I finally found them, sobbing and crying. We climbed to the

top of the hill to leave the ring, and as we got to the top, the mist lifted. From this point, now you could see all the way across the site, the men here in the middle and the far side of the ring beyond. No mist whatsoever. We ran to our mum, who was confused. That mum better have been able to hear the scream. He said they were crying and screaming for hours. Yeah. That mum better have been able to hear what was going on. I don't know if the mum

can hear screams in 2400 BC! Mum was wearing chainmail, which they didn't remember from being dropped off at the giant string uh you know this sounds like a real paranormal event you know not being able to leave a site no matter which direction you run but it's uh it happened to me many times when i pop out to the shops uh to pick up a healthy lunch.

And no matter what direction I run, I end up at KFC. I end up at the Golden Arches of McDonald's. And I'm fighting for my life. There's tears in my eyes. Screaming, crying. That's the 20-piece McNugget meal. The 20-piece McNugget meal. And I try my best, but I always end up at the same places.

It's a good point that you bring up. Shouldn't the parents have been able to hear the kids? And it turns out they could. The mother said, Darlings, you're shivering. Why are you so cold in this lovely sunshine? We got stuck in the mist. We tried so hard to get out, but just kept getting lost. The mother replied,

But it's been warm like this all afternoon. I saw you running around, going back and forth. I thought you were just playing a game. What? Pretty crazy stuff, Kit. From the perception of the mother and the aunt, there was no mist. These kids were just crying in a field, running around in circles. This is the fear of everyone who's ever witnessed a paranormal event, which is you're in the thick of it and no one else can see it. Okay. Apparently, according to these children, there was a thick mist, impenetrable, that meant they were always ending up back at the men here.

But from the perspective of the parents, they were playing leapfrog. It looked like they were just running around in circles playing silly games. Okay. All right, new theory. Mm-hmm. There is a Do You Ever See Annihilation starring Natalie Portman.

It's only weird you bring it up because I watched it yesterday. What? Yeah. I don't know where that came from. Maybe because of this case, to be fair. What a movie.

Great movie. Absolutely fantastic. You're saying this is the bubble? Is this the kind, because in Annihilation, came from maybe because of this case to be fair what a movie great movie absolutely fantastic you're saying this is the bubble is this the kind because the in annihilation long story short there's a kind of shimmering veil of a bubbly thing that keeps expanding and that's the problem that's the premise of the movie but is that what's going on here we can kind of it's sort of translucent we can sort of see through it. Yeah. But we kind of can't. Yeah.

So when you're inside, things are very different. Once you leave, you're kind of numb to the world of what's going on inside the circle. I mean, we've kind of had this happen before in paranormal stories. It's very similar vein to, you know, a family that has a small child and the child says uh daddy we need an extra chair for the dinner table for the tall hat man and you're kind of like as a parent you kind of have the choice where it's like all right is the hat man not can i not see the hat man because he's not real or is my child seeing the hat man and he is real and i can't see the hat man because he's not real? Or is my child seeing the hat man and he is real and I can't see the hat man? I'm putting a chair out anyway.

Because she said he was tall, so I assume he's jacked. And I don't want to get on his bad side. You look to the coat hangers by your front door. There's a giant top hat there. Okay, he's here. He's here. Yeah, pull up a chair. Yeah.

So I can see why. But then the problem is that, you know, this is a parent where their kids say they've seen something paranormal. Children are liars. Children cannot be trusted as far as you can throw them, which, as I said, doesn't really make sense because you can throw them pretty far. If you swing them by the ankles like that beefcake in Matilda, you can throw them pretty far. If you swing them by the ankles, like that beefcake in Matilda, you can send them flying. But you're going to take this with a grain of salt.

Yeah, you know, children are brilliant. They're magical. They're wonderful. They're pure. There's a reason we don't let them vote, though. You know, because they're pure, but, you know... They'd vote for the tall hat man.

Which is kind of fine because they have a relationship with him, but we can't see him and we can't hear him and we don't know what his motives are. And there's a lot of kids in this world. They'd win by a landslide. New law. We're replacing banks with dinosaurs. That is the kind of f***ed up world you'd live in

if it were run by children. If children could vote, yeah. Oh, what's for dinner? Custard. Great. Well, I kind of had custard for breakfast and lunch. Yeah, and now I've got scurvy. So, yeah. The children are still haunted by the memories of this fog to this day

and have no explanation as to why they were the only ones that could see it. Kit, I think it's time to show you a picture of this site so you can see just what we're talking about today. Okay. It is a giant green ring. It's very unusual, isn't it?

Yeah, it's a very strange formation. In a landscape of real rectangular cut fields this big circle is just kind of slap bang in the middle of it and it is enormous you know this thing is huge giant yeah as we said earlier the giant's ring dates back from the neolithic period and was built around 2700 bc olderer than the pyramids of Giza. Yeah, okay. I'm f***ing nuts. I'm googling it, because I don't trust you.

Despite what ignorant people like Kit might say, intellectuals like me know that it is in fact older than the pyramids of Giza. Okay, annoyingly, Rory was pretty much telling the truth. Did you know the Great... You said that a little quietly. Can we just get that in the mic? Can we just get that in the mic real loud? A clean take of it?

Yeah. Yeah, annoying... No, I will say the first Google result does say 3200 BC. Who knows whether there is... That'll be interesting if the world's the truth. That was the first time someone made a f***ing triangle, all right? Not the pyramids of Giza. They're saying that the Great Pyramid only actually took 27 years to build.

What? That's crazy. That's crazy. It's taken me almost that long to build an Ikea shelf before. That's insane. You can build a pyramid in 27 years. I couldn't even build a career in 27 years. And they built a giant stone castle essentially i couldn't build a friend group in 27 years i destroyed friend groups many of them i had a tamagotchi and a cousin who

would hang out with me once a week and get nandos that was the closest thing to a friend group i had at 27 although we do know roughly around the time this site was built that's kind of where our knowledge comes to an end but discoveries made at the site over the years have given us some hints as to what it could have been used for unfortunately a lot of those discoveries involve human bones. Whoa, okay. Yeah. As I said, we don't know who built it or even how they built it, but scientists have worked out that it would have taken 70,000 hours of labor to complete. Not quite as much as the pyramids, but that's still a long time, implying that whatever

this site is, it was of some great importance. Isn't it sad just whenever you say 70,000 hours of labor? You know, how many hours do you think you put into the last Animal Crossing game? 80,000, 90,000 probably. 80 to 100 million hours. But it's sad sad isn't it when we think of you know hey i love video games as much as the next guy i grew up with them uh lots of formative memories and lovely memories playing those growing up that being said uh me and you know a lot of uh nerds who had you

know a couple level 60s level 70s in worldcraft. Now, if we add up all those manors around the world of Warcraft players, Call of Duty, Legends. Yeah. And if we had been building pyramids instead of unlocking six skins in Fortnite, the world would be full of Giants Rings and Great Pyramids of Giza. My toxic trait is I'm kind of the opposite. I look at all the time that I've spent in the past with my friends and loved ones and think,

imagine how many more max level World of Warcraft characters I could have had if I'd spent that time more appropriately. What a waste. Because you guys will all die by the way you my mom my brother you're all gonna die one day you know who isn't who as malt or my level 60 night elf probably will they're probably gonna turn off the servers before even your retirement age well the joke's on you because I forgot the login. So he's actually been dead to me for years.

So he is dead. A 12-year-old on the internet said he would trade me some legendary weapons and he needed my login password so that I could get it. I lost him immediately. Rory read all of Mice and Men, closed the cover on the last page and just said,

I could have had a level 25 night elf by now. I think of all my time. Stupid piece of shit. I don't even know if night elf is a class in World of Warcraft. It is. Is it? Okay. I used to have a night elf. Archaeologist Michael J. O'Kelly theorized that the giant's ring

was part of a long-forgotten ancient religion that worshipped the deceased as its core principle. He called it the Cult of the Dead. Unfortunately, despite being this incredible and mysterious sight, the Giant's Ring hasn't always been treated with respect. In fact, in the 18th century, it was even used for horse racing. Okay, because it was just a natural kind of track circuit formation. Yeah, it's a circle. Round and around and around in a circle.

I mean, it also adds an extra level of difficulty to the horse racing if six seconds in, a fog thicker than oatmeal descends on the horses, sending them back in time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, like, you know know the horse called happy go lucky was the favorite for the race until it went mad 60 seconds in started screaming and crying yeah yeah tossed its jockey off yeah um hoofy who was a favorite to win actually did end up crossing the finish line first unfortunately he crossed it in the year 4000 he was teleported to the future where he actually became a god because horses didn't

exist at that point can you imagine being a jockey at that time you know racing you know you're whipping your horse yeah uh you blink and then suddenly you're in a coliseum with roman knights on either side of you pulling chariots with spikes on the wheels right and you technically kind of fit in because everyone's on horseback so they don't really blink an eye yeah there's something funny about the idea of like whipping your horse being like faster faster buttercup faster and then you with that final whip almost like in a star wars-esque warp speed style the stars in the galaxy above you kind of warp in a line you went too fast buttercup went too fast you left earth but luckily the giant's ring has since been protected as an area of archaeological interest but there's a lot more to this place than the archaeology we wouldn't be talking about this Giant's Ring has since been protected as an area of archaeological interest.

But there's a lot more to this place than the archaeology. We wouldn't be talking about this place today if it was just a pile of cool looking rocks. Yeah, you know, we love history. We love amazing human history. Ireland is full of it, but it's not necessarily paranormal. We need more. The men here in the center, the same place that the protagonist of our story kept getting called back to again and again isn't just a sculpture kit it hums stand next to his kind it tells you to burn things it's an altar locals in the area have reported groups of robed figures circling around it with their arms raised high in the air.

Bro, what is going on in this part of the world? Because we also studied Ballyboley Forest. Yeah. Not a million miles away from where this is taking place. And it was full of robed figures. We've been living here much of our lives. Yeah. Never encountered a robed figure that's true

me and you are the closest thing to rope we wear the robes when we go out on stage yeah i mean when i was 16 years old drinking in the forest we probably were the robed mysterious robed figures running around in the darkness with a liter bottle of frosty Jacks. Our arms were raised high but only because the CD player was bumping DJ Hixxy and it was about to drop. Yeah, my arms are raised high.

It's called chugging. The only paranormal cryptid in the forest when we were teens was Edward Ciderhands. A teenage boy with a blood alcohol level to kill a horse with two two liters of cider sellotaped to his hands.

Oh, there were men here. Me, Connor, John, Thomas. There were many men here. The fellas. It's true. Whether this is a witchcraft thing, an ancient druid thing, this does come up a lot when we're investigating paranormal sites in Ireland. Maybe this is part of the secret societies who gather and still practice these beliefs.

These individuals can all be heard chanting while staring straight at the men here. It is kind of worth dropping there. I mean, I was half joking earlier with a lot of people listening from America who might not know some of the history, but it is true. While you've got a country like America since it was colonized,

it's been Christian. Yes, here in Ireland and here in the British Isles, it's been Christian for a long time, but for much, much, much longer than that. It was an ancient pagan society with all kinds of mixed belief systems, but ones that would have included worshipping the equinox, various kind of seasonal gods. Yeah, sacrifices, rituals. kind of seasonal gods. Yeah, sacrifices, rituals.

We were invaded by the Vikings and would have encountered their belief systems too. There was a lot going on. And so there was a few robes kicking about. So this isn't a stretch that there's some who still believe the old ways. Look where traditional religion has got us, folks. The earth is kind of a mess.

So let's not criticize the guys that are at least trying some of the old shit. And I was recently in the British Museum, and it's quite cool to see all these cultures from all over the world and learn about all the gods that they worshipped. Yeah. Because, you know, maybe it's a little boring these days because we're kind of all used to the main ones of Christianity, the Buddhism, the Judaism. When you read about some of these old gods, these guys were crazy.

Like the Viking gods, the Greek gods. It's a lot of cool characters. So I can't blame anyone for giving it a shot and being interested in it. I'm pretty sure eddie from the cover of iron maiden albums he's probably a god in some religion i i don't know and there are more stories like we heard earlier of tourists entering a trance-like state when they get too close or even just look at the men here there have been several reports of visions of human sacrifice, where people have seen the ghosts of women and children being sliced open on top of the stones. Jesus, man.

Yeah, pretty intense if you are a tourist who has come to this site to experience the wonders of Ireland, and you see a ghost woman getting cut in half like a pizza. This is what I'm worried about. This is what I'm worried about. I'm starting to understand why we pretty much direct people to the St. James Gate Guinness factory. half like a pizza. The place has all of the usual paranormal activity too. There's orbs of light that float around, disembodied voices that echo in the darkness, but the most common and widely recorded phenomenon is the one we heard about at the

beginning. Many visitors claim to witness a strange white mist that comes from the ground itself and engulfs all who are on top. It's so thick that you can't see 10 meters in front of you, and it even appears on the hottest of summer days, rolling away just as fast. As a kind of a pop culture comparison kit, we always like to talk about it, but this is similar to The Lost Woods from The Legend of Zelda Ocarina of Time. A forest you go into so dense you can't see two feet in front of you, and if you even veer off the right path inches, it takes you right back to the location where you started. And thank God it does. Otherwise you'd be lost in there forever.

No, it's exactly right. I mean, it's a kind of phenomenon that is, it is synonymous, isn't it, with the paranormal and horror. I mean, in any movie, if like a thick mist descends, I mean, and horror. I mean, in any movie, if like a thick mist descends, I mean, that's an ominous, ominous thing. Yeah. I remember reading about the Lost Woods when I was a little bit older. And it's for those who haven't played the game, you wander into these woods. There's a bunch of little monsters around that you like have to fight, but you make it through and you don't think that much of it i remember reading later in life uh in the zelda lore that uh it was like oh you know all the monsters you were fighting in there yeah those were the kids that didn't make it out those are the other children of the forest that got lost became beasts and you kind of went in and just killed them. Yeah.

It's so dark. There should have been a sign. You should have had a sign up that told me that. Why did anyone let me go in as a child? Yeah, really strange stuff. So luckily the children at the beginning of our story made it out okay. I mean, we've studied enough paranormal locations to know that usually if something like this is happening,

the likelihood is that some pretty horrible stuff took place at this site in the past. And over the years of discovery, that's become increasingly obvious. In the 18th and 19th centuries, farmers would regularly find old human remains mangled up in their plowing equipment. Ok, well hopefully we mean bones and not like a recently severed human head or something. But it wasn't until November 1855

that a startling discovery was made. The men here in the center of this ring kit, it wasn't just an altar. It was a burial chamber. Wow, okay. And we're going to find out what was inside right after a few words from today's sponsors. All right. Welcome back, everyone. As we said,

in 1855, there was a huge discovery that gave us a little insight as to what this site was used for. us a little insight as to what period of ancient druids. The two boys descended into the place and examined their discovery. Inside, five slabs were placed as supports at equal distances, and in one of the compartments formed by them was an urn filled with bones and three skulls, two of which are in perfect condition. The third was by accident broken. From the appearance, it is evident that the bones had been burned previous to being deposited in the urn, but the skulls were not. It is curious that the type of stone used inside the tomb is not to be found elsewhere in the neighborhood.

It must have been brought a considerable distance. Pretty crazy discovery, huh, Kit? That's a lot to dissect. You know, we mentioned earlier, children are more pure than adults, but their judgment can be a little impaired, and that's why we don't let them vote. But this is an absolutely stellar role

for children in society. We find ancient tombs. Very often. Those ancient tomb passageways, the entrances are too narrow for the shoulders, the kind of width of the body of an adult. So

little kids, they're fantastic for kind of doing the initial exploration of ancient crumbling tombs. Just shove them in there. They're nimble, they're quick. If the whole thing started like Indiana Jones style crumbling around them, for the most part, they should be able to make it out in time. Yeah, and if they can't and, you know, they get injured

and then go out and they tell someone that you put them in an ancient tomb, who's going to believe them? Right. Right? I'm the adult. I say I didn't put him in the ancient tomb. I say he fell in Isn't that right, junior? Not to get specific about any one kind of occasion. Also, if there's any curses,

if there's any curses in that, in there. The kid can trigger it, yeah. It's sort of like, the way kids' immune systems are good because they're young, their bones break, they heal faster. It's another benefit over adults. Also, if they get cursed, it's not quite as fatal as it can be for adults. Yeah. And, you know, the kids will be like, you know, you're older than me. Why don't you go in there and get cursed? Brother, I'm already cursed. Why do you think I'm in a situation where I need to push a child into a tomb?

My life isn't going great. I'm hoping there's some sort of goblet in there that gets rid of curses. That's why we're here. It's because I'm so f***ed up. I mean, I got to say, as a child, this has got to be up there with probably some of the most scarring things you could encounter. I thought you were going to say this is the most badass thing you can encounter. As a little boy, this is your dream. Why do you think we had to play...

Burn skulls in a cave? Why do you think we had to play Legend of Zelda Tomb Raider? These kids found their own real life tomb. They unrated it.

Yeah, but you want to find something cool like in the Goonies where they find pirate treasure or something. You don't want to be like, oh, there's a little pot

over there. I wonder what's inside. And you go over and it's like a human's face looking up at you an ancient disease yeah yeah this is this it's not gonna be good you're gonna have to go to therapy for a while to explain this one it's pretty ghoulish yes i reckon in a ranking of scarring things to see as a child this is just underneath walking in on your parents having sex and uh seeing your father dressed as santa claus right and shattering the illusion psychic damage yeah yeah right underneath that is discovering a tomb buried underground filled with burnt bodies

i think well i need to cut this whole section from the podcast because again if people are coming to visit or we're trying they're trying to learn something about you know this place uh this is just a little dark don't you think i mean it depends what you're into you into bones yeah i am not you're gonna want to come check it out check this out though it's just i know it probably is like crucial to the story and all uh but it's like, it's a little bit like morbid, isn't it? It's a little dark, sure. But maybe it lightens up.

You never know. Maybe this was an ancient discovery that solidified this site of ecological importance for generations and made it a naturally protected site of Irish heritage. Is that what happened? Nah, they found a bunch more bones. Okay. One of the kids was punched by a druid.

And in the second half of this episode, hope you like bones! If you didn't like the bones in part one, you ain't gonna like the bones in part two. Because they came to life and they're just gonna let an army. The small boys that discovered this tomb didn't even realize at the time that they had went in through the roof

the original entrance still stood up on its discovery but was blocked by a removable stone and that's so cool this tomb was here the whole time just buried underneath a big rock these kids didn't even realize that they mission-impossibled it. They went in through the roof of it. This is quite a common thing for ancient structures, is they are lost to nature. I'm pretty sure even Aztec pyramids and stuff, those beautiful, amazing, tiring structures of the crazy Aztec steps. I'm pretty sure you can see photos of what those looked like before,

and they were just big hills, big grassy hills. Right. They had to be excavated. Yeah, yeah, there was maybe like a little nugget on top breaking out of the earth. They didn't realize the rest of it was all underground. Because the earth changes, it's true, as we've seen here with this site. Just like the newspapers said, when archaeologists studied the tomb, they discovered four large pottery urns inside full of burnt chunks of bone. There were also bundles of charred bones in piles and packages around the room. Also,

since there were different bodies buried in different ways, archaeologists deduced that it was probably in use for quite some time. Maybe even long enough that burial methods had changed and this place had just existed as a gravesite for so long that it had seen a little bit of everything. The creepiest part is, this isn't the only site like this with mysterious menhirs. In fact, similar sites exist all over the world. Ireland, however, contains most of them. Like the Giant's Ring, their uses are often unexplained, but theories range from sacrificial altars to telepathic transmitters, and even a way to open a portal to another world.

I like this. Ancient Wi-Fi, ancient Stargate. Yeah, and I guess it leads to the discussion of, were all of these bodies being buried here as kind of a nice way to commemorate their lives? Or were the people being killed here as a means to honor the men here right right yeah it was a problem with uh you know sort of back in the day was you know these days we got a ton of cool shit to to offer the gods you know, if a god came down right now and needed an offering, bro. We got it all. Bitcoin.

NFTs. Not that cool. I think those are all both essentially worthless. Food. My Nintendo Switch. Cool cars. Yeah.

Lots of cool products of humanity that we could give them and they would think are dope. Yeah, what would impress an alien? Because you could probably

give them like an iPhone 15 and they're like, them, like, an iPhone 15, and they're like, bro, that's our iPhone 1. Right. We started with all this cool shit on ours. Yeah. None of this impresses me. But maybe we're like, hey,

have you guys seen a yo-yo before? Yeah. They'd be like, oh, shit. The gravity on our planet, a yo-yo wouldn't even work. How do you walk in that dog? It's so, like, theoretical,, like trying to think of what we can gift them. You're like, what if we gift them like dunking?

The gift of being able to slam dunk. Yeah, like, you know, someone does like a reverse alley-oop and they're like, thank you, we will take this back to our planet. We don't have this yet yeah this cultural dance that you do yeah yeah we don't know

what I'm pressing just like a just like a 360 flip just a buttery 360 flip tray flip on a skateboard yeah

and they're like you have progressed our culture a thousand years right because we could give them our most like high-tech weaponry

and they'd be like we give this to our f***ing babies. We let them play with this shit in the cot. It's so harmless. Yeah.

It's like oh that M16 rifle. My baby sucks on it like a pacifier. Even if he managed to fire the thing bullets don't hurt him. Yeah.

He's bulletproof. Yeah. It doesn't mean anything to us. On the other hand. On the other hand something something small and trivial that we don't even think about anymore tote bags like they just never yeah they've never thought of carrying a small inconsequential amount of items over one arm in a canvas bag they've never seen a beyblade before if i showed them a beyblade

pulled the ripcord and let this little thing spin in one spot, they'd be like, huh, that's incredible actually. Brings tears to their eyes. That's their Tchaikovsky. That's their like, I know it sounds crazy, but like that's their art. Right. It's truly endless. And like, that's the hard thing about life, right?

There's so many things we are used to seeing, take for granted, like turning on a light bulb. That's nothing to us. Yeah. To them, it could be a Yu-Gi-Oh card. They're just like, that's... Something crazy. That would blow their little mind.

Have you guys ever watched wrestling before? WWE wrestling? That's insane. Fictional wars played out in front of you. We don't know what will impress them uh but i know what you're saying is now we have a bunch of cool shit to offer them in the past we didn't here's oh here's our shiniest rock sir i hope this appeases you here's here's the least shit covered loin cloth that we have yeah does this appease you masters from space? No, it doesn't.

And so that they quickly turn to human sacrifice. Human sacrifice. They're kind of like, it turns out life is the most valuable thing. They kind of got the wrong meaning out of it.

They were like, it turns out this whole time we've been searching for the most valuable item, but it is in fact human life, the spirit of living,

the soul that resides within every one of us. So let's round up a bunch of people and kill them now. It's like, no, no, no, no, no. What you should have taken away from that is let's protect the living. Let's work together to live for longer, not gang up on the weaker, smaller ones and use their souls to pay some sort of space debt. Yeah. It's like, well, what do we have in our community that's special? It's like, well, you know, young Benjamin is the most beautiful singer our tribe has ever seen.

It's like... His soul's worth ten souls. The skills must reside in his blood. Spill it and we will all drink upon it. skills must reside in his blood. Spill it and we will all drink upon it. Whereas now, as you said, I could just offer them merely one of my max level night elves

and that would be enough for at least to pay for one intergalactic voyage, I would assume. But it brings into question, Kit, could this be why locals and visitors have seen hooded figures surrounding the stone? I mean, one theory is that those aren't ghostly figures.

Those are current day practitioners of witchcraft trying to activate the men here. I mean, that seems the most likely to me. Right? What's more likely that these are a vision of ancient beings or that is people who've heard the story like we're hearing today, and they are taking it to the next level. Yeah, they obviously know from the discoveries and what's going on at the site that this was of some importance at one point,

probably did require some kind of ritual to activate it. So maybe they're just throwing the kitchen sink at it, trying everything, putting the robes on, you know, sacrificing a goat or something and seeing if they can trigger this thing i mean there are druids you know to this day people who call themselves that just like the same way there are witches um sure it feels a little anticlimactic sometimes because in most cases their name is carl they're 42 and they work as a civil servant yeah and they kind of just exist in the normal world but by night they're a druid uh but does that make it any less uh legit

you know i don't think so you know they're i don't know if they've successfully pulled off any sick magic but yeah they're trying we had um some practitioners of witchcraft come to one of our live shows in london i remember afterwards they were like hey we're witches and i was like cool that's great obviously we have all these kind of connotations of what witches are and look like and do but as you said i think there's a bunch of people that just practice it and believe in it today. So I was like, nice to meet you guys. Really hoped you enjoyed the live show. Yeah. And if you didn't, we can change.

You know, don't do anything too drastic. There's nothing, you know, you know, you actually, you guys get an extra long meet and greet. Why don't you guys should be in the front row? Everything is fine. Yeah. Can we get these guys an Uber? Make sure they have a great night.

Make sure they get home safe. Want them? Make sure they have a great night. Make sure they get home safe. Want them to make sure they have a good night. But this is what we're seeing here is druids showing up at the site trying to activate this thing. Trying to kickstart the men here. Which is kind of funny because they can't do anything but allegedly three kids in the 90s triggered this

thing like a mother****er. So Kit, what are your thoughts today about the giant spring in Belfast and the mysterious men here an altar slash tomb

that's older than the pyramids themselves gotta stop saying that well it's a fact yeah hey this is fascinating I love nothing more

than hearing about I guess this kind of period of history. And especially when it is on our doorstep. Can't believe I've never heard of this one. And certainly never seen any pictures of it either. The craziest part about it is I'm going to be in Belfast on Monday before I fly out. And I was like, you know what?

I'm just going to go on Google Maps, see how far away this thing is. It is a 13 minute drive from the Belfast city center. So I was like, that's incredible. I'm going to definitely go check it out before my flight, but I'm getting the train down and don't have a car. So I was like, Oh, okay, well, how would I get there on public transport? Two hours. It was two hours to get there on public transport. Which tells you a little bit about the Northern Irish public transport system. It's true. Although it is, I mean, it is kind of in the middle of a field, isn't it? A little bit.

But if it's 13 minutes drive away, it's not that far. So, I mean, deciding whether it's paranormal, it's a bit of a funny one, isn't it? Because the kind of words that we're using, these kind of like ancient burial sites, there were druids practicing there. These are things we heavily, heavily associate with the paranormal, but yet are provable and real. And we know they existed and we know they had these belief systems and definitely practice rituals.

Yeah. Things that could be definitively paranormal, but actually focusing on the events that were paranormal, like we heard in the beginning, the mist descending and the kind of bizarre time and space shifting events of trying to run away from the men here. That's the actual bit we need to focus on and prove. Yeah. That's the actual bit we need to focus on and prove. Yeah, I would believe more in the mist and its kind of paranormal properties if that exact same thing hadn't happened to me once in real life in Northern Ireland.

At KFC. He was just licking his fingers after his family-sized bucket and was trying to get back to his parked car. I call it the gravy mist. It's thick and impenetrable. He couldn't do it. And who knows, maybe his brain was clouded on account of all the gravy and he was just not taking the right directions. I have, my family have a tiny little cottage in the middle of nowhere in the Mourne Mountains in Northern Ireland. And when we were kids, we used to go there a lot for summer and hike up in the mountains.

And, you know, as we got older, we do more challenging mountains, start off on the small ones, get a bit more adventurous and eventually got to the point where we first attempted to climb Sleave Donnard, which I think is the highest point in Northern Ireland, or at least the tallest mountain. And I think we made it an hour, two hours into this hike, gorgeous summer's day, beautiful weather. Then the mist rolled in. This mist was so thick that the road in front of us was gone.

The road behind us was gone. it was the first time i'd ever seen my parents genuinely a little afraid of what was happening and what was going to happen they were like the kids in the story screaming crying yeah it's like i know you you're telling me everything's okay dad but this is the first and only time i've ever heard you use the word rations before yeah you told me i was allowed to eat the snickers bar when i was hungry and now you're telling me that we need to divide it up into five yeah because we don't know quote how long we'll have to survive out here i've never heard yeah a handful of party rings be described as rations before uh this was a true story it got so intense um that i i very the the

specific thing i remember was my body froze up and got so cold that i couldn't even squeeze a grape like i didn't have the physical strength in my hands to like crush a grape. I would love to know how long you're up there because it can't have been that long. Brother, it was years it felt like. It was insane. Probably like 48 minutes or something. And we had to eventually, I think we waited it out until it kind of cleared up a little bit and then just had to go back down. We never made it to the top so i know from firsthand that this kind of weather can just

roll in and roll out but running in one direction and ending up where you started that's pretty weird that's pretty suspicious yeah it's quite it's actually quite an extreme example but is that and do we have enough evidence today to think that that actually happened? Knowing that the story is told by a man reliving his experiences as a child? I say no. I also say no. Damn, so it's going to be a double no this week.

We're continuing the drought. The fog has kind of enclosed on this podcast. We can't find a yes anywhere. And we keep circling back to the nose at the men here. But hey, what a case. I thought this was a really cool one because even though we have spent some time in Ireland over the years, it's been a long time since we've kind of studied a site like this, this ancient. I do really, really love this type of thing.

It's really hard to honestly grasp how old some of these places are. Older than the pyramids. That's crazy, right? Well, you want to talk about older than the pyramids because that thing you said is 2,500, or sorry, 2,700 BC-ish. Yes.

Approximately where we're recording, we've said this many times before, where we grew up on the Causeway coast of Northern Ireland. This, up until extremely recently, was the oldest human settlement in Ireland. This was the first place where humans ever

arrived in Ireland about 10,000 years ago. So f*** the pyramids. We're going... Way back. Way, way, way, way. You know, like, you know, this was

whatever. We just didn't build shit. 7,000 years before the f***ing Giants ring. We were way older and way lazier. All of our shit's gone. It really was not that sturdy.

Yeah, this was a different time from what i gather we were pretty much uh just uh hanging out in teepees and chilling eating berries and eating salmon but it's it is kind of nuts just to think about i mean it was basically the ice age so that's a lot to think about real old school school. Yeah, it's an ancient, beautiful, mystical place, which is why today's episode is sponsored by Visit Ireland. Right. Yeah, that was why I was trying to keep us on the fairway because I don't know if Visit Ireland are going to...

To be honest, I think once they hear all this shit about skulls, I don't know if they're still going to sponsor us. What are you talking about? This is great. You know, if anyone out there is thinking about visiting Ireland, bring your kids. You don't even have to, like, take them to sponsor us. What are you talking about? This is great. You know, if anyone out there is thinking about visiting Ireland, bring your kids. You don't even have to like take them to anything cool.

Take them to this field and the mist will do the work. Do what? Unfortunately, a double no on today's episode, but I had a great time. Hopefully you did too.

And hopefully we will get to see at some point this site firsthand because as I said, it really isn't far from where we live. Actually, I'm just thinking about this. This five days before we're in Belfast performing our live show. At the Limelight on Sunday, 22nd of October. Yeah. Yeah, that's right. So this is going to be five, six days just before that show. So, hey, if you're coming to that show, why not swing by this site? Check it out firsthand. Maybe we will as well.

If you want to pick up tickets for any of our tour, I guess we'll be halfway through. No, we'll be just kicking off the UK side of the tour at this point. So there could possibly still be some tickets left. Head on over to thisparanormallife.com forward slash tour and pick up the last remaining few while you still can. And of course, if you enjoyed this week's episode or any episode of This Paranormal Life, what if I told you there were hundreds more available to you right now? Crack open the sunroof on this paranormal tomb and find the, not bones, but podcasts buried within. Some actual treasure

where for as little as five bucks a month you can get access to a ton of bonus episodes. Then we have weekly episodes called the After Party where we talk about all of the behind the scenes

of the show, which is going to be extra exciting because at this point we're going to be halfway through our tour. So all of those episodes are going to be recorded on the road, in hotels, in the back of vans, inside ancient tombs,

wherever we end up. We don't know. But you're going to want to check it out because we've got a bunch of cool stuff on patreon.com. And of course, one of those rewards is getting a shout-out at the very end of the podcast. So thank you to Emily Bazak. Emily Bazak.

Back, back, back again. Emily Bazak. Where did she go? Tell the men here. Okay. Because you left, but you ain't going anywhere now. Now that the man here is on the scene, Emily. You can try to run.

You can try. But you're going to end up right back where you started. We've kind of employed, quote unquote, the mist in the paranormal commune, where many people who try and run will often find themselves back at the city center. So unfortunately, Emily, you're stuck with us. The mist is what we call our highly trained team of guards guarding the exits to the commune and thank you to rock the rock just rock oh okay is that the rock's dad or something. Right. Call him Mr. Rock. Yes. Rock Senior. Rock, thank you for supporting us

because, you know, you are the more powerful out of scissors and paper. So we appreciate you. Really, yeah. We appreciate you being here. You know, a lot of people say that paper beats rock,

but what are you talking about? You could smash a piece of paper to bits with a rock. Did you though? I mean, you just crumple it up. I don't know if it smashes. What's a paper going to do to rock? Huh?

Cover it? Yeah, that's the idea. That's it. And then break it. I'm on your side, rock. Rock always wins. Until next week when we shout out paper. Because paper is one of our largest donors. So things are going to change next week when we shout out paper because paper is one of our largest donors

so things are going to change next week on the episode thank you to everyone who supports us on Patreon literally we couldn't make this show without you so to have you in our corner supporting us and getting these cool rewards we really appreciate it

if you're interested in any of these awesome rewards head on over to patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. And of course, you know that myself and kit will be back next week with another paranormal tale. Bye.