This Paranormal Life - #362 - The Most HAUNTED Castle in America

Episode Date: April 8, 2024

When we think of haunted castles, we think of Transylvania, Ireland and pretty much anywhere but America... but tucked away in the small state of Rhode Island is Belcourt Castle, a huge mansion erected in 1891 and stuffed full of ancient artifacts with paranormal baggage. From haunted mirrors to electric chairs, every room of this castle has something new to investigate.Follow 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.comEdited by Philip Shacklady Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Can different crystals affect our dreams? What if ghosts are afraid of us? That's why it's so hard to get a picture of them. All of these questions you can find the answer to on this Paranormal Life! Hello everyone and welcome to This Paranormal Life, the comedy paranormal podcast where every week myself and my associate sitting just across from me, Kit, Greer Malvena, investigate a brand new paranormal case and come to the conclusion as to whether or not it truly is paranormal. Kit, are you excited to dive into a brand new story today? I really am.

I think it should be said we've had some monster investigations. I mean, quite literally, I think last week was a monster. It was. But even before that, some really big ones is what I'm trying to say. Rory went mad temporarily. Temporarily, that's important. For one week, which was hard to deal with.

The group chat was flooded. The group chat was flooded with redacted dossiers. Going mad isn't a crime, by the way. I want everyone to know that right now. You can't be put in jail for going mad. Yeah. They tried. They will lock you up though.

It's the thing. Yeah. Cause it's not jail, but isn't that funny though? They're like, hey, it's not a crime. You go to a different jail. Yeah. Go to a different jail. Where the walls are softer.

Yeah. But I'm fine now. I'm back. I'm ready to invest. But I'm ready to go insane again at any given moment. That's how I live my life. What I'm trying to say is, yeah, I'm excited for hopefully something, a breath of fresh air, something different, something that takes us on a different trajectory today.

Well, today's case actually is different. I feel like we've been doing a lot of UFO cases, as you said, a few monster cases. Today we're going to be looking into a haunting. Now, hey, if you've listened to this podcast before, usually we don't like to talk and ramble too much at the start of the podcast. We like to dive straight in. But today's a little bit of an exception. I do have to have a little bit of a disclaimer at the top of the episode. I had something happen to me recently.

That was one of the most paranormal things that's ever happened to me in my life. What? We've got a genuine paranormal experience? Ladies and gentlemen, sorry. Ladies and gentlemen, sorry. Man the stations. We are six to seven years into this podcast.

We've never had, I don't think we've ever really had a live, recent, fresh paranormal story from one of us on the show. I don't have a lot of paranormal things happen to me. That's why we talk about so much old shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you know, if you listen to the after party, you may have heard me mention this story before, but recently I was traveling to Singapore in Japan.

My brother was doing some work in Singapore. So he basically said, Hey, if you pay for the flights, I've got this hotel through my company and you can just stay in the hotel room with me. Essentially for free while I'm staying there. I was like, I can't turn down that deal. That's insane.

Just pay for the flights, stay in Singapore for a week. That sounds amazing. The first night I had in Singapore was the most insane and scariest night maybe of my entire life. Jesus. I arrived and immediately, you know, I'm tired, jet-lagged, I've been traveling for a long time, but I want to make the most of it so me and my brother go out, we have some food, we have some drinks, totally normal night. Eventually, we go back to the hotel. I'm sleeping on a fold-out bed using a towel as a blanket, because he's got the double upstairs.

Everything up to this point has been completely normal. I fall asleep and I start having this dream, okay, that I'm walking someone back to their hotel room. And it's all just kind of white walls and nameless doors without any numbers and I'm walking them back. I don't know who it is. Whoever I was leading goes into their room, the door shuts in front of me and immediately I wake up. I'm standing in the hallway in the hotel. Hahahaha! By myself, almost completely naked. I'm standing in the hallway in the hotel. By myself, almost completely naked.

Turns out it wasn't a dream. For the first time in my life, I had slept, walked, left the hotel room. I don't know how long I've been wandering the halls for, but immediately as this door closed, I woke up back into reality. Rory said, what was in that kimchi we ate last night? Because I am dangling off the 63rd floor of the building outside. Like Nakatomi Plaza. Immediately I start panicking, because not only do I not have any clothes on, I also don't have my phone, my wallet, my ID.

I don't remember what hotel room we're staying in. And if I go downstairs to talk to the receptionist, it's not even my name that the room's under. So if I go down, he's going to call the police, because there is an insane person who's found their way into the hotel. Brother, that was the least of your worries. You were in the back rooms.

You thought that was still the hotel? It's like, I don't have my ID, I don't have my wallet, and now the Slender Man is coming for me. This is f***. So obviously, I just start panicking immediately. I'm trying to just roam these halls naked, trying to find any door that can resemble the door that I went into, even though they all look the same,

and I don't even know if I'm on the right floor. I don't know how long I was sleepwalking for. Eventually, I wander long enough that I turn a corner, and my brother is standing in the hallway. And I could have dropped to my knees and cried. I've never been so happy to see another human in my life. He was like, what's going on? And I immediately was just like, I don't know. I don't know how I got out here.

We just need to go back to the room right now and we'll figure it out later. No joke, he looks me dead in the eyes and says, how did we get out here? No! He sleptwalked too! No! He was on the hallway as well!

No! This is not a joke! This happened! This is not a drill. He was just as confused as he thought I'd come looking for him. This is the best creepypasta I've ever read on Reddit. Brother, we're just getting started. This gets even crazier.

So he goes downstairs, talks to the receptionist, manages to get a key to get back into our room. And we're both freaking out. I think he slept walk before, but I never have in my life. So we get in, I'm so scared it's going to happen again that we barricade the doors. We put chairs up against it and suitcases. So I have this idea in my head and I go, look, if there's a chance I might wake up in the hallway again, naked, what I'll do is I'll write our room number on my arm with a pen.

So even if I have nothing, I'll know which room number I am. Rory's been in Singapore for six hours and he's now getting on like the f***ing Memento Christopher Nolan movie. I felt like I was actually losing my mind. Rory, I'm- date of birth, phone number. Call an equal brother.

Yeah. So, I write 715 on my arm, we've barricaded the doors, and immediately I just go back to sleep. I wake up a few hours later. I turn towards the door. The barricade's gone. At this point, I think it's a dream. I think the whole thing was a dream.

I look down at my arm. 715 is still written on my arm. Wasn't a dream. It wasn't a dream. It happened. I go upstairs. My brother's gone again. Turns out he had sleptwalked a second time, come downstairs, removed the barrier again and just left and started wandering the halls.

Turns out he'd been wandering the halls long enough that he had to once again go downstairs the same night and ask for another key from the same guy to get back into the room. God bless that hotel receptionist, just asking no questions, doing their job. But I thought this story was crazy. That moment where I bumped into my brother in the hallway and we'd both been sleepwalking at the exact same time and ran into each other Yeah, I told him if you hadn't a slept walk and it was just me and I was stuck in that hallway I don't even want to know what would have happened I would have just been I would have had to like hide in a closet until sunrise and then what I don't know It's yes

I mean just kind of 1990 style pre mobile phones just sit in the lobby and hope that your path will cross. With no shirt or trousers? Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was crazy. It was one of the most bizarre paranormal things that has happened to me in the last ten years.

Wow. What a story. It was terrifying, man. Some listeners to this podcast, maybe they've sleptwalked before, but that feeling of in a flash waking up from a dream and having no idea how you got to where you are, unbelievably terrifying. That's what it feels like to not be able to trust your brain anymore, like the events of that night. You were both extremely jet-lagged.

I guess that is a contributor to the sleepwalking. Jet-lagged, a bit of drinking as well. My family thought that we'd been drugged because we went to a few different bars. Okay. But I was like, I don't think so. Um, we did at one point eat something that henceforth would be known as nightmare shrimp.

Because, because we're pretty sure. Cause it happened again. Cause we went back to the same shrimp spot and it all happened again Because apparently seafood certain seafood can affect your dreams. Okay, so you spent the next Four hours researching this deeply. Oh, it never happened before we all we did was share one large portion of nightmare shrimp Directly to bed. That's not what it said in the menu. No, it was some sort of creamy coconut delicious shrimp. But even on the last day I was like, what if we just get a six pack of beer and

share a helping of nightmare shrimp and see what happens. No explanation at all. No idea where we both started sleepwalking at the same time, on the same night, to the same place. Very strange. Very ominous, you know, because the picture I have in my head is that the clock struck the paranormal hour 3am and Rory and Colin both sat bolt upright like vampires, eyes rolled back into their heads, sort of walking at the same time. I would have loved to see the hotel CCTV.

These two like pupil-less boys just leaving a hotel room and setting off in different directions. Again, if you guys, I think you guys often get mistaken for twins. I was going to say shrimp, but twins, but you know, because twins often have this kind of, you know, that would almost make more sense if you had to it because they have this simpatico kind of brain connection in some cases. But, uh, you got, I mean, yeah, you guys are some element of that, but yeah, weird that it happened at the same time. Yeah. That's what I thought. Basically when I met

him in the hallway, I was like, I must have summoned every ounce of kind of sibling telepathy I have to wake up Colin and get him to come out and look for me. That was before I realized he hadn't he was also just sleepwalking. Crazy! I just I've never had anything like that happen to me certainly not in the last 10 to 15 years so I thought hey we have to talk about this on a podcast if anyone wants to give any insights on how that happened why that happened Please let me know if you live in Singapore or are visiting Singapore and want to have a crazy night I've got a seafood place I can recommend and a dish you're gonna be very interested in Now that I've got that out of my system

I can move on and hopefully you guys are excited to move on as well to our real focus today the investigation of a very particular Haunted castle we've been all over the world on this podcast before kit from the ancient caves of South America to the other worldly forests of Romania and the Gothic castles of Transylvania, but today so still Romania To the forest of Romania to the streets of Romania Transylvania. But today- So still Romania? Still! To the forests of Romania, to the streets of Romania. Like aren't they site by side? Batu forest in Transylvania?

I don't know. But today we're going to a very different location. But one just as paranormal, and that place is Newport, Rhode Island. Oh, okay. How's that for a difference? Not somewhere I've been. Son of a bitch. Doesn't sound paranormal, but...

Did you keep disagreeing with me? I'm gonna slip some shrimp in your mouth while you're sleeping. You're just allergic to shrimp. Where's your face, puffy? By any chance? Oh, yeah. Reminds me of that time I ate a cashew before bed. And apparently I slip walked to the A&E department at the hospital.

I woke up in a stretcher. It was the craziest thing. We're going to hear all about this particular castle in Newport, Rhode Island, right after a quick word from today's sponsors. When it comes to haunted locations, usually the history of a place plays a big part. And believe it or not, kid, Rhode Island is one of the oldest settlements in America. Hmm. It was established in 1690, meaning some of the homes here have a very long and interesting

past. But one home in particular stands out amongst them all. If you can even call it a home. That place is called Belcourt Castle. And it stands today as one of the most haunted castles in all of America. Not just because I don't think there's that many castles in America.

We have covered a strange amount of castles in America despite there not really being any. Although I will say 1690? That is early. You know, I don't know why 1700s? That's like a popular right. A lot of shit happened in America in the 1700s. 1700s to me, right, I'm picturing muskets, rifle, not even muskets, rifles, raccoon hats. 1600s? That is borderline medieval times. Right, this really should be knights and armor, so maybe this makes perfect sense.

I think it does. You know, Rhode Island is a very interesting place with a long history, and that is definitely reflected in some of the houses that we're going to be talking about today. But this house in particular, Belcourt Castle, we're talking ghost sightings, hauntings, times where objects have moved by themselves, where ballrooms have been filled with spectral laughter from a party that took place years ago. This place has it all.

Man, how good was that joke someone told if people are laughing 400 years later? That's every comedian's dream. Well, Kit, our story today starts in the mid-1990s. That's as specific as I can be. It was late one night at the infamous Belcourt Castle, a 50,000 square foot villa with four wings, a courtyard and ballroom. Basically this thing is straight out of a Resident Evil game. At this point in time, the castle was owned by a family called the Tinnies, who had taken ownership of the property in 1956. Now this fancy family had stuffed it full of their ancient treasures and artwork retrieved from over 30 countries. I'm assuming some of that artwork

was retrieved British museum style. Retrieved is doing a lot of heavy lifting isn't it? Yeah. Like to be clear, not bought. Oh no. It's not an art collection that they've been collecting for years. Buying lovely pieces from countries all around the world. Retrieved. Yeah, the same way I would retrieve copies of Linkin Park's new songs from Limewire as a teenager. You retrieve something that you left there.

Right. Something you once had ownership of. Not something you just discovered. That's like showing up to a bank in a Joker mask with a shotgun and saying, I'm going to retrieve some cash. Rory didn't retrieve the nightmare shrimp from the restaurant. Now, the Tinnie's already had a few strange experiences living in the castle, but tonight would be one of the worst. Harley Tinnie was walking through the castle's sprawling corridors one night with her two

dogs when she heard a strange moaning noise echoing down the hall. It sounded like it was coming from the ballroom. Odd. There was no one else staying at the castle, and she definitely would have known if her family was hosting a ballroom party. Just as curious as her, the two dogs ran down the hallway to investigate, but froze right at the doors to the ballroom. It was as if they were too afraid to enter.

Harley slowly approached, hearing the noise once again, this time more clearly. It wasn't a moan. It was a scream. Was it a family member? Was someone hurt? She rushed down the corridor, the screams getting louder and louder until she burst through the doors!

But the ballroom was empty. Harley had just heard blood-curling screams coming from this room. How could it be empty? She searched every corner in Crevice, trying to figure out where the noises could have been coming from. And that's when she spotted something. Now this ballroom also hosts an impressive collection of medieval knight armor.

Of course. I hate people like that. I know. God damn it. God damn it. Like you're not, you're not like a British aristocracy that you might have had this in your family somehow for 500 years.

You're American. Yeah, that's true. You just ganked a load of ancient artifacts from around the world and put it in Newport, Rhode Island. Now, each one of these sets of medieval armor is in immaculate condition except for one a helmet with a large scar torn down the metal face It's cool as hell. No one knew what had happened to the night who wore this armor died probably but Harley knew What she had heard that night were his dying screams

Pretty cool, huh? You know, we've said it before, how sometimes buildings can be haunted because bad things happen inside them and it's kind of soaked up in the walls and the bricks and the earth. A bad thing happened in that armor. Yeah.

A guy died. Yeah, because I just, it's dawning on me now. You said that most of the armor was pristine condition. Pristine. Which means that guy never fought a day in his life. Yeah. He was, he was on the reserve team. He was benched.

Uh, you know, he just, you know, they got into the 90th minute of the war and they were like, I think we're good. I think we're good. You know, we might, we might put you out in the field just for you to kind of technically play in the league. Yeah. You know, put in the backers stats, you know, and give you some experience, but he's not seeing combat.

The guy with the big scar through his face can't have ended well. Yeah. Is that the armor that you want or the armor that you don't want? Cause the pristine shit that's like straight out the factory. You want one essentially with a hole in the chest where a cannonball went through it. That's the real stuff. That's the real stuff. That's the authentic stuff. That's got history.

It's got a patina as collectors would say. Ideally, I want the one that still has the skeleton in it. You know? Have you ever seen that picture that does the rounds on the internet? I think it's that like Mount Vesuvius or something. And there was a skeleton they dug up that had a boulder where its head should have been. And everyone was like, what a Looney Tunes ass death. No, that's incredible. What a way to die.

Now to understand the castle's bizarre history, we're going to have to dive back in time to its creation. Well, it all started back in 1890 with a young New York congressman named Oliver Hazard Perry Belmont. Yeah, that's the name of a mother****** with a castle. Yeah. Four names. Four names. He's hoarding names. Of course he's going to have a castle and things to put in it.

Yeah. No one called Tyler ever owned a castle. Yeah. Just any of the Islers. Tyler, Skyler, Freyler. Most families, as they develop, get ashamed of what their ancestors have done and are trying to hide from their names. If you've been a family member that's been rich and successful enough, you've got like

seven f***ing names now, you're a very wealthy person. You know, if you're like Theodore Julian Vanderbilt Belmont Hazard Perry the fourth, it's like, all right, my name's Rory. Yeah. Rory what? Mind your own business. That's what. And I can tell you, as someone with two last names,

it's a pain in the ass. That's true. Cause you're Kit Greer Mulvenna. Now, is that because you've got the Greer side and the Mulvenna side and you kind of took both? Yeah, because my parents didn't take each other's names. Right. That's cool.

That's modern, you know? Yeah, it's not. Um, I find it funny because I think like it is, obviously it is a modern thing to, you know, to smash the patriarchy, not take each other's names and that's cool but I feel like I'm the canary in the coal mine of whenever like other parents like young parents my age talk to me and they're like you know we're just like that's we're not gonna we're gonna we're not gonna do the old-school picture of a thing it's bullshit yeah each other's names we're just gonna keep both we're just gonna

hey being married doesn't change who I am. Being married doesn't change who they are. We're each our own people. And I'm like, cool, cool, cool. It doesn't work. It doesn't work. I am the product of that. And it doesn't work.

One of the two names is longer than three names. So I might not use that one all the time because I don't even know how to spell it. And I've had it since I was 12. Because if anything, it only kicks the can down the road for one generation where now I don't know what to call my kid because I got two names, my wife's got one name. What do we call my kid?

Right, yeah. Yeah, that's an interesting one. Now this guy, Oliver, a man who I assume was already ridiculously wealthy based on the amount of horses he had, received a small inheritance of 60 million dollars. Now being a bachelor whose only passions were art collecting and horses, he didn't really have a family to spoil, so he spoiled himself and decided to build a castle to serve as his bachelor pad, where he and his horses could live.

It's basically Ken's Mojo Dojo casa house from the Barbie movie. What a life, what a life some people live. Oh yeah. What a life, oh my God. Oliver hired well-known architect Richard Morris Hunt, who had built other properties for the wealthy Newport community.

And so, Belcourt Castle was born. But this castle wouldn't remain the Mojo Dojo Casa House horse party pad for long. As the years progressed, the castle changed hands multiple times before eventually the windows were boarded up and the once beautiful home fell to ruin. During this period, the only person living on site was the caretaker, Benny Colin, who would often chase out intruders by pretending to be a ghost. Oh. Yeah, real Scooby-Doo style. Wow, that's interesting.

While this might have been the earliest point that people believed there was paranormal activity at the castle, it isn't the real reason why people think this place is haunted. As we mentioned at the beginning of the story, that credit goes to the Tinney family, who took over ownership in 1956. These fancy motherf**kers restored it to its former glory and then stuffed it with their ancient treasures and artwork from over 30 countries. Unfortunately, it seems they unintentionally brought in a little more than just the objects themselves. And over the years, visitors to the site and the family themselves

have been the victims. And we're not just talking about the dying screams of a scarred knight's helmet. We're talking about people being thrown from chairs, objects moving by themselves, and most popular of all, having to share the castle with the ghost of a monk that lives in a statue. Whoa. Yeah, you know, when you live this kind of a luxurious life, you have all these beautiful objects,

people think that it's just the monetary price you pay. It isn't. Right. There's a lot more that you have to pay, you know? It's like they say, you know, if you have a, buy a really nice car. The car is expensive, but guess what else is expensive? Insurance. Okay.

Tax. You gotta clean it, store it properly. Incidentals. Incidentals. It's a nightmare. It keeps charging you if you buy an ancient statue of a decrepit old monk to put in the ballroom. Which, why did you do it anyway? You know? I don't know. I don't try to understand these people. But the charge is the monk wants to eat dinner with you. There's so much paranormal activity going on in this castle. Why don't we break down some of the wildest stuff and try and figure out just what the hell is going on?

Let's start with the monk. Why not? This is just one of the artifacts that the Tinny family brought into the house. It was a large wooden monk statue for some reason. Just two weeks after the statue was brought into the castle, members of the family started seeing a dark, robed figure floating along the hallways. I mean, it's really a one-to-one situation. Right?

Okay, at the breakfast table, it's like, you know, I just think it could be any number of things. It's like, we bring a robed statue in and suddenly there's a robed ghost floating around the hallway. I think we know what it is. Yeah, Richard, who bought the monk statue, it's like, it could be anything. I think it's just a little presumptuous to assume the monk's coming from the monk statue. What about the armor?

Huh? Claire, you bought that tiger skin rug? Does it buy the fireplace? Maybe, you know, maybe he ate a monk. It's like, Alan, I've been, I've been asking you to dust. I've been asking you to dust the whole way for a long time. You think it was a giant, do you think you saw a dust bunny? Because I've been asking you to dust for a long time. It's like, he was chanting.

He was chanting. He was ringing a bell. He had incense. I saw him burst out of the statue. Like it was a polka ball. I think it's the monk statue. Since that second week, he was seen by the family over five different times, each time in the location where the statue had been moved to.

So originally if they're like, oh, he's in the ballroom, let's move the statue somewhere else. We're going to put it in by the kitchen area. The monks in the kitchen cooking breakfast in the morning. Which is what I will never understand because we have this all the time. I guess it makes sense because these people are hoarders on some level. But you know, for me, you know, the moment that one bad thing happens in my house, I'm going marié condo mode, throwing out everything that does not spark joy, and the giant monk

statue is no longer sparking joy. These people have exactly this coming to them because usually in these haunted situations, the family is so confused. They have to bring in mediums and priests to talk to the spirit and figure out what's going on. You brought in a monk statue? You got a monk in the house now. Get rid of the monk statue? Hopefully the monk leaves. It's really not that hard. Eventually the family were so terrified they decided to bring in a psychic to help deal with the monk. Unfortunately after communicating with the spirit, the psychic said, I'll be honest with

you, he likes it here. He's not leaving. He was surprisingly persuasive. He kind of said that this place is his now. He actually made some good arguments. I'm kind of on the monk side now. He's like, I think we should actually have kind of like a meeting where we all sit down together. The medium is wearing robes now. It's a good lifestyle. The Tinnies decided not to remove the statue from the house.

And sightings of the ghost monk have continued to this day. The most recent sighting being July 7th, 2007. Wow, surprisingly recent. In terms of paranormal activity, a ghost monk chilling and floating around the house is actually kind of chill. Unfortunately, he isn't the only one. Things are about to get a lot weirder.

Right after a quick word from today's sponsors. And a reminder, you can get every episode of This Paranormal Life ad free at patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. Now the castle is home to two beautiful old chairs located in the ballroom. Little is known about the history of these chairs, but the years guests have learned the hard way to stay the f*** away from them. What is the point in a monk statue? What is the point in a chair you can't sit on? Right, because the monk statue it's still like, I can look at the statue and that's kind of cool. What about the chairs? Don't sit on the chairs. Why are they here then?

Why are they here? Yeah. It's like, Hey, hey dude, where's the toilet? Just up the stairs. Don't go up the stairs. Use the ladder. The stairs are impossibly haunted. All right.

I just wanted to take a dump. In the toilet? Don't shit in the toilet. That's a 1000 year old Celtic toilet. Yeah, a lot of old stuff in here that I guess is supposed to just be looked at, not touched, not used. If there's so much as a diet coke in the fridge, don't you dare think of cracking and drinking that thing.

Harley Tinney herself claims that during one of the castle's public tours, one male visitor stopped and decided to sit on one of these ballroom chairs. As soon as he sat down, Harley says the tour guide saw him launched from the seat and thrown six feet into the air. Holy six feet? Six feet! Dude has hops. It's like a catapult It's crazy like a medieval dunking contest. How did he get that high? on another occasion 70 visitors to the castle saw quote a bolt of lightning shoot out of the chairs You are you at this point? This is an insurance risk

Chairs. You are. At this point, this is an insurance risk. You cannot have these inside your house. Was that chair used by a prison to kill criminals by any chance? Because that's the only way a bolt of lightning is coming from a chair. I was going to say it's either the Ark of the Covenant or yeah, an executioner's chair. I love the idea of a guy being on a tour in an old castle. By the way, anytime you toured an old house or a castle, you just have to

assume that everything is part of the castle. Right. Don't sit on any chair. Don't you open any door. You assume you're not supposed to touch or use anything. So for the fact that a guy was like, I am knackered. I'm going to sit on this 300 year old chair. That'll be fine. I love the idea of him kind of sitting down and he was like, I am knackered. I'm going to sit on this 300 year old chair. That'll be fine.

I love the idea of him kind of sitting down and he's like, oh, I'm just going to get comfy. He puts a metal dome on his head, straps his arms in, sees a switch by the side. He's like, I guess it's a recliner. Gah! I think it's cursed. The electric chair. An original medieval lazy boy. This f***ing clown. A recliner.

Shit. Let me tell you, this place is so cursed, it would be quicker to tell you about all the shit that isn't haunted in the castle. You know, the toaster's pretty normal. Right. The air fryer sometimes comes to life, cursed, it would be quicker to tell you about all the shit that isn't haunted in the castle. You know, the toaster's pretty normal, the air fryer sometimes comes to life but he's pretty harmless. But I think one of the coolest and creepiest haunted items in this castle is actually the item that led me to discover this castle in the first place. And that is the Belcourt Castle haunted mirror. Oh. That sounds cliche for some reason, but I don't think we've ever covered a haunted mirror on the podcast before.

Yeah, I suppose because mirrors have lots of, you know, ancient and paranormal connotations. You know, the art of scrying, a kind of specific form of clairvoyance where you peer into a mirror and try and divine what the future holds, or your deepest, darkest desires. We see that in films like Harry Potter, right? The mirror that shows you what your heart most desired.

Yeah, maybe that's where it kind of comes from, is pop culture. You don't really see it happen in a lot of actual paranormal cases. Yeah. I feel like the only haunted mirror I've ever seen is on the day of my 30th birthday, when I looked into the mirror and I saw my own reflection and thought, where's the last 10 years of my life gone?

The only haunted mirror I could think of is one of those 360 mirrors in a H&M changing room. Oh my God. Where you see angles of yourself you've never seen before. Yeah, and you're like, oh, I understand H&M. Is this the reflection of how bad my life can be if I don't look after my body and they're like this is you now. This is you right now from every angle.

We're streaming to Twitch right now this is live. Anyway back to the mirror in Belcourt Castle. This is an 18th century mirror that hangs in the castle's music room. Actually kind of cool. An 18th century mirror, the fact that that thing isn't broken already is pretty impressive. I was talking to a mate the other day, I was on a stag do, and we were like talking about stupid questions and someone was like, I don't think I know what a mirror is. Okay. And I was like, oh, do you mean like Jaden Smith style? Classic tweet, how can mirrors be real if our eyes aren't even real? As in he thinks there's a man that looks like him in the window of a house. It was more physical of like, I quickly realized I also didn't

know what a mirror was. He was like, no, what, how do you make a mirror? Well, it's glass, right? Isn't it a type of glass? Mm-hmm. Yeah. So it's just a part of the manufacturing process that makes the glass not transparent but reflective. What is that process? I don't know. Yeah, exactly. I assume a wizard does it. I just don't know at what point the wizard is involved.

Yeah, and because he was like, is it aluminium? Like, you know, aluminium foil is like a bit reflective. And we looked it up and it was like, yeah, basically. It's just like a thin sheet of metal, like a coating of metal. Do you want me to really blow your mind? Did you know you can never actually see what you look like right now?

It's not true. It is true. That is true. What do you mean? Because the only time you can see directly what you... This is Socrates in 2000 BC, talkative students. Looking into a mirror, you are technically looking... A mirror image, right.

A mirror image, but you're looking fractions of seconds into the past. Okay, by the time the light that reflects off the mirror and hits your eyes hits your eyes. Yeah. Sure. It's just kind of cool. Right. Which is crazy because I look in the mirror

and I think I'm looking at me from the future. There's another one, right, where like, did you know you can never actually touch anything? All right, I'm moving on. No, come on. You can never actually touch anything. This sounds like something that a 30 year old virgin would say.

It's like, technically as humans, we can never touch anything. So you guys think that you've had sex with a woman before, but really you haven't. Yeah, so you think you've been to second base, but actually you're just like me, alone. Something, something, we're made up of atoms in it. Sure, okay.

I feel like atoms, mostly empty space, they've, you know, I do need to get back to the mirror. We do need to get back to the mirror. I take a gun, you're going to let me finish. Because here's something that will touch you. This bullet, you want to know another f***ed up fact I read the other day? You know how when we look out at space, we see the light from stars that died millions

of years ago? That's true. That means if there's a civilization on that star looking at Earth through a microscope, they'd see the dinosaurs right now. We are the morning dew on the leaf of a flower in God's garden. We are a dream of a shrimp. We are the dream of a space shrimp. This whole thing is a dream.

At the beginning of time, God ate a nightmare shrimp and we're the creation. That's what it is. God was chilling, he had a nightmare shrimp, had a epileptic fit and we were born in that dream. The mirror for Christ's sake, the mirror. In the words of Pharrell, no one ever really dies. That's what I believe.

This 18th century mirror is placed in the castle's music room on multiple occasions guests who have stared deeply for long enough into the mirror, claim that their reflection moves by itself. Oh, that's not good. That is proper horror stuff. Really don't like that. That is genuinely terrifying. Not only that, but items around the room that are reflected also appear to be vibrating. Oh.

Yeah, like kind of shaking, I guess. I found that one really interesting because when I was growing up, you know, obviously a lot of my childhood was my parents taking me to doctors to try and figure out what was wrong. Ah! Ah! And one of the afflictions that I had for some reason was if I just stared at one spot for long enough,

in my eyes, the entire world would start shaking. This is Magneto as a child talking to a doctor. He's like, if I just focus, everything starts shaking. For breakfast, I ate a stapler, because metal's actually kind of cool and delicious to me. You're the child from Akira. I ate a stapler because metal's actually kind of cool and delicious to me. You're the child from Akira. In hindsight, I think it was the fact that I was drinking roughly two liters of Tesco discount energy drink a day.

But I can, this is such a visual thing for me. I can still remember that feeling of like objects shaking as I was looking at them. So that's kind of spooky. Original recipe, Sunny D will do that to a kid. It will. You can start hearing colors after a couple glasses of Sunny D. Sunny D, original Four Loco, Jack 3D.

I mean, I should say you shouldn't have been having Four Loco or Jack 3D as a child. They make a good cocktail. You mix them together, delicious stuff. You shouldn't have been having Four Loko or Jack 3D as a child. They make a good cocktail. You mix them together. You shouldn't be drinking cocktails. There's so many more insane stories from this castle, we barely have time to talk about them all. On one occasion, the late Donald Tinney heard the sound of a raucous party coming from the ballroom.

And just like the story we heard earlier about the haunted armor, when he threw open the doors, the ballroom was completely empty. Wow. At multiple times in the castle's history, people have seen the ghost of Ruth Tinney, Harley Tinney's mother-in-law, still sitting at her desk working. I do like the idea of a haunted ballroom, you know, because so often ghosts are the product of Hayley Williams' voice,

hard times, that something bad happens, some dreadful happens, someone died, unfinished business here on earth. I like that the unfinished business in this case might have been Dancing with Your Sweetheart or Popping and Locking to Uptown Funk in 1890. And simply this joyous occasion is what is being replayed continuously like a VHS tape. Yeah, because a lot of these castles, you know, they did have ballrooms or feast rooms in big dining halls where there probably were a ton of parties and extravagant events. Why wouldn't those big moments be commemorated in history? Why does it only have to be the traumatic ones that create these echo ghosts that kind of bounce throughout history?

It could be the nice times as well. Absolutely. I remember very early on, at one point, when I think we were working with a company to pitch this paranormal life TV show. Sure. And one of the concepts was going to a haunted castle and trying to find paranormal evidence.

I love this. And one of the sketches I came up with was, I found a castle where, similar to this, they said there was a ballroom where if you stayed the night, you could hear the sound of the parties and the events that took place. And my idea for the show was to try and capture some paranormal evidence. Me and Kit would host a party in the haunted castle with just ourselves, but

to try and lure in the old timey crowd, we'd have like a dance medieval dance music. We'd play mead pong, you know, kind of do old timey jigs and things, but a set up night vision cameras, you know, and really try and capture some of that. I thought that was a very funny idea. Well, we just, yeah, do really great performances as court jesters, trying to lure the kings back. They're like, oh, it's been years since I've seen a jester.

Dancing to harp renditions of Hips Don't Lie by Shakira. Doon, doon, doon, doon, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, dun, we're like dancing in our old timey pantaloons. Now of course, when you talk about a castle that is this haunted, what you need to do is try and figure out why it's haunted. We can look at the monk and say the monk is here because of the monk statue,

but why is the monk statue being activated? What would create an environment where these spirits are coming to life? Well first off, you know, as we mentioned earlier, when they did take over ownership, the Tinnies brought in their extensive collection of treasures. As we know, ancient treasures are prime real estate for curses, demonic attachment and poltergeist activity. We did a whole episode not too long ago on the British Museum. The idea being that if you get this many artifacts together with complicated paths, they will start acting up and you will see some paranormal activity.

Unfortunately, bringing ancient artifacts into your home is like pouring out a liter of pineapple juice onto your kitchen floor and hoping you don't get flies. You have created an oasis in the desert for them to inhabit. This is their paradise. Yeah, because sometimes, you know, maybe ghosts are a little bit shy. They don't want to come out of their shell, come out of their statue. This is like night in the museum. As soon as sunsets, everything's coming to life.

Another possible explanation could come from the claim that Belcourt Castle was inadvertently built over a man's grave. That'll do it. Will do it. We'll do it. But I mean, that's tough, isn't it? I mean, if we go back far enough, Jesus, there's probably someone buried everywhere. Right. Everything's built on a man's grave.

Yeah. This society itself was built on the graves of men and women. This podcast is, we took over the podcast feed of a guy who died. Yeah, we stole his RSS feed. He had a bunch of listeners who were like, let's just squat here, release a paranormal podcast. Apparently the site of the castle was originally home to an old cemetery. At some point in its history, the cemetery and the bodies were all moved to a new location. But one body was accidentally left behind,

But one body was accidentally left behind, meaning Belcourt Castle was built on top of this poor man's grave. It is tough. It's tough, isn't it, though? Because we've got quite a lot of different paranormal activity here. If we're seeing just one guy, Alan, and Alan is a real troublemaker, he's pissed off about it, and he's wrecking shit, it might make sense, but it seems like we've got, this is more of a Bridgewater Triangle situation, a lot is kicking off here. Yeah, it seems like they might just be on ley lines or something.

On a ley line, or they, yeah, or they built this castle out of the shit that makes lightsabers, like the crystals. Kyber crystals? Just too much energy. Yeah, yeah, no, I completely agree. You know, usually if a piece of history like this is explaining the conditions that we're living in, it's, as you said, it's the castle was built on a man's grave.

Now there's a man that walks about in the hallways, you know, oh, we see a little boy who visits our house at night. Guess what? The well out the back of your house in the garden, a little boy fell down there and died 300 years ago. It all is very like linked.

It makes sense. This one is just a mess of paranormal activity. Probably because of all of the shit the tinny's brought in. That's what I believe. Yeah. Cause it all makes sense. You know, the monk comes from the monk statue,

the blood curling screams of a man comes from the night armor with a scar down his head. I don't know what happened to the weird mirror, but a lot of this stuff probably has a lot of paranormal baggage that they were unaware of when they purchased it. Now the cool thing is this castle, I believe is still open to the public.

If you're in or around Rhode Island, you can go, you can visit it. I don't know how much of this stuff you can see. I think you can still see the armor, maybe the chairs, probably not the mirror, but I think there is a lot of it that's still open to the public. Over the years, they've even had paranormal investigators come and visit, examine it, try and find evidence. But of course, that is the only big problem that we're butting up against today.

As always, if you have a location like this with so much paranormal activity happening as recent as 2007, we got to have some evidence. Right. If it's as frequent as this. And I mean, that's unfortunate, isn't it? If you're telling me that the mirror is, is the tried and true fail safe paranormal experience of this house and

they're like, eh, you can't see the mirror. Yeah. No one's allowed to look in the mirror. Yeah. And it should be quite telling that at the end of this podcast and through my research, I didn't find any evidence that I felt confident or comfortable enough to present, to try and convince you. It's pretty dry out there.

I mean, a lot of this stuff, as I said, is just legends and stories from the family themselves. It's not really a paranormal. I mean a lot of this stuff, as I said, is just legends and stories from the family themselves. It's not really a paranormal site where investigators go in. It's more of a historical site. So evidence is still limited. But yes, I will admit there's really not a lot out there. Guys, we'd love to let you see the mirror, but unfortunately the insurance doesn't cover the fact that, see, last time a guy looked at the mirror, kind of Jordan Peele's us style, the mirror man came out and the original guy went in and he's been banging on the mirrors glass ever since and he's really stuck in there. Right.

And the mirror man claimed that he was the original guy, but his name tag was spelled backwards. It was, it was spelled backwards. I mean, he's a nice guy. He runs a convenience store down the street, but, uh, you know, the banging is too much. We have had to hide the mirror. Yeah.

He said, look, we know James went in there and you're not James. It's like, James didn't go in there. It was good old CMASH. You guys remember me CMASH, don't you? I hear what you're saying though. And I respect the honesty. I respect the honesty as a fellow paranormal investigator that sometimes when you're at the poker table and the house asks everybody to show their hands, sometimes you've got

to fold. I'm losing the poker analogy, but sometimes you've got to fold is what I'm saying. You take a look at your cards and they're not worth showing. It's like the song says, you got to know when to hold him, know when to fold him, know when to walk away and know when to grab the reflection you see in the mirror and strangle him before he strangles you. Seriously, I'm getting a little freaked out now. I mean, Rory should be a little worried actually about, are we dealing with Rory on the podcast right now or Eeroar? Dude, I'm still scared at any moment I'm gonna wake up in a Singaporean hotel room butt naked with shrimp dribbling down my shirt.

That's what I'm saying, did Rory go into the mirror in the hotel room? I have no idea. But hey, we're not here to discuss whether I am the real Rory. We are here to discuss whether or not we think Belcourt Castle truly is paranormal. I'm happy to take the lead today. I don't think it's a complicated one. Just not enough evidence unfortunately. I love investigating haunted castles, I think it's really cool to talk about ancient armor, 18th century mirrors, a lot of this really cool creepy vintage stuff, but unfortunately

just because it's old doesn't mean we don't still need evidence. Which we don't have today, so it's gonna be a no for me Rats yet another ghost case being chalked up to a double no. I would I would tend to agree I would tend to agree I don't think we're being that harsh that when people say that there's untold Paranormal experiences that we just have something to point to. Something that at least if paranormal investigators turn up, that they don't come away with something. Yes, exactly.

And for the castle to be around this long and us to not have any more concrete evidence, that's pretty damning. So unfortunately, this week on the podcast, it's gonna be a double no. But hey, if you have been listening for a while, you know that we did have a double yes recently. If you missed it, you're gonna wanna go back

and check that episode out. It was an absolute banger. There's been so many great episodes of the podcast recently. Me and Rory have been drinking ever since the double yes. It was such a big moment. I mean, we're kind of joking, but pretty much after we hit stop recording, I just collapsed to the ground. It was like I'd been possessed for an hour and a half, and then I just collapsed to the

floor. I was so exhausted, surrounded by evidence and papers. And let me tell you, there's a few big cases just like that on the horizon. And as well as if you are joining us for maybe the first time, maybe the second time to this paranormal life, only recently, then you don't even know what a double yes even looks like or means. That means that we, even us,

just shitty little bitter skeptics have actually admitted that a case was legitimately paranormal. Something out of this world occurred. Not only that, there is tons of double yeses. Well, let's not get carried away. There's lots of double yeses in the back catalogue to be explored. Yeah, I know. I think we had said on the episode, oh, we're going through a bit of a dry spell. I hope we get a double yes soon. For context, the most recent double yes before the one a few weeks ago was June 2003.

Oh, 2003? 2023. It was 21 years ago. And we were drunk then, so it probably was a miscalculation. But hey, if you're maybe newer to the show, maybe you really want to hone in, maybe you're super curious about the ones that we have given a double yes. We've shouted it out many times before, but someone has gone ahead and made an unofficial TPL episode guide, which you should be able to search for in the This Paranormal Life

Facebook group. And that is a very great guide, which keeps up to date with which ones were a double yes. So that's a cool place to start. If you wanna look through, you can actually see which ones take your fancy and whether they were a double yes or not. But Kit, what if I want to hear some episodes

that were never even released to the public, some top secret classified episodes of This Paranormal Life that are hidden behind closed doors. Well like this castle in Newport there's only one place on earth where you can find them patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. That's right basically if you go on to patreon and just sign up for a tier whatever tier tier it is, and hit enter. That is the equivalent of putting a nightmare shrimp into your mouth and going straight to dreamland. Because the next 24 hours of your life are going to be a roller coaster. It is the podcast equivalent of 50 milligrams of crystal DMT in a crack pipe.

You are going to emerge a different person. There is so much cool stuff locked away on Patreon. The secret files are X-Files. You've got bonus episodes of the podcast, extra weekly episodes, some really cool rewards and merchandise, including a limited edition commune coin. Now this coin made of real metal, golden silver, this thing is actually insane looking, really, really cool. It is a token that grants you access,

no questions asked to the paranormal Commune when it is completed. Completion date, TDC. We are behind, we are behind. Construction has only rocketed in costs since the pandemic, which didn't help because our budget was nil point before we started. But the coin, this is, this is authentic. You know, even if you are on the run from the law, even if you are a wanted criminal, almost like fantasy RPG style, if you just show up, throw your hood back and shine the coin, we're like, come in.

You get shelter in the sacred fortress. Yeah. The commune, when it's completed, will be a lot like the continental in the John Wick universe. It will be neutral ground where no business is conducted. You are safe from the outside. Yeah. There are taxes though. Quite high taxes if you're staying from the outside. Yeah, there are taxes though.

Quite high taxes if you're staying as a resident. Oh, it's not free. It's not free once you're inside. And much like the John Wick Hotel, it's an entire economy of gold coins. We're gonna need them. So if that sounds interesting, head on over to patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life.

You can get a bunch of cool extra stuff and it's the best way to support the show. If you're on YouTube, links to everything are in the description of the video. Click them, you can get everything there. If you're listening in a podcast app, you should be able to see in the description, in the description where we tell you about what this episode was. Below the description of this episode, there'll be all the links to everything. And if you don't want to join Patreon, why not just give us a review? If you enjoyed the show,

this episode or any other one, on Spotify, on your Apple Podcasts app or any app of choice, give us a little review, throw us some stars, we really appreciate it and it helps grow the show. Now of course, also on Patreon, one of the rewards you can get is a shout out right at the end of the episode and that's what we're gonna do right now. So thank you to Rachel Fisher. Rachel Fisher the daughter of Sam Fisher aka Splinter Cell. Wow. Yeah sorry to out you like that Rachel but she's got a couple pairs of night vision goggles kicking around.

That's pretty cool. Okay, so is she available to hire for any top secret kind of missions? Yeah. Classified missions? She, you know, because I think Sam worked for like some kind of three letter government organization. Rachel does whatever she wants. She has all the skills, all the guns, and it's just a loose cannon.

That's worrying. Yep. Good guys, bad guys, she'll take out anyone. OK, well, I'm glad we're good guys. Because the bad guys pay better. That's the little f***ing thing they don't tell you. Well, thank you, Rachel, for your support. We are the good guys.

Or the bad guys, whoever you don't kill. Thank you also to Chris Fisher. Chris, oh my God, where you been bud? Chris only kills good guys. It doesn't matter what the money is from the bad guys or the good guys, he just gets a sick little kick out of it. He's just a criminal, it's no money exchange.

Yeah, so Chris, I'm glad that you support us, I guess we're bad guys. What is Sam went wrong somewhere? What, as a dad? Yeah. Raising such weird, bad children? Don't give a child night vision goggles at a young age. That seems like the kind of thing that destroys their eyes

and I guess moral compass as well. So Chris, please put down the silenced PP7, we are friends, not foes. Just as an aside, I think I've told you about this, that whenever my brother was like 11, he got really into like Splinter Cell. I remember this. And like he owned like decommissioned

night vision goggles, balaclavas. Like I would be like kicking it. I'd be like, I was like 14, 15 years old or whatever. I'd be like, I'm going to go to bed and I would go into the hallway, knock on the light. All the light bulbs have been unscrewed. He is hiding in the walls somewhere, like going to choke me out.

My life, I walked on eggshells for months. That's incredible. I love you trying to turn on the lights. They don't come on, you just hear that little noise. I'm like a guard in Metal Gear Solid. I'm like... Yeah, the little alarm.

Exclamation mark above my head. Thank you also to Tierney Bird. You gotta be careful walking around the commune with a second name like Bird, because I think we've said on the podcast before, there ain't a lot of food going around. And we're kind of at that point now where it doesn't matter what type of bird it is.

It doesn't even matter if you don't walk like a bird or talk like a bird, if your last name is Bird. You're getting cooked. You're being served for Christmas dinner. Yeah, you're gonna be in a bucket soon. So, Tierney, thank you for joining the commune. Keep your wits about you. You might want to hang out with the Fisher twins because you're going to need some backup when people start coming for you. Thank you also to Shelley.

No one called Shelley is having a bad time. Right? If you're called Shelley, I imagine you kind of hang out at diners drinking milkshakes, maybe riding a bike and or motorbike around places and a kind of 60s vibe. Yeah, just having a great time. My name might as well be Eeyore, the life I'm living. Because I'm a f***ing depressed donkey. I look like a donkey and I'm depressed. So Shelly, if you could please teach me your ways, I would appreciate that.

Thank you also to Maggie La Victoire. That's the name of a mother****** who's got a castle. Maggie the Victor? Maggie La Victor. Wow. I wonder, you know, I think back in the day, you got that name if you won a medium to large size battle. We're talking one to three thousand men on the field. Yeah.

Maggie called it stuff after getting the dub in Fortnite one night. Hey, it sounds like a pretty cool name. I'm assuming in between that first and second there is Hazard Perry Belmont, Jeremiah the third, La Vicdor. Tyler Perry Bradley Cooper Belmont. Thank you for your support Maggie. Please can we borrow one of your horses? And thank you finally, lastly this week, to Big Ron. This is the complete opposite if one of your two names is just describing the size you

are. Big Ron does not own any horses. Big Ron is night security down at the viper room on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Big Ron, he's a sweet guy. He's a sweet guy. Yeah. He has a 1989 Toyota Corolla that he has to jumpstart from his stepdad's car every morning before he leaves. Big Ron looks scary but it has a heart of gold, absolutely. Yeah, at his heart he's a Shelley, for sure. And Big Ron, we're so glad that you're here. Thank you for supporting the show. We really appreciate it.

Thank you to everyone who supports us on Patreon. We couldn't make this show without your support over there on Patreon. So if you want to get involved, you want to get a shout out, head on over to patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. I cannot encourage all of you any more than to go out tonight and eat as much shrimp as possible and see what happens. I want to know if anyone can replicate what happened to me.

Okay. There's so much food poisoning that's gonna happen. I just feel like it's not amazing advice. Thank you for listening. We'll see you next week. See you next time.