This Paranormal Life - #403 The Day 200 Children Mysteriously Collapsed - The Hollinwell Incident

Episode Date: January 28, 2025

In the summer of 1980, thousands of people arrived at the Hollinwell Showground for their annual celebration. The day started like any other... but by the end, almost 300 attendees would end up in hospital. The cause? We have absolutely no idea.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.

Does the government use the power of sound to control minds? If humans evolved from monkeys, what did aliens evolve from? Space monkeys? All these questions you can find the answer to on This Paranormal Life! Hello everyone and welcome back to This Paranormal Life, the comedy paranormal podcast where every week myself and my associate Kit Grier-Molvena investigate a brand new paranormal tale and come to a conclusion as to whether or not paranormal podcast where every week myself and my associate Kit Grier-Molvena investigate a brand new paranormal tale and come to a conclusion as to whether or not it truly is

paranormal. Don't point at me. Don't point at me. I'm accusing anyone in this room, even the listeners. Are you paranormal? What's in that can? It's slime, isn't it, You f***ing swamp dwelling jester. Well, hey, I think if we've proven anything in the last three episodes of this podcast,

it's that the paranormal is among us right now in 2025. Yeah, oh, it's real. You know, it took us. So whenever we started this podcast, we were talking about this recently. It took us a few episodes to get a yes, didn't it? You know, had to get rolling. We didn't, we started off the podcast not knowing if anything would be given a yes at the end. It took us a few episodes. 2025, it is raining yeses. It is raining paranormal entities. That's right. The first episode, Atlantis, yes. Boom. Second, the Mantis Man.

So hard to believe for sure. Yeah. The third one, the Abominable Snowman. The Ab the Mantis Man. That was also a yes. So hard to believe for sure, yeah. The third one, the Abominable Snowman. The Abominable Snowman. Was a yes. So we are on an insane run, actually almost never before seen run right now. That might be the most, I think, that we've ever gotten before.

If I knew more about sports, I would come up with a sports analogy. We're like, you know, the 96 Bulls, or you know what I'm saying? Like we're on a run, but my references are stuck in the 90s. Come on, quick sports, sports reference. Come on. We're like, we're like the 97 Bulls.

I don't know how long this street lasts. And actually, so you need to, you need to pick a new one. You can't pick my one. We're like, bro, we're like Ash catch him in season one. So anime, not even sports? He had to catch them all, you know? And that's like us. We gotta investigate all the paranormal creatures.

Yes. Rory, I'm so glad you brought this up because it's the question on everybody's lips right now who's listening to this paranormal life. Can they keep it up? Can they keep it going? And the answer, my friends, is yes, of course we can believe. Keep believing and we will hold the faith.

Yeah, maybe. And, huh? Well, what I was kind of getting at was like, three in a row. Isn't that in itself? It's a hat trick. An achievement. We should just be really proud of that. Not that I think today is going to be a double no, but I just, you know, I think we should definitely just be happy with what we've achieved so far.

Sure, yeah. But you know, like in Halo 3 terms, you know what's better than a triple kill? A killing spree. Let's keep going. Let's get another one. Rarely anyone ever says that a killing spree is better than what came before. Um, yeah, I just want to say, temper your expectations because today we're actually not even investigating a cryptid or a ghost. We're investigating an incident, an event.

Specific, easy to prove. No, actually it's more about the debate and the history of this crazy insane thing that happened. That's awesome, yeah. We don't even have to come down on conclusions if we don't want to. Yeah, well, hey look, if there's one thing I believe in in this world, aside from the Yeti, aside from Atlantis...

And the Mantis Man, don't forget yours. You know, it's weird every time Kit talks about all the yeses we've had so far, he weirdly always leaves out the Mantis Man. The only thing I believe in more than the Mantis Man is my buddy Rory. And I know that he wouldn't bring a case to the table after this streak. He wouldn't have like looked at that streak and brought a dud to the table. So I know that today is going to be a big, big case. You're like, the only thing I believe in less than Rory sometimes is the Mantis Man who

may or may not exist. If I break my leg in a car crash, I'm going to call the Memphis man before I call Rory. Because he has wings and he can fly. That's probably why you said it, right? Of course. Cause he could pick you up. Um, look, let's not beat around the bush at the start of the podcast. Let's dive right in. And as Kit said, let's see if we can get that fourth yes of the year.

Hell yeah. We're going to dive into today's case right after a few words from today's sponsors and a reminder, you can get every episode of this podcast ad free on patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. Okay, let me set the scene. It's July 1980, 45 years ago. We're in the small English town of Kirkby and Ashfield. A typical quiet town, but this weekend, it was home to the Hall and Well Show. An annual event at the Hall and Well Showground where thousands of people would come to hear live music

and celebrate, I don't know, being from Hall and Well, I suppose. Cool. But the most important part of the entire event was obviously the Junior Brass and Marching Band Competition. Oh yeah, okay. That is the Coachella of Hall and Well. Yeah. Well during this event over 500 children from all over the country had been bussed in to compete. Bring some earplugs am I right? I know this doesn't sound like an exciting day of events, Kit, so far,

but by the end of this day, almost 200 of those children would be in hospital. Oh god. The event kicked off at 9am, so all throughout the morning, thus loads of guests and performers began to flood the site, excited for a busy day of celebration. Welcome everyone to the annual Hall & Well show.

We're just about to kick off with the Forest League of Juvenile Jazz Bands. So please come down to the stage. Backstage, hundreds of kids stood waiting in line, ready to perform the first show of the day, when suddenly, there was some commotion in the crowd. At around 10.30, one of the kids in the juvenile jazz band collapsed. Oh shit! What the hell happened?

Somebody get them some water. Who's going to play first trumpet now? People ran to get help, but one kid collapsing was only the start. Across the crowd, more and more band members began to collapse, some dropping to their knees, others folding in half like an origami swan. Panic and nausea began to spread through the crowd like a wildfire. Whatever was causing this thing was contagious. One photographer, called Neil Lancashire, who covered the event for local press when he was 29, said, The tannoy turned on and the speaker said that some people had fainted and started listing off various reasons.

First it was, Ladies and gentlemen, do not eat the ice cream! Everyone eating it has fainted! Everyone eating it has fainted! Ha ha ha! It's a great, great thing to have to announce at an event at 10.30. The event has been on for presumably an hour

and a half. And you've there's an epidemic spreading through chocolate flakes. It's like, I always survey the audience for things they don't want to hear just as they finish their last scoop of ice cream. Just like, licking the spoon. Ladies and gentlemen, for the love of God, don't touch the ice cream!

It's like, oh no. Then they updated us again. Ladies and gentlemen, don't drink the water! Just don't consume anything. Just don't consume anything. And also, for sure, make sure you know what you're saying is right before you announce it. It feels like if they'd taken two more minutes to figure out what was going on, they wouldn't have had to say the ice cream thing first. It seems obviously as well as if they they were obviously trying to narrow down

the possible causes here and it's like, okay, well Timmy had ice cream and little Alan ate ice cream and they both fainted. It's like kids like ice cream, numbnuts. All right, what else. What else what else we got is like they all drank water today It's like yeah, and what else they all breathe oxygen to yeah breathe everyone if anything the mayor is way too jumpy Yeah, they're like oh, you know little Susan had a stick of cotton candy. He grabs a mic ladies and gentlemen They're like no take the mic away from him. There's anthrax in the cotton candy It's cotton poison. Then they were updated once again, finally through the speakers,

announcing to everyone in the crowd, Please don't touch the floor. What? Floor is lava. He really said floor is lava. Bro really said floor is lava. That is crazy. But it was too late.

Kids were dropping by the dozen. And remember, there were like 300 f***ing kids there. One observer likened it to a battlefield, saying that children were falling down like nine pins. Okay, is it a battlefield or is it a bowling alley? Concerned parents and adults ran into the crowd to help. And guess what? They started dropping too.

And it wasn't just fainting. There was nausea, vomiting, red eyes, sore throats. One girl would later say, quote, my legs and my arms felt as if they had no bones in them. Jesus. Look, you know, I can step in here as a, as an expert, you know, how in a documentary would cut to a professor of something. Right. And to talk about what's happening. Well, I'm a professor of fainting. When I was a little kid, I was a big fainter. That's not where I thought this was going to go.

I thought I was about to cut in and say, yes, because Kit has a child. I know everything there is to know. But what you're saying is you were a baby. About fainting through primary school. But what you're saying is you were a baby. About fainting through primary school. Oh, couldn't get through five days of a school week without hitting the deck, forehead first, smashing my skull off a desk. I didn't know you were a fainter.

Yeah, I don't know why. I think it was just my mummy would ask me to eat breakfast in the morning and I'd say no. And then I would just get lightheaded at school and I would faint. But it happened all the time and I don't know why. And I think that happens to some people. And then thankfully, you just grow out of it. And I haven't really fainted since.

But what I'm saying is it's very predictable and relatively safe. Do not try it at home, but you know, your, your vision just kind of goes to a pinpoint to kind of fogs in, goes black. And then you just, the last thing you hear is people being like, oh, are you okay? You don't look so good because you've gone pale and you've kind of started zoning out and then you fall over. Um, but it's pretty painless and you wake up and then you feel kind

of a bit woozy, but fine. So point is, you're absolutely right. Vomiting. You wake up 45 minutes later, somebody took a shit in your trousers, but everything's fine, mostly. Yeah, some merry pranksters pissed on me in the Crotchill region. Your parents are like, for the love of God, have a sandwich for breakfast. We can't keep picking you up from school after you've shit yourself.

No, I want water and a cracker. But yeah, it is true. Vomiting, shitting yourself, these are not things commonly associated with fainting. Yeah, I'm gonna go ahead and assume that teenage Kit never felt like his arms and legs had no bones in him. Okay, I grew out of it by being a teenager, all right?

I don't want to spread any rumors. I was about 10. Okay. All right. Still a little old to be fainting a lot. Alright, 8 then. Well, in the end, over 300 people, including children, adults, and babies, were affected by whatever the hell this was. Not the babies! Yeah, the babies make it kind of weird, but we'll get on to that later.

Like a baby fainting? What's a baby got to be stressed about so much they faint? Yeah, a bit it's hard for a baby to see something shocking and go and swoon and go Oh It's like everything's new to you Well, what are you to be what is right is there to be shocked about if that was possible Then anytime you gave a baby anything it would just go limp You'd be like, hey... Show it a grip.

Oh, shit! What? I've never seen that before. Hey, do you want a cracker? A cracker? That's the weirdest boob I've ever seen! Weird to see another boob. Why were you seeing other boobs?

No, because that's... I guess maybe you've been fed from one boob to the other boob and then you finally see the other boob. Well, because you know when you're a baby you breastfeed but then eventually it gets to a point where it's like hey time for dinner and you're like right show me the boob and then they're like it's a it's a spoonful of mushy peas yeah and you're like what the frick is that? I'm not going to lie to you, dad. I was kind of into the whole boob thing. Now all of a sudden you're putting green mush in my mouth.

When babies see cleavage on like people that aren't their mother, are they like, oh, how about a, how about a, how about a, how about a? Hopefully not. I mean, it's a good thing that they can't talk by that point in hindsight. Yeah, otherwise I'm so sorry. He doesn't usually do this. His heart pumps out of his chest. To make matters even stranger, a 14 times investigation reported that several horses

also fell ill. Okay, cross species. It's not the ice cream, unless someone fed the horses the fell ill. Okay, cross species. Yeah. It's not the ice cream, unless someone fed the horses the ice cream. Yeah, we don't know what this is. The ground might be lava. No, but the babies got hit too, so it's not the ground. The babies got hit, yeah. It's like a riddle.

It was so bad that some individuals had to be rushed to hospital. That's how serious this thing was, whatever it was. I mean, I do love the idea of a doctor having a nice relaxing morning, and then out of nowhere, 300 children show up before lunch. I also like the idea of you being at this event and then having a crazy symptom. It's like, oh, yeah, this is crazy.

I pissed myself. And everyone's like, what? That isn't one of the symptoms. No one else, that doesn't happen to anyone else. The doctor's like, you need to leave me alone. 300 children, nine adults, and three horses just arrived at my hospital door. I'm not even a vet! I don't know why they brought the horses!

There's very little I can do for them! The doctor gets everyone inside. He's like, I need to examine the bodies. Opens up someone's robe. Jesus Christ, he's hung like a horse that's a horse doctor oh shit despite a number of investigations into what happened that morning we still to this day have no idea what caused the Hall and well incident one thing is for sure though it seems pretty paranormal sure or, or you know, E. coli, bacteria or something.

Um, okay. Oh, I thought you wanted the quadruple yes. I thought you wanted the killing spree. I want it, and I'm sure I'm gonna get it once you provide us with some more evidence of the paranormal. But yeah, I'm just saying we're off to a great start here, but uh, yeah. What happened? How'd it happen?

I mean, Kian, have we ever seen anything like this before? A case of, I'm not gonna use the words mass hysteria But you know similar cases where something like this has spread through a crowd or a town or a village Yes, we have in short there was the dancing plague. Right. Can't remember where that was France or something I think so. Affected a village where people just couldn't stop dancing, for days, I think. Yeah. I think some people danced till they died.

Yeah. And then there was a laughing plague as well. Yep. A few of these that have happened. Yeah. So less kind of just a simple kind of physiological symptom like this, where you might just fall a keel over.

Yeah. It's a bit scarier, really. It would have been great if you were the mayor of the town at this event, and someone rushes up, and they were like, sir, Mr. Mayor, we have a case of mass hysteria. And the mayor's like, oh, well, well, well. Is it perchance the dancing craze? Or have we caught a case of the giggles?

They were like, a horse just dropped dead in the field on top of a baby. Yeah. Who died two seconds earlier. Is that so funny Mr. Mayor? The mayor's like, oh, well I mean, okay, shit, yeah we'll have to rejig some stuff then to kind of make sure the event happens,

but can we get the kids on for the brass performance? Just lighten the mood. Mr. Mayor, I don't know how to tell you there's not going to be a f***ing little league brass band competition. Yes, those are some examples of cases that were believed to be mass hysteria. And those aren't the only examples. Well, sure, those were some of the theories, but there were other more dope paranormal theories. I think every conclusion we came down on was mass hysteria. Maybe, I don't remember. But if you look up incidents of mass hysteria, you'll find out that there are actually

hundreds throughout history, not just the few we've examined. For example, in Blackburn, England, 1965, children at an all-girls school started complaining about dizziness. Within a number of hours, 85 girls from the school were rushed by an ambulance to a nearby hospital after fainting. The Kit Grier Special. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I wish somebody else had fainted with me.

Would have got bullied less. I mean, you can let me know if you had any of these symptoms at the time. Their symptoms included moaning, chattering of teeth, hypernia, tetany, and swooning. I don't know what any of those are but swooning. But I did swoon. You swooned hard? I guess. Another great example, in San Diego, 1988, the US Navy were forced to evacuate around 600 soldiers from the barracks after hundreds of men complained about breathing difficulty. Hmm. I mean, that's gotta be scary when you're in a military capacity because all of a sudden

you're thinking about biological warfare. Yeah. There's very little reason for people to drop a cloud of mustard gas on a bunch of 14 year old brass players. Mass hysteria is problematic, I feel like. I really don't like talking about it because it's fascinating on the one hand, it's like a piece of trivia in these amazing historical situations, but hysteria has like an interesting history in some regards.

I've heard that, you know, hysteria, it's connected to women's physiology and the way that we talk about stuff to do with your womb or whatever. I think it's your womb. Talk about a hysterectomy, for example, and that's connected to hysteria. And I believe they say how hysteria has been a thing used and weaponized against women over history. Right.

You know, where I think like in the beginning, probably only women could be medically classed as hysterical. Right, yeah. And it was a way of maybe medical, you know, if a woman was like, I don't like how I'm being treated by society, they'd be like, she's clearly hysterical. Lock her up in a cage. Right.

And drown her. I think that was how I think. Witch. I think that's how I think. Can I have some more food? Witch! Hungry little witch! I think that's how things worked for a long time. So... You'd love that wouldn't you? Hungry hungry? Yeah what do you want? Eye of Newt? Hmm? Leg of frog? Witch! A little Kentucky Fried little bucket of frogs legs. Three more women stand up. This is actually, you're acting like a bit

of a dickhead right now. Hysteria, mass hysteria. I've coven. You're a coven. I think that that's an example of how hysteria might be. So to me, sometimes it feels like- It's a little patronizing. It feels like hysteria,

it feels like it's been used in the past to like wallpaper over areas of the human psyche we don't yet understand. Right. Or to silence people in some instances. So that's where I would love to say it doesn't exist, but clearly something like it does exist. Clearly something's going on because it's happened too many times over the years. Yeah. And especially in a case like today where it's like, all right, you know, if you're looking at the San Diego 1988, U S Navy incident, um, that kind of would make sense if someone was trying to target a group of people or diminish the complaints of a group of people.

It makes sense. The Hall and well incident, there were babies, horses, men, children. It's kind of all over the place. Yeah, babies and horses, they're not really, like if we're saying that mass hysteria is like just psychologically, we're all mirroring each other's symptoms for some strange reason. Yeah. Babies and horses aren't playing that game. They're in a different world. The baby's in a world of its own. The horses really caught us stray with that one. Yeah. Cause they were probably in a field just being like, yo, what's going on over there?

Hey, yo, are you guys all right? Are you guys, oh, shit. What is coming out of my eyes? I didn't even know we could cry. Jesus. I'm sweating up my eye. Do I wipe them? I have a hoof, that's gonna hurt even more.

Yeah, very strange. I don't really understand. Yeah, and now it feels like my lunch of hay is coming up like, oh! A horse vomiting, that's disturbing. Ha ha ha! The horse mare is like,

horses of the field, do not eat the hay! Ha ha ha! The horses are like, well, what do we do? Can we drink the water? Nay! It's a little horse pun for you there. Keep it at light. Show me some evidence. Show me some evidence.

It's still early. We are deep in the case. No, it's not. We haven't even hit the ad break yet. Look, even though we don't know what exactly happened that day, there are a lot of theories that have been formed over the years.

So one popular theory is that, I think you mentioned it before, Kit, it could have been formed over the years. So one popular theory is that, I think you mentioned it before, Kit, it could have been a side effect of pesticides used in the fields before the event. Hmm, interesting. In 2003, a BBC news program that investigated the event revealed that at the time, a pesticide known as Tridmorph had been used locally,

which is now considered to be a harmful substance. Yeah, anything with morph in the name. Hey, the only thing that should be morphin' is a mighty morphin' Power Ranger, all right? I don't want my DNA to get morphed, thank you very much. Yeah, we need to rebrand the names of pesticides, starting with the name pesticide. That makes it sound like it's going to be on the side of the pests.

Not to get rid of them. Yeah, you need to call it like, if I was dropping a chemical on a field, I would call it Sonnymore. Oh, yeah, sorry about the fact that all the corn died. I dropped some Sonnymore on it. Sorry about the horses. Yeah, too some Sonnymore on it. Sorry about the horses. Yeah, too much Sonnymore. Oh shit, did your baby explode? Well, that would be the Sonnymore.

Right. And they're like, it doesn't sound like it would be the Sonnymore, because that sounds really nice. Yeah. And then I get away scott-free. Yeah. Or like Evergreen. I think Evergreen is something else, but sure.

Tridemorph? Pesticide? That sounds like things that are going to kill me. Right, but pesticide does what it says in the tin. It promises to, to side the pests as in suicide them, to kill them, homicide them. Is that really where the origin of the word comes from? Yeah, pesticide just means kill pests. Oh yeah, that actually makes a lot of sense.

Kill bugs so they don't num num num eat up your vegetables. Yeah, hey, my third eye is cracked right open. You don't need to talk to me about pesticides, my brother in Christ. Uh oh! Alright. Just a theory. By the way, I want to clarify before he goes on his rant. Alright, commune, we are gonna b*** my...

We are gonna... This is a federal crime in America. I shouldn't say it. Alright. I was b***ed by... I was it. I was banned in most countries and pesticides, glyphosate in the United States. Phil, delete the bit where I said, commit a crime. Delete that. I'm worried now. Delete that., beep it, beep the whole sentence. That'd be so good. Yeah. And the only way around this guys is to buy organic food. I don't do it because it's too expensive, but you guys should do it. Yeah. Or do the reverse, get food that's so artificial and pumped full of chemicals.

It was never even grown in a field. Yeah. I only eat Oreos and Twinkies. Pretty much exclusively. Just like, yeah, just like liquid cheese out of a can. Yeah. Sometimes I skip the crops altogether because I think they might be the most harmful part and I'll just drink Tridemorph in a glass.

Go straight to the pesticide because I think like it's if you can't beat them, join them. You can build up an immunity. Right, yeah, what you said. But I also want to clarify that when interviewed a farmer who was operating in the area, confirmed that nearby fields hadn't been sprayed in years. Okay.

Yeah. So while it may have seemed like the easiest explanation, it doesn't seem like it is fitting. Yeah, that does seem like a wild card to me. I do think pesticides, 45 years ago, if that's true, the number that you said, they were more tough and bad than they are today. There's more laws today, environmental laws protecting people. But I don't think there was, I don't know if there was ever a pesticide that would cause people to just keel over on mass.

Right, because we wouldn't have used it. Well, yeah, I just think if it did something bad, it would be slower than that, you know what I mean? Yeah, then immediately. Or you'd have to drink it, which they weren't doing. Yeah. Don't they use the phrase, like, strong enough to kill a horse as an example of how dangerously strong something is? If your pesticide is killing horse, it's killing everyone. It's getting the babies all the way up to the horses. They didn't die though, did they?

No, I think they just fell ill. Well, no, I don't, yeah, don't worry. I'm not disappointed. I don't want anyone to die. That would be a very sad story if this was what happened. Other theories that were considered included water supplies possibly being contaminated, food poisoning, and even radio waves.

So the Joker is the water supply of Gotham City was polluted. Radio waves, maybe that's more a sign of the times type deal where there was still a bit of ambiguity around how that affected the human body. I hate, H-A-T-E, capital H, hate the people who come up with this list of possibilities of what happened. Radio waves, great. Just while we're saying whatever the f***, let's say it was lasagna caused it. Yeah, yeah, if you think about it, someone could have made a pretty strong lasagna and everyone, and the smell of the lasagna out of the waft of the window was so strong everyone fell it shut the **** up. That's called Garfield syndrome. The lasagna is so powerful

your heart stops. Radio waves. Brilliant. Yeah. Listening to BBC Radio 2 that's what did it. They didn't know I guess at the time they were like oh there's a there's a megaphone announcing shit in a field. And I know that radio waves, it's an electromagnetic spectrum. It's not just the radio that we're listening to. It could be strong. But like, OK, cool. Do we have any proof? Was Dr. Robotnik flying around in the sky

with a giant radio wave generator? Please give me more information than that. That's insane. Right, it was a local event demonstrating a children's jazz band. I don't think anyone had a radio frequency strong enough to kill a horse. If we're talking about the Cuban embassy mystery,

it's like, sure, people could have been targeting embassy employees. Yeah. These are kids playing tuba. There's no reason to hijack this event. People do also take into consideration that the show was scheduled to begin at 9am and many of the children were tired from their journeys and nervous about performing. Uh-huh. The horse, though?

Yeah, the horses and the babies of the men and women is a little bit more strange. Yeah, they weren't playing Madison Square Garden. You know, there's a certain there's a healthy amount of stage nerves and stage fright. I don't think this was it. Look, these are only some of the explanations, and I will say the tamer explanations of what happened on this day. We might just get our fourth double yes of 2025, but we've got to find out right after a few words

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We are investigating the possible cause of the Hall and Well incident. Starting off once again after the break with one of the strangest explanations I would say. This explanation arrived on the 42nd anniversary of the incident. A forensic science lecturer from Nottingham Trent University theorized that during the event, someone could have created what is scientifically referred to as a toilet block, more commonly known as a mega shit. Just skip this.

So when's the paranormal thing happening? This is just, you know, we're still in the period of the podcast. We're explaining, right? But it's just, you went to a break, right? You went to a break and then you said, when we come back, we'll hear a possibility that would get us a double yes. Which to get a double yes, a single paranormal thing would have to happen.

In an attempt to clean the mega-shit. You see what I'm saying? Because, you know, so like we could talk about more physical possibilities and sure that would ensure a no but we haven't heard any any paranormal uh story yet so in a sense we could skip this we can actually skip the quote unquote mega shit until after we hear at least a single smidgen crumb of paranormal and then we can come back to the Mega Shit. Could different cleaning products have been combined to create chlorine gas? Yeah, could have been.

That's a thing. It is a thing. Just a theory. Just one of many theories. Of course, there are power. Let's keep the sushi belt going. And flush the Mega Shit and move on to the paranormal. Yeah, that avocado maki roll is looking a little old

on the conveyor belt, so I'm just gonna keep the conveyor belt coming. Uh, Ken, I know that you're very interested in this being a possible explanation behind what happened this day, but I want to point out that this entire event took place at 10 30 in the morning. Who is taking a shit big enough at this time to require enough cleaning products to create a biohazard? That wasn't a rhetorical question I was asking you.

Who would be doing it? Maybe one of the horses. Alright, you want something paranormal? Fine, how's this for a paranormal explanation? Look, yes, the people the mainstream media have tried to use explanations like pesticide and mega shits to explain what happened on the day of this event but are these possibly just excuses that they've thrown into the news to distract people from the fact that this really

was a paranormal event that took place? Are they just filler for a podcast episode so we can hit the 45 minute mark of a recording? Absolutely not! Look, frustratingly there's not a ton of information online about the details of the Hall and Well incident, but is that in itself a coincidence? Because some online accounts do describe aspects of the incident, aspects that seem a little strange for the mainstream news to exclude. This is a very conspiracy heavy episode, I like it.

Pest, attack of pesticides, mainstream media. These reports include a sudden drop in temperature, an eerie silence that enveloped the area at the time of the event, and additionally, there were even reports of electrical disturbances, with some witnesses claiming that their electronic devices malfunctioned during the event. Woah. Is this getting paranormal enough for you, Kit?

All of a sudden, hey, it's looking pretty coincidental that this was actually all caused by pesticides. Do pesticides affect the electronic performance of your handheld devices? No, but a lot of things can. You are just a little skeptic today, aren't you? I can't say anything. I give him normal explanations, he hates them, I give him paranormal ones, and he goes, well actually, I can't win today.

He's bringing the no. How can I be skeptical? You're a mega shit. You're a mega shit in my life! I want to dissolve with chemicals! Your negativity could kill a horse! How can I be a naysayer? It's the first paranormal thing you said all day!

And you hated it! It's a simple drop in temperature! And you hated it. No, I said drop in temperature, eerie silence, electrical devices being affected, and did I mention 300 children went to hospital for no reason? You're gonna tell me that's not paranormal? I will say, yeah, an eerie silence

at a brass band competition is weird. Kit's a rat. Kit's a rat or a mole, we haven't decided yet, but he came in wanting to know, and at this pace, he's gonna get it. I think there's a certain amount of gaslighting going on. I'm not talking about the mega shit. I think, I think the audience can see what's happening.

Uh, I think Rory is maybe feeling a little defensive about the direction the episode is taking. And it's kind of lashing out at me. It's not going well. I'll be honest. I think we can all tell that. It's, but hey, Rory, I told you at the beginning, I want the yes. I'm the first person to stand up here and say, you know, I want this to be a W.A.

I want it to succeed. I want you to succeed with telling the story. So I simply await more information. Well, you'll be happy to hear, Kit, that one online outlet claimed that on the day of the event... Which outlet? Doesn't matter. Doesn't matter.

Why would it matter? It kind of matters. I'm refusing to. Why would it matter? It kinda matters. I'm refusing to say their name to protect their anonymity in this case. Alright. They claim that on the day of the event, multiple eyewitnesses reported seeing unusual objects in the sky above the fields. Mm-hmm. Okay. At least one website said things began to take a-

At least one website said things began to take... At least one website said... One website... One outlet, one website. You gotta be more specific than that, bud. I can't believe this. I can't believe this. He says he wants to believe and then he criticizes every... He wants me to do a f***ing annotate every single note that I have of anything.

No, just say the URL. How bad can it be? I mean, you either have it or you wrote it down. You must have the source. You're a CIA agent. I don't believe this. I think we got three yeses and then Kit got a phone call and said, I have your daughter.

And then he's come on the podcast today to basically shut everything down. I'm just saying I like it. I'm just saying, I like it. I'm just saying. You hate it. Whenever we, normally if we're talking about UFOs, which is what you're talking about, normally we would say, hey, here's a video and it's from Luis Elizondo or it's from Jeremy Corbell or one of these sorts. I'm just, I was just on the off, hey, I'm just saying on the off chance. What about Associated Press? Is that enough for you? Is that real?

Yeah. Associated Press reports mentioned, quote, an invasion from outer space. Seems hard to believe, but that's great. Okay. And just over a week later, it was revealed that police had indeed investigated reports of a UFO landing in the field adjacent to the show. For sure, read that. It's crazy I had to poke you

in order to give that good information. I was getting there! You were criticizing every sentence on the way to me delivering the information that you wanted that it took so long to get there. You hadn't spoken. You were stonewalling me. I asked you who it was and then you were like,

classified, classified, stonewall, classified. You were like, oh, you have to say something paranormal. It's like, okay, well, one day, what day? Monday, what time? I don't know, 2 p.m. Where? Let me tell you the story. No. You might hear the thing you want to hear. You made it out like you didn't know. All right, that's great. This is crazy.

That's great. This is crazy. Keep going. That's, you know. This is good stuff. I don't know? All right, that's great. This is crazy. That's great. This is crazy. Keep going. That's, you know. This is good stuff. I don't know what else to say. I actually don't even want to say anything else because I can just imagine all the problems

you're going to have with it. I'm not going to have any problems. Police investigated reports of a UFO. That's great. Yeah. No evidence was ever found for any landing, quote unquote, but the police did take the claim seriously enough to investigate it. Good.

Okay. I just was wanting to, cause you know, look, the commune has been talking and they're going, Kittenroy have lost their minds. Lost their minds. That's why they're giving out yeses like they're sweets to little children. Right. Uh, I just want to assure them that we're not, that we're being vigilant. And so that's why I was just asking for a bit more detail.

But hey, I am here for it. I've got my third eyes open wide. Let's see it. All right. Well, this is a lot of stuff that I wish you weren't saying, right as I'm about to tee up the next kind of chapter of this investigation. There is another theory that this was, in fact, a situation that was caused by something known as the Brown Note.

The Mythbusters tried to find it and they concluded that it doesn't exist. But I just want to highlight, do I have to remind you what kind of event we were at? 300 children with brass instruments? What if one of them hit it accidentally in the crowd. Interesting. On a tuba or a sax. I did a little investigating and I did manage to find a YouTube video that claims to be the Brown Note. I haven't listened to it yet for obvious reasons, but I thought we could play it on this podcast and see if we think that there's any truth to it.

I feel like I should do a warning right now to the audience. I wasn't super prepared, I'll be honest. Yeah, because there's a chance that myself, Kit, and everyone listening to this right now just shits themselves immediately on the spot. Okay, so fair warning, if you're listening, I don't know, on a flight, you know, you don't have a lot of exit situations. Pause the podcast right now. Yeah. Go to the bathroom. All right. This is the brown note. All right. There we have it. And thank you for tuning in. I need to, let's just wrap up real quick.

We're actually going to skip conclusions this week. Kit and I are fine though, we are fine. It must be a no, yeah, I guess it's a no. We're like double yes. We have to go right now, immediately. Well I didn't shit myself. I did feel a little bit sick. Me neither.

Me neither. So that's that makes two and Phil. That's three of us. I guess three of us didn't. Phil actually just ran out to the bathroom really quick while we were playing that. So I don't, I think he's fine. That could have been unrelated. Definitely didn't do anything.

Okay. I love the YouTube comments on that video. Um, some of which were, I like any video that warns me I have to have a toilet ready. Another one was, I was so scared of the warning I shat my pants before the noise played. And someone else said, as soon as the note started, my dog started barking his ass off and then shit himself. That's believable. I think this would work on a dog in fairness. Yeah, to be fair, animals, I don't know.

Please let us know if you had any reaction to that. It is just one of the theories of what possibly could have happened. Is that paranormal? Kind of. I'm surprised we've got this far without talking about the Pride Note. Has it come up on previous podcasts?

I think I thought about doing it as an episode, quickly realized that what we've just done is about as much as you want to talk about it, and then decided not to do it. So I'm glad we worked it into this episode, but I don't think it needs its own episode. Yeah, it's very like mid-2000s pseudoscience, isn't it? It's very like, yeah, just the kind of thing that exists by word of mouth. And of course, officially to this day the explanation for the event is mass hysteria. However, people that were present at the event are still alive today, they have been interviewed since, and they are still

adamant that their symptoms were real and not the result of imagination or hysteria. You know as I said one of the individuals who was interviewed the poor girl said her legs and her arms felt like they had no bones in them. I mean that feels like it's beyond just seeing someone coughing and then feel like you have to cough too. Yeah I I think so too. I think so too. I think vomiting is such a physiological thing. It's hard to just, it really is. I think that's understandable why people turn into radioactivity, turn to noises,

because it's so hard to fake. Fainting as the master fainter, the Houdini of fainting, kind of anything can make you faint, honestly. It really could. Like all it is is just like your heart rate goes too high or your blood pressure goes too low, whatever it is. I think you might be anemic. It really shouldn't be so many things that make you faint so easily.

I'm just saying. There's a number of reasons. And you could, the physiological response of fainting, you could just psychologically get there. You could become stressed out enough that you just faint. I don't think I've ever fainted before. The only time I almost fainted was the first time I ever tried a snooze pouch of nicotine.

Yeah, that'll do it. Shove that up in my gums and almost blacked out immediately. But you can, what I'm saying is you can get there with your mind, because if we're saying it's hysteria, that's in your mind that causes a physiological response. Yes. My problem is I don't, I'm just not sure if you can psychologically get to vomiting.

Or if you can, it's just not that quick for so many people. Yeah, yeah, I have no idea. And to affect, you know, not just a couple people in a crowd, over 300 people. Yeah. It probably was like a battlefield, just out of nowhere. The only thing I will say is, if enough people start vomiting, you'll vomit.

That's true. Like, the sight and smell of that will cause a lot of people to faint. If 250 people vomit, your best bet is that another 50 people are going to vomit. Yeah, that's worth thinking about. But still, I am still in the camp of... I personally believe mass hysteria is a bit of a lightweight excuse. I don't think that's good. Yeah, we never love to see it. It's the weather balloon of incidents like this.

The sticker that people love to slap onto an unexplained event. Now, the giggling plague, that's fine, whatever. But something as drastic as this. Yeah, giggling plague. That's fine. Whatever but something is as drastic as this Yeah, giggling dancing was a bit weird. I don't think it was a bit weird because people dance till they died. Yeah But yeah a very strange case that to this day is unfortunately unexplained Despite some popular theories that people have kind of come up with in the years since. I think even as recently as like a couple years ago, there was like a BBC podcast called The Fainting Field. Yeah.

That was just a BBC series about this event start to finish. It's funny that I got really angry at researchers for suggesting radio waves, and then you proceeded to talk about two way more annoying theories, which was the Brown Note and the mega shit. I don't know if I would necessarily have called one of those theories the mega shit. I think I probably would have said some sort of chemical reaction from cleaning products. Sure. But I can see why that's your takeaway for sure. At the end of every episode, Kit, we obviously do have to come down on our conclusions. And I'm excited, you know, because we've got three yeses in a row.

We're on a roll. I'm going to throw this one to you first. There was a lot of skepticism during the episode, but I think you might have come around a little bit when we started talking about UFOs in the night sky. Mm, yeah, okay, well, police reports on UFOs and maybe a couple of witnesses seeing something, that is more than I was expecting in terms of the paranormal. Sure, aside from the incident itself, which is paranormal. Those are paranormal explanations for why it happened, but 300 people fainting out of nowhere in a field

is also in itself a paranormal event. Not really. Kind of crazy. And, you know, we don't have a lot to go on there. We really don't. I think maybe, you know, if more of those people had seen it, you know, if we're saying that a UFO was flying by in broad daylight and we had hundreds of people rallied outdoors for an event. Yeah. Um, and none of them spotted it, uh, but had this response. That's a, that is a little tough. That is a little tough. As I say, I do think it's something pretty physical affecting them.

I don't, I don't off rip. I don't really believe this is just mass hysteria. Um, but yeah, are you pulled in by the paranormal explanation, the one paranormal explanation we have? All right, no need to be specific. That it's a UFO? I think for me, that is the only paranormal explanation that would make any sense, is some kind of UFO. Look, in the world of 2025, we are beyond a UFO looking like a metal umbrella zipping through the sky with a little guy behind the wheel.

We see the reports on the news of these things where they are essentially invisible. They're a layer of glitter in the sky traveling at a thousand miles per hour between dimensions. So is it beyond the realms of possibility that you see the effects of people being near this craft without even seeing the craft? No. But can you say that it was paranormal without having any paranormal evidence?

Also kind of no. So it does really just make it a mysterious event that just has no explanation. Yeah. Unfortunately. But hard to say whether or not it's paranormal. It's frustrating, isn't it? Because you know, these things, you always feel bad discounting people because as you point out, you'll say, hey, the people that were affected, they think it's real.

That's the problem. They always think it's real. Right. They'll never be like, yeah, I thought that was a whole bunch of bullshit. Yeah, you know whenever we all collectively went unconscious and vomited everywhere, I think it was mass hysteria. They always think there were some explanations bigger than them. Yeah. I mean, I've only had food poisoning once in my life.

And if I hadn't, just prior to getting food poisoning, stayed awake for almost 40 hours drinking beer and eating cold chicken wings at a Super Bowl party. If I hadn't done that, I probably would have said it was aliens, because that was the only excuse to create such a devastating effect on my body and mind. But unfortunately, these people just, I don't know what happened to them. I don't, unfortunately. And yet we have to come down on our conclusions.

Kit, what are you thinking today in the case of the Hall and Well incident? Well, you know, Rory, it's been a roll and it's been a run. And that means this week we are gonna make it a... No, no, I don't think it's... I don't think it's paranormal. You don't think it's paranormal? You think it's paranormal. You don't think it's paranormal?

You think it's normal? That 400 children almost died in a field? I'm not saying it's normal. Okay, no, that's cool. Do I think it's supernatural? Paranormal? No. It's pretty paranormal, I would believe. But of course, it's a no.

Okay, give it a yes then, Joe. Also a no from me. Look, I didn't know we were gonna have three yeses before this, all right? You should have. I didn't know we were gonna have three yeses before this, alright? You should've. It's been weeks. I didn't realize we were gonna be on a streak. I honestly thought the Mantis Man might have been the last straw of the entire podcast. I thought we might have ended it after that one, but it weirdly got a yes and continued it.

The streak is dead. But this is how you know we are real. This is how you know we are keeping it real with you. We have not lost it. We're not giving everything a yes. Yeah. We could have easily just said yes and let this train keep on rolling. But unfortunately, even a case as weird, bizarre, and as fun as this one, we still need to see the paranormal evidence. But let us know what you think. I want to hear some other theories out there about what could have caused the Hall and Well incident.

Yeah. I shouldn't have bigged everyone up before this recording. So everyone listening, um, pour the champagne back into the bottle. Uh, if you can, if you can, you know, sometimes the necks are thin party, try and return some of the party poppers. I know you guys went crazy in the commune kind of buying supplies, but don't put them away just yet. I can return them. I think don put them away just yet. You can return them I think. Don't do it just yet because next week we're back with Kit's episode.

Right. Okay. You know your boy is going to have a banger. I'm trying to have a think. What is it? Uh, not no. Not no. Okay. Not a no. It's good to be hosting a case that you don't already think is a no before we've even done it.

They should all be not nos from the beginning. It's currently a not no. They should all be that way. We should have actually rotated our episode so that I went next and then you could continue. Yeah, that would have been smart. It's not too late. No, it is kind of too late, I guess.

Yeah, the episode's kind of going out now. And the good news is- So save the shampers. Save it, save it. And the good news is, is I don't actually work for the FBI or CIA like Kit does. So I might actually come at the case with an open mind without being so critical and negative all the time. So you never know, could actually walk away with a yes.

Might actually happen. Do you have to clock off back at the Pentagon? Or can you still be here to end the podcast with me? I think we're done. OK. Yeah. You think if I was getting a CIA salary, you think I'd be sitting here with you? Yeah.

You're out of your damn mind. Thank you, everyone, for listening to this week's episode of the podcast. I hope you enjoyed it. It's a cool mystery. I love investigating these cases that just kind of have no explanation. We don't know, this day what happened.

But maybe through our network of paranormal investigators, we can find out. If you want to support the show, if you enjoyed this episode or any episode, head on over to a little website called patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. Where you can get access to a ton of extra episodes of this podcast, including some episodes behind a paywall that we have said yes to.

Yeah, even though we shouldn't, we kind of make it our thing that it's relaxed, it's chill over on Patreon. But sometimes it's been that good. We just go on the record and say, do you know what? I think this is legit. I think this is real. Yeah. So if you feel like you were robbed this week and you didn't get your yes, head on over to patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life. It's the best way to support the show. And it's kind of the only way that we've continued to be able to make this show for over 400 episodes. Mind blowing stuff. Yeah.

So thank you. Thank you so much for everyone who listens, supports, watches us on YouTube, or listens to us on your podcast players. We really appreciate it. And of course, we'll be with you for many more years talking about the paranormal and getting more yeses. So will we round out with just the brown note super loud again, just in case? Right, just in case anyone didn't completely get destroyed the first time. Here it is. Take it away. Hey, it's Kat Nat from the Kat Nat Unfiltered podcast. You know we're all about finding those little moments that bring comfort and connection. That's why this winter we're loving the new Starbucks handcrafted menu.

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