This Paranormal Life - Campfire - The BANDAGE MAN of Cannon Beach

Episode Date: October 31, 2024

Welcome to the campfire! For the last month, we've been dropping a mini-paranormal tale every Thursday to celebrate spooky season and now we've finally made it to Halloween! We knew we wanted today's story to be particularly terrifying, so settle in, as we tell you the story of the Cannon Beach BANDAGE MANFollow 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.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Welcome to the Campfire, short tales of paranormal mystery that live in the space between our Tuesday cases. Kit, Happy Halloween! Oh shit! That's right, not only is this our final episode of Campfire, but it is dropping today on October 31st, the spookiest day of the entire year. This is our Super Bowl. This is what we live for, Rory. As paranormal investigators, this is the most important day of the year, the point when the thinning of the veil

between our world and the spirit world. So this is a very important time to be talking about the paranormal. It is, and let me tell you you we have a fantastic story to uncover on today, the final episode of Campfire. Kit, have you ever heard of the Cannon Beach Bandage Man? No I haven't. You obviously... The Cabbage Beach Bondi Man?

The Cannon Beach Bondi Man? What? The Cannon Beach Bandage Man. I'll agree that's one of the more disturbing collection of words we've ever uttered on the podcast before. No, this isn't an episode of Scooby Doo, so obviously I haven't heard of this man. Our story today takes place on one of America's most famous highways. Okay, no context, no more information. Okay.

We're moving fast today! It's a short episode, so we gotta get to the juice quickly. There should be no shortage of juice. Cabbage juice. Our story takes place on one of America's most famous highways, the 101. Okay. This is a huge road that stretches all the way from Seattle to Los Angeles. And believe it or not, this highway is littered with paranormal history. For example, the road starts up near Forks, Washington, the vampire town made famous by the Twilight series.

There's nothing better than a famous American road. I mean, probably one reason you know about highways like the 101 is because these roads are longer than our country Yeah, that's a really good point. They're enormous so that makes a ton of sense They're bigger than the island that we grew up on that's how huge they are and the 101 for example as I said starts all the way up near Forks, Washington, and you can even drive it all the way down to, almost exactly to the Queen Mary in Los Angeles,

a haunted ghost ship that we've covered on the podcast before. Some kind of a haunted highway where the end destination is ghosts. But between those paranormal sites lies a creature more terrifying than Twilight Vampires and downtown Los Angeles combined. One of those is a lot more terrifying than the other. Today we're at Cannon Beach, Oregon.

It's late at night and a young couple parked their car in a secluded area just off of Highway 101. It was a nice clearing that had a view of both the beach in front and the dark sprawling forest behind them. I would say this is a pretty good spot for a date night because depending on what your date is into, you've got the beautiful serenity of the calming waves in front of you and the fear of the unknown, the sprawling endless dark of the forest just behind you. I see what you're saying though, I mean this might be a bit spicier than kind of the first date at Burger King or something.

This is like having sex in the changing room of a TK Maxx. Not a great date spot, but at any minute management could bust in and kick you out, you know, you never know what's gonna happen now this story claims that the pair were sitting in the car Admiring the view when suddenly they heard a strange rustling noise coming from the woods behind them Now this was extra strange because not only were they in the middle of nowhere, but it was a perfectly calm night There wasn't even a single gust of wind to rustle the trees calm night there wasn't even a single gust of wind to rustle the trees. Gonna be doing a little bit of acting here, but you know because this is one of our shorter episodes

I'm gonna be playing both roles just to simplify things, but uh don't worry. I think I'm pretty much gonna knock it out of the park. Okay Come here, baby Wait, I think I hear something. Don't worry about it, babe. It's probably a barn owl or something. The woman replied, I don't think barn owls smell like that. The couple gagged in horror as a rancid smell seeped into their car.

Where was it coming from? The woods? The woods? The ocean? Before the pair had time to investigate, the car began shaking violently. They looked out the steamy windows to try and see what was going on and imagine their fear when they saw the cause.

Thrashing violently against the side of the car was a dark, bloody figure wrapped head to toe in bandages like an angry Egyptian mummy. Yeah, I was gonna say at first the smell, that could have been anything. If this is a young guy's car, anything's possible. We're talking just a rancid old bottle of 2% knocking about the boot. But the shaking, we have quickly left the possibility that this is a jar of milk. This clearly has agency and unfortunately that agency is coming from a bloody bandaged mummy. Yeah, that is not good. Again, we talk about certain levels of danger and excitement on a date too far. Too far. Like some people have like a kink of like being watched.

Right. Right, like a voyeuristic type of thing. Not being watched by a great big bloody monster. Banging on the windows, the date's over. Yeah. You can try, you can be like, so where did you go to college? Was it near here?

And it's like, take me home. He's winding up the window. Er-ee, er-ee, er-ee. Err. The mummy is trying up the window. Erky, Erky, Erky. Ugh. The mummy is trying to grab him. Ugh. The couple launched into panic. They started the car as fast as possible

and gunned it back onto the highway, swerving onto the road, and narrowly avoiding a collision. Do you think he pulled up his underwear before getting in the driver's seat, or do you think he just kind of put butt cheek to leather? No, there's no way those trousers came up. In a situation like this, the trousers aren't coming up. It's like damn car won't go into gear. Oh, wrong gear stick. All right, let's go. I feel like the closest I've ever been in this situation is I've probably been using the bathroom in a hotel when I hear housekeeping opening the front door and there is no time to pull up the trousers. You did not lock that door. You're kind of lassoed

like a baby calf with your trousers around your ankles and you kind of have to leap and just kind of slam the door shut with your hands to try and keep housekeeping from coming in. And it's one of those moments it's like whenever like someone doesn't see something dangerous about to happen, like a car pulling out, it's about to hit your friend or something. And you know, when the words coming out of your mouth have bypassed your brain completely, they're just, just, oh, yeah, yeah. You just can't even quite formulate, no No, oh I'm shitting When they finally reached a well-lit area far enough away from Cannon Beach They got out of the car to examine the damages and at the back of the car

Amongst the dense and bloody handprints was a torn piece of the mysterious man's bloody bandages However later when they returned to the same clearing and searched the site, no evidence of a man was ever found. Well, that's alright because you got all the evidence you could ever dream of on the car. So let's let's put put that blood into a test tube. Let's get that bandage in a test tube. This is hardcore physical evidence, stuff that we could really use here in the podcast, too. Unfortunately, we don't even know the names of the two individuals who were there that night. So I don't think they did a ton of research and sent off those samples.

What? Well, luckily Kit, while this was one of the first sightings of the Cannon Beach Bandage Man, it would in no way be the last. We would have more chances to get evidence. Can I workshop the name, the Cannon Beach Bandageage man can we just quickly workshop that because it's is honestly infuriating and I don't want to hear it anymore it does what it needs to

do it actually the shit out of you it actually does more than it needs to do it sounds like it smells bad can we just I feel like just in Timberlake voice in the social network just Just Bandage Man. It's cleaner that way. I won't know where to find him. We don't need to find him. Oh, I'm so scared of the Bandage Man. I'm just gonna go hide at Cannon Beach

because I don't know where he lives now because you changed his name. Let's just assume that you're just not gonna happen across Cannon Beach if you didn't already know who the Bandage Man was. What I'm saying is there aren't any other Bandage Men really thinking about anymore that we need to be so specific about which bandage man this is.

Yes, I understand there were ancient Egyptian mummies that might have been cursed, but that was a long time ago. Yeah, we're entering an era with cryptids where probably just calling them bandage man is fine. You know, it's the equivalent of nowadays. You don't have to type in www.facebook.com, twitter.com. You just kind of type it in and it all works. We don't necessarily need to call him the 1957 bandage man of Cannon Beach. People kind of get the idea. Hey, did you know that it takes longer to say www than it does to say World Wide Web.

Wait, what? Run that one by me again, Chief. Right, people have shortened it from World Wide Web to www. Because it's quicker to type, for sure. It's quicker to type, but not to say. But everyone says www when it would actually be quicker to say World Wide Web.com or World Wide Web.bandageman.com. Yeah, you're right actually. Isn't that nuts?

Worldwideweb. Worldwideweb. Worldwideweb.pornhub.com. Yeah, that's super fast. Yeah, that's actually. It rolls off the tongue really. I can get there way quicker, yeah. Yeah, I think, look, if you're tagging any information

onto the name of a cryptid Make it something valuable like the bandage man whose weakness is fire Call them that tag on some additional info that's gonna help me in a bad situation right the goat man hyphen. He's behind you Exactly And you're kind of also giving you giving you his location then you're kind of also giving you his location, which still helps. Stuff like that. As I said, there were numerous sightings of the bandage man over the years.

In some stories, he runs out from the woods. In others, he jumps onto the roof of cars, trying to break in. In other stories, he runs out into the middle of the road, causing cars to crash on the highway. Good Lord, he really has a thing against cars that's what I'm realizing. Yes in particular this highway. Some people say he occasionally will try and hitchhike on the side of the road. No f***ing way absolutely not. And if you pick him up once

he's inside the vehicle he disappears. No no no I'm gonna have to all right this has been this has been really good but I do have to put a pause right now because no one's letting him in their car. A good Samaritan, if you're driving down the road and you see a poor, defenseless, bandaged man, he needs to go to the hospital. Yeah, he looks like he's been hit by a fucking helicopter. He's destroyed, he's in tatters and bits, he needs help.

He puts himself in your car limb by limb. He's basically Swiss cheese. I wish that the next claim of his activities was as paranormal, but some people think that the bandage man has turned up and just killed their pets. Wow. Which, hey, look, the guy's got a blindfold over his eyes.

You're telling me he's been around for maybe 100 years and he hasn't occasionally stepped on a hamster? It's gonna happen. Right, you're just saying through sheer chance? Through sheer chance, yeah. Or a pet lizard or something, I don't know. No, because hamsters and lizards only live inside. So unless he's trampling about inside your living room,

why would he, a dog or a cat, sure they might be outside. Yeah, that's a bit of a weird one, has no relevancy to the case, but some people do claim it. I feel like the people that are saying that, they accidentally, they were like, maybe they were dog-sitting their friend's dog, and they accidentally killed the dog

in a kind of meet the fuckers style. Right. And they are blaming it on the bandage man. Oh, he got us good. The bandage man of Cannon Beach Yeah, I don't live anywhere near the beach. Oh, but he hitchhikes. We know he hitchhikes. He could have got a ride Oh, yeah, and I did yes I did you could see I did forget to close the gate last night But you could actually see from the evidence that as soon as he got near the gate

the bandage man scooped him up and Ate him right there and then now kid obviously the big question is who is this man? What is he doing on the highway? And why is he so angry? Well to figure it all out we have to go back to 1941. America had just entered the second world war and as a result the country experienced labor shortages and high demand for certain materials. One of those being wood. There was such a labor shortage, they had to hire bandage men to make guns for the war. Okay, this doesn't explain anything.

So they were just bandage men? They reanimated Egyptian mummies to help steel workers in factories. No, actually the workers at these factories, like the Oregon sawmills, had to grind. They had to put in extra hours, extra time, extra shifts to keep up with demand. Sure. This meant not only long shifts, but a serious lack of health and safety. Yes. During a heavy rainstorm, one logger lost his footing and accidentally slipped, falling into one of the nearby saw blades. Oof. That's a way to go.

Not great. I mean, what happens at our job if something goes wrong? A podcast gets uploaded a day early? That's the biggest accident that could happen. I slip and upload a podcast. Yeah. This podcast mic swings around and hits me in the back of the head. I get a little bit of a bump It's kind of the most dangerous we're getting if you work at a sawmill Even a good day is scary because you were three inches from a saw. Yeah, you're really playing with fire except not a fire

It's a saw His co-workers managed to stop the saw before he was cut to pieces except not a fire, it's a saw. His coworkers managed to stop the saw before he was cut to pieces, but by the time they got him out, he was covered in lacerations and barely alive. To try and stop the bleeding, medics on the scene wrapped his entire body in bandages,

then packed him in an ambulance to try and rush him to the hospital. But they were driving so fast, the medic accidentally crashed the ambulance he's drunk it's really was the 40s which is kind of the worst thing that can happen is immediately getting hurt picked up by an ambulance and the ambulance slams into a wall at 80 miles an hour that alone would have been a reason to go to the hospital. The second thing.

You get into the ambulance, thank God. I've got these great professionals here to help me. The ambulance driver, head to toe bandages, covered in blood. I just love the idea of them hitting the wall. The ambulance bursts into flames and the guy behind the wheel is like, somebody call for help.

My brother in Christ, you were the help. Who are they gonna send? You're the ambulance. The doctor on call was just launched out the windscreen at 100 miles per hour. He's somewhere in the bushes, unconscious. Go find him, cause he's the help. When police finally arrived at the crash,

the medics were found unconscious in the driver's seat. Oh, that was helpful. But the bandage-wrapped logger was nowhere to be seen. According to the legends, there was a three-day search spanning the area, but no sign of the missing man was ever found. Ooh. Excluding, of course, paranormal evidence. Because as we know from our opening story, many locals and

passers-by have claimed to have had an experience with the bandage man of Cannon Beach. But believe it or not, despite the location being in his name, this isn't the only place that you can find him. Paranormal enthusiasts claim that the figure has also been seen haunting the grounds of the old Oregon sawmills. The same location where he suffered his grisly fate. Okay, so you were arguing with me that the Cannon Beach was absolutely crucial to include within the name of this cryptid Yeah! This person, but to be clear that's not even, he doesn't even really hang out there that much. That's more of a, he kind of summers there,

at kind of beach, but most of the time he's at the, what, the Oregon Sand Mill? Sawmill? Sawmill! You son of a bitch, where he got caught up! We know ghosts like to frequent the places that have sentimental value to them, either where they died or where the tragic incident befell them. Right. So it makes sense for him to go back to The sawmill where it all started yeah

I don't know if sentimental is the word I would use if I were him but yeah the place where he died the place Where he brutally was mutilated the dude loves saws did you not see how close he got to them he was obsessed You know it's similar to we investigated the old furnace factory recently on the podcast. Sloss furnace. Sloss furnace. Where workers who died there were seen still wandering about the furnace. Maybe still doing their ghostly jobs after they were deceased. Specifically James quote scum quote get back to work Wormwood.

Right. Who would kick people down sets of stairs trying to get them to get back to work Wormwood right who would kick kick people down sets of stairs trying to get them to go back to work but the bandage man his story spans a greater distance because yes this is where the accident happened but as we know he was picked up in a vehicle and driven down the 101 where the ambulance crashed so could this be why people see him at the sawmill where the ambulance crashed. So could this be why people see him at the sawmill, also on the roads? Is this why he's attacking cars,

creating more accidents on the 101? Yeah, some of our classic questions of when you die, where are you laid to rest in purgatory, if not in heaven? Where will you end up hunting in kind of perpetuity? And also, you know, I asked earlier one of the crucial questions, do you think the driver was ass and bollock naked when he drove the car away in fear from the beast?

Here, now we're asking, if you die covered in bloody bandages, do you stay wearing the bloody bandages? Or, me and you Rory, we are modern men, we like to wear clothes. I kind of imagine a more compassionate God that would let you rock your most fire fit of your life. You might, whenever you die, almost get like a kind of Tony Hawk's Pro Skater

kind of character selection screen where you get to kind of rotate through some of your best ever fits. It's like sister's birthday party, LA 2023. I was wearing some Jordan 3s. I had a fresh haircut and a cool hoodie on. I could honestly rock that in the afterlife but it is a tough toss-up between that and of course the tuxedo on my wedding day. You know you might get to choose your outfit in the afterlife. Or would it be something

that represents you as a person? Because if you're going to be appearing as a ghost, you want to be like recognizable to the people who knew you in life. So I think like me seeing a ghost in like a tuxedo or even a ghost just well dressed, I would think there would obviously be no way on earth that was actually your ghost. No. But kind of if there was a ghost with like an untucked shirt and kind of Dorito crumbs down the top Kind of wearing mismatch socks because sometimes you just throw on whatever ones you can have I'd be able to say oh kids here. Oh, well in that case I think if you died I think it would honestly be that God would just be like I just be honestly quicker if we just morph you into a rat

If we just oh, that's Rory and people wouldn't know me then they think is a ghost of a rat. You'd come back dressed as a clown. Look I dress the best all right yes right now I might be I'm showing right I'm barefoot. You are. And I'm wearing shorts. You almost fell off your chair trying to show me your feet. But that's not that's because I'm on the pod right now I'm not I'm wearing shorts. You almost fell off your chair trying to show me your feet. But that's not, that's cause I'm on the pod right now. I'm not, I'm not, listen, the streets are a catwalk

and I'm not in the streets today. So I'm not on the catwalk. Right. You are on the ratwalk, not the catwalk. The ratwalk. Oh Christ. Look, I think the takeaway here is always dress to impress because you never know when this day could be your last That sounded like a threat to our listeners

But what I'm trying to say is if you die wearing something that you would regret for the rest of your life You might be stuck with it kind of like the bandage man He died in the bandages and now that's his whole thing. His name could be Kevin No one gives a shit. They call him the bandage man. That's how dominating the bandages are. So true So true. Yeah, so if you happen to just have some unfortunate thing going on you could just get named like that forever Yeah, imagine him and he's like, oh Yes, my spirit is back on Earth. What do they call me? Michael the Magnificent? Michael the Misunderstood?

Because you know, I was researching the dark arts before I passed away. All right, what? No, we didn't know any about that. We call you the bandage man. The soiled bandage man. Because you actually, you don't know it cause you were technically dead. You shit yourself when the ambulance hit the wall. Really? So you kind of just stink and you're weird and everyone hates you.

It would, that would suck. That would suck if you, if you released your balls. Yeah, because it's like, it's like, well, I didn't do anything. I was gone. Right? Right. I didn't do, I didn't do anything. I was gone Right, right. I didn't do I didn't do anything. I left but it's like my body betrayed me in that moment Yeah, is that an urban legend about pooping after you die? I don't know how true it is I don't know man, cuz it's not like I'm

Always trying to not shit, you know, so that when I die I shit, you know There's just most of the day I don't have to go to the bathroom. Do you have any more evidence? Do you have any more story to tell? What is the bandage man? Well, he's kind of hard to nail down Kit in some stories He acts more like a ghost or a spirit floating into frame before disappearing But in other stories he straight's straight up punching cars, much more like a physical guy.

Some locals believe that in order to save himself from his injuries all those years ago, the bandaged man transformed into some kind of demon, ghoul, or zombie, forever craving the delicious taste of human flesh. Okay, who said it was delicious? Is that your words or someone else? I just have it on good authority. Worrying, but fine. You know, I feel like there is a real specific type

of haunting to America, which is just one of the many like overpass creatures. There's just so many overpass creatures. Like it's not that the Banished Man necessarily hangs out by an overpass, but we've covered so many that are like that, where it's like, if you drive out to the woods and park near this bridge or drive through this overpass, this being will jump out at you. Or remember, there was the bridge where if you leave snacks on top of your car,

this beast jacks it. Snickers. Yeah, Snickers bar bridge. That's right. this beast jacks it. Snickers. Yeah, Snickers Barbridge. Leaves Snickers on the roof. That's right. So, you know, to me, this is more, you know, my instinct goes to more of a haunting category

that I think he passed away. I think it is more likely to be that he passed away and that this was the last way he was remembered on this earth. Not to say that he can't physically interact clearly with this car he was shaking a car about, but no, I don't know that he's like still living and breathing and

feeding off stuff in the wilderness to survive. Yeah, I think if I had to pick, I'm agreeing with you, I think this is some kind of ghostly phantom, a poor soul whose ill fate is echoing through time and us mere mortals are just experiencing the ripples of those sad events that took place so many years ago. Damn, that was actually... Don't congratulate yourselves, that was fine. That wasn't even scripted, I just rattled that off like off the top of my head. Yeah, I know. We don't come down on conclusions at the end of these mini mysteries,

but I thought this was a great case to cover because the bandage man of Cannon Beach may be not enough to do a full investigation, but definitely worth covering as we explore this kind of untouched corner of America, the space between spaces, Highway 101. Yes, as discussed, lots of crossover with lots of other, this paranormal life, beings and creatures. And maybe it's just the nature of spending less time on this than some of the other ones that in a kind of horror movie sense of don't show the beast. I think this one's going to stay with me for a little bit as a creepier creature.

All the more so that we're not getting to the bottom of what's going on. Yeah, I think it's quite unique where what we're dealing with isn't some kind of beast. It's pretty much just a dude wrapped up in some horrible bandages suffering from an accident that took place many years ago. We are no closer to getting to the bottom of this mystery, but that's not what we're here to do. We're just here to talk about it. That's the joy of these many mysteries. I hope you enjoyed this little case living between main episodes of this paranormal life. Of course, we will be back next Tuesday with a main episode of the podcast, and there's always tons of extra cool bonus content over on worldwideweb.com.

bonus content over on world wide web dot com shit no sorry get out of my self world wide web I think you're so focused on not saying porn hub again that you screwed it up world wide web patreon dot com patreon dot com forward slash this paranormal life websites are no not dot com dot com world world wide web dot patreon dot com dot com forward slash this paranormal life yes it's not that complicated it's not that complicated at all we couldn't have made it easier as you know this is the final episode of campfire so i hope you enjoyed

these extra stories that we were able to bring you on Thursdays all through your spooky Halloween season. We have loved making this series, releasing this series, and seeing all of your comments, so do let us know if you have enjoyed it. We would love to do it again. Yes, we would love to do it again, and we probably will, so stay tuned for the announcement of further content. But of course, you know that your two favorite paranormal investigators will always be there for you on a Tuesday, investigating some of the most terrifying paranormal cases that we can get our hands on. I hope you've had a fantastic Halloween season, and of course, we will see you next Tuesday

for a brand new Paranormal Tales! Ciao!