Speaker 1: And you're here. Thanks for choosing the iHeartRadio and Coast
Speaker 1: to Coast AM Paranormal podcast network. Your quest for podcasts
Speaker 1: of the paranormal, supernatural, and the unexplained ends here. We
Speaker 1: invite you to enjoy all our shows we have on
Speaker 1: this network, and right now, let's start with Strange Things
Speaker 1: with Joshua P. Warren. Welcome to our podcast. Please be
Speaker 1: aware the thoughts and opinions expressed by the host are
Speaker 1: their thoughts and opinions only and do not reflect those
Speaker 1: of iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio, Coast to Coast AM, employees of Premiere Networks,
Speaker 1: or their sponsors and associates. We would like to encourage
Speaker 1: you to do your own research and discover the subject
Speaker 1: matter for yourself. Got ready to find a wizard of weird.
Speaker 1: This is Strange Things with Joshua Pee Warren. I am
Speaker 1: Joshua Pee Warren, and each week on this show, I'll
Speaker 1: be bringing you brand new mind blowing content, news exercises,
Speaker 1: and weird experiments you can do at home, and a
Speaker 1: lot more. On this edition of the show. My new
Speaker 1: Haunted object, my new possessed possession, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's
Speaker 1: haunted wheelchair, This, I believe, is one of the most
Speaker 1: interesting and amazing and exciting stories that I have told
Speaker 1: on this show. I have been dying to tell it
Speaker 1: for a long time now, and it is a lengthy story,
Speaker 1: but well worth it. This is, I think, the kind
Speaker 1: of story that you would like to hear on a
Speaker 1: show called Strange Things. And it should be no surprise
Speaker 1: to you that I am a collector of all kinds
Speaker 1: of unusual objects. For many years, I even had a museum,
Speaker 1: and soon I am going to be putting some of
Speaker 1: my collection on public display. Again. I will get to
Speaker 1: that later in the podcast, but let me tell you
Speaker 1: about how I attained this sort of mind boggling item.
Speaker 1: The story really begins back in two thousand and nine,
Speaker 1: because that is when one of my favorite TV shows
Speaker 1: of all time debuted, the show Pawn Stars on the
Speaker 1: History Channel. I've been hooked ever since. And I always
Speaker 1: assume that when I say Palm Stars, you've seen it,
Speaker 1: you know, like I think everybody, like, surely everybody has
Speaker 1: seen this, But it turns out that's not the case.
Speaker 1: So if you've never seen Pond Stars, let me just
Speaker 1: give you a general overview of this show. Here in
Speaker 1: Las Vegas. There is a real pawn shop called the
Speaker 1: Gold and Silver Pawn Shop that's been around since I
Speaker 1: think nineteen eighty eight, and it is run by a
Speaker 1: man named Rick Harrison, and he operates it with his
Speaker 1: son Corey and Corey's lifelong friend Chum Lee, who offers
Speaker 1: a lot of comic relief. And the show started out,
Speaker 1: I mean, most of the show's run also had the
Speaker 1: patriarch of the family, which is Rick's father, Richard Harrison.
Speaker 1: They called him the Old Man, but he died in
Speaker 1: I believe twenty eighteen. So the setup for the show
Speaker 1: is you see one of the guys at the counter,
Speaker 1: like Rick, one of the employees, and a customer comes
Speaker 1: in with some type of usually a slightly unusual item,
Speaker 1: and they really nowadays, they just say I want to
Speaker 1: sell it. They don't really mess with the pawn thing
Speaker 1: too much. They just say I want to sell this.
Speaker 1: And so the formula is like, huh, well, I don't
Speaker 1: know what it's worth, you know, So let's get some
Speaker 1: history expert in here to tell us the story behind
Speaker 1: this thing, and then we'll get an appraiser and then
Speaker 1: if they want the item, then it moves onto negotiation.
Speaker 1: And now, granted, like most quote unquote reality shows, certain
Speaker 1: parts of this are staged for dramatic purposes and entertainment.
Speaker 1: But I've always loved the show because, you know, it's
Speaker 1: a lot like an antiques road show, but it's such
Speaker 1: much more condensed and commercialized. And what you get to
Speaker 1: see are you know, real objects that come in the door,
Speaker 1: even though it's planned in advance for television, of course,
Speaker 1: but I know plenty of people who've been on the
Speaker 1: show and who brought objects in. So they bring in
Speaker 1: a real object and you get to hear the history
Speaker 1: of it, and I love those kinds of stories, of course,
Speaker 1: and then they really do get an appraisal, and then
Speaker 1: they really do talk about how much this is actually
Speaker 1: worth in today's commercial marketplace, and all that's just interesting
Speaker 1: to me. So that show Pawn Stars is one of
Speaker 1: the most successful shows in the history of cable TV,
Speaker 1: and I, like I said, I've been watching it constantly
Speaker 1: since two thousand and nine. At that time, I was
Speaker 1: living in North Carolina, and every time I would travel
Speaker 1: to Vegas, I would go and I would visit the
Speaker 1: pawn shop. It's like one of the biggest tourist attractions
Speaker 1: in Vegas now because you know, it's so famous due
Speaker 1: to this show, and because of that, the property has expanded,
Speaker 1: and now across the parking lot from the Pond Shop
Speaker 1: is this sort of like complex that has Rick Harrison's
Speaker 1: barbecue restaurant, and it's got a bar on top, you know,
Speaker 1: full bar upstairs, and then Chumley has a candy store there,
Speaker 1: and I can't remember all the stuff that's in this
Speaker 1: kind of little shopping center, but there's you know, they
Speaker 1: built their own little their own little Disney World there
Speaker 1: for Pond stars, and you know, they're great, great business people.
Speaker 1: All of them aren't quite wealthy. So like I said,
Speaker 1: I would start, you know, I would, I would go
Speaker 1: there and visit. And then, of course now I live
Speaker 1: in Las Vegas, and so I kind of have run
Speaker 1: ins with people in the circles of the show. Uh No,
Speaker 1: pretty pretty often. In fact, I don't know if he
Speaker 1: still does this, but for a long time, Rick Harrison
Speaker 1: he would actually personally go and be the bartender for
Speaker 1: like a couple hours on the weekends at his bar
Speaker 1: there above the barbecue restaurant. That shows you how much
Speaker 1: he enjoys interacting with fans. I mean I would find
Speaker 1: that to be a little scary when you are as
Speaker 1: famous as he is to just throw yourself out there
Speaker 1: and you don't know who's going to walk into the
Speaker 1: door and they're getting liquored up. So but he's fine
Speaker 1: with it. And so if you if you time it
Speaker 1: out right, if you're a fan of the show, you
Speaker 1: can go you can find out when Rick's going to
Speaker 1: be bartending, you can go in there. And that's how
Speaker 1: I met him for the first time, and which was great.
Speaker 1: You know, he was We had some really cool conversations
Speaker 1: and he was a nice enough to actually give me
Speaker 1: and Lauren some free shots of fine whiskey, and he
Speaker 1: did not do that for everybody, so that was really cool.
Speaker 1: And actually the first time I met him, I uh,
Speaker 1: I really struck it rich, so to speak, because, um,
Speaker 1: I looked over and this was it was a packed house.
Speaker 1: I looked over and sitting at the bar eating was
Speaker 1: Murray the Magician. And of course, you know I talk
Speaker 1: about Murray often. Murray is uh, you know, he's one
Speaker 1: of the biggest magicians in the world. He's been all
Speaker 1: over TV. He has a show on the Vegas Strip.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you drive down the Vegas strip. You're
Speaker 1: gonna see gigantic signs with Murray's face all over it.
Speaker 1: And he's very memorable because he has this big shock
Speaker 1: of you know, blonde hair, and he wears stick glasses
Speaker 1: and and he uh, he's always a very um, lighthearted guy,
Speaker 1: you know. He he's one of these magicians who also
Speaker 1: is like a comic magician. You know, he has a
Speaker 1: lot of comedy in his and his routine. So, but
Speaker 1: he is the guy they would always bring in on
Speaker 1: the show when they had some kind of like a
Speaker 1: magical item. You know, here in Vegas should get props
Speaker 1: that might come in, say, somebody might have a pair
Speaker 1: of what they claim are Houdini's handcuffs or you know
Speaker 1: that kind of thing, and so they would call Murray
Speaker 1: in to sort of authenticate it and to try to
Speaker 1: value it. So anybody who watches the show knows Murray
Speaker 1: the Magician. So that is how I ended up that
Speaker 1: night talking to Murray the Magician, and we became friends,
Speaker 1: and we even ended up, because of our developing friendship,
Speaker 1: producing a sizzle reel together for a television series that
Speaker 1: he and I would co star in. And the basic
Speaker 1: idea is that we would go out and investigate paranormal stuff,
Speaker 1: and I'm the paranormal investigator guy, and he's the magician
Speaker 1: guy who's trying to debunk everything. Right, And a real
Speaker 1: is what you that's like maybe a five minute video
Speaker 1: that you shoot if you have an idea for a
Speaker 1: TV show, and then you send that to networks and
Speaker 1: you use that to pitch the show. And and we got,
Speaker 1: you know, like a big company working with us. This
Speaker 1: was a top notch sizzle real, and yet it did
Speaker 1: not get picked up, which is what often happens. That's
Speaker 1: what usually happens, I should say in the TV business,
Speaker 1: which is one of the reasons that I don't mess
Speaker 1: with TV that much anymore, because, gosh, you put so
Speaker 1: much time into it. It's very time consuming planning out
Speaker 1: a potential TV show, and then most of the time
Speaker 1: it doesn't work out. You've just wasted all that time.
Speaker 1: So I don't do much of that anymore. And I
Speaker 1: think that, you know, I used to do TV all
Speaker 1: the time, and now I'm very selective about what I do.
Speaker 1: I think that nowadays it might even be harder to
Speaker 1: get into TV than it was, say, like I don't know,
Speaker 1: ten or fifteen years ago, because that we've reached a
Speaker 1: point where nobody's even sure exactly what TV is anymore,
Speaker 1: because we have all these streaming channels and people aren't
Speaker 1: even going to the movies anymore. And now you see
Speaker 1: movie stars on TV, but they're not really on TV.
Speaker 1: They're on streaming channel. It's just it's a it's a
Speaker 1: very confusing landscape right now. Everybody's trying to figure out,
Speaker 1: like what is entertainment. It's being reinvented and so it's
Speaker 1: even more complicated to navigate. But when we come back
Speaker 1: from this break, I promise you this is leading up
Speaker 1: to a haunted Franklin D. Roosevelt wheelchair. Okay, just bear
Speaker 1: with me, because I found out about this because I'm
Speaker 1: a fan of Pond Stars, right and I also have
Speaker 1: another kind of funny Pond Stars story for you. I'm
Speaker 1: going to tell you first real quick when we come back,
Speaker 1: just in case that's of interest to you. And when
Speaker 1: I'm done recording this podcast, I'm heading straight to my
Speaker 1: workshop because I am working on a new product that
Speaker 1: is quite fascinating and I don't think I'll be talking
Speaker 1: about it on this show. I'll only be talking about
Speaker 1: it at least revealing it primarily through my free E newsletter,
Speaker 1: and if you want to know what it is, go
Speaker 1: to Joshua peewarn dot com and sign up for the
Speaker 1: free E newsletter. It takes you about two seconds. Put
Speaker 1: your email address in there, hit the submit button. You'll
Speaker 1: instantly receive an automated email from me with some links
Speaker 1: to some free online gifts that will start helping you
Speaker 1: manifest some magical things in your life immediately. You just
Speaker 1: have to do it. Try it out. It cost you nothing.
Speaker 1: Go to Joshua Peewarren dot com on the homepage sign
Speaker 1: up for the free E newsletter. I am Joshua Pere
Speaker 1: and you are listening to Strange Things on the iHeart
Speaker 1: Radio and Coast to Coast, a am para normal podcast network,
Speaker 1: and I will be right back. Welcome back to Strange
Speaker 1: Things on the iHeart Radio and Coast to Coast a
Speaker 1: m para normal podcast network. I'm your host, the Wizard
Speaker 1: of Weird, Joshua Pee Warren, beaming into your wormhole brain
Speaker 1: from my studio in Sin City, Las Vegas, Nevada, where
Speaker 1: every day is golden and every night is silver. One
Speaker 1: of the most notable experts if not. The most notable
Speaker 1: expert on the Pond Stars TV show is Mark Hall Patton.
Speaker 1: They call him the Beard of Knowledge, and because he
Speaker 1: has this impressive gray beard and he wears an amish
Speaker 1: style hat, often black. He's just a very memorable looking guy.
Speaker 1: And he is one of those guys who's just like
Speaker 1: a walking encyclopedia. He knows everything, and it's true. I mean,
Speaker 1: he is the administrator for the Clark County Museum, so
Speaker 1: Las Vegas is in Clark County, which is a huge county,
Speaker 1: and I mean, he's the real deal. And I mentioned
Speaker 1: him just because that I did see him in person
Speaker 1: one day. I was over there and I look over
Speaker 1: and there's Mark Hall Patton, and I would have loved
Speaker 1: to have gone up and talk to him, but they
Speaker 1: were filming that day, so I you know, I didn't
Speaker 1: want to bother him. And by the way, I've heard
Speaker 1: some people say, you know, they don't even really film
Speaker 1: that show in that shop. They have another set somewhere
Speaker 1: that looks like that shop. And I'm sure that they
Speaker 1: do have another set somewhere for all kinds of extra
Speaker 1: special shots and stuff, but they do film some right
Speaker 1: there in the actual real pawn shop. I know because
Speaker 1: I've seen them do it. That's neither here nor there.
Speaker 1: But if you're curious and you're a fan of the show,
Speaker 1: maybe you'd like to know that. But no, I didn't
Speaker 1: get to talk to Mark Hall Patton. I will make
Speaker 1: a point to do that one day. Hopefully he will.
Speaker 1: He will want to talk to me as well. I
Speaker 1: don't think he's into a ghost stories and stuff like
Speaker 1: I am, but who knows. But one more sort of
Speaker 1: see chronistic side story I just have to squeeze in
Speaker 1: here before I continue, is that when I was growing
Speaker 1: up in Asheville, North Carolina, I was I was relatively
Speaker 1: close to Disney World in Orlando. By relatively close, I
Speaker 1: mean a nine hour drive. So whenever the family would
Speaker 1: go to Disney World, talk about the longest nine hours
Speaker 1: of a kid's life waiting on that are we there yet?
Speaker 1: Are we there yet? You know, for days to get
Speaker 1: to Disney World. So I never ever in my life
Speaker 1: growing up with to Disneyland, which is in California in Anaheim.
Speaker 1: And then my wife Lauren had a similar situation. She
Speaker 1: grew up in Katie, Texas outside of Houston, so that's
Speaker 1: an even longer drive for her family. You're talking like
Speaker 1: fourteen hours or whatever to drive to disney World, but
Speaker 1: still closer than California. So she and I would growing
Speaker 1: up if our parents decided to take a big trip,
Speaker 1: then you know it would be disney World. So now
Speaker 1: that we live here in Vegas, you can drive from
Speaker 1: Vegas to disney Land in California, which was the original
Speaker 1: Disney theme park, in like four hours. So so once
Speaker 1: we moved here a few years ago, one day we said,
Speaker 1: you know what, let's go see Disneyland. Let's see you know,
Speaker 1: we're adults now and that kind of sucks, but you
Speaker 1: know it'll be interesting. This was Walt Disney's original paradise
Speaker 1: that he imagined. And also, if you're a real amusement
Speaker 1: park geek, there are some interesting differences in the rides
Speaker 1: in some cases very subtle, but definitely different in the
Speaker 1: rides between the rides and disney World and Disneyland, even
Speaker 1: though it's the same ride. So like you might have
Speaker 1: a slightly different setup for like the Haunted Mansion at
Speaker 1: disney World than Disneyland because of the way that the
Speaker 1: grounds are constructed, did, etc. But anyway, that said, we
Speaker 1: go to Disneyland, and this was in the middle of summer.
Speaker 1: And if you've ever been to Disneyland or Disney World,
Speaker 1: I mean you know that on a normal day, the
Speaker 1: crowd is unbelievable. It may be the biggest crowd, the
Speaker 1: biggest number of people you've ever seen anywhere in your life.
Speaker 1: There's no telling. People from all over the world are
Speaker 1: crammed into to these places, and you walk and walk
Speaker 1: and walk, often in the heat forever, and you stand
Speaker 1: in line. You're prepared to stand in line, you know,
Speaker 1: over an hour. You just expect that to get into
Speaker 1: some of these rides that last two minutes. As a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, I'm at a point in my life
Speaker 1: now I don't even think I'm willing to go stand
Speaker 1: in lines and do that kind of stuff anymore. I'm
Speaker 1: getting too old for that now. I've seen it, been there,
Speaker 1: done that. So anyway, my point is here, we are
Speaker 1: at Disneyland with a gazillion people, and of course we
Speaker 1: have to go right everybody's favorite ride. I think Pirates
Speaker 1: of the Caribbean. You have to do that. So we
Speaker 1: go over to Pirates at the Caribbean. And since it's
Speaker 1: such a popular ride, I mean the line is just
Speaker 1: it's one of those lines just winding back and forth
Speaker 1: and back and forth, and you just like go to
Speaker 1: the bathroom and you prepare yourself. So I don't even
Speaker 1: know how long we stood in this line. And at
Speaker 1: one point when the line was sort of doubled up
Speaker 1: so that we were standing next to other people who
Speaker 1: were somewhere in the line, you know, best separate from
Speaker 1: us a little bit, Laurence says, Josh, look there's chum Lee.
Speaker 1: And I'm like what And I turned and sure enough,
Speaker 1: standing there in this line is Chum Lee from Palm Stars.
Speaker 1: That was the first time I'd ever seen him in person,
Speaker 1: and I just couldn't believe it. I was like, huh,
Speaker 1: that is a while that he's here at this ride
Speaker 1: the same time we're taking this ride. And I could
Speaker 1: have said something to him at that time, but I knew, like, oh,
Speaker 1: this dude's on his vacation away. I don't want to
Speaker 1: bother him. I've never been roll a big at like
Speaker 1: bugging celebrities. I've seen a lot of them living around here, especially,
Speaker 1: and I just, you know, I'm not going to go
Speaker 1: up and mess with them. What do I have to say?
Speaker 1: But the weirdest thing is we stand in line forever
Speaker 1: and then finally when it comes your turn to take
Speaker 1: this ride, a boat comes up and there's only so
Speaker 1: many people that can fit on this little boat, and
Speaker 1: then it goes on and the next one comes up,
Speaker 1: and we ended up on the same boat as chum Lee.
Speaker 1: I don't know how many people each boat holds. I'm
Speaker 1: thinking like twenty or something like that. But I thought,
Speaker 1: what are the odds of all these people in Disney
Speaker 1: World at Disneyland we would end up on the same
Speaker 1: boat as chum Lee for this Pirates of the Caribbean ride.
Speaker 1: Just like, what does that kind of thing mean? I
Speaker 1: don't know. Well, we have talked a lot about synchronicity.
Speaker 1: You make up your own mind on that. But I
Speaker 1: have some kind of an odd connection with these guys
Speaker 1: and this show and now we're in the same town. Okay,
Speaker 1: Now let's move on to the real meat of the story,
Speaker 1: showing you know that I own the Haunted Boulder City
Speaker 1: Ghost and UFO tour and Boulder City, Nevada is a
Speaker 1: thirty minute drive from Las Vegas. I've talked about it
Speaker 1: a lot, and it's the newest walking tour that I've created.
Speaker 1: It's the only paranormal tour and Boulder City. It's been
Speaker 1: a huge success, and we have friends and business partners
Speaker 1: all over the town of Boulder City. Okay, they've been
Speaker 1: so warm and welcoming to us there, and we just
Speaker 1: love Boulder City. And you know, I've got a bunch
Speaker 1: of really cool items that I used to have on
Speaker 1: display in Asheville, But when my museum there got flooded
Speaker 1: and I moved out here, I shipped a lot of
Speaker 1: that stuff out here to Las Vegas, and a lot
Speaker 1: of it's been in storage, and thankfully, you know, none
Speaker 1: of it got stolen. It's now in a more secure
Speaker 1: location than it was. But I've been looking for an
Speaker 1: opportunity to put some of it back on public display.
Speaker 1: And so it's still a little too early for me
Speaker 1: to give you all the details, but there is a
Speaker 1: very prominent, esteemed place in Boulder City that wants to
Speaker 1: put some of my stuff on display. And for example,
Speaker 1: I have a crystal skull, an alien crystal skull that
Speaker 1: will be on display. I have some charred rocks from
Speaker 1: an actual UFO crash site in the Bermuda Triangle in
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico that I picked up with my own hands
Speaker 1: out in the middle of nowhere. I've got some cool
Speaker 1: stuff like that. B See. The funny thing is it's
Speaker 1: hard to find an artifact sometimes that has a connection
Speaker 1: to a particular place. And I kind of put this
Speaker 1: idea out there to the world and to Lauren. I
Speaker 1: am looking for some kind of an object that has
Speaker 1: a mystery attached to it, but would also somehow connect
Speaker 1: to to Boulder City. And I didn't know what that
Speaker 1: could possibly be. Of course, Boulder City was created to
Speaker 1: house the workers for the Hoover Dam, so I thought,
Speaker 1: you know, maybe something to do with the dam. But
Speaker 1: I know what, you know, So I just wasn't sure
Speaker 1: what it was going to be. But I put the
Speaker 1: thought out there, all right, because I figured, you know,
Speaker 1: this would be like maybe a centerpiece for this new display.
Speaker 1: So now within days of me doing this, we're watching
Speaker 1: television and after all these years, the Pawn Stars TV
Speaker 1: show decided to have this spin off show called Pawn
Speaker 1: Stars Do America. So what that means is, instead of
Speaker 1: the guys staying in Vegas as they usually do and
Speaker 1: people coming to them, they decided to hit the road
Speaker 1: and to tour the country. And visit different cities and
Speaker 1: be there for like three days and open up, you know,
Speaker 1: like a big tent or something and then let the community,
Speaker 1: the locals in that area come to them and present stuff.
Speaker 1: So it's very much like the Antiques road Show. So
Speaker 1: it's the same concept as the regular show, except they're
Speaker 1: just doing it, you know, in different places, and I'm
Speaker 1: it's fun. It mixes it up a little bit. So there,
Speaker 1: I think it was. It might have been their first one,
Speaker 1: first or second one. They decided to go to Yorktown, Pennsylvania,
Speaker 1: And of course there's a lot of especially in a
Speaker 1: military and colonial history there in Yorktown, Pennsylvania. So I
Speaker 1: was watching this episode of pond Stars do America, and
Speaker 1: I saw something that immediately caught my eye. Can you
Speaker 1: guess what it may have been? And where this story
Speaker 1: is going to go next when we return. So funny
Speaker 1: how these things you look back and you see how
Speaker 1: they fall into place. I'm Joshua pe Warren. You're listening
Speaker 1: to Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast.
Speaker 1: I am heir a normal podcast network. I'll be back
Speaker 1: after these important messages. Welcome back to Strange Things on
Speaker 1: the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast sam Parinormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 1: I'm your host, Joshua wa Pete Warren, and this is
Speaker 1: the show where the unusual becomes usual. Here we are
Speaker 1: watching pond Stars do America. And at one point in
Speaker 1: the show, Chum Lee, of all people, decides to take
Speaker 1: a little sort of side trip within the episode with
Speaker 1: one of his Picker friends to go to this small
Speaker 1: town in Pennsylvania called Sellersville and visit this antique store,
Speaker 1: which I believe was called Pickers Junction. And so he
Speaker 1: goes in there to presumably, you know, to try to
Speaker 1: find something that they can resell, which is actually not
Speaker 1: that realistic, I don't think, because I think a lot
Speaker 1: of times people who buy and sell things like that
Speaker 1: for a living, they prefer to buy from individuals because
Speaker 1: they can get a better deal. You know, if you
Speaker 1: deal with another dealer, then it's everybody. Everybody kind of
Speaker 1: knows the game here, and it's a little harder to
Speaker 1: negotiate perhaps, but anyway, that's just my opinion. So anyway,
Speaker 1: they're walking around and they're looking at stuff, and of
Speaker 1: course I'm very interested in what they're gonna show on TV.
Speaker 1: What kind of items they're finding. And at one point
Speaker 1: they stop next to this old fashioned wheelchair and Chumley
Speaker 1: he flips over a tag or something like that and
Speaker 1: it says used by Franklin D. Roosevelt for the nineteen
Speaker 1: thirty two Democratic Convention. Okay, like something to that effect,
Speaker 1: and they have a little um conversation about it, and
Speaker 1: but then Chumley he just moves on to other stuff.
Speaker 1: And I was like, well, that's amazing. I would buy that.
Speaker 1: That's I mean, to me, anything presidential is something I
Speaker 1: would like to have in my collection, unless it's a
Speaker 1: president I really didn't like, you know, been a historical
Speaker 1: president where we're kind of removed from from some of
Speaker 1: the emotions. Um. You know, I'm always interested in that.
Speaker 1: And I just thought that is a really intriguing item
Speaker 1: to pass up, because, you know, here's the thing about
Speaker 1: President Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was notable for a number
Speaker 1: of reasons. For one thing, he was the only president
Speaker 1: to serve four terms. He was in there around twelve years,
Speaker 1: and before he was president, there was no law restricting
Speaker 1: someone for running for president as many times as he
Speaker 1: or she wanted. The tradition was just to do it
Speaker 1: for two terms, and nobody had ever won more than
Speaker 1: two terms. But after he won four terms because of that,
Speaker 1: that was when politicians got together and said, you know what,
Speaker 1: maybe we don't want that to happen again. That could
Speaker 1: lead to somebody becoming like the permanent president of this country.
Speaker 1: And so they passed the twenty second Amendment, which said
Speaker 1: that you cannot be elected president more than twice. So
Speaker 1: he was the only president to serve four terms. He
Speaker 1: also was the president who led us through the Great
Speaker 1: Depression and then through most of World War Two. I mean,
Speaker 1: huge challenges, and to this day there's debate over, you know,
Speaker 1: how he handled those things, if he should have done
Speaker 1: things differently. But what made it even more amazing is
Speaker 1: that when he was an adult, he got polio, and
Speaker 1: so he spent much of his adulthood in a wheelchair.
Speaker 1: Occasionally they would give him some braces so he could
Speaker 1: stand up for photo ops, but he was usually in
Speaker 1: a wheelchair, and they didn't want him photographed so much
Speaker 1: in a wheelchair, So the wheelchair thing was kind of
Speaker 1: kept like a more secretive part of the culture around him.
Speaker 1: And you know what, I didn't realize this. I was
Speaker 1: looking it up the other day. He died when he
Speaker 1: was only sixty three years old. I believe he looked
Speaker 1: a lot older, but I'm sure that's what being going
Speaker 1: through all that will do to you best. I recall
Speaker 1: he was posing. This was nineteen forty five. He was
Speaker 1: posing for a portrait and he said all of as said,
Speaker 1: I have a terrific headache. And then a long after
Speaker 1: that he slumped over and turns out he'd had like
Speaker 1: a massive brain hemorrhage, and he died, you know, shortly thereafter.
Speaker 1: But yeah, sixty three. But nonetheless, you know, he was
Speaker 1: just a very, like I said, a significant part of
Speaker 1: world history. And that kind of stuck in my head,
Speaker 1: and I thought, what an interesting thing. You know, I
Speaker 1: would have probably bought that, you know, But then you know,
Speaker 1: the show moved on and I kind of forgot about
Speaker 1: it a little bit. So later that evening, I mean
Speaker 1: like maybe an hour and a half after that, Lauren said, hey, Josh, look,
Speaker 1: she was just clicking through the channels. I think I'd
Speaker 1: gone to the kitchen for something, and I came back
Speaker 1: and there was a local TV channel and it was
Speaker 1: showing footage, old black and white footage from the dedication
Speaker 1: of the Hoover Dam and guests who is standing there
Speaker 1: speaking President Franklin D. Roosevelt. And I found this old
Speaker 1: newspaper clipping and it says that he dedicated the dam
Speaker 1: on September thirtieth of nineteen thirty five, with an estimated
Speaker 1: twenty thousand people witnessing and millions hearing his remarks broadcast
Speaker 1: all over the great radio networks in the country. Said
Speaker 1: the presidential party left the special train at Boulder City
Speaker 1: promptly at nine thirty in the morning and sped out
Speaker 1: the highway leading to the top of the dam. So
Speaker 1: and I said, by golly, that's it. I wonder if
Speaker 1: there's some energy attached to that wheelchair. And I thought
Speaker 1: there's no way though, that I'm going to be able
Speaker 1: to get that wheelchair, because it was just on the
Speaker 1: History channel. How many people saw that wheelchair, you know.
Speaker 1: So I was like, don't get your hopes up, mister Warren, right,
Speaker 1: But it just felt like I'm supposed to have this wheelchair.
Speaker 1: So the next morning, bright and early, I called this
Speaker 1: shop and I got the owner on the phone and
Speaker 1: I said, I don't suppose you still have that wheelchair,
Speaker 1: do you? And she said well, yeah, as a matter
Speaker 1: of fact, we do still have it. And my jaw
Speaker 1: hit the floor and I said, how much is it now?
Speaker 1: I'm not going to tell you what she told me,
Speaker 1: but I thought, you know what, I want it. It's perfect.
Speaker 1: I feel drawn to it. I said, you know, i'll
Speaker 1: take it. I'll take it. And I don't even think
Speaker 1: I negotiated with her. I just said I'll take it.
Speaker 1: And so she goes, I said, can I buy it
Speaker 1: over the phone? She goes, yeah, but you know, how
Speaker 1: are you going to get it? Because I told her
Speaker 1: I was in Vegas And I said, well, can you
Speaker 1: ship it to me? And she goes no, And I
Speaker 1: was like, well, um, you know, what do you mean,
Speaker 1: like I can pay for shipping. She goes, we don't.
Speaker 1: We We've we've done that kind of thing before. And
Speaker 1: she said, it's just when it comes to stuff that's
Speaker 1: big and kind of bulky and awkward like this, especially
Speaker 1: since it's old and delicate. She goes, we just don't
Speaker 1: take the time and the effort to pack up stuff
Speaker 1: like this and ship it. We just don't do that.
Speaker 1: So she wasn't even open to, like, you know, give
Speaker 1: me a million dollars and I'll do it. You know.
Speaker 1: She was just like, no, we don't do that. And
Speaker 1: I said, all right, fine, I will figure out how
Speaker 1: to get the thing here. So I would have had
Speaker 1: at least bought it over the phone. And I said, um,
Speaker 1: can you, you know, can you hang onto it for
Speaker 1: me for a certain amount of time while I figure
Speaker 1: out how I'm want to get it? And she said sure. Yeah.
Speaker 1: She was real nice about everything. So I got off
Speaker 1: the phone. I'm sitting there, I'm like racking my brains.
Speaker 1: First off, I'm excited that I have this thing. And
Speaker 1: we talked about the provenance and as a matter of fact,
Speaker 1: it has a label on it that says um presented
Speaker 1: by the Tonton Kiwanis Club and again used to transport
Speaker 1: President FDR during the nineteen thirty two Democratic Convention in Chicago.
Speaker 1: I know you're thinking, like, what, Josh, how do you
Speaker 1: know that this is real? Look, I I've already got
Speaker 1: that thing that I have some of the best historians
Speaker 1: that are working on all the provenance. I've been in
Speaker 1: touch with the Kiwanis. I mean, trust me, things things
Speaker 1: are looking good in that department, all right. I don't
Speaker 1: have a picture of him sitting in the chair. I
Speaker 1: don't think, but you know, it's it's hard. We're still
Speaker 1: looking there. It's hard to find pictures of him in wheelchairs.
Speaker 1: But anyway, I feel very good about it. And the
Speaker 1: person she got it from has a good track record.
Speaker 1: So back to my challenge, how do I get this thing?
Speaker 1: And I started racking my brain and then it's like
Speaker 1: a light bulb went off and I thought, Dean Worsing,
Speaker 1: my buddy, Dean Worsing. How often do I bring up
Speaker 1: his name on this show all the time? I said, Dean,
Speaker 1: I bet kind of sort of lives in that direction,
Speaker 1: because Dean lives in Maryland. And so I got on
Speaker 1: Maryland and I got online and I looked it up
Speaker 1: and I saw that it was like an hour and
Speaker 1: a half from Dean's house. So I called up Dean.
Speaker 1: This is like a Saturday morning, and I explained to
Speaker 1: him what was going on. And I said, Dean, old buddy, opal,
Speaker 1: what are the chances that you could go and get
Speaker 1: this thing for me and then we'll figure out, you know,
Speaker 1: how you can get it to me? And he was
Speaker 1: like done, dude. He's like this sounds fun. He's a
Speaker 1: big fan of Palm Stars as well. But he's also
Speaker 1: just a history buff and he's he loves old things,
Speaker 1: and this is like right up his alley. He said,
Speaker 1: he's talking about his wife and he goes Ann and
Speaker 1: I we've been needing a good road trip anyway. That's
Speaker 1: beautiful country. And he was just like totally psyched to
Speaker 1: do this. And I could not have had a better person.
Speaker 1: I mean, talk about all the little pieces falling in
Speaker 1: into place. Dean drives out there like the next day
Speaker 1: or two, gets this thing, takes it back to his house.
Speaker 1: When we come back from this break, I'll tell you
Speaker 1: what happened that lets me know it's haunted. I'm Joshua
Speaker 1: Pee Warren. You're listening to Strange Things on the I
Speaker 1: Heart Radio and Coast to Coast damn pamin Normal Podcast Network.
Speaker 1: I will be all right back and welcome back to
Speaker 1: the final segment of this edition of Strange Things on
Speaker 1: the iHeart Radio and Coast to Coast am PARA Normal
Speaker 1: podcast Network. I am your host, Joshua Pee Warren, and
Speaker 1: Dean Warsing is the most personable person on the planet.
Speaker 1: Dean and his wife and both are just so nice
Speaker 1: and charming and wonderful and reliable. Their whole families like that,
Speaker 1: they're kids. And Dean was just like, yeah, I will
Speaker 1: go get that thing for you. He was excited about it.
Speaker 1: So he and Anne they took their road trip. They
Speaker 1: went to Sellersville. They enjoyed themselves. I think they even
Speaker 1: bought some goodies for themselves, loaded up this wheelchair without
Speaker 1: a problem, and took it right back to the safety
Speaker 1: of his home. And Dean is also an artist. I
Speaker 1: guess he's okay with me saying. He does a lot
Speaker 1: of things right now. He's especially focusing on pottery, but
Speaker 1: he takes a lot of care when it comes to
Speaker 1: you know, just items that craftsmanship, and like he's the
Speaker 1: kind of guy that you want to be the caretaker
Speaker 1: of something historic like this. So this was back, I guess,
Speaker 1: around the holidays, and so everybody was kind of busy,
Speaker 1: and so he just kind of kept it for a
Speaker 1: little while and finally we figured out the best way
Speaker 1: for him to for him to ship it to me.
Speaker 1: You know, it can be done, and so, uh, he
Speaker 1: actually took the wheels off of it. He did just
Speaker 1: some a very slight disassembly to make it easier to ship.
Speaker 1: But anyway, and it was expensive to ship, but hey,
Speaker 1: it was worth it. So he got it out here
Speaker 1: to Las Vegas safe and sound. This gigantic box arrived
Speaker 1: and I opened it up and there it was, and
Speaker 1: it just it was so weird to have, you know,
Speaker 1: seen this thing on the History Channel, and I've even
Speaker 1: got the still of it, you know, from the TV,
Speaker 1: and now here it is in my house. It's just like,
Speaker 1: it's crazy, how that can happen. It was meant to be.
Speaker 1: Thank you, Deane and An. I'm telling you that was
Speaker 1: just you guys. Were you saved the day you were.
Speaker 1: You were perfectly poised to get that thing in my hands.
Speaker 1: All right. So Lauren, she actually she's the one who's
Speaker 1: good with her hands in the Warren family, and so
Speaker 1: she reassembled it, Okay, she put the wheels back on it,
Speaker 1: and it is now sitting in my living room where
Speaker 1: my Christmas tree was last year. All right. So I'm
Speaker 1: sort of in awe as I sit there and I
Speaker 1: see this wheelchair, and again all the historical research is
Speaker 1: happening as I speak. But I have no doubt, no
Speaker 1: doubt about its history. And I'll tell you why. We
Speaker 1: had had it for about oh, three days, I guess.
Speaker 1: And one evening we were getting ready for bed, and
Speaker 1: but I still had some lights on in the house,
Speaker 1: so the lights were not super bright. They were kind
Speaker 1: of dim, but I mean you could see things fine. Lauren.
Speaker 1: I wasn't sure where she was in the house at
Speaker 1: this point, you know, yeah, we're kind of running around
Speaker 1: getting everything prepared. So I came down the stairs and
Speaker 1: I glanced over, and what do I see, to my shock,
Speaker 1: Lauren sitting in this antique wheelchair, which you should never do.
Speaker 1: And then I realized And of course, at first it
Speaker 1: freaked me out. I was like, what Lauren, get out
Speaker 1: of that? And then I realized that's not Lauren. I
Speaker 1: jumped to the conclusion that it was Lauren because it
Speaker 1: was just, you know, a form of a person sitting
Speaker 1: in the wheelchair. And that's why immediately I thought, well,
Speaker 1: Lauren's the only other person in this house. Lauren's in
Speaker 1: the wheelchair. She's gonna damage this wheelchair. And I see
Speaker 1: this person and it's just a figure, kind of a
Speaker 1: hazy figure as my eyes sort of like focus in
Speaker 1: and then it disappears, and that's when I go, oh, my,
Speaker 1: and there it is, folks, the goose bumps, the hair
Speaker 1: stands up on the arms, and I say, WHOA, I
Speaker 1: just saw what I believe to be a ghost. And
Speaker 1: maybe it's my imagination, but once I realized that wasn't Lauren,
Speaker 1: it sure seemed a lot like the profile cut by
Speaker 1: one Franklin D. Roosevelt. Now can I I won't swear
Speaker 1: to that that it was him, but oh boy, was
Speaker 1: there a form sitting in that wheelchair. And that's when
Speaker 1: I was like, Lauren. Lauren, she was in a whole
Speaker 1: separate part of the house. And when she came over,
Speaker 1: she was like, what, why you know? And I told her,
Speaker 1: I was like, why, just keep your eye on this wheelchair, right,
Speaker 1: And we waited. We waited, and we waited, and nothing reappeared.
Speaker 1: So now I have cameras all over my house. But
Speaker 1: I'll get back to that in a minute. Okay, I
Speaker 1: don't have cameras like inside every room. It's all My
Speaker 1: cameras are like on the periphery. They're security cameras. So anyway,
Speaker 1: I'm running out of time, so let me just tell
Speaker 1: you that. Oh maybe about a week after we had it,
Speaker 1: I came downstairs one day and Lauren, I looked over,
Speaker 1: and Lauren goes, look at the wheelchair, and I look,
Speaker 1: I turned over, turned my head in that direction, and
Speaker 1: as I told you, the wheelchair right now it is
Speaker 1: sitting where the Christmas tree was, and so everything is
Speaker 1: positioned just so you know, in our house. Lauren's very
Speaker 1: good at that, like the fung shui being balanced. The
Speaker 1: wheelchair had moved, I would say, I believe I measured
Speaker 1: it and it was like between ten and thirteen inches
Speaker 1: is what we figured. It had rolled somehow. Now I
Speaker 1: have a lot of delicate, fragile stuff in my house
Speaker 1: and nothing else had moved. Nothing else has ever moved,
Speaker 1: and on at least two or three occasions, this wheelchair
Speaker 1: has rolled to a different spot on its own. And
Speaker 1: Laurence says, Josh, get the emf meters. Let's put a
Speaker 1: camera on this thing. And she's like, what are you know?
Speaker 1: What are you waiting for? And I told her, I said, look,
Speaker 1: I want to get this captured just as much as anybody,
Speaker 1: but I have to give you a cautionary till because
Speaker 1: when I got Carvill the alien Art Bell's Alien, everybody
Speaker 1: said that Carvill would move on his own, especially at night.
Speaker 1: And the first night I got Carville. He apparently moved
Speaker 1: because I went into the room the next day and
Speaker 1: this is, you know, you're talking about like a five
Speaker 1: foot tall, hundred pound wooden statue had shifted positions. It
Speaker 1: was pretty astounding, and at that point I thought, Wow,
Speaker 1: this thing really does move, and so immediately I started
Speaker 1: putting cameras on him, and he never moved again. So
Speaker 1: I know that sounds silly to be like some of
Speaker 1: these things are camera shy, but it reminds me of
Speaker 1: like the Heisenberg uncertainty principle that once you start observing something,
Speaker 1: the thing changes because it's being observed. It's similar to
Speaker 1: what we see when we look at like the double
Speaker 1: slit experiment and quantum physics, that a particle behaves either
Speaker 1: as or an energy behaves as a particle or a
Speaker 1: wave depending on how it's being observed. And I was
Speaker 1: afraid that I would I would repeat the mistake with
Speaker 1: the wheelchair that I did with Carvill. I said, look,
Speaker 1: let's just let it do its thing for a while
Speaker 1: and then I'll finally, you know, we'll record as much
Speaker 1: as that as we can, and then I'll put the
Speaker 1: cameras and the instruments on it and then we'll see
Speaker 1: what happens. And you know, it's not going anywhere. We
Speaker 1: have all the time in the world, so right now
Speaker 1: we're just not messing with it. We're letting it sit there.
Speaker 1: We're not doing any special scientific work studying it. Right now,
Speaker 1: we're just having our own human experiences with it. But
Speaker 1: very soon I'm going to switch over to phase two,
Speaker 1: which is where I'm going to put the camera on it.
Speaker 1: I'm going to break out all the instrumentation. It's going
Speaker 1: to totally change the whole vibe around it. And then
Speaker 1: I'm going to do that because I want to say
Speaker 1: that I have experienced it in all these different ways before. Finally,
Speaker 1: this thing is going to go on display on public
Speaker 1: display in Boulder City, Nevada, with all the information attached
Speaker 1: to it, and thousands of people from all over the
Speaker 1: world are going to see it and my other stuff,
Speaker 1: and I will keep you updated on how that process proceeds.
Speaker 1: That is where we are right now. And I told
Speaker 1: you I didn't know this was the story would take
Speaker 1: up the whole podcast, but I think you can see
Speaker 1: it was worth it. And that is how I have
Speaker 1: obtained my newest, most amazing item Franklin d Roosevelt's Haunted Wheelchair. Okay,
Speaker 1: Tim to end the show. You know what happens. Now,
Speaker 1: take a deep breath, relax if you can, and close
Speaker 1: your eyes. Ah. Yes, let's all meditate on the good
Speaker 1: fortune tone. That's it for this edition of the show.
Speaker 1: Follow me on Twitter at Joshua pee Warren, plus visit
Speaker 1: Joshua Peewarren dot com to sign up from my free
Speaker 1: e newsletter to receive a free instant gift, and check
Speaker 1: out the cool stuff and the Curiosity shop all at
Speaker 1: Joshua Peewarren dot com. I have a fun one lined
Speaker 1: up for you next time, I promise. So please tell
Speaker 1: all your friends to subscribe to this show and to
Speaker 1: always remember the Golden Rule. Thank you for listening, Thank you,
Speaker 1: thank you for your interest in support, thank you for
Speaker 1: staying curious, and I We'll talk to you again soon.
Speaker 1: You've been listening to Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and
Speaker 1: Coast to Coast Stay um Paranormal Podcast Network. Thanks for
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