Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh and
Speaker 1: there's Chuck and this is short stuff. So let's talk
Speaker 1: the mystery that annoys Chuck. Yeah, it annoys me too,
Speaker 1: all right, good. I just found myself getting mad when
Speaker 1: I read this. No, but it's it's interesting though at
Speaker 1: the very least you got to give it that sure creative,
Speaker 1: because Chuck we're talking about today has it all. It's
Speaker 1: got poultry geist, activity, has time travel, it's got early
Speaker 1: UM computers from the mid eighties, it's got the UK,
Speaker 1: it's got a fraud. Yeah, it has a lot of
Speaker 1: stuff in it. And um, what we're talking about. He
Speaker 1: is known as the Dondalston Messages and it's a I
Speaker 1: guess a fairly well known occult event that took place
Speaker 1: in Doddleston, um, which is I think in Chess here, yeah, um,
Speaker 1: in England in the mid eighties. I believe it was
Speaker 1: eighty six over span of eighteen months. And it was
Speaker 1: so strange that the people involved wrote a book about
Speaker 1: it and we're still talking about it today, that's right. Uh.
Speaker 1: There's a gentleman named Ken Webster and his wife Debbie
Speaker 1: who bought an old cottage Meadow Cottage because they named
Speaker 1: their cottages over there, and sure, and this thing was old.
Speaker 1: It was eighteen century brick cottage and they were fixing
Speaker 1: it up and um, and this is just sort of
Speaker 1: a precursor to the messages. But apparently there was some
Speaker 1: other weird goings on before the messages. Uh, and that
Speaker 1: when they were fixing it up one night, Uh they
Speaker 1: are one day they noticed some six toed footprints in
Speaker 1: the dust that walked up the wall between the bathroom
Speaker 1: in the kitchen. Uh ken that they reckoned it was
Speaker 1: a prank and uh they had a guest staying with him, Nick,
Speaker 1: and they all kind of decided it was a prank
Speaker 1: by whom I don't know, But they decided to paint
Speaker 1: over all that stuff off. And the next day they
Speaker 1: found footprints in the paint as well. Yeah. And then
Speaker 1: cat food packages or little cans were stacked up in pyramids,
Speaker 1: real Poulter guy stuff. Yeah, Poulter Guests the movie by
Speaker 1: Toby Hupairr. So Um, this this that was Yeah, like
Speaker 1: you said, it was kind of a precursion to the
Speaker 1: whole thing. Um, and it really took off and got
Speaker 1: strange when um, what was the guy's first name Webster.
Speaker 1: When Ken Webster, who was a teacher at a school,
Speaker 1: brought home a BBC micro computer and it had a
Speaker 1: word processor UM program on it called Edward w r
Speaker 1: D pretty cute and um. He would write on it,
Speaker 1: he would use it, and every once in a while
Speaker 1: a weird message would pop up. And it got even
Speaker 1: weirder when it turned out that the author of these messages,
Speaker 1: who Ken Webster, his girlfriend Debbie, and their their house
Speaker 1: guest Nick All said, we don't know who's doing this. Uh.
Speaker 1: The author of those messages claimed to be living in
Speaker 1: the year fifteen forty six, and it actually lived in
Speaker 1: that same cottage, or was living in that same cottage
Speaker 1: in fifty six when he's writing these messages to them
Speaker 1: in which is immediately weird because it was an eighteenth
Speaker 1: century cottage. Yeah. But the one thing we do want
Speaker 1: to point out that wasn't quite clear to me at
Speaker 1: first is that this computer was not hooked up to
Speaker 1: some early kind of modem in some early weird version
Speaker 1: of the Internet in the sticks of England. It was
Speaker 1: just a computer sitting there alone, and ostensibly these messages
Speaker 1: would just appear on that word program, right, Yes, and
Speaker 1: all right, very very big, also really important. Anytime you
Speaker 1: turn that computer off, like you couldn't save anything. You
Speaker 1: could save it on like a floppy disc. But if
Speaker 1: you turn the computer on it whatever was on their
Speaker 1: last wouldn't just be there again. Okay, that's great. I
Speaker 1: think before we take a break, we should read uh
Speaker 1: some of the early posts. Um. The messages began by
Speaker 1: saying basically, who are you people? Um, you've stolen my house.
Speaker 1: The first message ever on the computer said the following,
Speaker 1: true are the nightmares of a person that fears safe?
Speaker 1: Or the bodies of the silent world? Turn pretty flower
Speaker 1: turned towards the sun, for you shall grow and so,
Speaker 1: but the flowers reaches too high and withers in the
Speaker 1: burning light. Get out your bricks. Pussycat. Pussycat went to
Speaker 1: London to seek fame and fortune. Faith must not be lost,
Speaker 1: for this shall be your redeemer. It's pretty yeah, I
Speaker 1: mean it's pretty creepy. Admittedly, if if I were to
Speaker 1: get a message like that on a computer not plugged
Speaker 1: into the Internet, it would be great. Yeah, it takes
Speaker 1: a real turn with Pussycat. Pussycat went to London to
Speaker 1: seek fame and fortune. It seems like a cusatory, you know. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So this was I think that was the first message
Speaker 1: that ken Webster got, and he went on to write
Speaker 1: book I think in eight nine called The Vertical Plane
Speaker 1: that chronicles all this and more. UM And like you said,
Speaker 1: we're going to take a short break and we'll come
Speaker 1: back and talk about this some more, because it gets
Speaker 1: even weirder shortly after stuff you should know, stuf, stuff
Speaker 1: you should you should know. Okay, So ken Webster's intrigued,
Speaker 1: and he starts asking questions of this author who signs UM.
Speaker 1: The early post is l W and then finally later
Speaker 1: on L the L turns out to Standford Lucas with
Speaker 1: a K, and Lucas is writing in what's called early
Speaker 1: modern English UM, which is not really easy to recreate
Speaker 1: in any kind of fast manner, which is one of
Speaker 1: the defenses that Ken Webster UM brought whenever he's accused
Speaker 1: of this being a hoax. He's like, first of all,
Speaker 1: I don't know how to do that, and secondly, I
Speaker 1: certainly don't know how to do it in any kind
Speaker 1: of quick manner. And some of these supposedly came back
Speaker 1: like answers came back rather quickly when he would ask
Speaker 1: them a question. Yeah, he said, I doth have no
Speaker 1: talent forthwith Uh, here's the second just it's fun reading these.
Speaker 1: Here's the second message. I ride on behalf of many
Speaker 1: What strange words you speak. You are a worthy good
Speaker 1: man who has a fanciful woman, and you live in
Speaker 1: my house, who dwell in my home with lights which
Speaker 1: the devil makes It was a great crime to have
Speaker 1: stolen bribed my house. Yeah, so this is the point
Speaker 1: where Lucas is like, what are you guys doing in
Speaker 1: my house? Um? And apparently in fairly short order they
Speaker 1: developed kind of a fondness for one another. So like
Speaker 1: the the accusations and the problems with them living in
Speaker 1: that cottage, um get dropped pretty quickly and they start
Speaker 1: going back and forth. And um, I just saw it
Speaker 1: described as a mutual a deep mutual affection for one
Speaker 1: another that developed. Yeah, from the other side, just a
Speaker 1: pinbell from another dimension. But here's the thing, m h,
Speaker 1: there's some there's some holes in the story. There's some
Speaker 1: problems with the logic to all this. If you haven't
Speaker 1: picked up on that by now at computer, one of
Speaker 1: the ones that pops up and I didn't catch the
Speaker 1: eighteenth century cottage thing, and apparently no one else in
Speaker 1: the world did either except for you, Chuck, So congratulations
Speaker 1: on that. But Um, one of the things that that
Speaker 1: um Lucas does to kind of set a trap for
Speaker 1: Ken to see if they're actually if he actually is
Speaker 1: from the future like he reported, was that Lucas told
Speaker 1: them that he was educated at Jesus College, Oxford Jesus
Speaker 1: or hay Suits, one of the two um, and that
Speaker 1: the problem with that is that that Jesus College wasn't
Speaker 1: founded until fifteen seventy one. Remember he's writing from fifty six,
Speaker 1: so he is saying, like, if you're from the future,
Speaker 1: you would know that Jesus College wasn't founded yet from
Speaker 1: the time that I'm writing from. But the problem with
Speaker 1: that is, how would Lucas know that this Jesus College
Speaker 1: was coming years and years after the time that he
Speaker 1: is ostensibly writing from. It's a problem. There's a real
Speaker 1: another name that came out later. Apparently Lucas wasn't the
Speaker 1: real name, but it was Thomas either Harden or Hawarden,
Speaker 1: and they say that someone that had that name existed
Speaker 1: in the fifteen fifteenth nearby. No, not nearby, a hundred
Speaker 1: and fifty miles away, which might as well be in
Speaker 1: another dimension at that time. You know, well that's nearby
Speaker 1: to me, but sure, I guess at the time it yeah,
Speaker 1: in the fifteen fifties with a donkey pulling you around. Okay,
Speaker 1: good point. Another cool thing that I think we should
Speaker 1: mention is that there were times where it appeared that
Speaker 1: Thomas a k A. Lucas could see what they were doing,
Speaker 1: because the guy Ken had a picture of his car
Speaker 1: a Jaguar near the computer, and like the the Thomas
Speaker 1: person referenced that picture in the message and said, I
Speaker 1: found a picture of your cart, but it is a
Speaker 1: crude thing, for without the horse it won't go far.
Speaker 1: So apparently this thing can see them, which is a
Speaker 1: pretty key thing. But also I literally wrote ha ha
Speaker 1: next to that, because it's so dumb. You see a
Speaker 1: picture of a Jaguar automobile, do you think you'd be like,
Speaker 1: that's a cart without a horse. I know exactly what
Speaker 1: that is. Well, I mean I had wheels and it's squaring.
Speaker 1: It's just I mean I could see that was the
Speaker 1: one that was like, well, there's there's the basically the
Speaker 1: admission of guilt by Ken Webster right there. Uh, this
Speaker 1: thing gets a little weirder though even right does take
Speaker 1: Chuck Well, a third player, a second ghost, and a
Speaker 1: third player comes into this when uh, someone named one
Speaker 1: O nine pops onto the scene. Yeah, and twenty one
Speaker 1: nine popped onto the scene inadvertently because Lucas reference twenty
Speaker 1: one O nine and a post because when Ken Webster
Speaker 1: said he's from the year, Lucas says, I thought you
Speaker 1: were also from twenty one o nine, like your friend
Speaker 1: who brought the box of lights pray, And he didn't
Speaker 1: say box of lights. He said Leam's boist, which is
Speaker 1: early modern English four box of lights, which everyone has taken. Two.
Speaker 1: They taken all that to mean that the traveler, the
Speaker 1: time traveler from nine brought Thomas or Lucas a computer. Okay,
Speaker 1: how would you operate a computer though in fifty six
Speaker 1: is a big question that I have as well. Yeah.
Speaker 1: The other question I have is, uh, did these messages
Speaker 1: here before his eyes? Or I did see where he
Speaker 1: would take like a car drive and come back, and
Speaker 1: that they would they would be there? Is that how
Speaker 1: it generally worked? That's what I saw. Yeah, Like he
Speaker 1: never thought to just round the clock, sit there and
Speaker 1: watch the computer. I guess not, or maybe he tried
Speaker 1: and it didn't work, so that's when he would go
Speaker 1: for a drive. Who knows, or maybe he made all
Speaker 1: this up. So what was possible? So Ken Webster says, well,
Speaker 1: there's a there's a third party involved in there from
Speaker 1: twenty one o nine, I'm gonna start trying to message them,
Speaker 1: and in very short order, twenty one o nine, who
Speaker 1: only referred to themselves as they or them um, they
Speaker 1: responded and they said, hey, man, we're not really happy
Speaker 1: that you stumbled upon our presence. Like we're we've been
Speaker 1: basically running an experiment here that you and Lucas and
Speaker 1: Debbie are all involved in and it's going to change
Speaker 1: the world. So just pretend like we don't exist. We're
Speaker 1: gonna go back into the woodwork now and just keep
Speaker 1: watching and manipulating. Right. Eventually they bring in a paranormal
Speaker 1: investig Asian team, the Society for Psychical Physical Psychical. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the s SPR. We've talked about them plenty of times. Yeah,
Speaker 1: am I saying that psychical research? Uh, And they brought
Speaker 1: them to investigate. They came out three times said we
Speaker 1: got nothing, No, activity at all. Um Thomas eventually said that, uh,
Speaker 1: he was forced out of the land, so maybe that
Speaker 1: was the deal. He lived at a place that was there,
Speaker 1: and it wasn't necessarily the same cottage, but at any rate,
Speaker 1: he said he was never heard from again, and but
Speaker 1: did say he would leave something for them to discover
Speaker 1: in the future, right, Yeah, He said that he would
Speaker 1: write from his perspective this series of events in a
Speaker 1: book and would leave it in a place that it
Speaker 1: could be discovered. So kenn and Debbie and everyone who
Speaker 1: believes in the Dottalston messages are waiting for that book
Speaker 1: to be found to prove this once and for all again.
Speaker 1: It's possible that book doesn't exist. It's possible this was
Speaker 1: a hoax. Um. There's a really good post on it
Speaker 1: called um on um on a site called The Joy
Speaker 1: of Mirror Words by Tom Ruffles. It's called The Vertical
Speaker 1: Plane by Ken Webster. I guess it's a book review.
Speaker 1: And Tom Ruffles, PhD is very generous by considering that
Speaker 1: maybe Kennon Debbie we're doing this but weren't aware of it,
Speaker 1: That maybe they were using telekinesis and weren't aware of it,
Speaker 1: and that's how these messages were being generated. Before he
Speaker 1: finally settles on it's likeliest that this was just all
Speaker 1: a hoax. As for what Chuck believes, if you couldn't
Speaker 1: tell fraud, Occam's razor tells me it is fraud. There
Speaker 1: are no haunted computers the end. Yeah, which is kind
Speaker 1: of a bummer because I I was anticipating us to
Speaker 1: at least kind of entertain this for a second. But
Speaker 1: it's impossible. It's impossible. Well, fun story, It is a
Speaker 1: fun story. How about that? So Chuck said it's impossible.
Speaker 1: I said, it's impossible. We've given our final judgments. That
Speaker 1: means short stuff is out. Stuff you Should Know is
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