1
00:00:10,640 --> 00:00:14,000
Speaker 1: For all the many elements that constitute the paranormal, there

2
00:00:14,000 --> 00:00:16,520
Speaker 1: are a few things quite as evocative as the ghost,

3
00:00:18,320 --> 00:00:21,040
Speaker 1: equally capable of scaring as senseless as they are of

4
00:00:21,040 --> 00:00:24,560
Speaker 1: inflicting us with the deepest of melancholies, the ghost holds

5
00:00:24,560 --> 00:00:29,920
Speaker 1: a unique place in the world of the supernatural. There are,

6
00:00:29,960 --> 00:00:32,199
Speaker 1: of course, the ghosts that we carry with us in

7
00:00:32,240 --> 00:00:35,640
Speaker 1: our daily lives, memories of those we have loved and lost,

8
00:00:36,000 --> 00:00:39,600
Speaker 1: or perhaps even wronged, thoughts that sit in the deepest

9
00:00:39,600 --> 00:00:45,199
Speaker 1: part of the psyche, straining to become manifest. Perhaps the

10
00:00:45,240 --> 00:00:48,520
Speaker 1: most famous of all ghosts is that of Shakespeare's Banquet.

11
00:00:48,520 --> 00:00:52,800
Speaker 1: As he appears to the tormented mind of Macbeth. We

12
00:00:52,920 --> 00:00:55,760
Speaker 1: know him not as an actual spirit, but rather he

13
00:00:55,920 --> 00:01:01,480
Speaker 1: is the consequence of Macbeth's mental capitulation. But what of

14
00:01:01,520 --> 00:01:04,000
Speaker 1: the apparitions that seem not to have been brought forth

15
00:01:04,040 --> 00:01:07,360
Speaker 1: from the psyche, Those that have no connection to the observer,

16
00:01:07,959 --> 00:01:10,600
Speaker 1: but instead seem, for all the world to be reaching

17
00:01:10,600 --> 00:01:17,559
Speaker 1: out to us from a seemingly timeless space. You're listening

18
00:01:17,560 --> 00:01:33,080
Speaker 1: to unexplained, and I'm rich McClain smith. For some to

19
00:01:33,120 --> 00:01:36,200
Speaker 1: witness a ghost, particularly that of a relative, might bring

20
00:01:36,240 --> 00:01:39,640
Speaker 1: a certain comfort, the reassuring sense of a life beyond death.

21
00:01:40,240 --> 00:01:42,680
Speaker 1: But for the cultures of the ancient world, there was

22
00:01:42,720 --> 00:01:47,600
Speaker 1: little doubting the portentous nature of such a sighting. If

23
00:01:47,600 --> 00:01:50,240
Speaker 1: by chance, you ever find yourself walking along the banks

24
00:01:50,240 --> 00:01:53,200
Speaker 1: of the Tigris around the year four thousand BC, and

25
00:01:53,280 --> 00:01:55,760
Speaker 1: happened to come across the spirit of a recently deceased

26
00:01:55,800 --> 00:02:00,880
Speaker 1: family member, it could surely mean only one thing. For

27
00:02:00,960 --> 00:02:03,440
Speaker 1: the Sumerians, death was an act from which there was

28
00:02:03,520 --> 00:02:06,640
Speaker 1: no return. Rather, souls were left to dwell in a

29
00:02:06,680 --> 00:02:10,440
Speaker 1: place called Kur, otherwise known as the Land of no Return,

30
00:02:11,000 --> 00:02:13,320
Speaker 1: a place where all men and women were equal, no

31
00:02:13,360 --> 00:02:16,760
Speaker 1: matter how rich or poor, and there they would remain

32
00:02:16,880 --> 00:02:20,040
Speaker 1: in a dreary darkness, all watched over by Irish Kigal,

33
00:02:20,320 --> 00:02:24,400
Speaker 1: the dark queen of the underworld. For a relative to

34
00:02:24,400 --> 00:02:27,440
Speaker 1: return from such a place would speak of something unsettled,

35
00:02:27,960 --> 00:02:31,160
Speaker 1: perhaps a body not properly buried, lost at sea or

36
00:02:31,200 --> 00:02:35,000
Speaker 1: abandoned on the battlefield, or even a suspicious death that

37
00:02:35,160 --> 00:02:41,240
Speaker 1: needed in some way to be rectified. Often a ghost

38
00:02:41,320 --> 00:02:43,320
Speaker 1: or apparition will be said to be linked to a

39
00:02:43,320 --> 00:02:46,760
Speaker 1: particular place. For those of us in the UK, there

40
00:02:46,800 --> 00:02:49,880
Speaker 1: are many not least their respective tourist boards that would

41
00:02:49,880 --> 00:02:52,880
Speaker 1: suggest the Great Tower of London or Edinburgh Castle as

42
00:02:52,919 --> 00:02:57,960
Speaker 1: the country's most haunted destinations. However, thanks largely to the

43
00:02:57,960 --> 00:03:02,240
Speaker 1: controversial and self styled psychic investigator Harry Price, there is

44
00:03:02,280 --> 00:03:04,600
Speaker 1: one place that has risen above all others in the

45
00:03:04,680 --> 00:03:08,480
Speaker 1: history of the British ghost hunt. The full story of

46
00:03:08,520 --> 00:03:11,120
Speaker 1: the place in question has drawn much criticism over the

47
00:03:11,200 --> 00:03:14,760
Speaker 1: years due to the association with Price, and so it

48
00:03:14,919 --> 00:03:17,720
Speaker 1: is to a time before Price's involvement that we will

49
00:03:17,760 --> 00:03:20,920
Speaker 1: be going, and for that we will be heading to.

50
00:03:21,080 --> 00:03:29,440
Speaker 1: Nineteen twenty eight the place Balley Rectory in Essex, routinely

51
00:03:29,480 --> 00:03:32,360
Speaker 1: described as the most haunted house in England. Just what

52
00:03:32,480 --> 00:03:34,800
Speaker 1: exactly took place there in the early part of the

53
00:03:34,840 --> 00:03:39,640
Speaker 1: twentieth century has never been fully accounted for. It is

54
00:03:39,680 --> 00:03:53,400
Speaker 1: a mystery that remains to this day unexplained. The Essex

55
00:03:53,440 --> 00:03:56,080
Speaker 1: hamlet of Barley lies close to the border of Suffolk

56
00:03:56,120 --> 00:04:00,280
Speaker 1: in the southeast of England. Aside from the rectory, it

57
00:04:00,400 --> 00:04:03,800
Speaker 1: is perhaps best known for its church. Originally built in

58
00:04:03,800 --> 00:04:06,640
Speaker 1: the twelfth century. It houses within it the tomb of

59
00:04:06,680 --> 00:04:10,160
Speaker 1: Sir Edward waldergrave supporter of Mary, Queen of Scots and

60
00:04:10,280 --> 00:04:12,680
Speaker 1: one of the many victims of the Great Tower of London.

61
00:04:13,680 --> 00:04:16,880
Speaker 1: After upsetting Elizabeth, the first Sir Edward was banished to

62
00:04:16,960 --> 00:04:19,600
Speaker 1: the Tower in fifteen fifty eight, where he would die

63
00:04:19,640 --> 00:04:26,320
Speaker 1: three years later. The Rectory was built in eighteen sixty

64
00:04:26,360 --> 00:04:29,160
Speaker 1: three by the Reverend Henry Dawson Ellis, who lived there

65
00:04:29,160 --> 00:04:33,200
Speaker 1: with his wife and twelve children. Looking at old photographs

66
00:04:33,200 --> 00:04:35,880
Speaker 1: of the house, it is no exaggeration to describe it

67
00:04:35,960 --> 00:04:41,000
Speaker 1: as a place of intense atmosphere. Designed in a Neo

68
00:04:41,040 --> 00:04:43,839
Speaker 1: Gothic style, it was described as being built from red

69
00:04:43,839 --> 00:04:46,880
Speaker 1: brick and stone. The doors thick and heavy, with some

70
00:04:47,000 --> 00:04:49,760
Speaker 1: of the windows iron barred, giving parts of the house

71
00:04:49,839 --> 00:04:54,120
Speaker 1: a rather prison like appearance, and despite the relative vastness

72
00:04:54,120 --> 00:04:57,720
Speaker 1: of the grounds, the house was almost entirely surrounded by trees,

73
00:04:58,160 --> 00:05:01,520
Speaker 1: shrouding most of the property in an ever present shadow.

74
00:05:03,480 --> 00:05:06,200
Speaker 1: With Henry having passed away in eighteen ninety two and

75
00:05:06,279 --> 00:05:09,320
Speaker 1: then later his son Harry in nineteen twenty two, the

76
00:05:09,400 --> 00:05:12,560
Speaker 1: house was effectively abandoned and left to fall into disrepair.

77
00:05:14,240 --> 00:05:17,960
Speaker 1: Over time, the gloomy red brick Rectory succumbed inevitably to

78
00:05:18,000 --> 00:05:21,800
Speaker 1: the ravages of nature. The garden was left to grow wild,

79
00:05:22,000 --> 00:05:25,400
Speaker 1: all but reclaiming the house as its own. The pipes

80
00:05:25,520 --> 00:05:28,159
Speaker 1: rusted as rats took up residency in the walls and

81
00:05:28,279 --> 00:05:31,280
Speaker 1: under the floorboards, and as the frequent rains lashed down

82
00:05:31,480 --> 00:05:34,360
Speaker 1: during one of the harshest of winters, the roof had

83
00:05:34,400 --> 00:05:40,400
Speaker 1: finally given way. Without regular use, the only water supply,

84
00:05:40,680 --> 00:05:44,039
Speaker 1: provided by a well, began to rot and grew stagnant,

85
00:05:44,400 --> 00:05:47,320
Speaker 1: and so the property remained until the summer of nineteen

86
00:05:47,360 --> 00:05:59,120
Speaker 1: twenty eight. After spending a number of years working as

87
00:05:59,120 --> 00:06:02,240
Speaker 1: a missionary in India, the Reverend guy Eric Smith and

88
00:06:02,360 --> 00:06:05,160
Speaker 1: his wife Mabel had decided to return to their homeland.

89
00:06:06,160 --> 00:06:08,120
Speaker 1: So when the opportunity came up to take on the

90
00:06:08,160 --> 00:06:11,400
Speaker 1: rectory at Bawley, it seemed almost too good to be true.

91
00:06:12,160 --> 00:06:15,240
Speaker 1: After all, the quiet ideal of a small English country

92
00:06:15,279 --> 00:06:19,680
Speaker 1: village was exactly what they had been yearning for. On

93
00:06:19,839 --> 00:06:22,719
Speaker 1: arriving at the property, the Smiths met with an immediate

94
00:06:22,839 --> 00:06:25,920
Speaker 1: sense of foreboding. It would seem they had been quite

95
00:06:26,040 --> 00:06:30,600
Speaker 1: unprepared for the extent of the disrepair. The surrounding trees

96
00:06:30,640 --> 00:06:32,960
Speaker 1: all but blocked out the sun entirely, and with the

97
00:06:32,960 --> 00:06:36,440
Speaker 1: condition of the roof and the dilapidated heating system. Only

98
00:06:36,480 --> 00:06:41,160
Speaker 1: a handful of the twenty three rooms were actually habitable. Undeterred,

99
00:06:41,320 --> 00:06:44,320
Speaker 1: the plucky couple moved in and set about transforming their

100
00:06:44,320 --> 00:06:48,520
Speaker 1: new home. What followed next, as later described by the Smiths,

101
00:06:49,000 --> 00:06:51,760
Speaker 1: would amount to nothing less than the darkest years of

102
00:06:51,800 --> 00:07:00,760
Speaker 1: their life. Are you always taking care of your family?

103
00:07:01,080 --> 00:07:03,440
Speaker 1: Do you often take care of others and not yourself?

104
00:07:04,040 --> 00:07:06,719
Speaker 1: Now it's time to take care of yourself. To make

105
00:07:06,760 --> 00:07:10,640
Speaker 1: time for you. You deserve it. Teledoc gives you access

106
00:07:10,680 --> 00:07:13,280
Speaker 1: to a licensed therapist to help you get back to

107
00:07:13,400 --> 00:07:17,720
Speaker 1: feeling your best, to feeling like yourself again. With teledoc,

108
00:07:17,960 --> 00:07:20,880
Speaker 1: you can speak to a licensed therapist by phone or video.

109
00:07:21,360 --> 00:07:24,679
Speaker 1: Therapy appointments are available seven days a week from seven

110
00:07:24,720 --> 00:07:29,080
Speaker 1: am to nine pm local time. If you feel overwhelmed sometimes,

111
00:07:29,440 --> 00:07:33,720
Speaker 1: maybe you feel stressed or anxious, depressed or lonely, or

112
00:07:33,760 --> 00:07:36,440
Speaker 1: you might be struggling with a personal or family issue,

113
00:07:36,840 --> 00:07:42,160
Speaker 1: teledoc can help. Teledoc is committed to facilitating great therapeutic matches,

114
00:07:42,440 --> 00:07:45,040
Speaker 1: so they make it easy to change counselors if needed.

115
00:07:45,240 --> 00:07:50,120
Speaker 1: For free. Teledoc therapy is available through most insurance or employers.

116
00:07:50,880 --> 00:07:54,440
Speaker 1: Download the app or visit teledoc dot com forward slash

117
00:07:54,520 --> 00:07:58,920
Speaker 1: Unexplained podcast today to get started. That's t e l

118
00:07:59,000 --> 00:08:10,720
Speaker 1: a d s com slash Unexplained podcast. It began with footsteps,

119
00:08:12,000 --> 00:08:15,000
Speaker 1: a strange shuffling sound that seemed to drag itself about

120
00:08:15,000 --> 00:08:18,800
Speaker 1: the house, followed by strange studs and knocks. When the

121
00:08:18,800 --> 00:08:21,560
Speaker 1: Smiths attempted to move away into the other rooms, the

122
00:08:21,640 --> 00:08:26,400
Speaker 1: footsteps merely followed them. However, there was always one room,

123
00:08:26,560 --> 00:08:28,800
Speaker 1: known as the Blue Room, that seemed to generate the

124
00:08:28,880 --> 00:08:33,840
Speaker 1: most noise. Although a man of faith, the Reverend was

125
00:08:33,880 --> 00:08:35,960
Speaker 1: not about to succumb to the notion of ghosts in

126
00:08:36,040 --> 00:08:39,800
Speaker 1: his house. Convinced the footsteps must belong to an unwelcome

127
00:08:39,840 --> 00:08:42,840
Speaker 1: but very human visitor, the Reverend stayed up all night

128
00:08:42,880 --> 00:08:44,960
Speaker 1: with a hockey stick in an attempt to catch the

129
00:08:45,040 --> 00:08:49,760
Speaker 1: unwanted guest. Sure Enough, after waiting a few hours, the

130
00:08:49,800 --> 00:08:52,320
Speaker 1: sound of the footsteps could be heard out in the hallway,

131
00:08:52,880 --> 00:08:57,760
Speaker 1: getting closer before stopping outside his room. Much to his horror,

132
00:08:58,080 --> 00:09:01,240
Speaker 1: the steps then proceeded into the room, despite not having

133
00:09:01,280 --> 00:09:04,840
Speaker 1: a body to go with them. As the footsteps neared,

134
00:09:05,040 --> 00:09:08,040
Speaker 1: Reverend Smith swung the hockey stick wildly, but found only

135
00:09:08,040 --> 00:09:14,200
Speaker 1: the emptiness of thin air, as was common for many

136
00:09:14,200 --> 00:09:17,040
Speaker 1: buildings of such size, All twenty three rooms had been

137
00:09:17,120 --> 00:09:19,319
Speaker 1: rigged up to a bell system that linked back to

138
00:09:19,400 --> 00:09:23,000
Speaker 1: the servant quarters. Not long after the couple moved in,

139
00:09:23,320 --> 00:09:25,760
Speaker 1: the bells could be heard ringing throughout the house at

140
00:09:25,800 --> 00:09:29,360
Speaker 1: all hours of the night and day, the phenomena being

141
00:09:29,400 --> 00:09:31,760
Speaker 1: all the more extraordinary since not only were Guy and

142
00:09:31,880 --> 00:09:34,920
Speaker 1: Mabel Smith the only occupiers in the twenty three roomed house,

143
00:09:35,280 --> 00:09:38,120
Speaker 1: but most of the bell system had long since disintegrated.

144
00:09:40,640 --> 00:09:44,080
Speaker 1: One afternoon, Missus Smith decided to investigate the house's many

145
00:09:44,120 --> 00:09:47,640
Speaker 1: hidden nooks and crannies. On entering the library, she became

146
00:09:47,640 --> 00:09:50,800
Speaker 1: intrigued by a vast Victorian bookcase that stretched from one

147
00:09:50,800 --> 00:09:54,319
Speaker 1: wall to the other, with the bottom half separated into cupboards.

148
00:09:55,600 --> 00:10:00,400
Speaker 1: Examining the cupboards, Mabel came across a small round package. Slowly,

149
00:10:00,600 --> 00:10:03,320
Speaker 1: she started to unwrap the paper and was horrified to

150
00:10:03,360 --> 00:10:08,400
Speaker 1: find inside the skull of a young woman. Hoping that

151
00:10:08,480 --> 00:10:11,120
Speaker 1: in some way the skull had been linked to the disturbances,

152
00:10:11,679 --> 00:10:14,559
Speaker 1: the reverend had the skull buried in a nearby graveyard,

153
00:10:14,960 --> 00:10:17,120
Speaker 1: but was later forced to dig it up when the

154
00:10:17,200 --> 00:10:23,280
Speaker 1: strange incidences seemed only to intensify afterwards. Shortly after, the

155
00:10:23,360 --> 00:10:25,880
Speaker 1: couple began to notice that a light could often be

156
00:10:25,920 --> 00:10:28,280
Speaker 1: seen emanating from a far off room in the house

157
00:10:28,520 --> 00:10:33,400
Speaker 1: that was known to be empty and perhaps most unnerving

158
00:10:33,400 --> 00:10:36,520
Speaker 1: of all, one summer afternoon, where mister Smith was walking

159
00:10:36,520 --> 00:10:39,080
Speaker 1: through the house, he began to hear strange sounds, as

160
00:10:39,120 --> 00:10:42,480
Speaker 1: if someone was whispering over his head. He described the

161
00:10:42,559 --> 00:10:45,720
Speaker 1: noise as soft and sibilant, but spoken with urgency and

162
00:10:45,920 --> 00:10:49,600
Speaker 1: ending in muttering sounds. There was no doubting to the

163
00:10:49,640 --> 00:10:52,960
Speaker 1: reverend that it was the voice of a woman, But

164
00:10:53,120 --> 00:11:04,800
Speaker 1: even more was to come. Unable to look after the

165
00:11:04,840 --> 00:11:07,880
Speaker 1: rectory alone, the couple employed a young maid from London

166
00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:11,160
Speaker 1: to help out in the house. The maid had only

167
00:11:11,200 --> 00:11:13,880
Speaker 1: been working two days when she spotted something odd in

168
00:11:13,960 --> 00:11:17,040
Speaker 1: the garden. It was a young woman who appeared to

169
00:11:17,080 --> 00:11:19,600
Speaker 1: be dressed like a nun, walking across the bottom of

170
00:11:19,600 --> 00:11:22,680
Speaker 1: the grounds. When her calls to the woman were ignored,

171
00:11:23,000 --> 00:11:25,560
Speaker 1: the maid approached the figure but was horrified to see

172
00:11:25,559 --> 00:11:28,320
Speaker 1: it melt away into the trees right before her eyes.

173
00:11:29,280 --> 00:11:32,079
Speaker 1: The following day, she handed in her notice and promptly

174
00:11:32,080 --> 00:11:37,120
Speaker 1: returned to London. By now it was clear to guiand

175
00:11:37,200 --> 00:11:41,040
Speaker 1: Mabel that something was clearly a miss. It was only

176
00:11:41,080 --> 00:11:44,000
Speaker 1: then that they learned the full truth about Balley Rectory.

177
00:11:45,360 --> 00:11:48,600
Speaker 1: Not only had the previous occupiers frequently spoken of strange

178
00:11:48,640 --> 00:11:51,400
Speaker 1: sightings and sounds heard about the house, but that as

179
00:11:51,400 --> 00:11:54,360
Speaker 1: many as twelve clergyman had turned down the opportunity to

180
00:11:54,400 --> 00:11:56,960
Speaker 1: take on the rectory prior to mister and missus Smith,

181
00:11:57,559 --> 00:11:59,840
Speaker 1: all of them too afraid to live in the famous

182
00:12:00,120 --> 00:12:03,840
Speaker 1: haunted house. And as for the Blue Room, which appeared

183
00:12:03,840 --> 00:12:06,040
Speaker 1: to be the source for most of the strange noises,

184
00:12:06,559 --> 00:12:09,680
Speaker 1: that was the place in which both previous owners had died.

185
00:12:13,040 --> 00:12:15,800
Speaker 1: At their wits end. The couple famously called in the

186
00:12:15,800 --> 00:12:18,280
Speaker 1: help of the Daily Mirror newspaper as well as the

187
00:12:18,320 --> 00:12:21,559
Speaker 1: Society for Psychical Research, and it is at this point

188
00:12:21,600 --> 00:12:25,240
Speaker 1: that Harry Price enters the scene. What happened next has

189
00:12:25,280 --> 00:12:28,600
Speaker 1: been the topic of intense speculation and often ridicule, as

190
00:12:28,640 --> 00:12:32,359
Speaker 1: many sought to profit from the unfortunate couple's extraordinary experiences.

191
00:12:33,640 --> 00:12:37,679
Speaker 1: For subsequent publicity only intensified the stress upon Mabel and George,

192
00:12:37,800 --> 00:12:41,000
Speaker 1: and the couple vacated the property in nineteen twenty nine,

193
00:12:41,200 --> 00:12:43,959
Speaker 1: moving to the relative serenity of the seaside town of

194
00:12:44,040 --> 00:12:48,160
Speaker 1: Cromer in Norfolk. And as for the house itself, it

195
00:12:48,240 --> 00:13:01,880
Speaker 1: was destroyed by fire under suspicious circumstances in nineteen thirty nine.

196
00:13:03,480 --> 00:13:06,160
Speaker 1: For a spooky and quietly menacing look at the subsequent

197
00:13:06,200 --> 00:13:09,720
Speaker 1: events involving the controversial Harry Price, I can recommend The

198
00:13:09,720 --> 00:13:12,480
Speaker 1: Ghost Hunters by Neil Spring to while away a few

199
00:13:12,480 --> 00:13:16,040
Speaker 1: sleepless nights. But for me it is the accounts of

200
00:13:16,040 --> 00:13:19,320
Speaker 1: the plainly innocent and reputable mister and Missus Smith, taken

201
00:13:19,360 --> 00:13:24,240
Speaker 1: before all the noise that followed, that is the most fascinating. Clearly,

202
00:13:24,400 --> 00:13:26,760
Speaker 1: they had no desire to profit from their ordeal, and

203
00:13:26,880 --> 00:13:30,320
Speaker 1: nor did they so what then exactly did they hear?

204
00:13:30,640 --> 00:13:33,120
Speaker 1: And in the case of the unfortunate maid from London

205
00:13:33,559 --> 00:13:41,280
Speaker 1: see On one dark December night in two thousand and two,

206
00:13:41,720 --> 00:13:44,360
Speaker 1: a phone call was placed to a police station in Surrey,

207
00:13:44,480 --> 00:13:47,400
Speaker 1: in the south of England. It was an anxious member

208
00:13:47,400 --> 00:13:50,120
Speaker 1: of the public calling to report a horrific car crash

209
00:13:50,200 --> 00:13:54,160
Speaker 1: that they had witnessed that night. Whilst traveling southbound along

210
00:13:54,160 --> 00:13:56,679
Speaker 1: the A three towards the town of Guildford. They had

211
00:13:56,679 --> 00:13:59,600
Speaker 1: seen a car lose control at high speed before spinning

212
00:13:59,679 --> 00:14:03,840
Speaker 1: violent off the road. Moments later, more calls were taken

213
00:14:03,960 --> 00:14:07,920
Speaker 1: from many different witnesses reporting the exact same thing. A

214
00:14:08,000 --> 00:14:11,160
Speaker 1: number of police were immediately dispatched and promptly arrived at

215
00:14:11,160 --> 00:14:14,600
Speaker 1: the scene. Only they couldn't find any trace of the incident.

216
00:14:15,800 --> 00:14:18,600
Speaker 1: That was until one officer, who had been searching the

217
00:14:18,679 --> 00:14:22,520
Speaker 1: nearby undergrowth, stumbled upon a smashed up maroon Vauxhall Astra,

218
00:14:22,840 --> 00:14:28,240
Speaker 1: nose down in a ditch, but something was off. Shining

219
00:14:28,240 --> 00:14:30,440
Speaker 1: his torch into the driver's side of the car, the

220
00:14:30,520 --> 00:14:34,480
Speaker 1: officer received a terrible Fright there, sat in his seat

221
00:14:34,760 --> 00:14:37,120
Speaker 1: was the driver of the vehicle, reduced to the bare

222
00:14:37,160 --> 00:14:40,960
Speaker 1: bones of his skeleton. The car had indeed spun off

223
00:14:41,000 --> 00:14:44,640
Speaker 1: the road, as reported, but it certainly hadn't happened that night.

224
00:14:46,880 --> 00:14:49,760
Speaker 1: In fact, the police later discovered that the driver of

225
00:14:49,800 --> 00:14:52,960
Speaker 1: the vehicle had been declared missing almost six months before.

226
00:14:54,560 --> 00:14:57,200
Speaker 1: Is it possible that, rather than seeing the actual moment

227
00:14:57,240 --> 00:15:00,400
Speaker 1: of the accident, the witnesses had in fact seemed kind

228
00:15:00,440 --> 00:15:04,200
Speaker 1: of echo of the event, or maybe something even stranger.

229
00:15:12,880 --> 00:15:15,400
Speaker 1: When we think of time, we tend to picture a

230
00:15:15,440 --> 00:15:17,960
Speaker 1: clock or a set of numbers with which to reference

231
00:15:18,000 --> 00:15:21,240
Speaker 1: our day. We may say that time is the aging

232
00:15:21,240 --> 00:15:24,480
Speaker 1: of things, or talk about the passing of time. We

233
00:15:24,560 --> 00:15:26,720
Speaker 1: see it in the revolutions of the earth or the

234
00:15:26,800 --> 00:15:30,320
Speaker 1: rising and setting of the sun. And yet this isn't

235
00:15:30,320 --> 00:15:33,560
Speaker 1: time in any meaningful sense, but rather how we frame

236
00:15:33,600 --> 00:15:38,920
Speaker 1: it in the absence of the actual thing itself. In

237
00:15:38,960 --> 00:15:42,040
Speaker 1: the mid nineteen sixties, John Wheeler and Bryce de Witt,

238
00:15:42,320 --> 00:15:45,920
Speaker 1: two physicists from Princeton and the University of North Carolina,

239
00:15:46,120 --> 00:15:50,400
Speaker 1: came up with an extraordinary idea. Together, they had devised

240
00:15:50,520 --> 00:15:53,320
Speaker 1: no less than a possible framework to marry the seeming

241
00:15:53,360 --> 00:15:57,440
Speaker 1: incompatibility of Einstein's theories of relativity and the mechanations of

242
00:15:57,440 --> 00:16:01,160
Speaker 1: the quantum world. Now known as the Wheeler DeWitt equation,

243
00:16:01,720 --> 00:16:07,120
Speaker 1: its implications are staggering. What Wheeler and de Witt potentially

244
00:16:07,120 --> 00:16:09,520
Speaker 1: discovered was that the only way to make the two

245
00:16:09,560 --> 00:16:13,040
Speaker 1: worlds compatible was to do away completely with the notion

246
00:16:13,080 --> 00:16:17,280
Speaker 1: of time, that the fundamental description of the universe was

247
00:16:17,360 --> 00:16:21,640
Speaker 1: in fact timeless. If such a thing were to be true,

248
00:16:22,160 --> 00:16:25,600
Speaker 1: you might rightly assume that the past, present, and future

249
00:16:25,640 --> 00:16:28,680
Speaker 1: is nothing but an illusion. That the only thing that

250
00:16:28,800 --> 00:16:31,920
Speaker 1: is real is the whole of it, existing constantly. As

251
00:16:32,000 --> 00:16:38,440
Speaker 1: one might, it be possible that the ghosts of Ballyrectory,

252
00:16:38,560 --> 00:16:41,760
Speaker 1: and perhaps all ghosts for that matter, rather than being

253
00:16:41,800 --> 00:16:44,640
Speaker 1: the spirits of the dead, are in fact the bodies

254
00:16:44,720 --> 00:16:50,680
Speaker 1: of the very much alive, existing alongsiders in another time. Perhaps,

255
00:16:50,800 --> 00:16:53,480
Speaker 1: if we were so blessed, we might imagine ourselves like

256
00:16:53,600 --> 00:16:58,800
Speaker 1: Kurt Vonnegut's fictional characters, the Trialphamadurians, creatures who have evolved

257
00:16:58,840 --> 00:17:01,080
Speaker 1: to be able to see it's only the present, but

258
00:17:01,160 --> 00:17:04,280
Speaker 1: the entirety of everything that has been and will ever be.

259
00:17:07,760 --> 00:17:11,800
Speaker 1: In a quote tentatively attributed to the Australian author Christina Stead,

260
00:17:12,200 --> 00:17:15,280
Speaker 1: it is said that every love story is a ghost story.

261
00:17:15,960 --> 00:17:18,359
Speaker 1: But might it be more correct to say that every

262
00:17:18,400 --> 00:17:22,240
Speaker 1: story is a ghost story? That every tale we tell

263
00:17:22,520 --> 00:17:27,040
Speaker 1: is something that has once passed, yet somehow remains. And

264
00:17:27,240 --> 00:17:29,720
Speaker 1: isn't all of life really just a story that we

265
00:17:29,800 --> 00:17:32,639
Speaker 1: tell each other, whether it be shared by memory or

266
00:17:32,720 --> 00:17:36,400
Speaker 1: through the very genetic imprint of our blood. And when

267
00:17:36,840 --> 00:17:40,160
Speaker 1: or if all stories were to finally disappear, we might

268
00:17:40,200 --> 00:17:46,200
Speaker 1: hope that somewhere still a ghostly imprint will remain. But

269
00:17:46,240 --> 00:17:48,960
Speaker 1: if indeed there is no such thing as time, and

270
00:17:49,200 --> 00:17:52,199
Speaker 1: nothing ever truly dies, then really there would be no

271
00:17:52,280 --> 00:18:03,200
Speaker 1: ghosts only us existing together Forever. All elements of Unexplained

272
00:18:03,240 --> 00:18:06,560
Speaker 1: are produced by me, Richard McClain Smith. Please subscribe and

273
00:18:06,680 --> 00:18:08,680
Speaker 1: rate the show on iTunes, and feel free to get

274
00:18:08,720 --> 00:18:11,360
Speaker 1: in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories

275
00:18:11,359 --> 00:18:14,040
Speaker 1: you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation

276
00:18:14,119 --> 00:18:16,520
Speaker 1: of your own you'd like to share. You can reach

277
00:18:16,560 --> 00:18:19,480
Speaker 1: us online at Unexplained podcast dot com or on Twitter

278
00:18:19,560 --> 00:18:32,440
Speaker 1: at Unexplained Pod. Now. It's time to take care of yourself.

279
00:18:32,880 --> 00:18:36,600
Speaker 1: To make time for you, teledoc gives you access to

280
00:18:36,680 --> 00:18:39,840
Speaker 1: a licensed therapist to help you get back to feeling

281
00:18:39,880 --> 00:18:43,600
Speaker 1: your best. Speak to a licensed therapist by phone or

282
00:18:43,680 --> 00:18:47,560
Speaker 1: video anytime between seven am to nine pm local time,

283
00:18:48,040 --> 00:18:51,920
Speaker 1: seven days a week. Teledoc Therapy is available through most

284
00:18:51,920 --> 00:18:56,639
Speaker 1: insurance or employers. Download the app or visit telldoc dot com.

285
00:18:56,760 --> 00:19:01,280
Speaker 1: Forward slash Unexplained Podcast Today to get start. That's t

286
00:19:01,560 --> 00:19:05,800
Speaker 1: e l a d oc dot com Slash Unexplained Podcast