Speaker 1: And you're here.
Speaker 2: Thanks for choosing the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast Day
Speaker 2: and Paranormal Podcast Network. Your quest for podcasts of the paranormal, supernatural,
Speaker 2: and the unexplained ends here. We invite you to enjoy
Speaker 2: all our shows we have on this network, and right now,
Speaker 2: let's start with Strange Things with Joshua P.
Speaker 1: Warren.
Speaker 3: Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and
Speaker 3: opinions expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions
Speaker 3: only and do not reflect those of iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio, Coast
Speaker 3: to Coast AM, employees of Premiere Networks, or their sponsors
Speaker 3: and associates. We would like to encourage you to do
Speaker 3: your own research and discover the subject matter for yourself.
Speaker 1: You get ready to be amazed by the wizard of
Speaker 1: Weird Strange Things with Joshua Warren. I am Joshua PE Warren,
Speaker 1: and each week on this show, I'll be bringing you
Speaker 1: brand new mind blowing content, news, exercises, and weird experiments
Speaker 1: you can do at home, and a lot more on
Speaker 1: this edition of the show, Zombies, Scary or Silly. I'm
Speaker 1: starting this podcast by letting you know right up front
Speaker 1: that I have never really been into zombies. I have
Speaker 1: known people who are absolutely terrified of them, but to me,
Speaker 1: the concept of zombies has always just seemed kind of silly,
Speaker 1: scary looking, yes, no doubt, but still just a little
Speaker 1: too far fetched for me to take seriously. I just
Speaker 1: was not all that interested, and so I don't think
Speaker 1: I have ever done a podcast featuring zombies. And when
Speaker 1: I realized that a few days ago, I decided that
Speaker 1: if I could dig into zombies and find a way
Speaker 1: to make them an interesting topic for me, well, then
Speaker 1: hopefully it would do the same for you. Now, don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong, I have read all about them throughout
Speaker 1: my life, and even before doing research for this show.
Speaker 1: I mean, I knew more about zombies than the average person.
Speaker 1: I'm pretty sure we've all seen at least one movie
Speaker 1: or TV show featuring a kind of zombie. But the
Speaker 1: meaning of the word zombie has changed dramatically over the years.
Speaker 1: As I will explain, zombies were once considered helpless, soulless slaves.
Speaker 1: A person who became a victim who had been zombiefied,
Speaker 1: sometimes even as a punishment. There was absolutely nothing to
Speaker 1: fear from a zombie. That was the point. They were helpless,
Speaker 1: and now most people think of zombies as attackers, as
Speaker 1: humans that have transformed into some kind of flesh eating monsters.
Speaker 1: So it's almost a complete one eighty really, and that's
Speaker 1: a weird twist and actually kind of unexplained. I'm going
Speaker 1: to get into that. But when it comes to movies,
Speaker 1: the very first feature length zombie film was White Zombie,
Speaker 1: released in nineteen thirty two starring Bela Legosi. It has
Speaker 1: been a long time since I saw that movie. I
Speaker 1: don't remember a lot about it, but it's about a
Speaker 1: young woman's transformation into a zombie at the hands of
Speaker 1: an evil voodoo master, and of course be La Legosi
Speaker 1: stars as the zombie master. So that is a good
Speaker 1: example for you of the zombie being a person who's
Speaker 1: been victimized and turned into this helpless thing. However, all
Speaker 1: that kind of changed in nineteen sixty eight when George A.
Speaker 1: Romero's movie called Knight of the Living Dead came out.
Speaker 1: In that case, and this is kind of interesting, I'll
Speaker 1: dig more into that movie later, they were never called
Speaker 1: zombies in that movie. They were called goules apparently, But
Speaker 1: later the beings in that movie were being described as zombies,
Speaker 1: and that was when they were attacking people and eating them,
Speaker 1: and that just sort of completely shifted this whole idea
Speaker 1: of zombies from being this sort of passive type of
Speaker 1: being into this very aggressive, scary thing that's coming in
Speaker 1: to invade and kill you. Odd how all that happened.
Speaker 1: So you know how the creatures in contemporary zombie films
Speaker 1: came to be called zombies, It's not fully clear. And
Speaker 1: you know, Romero used the term ghoul in his original scripts,
Speaker 1: and it seems like that later on some of the
Speaker 1: media started using the word zombie, and then of course
Speaker 1: he picked it up, and then he started using it
Speaker 1: as well. But anyway, all that said, I was thinking
Speaker 1: about how I was going to approach this topic, because
Speaker 1: there are some really interesting, realistic aspects of zombie lore
Speaker 1: that I find most intriguing. I actually bought this book.
Speaker 1: It's over three hundred pages and it's called Everything You
Speaker 1: Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies, and I guess it's
Speaker 1: written by the top zombie scholar. His name is Matt Mock.
Speaker 1: I guess I'd say he pronounced his last name m
Speaker 1: og K, with a foreword by Max Brooks. Do you
Speaker 1: know who Max Brooks is Max Brooks is one of
Speaker 1: the top experts on zombies and zombie lore. And he,
Speaker 1: oddly enough, is the son of filmmaker Mel Brooks, who
Speaker 1: of course has known for his comedy classics like Young
Speaker 1: Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles. And his mother was Anne Bancroft,
Speaker 1: and she's no longer with us, but she was a
Speaker 1: very popular actress. So their son, the son of Mel
Speaker 1: Brooks and Anne Bancroft, is Matt Brooks, and he writes
Speaker 1: all this stuff about zombies. Let's see here, he wrote
Speaker 1: World War Z and Oral History of the Zombie War.
Speaker 1: That's just kind of one of those funny, weird things
Speaker 1: that some people don't know about. So I have this
Speaker 1: book here that just really is kind of like the
Speaker 1: Bible on the history of zombies. I'll refer some to
Speaker 1: that a little bit later, but first off, let's just
Speaker 1: get down to some basic definitions. According to Wikipedia, a
Speaker 1: zombie is a mythological undead corporeal revenant. Let me let
Speaker 1: me pause there for a second. Okay, well, I think
Speaker 1: we all know what undead means. Corporeal means you actually
Speaker 1: have a physical body, So we're not talking about some
Speaker 1: phantasm like casper here, and a revenant is an animated corpse.
Speaker 1: The word revenant is derived from the old French word
Speaker 1: mean that means returning. Right, So that said, we're talking
Speaker 1: about an undead, corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of
Speaker 1: a corpse. It says zombies are most commonly found in
Speaker 1: horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore,
Speaker 1: in which a zombie is a dead body reanimated through
Speaker 1: various methods, most commonly magical practices in religions like voodoo.
Speaker 1: Modern media depictions of the reanimation of the dead often
Speaker 1: do not involve magic, but rather science fictional methods such
Speaker 1: as carriers, fungi, radiation, mental diseases, vectors, pathogens, parasites, scientific accidents,
Speaker 1: et cetera. And goodness knows, I'm not going to break
Speaker 1: it down into all those little categories because this really
Speaker 1: would be a you know, like a four hour podcast.
Speaker 1: But it is believed that well there there are various
Speaker 1: opinions about the origin of the word zombie, but many
Speaker 1: authors compare it to the Congo word vumby which that
Speaker 1: actually means a ghost, a revenant of corpse, something that
Speaker 1: still retains the soul versus a well. Actually, I guess
Speaker 1: it has something to do with like whether or not
Speaker 1: you have a soul. It's that kind of thing, all right,
Speaker 1: So that's what we think it probably comes from. But
Speaker 1: if you go down here and you start looking into
Speaker 1: some of the beliefs, like the very original traditional beliefs here,
Speaker 1: zombies are featured widely in Haitian rural folklore as dead
Speaker 1: persons physically revived by the act of necromancy or a
Speaker 1: sorcerer or witch. And a zombie remains under the control
Speaker 1: of the witch they call them a bokor it looks like,
Speaker 1: remains under the control of the witch as a personal slave,
Speaker 1: having no will of its own. And so right there
Speaker 1: you're talking about, you know again this idea that it
Speaker 1: is it's a helpless entity. So that's kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, what the tradition goes back to. And this
Speaker 1: is not just from Haiti though, I mean there are
Speaker 1: people from out you know, from throughout that general part
Speaker 1: of the world as well as Africa that all have
Speaker 1: some kind of a belief system that revolves around this,
Speaker 1: and I think that is best exemplified by this book
Speaker 1: that was made into a movie called The Serpent and
Speaker 1: the Rainbow. I know some of you have at least
Speaker 1: seen this movie. The book was written in nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: five and the movie came out in nineteen eighty eight.
Speaker 1: And it's a really interesting story, and it's based on
Speaker 1: well what supposedly happened to a real man who became
Speaker 1: a zombie and then escaped and was able to rejoin
Speaker 1: us and tell everybody what that experience was like when
Speaker 1: we come back. I'm going to give you the facts
Speaker 1: on that case. It's a wild story and a great
Speaker 1: place to really start seeing your teeth into the mystery
Speaker 1: of the zombies. Now, by the way, you know, I
Speaker 1: go through these phases where I just get super generous
Speaker 1: and I get crazy and I just start giving away
Speaker 1: all kinds of cool stuff for free. You never know
Speaker 1: what it's going to be. It might just be cold,
Speaker 1: hard cash, it might be prizes, it might be tickets, experiences.
Speaker 1: I'm about to start doing it, but only for people
Speaker 1: who subscribe to my free e newsletter. You have to
Speaker 1: go to Joshua Pawarren dot com. There is no period
Speaker 1: after the P and right there on the homepage at
Speaker 1: Joshuapewarren dot com. You'll see a little box and it
Speaker 1: says click here for Joshua's free newsletter. When you click that,
Speaker 1: you just put your email address in there, hit submit.
Speaker 1: You'll be subscribed, and you will instantly receive an automated
Speaker 1: email from me with some free online goodies just for
Speaker 1: doing it, just to get you started, just to wet
Speaker 1: your chops. Go to Joshua P. Warren dot com and subscribe.
Speaker 1: I am Joshua P. Warren, and you are listening to
Speaker 1: Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM
Speaker 1: Paranormal Podcast Network, and I will be right back. Welcome
Speaker 1: back to Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to
Speaker 1: Coast to HIM Paranormal Podcast Network. I am your host,
Speaker 1: the Wizard of Weird, Joshua P. Warren, beaming into your
Speaker 1: wormhole brain from my studio in sim City, Las Vegas, Nevada.
Speaker 1: Wherever he is Golden End every night is silver a
Speaker 1: gietato zoomme. And when you look at this whole overview
Speaker 1: of the sort of pop culture history of zombies, says here.
Speaker 1: One of the first books to expose Western culture to
Speaker 1: the concept of the voodoo zombie was W. B. C.
Speaker 1: Brooks The Magic Island, published in nineteen twenty nine. Never
Speaker 1: heard of that one. But then, of course they say.
Speaker 1: A new version of the zombie, distinct from that described
Speaker 1: in Haitian folklore, emerged in popular culture during the latter
Speaker 1: half of the twentieth century. This interpretation of the zombie
Speaker 1: as an undead person that attacks and eats the flesh
Speaker 1: of living people is drawn largely from George A. Romero's
Speaker 1: film Night of the Living Dead from nineteen sixty eight,
Speaker 1: which was partly inspired by Richard mathe novel I Am Legend.
Speaker 1: And of course from here you know that that gave
Speaker 1: rise to like Dawn of the Dead, Return of the
Speaker 1: Living Dead, and then it all just really takes off.
Speaker 1: Who doesn't love Michael Jackson's thriller video, right, And then
Speaker 1: you start working your way into the nineties Resident Evil,
Speaker 1: House of the Dead. My goodness, this Sean Down of
Speaker 1: the Dead remake Sean of the Dead. Of course, the
Speaker 1: Walking Dead franchise comes out of that. I mean, it
Speaker 1: just goes on and on and on. But when we
Speaker 1: go back to that original story about you know what
Speaker 1: is zombie was in Haiti Going back to who knows
Speaker 1: who is this something that could have been around for
Speaker 1: thousands of years, hundreds of years, I don't know, but
Speaker 1: it takes us to this story from well. Like I
Speaker 1: mentioned The Serpent in the Rainbow. That was a book
Speaker 1: published in nineteen eighty five and made into a movie
Speaker 1: by Wes Craven in nineteen eighty eight. The full title
Speaker 1: of the book was The Serpent and the Rainbow, A
Speaker 1: Harvard Scientist's Astonishing Journey into the secret societies of Haitian voodoo,
Speaker 1: zombies and magic. And it was written by Wade Davis,
Speaker 1: who is still alive, by the way, and still conducting
Speaker 1: research at sixty nine years old. Now. Wade Davis is
Speaker 1: an ethno botanist. Now ethno botany is the study of
Speaker 1: a particular region's plants and their practical uses through the
Speaker 1: traditional knowledge of a local culture and people. So you're
Speaker 1: going there and you're really digging into the relationship between
Speaker 1: people and their indigenous plants there. And in the late
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, this scientist, Wade Davis, read a newspaper article
Speaker 1: about the supposedly true story of a man in Haiti
Speaker 1: named Clivius Narcis. And this man had supposedly been a
Speaker 1: zombie slave for at least two years before escaping. So
Speaker 1: here is the story as I understand it. So in
Speaker 1: a nutshell, this man in Haiti, Clarvious Clervius and his brother.
Speaker 1: They lived in this very remote part of Haiti, and
Speaker 1: they got into a prolonged land dispute. They were arguing
Speaker 1: over some piece of land and it got more and
Speaker 1: more heated, and eventually Clarvius's brother got a local witch
Speaker 1: doctor involved to help him. Apparently Clivious was drugged. So
Speaker 1: that's the idea of the story, is that Clivius's brother
Speaker 1: got a witch doctor and they conspired and they drugged
Speaker 1: Clarvious in some manner. He doesn't remember what happened, but
Speaker 1: he did remember feeling some agonizing pain at some point,
Speaker 1: and also at some stage in this although he was
Speaker 1: fully conscious, he found that he was lying somewhere completely paralyzed.
Speaker 1: In fact, two American trained doctors pronounced this man dead.
Speaker 1: They issued an official legal death certificate, and Clivious actually
Speaker 1: remembers being nailed into a wooden box and being buried,
Speaker 1: although he could do nothing about it. So eventually this
Speaker 1: witch doctor dug him up. At that point, Clarivius was
Speaker 1: able to walk roughly, and he was led off to
Speaker 1: a sugar plantation in the jungle, where he was constantly
Speaker 1: fed drugs that kept him completely submissive in this kind
Speaker 1: of groggy state. And for two years he was forced
Speaker 1: to do manual labor in the fields and menial jobs
Speaker 1: around the house. And then one day Clarvius found the
Speaker 1: witch doctor lying there dead in the living room. And
Speaker 1: at that point Clarvius wandered away from the plantation and
Speaker 1: eventually made it back to his hometown, where he scared
Speaker 1: the heck out of everybody, of course, including his brother.
Speaker 1: I'm not sure how that they reconcile that situation. Well, anyway,
Speaker 1: Wade Davis, he read all about this and so he
Speaker 1: was just absolutely amazed. He flew to Haiti and he
Speaker 1: interviewed Clarvieus in person. He examined the death certificate, and
Speaker 1: Wade Davis was convinced that this story was true. And
Speaker 1: as he continued his research, Wade finally met a witch
Speaker 1: doctor who knew how to do this, how to turn
Speaker 1: people into zombies. And of course the witch doctor did
Speaker 1: not want to reveal the secrets, so Wade paid him
Speaker 1: a lot of money and finally the witch doctor relented
Speaker 1: and gave Wade some bags of the quote zombie powders
Speaker 1: used to drug people and put them into this zombie state.
Speaker 1: So Wade Davis took one of these powders to the
Speaker 1: lab at Harvard, gave it to some rats, and shortly
Speaker 1: thereafter the rats looked as if they had died. However,
Speaker 1: some extremely sensitive you know EEG type brain wave machines
Speaker 1: there showed that the rats still had brain activity and
Speaker 1: that they were very much alive, but they just looked
Speaker 1: at just like Clarvius had claimed he experienced. So Wade
Speaker 1: analyzed the primary powder and he said that he found
Speaker 1: it primarily contained a chemical derived from the pufferfish. You
Speaker 1: know what a pufferfish is. It's the fish that blows
Speaker 1: up and it's got the spines all over it. And
Speaker 1: then another one of the powders, the one that kind
Speaker 1: of keeps you in a slave state, the one that
Speaker 1: you would be given, you know, after you are revived,
Speaker 1: so to speak, and you're the one that keeps you
Speaker 1: as zombie, is derived from a plant called Datura stramonium
Speaker 1: or zombie cucumber. Turns out, you may have heard of
Speaker 1: this plant. Called gemsen weed, and these powders, the one
Speaker 1: from the puffer fish and the gemsum. These powders are deadly,
Speaker 1: especially the puffer fish powder. So if indeed this is
Speaker 1: what was being used, the witch doctor would need to
Speaker 1: know just the right dose to administer to create the
Speaker 1: zombie state without killing the victim. And you know that's
Speaker 1: not an easy task. I mean, you're talking about having
Speaker 1: to size up each person as an individual. Now, there
Speaker 1: are those who criticize way Davis's work, but I think
Speaker 1: he may have given us the best explanation for the
Speaker 1: origin of these true zombie stories from Haiti. By the way,
Speaker 1: in the legends of Voodoo, the serpent is the symbol
Speaker 1: of Earth and the rainbow is the symbol of heaven,
Speaker 1: and between the two all creatures must live and die.
Speaker 1: But because he has a soul, they believe man can
Speaker 1: be trapped in this terrible place kind of like a
Speaker 1: like a limbo or whatever, a purgatory, And that's sort
Speaker 1: of what the whole zombie idea is about. So again,
Speaker 1: the serpent in the rainbow presents this case of this
Speaker 1: man He's Clarivius is dead. Now who you know said
Speaker 1: that this the zombification was the result of this complex
Speaker 1: interaction between these these powders and these hallucinogens and such,
Speaker 1: and that very much fits into what you know, the
Speaker 1: Haitians claim was happening when they would encounter real zombies,
Speaker 1: which is where this whole thing took off. Now let's
Speaker 1: fast forward. Let's get back to Night of the Living Dead,
Speaker 1: because all the way up until Night of the Living Dead,
Speaker 1: zombies were pretty much described as behaving just like Clairviews did.
Speaker 1: So Night of the Living Dead was made, like I said,
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty eight, and at that time, George A. Romero,
Speaker 1: I don't think he'd ever made a movie before. Actually
Speaker 1: he was twenty eight years old. This movie was made
Speaker 1: for one hundred and twenty thousand dollars and it grossed
Speaker 1: over thirty million dollars. Can you believe that? Okay, time
Speaker 1: for a break. When we come back, I'm going to
Speaker 1: tell you more about what that movie did. And then
Speaker 1: also I'm going to tell you about, yes, some well
Speaker 1: the closest thing to zombies that I have ever personally witnessed.
Speaker 1: And then finally I'm going to get around to what's
Speaker 1: my conclusion about all this zombie stuff, and then I
Speaker 1: have another cool update for you. I'm Joshua P. Warren.
Speaker 1: You're listening to Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast
Speaker 1: to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network, and I will be
Speaker 1: back after these important messages. Welcome back to Strange Things
Speaker 1: on the iHeartRadio and cost to Coast AM Peronormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 1: I am your host, Joshua P. Warren, And this is
Speaker 1: the show where the unusual becomes usual. Night of the
Speaker 1: Living Dead, released in nineteen sixty eight, is a movie
Speaker 1: about a group of strangers trapped in a farmhouse who
Speaker 1: find themselves fending off a horde of recently dead flesh
Speaker 1: eating ghules. And it was it was an independent horror film, directed, photographed,
Speaker 1: and edited by twenty eight year old George A. Romero,
Speaker 1: and it was written by him and John Russo. And
Speaker 1: as I mentioned, it was one of those things like
Speaker 1: they just barely scraped the money together, around one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty thousand dollars, which, by the way, even by
Speaker 1: today's standards, that would still be less than one million
Speaker 1: dollars by today's money here in twenty twenty three. So
Speaker 1: one of those typical stories you hear like they barely
Speaker 1: scraped all this money together. They got all these investors
Speaker 1: and then knocked it out of the ballpark because that
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty thousand dollars turned into over thirty
Speaker 1: million dollars for this little black and white movie. I mean,
Speaker 1: can you believe that? That's just the amazing thing about movies.
Speaker 1: When you make one, there is a chance, however small,
Speaker 1: however small, that you can turn just a little, grainy,
Speaker 1: low budget film into a gold mine. And so that
Speaker 1: was one of the most profitable movies ever made. That
Speaker 1: should tell you something right off the bat about this
Speaker 1: odd connection that people feel to this concept of what
Speaker 1: we now consider zombies. And you know what's funny is
Speaker 1: that Romero said that when he was writing his part,
Speaker 1: and this was pretty you know, I know we had
Speaker 1: a co author, but this is pretty much his thing.
Speaker 1: He said he drew heavy inspiration from Richard Matheson's novel
Speaker 1: called I Am Legend that was published in nineteen fifty four.
Speaker 1: That's a horror novel about a plague that ravages a
Speaker 1: futuristic Los Angeles and the infected people and I Am
Speaker 1: Legend become these vampire like creatures and prey on the Uninfected,
Speaker 1: and when discussing the creation of the movie Night of
Speaker 1: the Living Dead, Romero once said, quote, I had written
Speaker 1: a short story which I basically had ripped off from
Speaker 1: Richard Matheson's novel called I Am Legend end quote, and
Speaker 1: he went on to say, I thought I Am Legend
Speaker 1: was about revolution. I said, if you're going to do
Speaker 1: something about revolution, you should start at the beginning. I mean,
Speaker 1: Richard starts his book with one man left. Everybody in
Speaker 1: the world has become a vampire. I said, we got
Speaker 1: to start at the beginning and tweak it up a
Speaker 1: little bit. And I couldn't use vampires because he did. So.
Speaker 1: I wanted something that would be an earth shaking change,
Speaker 1: something that was forever, something that was really at the
Speaker 1: heart of it. And I said, so what if the
Speaker 1: dead stop staying dead and the stories are about how
Speaker 1: people respond or fail to respond to this? That's really
Speaker 1: all the zombies ever represented to me. And as a
Speaker 1: matter of fact, interestingly enough, you know well, Richard Matheson's
Speaker 1: novel I Am Legend appeared in some official film adaptations
Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty four, The Last Man on Earth in
Speaker 1: nineteen seventy one, as the Omega Man, and of course
Speaker 1: the two thousand and seven release I Am Legend, and
Speaker 1: Mathieson said he was not impressed by Romero's interpretation, said
Speaker 1: he thought it was kind of cornball. But he also said, well,
Speaker 1: George Romero is a nice guy, and I don't harbor
Speaker 1: any animosity toward him, So I guess that's a good thing.
Speaker 1: But you know, again, it goes back to what I
Speaker 1: was telling you earlier. George A. Romero used the term
Speaker 1: google in his original scripts, and then in later interviews
Speaker 1: he used the term zombie, and then after that, well,
Speaker 1: the word zombie is used exclusively by Romero in his
Speaker 1: script for his sequel Dawn of the Dead in nineteen
Speaker 1: seventy eight, according once in Dialogue, and so, according to Romero,
Speaker 1: film critics were very influential in associating that term zombie
Speaker 1: to his creatures, and he just eventually accepted that link,
Speaker 1: even though he remained convinced that zombies actually corresponded to
Speaker 1: the undead slaves of Haitian voodoo, as depicted in the
Speaker 1: movie White Zombie with Bella Legosi. Isn't this kind of weird,
Speaker 1: like how that connection was just made and they just
Speaker 1: kind of went with it. Well, anyway, we'll never understand
Speaker 1: precisely how that connection was made, I guess, but that
Speaker 1: shows you the journey that the zombie has taken. Now,
Speaker 1: when it comes to my own personal experiences with so
Speaker 1: called zombies, I will tell you that, of course, I
Speaker 1: spent a good fifteen years exploring in Puerto Rico, and
Speaker 1: I just outright lived there for five years, and Boquerrone
Speaker 1: on the south western side of the island in Caborrojo,
Speaker 1: and one of the I guess you know, one of
Speaker 1: the more significant towns that was close to me was
Speaker 1: called Myos. And when I was living in Puerto Rico,
Speaker 1: there was this terrible drug fad, if you will, that
Speaker 1: was going around. For some reason, a lot of these
Speaker 1: downtrodden Puerto Ricans were getting a hold of horse tranquilizers.
Speaker 1: And I can't remember what all the official names are
Speaker 1: for this stuff, but there are quite a few horses
Speaker 1: in Puerto Rico. I mean, you got to be careful
Speaker 1: when you're driving around at night because sometimes you'll come
Speaker 1: around a tight curve and there'll just be like five
Speaker 1: or six guys on black horses there, and you know,
Speaker 1: no lights or reflective vests and so horse tranquilizers were
Speaker 1: pretty prevalent, and during that period of time, people started
Speaker 1: taking horse tranquilizers just you know, as the latest drug
Speaker 1: to get off on. And but I mean, I'm telling you, like,
Speaker 1: this is not something that like the kids would do
Speaker 1: for fun. This was the people who you know, were
Speaker 1: living in and alleyways. I mean, it's like the lowest,
Speaker 1: most terrible level of It's basically a form of slow suicide.
Speaker 1: When you start taking things like that, it's like people
Speaker 1: who got hooked on I guess heroin and meth and finnel.
Speaker 1: But anyway, the weird thing about these horse tranquilizers is
Speaker 1: that sometimes you would encounter one of these people and
Speaker 1: it was so eerie because when they would take it
Speaker 1: at a certain times, they would reach a point where
Speaker 1: they would absolutely freeze in place and looked exactly like
Speaker 1: a statue. So and I mean they are standing up
Speaker 1: on two feet. I mean you would see people that
Speaker 1: look like they were walking and in mid stride, boom,
Speaker 1: somebody hit the pause button and I don't even know how.
Speaker 1: They would stay that way sometimes apparently for at least
Speaker 1: an hour, and their eyes are open. But it's like
Speaker 1: their soul is gone. It kind of reminds me of
Speaker 1: those figures from Pompeii. But I had a friend who
Speaker 1: was a skateboarder and his name was Rafael, and one
Speaker 1: day he goes, man, look at this video. Was he
Speaker 1: was skating downtown and there were one of these people
Speaker 1: frozen in position like that, literally like right handback, left
Speaker 1: hand forward, one foot forward, eyes open, just standing there
Speaker 1: frozen on these horse tranquilizers. And as he was skating
Speaker 1: on his skateboard, he took out his cell phone and
Speaker 1: he filmed the person and then he kind of skated
Speaker 1: around the person a little bit, and it kind of
Speaker 1: had that matrix effect where it looks like the person is,
Speaker 1: you know again, like frozen in time. And then you
Speaker 1: see all these angles and people. People in Puerto Rico
Speaker 1: said they these are the zombies. These are the horse
Speaker 1: tranquilizer zombies. And there have been documentaries made about it.
Speaker 1: I know the National Geographic Channel did a whole thing
Speaker 1: about that phenomenon, so that was talking about disturbing and weird.
Speaker 1: I still don't understand exactly how that happened. Maybe I
Speaker 1: didn't even go back and look it up again for
Speaker 1: this podcast but I guess I need to. I like
Speaker 1: to go back and say, like, what's the latest on that?
Speaker 1: And while on Earth did it have that effect on people?
Speaker 1: Another interesting connection that I have to so I guess
Speaker 1: the world of zombies is that, of course, you know,
Speaker 1: I own, I created, and I own the Haunted Boulder
Speaker 1: City Ghost and UFO tour here in it's outside of
Speaker 1: Las Vegas, Nevada, about thirty minutes from Las Vegas, a
Speaker 1: Boulder City, and we have everybody meet us at a
Speaker 1: place called beer Zombies, which is a really cool joint
Speaker 1: where the guy who created it as an artist and
Speaker 1: he now he's a brewer and an artist, and so
Speaker 1: he just brands everything with zombie imagery and he's got
Speaker 1: a very successful franchise here. I don't know if you
Speaker 1: call it franchise. He got a chain, I guess I
Speaker 1: should say, of these places called beer Zombies around Las Vegas.
Speaker 1: And so if you ever take the Haunted Boulder City Tour,
Speaker 1: you'll be meeting up at Beer Zombies. That's Haunted Bouldercity
Speaker 1: dot com. That'd be a great thing to do this fall,
Speaker 1: of course, But when we come back, I also want
Speaker 1: to tell you about an odd and unexpected run in
Speaker 1: I had with well, I don't want to say I
Speaker 1: had a run in. I saw Woody Harrelson one time
Speaker 1: and it was connected to the Zombie Land movie. And
Speaker 1: then I'm just going to give you my final thoughts
Speaker 1: on this whole zombie business. And then I have a
Speaker 1: very interesting update for you. I'm Joshua Pee Warren. You're
Speaker 1: listening to Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to
Speaker 1: Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network, and I will be right back.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to the final segment of this edition of
Speaker 1: Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM
Speaker 1: Paranormal Podcast Network. I am your host, Joshua P One.
Speaker 1: And now it's not much of a story really, it's
Speaker 1: just something weird I thought about when the movie zombie
Speaker 1: Land came out starring Woody Harrelson. I just so happened
Speaker 1: to be in Chicago and when they were having the premiere,
Speaker 1: the Zombie Land premiere. When was that like two thousand
Speaker 1: and nine, Yeah, two thousand and nine, And so I
Speaker 1: was not at the premiere, but I was actually there
Speaker 1: working on a television show and I ended up passing
Speaker 1: through the area where they were having the premiere, and
Speaker 1: so you know, I just got a glimpse of whatdy
Speaker 1: Harrelson at the Zombie Land premiere. I love that story. Okay,
Speaker 1: so final thoughts, what are we gleaning from all this?
Speaker 1: Now that I've given you some context for the whole
Speaker 1: zombie phenomenon, let me go back first off to this
Speaker 1: book Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Zombies by
Speaker 1: Matt Mock. He has a section here called Final Thoughts,
Speaker 1: and here is one of the things that he writes.
Speaker 1: The modern zombie evolved from vampires, not from the soulless
Speaker 1: voodoo slaves that share their name. But unlike vampires, the
Speaker 1: walking dead don't carry with them the baggage of old
Speaker 1: world superstitions and myths. They aren't supernatural, superhuman, super strong,
Speaker 1: or particularly super anything. Just the opposite. Zombies are grossly
Speaker 1: natural in their rotting flesh, imperfect brains, and limited physical abilities.
Speaker 1: They don't pretend to be anything more or less than
Speaker 1: what they are. But what they are is the end
Speaker 1: of the world. Well, maybe that's why I don't like
Speaker 1: the zombie thing so much, because I don't like thinking
Speaker 1: about the end of the world. Maybe I just don't
Speaker 1: believe in the end of the world because I know
Speaker 1: that I'm not going to be here forever. None of
Speaker 1: us are. We're all going to die. But I think
Speaker 1: the world is going to continue to exist with people
Speaker 1: in it because the world was put here to serve
Speaker 1: a purpose. It's a big classroom, and no matter how
Speaker 1: good or how bad things get, my feeling is that
Speaker 1: the end of the world scenario is just not that
Speaker 1: interesting to me. And that's why I'm not a big
Speaker 1: doom and gloomer. I have a real I mean, I'm prepped.
Speaker 1: I'm prepared for anything that happens. But all right, that said,
Speaker 1: let's get into my ultimate conclusion from everything that I've
Speaker 1: given you and everything we've been thinking about, let's get
Speaker 1: back to the big traditional ideas of a zombie. So
Speaker 1: silly or scary, Well, the original concept of the zo
Speaker 1: zombie is truly terrifying because it is apparently real, especially
Speaker 1: if we're to believe the story from the Serpent in
Speaker 1: the Rainbow. I mean, we're talking about the idea that
Speaker 1: you could be absolutely helpless to being secretly drugged by someone,
Speaker 1: and that drug paralyzes you to the point that others
Speaker 1: believe you are dead. And then you are buried alive,
Speaker 1: even though you're still conscious. Now, if I stopped right there,
Speaker 1: it would be one of the most horrible things you
Speaker 1: could imagine happening to you. But then it goes even
Speaker 1: further into you suffering underground in your coffin until someone
Speaker 1: digs you up and then enslaves you the rest of
Speaker 1: your life and you are physically incapable of doing anything
Speaker 1: about it. It is truly a fate worse than death,
Speaker 1: so obviously to call that scary is an understatement. However,
Speaker 1: the newer version of the zombie as a soulless home
Speaker 1: invading brain eater, you know, almost like a human shark.
Speaker 1: It would be scary if it were real, but since
Speaker 1: it is not, then I can't help it. I just
Speaker 1: do consider it silly. Now, that does not mean that
Speaker 1: I wouldn't be scared to death if someone in a
Speaker 1: zombie outfit came crashing through my window. Of course, it
Speaker 1: would scare the Jesus out of me. But that is
Speaker 1: why I arm myself. And I'm pretty sure that no
Speaker 1: matter how scary a zombie outfit may look, and it's
Speaker 1: probably not bulletproof. So are zombies silly or Scar. Well,
Speaker 1: my answer is both depending on the type of zombie
Speaker 1: we are talking about. And I guess that's the best
Speaker 1: I can do for you on zombies. And I hope
Speaker 1: that you found that interesting and thought provoking at very
Speaker 1: least now I've done a zombie podcast. Moving on, here
Speaker 1: is the other thing I wanted to tell you about
Speaker 1: that I think is pretty interesting. So you know, I
Speaker 1: mentioned earlier in the podcast, and I mentioned this at
Speaker 1: least you know once on every show, that if you
Speaker 1: subscribe to my free E newsletter you get to participate
Speaker 1: in special experiments. Well, recently I sent out an E
Speaker 1: newsletter and I said, hey, I'm going to do a
Speaker 1: version of a Roulette wheel experiment here in Las Vegas
Speaker 1: that I've never done before. And the idea is that
Speaker 1: you you get to participate for free. You just have
Speaker 1: to go to this link, which I sent through my
Speaker 1: E newsletter, and you have to tell me what space
Speaker 1: you think is going to hit the next time I
Speaker 1: go to a roulette Will. Because a typical American roulette
Speaker 1: will has thirty eight spaces, and thirty six of them
Speaker 1: are either red or black, and they're also numbered one, two, three, four, five, six,
Speaker 1: seven up to the number thirty six, and then there
Speaker 1: are two green spaces, and one of those spaces has
Speaker 1: got a zero and the other has a double zero.
Speaker 1: So whatever happens on a wheel like that, you're going
Speaker 1: to hit one of those thirty eight spaces. And so
Speaker 1: if you bet on one of those spaces and it hits,
Speaker 1: then you get paid thirty five times whatever you bet
Speaker 1: on that. So, for example, if I put a dollar
Speaker 1: on one of those spaces and it hit that space,
Speaker 1: and then you know they spend the wheel and you
Speaker 1: know the ball lands on that space, well then they
Speaker 1: give you thirty five dollars. If you put one hundred
Speaker 1: dollars on one of those spaces and they spend the
Speaker 1: wheel and the ball hits that space, well now you
Speaker 1: get three hundred and uh what did I? What did
Speaker 1: I just say? If you put if you put one
Speaker 1: hundred dollars, you get thirty five hundred dollars. I've done
Speaker 1: that before numerous times. So you put one hundred down,
Speaker 1: you get thirty five hundred dollars. But I want to
Speaker 1: go to that wheel and I want to put down
Speaker 1: one thousand dollars on one of those spaces and they
Speaker 1: spend the wheel and if the ball hits the space
Speaker 1: that I put the one thousand dollars down on, then
Speaker 1: they would give me thirty five thousand dollars just like that.
Speaker 1: And so what I thought would be cool would be
Speaker 1: to do an experiment where I involve my audience and
Speaker 1: I say, if you pick the number that I put
Speaker 1: the thousand dollars on and it hits, I'll split it
Speaker 1: with you. So you'll get seventeen thousand, five hundred dollars
Speaker 1: and I'll get seventeen thousand, five hundred dollars. But before
Speaker 1: I I've got confidence in you, you have to prove
Speaker 1: that you can do this. So we have round one
Speaker 1: where everybody gets to go and pick what space it's
Speaker 1: going to be. Is it going to be numbers one
Speaker 1: through thirty six or zero or double zero? And then
Speaker 1: from there you do it a second time and that's
Speaker 1: round two, and the people who get it right the
Speaker 1: second time get to move on to round three. And
Speaker 1: by round three, I mean I'm thinking only one person
Speaker 1: will get it, and that is the person who is
Speaker 1: going to split the thirty five grand with me. When
Speaker 1: I go at stage four and put the thought thousand
Speaker 1: bucks down, So I put this out there, and I
Speaker 1: mean hundreds of people from all over the world participated,
Speaker 1: and well, the weirdest thing is that fifteen percent of
Speaker 1: the people picked the number seventeen. That's a huge margin.
Speaker 1: Why do you think that is? I don't know for sure.
Speaker 1: I have a theory as to why that may be.
Speaker 1: But why do you think that is? I don't want
Speaker 1: to tell you what my theory is right now, but
Speaker 1: why do you think fifteen percent of the people picked
Speaker 1: the number seventeen? Well, anyway, I did it, and the
Speaker 1: winning number was twenty nine. Eight people guests twenty nine,
Speaker 1: and those eight people are now moving on through the
Speaker 1: rounds and pretty soon, hopefully one of us, well one
Speaker 1: of you, one of those people will have seventeen thousand,
Speaker 1: five hundred. All right, my friends, here is the good
Speaker 1: Fortune tone. That's it for this edition of the show.
Speaker 1: Follow me on Twitter at Joshua P. Warren, Plus visit
Speaker 1: joshuapwarren dot com to sign up for my free e
Speaker 1: newsletter to receive a free instant gift, and check out
Speaker 1: the cool stuff in the Curiosity Shop all at Joshuapwarren
Speaker 1: dot com. I have a fun one lined up for
Speaker 1: you next time. I promise, so please tell all your
Speaker 1: friends to subscribe to this show and to always remember
Speaker 1: the Golden Rule. Thank you for listening, thank you for
Speaker 1: your interest and support. Thank you for staying curious, and
Speaker 1: I will talk to you again soon. You've been listening
Speaker 1: to Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast
Speaker 1: AM Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast
Speaker 2: AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Make sure and check out all
Speaker 2: our shows on the iHeartRadio app or by going to
Speaker 2: iHeartRadio dot com