WEBVTT - The Creepypasta Experiments 0:00:03.120 --> 0:00:06.000 Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind from how Stuff 0:00:06.000 --> 0:00:14.400 Works dot com. Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow your Mind. 0:00:14.440 --> 0:00:17.480 My name is Robert Lamb and I'm Christian Sager. Hey. 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:21.040 Today we are going to be talking about some more 0:00:21.079 --> 0:00:24.480 October Halloween related stuff. But before we get into it, 0:00:24.880 --> 0:00:26.760 I want to remind you that at the end of 0:00:26.760 --> 0:00:30.639 the month, we are going to be using periscope to 0:00:31.240 --> 0:00:34.879 respond to our listener mail. So Joe, Robert and I 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:37.839 will be together in front of I'm assuming an iPhone 0:00:37.920 --> 0:00:42.879 or something at broadcasting live reading your listener mail. So 0:00:42.920 --> 0:00:45.680 if you want to participate in that or you just 0:00:45.720 --> 0:00:48.080 want to watch it, and I believe you can interact 0:00:48.120 --> 0:00:51.000 with us in real time on there, uh, follow us 0:00:51.000 --> 0:00:53.599 on Twitter and then also you know, keep an eye 0:00:53.640 --> 0:00:56.960 out on our other social media channels for announcements about 0:00:57.000 --> 0:00:59.880 this upcoming periscope thing, and also check us out. Last 0:01:00.000 --> 0:01:03.560 two weeks of October, we're gonna have Monster Science back up, 0:01:03.920 --> 0:01:08.200 so that's gonna be some VHS late in daytime horror 0:01:08.240 --> 0:01:14.520 themed explorations of the real science behind some notable film monsters. 0:01:14.680 --> 0:01:16.520 So be sure to check check in on that. You 0:01:16.560 --> 0:01:19.000 can find what links for that All over Stuff to 0:01:19.000 --> 0:01:21.679 Blow your Mind dot com, as well as our Facebook 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:25.000 page and how stuff Works and Twitter and tumbler as well, 0:01:25.360 --> 0:01:28.360 all of those social media channels where blow the mind. 0:01:28.760 --> 0:01:30.240 And if you want to get in on the listener 0:01:30.240 --> 0:01:33.040 mail action, remember that you can always email us that 0:01:33.200 --> 0:01:35.399 blow the Mind at how stuff works dot com. But 0:01:35.480 --> 0:01:39.440 today we're talking about creepy pasta, which I imagined there 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:41.720 are three different responses out there. Some people were probably 0:01:41.760 --> 0:01:44.440 going to creepypasta, I love creepy pasta. Other people are 0:01:44.440 --> 0:01:47.280 going creepypasta, what are you doing covering that? And other 0:01:47.319 --> 0:01:50.279 people are just flat up asking what that is? Creepy 0:01:50.400 --> 0:01:54.160 creepy pasta? Dente? Yeah? Is it? Is it the texture 0:01:54.280 --> 0:01:56.400 or the is it posta that shaped like little ghosts? 0:01:56.680 --> 0:01:59.080 That's what in my mind when I first started hearing 0:01:59.120 --> 0:02:04.000 about it a few years back. But what, let's explain 0:02:04.080 --> 0:02:07.440 what creepy pasta is for everyone who's not familiar. Right, Okay, 0:02:07.440 --> 0:02:11.400 so I'm only recently familiar with this, uh phenomenon. But 0:02:11.480 --> 0:02:15.839 apparently around two thousand six h a a sort of 0:02:16.720 --> 0:02:20.880 fad I guess meme started up on the Internet called 0:02:20.960 --> 0:02:23.760 copy pasta, and I think it originated on four Chan 0:02:24.360 --> 0:02:28.160 and then splintered off into several different genres in different areas. 0:02:28.639 --> 0:02:33.119 The basic idea, though, is that you're creating uh content 0:02:33.280 --> 0:02:36.480 that's like copy and pasted into an email or maybe 0:02:36.520 --> 0:02:38.519 on a blog or something like that. Right, It's something 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:41.520 that's like easily accessible and share able. Yeah, and it's 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:45.000 I think the two most ubiquitous examples of this first 0:02:45.000 --> 0:02:48.880 of all, emails from your grandma or your uncle chain 0:02:49.040 --> 0:02:52.800 like some sort of ridiculous story about you know, somebody's 0:02:52.840 --> 0:02:57.120 putting disease needles into convenience store machines, you know, or 0:02:57.600 --> 0:03:01.160 or watch out for hoodlums throwing eggs at your car, 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:03.440 or people turning their lights on and off. You know, 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:06.080 there's always some sort of like, oh it's gang activity 0:03:06.240 --> 0:03:08.320 or or some sort of weird horror going on in 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:11.560 your daily life where you could possibly believe it, but 0:03:11.600 --> 0:03:13.560 if you actually research it, you'll see, oh, this is 0:03:13.600 --> 0:03:17.320 just a The same couple of paragraphs have been copy 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:20.600 and pasted throughout the history of the Internet, and we 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:23.960 just keep following for it again and again. And creepy 0:03:24.000 --> 0:03:27.639 pasta is sort of the horror iteration of copy pasta, 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:32.000 and that it pretends to be like an urban legend 0:03:32.160 --> 0:03:36.480 or like a pseudo real life event that happened, but 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:39.200 it's told as a horror story. Yeah, and I think 0:03:39.240 --> 0:03:41.920 some of the you can definitely see some creepy pasta 0:03:42.840 --> 0:03:46.240 in the copy pasta that you you see some of 0:03:46.280 --> 0:03:48.640 those emails, you know, where it's ultimately you're talking about 0:03:48.920 --> 0:03:53.680 some sort of folkloric modern folkloric horror theme, uh that's 0:03:53.760 --> 0:03:57.040 wrapped in enough reality or pseudo reality that you buy 0:03:57.080 --> 0:03:59.200 into it. Yeah. They all sort of play off of 0:03:59.240 --> 0:04:03.240 these author ic aesthetics using like they mimic things like 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:05.600 documents of real life. It's almost like the found footage 0:04:05.600 --> 0:04:10.640 of pros. Like, uh, there's diary entries, witness statements. Sometimes 0:04:10.640 --> 0:04:13.720 there's image and video files. And as we're going to 0:04:13.800 --> 0:04:16.760 talk about today, many of them take the shape of 0:04:16.800 --> 0:04:21.960 scientific reports or like lab analysis. And so what we 0:04:22.000 --> 0:04:24.359 thought we would do today is look at some of 0:04:24.360 --> 0:04:30.880 the most popular scientific based creepy pastas and then look 0:04:30.920 --> 0:04:35.320 at the the the plausibility and the real life connections 0:04:35.440 --> 0:04:38.320 of the science that they pose it. Yeah, and I 0:04:38.400 --> 0:04:42.840 want to definitely imagine some big quotation marks around scientifically 0:04:42.880 --> 0:04:45.560 based there. Oh yeah, oh yeah, but as we'll get 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:49.920 into yeah, yeah, I mean there's some there's some very 0:04:50.000 --> 0:04:54.200 loose stuff when they just say a stimulating gas was presented, right, 0:04:54.240 --> 0:04:56.960 there's no they don't name the gas, they don't give 0:04:57.000 --> 0:04:59.479 any methodology or anything. But some of them are better 0:04:59.480 --> 0:05:01.680 than others. And well we'll get into that as well. 0:05:01.839 --> 0:05:04.560 It's um one thing to keep in mind with copy 0:05:04.600 --> 0:05:07.599 Pasta two and I'm especially creepy Pasta are the different 0:05:07.640 --> 0:05:10.320 ways that you come across it online, Like, there are 0:05:10.400 --> 0:05:14.240 definite creepy Pasta destinations for people who love reading it 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:16.840 and creating it, and they're just kind of wikis for this, 0:05:16.880 --> 0:05:18.880 and we'll have some links to these stories on the 0:05:18.960 --> 0:05:20.600 landing page for this episode. Stuff to blow your mind 0:05:20.600 --> 0:05:22.240 out com so you can explore that on your own. 0:05:22.640 --> 0:05:24.960 But you'll also see stuff showing up on social media 0:05:25.480 --> 0:05:28.680 or you're doing, like we encountered this plenty of times, 0:05:28.680 --> 0:05:30.680 you're doing some research, you're trying to find out about 0:05:30.680 --> 0:05:34.560 certain actual experiments, and then you run across some creepyposta 0:05:35.000 --> 0:05:36.880 and for a split second, you're like, what is this 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:40.159 experiment they're talking about? Oh, it's creepy pasta. Yeah, it 0:05:40.279 --> 0:05:43.520 is kind of perfect. And especially researching this particular episode 0:05:43.600 --> 0:05:46.920 was difficult because when you're trying to research the actual 0:05:47.000 --> 0:05:50.400 scientific basis for some of these stories, you end up 0:05:50.800 --> 0:05:55.120 finding either fake articles or or the actual story itself 0:05:55.160 --> 0:05:57.719 popping up in a lot of your searches. I've also 0:05:57.839 --> 0:06:01.040 seen like wiki questions and message boards, so you can 0:06:01.040 --> 0:06:02.680 see this kind of stuff popping up there where someone 0:06:02.720 --> 0:06:06.680 will have yeah, people have a legitimate question, and somebody 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:08.960 will decide to throw a slip a little pop down there, 0:06:09.040 --> 0:06:14.360 you know, Like I've seen medical question sites, um, where 0:06:14.440 --> 0:06:16.880 someone will be talking. I think I was writing something 0:06:17.080 --> 0:06:20.719 that had to do with the about about prostates prostate exams, 0:06:21.360 --> 0:06:25.640 and I ran across this message board where somebody was asking, Hey, 0:06:25.640 --> 0:06:27.440 what can I expect when I go in there? And 0:06:27.440 --> 0:06:31.320 then somebody had this ridiculous story shared, and then another 0:06:31.360 --> 0:06:34.400 individual point it responded said, oh, this is pasta here's 0:06:34.440 --> 0:06:38.200 an example of where it was previously uh rolled out. 0:06:38.240 --> 0:06:42.200 I think that's where I first discovered the term copy puff. Yeah. 0:06:42.200 --> 0:06:45.960 I mean like in today's age of like, uh, what 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:51.080 we are often told in our daily jobs is user 0:06:51.200 --> 0:06:55.360 generated content, right, where like the user is commenting or 0:06:55.360 --> 0:06:58.200 creating something on their own. This is the perfect kind 0:06:58.200 --> 0:07:01.240 of thing to slip in there, right, like an Amazon review, 0:07:01.400 --> 0:07:04.000 you could drop in some creepy pasta related to whatever 0:07:04.160 --> 0:07:07.120 item it is that's a that's on sale, and you 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:09.280 give it a five star review, but let people know 0:07:09.320 --> 0:07:11.000 that it was haunted or something when you got it 0:07:11.000 --> 0:07:12.920 in the mail. Yeah, it's kind of like the creepy 0:07:13.000 --> 0:07:16.800 mold that grows uh on, you know, on the structures 0:07:16.840 --> 0:07:19.239 of the Internet and throughout the systems of the Internet, 0:07:19.520 --> 0:07:23.920 and some of it is just merely mold, and sometimes 0:07:23.960 --> 0:07:26.600 that sometimes it's exquisite and it's fun to look at 0:07:26.680 --> 0:07:30.240 and feel, but I think so um, people who maybe 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:35.600 aren't familiar with the creepy pasta genre, you might actually know. 0:07:36.280 --> 0:07:39.920 The most famous of the creepy pasta characters or stories 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:43.320 is the slender Man one. Uh And I don't know 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:45.600 a ton about slender Man other than what I've read 0:07:46.160 --> 0:07:50.400 about him outside of the creepypastas he appears in. But 0:07:50.600 --> 0:07:52.600 basically the idea is that he's kind of like a 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:56.080 he's on a horror story character, right, He's just as 0:07:56.160 --> 0:07:59.120 much as like Jason Vorhees or Freddy Krueger, but he's 0:07:59.160 --> 0:08:04.720 kind of like in a elongated, skinny, scary looking man 0:08:04.880 --> 0:08:08.040 and like a suit. Yeah, you see to like, the 0:08:08.400 --> 0:08:10.600 reason one of the reasons Slenderman is such a nice 0:08:10.640 --> 0:08:15.760 example of copy pasta is that he's kind of collectively assembled. 0:08:15.960 --> 0:08:19.440 He's an amalgam of pop culture influences and and ultimately 0:08:19.480 --> 0:08:23.280 the final forums very amorphous too, because because a lot 0:08:23.320 --> 0:08:25.680 of it is about his depictions and individual pieces of 0:08:25.680 --> 0:08:29.760 creepy pasta or especially in imagery and these various photoshop 0:08:29.800 --> 0:08:33.240 contests that have contributed to to the myth though, right, Yeah, 0:08:33.280 --> 0:08:34.679 that's one of the ones where there's a lot of 0:08:34.800 --> 0:08:38.120 visual accompaniment. Yea, Like a lot of a lot of 0:08:38.120 --> 0:08:41.480 slender Man revolves around the pictures that people have created 0:08:41.520 --> 0:08:44.079 that are just terrifying. Yeah, and there's no real consensus 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:46.960 on like exactly what the story is. Like nobody said 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:50.760 this is what slender Man is slender many and that 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:53.800 helps to make it mysterious and and and weird. I mean, 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:56.320 that's one of the reasons that the Lovecraft's myth those 0:08:56.640 --> 0:09:00.520 continues to resonate is that there's individuals have come along 0:09:00.559 --> 0:09:04.080 and tried to create a boiler plate uh uh, you know, 0:09:04.200 --> 0:09:07.640 mythos for him, But ultimately his mythos is shrouded in 0:09:07.679 --> 0:09:13.480 mystery and contradictions absolutely and so included in that and 0:09:13.960 --> 0:09:16.640 I'd be remiss if we'd or we'd be remiss if 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:19.640 we didn't include this is that you may have also 0:09:19.720 --> 0:09:24.160 heard in the news that there was an inspired violent 0:09:24.200 --> 0:09:28.200 assault by two twelve year old girls against another twelve 0:09:28.280 --> 0:09:32.480 year old girl. They were trying to murder her in 0:09:32.480 --> 0:09:37.640 inspiration they were inspired by slender Man. Uh and um, 0:09:37.679 --> 0:09:40.720 you know. To clarify, like the owners of Creepy pasta 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:42.960 dot com, many of the people who were involved in 0:09:42.960 --> 0:09:46.360 this community, they all you know, released a state statements 0:09:46.400 --> 0:09:48.679 basically saying like they this was not their intention, They 0:09:48.720 --> 0:09:50.240 didn't want to be connected this at all. It was 0:09:50.240 --> 0:09:52.360 more just kind of a fun pop culture thing for 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:56.920 them to have a community around. But these girls somehow 0:09:57.040 --> 0:10:00.840 took it internally and uh and ended up almost killing 0:10:00.840 --> 0:10:03.880 their friend. Luckily she escaped and was I think she 0:10:03.960 --> 0:10:06.680 was had like seventeen or nineteen times or something like that. 0:10:07.000 --> 0:10:08.720 She was found by somebody on the Southern Road and 0:10:08.760 --> 0:10:10.640 was able to get medical care. Well, I mean, it 0:10:10.679 --> 0:10:14.400 just speaks to the power of storytelling us through the 0:10:14.440 --> 0:10:16.520 power of folklore and the power of the power of symbols, 0:10:16.559 --> 0:10:19.840 you know, I mean anybody can create a story, and 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:22.439 oftentimes the story is not going to be that good, 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:25.360 but you're playing with powerful elements when you start playing 0:10:25.400 --> 0:10:29.880 with with established tropes and established symbols, established symbols of fear, 0:10:30.400 --> 0:10:34.720 and uh, even you know, a very amateur creator can 0:10:34.840 --> 0:10:37.800 end up creating something that strongly resonates. And I mean 0:10:37.800 --> 0:10:41.319 that's the beauty of something like Creepy Pasta. It is. 0:10:41.520 --> 0:10:43.439 And and I also, like, I think that it would 0:10:43.440 --> 0:10:47.280 be really like off the mark to say that, like, oh, 0:10:47.320 --> 0:10:49.840 it's because of slender Man that this happened, you know, 0:10:49.920 --> 0:10:52.080 I mean clearly like there was something going on with 0:10:52.160 --> 0:10:55.840 these girls anyways. Uh, that's like the argument that like 0:10:55.920 --> 0:10:58.920 Ozzy Osbourne influenced teenagers to kill each other in the 0:10:58.960 --> 0:11:01.400 eighties or something. You just I don't buy into it, 0:11:01.720 --> 0:11:03.800 but I think it's important that we let the audience 0:11:03.840 --> 0:11:06.760 know about that. Um. Creepy Pasta really kind of hit 0:11:06.800 --> 0:11:11.640 its height in because the New York Times actually covered 0:11:11.679 --> 0:11:15.120 it and did an article on it. Um. But you know, 0:11:15.200 --> 0:11:19.000 a lot of it resembles what we we refer to 0:11:19.120 --> 0:11:21.839 as weird fiction, right, yeah, you see, I mean it 0:11:21.880 --> 0:11:25.160 kind of runs the gain because on one end of 0:11:25.160 --> 0:11:28.839 the spectrum. You have creepy papsa that reads like a 0:11:30.120 --> 0:11:32.720 either either like a Wikipedia article or p or a 0:11:32.760 --> 0:11:36.559 poorly written Wikipedia article, where it's just very factual, very 0:11:36.559 --> 0:11:40.160 grounded in this subjective reporting style. And then on the 0:11:40.160 --> 0:11:42.360 other hand, stuff that is aspiring more and more to 0:11:42.440 --> 0:11:46.040 resemble weird fiction, you know, something with more of a 0:11:46.160 --> 0:11:50.600 narrative flow. Yeah. Absolutely. I mean, as a both a 0:11:50.640 --> 0:11:53.720 fan of horror pros and somebody who writes horror pros, 0:11:54.200 --> 0:11:57.240 I guess my personal literary criticism here is just that 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:00.480 the best of these always ends up still reading kind 0:12:00.480 --> 0:12:03.400 of like a Wikipedia entry. Right. So there's no there's 0:12:03.400 --> 0:12:06.680 no craft to the prose necessarily that you would find 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:10.160 in something that's designed for literature. It's mostly just a 0:12:10.200 --> 0:12:14.680 summary of the plot. Um. However, it can be done artfully. 0:12:15.040 --> 0:12:18.000 Um is so in such a way to make it 0:12:18.000 --> 0:12:20.880 seem like it was a real thing. Right. Uh. If 0:12:20.920 --> 0:12:24.760 it's done as such, then it can have a pretty 0:12:24.760 --> 0:12:28.800 sustaining dread that goes along with it. Um. So there 0:12:28.840 --> 0:12:31.240 are some of these that I like better than others, uh, 0:12:31.360 --> 0:12:35.679 like any kind of you know, uh medium or storytelling. 0:12:36.200 --> 0:12:39.080 But I have to say, and I want to warn 0:12:39.120 --> 0:12:40.880 our listeners if you if you haven't read any of 0:12:40.920 --> 0:12:44.000 these yet, A lot of the grammar and spelling is 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:47.840 just horrible in these, like they need a proof reader 0:12:47.880 --> 0:12:50.559 to just go over reach these. Although I guess that 0:12:50.559 --> 0:12:54.160 that could potentially be part of the charm, right, is 0:12:54.200 --> 0:12:57.280 that like it's been written by somebody who hasn't taken 0:12:57.280 --> 0:13:00.760 the time to proof read and go back and fixed errors, 0:13:00.800 --> 0:13:03.960 and therefore it seems more authentic. Sometimes when you've been 0:13:04.000 --> 0:13:08.400 horrified by your participation in a frightening paranormal experiment, you 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:12.240 know you're less a less attentive to grammar. That's that's 0:13:12.280 --> 0:13:16.080 possible for sure. I do want to say one more thing. 0:13:16.080 --> 0:13:18.160 I want to throw a plug out there for our colleagues. 0:13:18.320 --> 0:13:21.160 So a lot of people don't know this, but our 0:13:21.240 --> 0:13:24.240 how stuff works. Colleagues, including our producer Noel who's on 0:13:24.240 --> 0:13:28.800 the board right now, Lauren Vogelbaum from Forward Thinking, and 0:13:29.120 --> 0:13:32.679 Ben Bolan and Matt Frederick from Stuff they Don't Want 0:13:32.720 --> 0:13:36.160 You to Know, all got together and put together what 0:13:36.320 --> 0:13:40.199 I would call a creepy pasta audio play. It's called 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:42.560 See You Next Time, and they did it for the 0:13:42.600 --> 0:13:45.560 Atlanta Fringe Festival, and it's about like a thirty minute 0:13:45.720 --> 0:13:48.680 MP three that you can go and download from their site. 0:13:48.720 --> 0:13:50.800 So if you're into that kind of thing, like if 0:13:50.800 --> 0:13:53.360 you're like a Welcome to night Vale kind of person, uh, 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:55.520 go download that and check it out, because it's all 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:59.320 how stuff works, characters and personalities. In fact, Joe and 0:13:59.360 --> 0:14:02.480 I both make very minor appearances in the story, just 0:14:02.520 --> 0:14:06.040 as like kind of extras, but really well done and 0:14:06.080 --> 0:14:08.199 it was like one of my favorite horror stories from 0:14:08.240 --> 0:14:10.719 this past year. Cool. Yeah, we'll include a link to 0:14:10.760 --> 0:14:13.839 that on landing page for this episode. Um. In terms 0:14:13.840 --> 0:14:17.560 of back to the Creepy pasta though the like, I 0:14:17.640 --> 0:14:22.840 find that the ones that are instantly grounded in more 0:14:22.840 --> 0:14:25.720 of a traditional storytelling, like you know where the narrator 0:14:25.760 --> 0:14:27.960 is saying what I have to relate to you about 0:14:27.960 --> 0:14:31.640 this experiments to buying. You instantly know you're reading the story, 0:14:32.400 --> 0:14:34.560 but I guess the the and then to your point, 0:14:34.600 --> 0:14:37.960 if it reads entirely like a Wikipedia piece, then it's 0:14:37.960 --> 0:14:41.080 it runs the risk of just being completely dry. Um, 0:14:41.120 --> 0:14:43.760 you can still be engaging, but I think the probably 0:14:43.800 --> 0:14:46.680 the sweet spot is if you can have it start 0:14:47.440 --> 0:14:51.640 dry and seemingly factual and objective, and then have it 0:14:51.760 --> 0:14:57.440 morph into something uh that that that is more elegantly written, 0:14:57.640 --> 0:15:02.320 and then maybe steer back out of it. Yeah, it builds. Yeah. Yeah. 0:15:02.480 --> 0:15:04.720 I think another thing that that is key with these 0:15:04.720 --> 0:15:08.080 as well is is the format. So like the mimicking 0:15:08.160 --> 0:15:11.280 of a of a particular kind of format, uh to 0:15:11.480 --> 0:15:15.120 create the authenticity type thing, like like ones that mimic 0:15:15.160 --> 0:15:20.000 actual Wikipedia entries are kind of using that format to 0:15:20.040 --> 0:15:23.200 their advantage, right, Whereas like if it's just a chain 0:15:23.280 --> 0:15:25.680 of prose that shows up an email sent to me 0:15:25.760 --> 0:15:29.360 by my weird aunt, then I'm less likely to go, oh, 0:15:29.800 --> 0:15:33.360 this could potentially be a thing. Yeah. And another thing 0:15:33.400 --> 0:15:36.160 too that's probably worth noting is that like part of 0:15:36.160 --> 0:15:39.160 our job for the podcast and other things is to 0:15:39.200 --> 0:15:44.440 evaluate sources and evaluate validity of things, and so inherently, 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:46.720 I think for for people like us reading these things 0:15:46.760 --> 0:15:50.080 were automatically like wait a minute, I need some more evidence, 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:53.280 I need more information where the sources cited. Yeah. One 0:15:53.280 --> 0:15:58.240 of the early examples of just just recording folklore that 0:15:58.320 --> 0:16:00.680 I think has some some potential ties into creepy pasta 0:16:01.080 --> 0:16:03.880 is a book called The Strange Stories from a Chinese 0:16:03.920 --> 0:16:11.040 Studio by lousy Z from eighteenth century China Uh, each 0:16:11.080 --> 0:16:14.920 of these tales that that the author relates, they all 0:16:15.000 --> 0:16:16.560 they all start the same, and they all kind of 0:16:16.640 --> 0:16:19.480 end the same. Where he's saying, I knew this particular 0:16:19.520 --> 0:16:23.040 individual and and he works over in this province and 0:16:23.240 --> 0:16:27.120 works in this office, and he told me this story 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:29.920 about this encounter he had. And then the encounter might 0:16:29.960 --> 0:16:34.000 be seeing a strange like pin dragon, or seeing or 0:16:34.080 --> 0:16:38.240 encountering a horrifying ghost, or having some sort of mildly 0:16:38.320 --> 0:16:42.000 body hilarious encounter. And then it will end again with 0:16:42.120 --> 0:16:45.560 him firmly tucking it back into reality by saying, and 0:16:45.720 --> 0:16:48.640 this particular acquaintance of mine he continued to have a 0:16:48.640 --> 0:16:50.960 great career in this province, and I still hear from 0:16:51.040 --> 0:16:54.320 some time to time. Yeah, the idea I think they're 0:16:55.080 --> 0:16:57.520 maybe is conscious or not, was sort of taking the 0:16:57.640 --> 0:17:01.120 oral tradition of folklore and trans aiding it into pros 0:17:01.200 --> 0:17:03.040 And yeah, I think you see that with a lot 0:17:03.080 --> 0:17:06.239 of early weird fiction as well, like Arthur Makin you 0:17:06.240 --> 0:17:10.760 mentioned Lovecraft earlier, Uh, to an extent, like Algernon Blackwood, 0:17:10.920 --> 0:17:13.479 things like that. Yeah, you have to sort of you 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:16.040 have this nugget of of the fantastic and you need 0:17:16.080 --> 0:17:19.600 to to tuck it in firmly into the bed of 0:17:19.600 --> 0:17:22.720 of our our informational system, really, and in this case 0:17:22.760 --> 0:17:26.520 it's the Internet. Yeah, absolutely, they're using the medium to 0:17:26.560 --> 0:17:30.840 its advantage. So okay, so we're gonna talk about three 0:17:31.000 --> 0:17:37.000 particular creepy pasta science experiments and we'll we'll we'll give 0:17:37.000 --> 0:17:39.479 you the premise, we'll lay it down for you. It's 0:17:39.520 --> 0:17:41.479 going to be a very shorthand version of it, and 0:17:41.520 --> 0:17:43.440 then you know, if you want to go read them 0:17:43.440 --> 0:17:46.040 on the on your own, uh, and then we will 0:17:46.160 --> 0:17:49.600 take a look at these science behind these Yeah. All right, Well, 0:17:49.640 --> 0:17:53.119 let's kick it off with probably the more famous of 0:17:53.160 --> 0:17:54.920 the three, the one, the one that seems to have 0:17:55.359 --> 0:17:56.920 to hit up there at the top of the list 0:17:57.280 --> 0:18:01.359 on most of these creepy pasta sites, the Russians EAP experiment. Right, 0:18:01.400 --> 0:18:03.520 So okay, the premise of this, I'm gonna try to 0:18:03.560 --> 0:18:06.119 go through this pretty quickly. Premise of this story is 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:09.000 that in the late nineteen forties, there was a Russian 0:18:09.480 --> 0:18:12.560 researcher or it was a research team I believe, who 0:18:12.680 --> 0:18:16.760 kept five people awake for fifteen days using what's only 0:18:16.800 --> 0:18:20.480 referred to as an experimental gas based stimulants. So we 0:18:20.520 --> 0:18:24.880 have no idea whatever this chemical was. The research team 0:18:24.960 --> 0:18:28.600 kept them in a sealed environment and monitored their oxygen intake. 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:30.919 I don't know how, it's never explained in the story, 0:18:31.560 --> 0:18:34.800 but basically because this gas was potentially I think it 0:18:34.880 --> 0:18:40.119 was toxic and high concentrations. As the story goes, uh. 0:18:40.440 --> 0:18:43.440 Because they didn't have video equipment at the time, they 0:18:43.520 --> 0:18:47.840 watched these uh participants through portholes and they listened listened 0:18:47.880 --> 0:18:51.199 in with microphones. But basically the chamber there in was 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:53.360 stocked up with you know, the things that they would need, 0:18:54.040 --> 0:18:57.000 like books and cots, running water, a toilet. They had 0:18:57.080 --> 0:18:59.520 enough dried food in there for a month. Uh. And 0:18:59.560 --> 0:19:02.960 they were all political prisoners that were deemed enemy of 0:19:03.000 --> 0:19:06.040 the state, enemies of the state during World War two. 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:09.639 But they were falsely told before they went in, Hey, 0:19:09.880 --> 0:19:12.000 if you do this experiment and you can manage to 0:19:12.080 --> 0:19:15.800 sleep not sleep for thirty days straight, then we will 0:19:16.280 --> 0:19:19.720 free you and will forgive your actions. Uh. So the 0:19:19.760 --> 0:19:23.480 story goes like this first five days, these people are fine. 0:19:24.280 --> 0:19:27.720 After about day four, though, their conversations start to get 0:19:27.720 --> 0:19:30.800 a little dark. They start getting paranoid of one another. 0:19:31.320 --> 0:19:34.960 By day nine, one of them starts screaming and running 0:19:35.040 --> 0:19:37.760 up and down the length of the chamber. And he 0:19:37.840 --> 0:19:41.080 screams so loud that he physically tears the vocal cords 0:19:41.119 --> 0:19:45.240 his vocal cords. The others begin to just start whispering 0:19:45.280 --> 0:19:49.000 into the microphones, uh, not even acknowledging that the other 0:19:49.040 --> 0:19:52.159 guy is screaming. Then a second one starts screaming and 0:19:52.240 --> 0:19:55.520 running around. These two take the books that are in 0:19:55.560 --> 0:19:57.919 the room, rip their pages out, cover them with their 0:19:57.960 --> 0:20:01.240 own fee sas, and paste them up or the porthole windows. 0:20:01.920 --> 0:20:04.080 Uh so the studio we're in right now actually has 0:20:04.080 --> 0:20:06.679 a porthole windows. Yeah. We're actually just thinking this is 0:20:06.880 --> 0:20:08.919 this is like what happens when you try to record 0:20:08.960 --> 0:20:12.760 four podcast episodes in Yeah. Absolutely, I begin the screaming 0:20:12.760 --> 0:20:18.359 and running around. Uh. Day twelve, all the sounds stop, uh, 0:20:18.400 --> 0:20:22.520 and the oxygen consumption rate rises to what is uh, 0:20:22.800 --> 0:20:27.280 you know, understood as heavy exercise levels for the five people. 0:20:28.160 --> 0:20:30.720 On day fourteen, they use the intercom and they try 0:20:30.720 --> 0:20:33.239 to you know, contact them and figure out what's going 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:36.159 on inside this room. They get one response, which is 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:39.520 we no longer want to be freed. On day fifteen, 0:20:39.600 --> 0:20:41.720 they're finding like, all right, we're going in there. They 0:20:41.760 --> 0:20:44.640 open up this chamber and they send soldiers in. They 0:20:44.640 --> 0:20:47.280 find that one of the guys is dead. The rest 0:20:47.280 --> 0:20:51.400 of them are all crazy. They've eaten themselves, ripped their 0:20:51.400 --> 0:20:54.199 own skin off, removed some of their own organs from 0:20:54.240 --> 0:20:59.160 their bodies, very like gory body horror type stuff. They 0:20:59.200 --> 0:21:01.760 really wanted to go to stay in the chamber, like 0:21:01.800 --> 0:21:04.679 they were addicted to this gas. One of them. The 0:21:04.720 --> 0:21:06.520 minute they take him out of the chamber, he bleeds 0:21:06.520 --> 0:21:09.359 to death immediately, and they find when they're trying to 0:21:09.440 --> 0:21:15.199 resuscitate him he's utterly resistant to morphine. One assaults and 0:21:15.280 --> 0:21:17.159 kills one of the soldier. I think there's like another 0:21:17.160 --> 0:21:20.119 thing about, like another one like biting a soldier's leg 0:21:20.160 --> 0:21:21.879 and taking a chunk out of it and then like 0:21:21.960 --> 0:21:25.280 some more padding. That's like all of the soldiers committed 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:29.000 suicide within five days or something like that. Uh. And 0:21:29.040 --> 0:21:31.840 then this part didn't make sense to me even in 0:21:31.880 --> 0:21:35.440 then like narrative of the story. But they they sowed 0:21:35.520 --> 0:21:41.399 the skin back onto one of these victims, yeah, to 0:21:41.520 --> 0:21:45.080 try to save him, I guess, uh. And they tried 0:21:45.119 --> 0:21:47.560 it with one of the others, the other survivors, but 0:21:47.600 --> 0:21:50.560 they just kept laughing so much during the surgery process 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:54.960 that they couldn't pull it off. So uh, it ends 0:21:55.040 --> 0:21:57.520 up with them being put back in the chamber because 0:21:57.560 --> 0:21:59.800 there's some higher up who says, you know, we gotta 0:21:59.800 --> 0:22:01.240 fig gure out what's going on. So they put these 0:22:01.240 --> 0:22:04.320 guys back in the chamber. Uh, they turn up the gas. 0:22:04.920 --> 0:22:09.040 Their brain waves start fluctuating between normal and then flatlining 0:22:09.080 --> 0:22:12.280 as if they're dead. They try putting three of the 0:22:12.400 --> 0:22:14.919 researchers in there with him, but one of the researchers 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:18.520 grabs a gun and shoots his commander and then shoots 0:22:18.600 --> 0:22:22.040 the captives right before he kills the last captive. The 0:22:22.080 --> 0:22:26.040 captive says this, we are you. We are the madness 0:22:26.080 --> 0:22:29.040 that lurks within you, all begging to be free at 0:22:29.080 --> 0:22:32.239