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Speaker 1: You're listening to the final episode of Unexplained, Season six,

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Speaker 1: episode thirty one, Every Story is a Ghost Story. It

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Speaker 1: had been almost a month since TV producer and director

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Speaker 1: turned paranormal investigator Barry Comrad first arrived at Jackie Hernandez's

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Speaker 1: bungalow with the sole intention of capturing genuine supernatural activity

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Speaker 1: on film. At first, caught up in the excitement of

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Speaker 1: all that seemed to be going on, it was easy

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Speaker 1: to lose sight of the suffering of those in the

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Speaker 1: middle of it. However, by September of nineteen eighty nine,

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Speaker 1: Barry was now heavily invested in their welfare, he couldn't

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Speaker 1: offer much. The least he felt he could do was

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Speaker 1: to offer them a place to stay while she figured

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Speaker 1: out what to do next. Over the next few weeks,

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Speaker 1: Jackie and her kids divided their time between Barry's apartment

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Speaker 1: and staying with Jackie's friend Susan in Sampedro, before finally

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Speaker 1: securing a new place to live. In October, the family

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Speaker 1: moved to a trailer in Weldon, a small village on

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Speaker 1: the outskirts of Isabella Lake in California's Kern County, roughly

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Speaker 1: a hundred miles north of Los Angeles. By the following spring,

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Speaker 1: the peculiar events of the previous year looked to be

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Speaker 1: well and truly behind them. For Barry, though he missed

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Speaker 1: the excitement of the investigation, he was nonetheless grateful that

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Speaker 1: everyone had escaped relatively unscathed. Claiming also to have been

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Speaker 1: left a little traumatized by the whole adventure, he was

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Speaker 1: more than happy to console himself with all the footage

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Speaker 1: they'd captured. Over the next few months. With a busy

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Speaker 1: work schedule ahead, Barry used whatever spare time he could

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Speaker 1: to put the film together. Working late one evening, the

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Speaker 1: quiet of his apartment was punctured by the sudden blare

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Speaker 1: of the telephone. Barry was surprised to hear Jackie on

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Speaker 1: the other end of the line, her voice fast and

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Speaker 1: loud as the words tumbled out in a blind panic.

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Speaker 1: The thing, it seemed, had followed them to Weldon. Barry

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Speaker 1: was transported right back to that samp. He drove apartment,

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Speaker 1: watching aghast as his friend Jeff stumbled down from the

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Speaker 1: attic with the wire around his neck and gasping for breath.

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Speaker 1: He also knew there was no question he had to

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Speaker 1: get to Weldon. Immediately to see what was happening for himself.

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Speaker 1: On April thirteenth, nineteen ninety, under a bright full moon,

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Speaker 1: Barry and Jeff headed out toward the desert sands of

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Speaker 1: Kern County and arrived at Jackie's trailer just after eleven PM.

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Speaker 1: Shortly before the family had moved out there, Jackie claimed

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Speaker 1: to have undertaken a Weeger session in which an entity

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Speaker 1: identified itself to her with the initials S. Barry regretted

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Speaker 1: that they didn't catch the session on tape, so when

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Speaker 1: Jackie suggested they try it again that night, he was

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Speaker 1: more than happy to oblige. After taking some establishing shots

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Speaker 1: of the trailer, the three of them took a seat

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Speaker 1: in her kitchen to begin the session, along with Jackie's

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Speaker 1: friend and neighbor, Tina. Jackie pulled the board out from

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Speaker 1: a side cupboard and placed the planchette on top, as

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Speaker 1: Tina lit three candles and placed them carefully on the table.

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Speaker 1: A nervous Jeff took his position around the board as

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Speaker 1: Barry prepared the camera, but again, as had happened so

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Speaker 1: often in sam Pedro, it seemed suddenly unable to function.

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Speaker 1: Cursing his luck, he set up a portable voice recorder instead,

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Speaker 1: before finally taking his seat alongside Jackie at the table.

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Speaker 1: An anxious Tina stood to one side taking photos. After

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Speaker 1: agreeing that Tony, Barry, and Jeff would touch the planchette

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Speaker 1: so as to eradicate any possibility of Jackie manufacturing the results,

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Speaker 1: the main lights were turned off, With only the soft

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Speaker 1: flickering glow of the canned with which to read the board,

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Speaker 1: the pair were finally ready to begin. They started by

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Speaker 1: asking anything present to identify itself. After a short pause,

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Speaker 1: the planchette began to move first to the letter S,

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Speaker 1: then M, and finally E. This, they believed confirmed the

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Speaker 1: specter was indeed the same that had haunted Jackie in Sampedro.

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Speaker 1: Most of the following dialogue is taken from Barry Comrade's

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Speaker 1: own account of the Weieger sayance, as detailed in his

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Speaker 1: book An Unknown Encounter. How many entities are present here?

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Speaker 1: Asked Barry, his eyes widening, as the planchette came to

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Speaker 1: rest next to the number four. Where are you from?

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Speaker 1: Cut in Jeff. For a moment there was nothing. Then

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Speaker 1: the planchette shifted across the board to the letter H.

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Speaker 1: Then e followed by an L. An audible sigh of

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Speaker 1: relief was heard as the planchette moved back away from

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Speaker 1: the L, only to swiftly move back to the L again.

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Speaker 1: Tina took a photo, puncturing the anguished silence that ensued.

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Speaker 1: As if in response, The table then began suddenly to vibrate,

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Speaker 1: rattling the board and knocking over a candle. Oh god, look,

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Speaker 1: shouted Jackie, pointing at the table. Are you evil? Said Barry,

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Speaker 1: trying his best to keep focused on the matter at hand.

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Speaker 1: The planchette, now whizzing across the board, stopped at Yes.

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Speaker 1: Do you feel that? Whispered Jeff in amazement. The others

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Speaker 1: nodded in agreement, having also felt the air in the

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Speaker 1: room suddenly drop in temperature. Barry turned his attention back

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Speaker 1: to the board. Are you a ghost? He asked? Yes, Yes, yes,

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Speaker 1: read the planchet Are you okay, Jeff asked Jackie, noticing

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Speaker 1: he was becoming suddenly pale. A second later, he slumped

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Speaker 1: forward in his chair as a gust of air apparently

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Speaker 1: blew through the trailer and snuffed out the candles. Jeff shouted, Barry,

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Speaker 1: tending to his friend Jeff roused and picked his head

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Speaker 1: up from the table. I must have fainted, he said,

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Speaker 1: blinking wearily. Satisfied that Jeff was okay, Barry contin ued

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Speaker 1: as Tina ReLit the candles. What year were you born,

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Speaker 1: they asked? Nineteen twelve? Came the prompt reply. Did you

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Speaker 1: die in the house in sam Pedro? No? It said where?

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Speaker 1: The planchette then spelled out Pedro Bay, and with that

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Speaker 1: the table apparently vibrated violently again. How did you die?

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Speaker 1: Continued Barry as he held the table steady. All eyes

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Speaker 1: concentrated hard on the planchette once again as it shuffled

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Speaker 1: across the board and spelled out the word they'd all

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Speaker 1: been fearing, murder. The seance carried on for some time,

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Speaker 1: as the apparent spirit continued to answer questions, including the

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Speaker 1: year of their supposed murder nineteen thirty, and that they'd

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Speaker 1: been held under water until they died. Barry would later

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Speaker 1: claim that Jeff was at one point thrown against a

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Speaker 1: back wall during the proceedings. It was also reported that

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Speaker 1: Jackie had been so disturbed by the seance the following

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Speaker 1: morning she took the board outside and set fire to it.

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Speaker 1: A few days later, Barry was looking through the archives

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Speaker 1: of sam Pedro's Newspilot newspaper to see what he could

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Speaker 1: find about a possible murder in nineteen thirty when he

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Speaker 1: came across some intriguing information. The body was pulled from

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Speaker 1: under a wharf in sam Pedro Bay shortly after seven

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Speaker 1: am in late March nineteen thirty. The subsequent autopsy revealed

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Speaker 1: severe bruising to the head likely to have occurred post mortem,

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Speaker 1: as well as a much larger wound that had been

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Speaker 1: inflicted prior to the man's death. However, since this wound

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Speaker 1: was deemed insufficient to have caused the death on its own,

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Speaker 1: it was the coroner's initial conclusion that the man had

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Speaker 1: ultimately drowned soon after, with the prevailing suspicion being that

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Speaker 1: it was murder. Barry eventually identified the victim as Hermann

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Speaker 1: Hendrickson born in eighteen ninety, a seafarer who'd been working

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Speaker 1: illegally on a lumbers steamer at the time of his

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Speaker 1: apparent murder. The name had little relation to the possible

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Speaker 1: initials of SME, and neither was he born in nineteen twelve. However,

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Speaker 1: the manner of death certainly fit the profile. In a

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Speaker 1: final twist, Barry showed the video of Jeff's apparent strangulation

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Speaker 1: to a former fisher of sam Pedro, who instantly recognized

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Speaker 1: the knot that had been used to tie the cord

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Speaker 1: around his neck. It was a bowline knot, the knot

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Speaker 1: most commonly used by seafarers. Though a number of peculiar

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Speaker 1: events continued to take place in and around Jackie's trailer

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Speaker 1: in Weldon for a good few months after the seance,

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Speaker 1: by the end of nineteen ninety all strange activity seemingly

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Speaker 1: afflicting Jackie Hernandez came to an end. In nineteen ninety seven,

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Speaker 1: Barry completed his documentary titled and Unknown Encounter, A True

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Speaker 1: Account of the San Pedro Haunting, and in two thousand

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Speaker 1: and nine published the follow up book, in which he

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Speaker 1: went on to detail an extraordinary array of later incidences

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Speaker 1: that seemed to focus on him and Jeff. However, nothing

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Speaker 1: would quite match those bizarre events that took place in

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Speaker 1: Sampedro back in nineteen eighty nine. To this day, all

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Speaker 1: of those involved have maintained their stories. It has been

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Speaker 1: suggested that Jackie Hernandez simply manufactured much of what took

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Speaker 1: place in her home. Some, including doctor Barry Taff, speculated

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Speaker 1: that she'd unwittingly caused the various phenomena herself with some

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Speaker 1: kind of psychokinetic power. Many have also questioned the veracity

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Speaker 1: of all those who claim to witness the Sampedro haunting,

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Speaker 1: as it is commonly referred, despite the majority of them

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Speaker 1: having nothing obvious to gain from upholding such as charade,

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Speaker 1: and yet for a great number of people, the possibility

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Speaker 1: of such an event remains an especially alluring and terrifying one,

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Speaker 1: whether you're one of the forty five percent of the

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Speaker 1: American public who believe in ghosts, or one of the

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Speaker 1: thousands in southern China so concerned by the superstitions of

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Speaker 1: ghost month that their heightened sense of caution going about

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Speaker 1: their daily dealings actively brings the area's death rate down.

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Speaker 1: As a species, we are thoroughly preoccupied by the idea

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Speaker 1: of them. It is often poetic to talk about ghosts

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Speaker 1: in the sense of being haunted by others, or in

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Speaker 1: the sense of them perhaps being something that exists in

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Speaker 1: some other kind of world, theoretically present but forever impossible

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Speaker 1: to reach. But for me, the idea that ghosts might

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Speaker 1: exist has always and only ever be about one thing,

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Speaker 1: the possibility of life beyond death. Not for me the

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Speaker 1: stone tape repetitions of a moment captured in time, or

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Speaker 1: the artificially atomically perfect replication of my person to a

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Speaker 1: digital cloud. If it isn't me, as I am now,

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Speaker 1: who's aware of my continuing existence, then I'm not interested.

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Speaker 1: Although it would remain to be seen just how enjoyable

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Speaker 1: an infinite existence might be. Since my fear of death

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Speaker 1: remains as strong today as it was when I woke

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Speaker 1: screaming into the night at six years old, with the

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Speaker 1: sudden and inescapable epiphany of my own mortality, an eternal

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Speaker 1: life still seems preferable. Failing the likelihood of achieving infinite life,

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Speaker 1: I often find myself searching for new ideas with which

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Speaker 1: to reposition my understand of just how such a thing

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Speaker 1: might be possible. And what better place to start than

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Speaker 1: with our strangely simplistic notions of time. When we think

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Speaker 1: of time, we tend to picture a clock or a

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Speaker 1: set of numbers with which to reference our day. We

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Speaker 1: may say that time is the aging of things, or

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Speaker 1: talk about the passing of time. We once counted it

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Speaker 1: by the rising and setting of the Sun, becoming in

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Speaker 1: turn the revolutions of the Earth and its orbit around

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Speaker 1: the Sun. Yet this isn't time in any independent sense,

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Speaker 1: but rather just a convenient way to structure the world

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Speaker 1: around us. Not only would two separate inhabitants of two

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Speaker 1: different planets have completely different understandings of how long a

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Speaker 1: day would be. Even if they both understood the same

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Speaker 1: principle of an Earth hour, neither would experience it as

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Speaker 1: the same length of time, unless by some freak coincidence,

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Speaker 1: both their planets were orbiting, spinning, and stretching across space

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Speaker 1: time at exactly the same rate. In other words, time,

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Speaker 1: as discovered by Albert Einstein, is entirely relative to the observer.

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Speaker 1: It is not an objectively quantifiable unit. Since the early

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Speaker 1: twentieth century, scientists have been searching for the theory of everything,

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Speaker 1: a framework to unify the seeming incompatibility of Einstein's theory

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Speaker 1: of general relativity with the laws of quantum mechanics. Einstein's theory,

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Speaker 1: which centers on the function of gravity and describes processes

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Speaker 1: on large scales such as the orbits of planet prefigures,

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Speaker 1: are deterministic universe in which it is possible in theory

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Speaker 1: to calculate the cause of any event. Processes in the

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Speaker 1: quantum realm, however, which govern the universe on the minute

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Speaker 1: subatomic level, are considered nondeterministic due to Werner Heisenberg's uncertainty principle,

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Speaker 1: which states it is impossible to know a subatomic particle's

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Speaker 1: position and momentum at the same time. Calculations in the

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Speaker 1: quantum realm are measured as probabilities as opposed to definitive answers.

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Speaker 1: While the respective laws that appear to govern both the

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Speaker 1: quantum realm and the more large scale world of classical

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Speaker 1: physics give extraordinarily accurate predictions at each of their respective scales,

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Speaker 1: when the laws of one realm are applied to the other,

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Speaker 1: they completely break down. As such, those two worlds, despite

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Speaker 1: coexisting in the same universe, are currently considered to be

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Speaker 1: fundamentally incompatible. In the mid nineteen sixties, John Wheeler and

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Speaker 1: Bryce de Witt, two theoretical physicists from Princeton and the

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Speaker 1: University of North Carolina, believed they had devised a way

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Speaker 1: to combine the two processes. Wheeler and de Witt's radical

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Speaker 1: approach was to simply ignore the rules of the larger

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Speaker 1: scale laws and treat the entire universe as a quantum system,

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Speaker 1: applying the laws of quantum mechanics to the function of

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Speaker 1: gravity and space time, or more precisely, assuming the universe

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Speaker 1: to be a closed system, they imagined it as one

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Speaker 1: single quantum object. According to the law of conservation or

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Speaker 1: the first law of thermodynamics, the universe as a closed system,

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Speaker 1: meaning the total amount of energy that exists in the

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Speaker 1: universe is the same now as it was when it

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Speaker 1: was first created. No new energy is ever created within it.

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Speaker 1: It simply changes from one form to another, or, in

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Speaker 1: other words, as Wheeler and de Wit have it, mathematically,

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Speaker 1: the sum total of all the information within our universe

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Speaker 1: is constant, which in effect means ultimately the universe doesn't change.

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Speaker 1: Of course, we see change or the time flowers blossom,

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Speaker 1: trees bloom, and birds fly. But what the Wheeler DeWit equation,

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Speaker 1: as it came to be known, implies is that there

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Speaker 1: is no external time reference to measure this change. If

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Speaker 1: such a thing were to be true on paper, at least,

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Speaker 1: the linear notion of past, present and future is nothing

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Speaker 1: but an illusory process within a much larger system that

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Speaker 1: ultimately doesn't recognize it. The only thing that is fundamentally

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Speaker 1: demonstrable is the whole of it existing together constantly. Although

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Speaker 1: many scientists have rejected this consequence of the Wheeler de

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Speaker 1: Wit equation, it is widely considered a useful step toward

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Speaker 1: understanding decoherence, the name given to the process that occurs

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Speaker 1: at the border where the rules of the larger scale

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Speaker 1: world of classical physics begin to conflict with the laws

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Speaker 1: of the quantum level. One suggestion as to why we

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Speaker 1: don't perceive time as it truly is is that the

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Speaker 1: language we use to describe it prohibits us from seeing

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Speaker 1: its true state. As the saying goes, time is simply

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Speaker 1: what keeps everything from happening at once, which is to

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Speaker 1: say that its appearance as something that flows from present

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Speaker 1: to the past emerges solely because we describe it in

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Speaker 1: that way. Ted Chang draws on the idea of how

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Speaker 1: language restricts our understanding of time to startling effect in

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Speaker 1: his nineteen ninety eight novella Story of Your Life, later

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Speaker 1: adapted as the twenty sixteen film Arrival directed by Dennis Villeneuve.

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Speaker 1: Chang's poetic and revelatory story opens with the sudden appearance

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Speaker 1: of one hundred and twelve monolithic structures suspended in the

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Speaker 1: air in various locations across the globe. When the structures

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Speaker 1: are found to be audiovisual links to a highly advanced

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Speaker 1: species recently arrived in Earth's orbit, linguistic specialist doctor Luise

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Speaker 1: Banks is tasked with deciphering their language in order to

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Speaker 1: communicate with them. What Banks eventually discovers is that the

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Speaker 1: written language of the aliens, called heptopods, due to their

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Speaker 1: seven limbed appearance, is essentially without linear structure, Their sentences

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Speaker 1: a collection of idiograms that appear simultaneously. Banks makes the

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Speaker 1: startling realization that rather than experiencing time in a sequential,

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Speaker 1: linear fashion, the heptopods experience it all at once. As

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Speaker 1: Banks becomes more adept at the heptopod's use of language,

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Speaker 1: she finds herself becoming untethered from her human constructed sense

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Speaker 1: of time, until finally, she too begins to see her past, present,

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Speaker 1: and future as one without for a moment, suggesting that

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Speaker 1: Wheeler de Wit equation is right to remove time as

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Speaker 1: a quantifiable variable and much less that it proves the

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Speaker 1: existence of ghosts. I find myself oddly reassured by the

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Speaker 1: nonlinear interpretation of time. Perhaps, if we were so blessed

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Speaker 1: or cursed, we also might imagine ourselves, like Chang's heptopods

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Speaker 1: or Kurt Vonnegut's Troupamadorians, as creatures that have evolved to

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Speaker 1: see not just the present, but the entirety of everything

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Speaker 1: that has been and will ever be. Ghosts would thus

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Speaker 1: become not the spirits of the dead, but instead the

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Speaker 1: bodies are the very much alive, existing alongside us in perpetuity.

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Speaker 1: In a quote tentatively attributed to the Australian author Christina Stead,

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Speaker 1: it is said that every love story is a ghost story.

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Speaker 1: But might it be more correct to say that every

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Speaker 1: story is a ghost story? That every tale we tell

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Speaker 1: is something that has once passed, yet somehow remains kept

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Speaker 1: alive or in existence within us. Isn't all of life

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Speaker 1: just a story that we tell each other, whether it

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Speaker 1: be shared by memory or through the very genetic imprint

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Speaker 1: of our blood. And when or if all stories were

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Speaker 1: to finally disappear, we might hope that somewhere a ghostly

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Speaker 1: imprint will still remain. And if there really is no

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Speaker 1: such thing as time, and nothing ever truly dies, then

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Speaker 1: really there would be no ghosts, only us and everything

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Speaker 1: else existing together forever. This episode was written by Richard

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Speaker 1: McClean smith. Unexplained as an Avy Club Productions podcast created

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Speaker 1: by Richard McClean Smith. All other elements the podcast, including

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Speaker 1: the music, are also produced by Richard McClean smith. Unexplained.

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Speaker 1: The book and audio book, featuring stories that have never

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Speaker 1: before been featured on the show, is now available to

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Speaker 1: buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes, and Noble Waterstones,

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Speaker 1: among other bookstores. Please subscribe and rate the show wherever

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Speaker 1: you listen to podcasts, and feel free to get in

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Speaker 1: touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the story you've

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Speaker 1: heard on the show. Perhaps you have an explanation of

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Speaker 1: your own you'd like to share. You can reach us

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Speaker 1: online at Unexplained podcast dot com or Twitter at Unexplained

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Speaker 1: Podcast