WEBVTT - Season 08 Episode 13: The Tunnel Without End 0:00:00.160 --> 0:00:05.120 Hello, it's Richard McLain Smith here, not the impostor you've 0:00:05.160 --> 0:00:09.400 been listening to on the podcasts the real one. Join 0:00:09.480 --> 0:00:14.360 me for Unexplained TV at YouTube dot com Forward Slash 0:00:14.800 --> 0:00:29.800 Unexplained pod. When we think of ghosts, we often think 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:34.120 in terms of human drama. We conceive of haunted places 0:00:34.200 --> 0:00:38.360 as theaters, sites of post mortem performances that are no 0:00:38.479 --> 0:00:42.440 less recognizable for the fact that the players are dead, 0:00:43.040 --> 0:00:46.600 And as with all performances, it's the drama we tend 0:00:46.640 --> 0:00:52.120 to pay attention to, not the stage itself. Guilt and grief, 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:57.600 anger and injustice, longing and loss. These are the things 0:00:57.640 --> 0:01:01.880 that drive the spirits in our store. But not everyone 0:01:02.120 --> 0:01:06.320 as conceived of hauntings in this way. Some think that 0:01:06.440 --> 0:01:12.360 staging matters a great deal. Indeed, scientists and spiritualists alike 0:01:12.600 --> 0:01:16.000 have theorized that elements of our physical world may not 0:01:16.080 --> 0:01:20.200 be merely the sight of haunting, but both catalyst and cause. 0:01:21.280 --> 0:01:26.759 In eighteen thirty seven, Charles Babbage, celebrated polymath and forefather 0:01:27.040 --> 0:01:32.440 of the modern computer, pend a startling idea. The material world, 0:01:32.720 --> 0:01:37.119 Babbage suggested as a vast library on whose pages are 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:41.880 forever written, or that man has ever said or woman whispered. 0:01:42.920 --> 0:01:46.640 For Babbage, this was no metaphor. He was making a 0:01:46.760 --> 0:01:50.480 very literal point that the movement of the air set 0:01:50.520 --> 0:01:53.680 in motion by a human voice does not cease with 0:01:53.800 --> 0:01:57.000 the words that prompted it, nor even with the death 0:01:57.040 --> 0:02:01.320 of the speaker. Like endless ripples in an infinite pond, 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:06.600 are passing presence lingers in the world. He didn't extend 0:02:06.600 --> 0:02:10.400 this theory to account for ghosts, but others made that leap. 0:02:11.760 --> 0:02:15.080 In a nineteen thirty nine lecture to the Society for 0:02:15.160 --> 0:02:19.680 Psychical Research, the then Society president A. J. H. Price 0:02:20.080 --> 0:02:24.600 offered the concept of place memory. He insisted that objects 0:02:24.720 --> 0:02:29.000 can capture and carry traces of past events, and that 0:02:29.040 --> 0:02:32.840 when a suitably sensitive person is in close proximity to 0:02:32.919 --> 0:02:36.400 such an object, they will have what he termed a 0:02:36.480 --> 0:02:43.120 retrospective experience. According to Price, ghosts are not active, supernatural 0:02:43.200 --> 0:02:47.880 visitors from beyond the veil, but more like photographic negatives. 0:02:48.600 --> 0:02:52.520 They are effectively developed in the moment by those with 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:57.160 the right sensitivities to what Price called the psychic ether. 0:02:58.440 --> 0:03:04.040 Twenty years later, archaeologist Thomas Charles Lethbridge would further refine 0:03:04.120 --> 0:03:08.399 the idea in his book ghost and ghoul provoked by 0:03:08.400 --> 0:03:20.960 his own uncanny experience. On a warm summer morning in 0:03:21.040 --> 0:03:25.560 nineteen fifty nine, Thomas Lethbridge was outside his home in Devon, 0:03:25.919 --> 0:03:29.280 waving across a stream to his neighbour when he apparently 0:03:29.320 --> 0:03:33.840 saw a tall woman dressed in antiquated clothing standing not 0:03:33.919 --> 0:03:38.200 a yard behind her. So curious did the old fashioned 0:03:38.240 --> 0:03:41.160 woman look that Later in the day he asked his 0:03:41.360 --> 0:03:45.560 neighbour who her visitor was. So you're seeing my ghosts 0:03:45.560 --> 0:03:49.760 as well, now, she replied. When Lethbridge and his wife 0:03:49.920 --> 0:03:54.040 investigated the immediate area of the sighting, both claimed to 0:03:54.080 --> 0:03:57.800 feel a deep tingling sensation and a sense of pressure 0:03:58.120 --> 0:04:02.960 akin to an electromagnetic lace. The whole production, he wrote, 0:04:03.400 --> 0:04:08.279 was comparable to a television broadcast, the figures like pictures 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:14.000 transmitted by somebody or something else and merely received by him. 0:04:14.440 --> 0:04:19.560 Lethbridge echoed Price's argument that ghosts are not spiritual entities 0:04:19.560 --> 0:04:24.200 with agency and intent, but merely images replayed by an 0:04:24.279 --> 0:04:29.560 unspecified energy source running through the natural world. He thought 0:04:29.640 --> 0:04:33.520 the nearby stream might be important, as running water as 0:04:33.600 --> 0:04:37.120 commonly featured in the law and logic of the supernatural. 0:04:38.279 --> 0:04:42.520 This evolving hypothesis has since settled on a specific name, 0:04:43.279 --> 0:04:47.000 a name that points to one material above all others 0:04:47.200 --> 0:04:50.360 as the foundation for what we think of as ghosts. 0:04:51.200 --> 0:04:56.560 It is known as stone tape theory. Stone, particularly quartz 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:00.000 and limestone, is thought by some to be uniquely case 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:05.960 of storing and projecting past events, especially when those events 0:05:06.120 --> 0:05:09.960 are ripe with emotion, say at the point of death 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:16.159 or agony or great loss. Under these conditions, proponents of 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:19.880 the stone tape theory argue that something of that emotion 0:05:20.200 --> 0:05:24.560 remains trapped in the bedrock and buildings, like energy in 0:05:24.640 --> 0:05:29.240 a battery, waiting only for the presence of someone sensitive 0:05:29.560 --> 0:05:33.880 to trigger a transmission. And what then, of a place 0:05:34.200 --> 0:05:38.000 not just built from stone, but carved from it, a 0:05:38.120 --> 0:05:41.840 place we have cut into the world with force and 0:05:41.920 --> 0:05:47.080 trauma and mass tragedy. Is it any wonder that there 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:53.040 we might also have inscribed something of ourselves that still remains. 0:05:54.160 --> 0:05:59.279 You're listening to unexplained, and I'm Richard mc lean smith. 0:06:06.680 --> 0:06:10.280 The Hoosac Tunnel is a stretch of single track working 0:06:10.400 --> 0:06:14.560 railway cut through the quartzoth rock and limestone of the 0:06:14.600 --> 0:06:20.400 Berkshire Hills and western Massachusetts. Completed in eighteen seventy five. 0:06:20.920 --> 0:06:24.040 It was the first major mountain tunnel of its kind 0:06:24.279 --> 0:06:28.719 in North America, undertaken to provide a rail connection between 0:06:28.880 --> 0:06:33.000 New York and Boston. For thirty years, it was the 0:06:33.080 --> 0:06:38.039 longest tunnel on the continent. The tunnel's eastern end opens 0:06:38.120 --> 0:06:42.359 up on the outskirts of Florida, Massachusetts. The western opening 0:06:42.640 --> 0:06:45.719 is nearly five miles away in the small city of 0:06:45.880 --> 0:06:51.120 North Adams. Between these two portals there is only darkness 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:55.839 and stone, the exposed innards of the mountain, illuminated for 0:06:55.920 --> 0:06:58.880 only a brief few seconds by the lights of the 0:06:58.960 --> 0:07:04.480 rushing freight train. From each entrance. The way ahead slopes 0:07:04.560 --> 0:07:08.080 slightly upward to a meeting point in the middle. This 0:07:08.240 --> 0:07:11.960 allows water to drain out, but for those on foot, 0:07:12.400 --> 0:07:15.200 the rise is enough to obscure any site of the 0:07:15.280 --> 0:07:20.920 exit ahead. It makes the Husack that rare thing, a 0:07:21.000 --> 0:07:25.920 tunnel without a light at its end. Its construction is 0:07:25.960 --> 0:07:30.520 a testament to the nation's industrial might, prove that nothing, 0:07:31.000 --> 0:07:36.360 not even the land itself, can withstand American ambition. Though 0:07:36.520 --> 0:07:39.840 if you read the history, it's clear that the land 0:07:39.880 --> 0:07:42.680 put up a hell of a fight, and if you 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:48.680 believe the stories, that fight still echoes on the housack 0:07:48.880 --> 0:07:52.960 was played by problems from its inception. Ground was first 0:07:53.000 --> 0:07:56.960 broken in eighteen fifty two. Whenever spoke boring machine was 0:07:57.000 --> 0:08:00.760 set to work on the mountain, it failed after only 0:08:00.840 --> 0:08:04.880 ten feet and there it remained for years, its drill 0:08:04.960 --> 0:08:08.000 bit trapped in the rock like the finger of a 0:08:08.000 --> 0:08:12.440 greedy child. It was then that those in charge realized 0:08:12.480 --> 0:08:16.760 the true scale of the challenge they faced. Engineers were 0:08:16.800 --> 0:08:20.800 sent to Europe to research cutting edge drilling techniques, while 0:08:20.880 --> 0:08:26.200 financiers waited in Massachusetts with mounting in patients. No more 0:08:26.240 --> 0:08:30.280 work would take place for the next two years. In fact, 0:08:30.680 --> 0:08:35.040 it would take a quarter century of hand digging, pneumatic drilling, 0:08:35.080 --> 0:08:39.600 and blasting before the tunnel was complete, leaving a vast 0:08:39.800 --> 0:08:43.440 artery in the earth twenty feet high and twenty four 0:08:43.440 --> 0:08:48.319 feet wide. Workers dug inward from the east and west 0:08:48.360 --> 0:08:52.960 simultaneously with the aim of meeting in the middle, and impressively, 0:08:53.280 --> 0:08:56.280 they did so with less than an inch of error, 0:08:57.120 --> 0:08:59.880 and that is without considering the need for a central 0:09:00.120 --> 0:09:05.040 ventilation shaft, a thousand foot vertical chimney running all the 0:09:05.080 --> 0:09:08.520 way to the top of the mountain, which itself took 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:13.080 four years to dig over two million tons of earth 0:09:13.120 --> 0:09:16.640 and rock were cleared from the hills, the two million 0:09:16.679 --> 0:09:21.760 dollar budget ballooning to ten times that amount in today's money. 0:09:21.960 --> 0:09:25.360 The cost of that first big dig equates to almost 0:09:25.520 --> 0:09:29.320 half a billion dollars, but there were other costs too, 0:09:30.040 --> 0:09:45.000 losses that could never be recouped. The Hoosac Tunnel was 0:09:45.040 --> 0:09:49.680 a deadly project. Construction accidents were hardly rare in the 0:09:49.720 --> 0:09:53.360 mid eighteen hundreds, but even by the periods lacks health 0:09:53.400 --> 0:09:59.800 and safety standards, workers on the Hoosack experienced notable misfortune. 0:10:00.200 --> 0:10:03.520 The recorded number of deaths on the project totaled one 0:10:03.600 --> 0:10:07.480 hundred ninety five, enough for workers to begin calling the 0:10:07.559 --> 0:10:12.840 Hohosuck the Bloody Pit. Workers were exposed a daily peril 0:10:13.320 --> 0:10:17.880 from falls and falling rock to fires and flooding. Above 0:10:17.920 --> 0:10:23.200 it all loomed the dread of nitro glycerine. For over 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:27.920 ten years, Whosok miners relied on gunpowder to blast away 0:10:27.960 --> 0:10:31.880 at the mountain, a crude and inefficient approach that was 0:10:31.960 --> 0:10:35.839 stared down by the rock, often only removing a few 0:10:35.880 --> 0:10:40.600 feet for each explosion. Nitro Glycerine was used for the 0:10:40.679 --> 0:10:44.040 first time on the Hoosack dig in eighteen sixty five, 0:10:45.160 --> 0:10:47.680 the first time it was ever put to use in 0:10:47.720 --> 0:10:53.240 a major American construction project. The explosive compound more than 0:10:53.320 --> 0:10:58.000 doubled the rate of progress, but it came with terrifying downsides. 0:10:59.360 --> 0:11:03.840 Extremely volatile and sensitive to heat and shock, it seemed 0:11:03.880 --> 0:11:07.520 almost to have a malicious mercurial mind of its own. 0:11:08.840 --> 0:11:13.719 On March twentieth, eighteen sixty five, three explosive experts were 0:11:13.760 --> 0:11:18.760 planting nitroglycerine deep inside the tunnel. Two of the men, 0:11:19.240 --> 0:11:22.600 ned Brinkman and Billy Nash, were making their way to 0:11:22.679 --> 0:11:26.840 the safety bunker to shelter from the blast when the third, 0:11:27.400 --> 0:11:32.680 Ringo Kelly, lit the charge. Only he did it early. 0:11:33.679 --> 0:11:37.800 Brinkman and Nash were buried instantly beneath tons of rock. 0:11:39.040 --> 0:11:43.640 Kelly vanished almost immediately, and rumors soon began to circulate 0:11:44.120 --> 0:11:49.880 that its actions had been intentional murderous. Even as the 0:11:49.920 --> 0:11:53.160 story goes, it was just over a year later, on 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:57.800 the morning of March thirtieth, eighteen sixty six, when, with 0:11:57.920 --> 0:12:02.800 the area now cleared, Ringo Kelly's relatively fresh body was 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:07.439 found two miles inside the tunnel, at almost the precise 0:12:07.480 --> 0:12:10.480 spot where he'd brought the rock down on his colleagues. 0:12:11.679 --> 0:12:15.120 A deputy sheriff, Charles Gibson, is said to have quickly 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:21.080 declared that Kelly had been murdered by strangulation. Examination of 0:12:21.120 --> 0:12:25.840 the body suggested he'd been killed the night before. No 0:12:26.000 --> 0:12:30.440 culbrit was ever found or pursued, but rumors soon began 0:12:30.520 --> 0:12:34.800 to emerge. But for whatever reason, Kelly had returned to 0:12:34.880 --> 0:12:38.480 the scene of the crime, only for the unforgiving ghosts 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:42.840 of Brinkman and Nash to murder him. They were the 0:12:42.840 --> 0:12:47.600 first supposed ghosts thought to haunt the houssack, their shades 0:12:47.760 --> 0:12:58.200 forever trapped in the rock that had crushed them. Over 0:12:58.240 --> 0:13:02.120 the next few years, dozens more people were killed by 0:13:02.280 --> 0:13:07.760 errant detonations in the houssac. On October ninth, eighteen sixty nine, 0:13:08.400 --> 0:13:11.880 three miners truged a half mile from the Eastern Tunnel 0:13:12.040 --> 0:13:16.000 entrance to the nitro glycerine stock to prepare the substance 0:13:16.160 --> 0:13:20.600 for that day's work. Something went wrong, and the ensuing 0:13:20.720 --> 0:13:24.600 explosion left only one of the three with a body 0:13:24.679 --> 0:13:28.880 to be buried. The other two, Felix and Oswald and 0:13:28.960 --> 0:13:35.960 Montaigue brothers, were entirely vaporized. At least seven more major 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:40.679 explosions were recorded over the remainder of the dig, including 0:13:40.720 --> 0:13:44.200 the deaths of four men in April eighteen seventy one, 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:48.920 when incredibly a bolt of lightning struck the track outside 0:13:49.000 --> 0:13:52.920 the tunnel and coursed nearly three thousand feet down the 0:13:52.960 --> 0:13:57.000 metal rail before detonating the nitro at the other end, 0:13:58.040 --> 0:14:02.120 a terrible accident that would forever define a more moderate 0:14:02.200 --> 0:14:06.120 project for the husuc, though it was just one more 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:11.239 in a long sequence of tragedies. There is one especially 0:14:11.320 --> 0:14:15.280 black day in the tunnel's history, however, that does stand out. 0:14:16.640 --> 0:14:19.520 It was one o'clock on the afternoon of nineteenth of 0:14:19.520 --> 0:14:23.640 October eighteen sixty seven, when a fire broke out in 0:14:23.680 --> 0:14:27.360 the building on top of the central shaft. A lantern 0:14:27.520 --> 0:14:31.880 was left too close to the tank containing flammable nafta gas. 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:36.359 When this tank was opened for checks, the vapor ignited 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:42.320 and rapidly enveloped the entire structure in flames. At the time, 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:46.280 thirteen men were at the bottom of the shaft. By 0:14:46.320 --> 0:14:50.120 that point, the dig had reached just under six hundred feet, 0:14:50.920 --> 0:14:54.800 about half of its eventual depth, but far enough doubt 0:14:55.080 --> 0:14:58.480 that those inside must have felt as though they'd been 0:14:58.560 --> 0:15:03.000 swallowed whole by the A rough structure of steps and 0:15:03.080 --> 0:15:07.840 wooden platforms ringed the inside of that stone throat, leaving 0:15:07.920 --> 0:15:11.000 only enough space for the bucket to pass with its 0:15:11.080 --> 0:15:15.800 load of excavated stone. It was a cramped and frightening 0:15:15.880 --> 0:15:20.160 place to work. The bucket had just ascended and been 0:15:20.200 --> 0:15:24.880 emptied when the fire engulfed the machinery. A foreman tried 0:15:24.920 --> 0:15:28.320 to lure it back down to help retrieve the tunneling men, 0:15:28.840 --> 0:15:32.080 but the flames kept him at bay. He could only 0:15:32.120 --> 0:15:36.280 watch helplessly as the ropes and cables melted and the 0:15:36.320 --> 0:15:42.600 bucket dropped into darkness. Even worse, the platforms at the 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:46.320 top of the shaft were laden with tools and machine parts. 0:15:47.000 --> 0:15:51.680 When they collapsed, hundreds of drill bits, chisels, and assorted 0:15:51.760 --> 0:15:57.000 sharp metal spilled into the hole like deadly rain. After 0:15:57.080 --> 0:16:01.920 that came the platforms themselves, which crumpled in a mixture 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:05.040 of timber and ash and sealed the mouth of the 0:16:05.120 --> 0:16:10.600 shaft completely. People rushed to the site, including over a 0:16:10.720 --> 0:16:16.920 hundred fire fighters, who eventually extinguished the burning plug. Once cleared, 0:16:17.200 --> 0:16:21.120 they peered breathlessly into the opening that seemed to yawn 0:16:21.200 --> 0:16:24.720 back at them like a screaming mouth, but not a 0:16:24.800 --> 0:16:31.320 sound was heard. Eventually, a workman named Mallory volunteered to 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:35.280 be lowered into the shaft on a single rope. He 0:16:35.360 --> 0:16:39.240 descended around four in the morning, swapping the gloom of 0:16:39.280 --> 0:16:50.920 an October night for the deeper darkness below. A journalist 0:16:50.960 --> 0:16:55.480 for the North Adams Transcript described Malory's descent as an 0:16:55.520 --> 0:17:00.560 exhibition of genuine heroism, with no stirring battle music, no 0:17:00.760 --> 0:17:05.159 rushing thousands to share and reduce the terror. His peril 0:17:05.359 --> 0:17:09.639 was grim and dreadful, and he went alone amid silence 0:17:09.880 --> 0:17:16.159 and shuddering suspense. Hundreds of onlookers huddled in anticipation for 0:17:16.240 --> 0:17:21.080 the thirty or forty minutes that Malory was in the shaft. Eventually, 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:24.600 he was drawn back up, ashen faced and on the 0:17:24.720 --> 0:17:29.120 verge of passing out from air, noxious enough to extinguish 0:17:29.160 --> 0:17:33.919 his lamp. Before lapsing into unconsciousness, he could only gasp 0:17:33.960 --> 0:17:39.639 out the words no hope. Malory described how he'd reached 0:17:39.680 --> 0:17:43.119 the bottom to find that the shaft was flooded to 0:17:43.240 --> 0:17:47.400 a good dozen feet. This was to be expected, as 0:17:47.440 --> 0:17:50.760 the machinery that pumped water out of the shaft had 0:17:50.800 --> 0:17:55.120 been destroyed by the fire. However, the series of ladders 0:17:55.119 --> 0:17:59.080 and platforms that the miners used to climb out sat 0:17:59.119 --> 0:18:02.919 seventy feet above the bottom. A hoist was needed to 0:18:02.960 --> 0:18:06.040 bridge that gap, but it had been rendered useless by 0:18:06.080 --> 0:18:10.399 the fire, and so it was decided. Even if the 0:18:10.440 --> 0:18:14.040 men survived the hail of falling debris, they never had 0:18:14.080 --> 0:18:18.480 a chance of escaping the flood. They likely died in 0:18:18.520 --> 0:18:22.880 the darkness and panic as the cold water inched slowly 0:18:23.160 --> 0:18:28.000 up their bodies. It was soon after that that strange 0:18:28.080 --> 0:18:32.600 things began to happen. It started with the bodies of 0:18:32.760 --> 0:18:36.840 lost work crew beginning to surface in the shaft, as 0:18:36.840 --> 0:18:41.879 if the hoosack was reluctantly releasing its grip. Over the 0:18:41.920 --> 0:18:46.040 course of that long, heart worn winter, whales were said 0:18:46.080 --> 0:18:50.320 to be heard coming from the shaft, cries of anguish 0:18:50.320 --> 0:18:55.280 and pain, only partially muffled by the earth. More bizarre 0:18:55.560 --> 0:19:00.760 were the apparent sightings of hazy figures carrying pickaxes and shovels. 0:19:01.480 --> 0:19:04.760 They didn't respond when addressed, and they would vanish in 0:19:04.800 --> 0:19:08.879 a moment, leaving no footprints in the freshly fallen snow. 0:19:09.800 --> 0:19:13.560 But they walked the sight like they knew it, like 0:19:13.680 --> 0:19:17.480 they fitted in there. It was almost a full year 0:19:17.760 --> 0:19:22.119 before the shaft was pumped dry and the final bodies retrieved. 0:19:23.040 --> 0:19:27.240 Their discovery painted a new patterner of horror on events, 0:19:27.600 --> 0:19:30.600 as it was found that some of the men had 0:19:30.600 --> 0:19:35.000 apparently survived the initial disaster and even built a crude 0:19:35.160 --> 0:19:39.399 raft from the fallen timber. Whether they had then died 0:19:39.520 --> 0:19:42.720 slowly from a lack of oxygen or through the even 0:19:42.800 --> 0:19:48.240 more prolonged agony of starvation, none could say, nor could 0:19:48.240 --> 0:19:52.800 anyone suggest how Malory had missed them during his rescue attempt, 0:19:53.760 --> 0:19:56.679 or that anyone knew as that they had lingered in 0:19:56.720 --> 0:20:01.040 the pitch. Those ghostly cries said to have been heard 0:20:01.280 --> 0:20:06.480 emanating up from it, perhaps not quite so ghostly after all. 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:20.320 That final burial of the men from the pit seemed 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:23.920 to put to rest the supposed sightings of eerie figures 0:20:24.280 --> 0:20:27.920 on the hillside around the shaft, but it didn't dampen 0:20:28.000 --> 0:20:33.160 the strange activity deeper inside the hoosack. With so much 0:20:33.280 --> 0:20:38.480 trauma stacking up, disquiet had arisen among the workforce. Men 0:20:38.560 --> 0:20:41.560 began to complain about hearing the voice of a man 0:20:42.040 --> 0:20:46.760 crying out in agony from somewhere within the tunnel. They 0:20:46.760 --> 0:20:51.639 became so nervous that entire teams refused to enter after sunset, 0:20:52.200 --> 0:20:55.919 and some walked off the job for good. One of 0:20:55.960 --> 0:20:59.840 the dig managers, and mister Dunn, insisted that the noises 0:21:00.080 --> 0:21:03.560 and no more than wind rushing through the cavity, But 0:21:03.720 --> 0:21:06.959 faced with the labour revolt, he reached out to his friend, 0:21:07.280 --> 0:21:11.040 a mechanical engineer named Paul Travers, to see if he 0:21:11.119 --> 0:21:15.159 could help. As well as being respected within the industry, 0:21:15.520 --> 0:21:19.600 Travers was also a decorated cavalry officer who'd served in 0:21:19.640 --> 0:21:24.159 the Civil War. Everything about him spoke of common sense 0:21:24.440 --> 0:21:28.480 and strong nerves, and on the night of September seventh, 0:21:28.520 --> 0:21:32.359 eighteen sixty eight, he and Dunn toward the tunnel to 0:21:32.440 --> 0:21:37.439 try and help dispel the worker's superstitions. In a letter 0:21:37.680 --> 0:21:41.760 composed the following morning, Travers wrote how he and Done 0:21:42.000 --> 0:21:45.720 bought a good two miles into the tunnel, notably to 0:21:45.800 --> 0:21:49.159 the area below the central shaft and near the place 0:21:49.320 --> 0:21:54.480 where Ringo Kelly's body was found. There in the cold silence, 0:21:54.920 --> 0:21:59.200 they did indeed hear what sounded like a man groaning 0:21:59.240 --> 0:22:03.639 in pain right by their position, But when they turned 0:22:03.680 --> 0:22:08.119 on their lamps, they saw that they were entirely alone, 0:22:08.600 --> 0:22:13.680 I'll admit, Travis wrote, I haven't been that frightened since Shiloh. 0:22:15.280 --> 0:22:18.920 Travers and Dunn heard only what they took to be voices, 0:22:19.880 --> 0:22:24.800 evidence perhaps of Charles Babbage's theory that human utterances can 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:28.679 linger in the air long after we are gone. But 0:22:28.800 --> 0:22:32.600 in June eighteen seventy two, another trip into the tunnel 0:22:32.960 --> 0:22:38.000 climaxed in a more viscerule encounter. A doctor named Clifford 0:22:38.080 --> 0:22:43.359 Owens accepted the invitation to explore the houssack alongside drilling 0:22:43.440 --> 0:22:48.520 Superintendent James mc kinstry. As they later described it, the 0:22:48.600 --> 0:22:53.919 two men entered the tunnel at precisely eleven thirty p m. And, 0:22:54.160 --> 0:22:57.880 just like Travers and Dunn four years before, they walked 0:22:57.960 --> 0:23:03.159 two miles into the darkness. Owens later described their procession 0:23:03.680 --> 0:23:07.040 lit only by the dim smoky light of their lamp 0:23:07.320 --> 0:23:12.280 as the outside air and moonlight dwindled behind them. Nearing 0:23:12.320 --> 0:23:16.320 the middle of the tunnel, they paused to rest. Suddenly, 0:23:16.680 --> 0:23:20.680 they both began to hear a mournful sound and allulating 0:23:20.760 --> 0:23:25.320 cry approaching them from down the tunnel. Before they could 0:23:25.400 --> 0:23:28.840 so much as query the source, they apparently saw a 0:23:28.920 --> 0:23:32.680 dimly lit figure walking towards them from the western end. 0:23:33.720 --> 0:23:37.440 At first glance, Owens took the figure for a workman, 0:23:37.960 --> 0:23:42.879 perhaps lost or injured, struggling toward the rescue of their lamps. 0:23:43.440 --> 0:23:49.440 As it drew closer, however, he noticed two alarming details. First, 0:23:49.840 --> 0:23:54.160 the figure took on a strange blue hue, dimly illuminated 0:23:54.280 --> 0:23:58.240 against the surrounding blackness, and though it had the familiar 0:23:58.320 --> 0:24:02.280 shape of a man, there was no head above the neck. 0:24:09.640 --> 0:24:14.440 Terrified into paralysis, Owens and McKinstry could only watch as 0:24:14.440 --> 0:24:18.880 the blue shape apparently drew closer, so close that Owens 0:24:19.000 --> 0:24:22.440 could have reached out and touched it. There it stopped 0:24:22.720 --> 0:24:26.880 mere feet away, where it remained motionless for several seconds, 0:24:27.359 --> 0:24:29.720 and though it had no head with which to do so, 0:24:30.200 --> 0:24:35.240 both men agreed that they felt it was observing them. Abruptly, 0:24:35.320 --> 0:24:39.080 the figure moved off, walking past the stunned men and 0:24:39.160 --> 0:24:43.720 dwindling into the dimness. They beat a hasty retreat, all 0:24:43.760 --> 0:24:47.040 the while aware that they were now pursuing the entity, 0:24:47.600 --> 0:24:52.159 though it didn't appear again. Owens and mckinstrey's is the 0:24:52.200 --> 0:24:55.919 most famous apparent encounter in the Houssack, but it is 0:24:56.040 --> 0:25:00.159 far from the last. The first train passed through the 0:25:00.200 --> 0:25:04.720 housack in February of eighteen seventy five, carrying one hundred 0:25:04.760 --> 0:25:09.920 and twenty five curious passengers. Nothing went awry. The huge 0:25:10.000 --> 0:25:14.240 undertaking had been a success. New England was now readily 0:25:14.280 --> 0:25:18.560 accessible by rail, but the end of construction didn't bring 0:25:18.600 --> 0:25:22.959 an end to the tunnel's dark infamy. Several workers from 0:25:23.000 --> 0:25:27.959 the Boston and Main Railroad reported unnerving experiences while making 0:25:28.000 --> 0:25:32.080 the route. In the autumn of eighteen seventy five, a 0:25:32.119 --> 0:25:36.960 fire tender named Harlan Mulvany was transporting a wagon loaded 0:25:37.040 --> 0:25:40.639 with timber into the tunnel. He'd only gone a short 0:25:40.720 --> 0:25:44.359 way into the shadow when something spooked both him and 0:25:44.440 --> 0:25:49.520 his horses. Onlookers watched as the panicked man roughly whipped 0:25:49.520 --> 0:25:53.240 his horses into a tight turn and careened out of 0:25:53.280 --> 0:25:58.440 the tunnel. Several days later, workmen found both the horses 0:25:58.800 --> 0:26:02.960 and Mulvaney's tims wagon in the Adams Woods, more than 0:26:03.000 --> 0:26:07.320 three miles from the Housack of Mulvaaney. However, there was 0:26:07.440 --> 0:26:12.280 no sign and the man was never seen again. His 0:26:12.600 --> 0:26:16.960 was not the only disappearance. A century later, a man 0:26:17.080 --> 0:26:20.919 named Bernard her starboard walked into the North Adams end 0:26:20.960 --> 0:26:23.960 of the tunnel with its fox terrier on a leash. 0:26:24.400 --> 0:26:27.600 His plan was to walk the full length of the Hoosack. 0:26:28.680 --> 0:26:31.879 When asked why, he simply said that he was in 0:26:31.920 --> 0:26:35.439 the mood for an adventure. Whether he got one or not, 0:26:35.840 --> 0:26:39.879 we will never know. Her starboard never emerged at the 0:26:39.920 --> 0:26:44.600 eastern end. Police and rail workers searched the tunnel, but 0:26:44.800 --> 0:26:48.719 no trace of the man or his dog was ever found. 0:26:56.080 --> 0:27:00.760 The stone tape theory posits that ghosts are not spirits, agency, 0:27:01.000 --> 0:27:05.960 or impact. Rather, they are supposedly just visual replays of 0:27:06.119 --> 0:27:10.879 moments of high emotion. The men apparently seen wandering the 0:27:10.920 --> 0:27:14.679 ground around the mouth of the central shaft, the lonely 0:27:14.760 --> 0:27:18.240 voices heard within the tunnel. Both of these would be 0:27:18.280 --> 0:27:23.639 accommodated within the stone tape theory. Joseph in Poco's story 0:27:24.080 --> 0:27:28.720 puts a different complexion on the Housack. In Poco, an 0:27:28.800 --> 0:27:32.960 Italian immigrant to the area, began working aged eighteen for 0:27:33.080 --> 0:27:37.120 the Boston and Main Railroad in nineteen twenty two. He'd 0:27:37.160 --> 0:27:40.720 heard tales of the Houssock's reputation, but laughed them off. 0:27:41.800 --> 0:27:45.600 Maybe he retained his good humor for two years until 0:27:45.640 --> 0:27:49.520 February of nineteen twenty four. When he was busy working 0:27:49.560 --> 0:27:53.920 one morning chopping thick ice from the track, he found 0:27:54.000 --> 0:27:58.440 himself separated from his workmates by five hundred feet, which, 0:27:58.720 --> 0:28:01.560 in the blind dark of the Husac, may as well 0:28:01.600 --> 0:28:05.800 have been miles. Joseph was working by lantern light in 0:28:05.840 --> 0:28:09.240 the middle of the tracks when, as he later recounted, 0:28:09.720 --> 0:28:13.720 suddenly the tunnel filled with smoke. It was then he 0:28:13.720 --> 0:28:19.440 heard a yell, Joe, it said, jump Joe. The young 0:28:19.480 --> 0:28:22.359 man looked up to see the bulk of the number 0:28:22.440 --> 0:28:27.440 sixty Express train less than seventy feet away. He threw 0:28:27.520 --> 0:28:33.400 himself sideways and lived to chip ice another day. Looking around, 0:28:33.680 --> 0:28:37.440 he saw no one. The voice seemed to come from 0:28:37.560 --> 0:28:42.160 thin air, and it had saved his life. Six weeks later, 0:28:42.720 --> 0:28:45.720 Joseph was back at work in the tunnel, using a 0:28:45.760 --> 0:28:48.840 heavy bar to free train cars that had frozen to 0:28:48.920 --> 0:28:53.520 the track. Once again, he was alone when he apparently 0:28:53.600 --> 0:28:58.320 heard that familiar voice yell, drop it Joe. When he 0:28:58.360 --> 0:29:02.400 did just that, moments later, the iron bar was flung 0:29:02.440 --> 0:29:05.800 against the tunnel war by the current from a falling 0:29:05.920 --> 0:29:11.320 power line. Weeks later, when he narrowly avoided being crushed 0:29:11.400 --> 0:29:14.880 by a falling oak tree just outside the tunnel entrance. 0:29:15.560 --> 0:29:19.600 Joseph and his workmates claimed to have heard wild peals 0:29:19.600 --> 0:29:24.840 of laughter, seemingly without source. It was enough to convince 0:29:24.960 --> 0:29:30.320 Joseph in Poco to seek employment elsewhere. He resigned and 0:29:30.440 --> 0:29:34.840 moved to Springfield, Massachusetts, but each year he made a 0:29:34.840 --> 0:29:38.840 pilgrimage back to the Hoosac to pay tribute and give 0:29:38.960 --> 0:29:43.000 thanks to what he called his friend in the tunnel. 0:29:47.920 --> 0:29:51.160 Thank you so much again for listening to the show Unexplained. 0:29:51.160 --> 0:29:53.760 We'll take a short break now for the holidays. We'll 0:29:53.760 --> 0:29:56.840 be back in the new year on Friday, January tenth 0:29:57.080 --> 0:30:02.280 with the next new episode. Until then, this episode was 0:30:02.320 --> 0:30:07.440 written by Neil McRobert and produced by me Richard McLain Smith. 0:30:08.440 --> 0:30:11.080 Neil is the creator and host of his own brilliant 0:30:11.080 --> 0:30:15.680 podcast called Talking Scared, in which he discusses the craft 0:30:15.720 --> 0:30:19.720 of horror, writing with everyone from Ta Nanaeve Do to 0:30:19.840 --> 0:30:23.960 the God of horror himself, Stephen King. I can't recommend 0:30:24.000 --> 0:30:28.720 it highly enough. Unexplained as an Avy Club Productions podcast 0:30:29.200 --> 0:30:33.400 created by Richard McClain smith. All other elements of the podcast, 0:30:33.480 --> 0:30:37.160 including the music, are also produced by me Richard McLain 0:30:37.240 --> 0:30:41.760 Smith Unexplained. The book and audiobook is now available to 0:30:41.800 --> 0:30:47.200 buy worldwide. You can purchase from Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Waterstones, 0:30:47.200 --> 0:30:51.040 and other bookstores. Please subscribe to and rate the show 0:30:51.360 --> 0:30:54.240 wherever you get your podcasts, and feel free to get 0:30:54.280 --> 0:30:57.680 in touch with any thoughts or ideas regarding the stories 0:30:57.760 --> 0:30:59.880 you've heard on the show. Perhaps you have an ex 0:31:00.000 --> 0:31:02.920 explanation of your own you'd like to share. You can 0:31:02.960 --> 0:31:06.560 find out more at Unexplained podcast dot com and reach 0:31:06.640 --> 0:31:11.040