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Speaker 1: Hey you welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind. My

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Speaker 1: name is Robert Lamb. Yes, we're in fall break this week,

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Speaker 1: but we have lots of Halloween related content for you.

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Speaker 1: This is going to be Trains of Terror Part two,

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Speaker 1: which originally published ten three, twenty twenty four. Continuation of

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Speaker 1: Trains of Terror Part one, So if you have your

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Speaker 1: ticket from that episode, we're going to check that ticket again,

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Speaker 1: but we're going to continue the ride.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 1: Hey, welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind.

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Speaker 3: My name is Robert Lamb, and I am Joe McCormick,

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Speaker 3: and we're back with part two in our Halloween season

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Speaker 3: series on locomotive Horror and Trains of Terror. Now. In

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Speaker 3: the last episode, we talked about how trains are often

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Speaker 3: used in weird fiction and the kinds of themes that

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Speaker 3: they emphasize, including things like fate and helplessness, isolation, alienation,

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Speaker 3: and especially in nineteenth century stories, the irresistible changes brought

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Speaker 3: by technology brought on by the steam era, how it

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Speaker 3: was transforming the landscape, transforming our culture, and highlighting maybe

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Speaker 3: the fragility of our minds and bodies. We also talked

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Speaker 3: about the various inputs leading to the invention of the

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Speaker 3: steam locomotive, And finally we got to the Victorian panic

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Speaker 3: about railway madness, a belief you'll find attested in a

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Speaker 3: bunch of British newspapers from the eighteen sixties through about

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Speaker 3: eighteen eighty, according to which it is common for men

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Speaker 3: to be driven instantly, violently insane by the vibrations of

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Speaker 3: a railway carriage in transit. So that was part one.

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Speaker 3: If you haven't heard that yet, it's definitely worth a listen,

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Speaker 3: go back and check that out first. But we're here

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Speaker 3: today talk about more that's right.

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Speaker 1: This week, we're going to be getting into the more

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Speaker 1: familiar territory of the ghost train. Though even as I

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Speaker 1: say that and I start thinking about potential mainstream examples,

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Speaker 1: it's really hard for me to think of a straight

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Speaker 1: up haunted train in popular media like Polar Express maybe

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Speaker 1: comes to minds like the most mainstream example. Yeah, is

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Speaker 1: it just me? Or do we just not actually have

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Speaker 1: a lot of stories about ghost trains.

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Speaker 3: Well, it's interesting that you frame it that way, because

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Speaker 3: I was thinking about the ghost train as a concept

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Speaker 3: and thinking about how, yeah, we have the concept of

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Speaker 3: ghosts which are spectral, insubstantial entities that take the form

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Speaker 3: of a human I guess sometimes an animal usually human

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Speaker 3: understood to be like the soul or the animate image

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Speaker 3: of a person who has died. So these are individual

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Speaker 3: human entities. They usually move around and I don't know,

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Speaker 3: they interact in some kind of sensory capacity. You can

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Speaker 3: see them, they make noise and so forth. But then

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Speaker 3: we also have the concept of haunted houses or haunted locations,

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Speaker 3: for example a church or a cemetery or a battlefield.

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Speaker 3: These are places where hauntings by individual ghosts happen, most

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Speaker 3: often understood to be the location of a tragedy or

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Speaker 3: a death, or maybe like a place that the ghost

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Speaker 3: frequented frequented in life.

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Speaker 1: But the house, the haunted house is usually an actual house.

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Speaker 3: I guess.

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Speaker 1: Maybe there are some versions where ooh, there was never

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Speaker 1: a house there at all, it was just a vacant lot.

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Speaker 1: But for the most part it's like, oh, it's the

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Speaker 1: old the old McCormick place there.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly so. But trains are like in this

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Speaker 3: in between realm where they I guess they could sort

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Speaker 3: of be both, because on one hand, they are moving entities

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Speaker 3: like people, and so they can sort of be a

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Speaker 3: moving form that could pass in and out of your awareness.

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Speaker 3: And the same time, trains are locations like houses. People

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Speaker 3: go inside them, inhabit them. They have rooms and corridors

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Speaker 3: and doorways. So a train oddly has the ability to

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Speaker 3: be like a wandering ghost itself or like a haunted house.

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Speaker 3: And I was trying to think, is there any equivalent.

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Speaker 3: I guess like a ship, like a you could have

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Speaker 3: a ghost ship or a haunted ship. Though, like you

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Speaker 3: were saying, or I think you were alluding to this,

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Speaker 3: most of the ghost train Lord that I'm aware of

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Speaker 3: and that I could turn up and research for this

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Speaker 3: episode seems to be about beliefs about a spectral train

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Speaker 3: that you believe you see passing as an outside observer,

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Speaker 3: not a physical train that you get on board and

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Speaker 3: then believe to be haunted like a haunted house. The

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Speaker 3: latter is possible in concept, it just seems like there's

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Speaker 3: less of that.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I think it is probably an idea that is

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Speaker 1: infected by these other concepts, Like you said, haunted house,

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Speaker 1: the haunted domicile, and a train is kind of a

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Speaker 1: place that you live. It is an environment, but it's

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Speaker 1: also a vehicle, and we have a long legacy of

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Speaker 1: ghost ship stories. But it's interesting because that doesn't really

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Speaker 1: line up one hundred percent because with the idea of

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Speaker 1: a ghost train, because with ghost ships you have, of

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Speaker 1: course tales of a flying Dutchman and you know, everything

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Speaker 1: from a haunted unoccupied vessel maybe it has Dracula on

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Speaker 1: it and so forth, or a straight up spectral vessel.

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Speaker 1: But then a lot of this is based on the

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Speaker 1: historic reality and even contemporary reality of ships that have

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Speaker 1: even been damaged or abandoned or something terrible has happened

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Speaker 1: and they are left to be moved around on the

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Speaker 1: water by wave and wind, something that isn't really in

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Speaker 1: the cards for a train, you know, especially in the

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Speaker 1: modern air, but even historically, like if you had an

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Speaker 1: unknown train moving around and it was a physical reality,

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Speaker 1: bad things would happen pretty quickly. And yes, the idea

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Speaker 1: does tie into fears of those things happening, and I

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Speaker 1: think a lot of the examples you can look at

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Speaker 1: of ghost trains are tied to either memories or anxieties

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Speaker 1: concerning train accidents. But yeah, it doesn't really it seems

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Speaker 1: to be influenced by all these other concepts but also

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Speaker 1: it doesn't line up one with any of them either.

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Speaker 3: M M yeah, I think that's right. This is kind

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Speaker 3: of a tangent. But this also because the train has

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Speaker 3: this potential duality that it could be like a haunted

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Speaker 3: house or like a like a ghost itself. It was

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Speaker 3: making me think about the different moral understandings we have

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Speaker 3: of individual ghostly entities versus haunted locations in horror fiction,

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Speaker 3: because I don't know, maybe maybe you have some counter

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Speaker 3: examples to this, but I was thinking that in most

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Speaker 3: horror stories, individual ghosts, though they invoke fright, are usually

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Speaker 3: looked on with pity once you know their story. They

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Speaker 3: are usually said to be victims in some way, people

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Speaker 3: who suffered, whereas haunted locations are often characterized as evil

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Speaker 3: or malicious in themselves. There's this idea that like a

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Speaker 3: haunted house is a bad place. It's like the Overlook hotel.

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Speaker 3: The hotel is evil.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, And yet while a train could be a location

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Speaker 3: like this haunted house that you often think of as

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Speaker 3: a bad place. When I read through all this ghost

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Speaker 3: train lord, I don't get that feeling like, oh the

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Speaker 3: ghost train, Ooh that's wicked, it's bad, it's malicious. Instead,

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Speaker 3: it has more the character of the individual wandering ghost.

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Speaker 3: It's something that may be frightening but is mainly to

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Speaker 3: be kind of pitied to tell a sad story about.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the impression I get as well. So we'll

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Speaker 1: keep that in mind as we roll through some of

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Speaker 1: the specific examples here, and perhaps out there there's a

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Speaker 1: wish well we'll touch on this again, but there are

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Speaker 1: there are a lot of ghost train stories out there.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot of train related urban legend. So we

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Speaker 1: have things that have been circulating for a while, and

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Speaker 1: you know, stories that are just kicking up. Perhaps, So

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Speaker 1: if you were familiar listener with a story of a

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Speaker 1: malicious ghost train, or just any ghost train story that

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Speaker 1: we don't mention here, or if you have additional thoughts

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Speaker 1: on things we mentioned here, obviously write in because we

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Speaker 1: would love.

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Speaker 3: To hear from you. Absolutely contact at stuff to Blow

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Speaker 3: your Mind dot com. Please share with us your local

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Speaker 3: ghost train story, especially if there's something unusual about it.

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Speaker 1: Now, before we get into specific ghost trains and ghost

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Speaker 1: train stories, I do want to just kind of an

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Speaker 1: overview of what seemed to me to be sort of

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Speaker 1: like three definite types of ghost trains to consider. Okay, okay,

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Speaker 1: So the first type we'll come back to this one

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Speaker 1: in some specifics here shortly, is the idea of just

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Speaker 1: lights and or sounds of trains on or near the

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Speaker 1: tracks that never materialize. The idea that I hear the

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Speaker 1: sound or I see the like to a train that

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Speaker 1: should not be here, and then that train never arrives.

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Speaker 1: But it causes you a lot of anxiety because, oh,

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Speaker 1: if there's not supposed to be a train here right now,

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Speaker 1: that's a bad thing.

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Speaker 3: You know, this ties into you. And I were looking

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Speaker 3: at an example of a play about a ghost train

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Speaker 3: off Mike. We ended up not getting into it in

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Speaker 3: our outline really here, but there's a play called The

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Speaker 3: Ghost Train by an author named Arnold Ridley, which turns

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Speaker 3: out to have a quite bizarre twist where there's like

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Speaker 3: a story of a ghost train and then it turns

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Speaker 3: out to be like a communist counter espionage thriller. But anyway,

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Speaker 3: I think that story was said to be inspired by

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Speaker 3: the author's experience of being stuck at a train station

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Speaker 3: at night and hearing what sounded like a train approaching

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Speaker 3: and thinking it was arriving to pick him up, but

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Speaker 3: then it just like seeming to pass without him ever

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Speaker 3: seeing it. And the explanation is the train was there

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Speaker 3: was a train coming by him, but it was being

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Speaker 3: diverted along a different track that was. So he's like

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Speaker 3: in the night hearing a train approach and then leave,

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Speaker 3: but never sees anything.

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Speaker 1: You know, the approach of a train is kind of haunting,

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Speaker 1: almost supernatural occurrence in some ways, you know, because you're

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Speaker 1: standing there and perhaps you hear just like that initial

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Speaker 1: hum of the rails, maybe the air is suddenly a

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Speaker 1: little bit different. You get to get to get some

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Speaker 1: of that sort of underground air coming at you if

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Speaker 1: you're in a subway system, all ahead of the actual

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Speaker 1: roar of the train, the lights of the train, and

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Speaker 1: so forth, there are a lot of subtle hints leading

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Speaker 1: up to the arrival, all right. So that that's the first,

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Speaker 1: you know, rough categorization for ghost trains. The second one

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Speaker 1: I want to highlight are just straight up overtly creepy

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Speaker 1: or ghostly trains, straight up spectral trains, trains with ghosts

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Speaker 1: on them that are sometimes connected to railway disasters, but

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Speaker 1: sometimes to other mishaps and tragedies and so forth. And

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Speaker 1: then there's this third area and this is empty trains

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Speaker 1: witnessed moving down the tracks. And this is a category

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Speaker 1: that is going to include both. Just straight up, here's

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Speaker 1: a train. It doesn't look like it as people on it,

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Speaker 1: but it is a physical train. And also, here's a

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Speaker 1: train that is you know, there's nothing suspects about who's

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Speaker 1: piloting it. We know it's either we can see the

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Speaker 1: human or we know that this is an automated rail system,

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Speaker 1: whatever the case. But why is there a train with

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Speaker 1: no people on it? Why is it stopping and letting

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Speaker 1: no one out and then continuing on its way.

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Speaker 3: You know, it's funny how this connects to the idea

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Speaker 3: of the ghost ship which you were talking about, could

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Speaker 3: be inspired by sightings of real ships that were saying

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Speaker 3: people have abandoned them. And you see a ship drifting

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Speaker 3: in the waves with nobody on it. That's a very

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Speaker 3: chilling site. But that would be a real thing people

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Speaker 3: would observe in various situations. Obviously, a train is a

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Speaker 3: little bit different because it's the train isn't going to

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Speaker 3: be completely abandoned and drifting on the waves. It needs

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Speaker 3: to be moving for some reason, like somebody's got to

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Speaker 3: push a button to make it go, but it may

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Speaker 3: in fact be empty of passengers, and just like seeing

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Speaker 3: through the windows and seeing it empty can be a

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Speaker 3: creepy site.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely, you know, thinking about the trains that go

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Speaker 1: by directly by my house. There's the Marta Train, the

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Speaker 1: public transportation train system here in Atlanta, and sometimes there

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Speaker 1: are empty train cars that are going by because you

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Speaker 1: know that one's done for the night. And then there's

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Speaker 1: the CSX line, and this is freight, not passengers. Though

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Speaker 1: at least on one occurrence, I did see some empty

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Speaker 1: passenger trains on the tracks. I think they were being

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Speaker 1: I assume they were being moved somewhere, you know, either

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Speaker 1: I don't even remember how nice they looked. Maybe they

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Speaker 1: were brand new being moved somewhere to go into service,

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Speaker 1: or they were being retired or scrapped or something. But

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Speaker 1: you know, there is something potentially creepy about seeing this

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Speaker 1: space that is made for people, devoid of people, but

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Speaker 1: still in motion, as if it's going somewhere but without people.

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Speaker 3: A lot of horror movies used to great effect the

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Speaker 3: empty subway train. You know, the subway arrives in the station,

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Speaker 3: the door is open, there's nobody in sight, Nobody on

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Speaker 3: the train. It is a creepy feeling.

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Speaker 1: Now. I was reading a bit more about this idea

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Speaker 1: of ghost trains, and there is this unofficial classification for

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Speaker 1: a ghost train, at least in Britain, that has nothing

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Speaker 1: to do with hauntings. And these are trains, according to

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Speaker 1: Amanda Rugeri and Why Britain Has Secret Ghost Trains twenty

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Speaker 1: fifteen BBC, these are low frequency routes that often entail

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Speaker 1: mostly empty, if not entirely empty cars, and this is

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Speaker 1: a reality that the author describes as being due to

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Speaker 1: a quote bureaucratic hangover.

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Speaker 3: Okay, so these are trains that are operating normally. They're

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Speaker 3: just like they haven't adjusted to the fact that there

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Speaker 3: is little or no demand for travel along the route

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Speaker 3: where they're they're going. That's correct.

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Speaker 1: She goes on to write, there is no single definition

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Speaker 1: of what constitutes a ghost train, although the general consensus

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Speaker 1: is that it's when a service is so infrequent the

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Speaker 1: train becomes effectively useless, slippery or not. Though the term

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Speaker 1: ghost train seems apt, it implies a service that is

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Speaker 1: not exactly whole, something that whispers through towns and countryside,

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Speaker 1: leaving barely a dent in its wake, And it's really

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Speaker 1: interesting to read about these because a lot of a

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Speaker 1: lot of people don't you know, aren't even a where

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Speaker 1: that these exist. Perhaps, But there are hobbyists, ghost train

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Speaker 1: hunters they call themselves, who seek these out. They try

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Speaker 1: and find these lines or these particular trains, and sometimes

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Speaker 1: they run at strange hours, and you know they're stopping.

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Speaker 1: It stops their way out out in the middle of

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Speaker 1: nowhere and so forth. But they kind of like pride

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Speaker 1: themselves on hunting them down and getting their pictures made

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Speaker 1: on them or with them. But as the article explains,

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Speaker 1: these trains are are often legal placeholders to keep a

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Speaker 1: line from being closed. Absolutely the sort of lines that

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Speaker 1: are mostly useless currently, but it would be controversial to

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Speaker 1: close them. It would be perhaps bureaucratically expensive or require

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Speaker 1: a lot of effort to close them. And another big

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Speaker 1: fact is, of course, you know, populations don't stay the same.

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Speaker 1: You know what, maybe a ghost station and a ghost

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Speaker 1: train line today could be vitally important, say five years

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Speaker 1: from now, ten years from now, as population shift and

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Speaker 1: new communities develop and so forth. The more official name

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Speaker 1: for these are parliamentary trains, since in the past and

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Speaker 1: at any rate, it took an act of Parliament to

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Speaker 1: shut down a line, so against speaking to the amount

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Speaker 1: of effort that it would go you'd have to go

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Speaker 1: to to actually close one of these. There, of course

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Speaker 1: corresponding parliamentary ghost train stations again, and these are also

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Speaker 1: sought out by hobbyists, and these trains and these groups

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Speaker 1: are still very much around, so I would love to

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Speaker 1: hear from any ghost train hunters out there. I also

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Speaker 1: have to note that, especially with subway systems, there are

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Speaker 1: various examples of ghost stations that are no longer in use,

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Speaker 1: often for logistical reasons or expansion reasons, such as the

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Speaker 1: famous City Hall station in New York City, noted for

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Speaker 1: its Romanesque revival architecture. Sometimes stations such as this are

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Speaker 1: used on tours or they're repurposed, And yeah, there's something

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Speaker 1: captivating about the idea of such places, stops that are

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Speaker 1: on the line but no longer stops, human spaces that

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Speaker 1: have literally been carved out of the interior of the

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Speaker 1: earth but are just no longer used by human beings.

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Speaker 1: And you know, after I was putting together my notes

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Speaker 1: on this section, I was walking back to my house

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Speaker 1: from a place that I was working remotely, and as

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Speaker 1: luck would have it, I was walking right past a

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Speaker 1: ghost tunnel of the Marta rail system here in Atlanta.

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Speaker 1: There's about two hundred feet of tunnel, originally built for

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Speaker 1: a Tucker North to cabline expansion that was never completed.

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Speaker 1: Now just a yawning urban cave amidst other track structures.

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Speaker 1: And I really don't think i'd noticed this until yesterday.

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Speaker 1: I looked up and there's a there's a YouTube page

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Speaker 1: called V twelve Productions that does a lot of stuff

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Speaker 1: on trains and also some stuff on like urban and

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Speaker 1: Atlanta architecture and so forth. They did a nice video

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Speaker 1: on it about six years ago. So now I know

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Speaker 1: all about this kind of haunting cave, this unnatural human

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Speaker 1: made cave in the earth, just you know, a stone's

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Speaker 1: throw from where I live.

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Speaker 3: Did you take this photo in our outline here?

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Speaker 1: I did not. I've thought a lot of people have

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Speaker 1: sought this out. I think some people were doing a

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Speaker 1: little sneaking around to get in there and get closer,

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Speaker 1: because there's it's not just the tunnel, there's also a

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Speaker 1: length it's like, what do you call it, a trench

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Speaker 1: that was constructed too, Like basically the situation was they

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Speaker 1: were building out the Marta bridgework overhead, and if they

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Speaker 1: were going to do this line, they would need to

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Speaker 1: make the tunnel now rather than later. It would be

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Speaker 1: just so much cheaper to go ahead and build the

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Speaker 1: tunnel early than to do it later once everything else

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Speaker 1: was built up around it.

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Speaker 3: The steep cutting in the earth is reminding me of

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Speaker 3: that haunting descriptive passage from the signalman, right. You know,

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Speaker 3: there's just the strip of sky and seeing the stone

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Speaker 3: on either side the damp walls. But it's one of

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Speaker 3: these visions that's both gloomy and beautiful at the same time.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Now getting into some more examples of like straight

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Speaker 1: up ghost trains, actual spectrum trains, haunted trains, trains associated

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Speaker 1: with ghosts or supernatural creatures. We're going to turn briefly

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Speaker 1: here once more to Japan. I want to add the

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Speaker 1: caveat that again. There are so many ghost train traditions

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Speaker 1: around the world, and some of them are rather popular,

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Speaker 1: but we ultimately had to focus on ones that maybe

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Speaker 1: had just a little more in some cases, a little

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Speaker 1: more scholarship around them, or just a few more just

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Speaker 1: interesting things to point out because some of them are

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Speaker 1: just like, hey, there's a ghost train rides around. We're

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Speaker 1: not sure where it's going, where it's coming from. Maybe hell,

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Speaker 1: we don't know, And you know those are fun and

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Speaker 1: that maybe there's less meat to chew on.

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Speaker 3: There for us.

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Speaker 1: But anyway, there are a few different traditions in Japan,

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Speaker 1: one of which concerns the legendary tanukis of Japan. We've

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Speaker 1: discussed these before you have. These are the youkai versions

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Speaker 1: of the actual Japanese raccoon dog, which, to be clear,

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Speaker 1: are far more closely related to dogs. They are part

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Speaker 1: of the kind of day family, so they are there

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Speaker 1: essentially dog can. They are not raccoon can except in

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Speaker 1: a very distant sense.

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Speaker 3: They look like raccoons, though they've got that kind of

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Speaker 3: head shape and coloration.

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Speaker 1: Now, if you've ever watched the excellent nineteen ninety four

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Speaker 1: Studio Ghibli film Pom Poko, then you know all about

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Speaker 1: these guys, and if you haven't, you should go watch it.

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Speaker 1: It's I believe it's on Max in the States, and

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Speaker 1: it's excellent, taking viewers into the world of shape shifting

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Speaker 1: by way of their testicles. Bake danuki. These are yokai

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Speaker 1: tanuki supernatural tanuki and their struggles alongside a changing, modernizing world.

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Speaker 1: And this last bit is a common theme in tanuki lore,

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Speaker 1: especially during the Meiji era. The tanuki are a symbol

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Speaker 1: of the folkloric wilds of rural life. The traditional tanuki

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Speaker 1: statue also entails multiple symbols for good luck, and you'll

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Speaker 1: find them in both rural and urban Japanese neighborhoods today,

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Speaker 1: in front of homes and so forth. In Pandemonium and

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Speaker 1: Parade Japanese Monsters and the Culture of Yokai, Michael Dylan

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Speaker 1: Foster describes ways in which the tanuki and the locomotive

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Speaker 1: stand in stark opposition to each other. So you know,

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Speaker 1: reminder here the first Japanese rail line opened in eighteen

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Speaker 1: seventy two and remains an impressive and highly connected form

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Speaker 1: of public transportation. There.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, but I recall reading and by the way, Michael

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Speaker 3: Dylan Foster is a folklorist I've cited on the show before.

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Speaker 3: His book of Yokai is great, but I think I've

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Speaker 3: seen him write that there was some on record, some

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Speaker 3: ambivalence about the edition of the Railroad to Japanese life.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, and that seems to be reflected in these

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Speaker 1: tales of the Tanuki. They're sort of two main legends

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Speaker 1: slash accounts to take into account here concerning the uki

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Speaker 1: and the train, and they both occur where these two

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Speaker 1: worlds meet, you know, the world of the folklore, magical

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Speaker 1: wild and this rapidly modernizing world. So you know, imagine

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Speaker 1: a lonely train track running through the wilderness in Japan.

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Speaker 1: And and you're if if you're aboard one of these trains,

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Speaker 1: or maybe you're working on the rail, or maybe you're

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Speaker 1: at some sort of like very rural train station and

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Speaker 1: suddenly you hear the sounds or you see the lights

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Speaker 1: of an oncoming train, well that's a cause for alarm

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Speaker 1: for all the reasons we've cited so far. So if

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Speaker 1: you're if you're if you're on a boarded train, perhaps

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Speaker 1: you slow or stop. If you're working, well, then you know,

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Speaker 1: you freak out. You try and get in touch with

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Speaker 1: with with the folks and let them know that there's

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Speaker 1: some sort of unexpected train on the track. But then,

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Speaker 1: as is the case with ghost trains, sometimes it never

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Speaker 1: shows up. It becomes clear that this was a false alarm,

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Speaker 1: there was no train, and in this case, be the

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Speaker 1: supernatural Yokai explanation. This was clearly the work of the

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Speaker 1: tanukis mimicking the sights and sounds of the train to

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Speaker 1: mess with these humans.

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Speaker 3: Ah, little trickster is okay. So this I think is

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Speaker 3: a slightly more humorous take on the ghost train, Like

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Speaker 3: there's a bit of a spirit of pranksteriness about it.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, where it's like, oh, Tanuki's they got us again.

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Speaker 1: But then there's a flip side to it, and this

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Speaker 1: is where one sees the side of a dead Tanuki,

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Speaker 1: perhaps cut in half by train by a roaring train,

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Speaker 1: by the side of the tracks, and Foster describes it

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Speaker 1: as follows. The confrontation between Tanuki and steam train, a

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Speaker 1: common trope during this period, gestures dramatically to the changing

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Speaker 1: meanings of yokai. The old forms of magic, the shape

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Speaker 1: shifting talents of the Tanuki still had the power to

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Speaker 1: dazzle and deceive, causing the train engineers to proceed with

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Speaker 1: caution through the lonely countryside. But the instant they stop

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Speaker 1: believing and plowed full speed ahead, the iron mechanism of

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Speaker 1: technology could make the magic powerless, transforming a supernatural creature

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Speaker 1: into nothing more than an animal body. Lying dead beside

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Speaker 1: the tracks of progress.

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Speaker 3: Oh, that's quite poignant.

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Speaker 1: And if you are a fan of Pompoco, which again

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Speaker 1: is an excellent film, there's a sequence towards the end

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Speaker 1: of this movie which has quite a serious ecological message

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Speaker 1: and gets into this, you know, some of these these

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Speaker 1: topics we're discussing here, in which some of the tanuki

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Speaker 1: are run over by automobiles and trucks, And the impact

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Speaker 1: of this scene, at least in my understanding, seems to

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Speaker 1: mirror the traditions here, the idea that, you know, they

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Speaker 1: lose their power when they are when they go head

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Speaker 1: on head with like the violent nature of progress.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, that the magic is gone once it once their

435
00:24:50,680 --> 00:24:54,240
Speaker 3: presence fails to convince anyone to slow the giant machine down.

436
00:24:55,720 --> 00:25:00,040
Speaker 1: Now, there are other supernatural beings associated with trains. I

437
00:25:00,040 --> 00:25:03,760
Speaker 1: guess there are other yokai and yuri that may be

438
00:25:04,600 --> 00:25:07,240
Speaker 1: it may turn up on a train in some tellings,

439
00:25:07,280 --> 00:25:10,080
Speaker 1: but there I read did run across one. There's a

440
00:25:10,119 --> 00:25:14,760
Speaker 1: particular urban legend of a yuri of ghost by the

441
00:25:14,840 --> 00:25:17,479
Speaker 1: name of I think Tikki Tikki. I'm not sure if

442
00:25:17,480 --> 00:25:19,800
Speaker 1: I'm saying this correctly. I think it is the idea

443
00:25:19,840 --> 00:25:23,080
Speaker 1: here is this is supposed to sound like the sound

444
00:25:23,280 --> 00:25:25,800
Speaker 1: that a half of a woman makes when she crawls

445
00:25:25,840 --> 00:25:29,600
Speaker 1: across the ground, because the ghost is that of someone

446
00:25:29,640 --> 00:25:32,600
Speaker 1: who was cut in half by a train whoa one

447
00:25:32,720 --> 00:25:37,080
Speaker 1: version of this tale recounted on the MPR podcast Code Switch,

448
00:25:38,240 --> 00:25:40,240
Speaker 1: or more specifically, I think an article referring to one

449
00:25:40,280 --> 00:25:42,640
Speaker 1: of their episodes that I came across. I do listen

450
00:25:42,640 --> 00:25:44,159
Speaker 1: to Code Switch, but I don't think I've heard this

451
00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:47,840
Speaker 1: particular episode the Creepiest Ghost and monster stories from around

452
00:25:47,880 --> 00:25:51,840
Speaker 1: the world. They mentioned that this particular ghost is sometimes

453
00:25:51,920 --> 00:25:56,320
Speaker 1: named Kashima Raiko, and sometimes she inhabits a bathroom stall

454
00:25:56,680 --> 00:25:59,440
Speaker 1: and asks children who venture into the bathroom to fetch

455
00:25:59,440 --> 00:26:03,359
Speaker 1: her legs from a neighboring stall. And there are other

456
00:26:03,440 --> 00:26:05,600
Speaker 1: versions of this too, where she just like basically, you know,

457
00:26:05,680 --> 00:26:07,160
Speaker 1: she's going to cut you in half. That's what she's

458
00:26:07,200 --> 00:26:09,240
Speaker 1: going to do if you run a foul of her.

459
00:26:09,320 --> 00:26:12,240
Speaker 1: But interesting too that it ends up connecting to bathrooms

460
00:26:12,240 --> 00:26:14,040
Speaker 1: because there are a lot of yokai and you were

461
00:26:14,200 --> 00:26:17,760
Speaker 1: that seem to be associated with the fear of young

462
00:26:17,800 --> 00:26:22,560
Speaker 1: people venturing into perhaps dank or quiet bathroom areas.

463
00:26:22,960 --> 00:26:25,159
Speaker 3: Oh Man have we ever done a Halloween episode on

464
00:26:25,600 --> 00:26:28,240
Speaker 3: scary bathrooms? I feel like that should be a series.

465
00:26:28,600 --> 00:26:30,760
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, that would be a good one. There are

466
00:26:30,760 --> 00:26:33,119
Speaker 1: a number of yokai that line up with that.

467
00:26:33,440 --> 00:26:35,720
Speaker 3: Wait, do we have everything planned for this month? Maybe

468
00:26:35,720 --> 00:26:37,680
Speaker 3: we should sub that in. That's a pinch hit.

469
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:40,080
Speaker 1: Oh, we'll see. We'll have to look at the calendar.

470
00:26:40,320 --> 00:26:40,679
Speaker 3: Okay.

471
00:26:41,040 --> 00:26:43,880
Speaker 1: Now, there's also a railway tunnel said to be haunted

472
00:26:44,160 --> 00:26:48,120
Speaker 1: joe Mon Tunnel and Hokkaido, said to be haunted by

473
00:26:48,359 --> 00:26:53,560
Speaker 1: laborers who died in its early twentieth century construction, laborers

474
00:26:53,600 --> 00:26:56,600
Speaker 1: who were then either buried on site or walled up

475
00:26:56,600 --> 00:27:00,440
Speaker 1: in the tunnel or side shafts, and for this reason

476
00:27:00,680 --> 00:27:03,480
Speaker 1: it's also it also has another name, and that is

477
00:27:03,680 --> 00:27:08,639
Speaker 1: Hito Bashira tunnel, a term referring to an ancient Japanese

478
00:27:08,680 --> 00:27:14,119
Speaker 1: form of foundation burial, premature burial, and human sacrifice that

479
00:27:14,200 --> 00:27:18,439
Speaker 1: traces back to ancient Chinese practices. The concept here is

480
00:27:18,960 --> 00:27:22,120
Speaker 1: that such a sacrifice is necessary to appease the gods

481
00:27:22,440 --> 00:27:25,879
Speaker 1: on large scale construction projects, to prevent them from failing

482
00:27:26,119 --> 00:27:29,760
Speaker 1: or falling to the elements and natural disasters and so

483
00:27:29,800 --> 00:27:35,920
Speaker 1: forth later on. According to Andrea D. Antoni in Down

484
00:27:36,000 --> 00:27:40,159
Speaker 1: in a Whole twenty nineteen Japan Review, archaeological evidence suggests

485
00:27:40,200 --> 00:27:42,159
Speaker 1: that the practice was used maybe as late as the

486
00:27:42,200 --> 00:27:46,280
Speaker 1: sixteenth century in Japan now standard CAAVIAT. Anytime we bring

487
00:27:46,320 --> 00:27:51,359
Speaker 1: up particular historical cultural examples of human sacrifice, we have

488
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:53,960
Speaker 1: to drive home that you can find examples of human

489
00:27:54,000 --> 00:27:57,160
Speaker 1: sacrifice in all ancient cultures. And there are many examples

490
00:27:57,200 --> 00:28:00,919
Speaker 1: of foundation burial human or others wise you can find

491
00:28:01,119 --> 00:28:04,920
Speaker 1: in different cultures around the world. But in Japanese usage,

492
00:28:04,960 --> 00:28:09,760
Speaker 1: the term hitobashira, meaning human pillar itself, can also refer

493
00:28:09,840 --> 00:28:12,959
Speaker 1: to laborers who end up buried or dying in one

494
00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:16,640
Speaker 1: of these construction projects just due to bad working conditions,

495
00:28:17,160 --> 00:28:19,159
Speaker 1: and this seems to be the case with Joe Mun Tunnel.

496
00:28:19,480 --> 00:28:23,640
Speaker 1: And this leads to various ghost stories that invoke actual

497
00:28:23,960 --> 00:28:27,560
Speaker 1: ritual premature burial. So to read more on this, so

498
00:28:27,600 --> 00:28:30,040
Speaker 1: it turned to one of the books that Heroko Yoda

499
00:28:30,080 --> 00:28:33,560
Speaker 1: and Matt Alt wrote. I reference to these a lot.

500
00:28:33,680 --> 00:28:35,760
Speaker 1: They wrote one on ninjas, they wrote one on Yokai,

501
00:28:35,760 --> 00:28:36,840
Speaker 1: and they wrote one on Yuri.

502
00:28:37,119 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 3: Well.

503
00:28:37,280 --> 00:28:40,120
Speaker 1: In the Yuri book Yuri Attack, they point out that

504
00:28:40,160 --> 00:28:44,880
Speaker 1: officials initially dismissed these accounts for years that Jomun Tunnel

505
00:28:45,480 --> 00:28:48,960
Speaker 1: was haunted or had humans buried in the walls, until

506
00:28:49,200 --> 00:28:53,520
Speaker 1: around nineteen seventy. That's when there were repairs underway following

507
00:28:53,560 --> 00:28:56,200
Speaker 1: a nineteen sixty eight earthquake that it damaged the tunnel,

508
00:28:56,560 --> 00:28:59,680
Speaker 1: and skeletons were discovered in the walls of the tunnel,

509
00:29:00,000 --> 00:29:03,640
Speaker 1: apparently in a standing position, and dozens more were buried

510
00:29:03,680 --> 00:29:07,360
Speaker 1: outside of the tunnel. Some accounts say hundreds of some

511
00:29:07,440 --> 00:29:11,760
Speaker 1: seem to point towards a far lesser but still disturbing

512
00:29:11,760 --> 00:29:12,720
Speaker 1: amount of skeletons.

513
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:13,240
Speaker 3: Wow.

514
00:29:13,680 --> 00:29:16,720
Speaker 1: Now, I don't think any serious historians suggest that early

515
00:29:16,760 --> 00:29:19,720
Speaker 1: twentieth century construction of this tunnel made use of ritual

516
00:29:19,800 --> 00:29:23,560
Speaker 1: human sacrifice, but rather that the skeletal remains, as well

517
00:29:23,600 --> 00:29:27,120
Speaker 1: as some physical evidence and accounts involving the construction of

518
00:29:27,160 --> 00:29:29,200
Speaker 1: the tunnel point out that it was a difficult tunnel

519
00:29:29,240 --> 00:29:34,560
Speaker 1: project with many accidents, and that the working conditions were dangerous.

520
00:29:35,280 --> 00:29:38,960
Speaker 1: And Andrea D'Antoni, in the paper I say it previously,

521
00:29:39,000 --> 00:29:43,160
Speaker 1: also discusses the probability that these were forced laborers as well.

522
00:29:44,800 --> 00:29:47,680
Speaker 1: So not a ghost train, but a ghost train tunnel.

523
00:29:48,320 --> 00:29:51,480
Speaker 3: Is there any known modern folklore about this like, do

524
00:29:51,520 --> 00:29:55,240
Speaker 3: people believe there are hauntings related to this tunnel? Yeah.

525
00:29:55,320 --> 00:29:59,240
Speaker 1: I think the idea is in these have persisted for

526
00:29:59,280 --> 00:30:02,840
Speaker 1: a while that if you trip, you're traveling through that tunnel,

527
00:30:02,880 --> 00:30:06,920
Speaker 1: you might hear strange sounds, maybe see strange sites, but

528
00:30:07,040 --> 00:30:11,320
Speaker 1: certainly sounds. So there is a tradition of it being haunted,

529
00:30:12,080 --> 00:30:14,640
Speaker 1: and as that paper that I cited points out, it's

530
00:30:14,640 --> 00:30:17,400
Speaker 1: also become sort of a focal point for what the

531
00:30:17,440 --> 00:30:20,720
Speaker 1: author calls dark tourism, where people actually seek it out.

532
00:30:21,120 --> 00:30:23,920
Speaker 1: And we have plenty of examples of this obviously in

533
00:30:23,960 --> 00:30:28,560
Speaker 1: other places around the world. Haunted castles, haunted cabins, haunted

534
00:30:28,680 --> 00:30:31,280
Speaker 1: locations that have some sort of dark history, and they

535
00:30:31,280 --> 00:30:33,480
Speaker 1: become a target for dark tourism.

536
00:30:34,040 --> 00:30:36,760
Speaker 3: I'm a sucker for a ghost tour, even a cheesy one.

537
00:30:37,080 --> 00:30:39,760
Speaker 1: Yeah. I am glad you mentioned that, because that is

538
00:30:39,800 --> 00:30:43,280
Speaker 1: one of the problems about research and ghost trains is

539
00:30:43,320 --> 00:30:46,320
Speaker 1: that you have actual traditions of ghost trains, and then

540
00:30:46,320 --> 00:30:50,680
Speaker 1: you have plenty of trains, either actual or maybe almost

541
00:30:50,720 --> 00:30:54,760
Speaker 1: trains that do like ghost Halloween related events.

542
00:30:54,400 --> 00:30:56,920
Speaker 3: In rocket Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.

543
00:30:57,200 --> 00:31:00,600
Speaker 1: It kind of messes with your search results sometimes.

544
00:31:01,000 --> 00:31:03,000
Speaker 3: Oh I bet a train could make a really good

545
00:31:03,040 --> 00:31:05,720
Speaker 3: haunted house, though, you know, because it's already like lineary

546
00:31:05,960 --> 00:31:08,440
Speaker 3: moving through it. I don't know. Then again, is the

547
00:31:09,080 --> 00:31:11,760
Speaker 3: terrain of the inside of a train varied enough?

548
00:31:12,240 --> 00:31:17,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think serious professional haunt designers would probably argue

549
00:31:17,920 --> 00:31:20,720
Speaker 1: that you just don't have enough room to move people

550
00:31:20,760 --> 00:31:24,880
Speaker 1: around and have the various distractions and frights. But you know,

551
00:31:24,960 --> 00:31:28,160
Speaker 1: it's like a simple haunted house and there's a one

552
00:31:28,200 --> 00:31:31,240
Speaker 1: off gimmick, I'd be down for it. Haunted subway train,

553
00:31:31,440 --> 00:31:32,480
Speaker 1: that's great, let's do it.

554
00:31:33,080 --> 00:31:36,360
Speaker 3: Okay, So we've talked about shape shifting, tanuki's pretending to

555
00:31:36,400 --> 00:31:40,240
Speaker 3: be trains, We've talked about haunted train tunnels, But what

556
00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:44,120
Speaker 3: about just like a full on spectral train, a train

557
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:47,080
Speaker 3: that is like a wandering ghost in itself in that

558
00:31:47,160 --> 00:31:50,280
Speaker 3: people seem to see or hear it passing by them

559
00:31:50,320 --> 00:31:53,320
Speaker 3: along the tracks, and it turns out there's no physical

560
00:31:53,360 --> 00:31:53,960
Speaker 3: train there.

561
00:31:54,560 --> 00:32:01,120
Speaker 1: Well, all aboard for Lincoln's funeral train, the spectral because

562
00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:04,800
Speaker 1: there was an actual Lincoln funeral train because in eighteen

563
00:32:04,880 --> 00:32:08,840
Speaker 1: sixty five, after the assassination of the US President, funeral

564
00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:12,200
Speaker 1: services were held, his body laid in state, and then

565
00:32:12,520 --> 00:32:16,640
Speaker 1: a funeral train transported his body at low speeds through

566
00:32:16,720 --> 00:32:20,840
Speaker 1: seven states to be buried in Springfield, Illinois. A pilot

567
00:32:20,880 --> 00:32:23,280
Speaker 1: train went ahead of the nine car funeral train to

568
00:32:23,320 --> 00:32:25,800
Speaker 1: make sure the tracks were clear. And you know then

569
00:32:25,800 --> 00:32:29,120
Speaker 1: people you know heard this go by or gathered to

570
00:32:29,120 --> 00:32:31,840
Speaker 1: watch it go by included a map for you hear

571
00:32:31,920 --> 00:32:35,760
Speaker 1: Joe showing all the different cities it hit on the way.

572
00:32:36,280 --> 00:32:38,400
Speaker 3: Right, so it was not a direct route. It went

573
00:32:38,520 --> 00:32:42,560
Speaker 3: up from Washington, d C. Through Maryland, Pennsylvania, New Jersey,

574
00:32:42,600 --> 00:32:46,520
Speaker 3: and New York and then background upstate New York to

575
00:32:46,560 --> 00:32:49,200
Speaker 3: the through like Albany and Buffalo, and then down through Ohio,

576
00:32:49,360 --> 00:32:51,200
Speaker 3: Indiana and finally Illinois.

577
00:32:51,520 --> 00:32:53,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, they could. You could really do like a band

578
00:32:53,600 --> 00:32:57,760
Speaker 1: tour t shirt for this. I would be tempted to

579
00:32:57,760 --> 00:32:59,520
Speaker 1: create one if we were more of like a US

580
00:32:59,680 --> 00:33:04,240
Speaker 1: history podcast and not Science and Culture. Now, the ghost

581
00:33:04,320 --> 00:33:08,160
Speaker 1: train story here allegedly dates back to the thirties and forties,

582
00:33:08,520 --> 00:33:13,960
Speaker 1: and it involves a spectral version of this train continuing

583
00:33:14,000 --> 00:33:17,560
Speaker 1: to make this journey once a year in April and

584
00:33:17,640 --> 00:33:20,520
Speaker 1: stopping clocks and watches on the way. And I think

585
00:33:20,560 --> 00:33:23,240
Speaker 1: a lot of these are also these sightings where are

586
00:33:23,240 --> 00:33:26,160
Speaker 1: located in New York and in fact. One of the

587
00:33:26,200 --> 00:33:29,280
Speaker 1: main sources on this that everyone points to this is

588
00:33:29,320 --> 00:33:33,600
Speaker 1: a nineteen forty five article in New York History by

589
00:33:33,920 --> 00:33:38,400
Speaker 1: folklorist Louis C. Jonas Session titled some Historic Ghosts of

590
00:33:38,440 --> 00:33:38,880
Speaker 1: New York.

591
00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:40,040
Speaker 3: Okay, let's hear it.

592
00:33:40,520 --> 00:33:43,640
Speaker 1: The author writes, the first train is followed by a second,

593
00:33:43,760 --> 00:33:47,080
Speaker 1: this time with a single flat car draped as is

594
00:33:47,120 --> 00:33:49,479
Speaker 1: the one before it, But on this car is a

595
00:33:49,480 --> 00:33:53,480
Speaker 1: lonely coffin, nothing more, neither ghost nor skeleton. As the

596
00:33:53,520 --> 00:33:57,080
Speaker 1: train approaches, a black carpet seems to unroll along the

597
00:33:57,160 --> 00:34:01,160
Speaker 1: track before it, and all sound, even the passing of frights,

598
00:34:01,520 --> 00:34:05,080
Speaker 1: is blanketed. Men know which day and spring the ghost

599
00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:08,479
Speaker 1: train has passed through. For all clocks stop and wait

600
00:34:08,600 --> 00:34:11,320
Speaker 1: five to eight minutes before they begin again.

601
00:34:12,040 --> 00:34:14,200
Speaker 3: Now, this seems to me to be, at least as

602
00:34:14,200 --> 00:34:17,360
Speaker 3: far as I know, a really unusual kind of ghost story,

603
00:34:17,400 --> 00:34:21,120
Speaker 3: because ghost stories are typically very local. You know, it's like,

604
00:34:21,200 --> 00:34:24,960
Speaker 3: here's the local phenomenon. The locals claim to have seen it,

605
00:34:25,080 --> 00:34:27,960
Speaker 3: or maybe people who come to visit, but it's tied

606
00:34:28,000 --> 00:34:31,200
Speaker 3: to a specific location. This is going cross country, it's

607
00:34:31,239 --> 00:34:33,640
Speaker 3: going all over the place, going through New York and

608
00:34:34,000 --> 00:34:36,400
Speaker 3: saying stopping clocks as it goes along.

609
00:34:36,960 --> 00:34:39,719
Speaker 1: Well, I mean, that's the story. But then I guess

610
00:34:39,760 --> 00:34:42,000
Speaker 1: we have to keep in mind that the story itself

611
00:34:42,040 --> 00:34:45,080
Speaker 1: could be very local. That's true, and you know, it

612
00:34:45,120 --> 00:34:47,520
Speaker 1: could be isolated to just parts of New York State,

613
00:34:47,920 --> 00:34:50,520
Speaker 1: but then gets passed on as if this is happening everywhere.

614
00:34:51,400 --> 00:34:55,840
Speaker 3: Yeah, because the actual trains route was so long, it

615
00:34:55,880 --> 00:34:58,680
Speaker 3: gives the impression that it's all along the tracks, but

616
00:34:58,719 --> 00:35:01,680
Speaker 3: it could be. Yeah, like you're saying, just a local story.

617
00:35:02,239 --> 00:35:04,879
Speaker 1: Now, this particular ghost story, it's interesting in a number

618
00:35:04,920 --> 00:35:08,279
Speaker 1: of ways. On one hand, it does seem to kind

619
00:35:08,320 --> 00:35:11,719
Speaker 1: of line up with ancient folkloric traditions of the procession

620
00:35:11,760 --> 00:35:15,120
Speaker 1: of the dead, in which souls proceed along a road

621
00:35:15,200 --> 00:35:18,920
Speaker 1: or path bound for the underworld. And of course this

622
00:35:19,000 --> 00:35:21,560
Speaker 1: matches up nicely with some of the ideas we discussed about,

623
00:35:21,560 --> 00:35:23,839
Speaker 1: like why the train is captivating. You know, the idea

624
00:35:23,840 --> 00:35:26,160
Speaker 1: of it is fate at is point A to point B,

625
00:35:26,239 --> 00:35:28,640
Speaker 1: there's no getting off, and in this case, the train

626
00:35:28,760 --> 00:35:31,600
Speaker 1: is bound for the underworld or the afterlife, or the

627
00:35:31,640 --> 00:35:33,480
Speaker 1: great beyond in one form or the other.

628
00:35:33,960 --> 00:35:36,800
Speaker 3: Also tying into the uniqueness of tunnels, passing into that

629
00:35:36,960 --> 00:35:38,120
Speaker 3: literally under the earth.

630
00:35:38,239 --> 00:35:42,400
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you can. You can also line this up

631
00:35:42,400 --> 00:35:46,360
Speaker 1: with traditions of the wild hunt, and you know, in

632
00:35:46,400 --> 00:35:49,480
Speaker 1: another other traditions of the procession of the dead, which

633
00:35:49,520 --> 00:35:54,320
Speaker 1: sometimes are more malicious, you know, it's the dam going

634
00:35:54,320 --> 00:35:56,360
Speaker 1: into hell, and other times it's more solemn.

635
00:35:56,400 --> 00:35:56,600
Speaker 3: You know.

636
00:35:57,160 --> 00:35:59,040
Speaker 1: It's hard to say exactly how we're supposed to feel

637
00:35:59,200 --> 00:36:02,960
Speaker 1: about Lincoln's ghost train. The author here in the nineteen

638
00:36:02,960 --> 00:36:06,279
Speaker 1: forty five paper is is light on interpretation, but I

639
00:36:06,400 --> 00:36:08,839
Speaker 1: get the impression that it's meant to be somber, kind

640
00:36:08,840 --> 00:36:13,320
Speaker 1: of a folkloric expression of communal shock and grief, aligned

641
00:36:13,520 --> 00:36:17,120
Speaker 1: perhaps to sightings of unidentified trains or strange sites and

642
00:36:17,200 --> 00:36:19,000
Speaker 1: sounds by the tracks and so forth.

643
00:36:20,040 --> 00:36:22,440
Speaker 3: That's interesting. I'm a little curious. I don't know if

644
00:36:22,480 --> 00:36:24,520
Speaker 3: you know what to make of this, but I'm curious

645
00:36:24,600 --> 00:36:30,200
Speaker 3: why the description from Jonah Session mentions that the train

646
00:36:30,320 --> 00:36:33,000
Speaker 3: is moving along and it only has the coffin, and

647
00:36:33,080 --> 00:36:36,920
Speaker 3: it says no skeleton. Would people be expecting to see

648
00:36:36,920 --> 00:36:37,719
Speaker 3: the skeleton?

649
00:36:38,800 --> 00:36:41,239
Speaker 1: I guess they wanted. I guess the author's trying to

650
00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:44,480
Speaker 1: drive home the idea that it's that it's tasteful.

651
00:36:44,640 --> 00:36:47,799
Speaker 3: I don't know, you know, it almost seems like it's

652
00:36:47,840 --> 00:36:51,680
Speaker 3: like a very respectful ghost story, you know, and keeping

653
00:36:51,719 --> 00:36:55,640
Speaker 3: with presidential decorum. It's like, no gory details, no signs

654
00:36:55,640 --> 00:36:58,560
Speaker 3: of decay. You're just seeing the coffin. It's just a box. Yeah.

655
00:36:58,800 --> 00:37:01,400
Speaker 1: No, there's no like ghost's going to get you. Yes,

656
00:37:02,440 --> 00:37:07,080
Speaker 1: it does seem to be more of this expression of

657
00:37:07,560 --> 00:37:08,720
Speaker 1: communal shock and grief.

658
00:37:09,000 --> 00:37:09,800
Speaker 3: Yeah.

659
00:37:09,920 --> 00:37:12,080
Speaker 1: Now, as an aside, though, it is worth noting that

660
00:37:12,120 --> 00:37:15,520
Speaker 1: Lincoln's personal ghost, not just his train, has long been

661
00:37:15,600 --> 00:37:18,520
Speaker 1: said to haunt the White House, as well as various

662
00:37:18,560 --> 00:37:23,680
Speaker 1: former residences of Araham Lincoln and offices that the sixteenth

663
00:37:23,800 --> 00:37:27,200
Speaker 1: US president held or occupied for some amount of time.

664
00:37:27,560 --> 00:37:29,839
Speaker 1: This of course raises all sorts of questions about how

665
00:37:29,840 --> 00:37:33,360
Speaker 1: many places the ghost of a single person can manifest in.

666
00:37:34,440 --> 00:37:36,640
Speaker 1: But I would if we were to believe all of

667
00:37:36,640 --> 00:37:38,200
Speaker 1: these accounts, it would seem like a lot.

668
00:37:39,000 --> 00:37:41,080
Speaker 3: It's got to go both ways, right, Like how many

669
00:37:41,320 --> 00:37:43,920
Speaker 3: different places can one ghost be in? And also how

670
00:37:43,960 --> 00:37:46,560
Speaker 3: many different ghosts can be in one house? I would

671
00:37:46,719 --> 00:37:48,720
Speaker 3: guess the White House probably has a lot.

672
00:37:49,239 --> 00:37:52,920
Speaker 1: They do. Now, we know from our media consumption that

673
00:37:52,960 --> 00:37:55,720
Speaker 1: the maximum number of ghosts in a given location is thirteen,

674
00:37:56,280 --> 00:37:58,719
Speaker 1: So I haven't done a full count, so Joe, you're

675
00:37:58,719 --> 00:38:00,919
Speaker 1: gonna have to count them as I proceed here.

676
00:38:01,080 --> 00:38:03,120
Speaker 3: Okay, I'll be your Matthew Lillard.

677
00:38:03,840 --> 00:38:07,640
Speaker 1: According to the White House Historical Society, the White House

678
00:38:07,719 --> 00:38:11,320
Speaker 1: ghosts include the following. In addition to Abraham Lincoln, so

679
00:38:11,400 --> 00:38:13,520
Speaker 1: let's go ahead and count him as one, we also

680
00:38:13,600 --> 00:38:16,239
Speaker 1: have Willie Lincoln, his son who actually died in the

681
00:38:16,239 --> 00:38:19,960
Speaker 1: White House in eighteen sixty two, of typhoid fever, Mary Lincoln,

682
00:38:20,000 --> 00:38:25,520
Speaker 1: as well Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson, Dolly Madison, John Tyler,

683
00:38:25,960 --> 00:38:29,160
Speaker 1: William Henry Harrison, first president to die in the White House,

684
00:38:29,480 --> 00:38:34,719
Speaker 1: Abigail Adams, former landowner of the essentially the property there,

685
00:38:34,880 --> 00:38:40,080
Speaker 1: David Burns, Anna Seurrett, mother of Lincoln assassination conspirator Mary Sewrett,

686
00:38:40,320 --> 00:38:44,240
Speaker 1: also an unnamed British soldier Jeremiah Smith, and then finally,

687
00:38:44,600 --> 00:38:47,080
Speaker 1: the ghost of a fifteen year old boy known only

688
00:38:47,120 --> 00:38:50,360
Speaker 1: as the Thing according to reports around nineteen eleven.

689
00:38:51,000 --> 00:38:53,440
Speaker 3: Wow, I would not have guessed that many. And also like,

690
00:38:53,760 --> 00:38:56,800
Speaker 3: didn't most of these people not actually die in the

691
00:38:56,840 --> 00:38:57,480
Speaker 3: White House?

692
00:38:57,680 --> 00:39:02,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, most of them didn't, So raises questions like do

693
00:39:02,719 --> 00:39:04,560
Speaker 1: you have to die somewhere? To haunt that place, or

694
00:39:04,600 --> 00:39:09,120
Speaker 1: you can just have important associations with that place. Hard

695
00:39:09,120 --> 00:39:10,800
Speaker 1: to say, but did we hit thirteen? No?

696
00:39:10,960 --> 00:39:14,479
Speaker 3: I failed in my mission. I forgot to count. There's

697
00:39:14,480 --> 00:39:16,560
Speaker 3: got to be okay estimate.

698
00:39:16,680 --> 00:39:21,640
Speaker 1: Yes, Nixon's ghost, by the way, was not listed, though

699
00:39:21,760 --> 00:39:24,520
Speaker 1: Nixon's ghost, of course, has appeared on The Simpsons. Yes,

700
00:39:25,360 --> 00:39:28,000
Speaker 1: so I was not familiar with Lincoln's ghost train before.

701
00:39:28,040 --> 00:39:29,640
Speaker 1: I don't know if this I don't know to what

702
00:39:29,760 --> 00:39:34,080
Speaker 1: extent this is still an active bit of a folklore.

703
00:39:34,560 --> 00:39:37,319
Speaker 1: This is active ghost story, an active ghost story at all.

704
00:39:37,640 --> 00:39:40,839
Speaker 1: I don't know when the most recent alleged sighting of

705
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:44,359
Speaker 1: Lincoln's ghost train occurred. So this is definitely a case

706
00:39:44,360 --> 00:39:46,279
Speaker 1: where I'd love to hear from anyone out there. Were

707
00:39:46,280 --> 00:39:50,040
Speaker 1: you aware with the tradition of Lincoln's ghost train? Were

708
00:39:50,080 --> 00:39:54,600
Speaker 1: you aware of it like organically and have you ever

709
00:39:54,640 --> 00:39:56,400
Speaker 1: seen it? I definitely want to hear from anyone who

710
00:39:56,440 --> 00:40:00,960
Speaker 1: has seen Lincoln's ghost train as it proceeds spectrally, stopping clocks,

711
00:40:01,920 --> 00:40:04,600
Speaker 1: you know, along the train line or anywhere. I mean,

712
00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:07,400
Speaker 1: that's another question, like does it have to if this

713
00:40:07,440 --> 00:40:10,200
Speaker 1: is a ghost train, does it have to adhere to

714
00:40:10,280 --> 00:40:13,720
Speaker 1: the previous itinerary or can it just pop up anywhere?

715
00:40:13,760 --> 00:40:15,440
Speaker 1: Can it pop up in the New York Subway? I

716
00:40:15,480 --> 00:40:15,799
Speaker 1: don't know.

717
00:40:16,880 --> 00:40:20,640
Speaker 3: Yeah, if ghosts of human bodies can walk through walls,

718
00:40:20,719 --> 00:40:24,160
Speaker 3: which regular human bodies cannot do, can ghost trains leave

719
00:40:24,200 --> 00:40:27,520
Speaker 3: the tracks which regular trains cannot do? Maybe? So?

720
00:40:27,680 --> 00:40:29,520
Speaker 1: I mean the polar Express pulls out in front of

721
00:40:29,520 --> 00:40:32,759
Speaker 1: the Boy's house, right, So yeah, it shows that anything is.

722
00:40:32,719 --> 00:40:45,359
Speaker 3: Possible, all right. Next, I wanted to talk about some

723
00:40:45,600 --> 00:40:52,439
Speaker 3: connections between railroad lore and so called ghost lights. There

724
00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:56,320
Speaker 3: are a number of connections of this kind in stories

725
00:40:56,360 --> 00:40:59,319
Speaker 3: from all throughout the United States and I believe some

726
00:40:59,400 --> 00:41:02,440
Speaker 3: other countries as well. But there really are a lot

727
00:41:02,440 --> 00:41:05,200
Speaker 3: of these that I'm aware of in US traditions. You

728
00:41:05,200 --> 00:41:09,560
Speaker 3: can find them in little local legends from places all

729
00:41:09,600 --> 00:41:12,839
Speaker 3: around the country. And in reading about them, I came

730
00:41:12,880 --> 00:41:15,120
Speaker 3: to notice that in a lot of these stories, the

731
00:41:15,800 --> 00:41:19,359
Speaker 3: so called ghost light is not actually said to come

732
00:41:19,400 --> 00:41:22,359
Speaker 3: from a train itself. In a few cases it is,

733
00:41:22,400 --> 00:41:25,400
Speaker 3: but in a lot of cases there's another source. So

734
00:41:25,480 --> 00:41:28,600
Speaker 3: here's one example I wanted to talk about. That is

735
00:41:28,719 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 3: the Maco ghost Light. So there's a famous railway ghost

736
00:41:33,080 --> 00:41:38,400
Speaker 3: light associated with a small community in southeastern North Carolina

737
00:41:38,880 --> 00:41:42,640
Speaker 3: called Maco, which is just outside of the city of Wilmington.

738
00:41:43,880 --> 00:41:47,399
Speaker 3: And to establish the alleged origin of this story, I'm

739
00:41:47,360 --> 00:41:50,080
Speaker 3: going to turn to a book by a scholar named

740
00:41:50,160 --> 00:41:55,200
Speaker 3: Richard Wallzer. This was This book is called North Carolina Legends,

741
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:58,320
Speaker 3: published by the North Carolina Division of Archives in history

742
00:41:58,440 --> 00:42:01,040
Speaker 3: in the year nineteen eighty. And here's what Wallser says.

743
00:42:01,800 --> 00:42:05,560
Speaker 3: At a small Brunswick County station of Mako, fifteen miles

744
00:42:05,600 --> 00:42:09,439
Speaker 3: west of Wilmington, a slow freight train was puffing down

745
00:42:09,480 --> 00:42:14,120
Speaker 3: the track. In the caboose was Joe Baldwin, a flagman.

746
00:42:14,920 --> 00:42:17,960
Speaker 3: A jerking noise startled him, and he was aware that

747
00:42:18,000 --> 00:42:21,320
Speaker 3: his caboose had become uncoupled from the rest of the train,

748
00:42:21,680 --> 00:42:26,240
Speaker 3: which went heedlessly on its way. As the caboose slackened speed,

749
00:42:26,640 --> 00:42:29,880
Speaker 3: Joe looked up and saw the beaming light of a

750
00:42:29,960 --> 00:42:34,440
Speaker 3: fast passenger train bearing down upon him. Grabbing his lantern,

751
00:42:34,480 --> 00:42:37,759
Speaker 3: he waved it frantically to warn the oncoming engineer of

752
00:42:37,800 --> 00:42:41,400
Speaker 3: the imminent danger. It was too late. At a trestle

753
00:42:41,440 --> 00:42:44,960
Speaker 3: over the swamp, the passenger train plowed into the caboose.

754
00:42:45,400 --> 00:42:49,600
Speaker 3: Joe was decapitated. His head flew into the swamp on

755
00:42:49,600 --> 00:42:52,279
Speaker 3: one side of the track, his lantern on the other.

756
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:55,640
Speaker 3: It was days before the destruction caused by the wreck

757
00:42:55,760 --> 00:42:58,880
Speaker 3: was cleared away, and when Joe's head could not be found,

758
00:42:59,040 --> 00:43:04,200
Speaker 3: his body was buried without it. But the story does

759
00:43:04,239 --> 00:43:08,600
Speaker 3: not end there because Wallser says that thereafter, say on

760
00:43:08,719 --> 00:43:13,000
Speaker 3: misty nights, people would see a light in the darkness

761
00:43:13,080 --> 00:43:17,759
Speaker 3: that was attributed to the ghost of Joe Baldwin, the

762
00:43:17,880 --> 00:43:21,480
Speaker 3: headless ghost wandering around in the swamp or along the

763
00:43:21,520 --> 00:43:25,440
Speaker 3: train tracks looking for his head. Now, some versions of

764
00:43:25,440 --> 00:43:27,680
Speaker 3: the story say that there's like a single light that

765
00:43:27,800 --> 00:43:31,880
Speaker 3: swings back and forth like a lantern, moving through the country,

766
00:43:32,640 --> 00:43:35,200
Speaker 3: and as it gets closer and closer to the observer,

767
00:43:35,320 --> 00:43:37,520
Speaker 3: it gets brighter and brighter until it kind of like

768
00:43:37,640 --> 00:43:41,560
Speaker 3: flares up and turns into this big brilliance and then

769
00:43:41,719 --> 00:43:46,040
Speaker 3: just poofs disappears. There are other versions of the story

770
00:43:46,080 --> 00:43:49,200
Speaker 3: that say that you might see like two lights maybe

771
00:43:49,239 --> 00:43:52,120
Speaker 3: going toward one another, as if you know, one is

772
00:43:52,160 --> 00:43:54,600
Speaker 3: the light from the caboo swinging to worn and then

773
00:43:54,640 --> 00:43:57,440
Speaker 3: the other is the light of the approaching train, and

774
00:43:57,480 --> 00:44:01,120
Speaker 3: then eventually they cross because I guess they're both ghosts

775
00:44:01,160 --> 00:44:05,919
Speaker 3: in this case, so railroad ghost lore and a ghost light.

776
00:44:06,160 --> 00:44:09,080
Speaker 3: But in most cases the ghost light is not thought

777
00:44:09,120 --> 00:44:12,040
Speaker 3: to be the train itself. Rather, it's the lantern of

778
00:44:12,080 --> 00:44:16,440
Speaker 3: this man who was killed in a terrible train accident. Now,

779
00:44:16,560 --> 00:44:21,160
Speaker 3: a claim famously repeated all over in many sources is

780
00:44:21,239 --> 00:44:23,960
Speaker 3: that here we come back to US presidential history, that

781
00:44:24,280 --> 00:44:29,080
Speaker 3: US President Grover Cleveland, who was famously present the only

782
00:44:29,120 --> 00:44:32,920
Speaker 3: president to have two non consecutive terms, so he was

783
00:44:32,960 --> 00:44:36,120
Speaker 3: president from eighteen eighty five to eighteen eighty nine and

784
00:44:36,160 --> 00:44:39,160
Speaker 3: then again from eighteen ninety three to ninety seven, that

785
00:44:39,280 --> 00:44:44,320
Speaker 3: Cleveland personally witnessed the Maco Ghost Light. And I thought

786
00:44:44,320 --> 00:44:47,480
Speaker 3: that was kind of interesting. He allegedly enjoyed the story

787
00:44:47,520 --> 00:44:49,960
Speaker 3: and talked about the Maco Ghost Light in some of

788
00:44:49,960 --> 00:44:53,480
Speaker 3: his speeches. But I was reading some follow up about

789
00:44:53,480 --> 00:44:57,080
Speaker 3: this in an article for the Wilmington Star News by

790
00:44:57,120 --> 00:45:01,160
Speaker 3: Ben Steelman. The article was titled did Grover Cleveland ever

791
00:45:01,200 --> 00:45:04,160
Speaker 3: see the make O Light? And despite the number of

792
00:45:04,239 --> 00:45:07,880
Speaker 3: sources that spread this claim, especially in more recent decades,

793
00:45:08,400 --> 00:45:13,200
Speaker 3: investigation of older sources reveals actually something quite different. So

794
00:45:13,520 --> 00:45:17,720
Speaker 3: Steelman mentions a feature in the Sunday Star News from

795
00:45:17,800 --> 00:45:23,520
Speaker 3: March twenty eighth, nineteen forty eight, which says that according

796
00:45:23,520 --> 00:45:28,080
Speaker 3: to records, Cleveland was traveling on the Wilmington, Manchester and

797
00:45:28,120 --> 00:45:31,799
Speaker 3: Augusta railroad. Sometimes I think this was sometime between his

798
00:45:31,920 --> 00:45:36,960
Speaker 3: two non consecutive presidential terms, when the train stopped somewhere

799
00:45:37,040 --> 00:45:40,680
Speaker 3: to refill its water reserves, and according to this article,

800
00:45:40,760 --> 00:45:43,400
Speaker 3: Cleveland got out of the train during the stop to

801
00:45:43,440 --> 00:45:46,799
Speaker 3: take a walk, during which he noticed the conductor was

802
00:45:46,880 --> 00:45:51,719
Speaker 3: waving two different lights, one green and one white. And

803
00:45:51,800 --> 00:45:54,399
Speaker 3: so he asked the question, why are you waving two

804
00:45:54,520 --> 00:45:58,720
Speaker 3: lanterns instead of one? And someone explained to the president

805
00:45:58,840 --> 00:46:03,920
Speaker 3: the story of Joe Baldwin and said that because Baldwin was,

806
00:46:03,960 --> 00:46:05,880
Speaker 3: you know, always out here looking for his head with

807
00:46:05,960 --> 00:46:10,040
Speaker 3: one light, railway workers had to use two lights on

808
00:46:10,080 --> 00:46:14,880
Speaker 3: this stretch, two different colored lights to signal other trains.

809
00:46:15,200 --> 00:46:17,960
Speaker 3: So if you're a train, you know, passing through this

810
00:46:18,040 --> 00:46:21,440
Speaker 3: stretch of tracks, you see two different colored lights ahead. Okay,

811
00:46:21,520 --> 00:46:24,319
Speaker 3: that's an actual signal to the approaching trains that we

812
00:46:24,440 --> 00:46:27,440
Speaker 3: need to stop. There's an obstruction on the tracks. But

813
00:46:27,480 --> 00:46:30,800
Speaker 3: if you just see one light, that's just a ghost. Ignore.

814
00:46:31,040 --> 00:46:34,399
Speaker 3: Plow on ahead. It seems almost to have some similarities

815
00:46:34,400 --> 00:46:36,680
Speaker 3: to the Tanuki magic thing. It's like, you know, oh,

816
00:46:36,719 --> 00:46:39,160
Speaker 3: one light, Yeah, don't worry about it, just a ghost

817
00:46:39,160 --> 00:46:40,359
Speaker 3: to go on. Yeah.

818
00:46:40,400 --> 00:46:43,320
Speaker 1: And then also an example of like some of the

819
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:47,279
Speaker 1: haunt loses its power in the face of like modernity

820
00:46:47,360 --> 00:46:49,359
Speaker 1: and logic, where it's like, oh, yeah, there's a ghost

821
00:46:49,400 --> 00:46:50,840
Speaker 1: light out there yet, but it's not. It's not the

822
00:46:50,880 --> 00:46:53,719
Speaker 1: appropriate color, it's not the right code, so it's no

823
00:46:53,760 --> 00:46:54,880
Speaker 1: big deal, just ignore it.

824
00:46:55,120 --> 00:46:57,319
Speaker 3: But I have doubts about this. I don't know. Maybe

825
00:46:57,480 --> 00:47:00,960
Speaker 3: maybe somebody with North Carolina rail road knowledge could set

826
00:47:00,960 --> 00:47:03,399
Speaker 3: me straight, but I just kind of doubt that if

827
00:47:03,440 --> 00:47:06,839
Speaker 3: an engine driver saw one light, they'd be like, ah,

828
00:47:06,840 --> 00:47:12,719
Speaker 3: it's fine, just keep going. Anyway, There's this difference in

829
00:47:12,800 --> 00:47:16,480
Speaker 3: where the Grover Cleveland story lands. Older sources do not

830
00:47:16,680 --> 00:47:19,640
Speaker 3: say that Cleveland actually saw the light, just that somebody

831
00:47:19,719 --> 00:47:23,480
Speaker 3: told him the story, and apparently this got garbled in

832
00:47:23,960 --> 00:47:28,120
Speaker 3: subsequent published retellings beginning in the nineteen forties, and then

833
00:47:28,360 --> 00:47:31,279
Speaker 3: ended up with the legend that a former president had

834
00:47:31,280 --> 00:47:35,960
Speaker 3: seen the ghost himself. However, here things get kind of interesting.

835
00:47:36,480 --> 00:47:41,120
Speaker 3: Steelman also explains the work of a local historian named

836
00:47:41,360 --> 00:47:45,239
Speaker 3: James Burke, not that James Burke a different one who

837
00:47:45,360 --> 00:47:48,960
Speaker 3: had written books on the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad, so

838
00:47:49,040 --> 00:47:53,480
Speaker 3: sort of local railroad historian. And this guy looked into

839
00:47:53,520 --> 00:47:58,080
Speaker 3: the origins of the Joe Baldwin Railroad decapitation story and

840
00:47:58,200 --> 00:48:01,280
Speaker 3: could not find any evidence that the the original story

841
00:48:01,440 --> 00:48:05,160
Speaker 3: ever took place either. In fact, he couldn't find any

842
00:48:05,200 --> 00:48:09,280
Speaker 3: evidence of a person named Joe or Joseph Baldwin living

843
00:48:09,280 --> 00:48:13,200
Speaker 3: around Wilmington at that time. Now, there is something that

844
00:48:13,239 --> 00:48:15,640
Speaker 3: may have gotten distorted here. The Star News article says,

845
00:48:15,719 --> 00:48:19,640
Speaker 3: quote Burke did find accounts, however, of an accident on

846
00:48:19,840 --> 00:48:24,880
Speaker 3: the Wilmington, Manchester and Augusta in January eighteen fifty six

847
00:48:25,400 --> 00:48:29,759
Speaker 3: along a curvy stretch outside Wilmington known as the Rattlesnake

848
00:48:29,920 --> 00:48:34,120
Speaker 3: Grade near Hoods Creek, in which a conductor named Charles

849
00:48:34,239 --> 00:48:38,200
Speaker 3: Baldwin was fatally injured. Burke thinks the details of this

850
00:48:38,360 --> 00:48:43,680
Speaker 3: incident were garbled in the oral tradition of the story. However,

851
00:48:44,320 --> 00:48:47,800
Speaker 3: even this so, this accident could not have taken place

852
00:48:48,200 --> 00:48:52,160
Speaker 3: at anything called the Mako Station because Maco didn't exist

853
00:48:52,200 --> 00:48:55,760
Speaker 3: in eighteen fifty six, so at the time the station

854
00:48:55,880 --> 00:48:59,520
Speaker 3: had a different name. So we've got several different transformations

855
00:48:59,600 --> 00:49:03,000
Speaker 3: of the original story on our hands. Who was injured,

856
00:49:03,360 --> 00:49:08,120
Speaker 3: how when and where, and who allegedly witnessed the ghost.

857
00:49:08,400 --> 00:49:12,160
Speaker 3: All of these got changed in the retelling, which makes

858
00:49:12,160 --> 00:49:15,719
Speaker 3: me think back to our episodes on the Telephone Game.

859
00:49:15,760 --> 00:49:19,920
Speaker 3: You know, the empirical research about how details of stories

860
00:49:19,960 --> 00:49:25,120
Speaker 3: get changed in retellings, the kind of just unavoidable process

861
00:49:25,200 --> 00:49:28,279
Speaker 3: of the transformation of a story, including all of these

862
00:49:28,320 --> 00:49:34,120
Speaker 3: types of key details as it gets repeated and repeated. Yeah. Finally,

863
00:49:34,640 --> 00:49:37,960
Speaker 3: the Wilmington Star News article says, quote, the light was

864
00:49:38,080 --> 00:49:42,160
Speaker 3: unseen after nineteen seventy seven when the CSX line pulled

865
00:49:42,239 --> 00:49:45,640
Speaker 3: up the railroad tracks in the Makeo vicinity. More recently,

866
00:49:45,719 --> 00:49:49,000
Speaker 3: paranormal investigations claimed to have caught evidence of the Mako

867
00:49:49,120 --> 00:49:51,640
Speaker 3: light on camera. And I looked it up, and yeah,

868
00:49:51,640 --> 00:49:54,319
Speaker 3: it does seem recently people have been like looking for

869
00:49:54,440 --> 00:49:56,480
Speaker 3: it out there, trying to get it.

870
00:49:56,960 --> 00:50:00,040
Speaker 1: So, just to be clear, do the Makeo does the

871
00:50:00,080 --> 00:50:01,600
Speaker 1: make A light or the make A lights? Do they

872
00:50:01,640 --> 00:50:04,920
Speaker 1: have the presidential seal of approval here? Do we really

873
00:50:05,160 --> 00:50:06,080
Speaker 1: know one way or another?

874
00:50:06,400 --> 00:50:09,719
Speaker 3: I think we do not know. Okay, the administration has

875
00:50:09,760 --> 00:50:13,879
Speaker 3: been ambiguous on this, but note that this is part

876
00:50:13,920 --> 00:50:18,600
Speaker 3: of a broader phenomenon of ghost lights, which don't always

877
00:50:18,680 --> 00:50:21,719
Speaker 3: necessarily connect to trains. A lot of times they're just disconnected.

878
00:50:22,000 --> 00:50:25,440
Speaker 3: People in a certain vantage point claim to see, or

879
00:50:25,480 --> 00:50:29,000
Speaker 3: in some cases definitely do see lights that don't have

880
00:50:29,040 --> 00:50:32,839
Speaker 3: a very easy to explain origin. We've talked about this

881
00:50:32,880 --> 00:50:35,319
Speaker 3: on the show before. We've gotten into some of the

882
00:50:35,360 --> 00:50:39,960
Speaker 3: main scientific or skeptical explanations where these mysterious lights come from.

883
00:50:40,719 --> 00:50:44,560
Speaker 3: There are a number of different possibilities, but very often

884
00:50:44,640 --> 00:50:48,680
Speaker 3: they're just like reflected lights from normal sources that are

885
00:50:49,520 --> 00:50:52,319
Speaker 3: being seen from farther away than you would imagine they

886
00:50:52,360 --> 00:50:54,719
Speaker 3: could be seen. A lot of times they're like headlights

887
00:50:54,760 --> 00:50:57,759
Speaker 3: from a highway. So, for example, there is another train

888
00:50:57,960 --> 00:51:03,040
Speaker 3: associated ghost light in northern Michigan known as the Paulding Light.

889
00:51:03,120 --> 00:51:05,439
Speaker 3: This is in the Upper Peninsula, and I was reading

890
00:51:05,480 --> 00:51:08,200
Speaker 3: about this. Apparently there was some investigation into this light,

891
00:51:08,280 --> 00:51:11,200
Speaker 3: and finally it turned out that it's car headlights. It's

892
00:51:11,239 --> 00:51:14,200
Speaker 3: car headlights just appearing in a place where you wouldn't

893
00:51:14,200 --> 00:51:16,200
Speaker 3: expect to see them.

894
00:51:16,680 --> 00:51:21,920
Speaker 1: Yeah, growing up, there was some sort of ghost story

895
00:51:22,000 --> 00:51:25,960
Speaker 1: about a local train track light and I never saw it.

896
00:51:26,000 --> 00:51:28,800
Speaker 1: I never sought it out, but I think you encounter

897
00:51:28,880 --> 00:51:30,480
Speaker 1: things like this in a lot of places. And there's

898
00:51:30,560 --> 00:51:35,560
Speaker 1: again some likely spill over between these stories and stories

899
00:51:35,560 --> 00:51:38,520
Speaker 1: of Will of the Wisps and other strange lights in

900
00:51:38,560 --> 00:51:42,319
Speaker 1: the night. We've always had these stories. A lot of

901
00:51:42,320 --> 00:51:47,439
Speaker 1: it comes down to a mix of actual phenomena and

902
00:51:47,520 --> 00:51:52,799
Speaker 1: just our desire to dive into different stories and supernatural

903
00:51:52,840 --> 00:51:54,360
Speaker 1: explanations of what we've seen.

904
00:52:05,800 --> 00:52:07,560
Speaker 3: All Right, Rob, if you don't mind, I want to

905
00:52:07,600 --> 00:52:12,759
Speaker 3: cap our discussion today with a little interesting little invention.

906
00:52:12,960 --> 00:52:17,359
Speaker 3: Note I came across semantically related to ghost trains. So

907
00:52:17,600 --> 00:52:21,240
Speaker 3: back in twenty seventeen, there were some press releases about

908
00:52:21,280 --> 00:52:25,840
Speaker 3: a new invention in development by an employee of Fermi Lab,

909
00:52:26,280 --> 00:52:31,160
Speaker 3: and the invention was called the ghost train generator. Now,

910
00:52:31,200 --> 00:52:33,879
Speaker 3: for those not familiar, Fermi Lab is formerly called the

911
00:52:33,920 --> 00:52:38,279
Speaker 3: Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory. It is a particle physics lab

912
00:52:38,400 --> 00:52:42,640
Speaker 3: high energy particle physics that's housed in Batavia, Illinois, which

913
00:52:42,719 --> 00:52:46,360
Speaker 3: operates under the US Department of Energy. One of my

914
00:52:46,400 --> 00:52:49,120
Speaker 3: main sources here is a Fermi Lab press release by

915
00:52:49,280 --> 00:52:52,960
Speaker 3: Daniel Garristo. So, what on earth would be the purpose

916
00:52:53,000 --> 00:52:57,160
Speaker 3: of something called a ghost train generator? Well, this takes

917
00:52:57,239 --> 00:53:01,200
Speaker 3: us back to the territory of railway obstructions and collisions,

918
00:53:01,360 --> 00:53:06,000
Speaker 3: specifically what happens when a wheeled vehicle like a car

919
00:53:06,200 --> 00:53:10,160
Speaker 3: or truck, gets stuck while crossing railroad tracks and then

920
00:53:10,239 --> 00:53:13,040
Speaker 3: is hit by a train. At the time of this

921
00:53:13,120 --> 00:53:16,680
Speaker 3: Fermilab press release, about seven years ago, the Federal Railroad

922
00:53:16,719 --> 00:53:20,520
Speaker 3: Administration stats revealed that this was happening hundreds of times

923
00:53:20,560 --> 00:53:23,480
Speaker 3: a year, which was shocking to me. I had no

924
00:53:23,680 --> 00:53:26,800
Speaker 3: idea that it was this common to have a collision

925
00:53:26,840 --> 00:53:29,920
Speaker 3: between a train and a wheeled vehicle. I went to

926
00:53:30,000 --> 00:53:32,920
Speaker 3: check on updated numbers and found that, at least according

927
00:53:32,920 --> 00:53:37,760
Speaker 3: to preliminary statistics from the Federal Railroad Administration, in twenty

928
00:53:37,800 --> 00:53:40,920
Speaker 3: twenty three, there were two thy one hundred and ninety

929
00:53:40,920 --> 00:53:45,520
Speaker 3: two vehicle train collisions at railroad crossings in the United States,

930
00:53:46,040 --> 00:53:48,799
Speaker 3: and that there were two hundred and forty seven fatalities

931
00:53:48,800 --> 00:53:51,960
Speaker 3: and seven hundred and sixty six injuries. I found these

932
00:53:51,960 --> 00:53:54,400
Speaker 3: stats reported by the way on the website of a

933
00:53:54,480 --> 00:53:59,880
Speaker 3: rail safety organization called Operation Life Saver. So I don't know.

934
00:54:00,239 --> 00:54:02,880
Speaker 3: To me, that is just like way more vehicles and

935
00:54:02,920 --> 00:54:05,600
Speaker 3: people getting hit by trains at highway crossings than I

936
00:54:05,600 --> 00:54:08,640
Speaker 3: would have guessed, and despite what you might assume based

937
00:54:08,680 --> 00:54:10,879
Speaker 3: on those numbers, this is not a problem that has

938
00:54:10,960 --> 00:54:14,759
Speaker 3: recently gotten worse. The number of crossing accidents used to

939
00:54:14,840 --> 00:54:19,600
Speaker 3: be astronomically higher decades ago. According to that same Safety Org,

940
00:54:19,680 --> 00:54:22,880
Speaker 3: there were something like twelve thousand of these incidents in

941
00:54:22,960 --> 00:54:25,320
Speaker 3: nineteen seventy two, and that's at a time when the

942
00:54:25,400 --> 00:54:28,000
Speaker 3: US population was only like two thirds of what it

943
00:54:28,040 --> 00:54:31,440
Speaker 3: is now. So now we're down to like twenty two

944
00:54:31,520 --> 00:54:33,799
Speaker 3: hundred a year now, so it's much better than it

945
00:54:33,880 --> 00:54:37,040
Speaker 3: used to be, but still, at least that's just way

946
00:54:37,080 --> 00:54:38,600
Speaker 3: more common than I would have guessed.

947
00:54:39,400 --> 00:54:42,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, this always reminds me. There's a great Mystery

948
00:54:42,640 --> 00:54:47,320
Speaker 1: Science Theater three thousand short riffing on a nineteen fifty

949
00:54:47,440 --> 00:54:51,800
Speaker 1: nine educational short film from Union Specific Railroad titled Last

950
00:54:51,840 --> 00:54:56,080
Speaker 1: Clear Chance about the dangers of railway crossings, And it's

951
00:54:56,080 --> 00:54:58,160
Speaker 1: a fun riff. Off the top of my head, I

952
00:54:58,160 --> 00:55:01,839
Speaker 1: can't remember which movie this is attached, if it has

953
00:55:02,080 --> 00:55:06,160
Speaker 1: the line and why don't they look? And I've seen

954
00:55:06,200 --> 00:55:08,799
Speaker 1: this short so many times over the years, But it's

955
00:55:08,840 --> 00:55:12,120
Speaker 1: also like, it's a really serious message and I feel like,

956
00:55:12,239 --> 00:55:14,399
Speaker 1: even though there are lots of laughs, watching the riff

957
00:55:14,480 --> 00:55:16,399
Speaker 1: version of it, the message still kind of drives home

958
00:55:16,440 --> 00:55:20,840
Speaker 1: for you and you realize no trains are dangerous and

959
00:55:20,960 --> 00:55:25,200
Speaker 1: that they're holy, blameless creatures as well as they riff

960
00:55:25,400 --> 00:55:27,520
Speaker 1: on it in the In the short you know, it's like,

961
00:55:27,880 --> 00:55:33,040
Speaker 1: trains are dangerous. They can be dangerous, especially if you're

962
00:55:33,040 --> 00:55:36,160
Speaker 1: not being careful around them, and you're not you're not listening,

963
00:55:36,239 --> 00:55:39,840
Speaker 1: you're not obeying like basic train related safety tips.

964
00:55:40,200 --> 00:55:42,560
Speaker 3: Yeah, you know, it's not the train's fault that these

965
00:55:42,600 --> 00:55:45,319
Speaker 3: collisions happen. The train cannot stop quickly. It is not

966
00:55:45,480 --> 00:55:47,440
Speaker 3: able to you know, it might take it a mile

967
00:55:47,600 --> 00:55:51,200
Speaker 3: to stop. So, yeah, you know those those safety the

968
00:55:51,200 --> 00:55:53,440
Speaker 3: bars come down and the lights go up for a reason,

969
00:55:53,520 --> 00:55:56,200
Speaker 3: it is not worth it trying to get across the tracks.

970
00:55:56,239 --> 00:55:59,279
Speaker 3: As you know, before the train comes, you can wait

971
00:55:59,320 --> 00:56:00,160
Speaker 3: a few minutes.

972
00:56:00,400 --> 00:56:04,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, especially if you're dealing with a train that's moving

973
00:56:04,680 --> 00:56:08,279
Speaker 1: at a considerable speed. I think sometimes it's easy to

974
00:56:08,280 --> 00:56:10,960
Speaker 1: take this for granted if you're more familiar with trains

975
00:56:11,000 --> 00:56:15,160
Speaker 1: passing through urban settings, like you're in Atlanta, where by

976
00:56:15,160 --> 00:56:17,840
Speaker 1: the time the train is coming through town, it's usually

977
00:56:17,880 --> 00:56:20,439
Speaker 1: not going it may or at least it doesn't seem

978
00:56:20,520 --> 00:56:22,759
Speaker 1: to be going that fast. Now you can also get

979
00:56:22,760 --> 00:56:26,120
Speaker 1: into a serious discussion about how fast that train is

980
00:56:26,200 --> 00:56:29,520
Speaker 1: really going if it needs to stop suddenly because your

981
00:56:29,560 --> 00:56:32,000
Speaker 1: car is on the tracks when it shouldn't.

982
00:56:31,560 --> 00:56:35,319
Speaker 3: Be exactly, And of course it's quite clear that it

983
00:56:35,400 --> 00:56:37,840
Speaker 3: is dangerous for the vehicle in the train's path. But

984
00:56:37,960 --> 00:56:40,520
Speaker 3: in some cases it's not that common. But in some

985
00:56:40,600 --> 00:56:43,719
Speaker 3: cases it can even derail a train, So it's a

986
00:56:43,760 --> 00:56:47,760
Speaker 3: bad thing. Yeah, But I used to have this question.

987
00:56:47,880 --> 00:56:51,120
Speaker 3: This is sort of a tangent, but this reading about

988
00:56:51,120 --> 00:56:53,640
Speaker 3: this answered this question for me. I used to have

989
00:56:53,680 --> 00:56:58,480
Speaker 3: this question, how does it happen at all that trucks

990
00:56:58,600 --> 00:57:02,279
Speaker 3: or buses get stuck on the railroad tracks? Because I

991
00:57:02,280 --> 00:57:05,520
Speaker 3: would see I would read about this, and I would think,

992
00:57:05,640 --> 00:57:08,200
Speaker 3: just like, what are the odds that your vehicle breaks

993
00:57:08,239 --> 00:57:11,799
Speaker 3: down or stalls out right there? Like how often could

994
00:57:11,840 --> 00:57:16,120
Speaker 3: that actually happen? But apparently there is at least one reason,

995
00:57:16,600 --> 00:57:21,040
Speaker 3: especially large vehicles get stuck on railroad tracks. And I

996
00:57:21,160 --> 00:57:23,640
Speaker 3: was thinking about it wrong. It's not usually that they

997
00:57:23,720 --> 00:57:27,080
Speaker 3: happen to like break down because of an engine malfunction

998
00:57:27,400 --> 00:57:32,720
Speaker 3: right there. Rather, it's that they bottom out. Railroad tracks

999
00:57:32,760 --> 00:57:36,240
Speaker 3: tend to be elevated for drainage reasons. You can imagine

1000
00:57:36,240 --> 00:57:38,720
Speaker 3: the problem. If you know water, We're covering the rails,

1001
00:57:38,720 --> 00:57:40,800
Speaker 3: so they tend to be raised up a little bit

1002
00:57:41,600 --> 00:57:46,080
Speaker 3: so water drains away, and at intersections with highways, the

1003
00:57:46,120 --> 00:57:49,360
Speaker 3: tracks often form a hump in the road. When a

1004
00:57:49,440 --> 00:57:53,400
Speaker 3: vehicle with low ground clearance, like say a bus or

1005
00:57:53,480 --> 00:57:57,480
Speaker 3: certain types of truck and trailer combinations, goes over the hump,

1006
00:57:57,560 --> 00:57:59,640
Speaker 3: they can get hung up on the hump.

1007
00:58:00,160 --> 00:58:02,240
Speaker 1: That makes sense. I had not thought about this before,

1008
00:58:02,320 --> 00:58:03,640
Speaker 1: but yeah.

1009
00:58:03,120 --> 00:58:06,880
Speaker 3: And so obviously that's a big problem. Anyway, this brings

1010
00:58:06,960 --> 00:58:09,480
Speaker 3: us back to the ghost train generator. So there is

1011
00:58:09,520 --> 00:58:13,080
Speaker 3: a proposed solution to this problem. That was the idea

1012
00:58:13,160 --> 00:58:17,480
Speaker 3: of a Fermi Lab specialist named Derek Plant. Plant came

1013
00:58:17,560 --> 00:58:20,720
Speaker 3: up with the idea of a device that could take

1014
00:58:20,760 --> 00:58:27,120
Speaker 3: advantage of the railroad's automated signaling system by faking the

1015
00:58:27,160 --> 00:58:31,040
Speaker 3: presence of another train on the tracks, hence the ghost

1016
00:58:31,160 --> 00:58:34,560
Speaker 3: train generator, and the way it works is this. So

1017
00:58:34,680 --> 00:58:38,880
Speaker 3: modern railroads are broken up into segments called signal blocks,

1018
00:58:38,960 --> 00:58:41,960
Speaker 3: that have stretches of tracks that are at least a

1019
00:58:41,960 --> 00:58:46,480
Speaker 3: mile long, sometimes several miles, in which an electrical signaling

1020
00:58:46,520 --> 00:58:49,240
Speaker 3: system is hooked up to each of the two separate rails,

1021
00:58:49,760 --> 00:58:53,000
Speaker 3: and so when a train is present on the tracks

1022
00:58:53,120 --> 00:58:57,640
Speaker 3: within a signal block, the train's wheels and axles create

1023
00:58:57,680 --> 00:59:01,400
Speaker 3: a connection between the two rails. They compleet the electrical circuit,

1024
00:59:01,840 --> 00:59:05,560
Speaker 3: and the signal block activates lights all down the line

1025
00:59:05,720 --> 00:59:08,600
Speaker 3: that indicate to oncoming trains there is a train on

1026
00:59:08,640 --> 00:59:11,880
Speaker 3: the block up ahead. Maybe something is stalled out or

1027
00:59:11,920 --> 00:59:15,640
Speaker 3: behind schedule, and this gives the approaching train time to

1028
00:59:15,680 --> 00:59:19,600
Speaker 3: slow down and stop. The ghost train generator would be

1029
00:59:19,640 --> 00:59:23,240
Speaker 3: a small portable device that could be stored inside any

1030
00:59:23,360 --> 00:59:26,200
Speaker 3: truck or bus along with other emergency equipment you know,

1031
00:59:26,240 --> 00:59:29,800
Speaker 3: like a fire extinguisher or jumper cables or whatever. And

1032
00:59:29,880 --> 00:59:33,280
Speaker 3: the device would be made from two magnets with a

1033
00:59:33,360 --> 00:59:36,720
Speaker 3: special conducting wire, so it would be equipment essentially to

1034
00:59:36,800 --> 00:59:40,280
Speaker 3: connect the two rails. So if your vehicle gets stuck

1035
00:59:40,320 --> 00:59:43,080
Speaker 3: on the tracks, you would quickly get out and attach

1036
00:59:43,160 --> 00:59:45,400
Speaker 3: one magnet to one rail, the other magnet to the

1037
00:59:45,400 --> 00:59:48,400
Speaker 3: other rail, and the circuit is complete. So the signaling

1038
00:59:48,440 --> 00:59:52,640
Speaker 3: block thinks a phantom train is obstructing the line. This

1039
00:59:52,760 --> 00:59:55,360
Speaker 3: sends a signal up the path to any approaching train,

1040
00:59:55,640 --> 00:59:58,000
Speaker 3: so it has plenty of time to stop so that

1041
00:59:58,040 --> 01:00:00,560
Speaker 3: you can get your car out of the way. So

1042
01:00:00,800 --> 01:00:04,400
Speaker 3: the last I've seen of this is talk about a

1043
01:00:04,440 --> 01:00:08,240
Speaker 3: conference presentation and patent application from several years back now,

1044
01:00:08,280 --> 01:00:11,760
Speaker 3: So I don't know if this ever went into production anywhere.

1045
01:00:11,800 --> 01:00:14,320
Speaker 3: Maybe there was something that's not actually viable about it.

1046
01:00:14,360 --> 01:00:16,880
Speaker 3: I don't know, or maybe they are out there. I

1047
01:00:16,920 --> 01:00:20,880
Speaker 3: don't know exactly where this idea went, but assuming it works,

1048
01:00:20,960 --> 01:00:23,120
Speaker 3: I think it's a really cool idea. I love the

1049
01:00:23,160 --> 01:00:27,560
Speaker 3: idea of summoning spectral trains to prevent destruction and potentially

1050
01:00:27,600 --> 01:00:28,280
Speaker 3: save lives.

1051
01:00:28,960 --> 01:00:31,360
Speaker 1: I mean maybe there was a religious objection to it,

1052
01:00:31,440 --> 01:00:33,240
Speaker 1: just based on the title. It's like, we don't need

1053
01:00:33,280 --> 01:00:38,400
Speaker 1: more ghost trains, TASS funded ghost trains on our rail systems, No, sir,

1054
01:00:39,040 --> 01:00:39,200
Speaker 1: you know.

1055
01:00:39,280 --> 01:00:42,320
Speaker 3: I think about how many horror stories there are where

1056
01:00:42,760 --> 01:00:46,200
Speaker 3: there's a ghost that at first is scary, but then

1057
01:00:46,480 --> 01:00:49,240
Speaker 3: the twist at the end. This is really common, I think,

1058
01:00:49,560 --> 01:00:52,080
Speaker 3: is that the ghost is actually trying to be helpful

1059
01:00:52,240 --> 01:00:57,400
Speaker 3: and warning or trying to help the protagonist against a

1060
01:00:57,560 --> 01:01:00,880
Speaker 3: really threatening human villain. So I wonder could we get

1061
01:01:00,920 --> 01:01:03,080
Speaker 3: a story where there's a ghost train of that kind,

1062
01:01:03,200 --> 01:01:05,440
Speaker 3: Like it's scary at first, but the train is really

1063
01:01:05,480 --> 01:01:06,280
Speaker 3: just trying to help.

1064
01:01:07,560 --> 01:01:09,240
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd be down for that.

1065
01:01:09,520 --> 01:01:12,600
Speaker 3: I don't know what information it would provide. It goes

1066
01:01:12,600 --> 01:01:14,800
Speaker 3: by somebody's yelling at you, like, don't go in.

1067
01:01:14,720 --> 01:01:19,680
Speaker 1: There, man, But seriously, I would love to hear from

1068
01:01:19,720 --> 01:01:22,400
Speaker 1: everyone out there if you have some great ghost train

1069
01:01:22,480 --> 01:01:25,320
Speaker 1: stories you want to share with us, be it something

1070
01:01:25,360 --> 01:01:29,120
Speaker 1: that's just completely fanciful or something that seems to connect

1071
01:01:29,160 --> 01:01:32,280
Speaker 1: with reality on some level or another. There was one

1072
01:01:32,320 --> 01:01:34,240
Speaker 1: that we were looking into a little bit, the Silver

1073
01:01:34,320 --> 01:01:39,280
Speaker 1: Train of Stockholm, that we didn't get into here, but

1074
01:01:39,480 --> 01:01:43,320
Speaker 1: I did find it interesting that one possible explanation for

1075
01:01:43,360 --> 01:01:46,040
Speaker 1: this one was that, well, there was like maybe like

1076
01:01:46,160 --> 01:01:49,920
Speaker 1: one silver colored train car that was being used that

1077
01:01:50,080 --> 01:01:53,080
Speaker 1: was like a prototype or something, and just stories began

1078
01:01:53,120 --> 01:01:54,920
Speaker 1: to generate about it because it stood out and it

1079
01:01:54,960 --> 01:01:59,280
Speaker 1: looked different, And yeah, I kind of like that. You know,

1080
01:01:59,320 --> 01:02:02,000
Speaker 1: as someone who used to ride the train a lot

1081
01:02:03,440 --> 01:02:07,480
Speaker 1: to work and back, you were always on the lookout

1082
01:02:07,520 --> 01:02:10,840
Speaker 1: for different trains, and I would actually have recurring dreams

1083
01:02:11,280 --> 01:02:14,080
Speaker 1: about catching a different train that had like a different

1084
01:02:14,080 --> 01:02:17,280
Speaker 1: design to it. So there is something kind of attractive

1085
01:02:17,280 --> 01:02:20,560
Speaker 1: about that. You look for something you know that stands out,

1086
01:02:20,680 --> 01:02:24,840
Speaker 1: and then I don't know the mind or supernatural tendencies

1087
01:02:24,880 --> 01:02:26,000
Speaker 1: create the rest around it.

1088
01:02:27,000 --> 01:02:29,680
Speaker 3: Well, do we think does that do it for trains

1089
01:02:29,720 --> 01:02:30,200
Speaker 3: of Terror?

1090
01:02:30,720 --> 01:02:32,520
Speaker 1: I believe it does. We're gonna go ahead and cap

1091
01:02:32,560 --> 01:02:35,240
Speaker 1: it here, but yes, right in, we'd love to hear

1092
01:02:35,280 --> 01:02:38,240
Speaker 1: from you, And if you were a fan of our

1093
01:02:38,240 --> 01:02:41,240
Speaker 1: Weird House Cinema episodes, tune in tomorrow because we'll be

1094
01:02:41,280 --> 01:02:45,120
Speaker 1: talking about the nineteen seventy two train based horror film

1095
01:02:45,240 --> 01:02:48,240
Speaker 1: Horror Express. That one should be a lot of fun

1096
01:02:48,280 --> 01:02:48,680
Speaker 1: as well.

1097
01:02:49,160 --> 01:02:52,160
Speaker 3: That movie has some twists, got some good ones.

1098
01:02:52,600 --> 01:02:56,200
Speaker 1: Yes, and some science. We'll have some things to say

1099
01:02:56,200 --> 01:02:58,400
Speaker 1: about the science of Horror Express.

1100
01:02:58,400 --> 01:03:01,880
Speaker 3: Extremely sound, all.

1101
01:03:01,880 --> 01:03:04,040
Speaker 1: Right, just reminded of stuff to blow your mind. Is

1102
01:03:04,080 --> 01:03:07,080
Speaker 1: primarily a science and culture podcast, with core episodes on

1103
01:03:07,120 --> 01:03:10,560
Speaker 1: Tuesdays and Thursdays, Weird House Cinemas on Fridays. That's when

1104
01:03:10,560 --> 01:03:12,520
Speaker 1: we set aside most serious concerns, would just talk about

1105
01:03:12,520 --> 01:03:15,080
Speaker 1: a weird film. Not all of our episodes are normally

1106
01:03:15,160 --> 01:03:17,920
Speaker 1: horror themed, but it is October, so we are leaning

1107
01:03:17,960 --> 01:03:19,200
Speaker 1: into the season.

1108
01:03:19,720 --> 01:03:23,440
Speaker 3: That's right, huge, Thanks as always to our excellent audio

1109
01:03:23,480 --> 01:03:25,960
Speaker 3: producer JJ Posway. If you would like to get in

1110
01:03:26,040 --> 01:03:28,400
Speaker 3: touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other,

1111
01:03:28,480 --> 01:03:30,720
Speaker 3: to suggest a topic for the future, or just to

1112
01:03:30,760 --> 01:03:33,680
Speaker 3: say hello. You can email us at contact at stuff

1113
01:03:33,720 --> 01:03:43,160
Speaker 3: to Blow your Mind dot com.

1114
01:03:43,280 --> 01:03:46,200
Speaker 2: Stuff to Blow Your Mind is production of iHeartRadio. For

1115
01:03:46,280 --> 01:03:49,080
Speaker 2: more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app,

1116
01:03:49,240 --> 01:04:01,560
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you're listening to your favorite shows.

1117
01:04:00,520 --> 01:04:04,280
Speaker 3: Plant is later lat