Basement Deer, Lemon Juice Robbers, Phantom Apartments & Cold War Cola Navies

Show Notes

What do a deer trapped in a basement, a bank robber who trusted lemon juice science, phantom apartment units that don’t exist, and a soda company that once owned submarines all have in common?

They all belong in Shadow Chat Sessions.

In this episode, John dives headfirst into a perfectly unhinged mix of weird headlines, conspiracy theories, Reddit rabbit holes, dumb criminals, and high-strangeness history—the kind of stories that start funny, get unsettling, and end with you questioning how civilization is still functioning.

In this episode, we cover:

• A Wisconsin homeowner returns from vacation to find a full-grown deer squatting in their basement for two days

• A scientific theory suggesting a solar flare may have interfered with Titanic navigation and rescue efforts

• A Reddit mystery involving maintenance logs for apartment units that officially do not exist

• The infamous lemon-juice “invisibility” bank robbery that inspired the Dunning–Kruger effect

• A burglar who wore a bag on his head… then removed it to stare into a security camera

• Two drunk tourists who stole a penguin from Sea World and tried to care for it in an apartment

• Operation Cat Drop, when the British Royal Air Force parachuted cats into the jungle

• The Sandown Clown—one of Britain’s strangest humanoid encounters

• The Black Hope Curse, where a Texas subdivision was built over an unmarked cemetery

• The time Pepsi technically became a naval power during the Cold War

• The enduring mystery of the Sodder Children, who vanished in a house fire with no remains

As always, John brings the sarcasm, dark humor, and grounded analysis—treating absurdity with respect, stupidity with honesty, and high strangeness with just enough skepticism to make it unsettling.

If you like your podcasts funny, creepy, smart, and slightly existential, you’re in the right place.

Shadow Chat Sessions is part of the Dark Dialogue Podcast Network.

★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

What is Dark Dialogue: Shadow Chat Sessions?

Shadow Chat Sessions is the off-the-record side of the Dark Dialogue network—where weird headlines, conspiracies, paranormal stories, and truly ridiculous criminals collide.

Hosted by John and Angela, each episode dives into strange news, internet rabbit holes, cryptids, hauntings, and the kind of criminal behavior that makes no sense at all—delivered with sarcastic commentary and zero restraint.

From bizarre real-world stories to eerie legends and unexplained mysteries, Shadow Chat Sessions explores the corners of the world that are too strange to ignore.

If you’re here for dark humor, absurdity, and the occasional conspiracy spiral, this is where things go off the rails.

John: Well, hello and welcome to another
episode of Dark Dialogue Cha Chats.

That's, I am your host, John.

And I'm Angela.

And I was super waiting for that.

I gotta come up with something new.

I don't know what it's gonna be, but I
gotta come up with something 'cause that's

getting old, so I gotta work on that.

So anyway, this is a show where we
just talk about a bunch of dumb shit.

Weird shit.

Strange shit.

Dip shits, all the shits and Yep.

None of it really matters.

And something about points, and
I don't even know the rules.

And we just come in here and
we do this nonsense and that's

kind of how we go from there.

Angela: Amen.

Exactly.

John: Something like that.

Angela: It's just gonna go with it.

John: Yeah.

Angela: Yeah.

John: So how's it going tonight?

Angela: It's going all right.

How are you?

John: I'm good, I'm good.

Uh, it's the end of the week.

Angela: Is the end of the, the
end of the first full week.

John: Of, of the year.

Of the year.

Is that true?

Angela: It is true.

John: Wow.

Angela: No, I lied to you.

Just boldfaced.

John: Um, yeah, I mean, I
thought, I mean, it, it seems

like it's been longer than that.

Angela: It's the first full week,

John: huh?

Yeah.

Well it's crazy.

It's crazy that we're in 2026.

Angela: It is,

John: um, 30 years since
I graduated high school.

Angela: Oh

John: yeah.

Freaking nuts, nuts, nuts means I'm

Angela: toning in on 30.

John: Yeah.

It's pretty freaking crazy.

So it goes so damn fast.

So that's why we had this show, so we
can enjoy some of it anyway and laugh

and have a good time and, you know,
not get too serious about nothing.

Right.

True.

So with that said, are you
ready to jump into this show?

Angela: I feel like it's been
forever since we've done one.

John: It has, it's been quite a
while since we've done a shadow chat.

We've kind of gotten,
well, all of the, the help.

Shit deal that I've been dealing with,
not only with my family but with myself.

Mm-hmm.

It just has been absolute
chaos since August.

So hopefully we're kind of coming
to a place where now shit can

kind of normalize a little bit.

And we started the new year.

I've got all kinds of stuff in the works.

There's gonna be multiple
different changes and you know,

you promised me some magic too.

Yeah.

So little, little tweaks to the shows
and the way that we record and hopefully

the quality and the product that
we're putting out to the listeners.

Hopefully all of that, and I
gotta work on that magic thing.

But when I was a kid I had these little
foam balls and I practiced with them

all the time and I got pretty good.

I got pretty good.

So I think I can do some magic.

But

Angela: some magic.

John: So just a reminder to the
listeners, if you like what we do and

how we do it, just give us a light,
give us a follow, leave us a review.

Hit the thumbs up, the
little bail thing on YouTube.

All that shit because

Angela: comment.

Any of the shit.

John: Yeah.

Tell us where idiots.

That's okay.

That's okay.

I can take it.

But that stuff really,
really helps us a lot.

So if you like what we do,
help us continue to do it.

We really would appreciate it.

Angela: Yes, please.

John: And with that,
let's dive into this mess.

You ready for our
strange headline segment?

Angela: Always

John: our, all right, well this
one is freaking weird as shit.

Angela: Okay.

John: Trap deer removed from
Wisconsin baseman after two days.

Angela: Okay.

John: A Wisconsin homeowner returned from
out of town to discover an unexpected

house guest, a full grown deer that
had smashed through a basement window,

lived downstairs for two days and
turned the space into what authorities

delicately described as a mess.

Mm-hmm.

After a neighbor called 9 1 1,
professionals were brought in to escort

the exhausted, but otherwise unharmed
deer back into the wild, leaving

behind broken glass panic pellets,
and one hell of an insurance claim.

So according to a January 6th, UPI report,
the incident unfolded in Grand Chute,

Wisconsin, where a resident noticed
something deeply, deeply, deeply abnormal

next door, namely a deer crashing through
a basement window and refusing to leave.

The homeowners were out of town
at the time, which meant that

the deer had free reign of the
basement for roughly 48 hours.

No supervision, no rules, and no shame.

Police responded to a nine one one
call and quickly realized this was not

a shoo it out with a broom situation.

They contacted Nuisance Pro, a
local wildlife removal company

to handle the extraction.

Owner and operator, Nathan Slo
arrived to find a deer that was

no longer in fight or flight mode.

It was in.

I've been trapped in a human cave
for two days and I am over it mode.

Initially, the plan involved nets,
blankets, but that proved unnecessary.

The deer was reportedly so tired that
Cilo and his team were able to physically

grab the animal and walk it out by hand.

Aw, after two days in captivity,
presumably fueled by panic, adrenaline,

maybe a furnace filter, the deer
was released back into the wild.

Miraculously, it did not
appear seriously injured.

The basement, however,
did not fare so well.

Oh, it's a mess.

Glass and poop everywhere.

Oh, no.

Cilo said

Angela: No.

John: Delivering perhaps the
most concise wildlife incident

report in modern history, as
if this weren't strange enough.

Authorities noted that this
wasn't even an isolated incident.

Oh man.

Just weeks earlier, police in
Walker, Michigan dealt with a

similar basement deer standoff.

In that case, the animal reportedly
resisted eviction for two full days and

seemed to enjoy its indoor accommodations.

Walker police later joked on social
media that the deer quote refused to

come up from the basement, forcing
officers to use a catch poll and a

broom to guide it upstairs and out,
essentially recreating the world's most

rural version of a hostage negotiation.

So my take.

Look, I get it.

Wisconsin Winter hits and suddenly
a warm basement with no mortgage, no

predators, and unlimited places to poop.

Probably feels like a five star resort.

But at some point you've gotta
respect the social contract.

You don't break into someone's
house, redecorate the basement with

feces, and then act surprised when
humans call it call in professionals.

Also, can we talk about the
deer just being grabbed by hand?

That detail alone tells me this
animal had fully disassociated.

Angela: Yeah,

John: that was an ex exhaustion.

That was depression.

Two days trapped in a concrete box,
listening to the furnace kick on and off.

We'll do that to anyone.

And the Michigan deer, that one is abs.

That one absolutely
knew what it was doing.

That was not fear.

That was squatter energy.

That deer wasn't stuck.

It was nesting

Angela: that deer better
have left a good Yelp review.

John: I agree.

So at what point does a trap deer
stop being wildlife and start

being an emotional support animal?

Angela: Oh, it's been a while since we've
discussed emotional support animals.

John: Right.

Angela: I wanna know what they're
trying to tell us by breaking in.

'cause don't animals usually do
things when they try to tell us stuff?

John: Yeah.

I just, I find it insane that, I don't
know about the Michigan one, but the

Wisconsin one broke the window to get in.

Like,

Angela: how is he not hurt?

John: Right?

And how the hell did he break
the window and crawl through it?

Headbut.

Like it's a basement window.

It's not like it's at head
level, it's a basement.

And then like when I was a kid, I
don't know what, I don't know what,

I don't know how, I don't know why.

I don't know who I don't know.

I don't know, but I do know,

Angela: do you know

John: that birds used to continually
fall down our freaking chimney?

Angela: Mm-hmm.

John: I don't know how they manage that
shit because if you, if you watch birds,

they're not like falling off of trees and,
and power lines and shit all the time.

Matter of fact, I've never seen a bird
fall off anything that I can think of.

Angela: I was drunk,

John: uh, a lot.

We ended up having to put like
screen around our freaking chimney

because the birds kept getting
in there, and then you'd hear 'em

flopping around in the fireplace.

Then you'd open the door and the
little bastards would go flying all

through the freaking house and stuff.

Angela: Bombing you
'cause it's your fault.

But

John: I never understood that one.

And the deer breaking, the window,
crawling in, that's even more so

Angela: maybe it was one smooth,
like slip it broke and went in.

Or did they say they actually
saw it intentionally crawling in?

John: No, I just saw a
picture of a broken window.

The broken window and
then the deer in there.

I don't, I don't know how
it actually got in, but, so

Angela: it makes me wonder if it
was a, a slip or something and it

broke and went straight through it,

John: like fell into it or I don't know.

But if a deer lives in your basement
for two days, does it legally owe

rent or at least cleaning fees?

Angela: Cleaning.

Cleaning?

John: I think so too.

Angela: I don't think, how
long do you have to squat to?

I think it's, uh, 30 days or something.

It

John: depends on the state.

Angela: Okay.

Well.

John: Like some states is, all you
gotta do is like get a piece of

mail there or some shit like that.

I don't know.

There's those, those laws are
convoluted to make no sense to me.

Right.

As far as I'm concerned, if it's
your property ought to be able

to kick somebody out of it no
matter where they get their mail.

Angela: Yeah,

John: that's me.

So, which is worse to
discover after vacation?

A flooded basement, a burglary
or a deer that's redecorated

with poop and shattered glass.

Angela: Oh, that's hard to decide.

I'm gonna say burglary.

John: Yeah, I think burglary.

We would definitely top that list.

Angela: I would feel a
little more violated with

John: a hundred percent.

Angela: Yeah.

John: A hundred percent.

Yep.

Alright, so you're ready
for the conspiracy corner.

Angela: Oh yeah.

John: What if a solar flare
actually sank the Titanic?

A scientific paper paper published in
our Met S weather suggests that the

Titanic may not have been doomed solely
by ice and hubris, but by the sun itself.

According to the theory, a moderate
to severe geomagnetic storm caused

by solar flare activity on April
14th, 1912 may have interfered

with compasses navigation and radio
transmissions, subtly altering the

Titanic's course and complicating rescued
efforts after it struck the iceberg.

Just when humanity collectively
agreed that we had rung every last

theory out of the Titanic, iceberg
speed, binoculars, classism, hubris,

jack's floating door options.

Along comes space researcher Mila
Kova, who has already published

multiple papers examining optical
mirage and atmospheric distortion.

On the night of the sinking
turned her attention upward.

Her 2020 paper explores whether a
geomagnetic storm triggered by solar fla

activity may have influenced the disaster.

Solar flares are massive eruptions
on the sun's surface, releasing

energy equivalent to billions of
megatons of TNT, her dynamite.

When particularly strong, they distort
earth's magnetic field producing auras

and interfering with magnetic instruments.

In modern times, these storms have
knocked out power grids, disrupted

satellites, scrambled GPS, and
interfered with radio communications.

In 1912, they would've gone
completely unnoticed except

by the damage they caused.

Evidence suggests that the Northern
Hemisphere was experiencing a moderate to

severe magnetic storm on the night that
the Titanic sink confirmed by reports

of Aurora Borealis sightings unusually
far south Z Cova argues that this

storm could have skewed magnetic north
just enough to throw compass readings

aboard ships in the North Atlantic.

Here's where it gets interesting.

Titanic's fourth, officer Joseph
bha calculated the ship's distress

coordinates during the evacuation.

According to Zin Cova, his reported
position may have been off by

approximately 13 nautical miles.

That error she suggests, may
have attribute, may be attributed

to geomagnetic interference
affecting the ship's compass

at the worst possible moment.

But it doesn't stop there.

Angela: Of course not

John: the rescue ship carpathia
may have been affected by the same

geomagnetic disturbances for more
than five hours before, during, and

after receiving Titanic's SOS signals.

If both ships were operating under
distorted magnetic conditions, the

air could have compounded, influencing
not only how distress calls were

interpreted, but how quickly and
accurately rescuers reached the lifeboats.

Adding another layer, Zenko notes
that radio interference from geome

magnetic storms can be highly localized.

That means some ships may have received
garbled messages, delayed transmissions,

or none at all, while others outside the
storm's radius experienced no issues.

This could help explain why certain
nearby vessels failed to respond in

time, why others appeared unaffected.

Importantly, the theory does not claim
the solar flare alone sank the Titanic.

Instead, it suggests that space,
that space weather may have quietly

nudged several critical variables,
navigation reported position, radio

clarity, just enough to worsen an
already catastrophic situation.

My take.

I love this theory because it
doesn't try to replace the iceberg.

It just makes the universe an accessory.

Think about it.

Human arrogance builds
the unsinkable ship.

Nature throws an iceberg in its path path,
and then the sun itself quietly reaches

down from 93 million miles away and says.

Also, your compass is lying.

There's something deeply humbling
about the idea that the Titanic

might have been slightly off course
because space was having a bad night.

No villain monologue, no warning,
just invisible magnetic chaos, quietly

bending needles and scrambling signals.

While 2200 people trusted technology
that had no idea what was happening

to it, that said, this theory
doesn't magically absolve anyone.

The ship was still speeding
through ice fields.

Lifeboats were still half full
decisions were still made by humans,

not by Helio physics, but I do
enjoy imagining the iceberg saying.

I didn't do this alone.

Angela: I did not act alone.

John: So if a solar flare helped doom the
Titanic, does that make the sun history's

most passive aggressive co-conspirator?

Angela: Yes,

John: I agree.

I mean, I, I'm fascinated by this theory.

Of course, I have this
thing about solar storms

Angela: mm-hmm.

John: And the belief that they're
gonna lead to the apocalypse.

And because I think it was 18, I
think it was in 18 89, 18 89 or 18

98, 1 of those, something like that.

There was this massive

Angela: 18 hundreds.

John: Yeah.

It's called the, uh, it's
called the, uh, shit.

Most days.

I could tell you something, event and.

So we had this massive solar storm, and
at the time is all we had was telegraphs.

We didn't have radios, we
didn't have electricity, we

didn't have mm-hmm any of that.

The Carrington event.

And we just had telegraphs.

But the solar storm was so massive
that it freaking fried out the

telegraphs all across the United States.

And if something like the Carrington
event happened, now we're screwed.

Like no car is gonna drive.

No freaking power's not gonna work.

Like we're.

Overnight back in the freaking stone age.

So, and it's a real thing like shit, we
just had the Aurora Borealis, Northern

Lights, whatever you wanna call 'em.

Yeah.

Visible here for quite a long time.

Yeah.

And that is an indicate, that's
solar storms come from that.

That's the, that's the radioactive waves
or whatever the hell hitting the earth.

And that's what shows up
as, as the Northern Lights.

And so when it's a massive solar storm,
you see 'em farther and farther south.

So that's what they're talking about.

And it's a real thing.

It happens all the time.

A lot of the time these solar
storms hit like out in the

middle of the ocean and shit.

So no harm, no foul.

The sooner or later it's gonna hit end.

It's gonna be massive.

Angela: Well, at least I know that I have
been voted someone who should be protected

at all costs because I create blankets.

John: There you go.

See?

A hundred percent.

Angela: I am the warmth.

So.

John: So how many famous disasters
might have been quietly nudged by space

weather we didn't even know existed?

Angela: All of them.

John: I mean, it really does make you
wonder how, you know, like a lot of

the Bermuda Triangle shit and a lot
of these strange disappearance and

stuff could have been affected by
something like a solar, a solar storm.

The solar storm thing is
not a conspiracy theory.

That's 100% scientific fact.

It happens and it affects
people here on earth.

And I've heard people claim like it
affects moods and shit like that with

people when it's really bad and stuff.

So I don't know.

Angela: Yeah, it did make
us weird here for a while.

All sorts of weird things.

John: It's a weird energy, you know?

I mean, there's a shit ton of
energy that's coming into the earth

that's going to affect people.

It's gonna affect animals, it's gonna
affect any living creatures, you know?

So it

Angela: makes deer go into basements,

John: makes deer go into basements, right?

So what point do we stop blaming
bad decisions and just admit the

universe sometimes stacks the deck.

Angela: The universe
sometimes says, hold my beer.

John: I would agree.

However, the Titanic is
nothing but bad decisions.

Angela: I do have to bring
something up because you

brought it up with the Titanic.

I learned something the other day
that thought I knew a lot of phobias,

but I did not know about this one.

You ever heard of sub phobia?

John: No.

Angela: It is the fear of
manmade objects underwater.

John: I have that fear.

Angela: You have that fear?

John: A hundred percent.

Angela: And does it, does it bug you to
see pictures of the Titanic underwater?

John: No.

I have a fear of getting
on a submarine though.

Angela: No, no, no.

So it's the fear of, of witnessing,

John: oh

Angela: no.

A manmade object underwater.

And it, it most attributes to, um,
mechanical things like animatronics

that come up out of the water when
you can see the tracks that they're on

John: That's so weird.

Angela: Or things that are
flooded when you can see of a

flooded, um, amusement park.

The rollercoaster tracks being
flooded, stairways being flooded.

The me phobia, the fear of
manmade things underwater.

John: No, that's

Angela: Menlo phobia.

Also, I learned at the same
time is the fear of ignore.

Ordinarily large objects, so
they kind of generally coincide.

If you have one, you'll have the other.

John: No, I don't have, I don't have, I
don't really have any phobias, I don't

think, but technically, but there ain't
no freaking way you get me on a submarine.

I can tell you that shit right now.

Angela: Not doing that either.

John: My brother was on a submarine
and so then we toured it, you know,

we went down in this freaking thing.

It was above water, it was
like docked whatever, and I was

still like, get me the hell out.

There is no freaking way you would
get me under the water in that thing.

No, way too

Angela: much.

John: The only way I survived the
Disneyland one is because I knew

the top half was still above water.

So if I needed to get out, I could,
but if Disneyland would've went

under the water, I'd have been out.

And like that, uh, the one that
imploded going down to see the Titanic.

You remember that where the dumb asses?

Yeah.

Angela: Yeah.

John: And they were like
controlling it with an Xbox

controller and shit like that.

Like I watched an interview
with the engineer and he was

like, I freaking told him.

Angela: Yeah.

John: There was stress
factors all over that thing.

I told him it was gonna happen.

Angela: They couldn't wait.

John: It was more hubris and
arrogance is exactly what it was.

Same thing that took down the Titanic.

Angela: Yeah.

John: But I, another conspiracy
we're gonna have to cover is,

was it really the Titanic?

Because I don't think it was.

I think it was the Olympic.

Angela: All right, well
let's cover it then.

John: We will.

Okay.

So you ready for the Reddit rabbit hole?

Angela: Oh yeah.

What's Reddit doing now?

John: My apartment building's maintenance
logs list units that don't exist.

A Reddit user claims, they discovered
maintenance and utility records for

apartment units that do not appear
on any floor plan, leasing document,

or directory in their building.

What starts as a mundane request for
maintenance records quickly spirals

into a paper trail mystery involving
phantom apartments, reoccurring,

reoccurring service calls, and at least
one unit marked as occupied for years

despite no tenant ever being seen.

The story originated on RRBI,
where Redditor explained they had

requested maintenance logs from
their apartment management after

experiencing repeated plumbing issues.

The building itself was a
mid-century multi-story complex,

nothing particularly remarkable.

Standard units, standard
hallways, standard complaints.

But when the property man manager
handed over the log, something felt off.

Interspersed among the expected unit.

Numbers were repeated references
to apartments that did not exist

on any official floor plan.

The tenant had access to no renumbered
units, no basements, no storage spaces,

entire apartments listed with full
unit numbers, work orders, and dates,

yet absent from the building's layout.

At first, commenters suggested the
obvious clerical errors, legacy

numbering from renovations or
mislabeled storage areas, reasonable

explanations, boring explanations,
except the records kept going.

Some of the non-existent units appeared
repeatedly across multiple years, often

for routine issues, HVAC inspections,
plumbing access, electrical checks,

nothing exotic, nothing alarming, just.

Just consistent and strangers still.

One of the phantom units was listed as
occupied in internal maintenance notes

for nearly five consecutive years.

The original poster began
checking public records.

City zoning documents
showed no additional units.

Fire inspection records listed
only the known apartments.

No permits existed for hidden expansions.

The building had never been
legally subdivided beyond

its current configuration.

Redditors urge caution, but curiosity one.

The tenant requested utility usage
data under local tenant access laws.

While most phantom units showed
no obvious utility footprint.

One did water usage, minimal electricity,
small, but regular enough to suggest

something or someone was there.

Neighbors were asked discreetly.

No one recalled anyone
living in those units.

No one remembered seen movers.

One longtime resident mentioned
a door at the end of the hallway.

That quote used to be there.

End quote, before a renovation,
decades earlier, but could

not recall where it led.

Then things got quiet.

Management abruptly stopped responding.

The tenant reported receiving a
vague email stating the records were

archived inconsistently, and that
further inquiries would need to go

through corporate legal counsel.

Maintenance logs were
no longer accessible.

The original Reddit account
went dark shortly afterward,

no dramatic reveal followed.

No confirmation of secret
tenants, no locked door photos.

Just an unresolved, bureaucratic
anomaly that left behind a

deeply uncomfortable question.

How many spaces exist around us?

Simply because paperwork says they do.

Hmm, my take.

This is why ghosts don't scare
me, but paperwork does because

here's the thing, buildings like
all the time, not maliciously,

not dramatically, they lie the way
systems lie quietly, bureaucratically,

and with plausible deniability.

And once something exists in a
database, it tends to stay there

long after reality changes.

Is this a secret apartment?

Probably not.

Is it a clerical artifact from an old
renovation that never got cleaned up?

Very possible.

But the truly unsettling part isn't the
idea of someone secretly living in a wall.

It's the realization that no one in
charge could definitively say what those

units were and why they were there.

If a record says something exists,
enough systems will act like it does.

Maintenance, utilities, fire
access plans, insurance.

And if no one ever checks
it might as well be real.

That's not a haunted building,
that's haunted administration.

So what's creepier?

A hit apartment or a system that
can't explain its own records?

Angela: A system that can't
explain its own records.

John: A hundred percent US government.

So how many phantom
spaces do you think exist?

Purely because no one ever
audited the paperwork.

Angela: So many.

John: Oh, I think so.

And you know, I don't know like
the size of this or anything, but

some of these freaking apartment
complexes in places, especially in

cities, are so freaking massive.

I mean, they cover blocks
and blocks and blocks,

Angela: and then what's
under 'em that nobody knows

John: who the hell knows

Angela: exactly.

John: It's like the Illuminati
had built their headquarters under

the Denver International Airport.

Yeah.

Angela: Oh yeah.

John: So if a unit is listed as occupied,
but no one has ever seen the tenant, at

what point does that become a problem?

Angela: All the points.

John: All the points.

Angela: All of them.

I have nothing else.

All of them.

Also, Lucifer is a Melo phobia thing.

John: Well, I can understand that.

That thing's freaking creepy as shit.

I. Alright, you ready
for the dip shits diary.

Angela: I am always
ready for the dip shits.

Diary

Music: dip shit.

Diaries

John: the lemon juice
invisibility bank robber.

Angela: Is that going back to
national treasure type things?

John: Kind of.

Angela: Okay.

Bring it.

John: Only dumber.

Angela: Bring it.

John: In 19 95, 2 men robbed multiple
Pittsburgh area banks at gunpoint

without masks, hats, or disguises.

Because they believed rubbing lemon
juice on their faces made them

invisible to security cameras.

Oh my.

The resulting arrest not only landed
them in prison, but also directly

inspired the psychological concept,
now known as the Dunning Kruger effect,

the tendency of incompetent people to
widely overestimate their own abilities.

On January 6th, 1995, MacArthur Wheeler
and Clifton Earl Johnson executed what

they clearly believed was a flawless plan.

They robbed two banks in the greater
Pittsburgh area in broad daylight, guns

out faces uncovered confidence high.

Their secret weapon was not
stealth speed or planning.

It was lemon juice.

Wheeler and Johnson believed that lemon
juice like invisible ink would render

their faces invisible to surveillance
cameras, according to Wheeler, Johnson

had explained that since lemon juice could
disappear on paper until heated, the same

principle would apply to video recording.

Wheeler was skeptical briefly, but
decided to test the theory himself.

He covered his face in lemon juice
and took a Polaroid photograph

when the photo developed and
his face didn't appear clearly.

Wheeler concluded the
experiment was a success.

Well, detectives later theorized
the photo failure was due to poor

lighting, bad film, or wheeler simply
pointing the camera incorrectly.

Wheeler, however
interpreted it as science.

Armed with citrus confidence.

The pair robbed the Swiss Vale
branch of Mellon Bank at 2:47 PM

making off with approximately $5,200.

Later that day, they hit a
second bake in Brighton Heights.

They did not flee town.

They did not change their appearance.

They did not rethink anything.

Johnson was arrested within days.

Wheeler remained at large until April
when his very visible face was broadcast

on a Pittsburgh crime stopper segment.

Anonymous tips flooded in and
police arrested him less than an

hour after the broadcast aired.

When showing the surveillance photos,
Wheeler reportedly ex exclaimed in

disbelief, but I wore lemon juice.

I wore lemon juice.

Angela: Oh man.

John: He genuinely did not
understand what had gone wrong.

Johnson pleaded guilty and
received a five year sentence.

Wheeler was sentenced to
over 24 years in prison.

Charges for one robbery were later
dropped, but by then the damage, the logic

reason in citrus fruit was already done.

The case might've faded
into local crime absurdity.

If not for one thing, it caught the
attention of Cornell psychology.

Professor David Dunning Dunning realized
wheeler's failure wasn't just a criminal.

It wasn't just a criminal incompetence,
it was cognitive incompetence.

Wheeler was not only bad at crime, he was
incapable of recognizing how bad he was.

Ugh.

That insight led to the landmark 1999
paper, unskilled and unaware of it.

Co-authored with graduate student
Justin Krueger, the phenomenon

known as the Dunning Kruger Effect.

Now, one of the most cited
concepts in psychology.

In other words, lemon juice didn't
just fail to make wheeler invisible.

It made him immortal
in academic literature.

My take, this is my favorite
dumb criminal story of all time,

because it's not impulsive, stupid.

It's research stupid.

This man conducted a test.

He gathered data.

Yes, he reviewed the results and he still
arrived at the worst possible conclusion.

That's not ignorance, that's confidence.

Weaponized against reality.

Also, imagine being so wrong.

The psychologist look at your
crime and say, well, that deserves

a peer, a peer reviewed journal.

Angela: Yeah, we

John: might, most
criminals end up in prison.

This guy ended up in textbooks,
and let's be clear, lemon juice

didn't make him invisible.

It just made him sticky,
shiny, and easier to identify.

Somewhere out there, a
lemon tree is still shamed,

Angela: I would bet.

John: Is this the purest real
world example of the Dunning

Kruger effect ever recorded?

Angela: It has to be, yeah.

But it wore lemon juice.

John: So it's interesting.

I had to read into this Dunning
Kruger thing a little bit.

So it's interesting that like they
basically found that really stupid people.

Overestimate their abilities.

Angela: Okay.

John: And really competent people
underestimate their abilities.

Angela: Okay?

John: So it's like, you know, the
really brilliant people in the world

are kind of humble about it, and they're
like, I don't know if I can do that.

You know, I don't, I don't know.

I fell off the toilet, I hit my head.

I drew this thing called the Flex
Ambassador, but I don't know if I

could really make it work or not.

And then you get some dumbass
that's like almost me lemon juice

on the face to take a picture.

And now I'm invisible.

I'm the invisible man.

Angela: Yes.

John: I mean,

Angela: oh my,

John: I, it, it's gonna be hard
to beat this one for the title

of the dumbest ever because

Angela: yeah,

John: think about the logic
that went into that, like

Angela: lemon juice.

John: Um, you, you have a lemon.

Angela: So is, is lemonade
just camouflage then?

Because it's not a hundred percent juice?

John: Well, this is my point.

You have a lemon, right?

Angela: Okay.

John: And you can see it.

So in, so facto, your theory is bullshit.

How do you not reconcile that?

Like it, it, you buy a bottle of lemon
juice and you dump it into a glass.

You can see the lemon
glu, the lemon juice.

It's like yellow colored

Angela: and you keep it cold.

So the heat theory
doesn't work there either.

John: Yeah.

I mean, wow.

This is, this is, this is the
dumbest I think I've heard of.

Angela: Yeah.

John: So what modern equivalent of
lemon juice invisibility do we see

people confidently believing today?

Angela: That's a good question.

John: Flat earth.

A hundred percent flat Earth.

Angela: Huh?

John: That one, you've got
to be an idiot to believe it.

Sorry.

Listeners.

Flat earth, if you are a flat earth, um.

You're an idiot.

Like, sorry, no way to say it.

Like take a trip around the world.

That's all I get to say,

Angela: if you're a flat earth or
lemon juice will make you invisible.

John: Lemon juice will make you invisible.

Absolutely.

So if your criminal plan requires citric
acid science, should that be a red flag?

Angela: Uh, yellow.

Yellow flag.

John: Yellow flag.

Angela: Citrus flag.

Yes,

John: I agree.

Okay, so dipshit diaries number
two, the bag on the head burglar.

Who unmasked himself?

Angela: Oh, no.

Was he wearing lemon juice?

John: A would be burglar in wells,
attempted to rob a hotel during a crowded

Elvis convention by wearing a plastic
carrier bag over his head as a disguise.

Despite initially avoiding identification
on CCTV, he inexplicably removed the

bag, stared directly into the security
camera from close range, and was properly

identified, arrested, and sent to prison.

On September 27th, 2015, Christopher
Badman, a 37-year-old from from Bridge

in Bridge in decided the perfect time
to commit a burglary was during fourth

crawls annual Elvis Festival, an event
that draws crowds of Elvis impersonators

and tourists from around the world.

With the town packed in the Marine Hotel
bustling, Batman entered the building.

Armed with a truly inspired disguise, a
plastic carrier bag pulled over his head.

CCTV footage shows badman
wandering through the hotel

corridors, making deliberate
efforts to avoid being identified.

He kept his head down, adjusted the
bag, and moved cautiously, clearly aware

of the presence of security cameras,
and apparently confident that his bag

technology rendered him anonymous.

He then broke into a guest bedroom.

That's where things unraveled
after being disturbed by a guest.

Badman exited back into the hallway, and
for reasons known only to him and possibly

explained by panic, overconfidence, or
sheer impulse, he stopped, removed the

bed from his head, leaned toward the
security camera from just a few feet away,

and looked directly into the lens, not
glanced, not accidentally turned, stared.

The CCTV captured his face
in crystal clear detail.

Police had no trouble identifying him.

He was arrested, charged, and
later admitted to burglary

at Cardiff Crown Court.

Badman was sentenced to 16 months in
prison and ordered to pay 900 pounds in

cost, plus a hundred pounds surcharge.

I think that little
funny symbol is pounds.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Detective Inspector Andy
Patterson summed it up.

Secondly, despite taking steps to avoid
identification, Badman quote, decided

to look straight into the camera,
and of course, his cover was blowing.

My take.

This is what happens when you
start a crime with a bad idea

and then somehow make it worse.

Look, I'm not saying the bag on
the head disguise was a good plan.

It wasn't.

It's a choking hazard masquerading
his criminal strategy.

But the truly impressive part is
that after committing to it, this

man voluntarily aborted his own
disguise and personally introduced

himself to the CCTV system.

That's not a mistake.

That's a conscious decision.

It's like wearing a ski mask, robbing a
bank, and then saying, hold on, let me

make sure the camera gets my good side.

Yeah, and doing this during an Elvis
festival, that means that we're

probably dozens of people nearby,
dressed like Elvis Presley, arguably

the perfect crowd to blend into.

Instead, he chose to be guy in
beg on his head, who removes it.

Some criminals.

Some criminals are caught
by good police work.

Others just assist.

So if you're already wearing a
terrible disguise, why would you

ever remove it in front of a camera?

Angela: Solar flares.

John: Solar flares.

Angela: I'm blaming it on solar flares.

John: Is that everything tonight?

That's all gonna be solar fla

Angela: be?

Yes.

Mm-hmm.

When I get home and something goes wrong,

John: solar.

Solar flas.

Yep.

So is a plastic bag over your
head more or less suspicious

than just walking in confidently

Angela: more?

This bag is not a toy for a reason.

John: Yes.

I mean that.

That's an actual picture.

Angela: Yeah, I see it.

John: It's not a clear plastic bag.

It would've had to have looked at the
bottom of it in order to even figure

out where in the hell he was going.

Angela: Wonderful.

John: That was a brilliant,
brilliant disguise.

Angela: Yeah.

I should've just cut eye holes in it.

Wear a sheet,

John: so, which is worse?

Believing lemon juice makes you invisible.

Or knowing you're on camera
and unmasking anyway.

Angela: Um Oh, that's tough.

By just a little bit.

Lemon juice, making you invisible.

John: Yeah.

The lemon juice takes it for me
by a long ways, just because that

is so insanely stupid to believe.

I just can't get over it.

Angela: I wore lemon juice.

John: Okay, dipshit diaries, number
three, the Great Penguin heist.

The theft of Dirk

Angela: aw Dirk.

John: Two Welsh tourists on a working
holiday in Australia broke into SeaWorld

after a night of heavy drinking,
swam with dolphins, discharged a fire

extinguisher into a shark enclosure,
and stole a penguin named Dirk.

They later woke up, hung over with
the penguin in their apartment,

attempted improvised penguin care,
released him into a canal and

were promptly reported to police.

Dark, was rescued, unharmed and
reunited with his partner Peaches.

Oh, on April 14th, 2012, rise, Owen
Jones, 21 and Carrie Mules, 20 friends

from South Wales decided to cap off a
night out in Queensland's Gold Coast

with what can only be described as a
greatest hits tour of bad decisions after

attending a beach party in consuming what
a magistrate later diploma diplomatically

described as too much vodka.

The pair, along with an 18-year-old
Australian broke into SeaWorld once

inside, they did not immediately leave.

Instead, they explored,
they swam with dolphins.

They discharged a fire extinguisher
into a shark enclosure, and then somehow

concluding the night needed a souvenir.

They stole a 7-year-old fairy
penguin named Dirk from an aquarium.

Dirk was not a wild penguin.

He was bred in captivity and part
of a managed breeding colony.

He also had a partner, peaches,
who did not consent to any of this.

The next morning, Jones and Mules
woke up in their apartment with

severe hangovers and they penguin
faced with this unexpected reality.

They attempted what might
generously be called.

Penguin care, they fed Dirk, they placed
him in the shower, presumably believing

that running water and regret could
replicate an Antarctic environment.

Angela: Yes.

John: At some point they realized
keeping a penguin in an apartment

was unsustainable, so they
released him into a nearby canal.

Locals quickly noticed that a
ferry in Penguin did not belong

there and contacted police.

Dirk was rescued, returned to
SeaWorld, unharmed, and reunited

with peaches, an outcome far
better than the situation deserved.

Jones and Mules pleaded guilty to
trespassing and stealing and keeping

a protected animal during sentencing.

The court emphasized that their
actions could easily have resulted

in serious injury or death, either
to themselves or to the animals.

Magistrate Brian Cooks acknowledged the
pair acted without malice, but described

their behavior as immature and stupid.

He declined to record convictions,
but find each man a thousand

Australian dollars and reminded
them that entering the wrong

enclosure could have landed them.

Quote in the morgue.

Yep.

He also suggested politely,
but firmly that they consider

drinking less vodka in the future.

Bite.

Take.

This is not a crime.

It's a drunk nature.

Documentary filmed entirely off camera.

Breaking into a theme park is already
a bad idea, but escalating from

dolphins to sharks to kidnapping.

A penguin is a level of confidence
that can only be fueled by

alcohol and unchecked optimism.

And I want to focus on
the moment they woke up.

Imagine opening your eyes, your
head hounding your mouth dry.

There's a penguin in your apartment.

Not a cat, not a dog, a penguin,

Angela: not a tattoo.

You don't remember

John: at what point, at that
point, your life has clearly

gone off Strip, off script.

Putting him in the shower
might be my favorite detail.

That's not animal care.

That's panic supervision.

That's a man thinking.

I don't know what penguins
need, but water feels right.

Water feels right.

Dirk meanwhile survived a kidnapping,
a hangover apartment, a canal release,

and still made it back to peaches.

That penguin is tougher
than everyone else involved.

So at what point in this night should
someone have said we should probably stop,

Angela: uh, the second shot of vodka?

John: I mean, I've been drunk.

I have partied a lot.

I have never, ever, no matter how
drunk I've ever gotten, I've never

been so outta control that I woke
up with a penguin in my apartment.

Angela: Have you had access to a
penguin while you were this drunk?

John: I've never been so drunk
that I've broken into a place.

Like, uh, what, what do you say to that?

Angela: Don't know.

I, I've never been that drunk

John: I

Angela: ever,

John: me either.

And I've been as about
as drunk as you can get.

I never broke into nowhere and stole
penguins or swam with dolphins or fired

fricking fire extinguishers as sharks.

Oh

Angela: man.

John: So he is waking up with a penguin.

Better or worse than waking up in jail.

Angela: Better.

I'd rather wake up with a
penguin than wake up in jail.

John: I dunno.

'cause you wake up with a penguin,
you're going to jail, and then

you gotta deal with a penguin.

So how many terrible decisions
can be directly traced back to

vodka and misplaced confidence?

Angela: Way too.

Great.

We do not have that kind of time.

John: Vodka is definitely
to blame for a lot of that.

Probably not as many as tequila,
but vodka's definitely up there.

All right.

You ready for a weird shit section?

Oh

Angela: yeah.

Music: Weird

shit.

John: Operation Cat Drop when the British
Air Force parachuted cats into the jungle.

Angela: Excuse me, what?

John: In 1960, the Royal Air Force
carried out a real documented

operation in which cats were flowing
from Singapore and parachuted into

remote regions of ach, modern day
Malaysia to combat a rat infestation.

The infestation itself was
an unintended consequence of

earlier malaria control efforts.

Using D, using DDT, the operation
became a lasting example of ecological

domino effects, and one of the
strangest, yet most real government

interventions in environmental history.

Operation Cat drop sounds like something
dreamed up in a writer's room after too

much caffeine and not enough supervision.

Unfortunately, or fortunately, it
actually happened in the 1950s large

scale malaria control campaigns
were underway across Southeast Asia.

One of the primary tools was DDT,
an insecticide wildly believed.

At the time to be safe and
effective in places like Sara Walk.

Entire communities were sprayed to
kill malaria carrying mosquitoes

before they could infect humans.

The mosquito problem declined.

Everything else did not Cats either.

Through direct exposure to DDT
untreated surfaces, or possibly

through eating contaminated insects and
animals began dying in large numbers.

With the local cat population
suddenly reduced rats faced

dramatically less predation.

The result was that population explosion.

The rats began destroying
crops, threatening food

supplies, and local livelihoods.

In an attempt to correct the
problem, British authorities

approved a solution that can only be
described as aggressively literal.

They would add more cats.

In 1960, the Royal Air Force flew
domestic cats from Singapore to Shaw.

The cats were placed in crates,
fitted with parachutes and dropped

into remote villages that were
otherwise difficult to access.

Contemporary, contemporary reports suggest
around 23 cats were used though later.

Retailings wildly exaggerated
the number into the thousands.

Those larger figures are
considered apocryphal.

At the time.

The operation was reported as a success.

The cats survived the drops,
the wrap population was reduced.

Crop stabilized on paper.

It worked.

The story didn't end there.

Operation Cat Drop became a case
study in environmental science,

often cited as a cautionary tale
about unintended consequences.

The original intervention DDT
spraying solved one problem while

destabilizing multiple food chains.

That destabilization required a second
intervention, which itself carried

risks and unknowns in later years.

Researchers pointed to similar cases
in Thailand, Bolivia, and Mexico,

where DDT exposure was linked to cat
deaths and subsequent rodent outbreaks.

In some cases, cats were believed to have
been poisoned simply by licking their

fur after brushing against treated walls.

Today, operation Cat Drop is thought is
taught as an example of why ecosystems

must be approached as interconnected
systems rather than isolated problems.

One action alters multiple variables.

Often in ways humans fail to anticipate.

It also remains one of the only times
in recorded history that someone

looked at an ecological crisis
and said, weed parachuting cats.

My take.

This is the most British
solution imaginable.

Not only did they identify the
problem, they calmly escalated it

into an airborne V lane deployment.

No drama, no irony, just right then
the cats will be dropped at oh 900.

We

Angela: tried it, Dawn,

John: and to be fair,
this was not incompetence.

This was confidence.

It was the same era that brought,
brought us dt, DDT, everywhere,

asbestos in buildings, and the idea that
ecosystems were basically spreadsheets.

What I love about this story is
that it perfectly illustrates how

humans don't really fix nature.

We negotiate with it, and
sometimes that negotiation involves

accidentally killing all the cats.

Yeah, creating a rat apocalypse and then
parachuting replacement cats into the

jungle, like fuzzy little reinforcements.

Also, imagine being a villager and
just seeing cats fall from the sky.

No explanation, no warning, just cats.

Frankly, I respect it.

Angela: I can't decide if I want to see
it or if I don't wanna see it worse.

John: So is Operation Cat Drop.

Brilliant problem solving
or ecological panic mode.

Angela: I wanna know how
it's not a Disney cartoon,

John: right?

Angela: How I, I don't, I don't have an
answer for you on that 'cause I'm still

trying to decide if I wanna see it or not.

John: I mean, I have such a problem
with government getting involved in

the ecosystem in any way, shape, or
form, whatever it's like, I mean,

it's going on right now in Colorado.

We've seen it in Wyoming with
the reintroduction of wolves into

an ecosystem that hasn't seen
an apex predator like that in.

200 years or whatever, 150 years.

And I mean, and we saw it in 1988.

I don't know if you were old enough to
remember, I remember very clearly when

they had the whole Let It Burden program.

Angela: Yep.

John: Where we had, we practiced
like a hundred over a hundred

years of absolute fire suppression.

If a fire starts, we put it out.

If a fire starts, we put it out.

We don't let anything burn ever.

We did that for over a hundred years.

And then in 1988, that idiot with the
name, it starts with a b, I cannot

remember it off the top of my head.

Anyway, they decided,
we're gonna let it burn.

We're gonna let it burn.

Yellowstone had overgrown for
freaking millennia, and then we let

it burn, and boy did it ever burn.

It burned.

So yeah, I, I just wanted
to leave it the hell alone.

So what modern environmental fixes do you
think that we'll look back on and say?

Why did we think that was a good idea?

A hundred percent.

GMO, a hundred percent GMO.

This idea that we can genetically
modify plants Exactly.

To not be affected by a herbicide
so that we can spray herbicide on

plants that we're going to eat.

I mean, I don't need to wait to
say That's a bad freaking idea.

Angela: It's true.

John: I could say that's
a bad idea right now.

And whoever thought that
shit up is an absolute moron.

He probably wears lemon juice
on his face to disappear.

Angela: He does,

John: but he sold it to everybody.

Angela: I was looking up the guy's
name that you were trying to remember

and it won't tell me so anyway.

John: Yeah.

I wanna say bobbit though.

It wasn't Bobbit.

That's the guy that got his,

Angela: yeah,

John: but it was, it
started with a b, dammit.

Because it was like a, it was a
dirty word in Cody at the time.

Angela: Yeah.

John: Everybody hated that man because

Angela: Let it burn.

John: He exercised the Let it Burn
policy and it freaking destroyed us.

I mean, wow.

That was a bad year.

So if Kaz fell from the sky today,
how long would it take before

someone tried to monetize it?

Angela: Two and a half seconds.

John: Yeah, it's about 27 seconds.

Angela: Yeah.

John: Yeah.

Okay.

You ready for weird shit number two?

Angela: Yes.

John: The send down clown all colors, Sam.

Angela: Okay.

John: In May of 19 73, 2 children
playing near late common on the

aisle of right on, on the aisle of
white, reported an encounter with a

seven foot tall clown like humanoid.

Calling itself.

Sam, the figure wore bizarre
clothing, carried a microphone that

admitted a siren like well lived
in a metallic hut and behaved in

ways that defied logic or biology.

The incident was later documented in
a 1978 before our report and has since

become one of Britain's strangest and
most endearing high strangeness cases.

On what was described as an
otherwise ordinary afternoon.

In May of 19 73, 2 children
known as Faye and an unnamed

boy were playing near the river.

Angela: Poor kid

John: at Lake Common in
sand down aisle of white.

Their attention was drawn to a
strange sound drifting across the

area, described as a wailing noise,
similar to an ambulance siren.

Following the sound, the children
came up on something that did

not fit into any known category
of person, animal, or costume.

Standing near a wooden footbridge
was a humanoid figure, estimated

to be around seven feet tall.

He wore a green tunic, white
trousers, and a pointed yellow hat.

His face appeared to sit directly
on his, on his shoulders.

No visible neck.

His eyes were triangular
markings rather than normal eyes.

His nose was square and brown
and his lips were yellow.

His limbs were described as rigid
and flat, like wooden slats.

The figure carried what the children
described as a black knob microphone

with a white flex attached.

When he spoke into it,
the wailing sound stopped.

Initially, Sam used the microphone
to communicate, though later he was

able to speak without it, albeit
unclearly with minimal lip movement.

When asked his name, the reported
the being reportedly replied

that his name was all Color Sam.

The interaction did not end there.

Sam invited the children into his
nearby dwelling, a small metallic

self-made hut with two floors inside.

The children spent approximately
30 minutes with him.

During this time, Sam
demonstrated behaviors that

were at best deeply unsettling.

He showed them a book that he carried.

He spoke in a non-linear,
fragmented manner.

Most memorably.

He demonstrated how he ate varies placing
them into his ear and then transferring

them into his mouth through his eye.

At no point did the children
report feeling threatened.

Instead, the experience was
described as strange, confusing,

and surreal rather than frightening.

After the encounter, Sam
was never seen again.

The story entered the public record
years later with Faye when Faye's brother

identified only as Mr. Y reported the
incident to the British UFO Research

Association before a documented the
account in a 1978 report, preserving it as

a case that resisted easy classification
with Sam and extraterrestrial, a

folkloric entity, a hallucination.

A misinterpreted human.

The report offered no
definitive conclusion.

Over time, the sand down clown became
part of British high strangeness folklore.

The cases since inspired books,
documentaries, artwork, jewelry, and

even 3D printed figurines and odd
commercial afterlife for something

that appeared once baffled two children
and vanished without explanation.

My take.

I don't trust clowns under
the best circumstances.

I especially don't trust seven foot
clowns who live in metal huts, eat berries

to their eyes and introduce themselves
like a psychedelic printer error.

What makes the sand down clown fascinating
isn't that it's obviously aliens, it's

that it doesn't behave like anything.

It's not a classic QFO encounter.

It's not a ghost, it's not a crypted.

It's not even a convincing prank.

It's nonsense with confidence,
and that's the unsettling part.

The details are too specific,
too consistent and too weird

to feel invented, but also too
strange to feel misidentified.

If this were a costume, it would,
it was an elaborate one, wor once

in the middle of nowhere for no
audience except two children.

Also, the microphone siren thing, the.

That's not how sound works.

That's not how eating works either.

Nothing about Sam operates on rules
that we recognize, whether this

was imagination, an altered mental
state, something non-human or

something, we don't have language for.

The sand down clown occupies
a very uncomfortable space.

The gap between explanation and
dismissal, and frankly, that's

where the best weird shit lives.

Angela: I have a new phobia,

John: the sand down clown.

Angela: Yeah.

John: So is the sand down clown
more likely to be a psychological

phenomenon, a prank or something?

Genuinely unexplained?

Angela: Genuinely unexplained.

John: I think it is too.

I think it's.

Weird as shit is what I think.

Angela: Very, very weird as shit.

How did they not feel uncomfortable?

John: How?

Angela: How?

John: They're kids, man,

Angela: I don't

John: like kids.

Angela: I don't care.

Kids are scared of everything.

John: No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no.

Not all kids are not.

No, no.

Uhuh.

Nope.

So why do so many high strangeness
encounters involve entities that almost,

but not quite understand human behavior?

Angela: That's a good question.

'cause they're trying to be
like us, so we'll accept them,

John: right?

Angela: Yeah.

John: So sand down clown like a
alien or is like an interdimensional

type thing or what the, what the,

Angela: I hope it's not a future thing
because I don't wanna come across it.

John: Yeah.

I uh, if you encountered all color
Sam today, would you follow him

into the hut or run immediately?

Angela: Run immediately.

As fast as this broken knee could help me.

John: I'm telling you straight up,
if I see any seven foot anything, I'm

keeping my freaking distance, man,
because Yeah, that's way bigger than me.

Angela: Yeah.

I'm not entering anything's abode.

John: And when I encounter some
weird shit like that and they say,

come back to my house with me.

Angela: Yeah.

John: Uhuh, I'm out.

Angela: Let me show you how I eat Berries.

John: You through my ear, through
my, into my ear, through my eye.

I don't understand.

I don't to say.

All right.

You ready for the next weird shit,

Angela: please.

John: The Black Hope curse when
suburbia was built on the dead.

In the early 1980s, residents
of an upscale Texas subdivision

near Houston began experiencing
terrifying paranormal activity.

After discovering their homes
were built atop an unmarked

African American cemetery.

No one is black Hope,

Angela: oh man.

John: Human remains were uncovered
during routine landscaping and

multiple families reported escalating
supernatural disturbances, emotional

collapse, legal ruin, and even death.

The case became one of the most
infamous, modern haunted neighborhood

stories in American folklore.

Just outside Houston sits what was
once a pristine, suburban development

nanny, cured lawns, quiet streets,
and newly built homes marketed

as a dream for young families.

In the early 1980s, Sam and Judith
Haney moved into what they believed

would be their forever home on the
western edge of the neighborhood.

That dream began to
rot almost immediately.

Shortly after moving in, an elderly
man appeared at the ha at the Haney

door with an unsettling warning.

He explained that he had noticed
the couple digging a swimming

pool and felt compelled to
tell them something important.

There were graves in their backyard.

Angela: Ugh,

John: skeptical but uneasy.

Sam Haney decided to
investigate using a backhoe.

He dug into the mark
area almost immediately.

He struck wood pine
boards digging by hand.

He uncovered the unmistakable
outline of a human skeleton.

Authorities were called the
sheriff, and county coroner

conducted an official exhumation.

Most of the remains had
deteriorated into powder, but

fragments were recovered nearby.

A second coffin was discovered intact
containing skeletal remains of, with

two wedding rings still on the finger,
the rings were handed to Judith Haney.

It was sickening.

She later said to think that I
had desecrated somebody's grave.

The Heney began searching for answers.

Their investigation led them to a
longtime local resident, Jasper Norton,

who revealed the horrifying truth.

The neighborhood had been built
over an abandoned Amer African

American cemetery called Black Hope.

Many of those buried
there were former slaves.

Records suggested as many as 60 people
were interred in unmarked popper's graves

with the last burial occurring in 1939.

The graves had been forgotten.

The land was sold.

The houses were built
wanting to make things right.

The Hees reburied the remains in
their backyard and prayed for peace.

He did not come.

Angela: Yeah.

John: Judith reported electrical
disturbances, a bedroom clock

sparking with a blue glow.

Despite being unplugged, she heard voices.

When she was alone one morning, her red
shoes vanished only to be found neatly

placed atop the grave sites outside.

Sam noted the discovery
coincided with what would've

been Betty Thomas's birthday.

The woman buried there.

Other neighbors soon came forward.

Ben and Jean Williams reported
coffin, sheep, sinkhole

reportedly forming in their yard.

Plants refused to grow.

Cold spots appeared inside
the house during Texas summer.

Toilets flushed on their own
shadows, moved along the walls,

whispers, echoed through empty rooms.

Their granddaughter described
hearing murmuring voices as water

drained from the toilet as as
though unseen people were speaking.

Ben Williams eventually claimed to see
two ghostly figures inside his home.

When they approached his his wife's
bedroom, he charged them passing through

the apparitions and feeling an intense,
sticky cold sensation throughout his body.

The emotional toll was devastating.

The Haney sued the builder for
failing to disclose the cemetery.

A jury initially awarded them
$142,000 for mental anguish,

but the verdict was overturned.

The hees were ordered to
pay $50,000 in court costs.

They filed for bankruptcy
and lost everything.

The Williams sought legal remedies as
well, but without definitive proof of

graves on their property, they were told
there was nothing that could be done.

That's when Gene Williams made a
fateful decision, if you want a body.

She said, I'll show you a body.

And she began digging.

Gene became ill.

Her daughter de her
daughter Tina, took over.

Within an hour, Tina grew
dizzy, collapsed, and suffered

a massive heart attack.

She died two days later.

Oh, Jean believed that she had desecrated
another grave and paid the price.

The Williams fled the neighborhood.

Eventually, they rebuilt
their lives somewhere else.

The disturbances stopped.

Today, the neighborhood stands quiet.

Current residents report nothing unusual.

No explanations were ever offered.

No accountability was taken, and
no one has ever been able to fully

explain what happened at Black Hope.

My take.

This story isn't scary because of ghosts.

It's scary because of indifference.

This wasn't a cursed castle
or a haunted plantation.

This was suburban America.

Developers erased a cemetery,
specifically an African American

cemetery because it was inconvenient.

Then they sold the land, poured
concrete over the dead and walked away.

Whether you believe in ghosts
or not, the trauma here is real.

People uncovered human
remains in their yards.

They were handed wedding
rings from skeletons.

They were told legally, that's not,
that's none that none of it mattered.

Angela: Yeah,

John: and when everything fell apart
emotionally, financially, spiritually,

the system shrugged their shoulders.

You don't need spirits to explain
that kind of damage, but if you do

believe in restless, dead black coat
becomes something else entirely.

Not a haunting, but a reckoning.

Angela: And no one got a pool.

John: Yeah.

And so is the Black Hope case best
explained by paranormal activity,

psychological trauma or moral injustice?

Angela: Uh, B and C.

John: So you don't think it's a haunted?

Mm,

Angela: no.

Maybe it's all, I think it's all,

John: yeah.

I mean, I don't know.

And what I just told you is
all I know about this, so

take it for what it's worth.

But it does seem a little bit,
I don't know, questionable that

none of these appearances started
happening until they discovered that

their house was built on a cemetery.

Angela: Yeah.

John: So it kind of makes you
wonder if they were liking.

Scaring themselves, not intentionally,

Angela: right.

John: But it would freak me the
hell out too, to find out that I

have dead people in my backyard.

Angela: Yeah.

John: And so, but then there's, the
whole other aspect of that is like,

they really tried to do the right thing
and rein, turn them in the, on their

property and Yeah, respect that, where
they were, respect, respect their,

you know, their graves and stuff.

So I don't know, but.

The next question for me is a no-brainer.

Should developers be legally required to
investigate and disclose historical burial

grounds, especially marginalized ones?

Angela: Yes.

John: Yeah.

I mean, I really don't care if the people
buried there are black, white, Indian.

Like, to me that that makes no difference.

It's, this wasn't like a, 'cause there's
people buried all over the place, right?

Like Right.

You know, I mean most,

Angela: that was specific set aside.

John: That was a freaking cemetery

Angela: spiritual,

John: it was not like
a on the wagon train.

Larry killed over, so we're gonna
dig a hole and throw his ass in it.

Yeah.

This is like a cemetery,

Angela: which I'd still respect
it if we knew about it, but,

John: well, of course.

But.

This is a cemetery.

Cemetery where the last person
was buried in 1930, freaking nine.

That was not that long ago.

Angela: No, it

John: was.

My dad was alive and then, I mean,

Angela: it was not that long ago.

John: We had, we were keeping
records and shit by the thirties.

Yeah.

You know, very, very good records.

We were talking just a few
years before World War ii.

I mean, this is very much of the modern,
industrialized era, and we couldn't

keep track of where Graves were.

Angela: They didn't care.

John: I mean, it's jacked up.

Angela: It's clear that
they just didn't care.

'cause the, it was monetization.

John: Right?

So if the neighborhood is quiet
now, does that mean the dead are

at rest or just ignored again?

Angela: Probably ignored again.

John: Yeah.

I mean, I don't know.

I don't know what to think.

And I

Angela: know about the guy who
told him like, where does he live?

How did he know why?

You know?

John: Well, shit, he
was probably an old man.

Like I said, it was not that long ago.

Angela: Yeah, true.

John: I mean, what did I say?

When did I say that this
took place early 1980s.

In the early 1980s.

Angela: Yeah.

John: Somebody that was alive
in 1939 could have been, been in

Angela: his fifties.

Yeah.

John: Yeah.

They would've been in
the prime of their life.

Angela: Yeah.

John: You know, and so, yeah, I mean, he
was probably, he probably grew up there.

He probably knew the last person that
was freaking buried in the place.

I don't know.

But yeah, I don't know,
man, that's a crazy one.

I wouldn't wanna live there.

I know that.

Angela: No.

John: All right.

You ready for the next one?

Yep.

Weird shit.

Number four, Pepsi's Cold War Navy.

When a soda company owned warships
in the late 1980s, PepsiCo

struck one of the strangest
trade deals in corporate history.

Instead of cash, the Soviet Union
paid for Pepsi syrup with a fleet of

naval vessels including submarines.

For a brief moment, Pepsi technically
controlled what was jokingly described

as the world's sixth largest Navy, making
it the only soft drink company to ever

become a naval power during the Cold War.

In the late 1980s, Pepsi was
wildly popular in the Soviet Union.

The problem wasn't demand, it was money.

The Soviet rubble was essentially,
the Soviet ruble was essentially

worthless outside of the USSR.

It couldn't be freely exchanged,
converted, or used to pay.

Western corporations.

Most companies refuse to do
business under those conditions.

Pepsi did not.

At the center of the
story is Donald Kendall.

See, CEOA man who was not your
typical corporate executive.

Kendall had been a US Navy
pilot during World War ii.

He earned a distinguished flying cross
and started at Pepsi in 1947, bottling

soda and hauling crates by truck.

By 1963, he had risen to CEO and built
rare personal access to global political

leaders, including Soviet leadership.

Kendall famously convinced Soviet
Premier Nikita, Nikita k Khrushchev, to

try Pepsi at the 1959 American National
Exhibition in Moscow, giving Pepsi a

foothold behind the Iron Curtain long
before most Western brands were allowed.

In fast forward to the late
1980s, the Soviet Union placed

a massive order for Pepsi syrup.

Once again, had no usable
currency to pay for it.

Kendall didn't want to lose
the deal, so he asked a simple

question, what can you pay with?

The answer was unexpected,
but very Soviet warships.

Through a complex trade arrangement, Pepsi
agreed to accept decommissioned Soviet

na naval vessels as partial payment.

The deal reportedly included
17 submarines, a cruiser,

a frigate, and a destroyer.

These ships were transferred to
Pepsi through intermediaries and were

intended to be sold for scrap, not
deployed in combat, but ownership still

mattered for a brief window of time.

Pepsi technically controlled a fleet
larger than many national natives.

When White House, when White House
officials learned of the deal, Kindal

reportedly joked poor disarming the
Soviet Union faster than you are.

The timing couldn't have been stranger.

The Cold War was thawing, Soviet economy
was collapsing, and a soda company had

become on paper, a naval power in 1991.

As the Soviet Union dissolved and global
trade regulations shifted, Pepsi sold off

the ships and abandoned the arrangement.

The company returned to normal commercial
operations, but the story endured.

No other corporation has ever held
submarines as payment for soda.

My take, this is the most American
thing that has ever happened.

Yeah.

Not because it's patriotic, but because
it's capitalism at its absolute weirdest.

When faced with a broken
currency, Pepsi didn't say no.

They said, cool.

What El?

What else you got?

And the Soviets responded with submarines.

I also love that this wasn't
some tech startup nonsense.

It was handled by a World War II Navy
pilot who looked at a geopolitical crisis

and said, fine, I'll take a destroyer.

Let's be clear.

Pepsi never fired a torpedo.

But for a But for one brief, beautiful
moment, a soda company could have

theoretically blockaded a coastline.

And that's the real
lesson of the Cold War.

Sometimes the arms race ends, not
with missiles, but with a soda.

So is this the strangest
corporate payment arrangement in

history or just the most honest

Angela: bull?

John: I never heard

Angela: strange.

I never heard,

John: I never heard this shit.

Never heard this shit at all.

But is that crazy or
is that freaking crazy?

Angela: That's, yeah.

John: And could you imagine a, a
company now like pulling up freaking

submarines to the coast, to the
California coastline and you're like,

uh, what the hell's going on here?

Angela: I'd like to pay four.

John: Yeah, that had to be a
lot of freaking Pepsi syrup.

I gotta say like that's a lot.

17 submarines.

Plus plus, plus plus,

Angela: plus plus.

I know.

John: So what moderate company do
you think would handle international

trade this boldly today?

Hmm.

Angela: Tesla.

John: That's what I was gonna say.

Elon Musk.

I could see him pulling
some shit like this.

Abso freaking, literally I could.

Yep.

So if Pepsi owns submarines, what brand
do you not want Owning aircraft carriers.

Angela: Oh wow.

Surge

jolt.

John: Yeah,

Angela: I don't want any of that.

No.

John: None of that.

Angela: None of that.

John: All right.

You ready for weird shit number five?

Angela: Sure thing.

John: All right, so this one, I don't
know if you've listened to it or not.

Angela: You

John: have this I covered
on my Christmas special.

Angela: No, but I've, I've, I've

John: You've heard this story?

Yeah.

I covered this one on, uh, on my Christmas
special, and it's just, it's just weird.

We're gonna have to do a, a main
episode on it as well, because

I just briefly covered it.

It's

Angela: very weird.

John: It's weird.

That is the solder children disappearance.

Five kids vanish in a fire with no bodies.

Yep.

On Christmas Eve, November 24th, 1945,
the Solder family home in Fayetteville,

West Virginia burned the ground.

George and Jenny Solder and four of
their children escaped five children.

Maurice, Martha Lewis, Jeannie, and Betty
were presumed dead, but investigators

found no bodies and no clear remains, and
the family spent decades convinced the

children were kidnapped amid suspicious
warnings, missing evidence, and later

sightings claims, including a mysterious
photograph mailed to the family.

Years later, the solder case
begins like a tragedy and then

refuses to behave like one.

George Solder born Giorgio Du in Italy
had built a stable life in West Virginia

as a successful trucking businessman.

He was also outspoken,
especially about politics.

According to the family, his
vocal criticism of Mussolini had

created friction in parts of the
local Italian immigrant community.

In the months leading up to
Christmas, 1945, the family reported

a series of unnerving incidents.

A life insurance salesman allegedly warned
George, his house would go up in smoke

and his children would be destroyed.

Another visitor made
comments about the home's.

Wiring and family members noticed
strangers watching the children.

Then came Christmas Eve.

The household was full.

George Ginny and nine children.

One older son was away in the military.

The younger kids begged to stay
up late, excited about gifts.

Ginny eventually went to bed at around
12:30 AM a strange, wrong number.

Call woke her up.

She later remembered a weird laugh
in the background around 1:00

AM she heard a loud thump on the
roof, followed by a rolling sound.

Not long after she smelled smoke and
discovered a fire near the office area.

Close to the telephone line and fuse box.

George and Ginny woke the house.

Four children escaped with them, but
five children believed to be sleeping

upstairs, did not respond to calls,
and the stairway was already engulfed.

George tried everything.

Climbing the exterior, breaking a window,
searching for the ladder, normally kept

against the house, attempting to start
his trucks to reach the attic window.

Yet the ladder was missing and the
trucks reportedly wouldn't start.

They watched the house collapse.

What happened next is where the case
turns into a long-term American mystery.

The fire department response was delayed
until later that morning, and the search

for remains was by many accounts limited.

The fire chief concluded the five
children were dead and suggested the

blaze was intense enough to consume
them entirely, but the solders could

not reconcile, could not reconcile
that with what they saw afterwards.

Household items were still
recognizable in the ash.

The family later heard from a crematorium
contact that even intense heat over

time tends to leave bone re remnants.

Ginny reported burned animal
bones in small tests and found

they didn't simply disappear.

Then the physical oddity stacked up.

The missing ladder was found down in
embankment, some distance from the

house suggesting it may have been moved.

A phone repairman later told
the family the phone line had

been cut, not burned through.

Employing, implying deliberate sabotage.

Witnesses later claimed to have
seen balls of fire thrown at

the home the night of the blaze.

A suspicious, small, rubbery object
was found later in the brush,

which the family believed could
have been an incendiary device.

The official conclusion remained
accidental fire, faulty wiring,

but the family never accepted it.

In the years that followed, they
pursued the case relentlessly, hiring

private investigators, pressuring
authorities, and placing a billboard

with the children's photos along the
road, offering a reward for information

they collected siding claims, a woman
who said she saw children matching

their description with Italian speaking
adults, a claim that the children were

seen in a passing car during the fire.

Another claim.

They were served breakfast
the next morning.

Then came the most famous later clue.

In 1967, Jenny received a letter
with no return address, pop postmark

from Kentucky containing a photo of
a young man resembling Louis Solder.

The bat contained cryptic writing.

Quote Lewis Solder.

I love brother Frankie, and a
string of characters and numbers.

The family hired an investigator to follow
up who never returned with results and

reportedly vanished from contact, leaving
the family with more dread than closure.

George died in 1969.

Ginny wore black for the rest
of her life and maintained a

memorial garden over the fire site.

The billboard stayed up until
after her death in 1989.

The family continued to publicize
the case well into the 21st century.

No definitive answer has ever emerged
that satisfies the central problem.

Five children were declared dead in
a fire, and yet the evidence of their

death was never convincingly produced.

My take.

This story messes with you because
it isn't one big, impossible thing.

It's 10 smaller things that all
point in the same direction.

Something was off if the
children died in that fire.

Fine, tragic, plausible, awful.

But then explain the missing ladder.

Explain the cut Phone lines.

Explain why multiple help options
failed in a row like dominoes.

Explain why a fire hot enough to
erase five bodies still left behind.

Recognizable household material.

Explain why the family kept
getting credible enough leads to

keep them chasing for decades.

And if the children didn't die in the
fire, then what are we looking at?

Angela: Mm-hmm.

John: Kidnapping, staged
to look like a fire.

Retaliation tied to Georgia's
politics, organized crime, a local

grudge with a very specific target,
a coverup after a botched response.

The most brutal part is that the
solders never got the one thing

grief demands, and that is certainty.

They were trapped in permanent, maybe.

Mm-hmm.

Because in true crime closure
usually comes from a body, a

confession or a conviction.

Here you've got none of the above,
just ashes, rumors and a family that

refused to stop asking questions.

Everyone else wanted to
bury where are the kids

Angela: and why those specific
kids, and why the kids haven't said

anything in the all these years.

John: So what detail bothers you the most?

The missing ladder, the cut phone lines.

The lack of remains.

Angela: Lack of remains.

John: Me too.

A hundred percent.

I do not buy that for a second.

No way.

Angela: Yeah,

John: I mean, I've researched way
too many true crime cases where

somebody I. Tries to cremate a body

Angela: and it doesn't work.

John: And it doesn't work.

I mean, it's been proven
time and time again

Angela: to get

John: temperature

Angela: too hot for that

John: you cannot burn
household combustibles hot

enough to cremate remains.

It just cannot happen.

Those kids were not in that house.

I'm convinced of it.

Angela: No, but I still wanna know
why those particular kids were

chosen and not the other four.

John: Well, I have a hard time.

Maybe it was just 'cause they
couldn't get to the other four.

Maybe those ones were convenient.

But the issue that I have
is he didn't like Mussolini.

Okay, it's 1945.

We're at war with Italy.

None of us like Mussolini.

I mean, his opinion would not be like,
it would not be an odd one when we have

American servicemen over there dying.

Yeah.

Fighting against Mussolini's armies.

Angela: Right.

John: So if, if he would've
loved Mussolini and been very

outspoken in support of him, okay.

Maybe,

Angela: yeah.

John: But for somebody that
supported Mussolini and wanted

to kill somebody that didn't.

You're talking about the whole
freaking country for the most part.

Angela: So why this guy?

John: And in, and in the 1940s during
World War ii, this country was very

collectively on the same page, on who
was the enemy, who was the axis of evil.

I'm not saying that there wasn't
Nazis in the United States.

Right.

And Nazi sympathizers.

And that there people that
supported the Empire of Japan, and

that didn't support Mussolini in
Italy, but it was tiny fragments.

Angela: Yeah.

John: I mean, this country went
so far as to lock up perfectly

innocent people just because they
were from Japan or from Germany.

Yeah.

Not Nazis.

We're we're talking about locking
up people whose children were

fighting for us in the war.

Yeah.

And we still locked
them into intern camps.

Yeah.

So pointing out somebody that didn't
support Mussolini is like, okay.

And that one doesn't.

And that one doesn't.

And that one, like, it's so for me that
that one is a little tough to swallow.

Even if, yeah.

Even if it was from Italy, there was a lot
of Italians that didn't support Mussolini.

Angela: Mm-hmm.

John: Just like there was a lot of
Russians that didn't support Stalin.

Just like there was a lot of
Cubans that didn't support Castro.

I mean exactly.

The list goes on and on.

Most of China didn't support Mao Sayong.

Mm-hmm.

So, I don't know.

That's a tough, I I don't
find that as a viable motive.

Angela: No.

Something else.

John: Or

Angela: something else.

It was

John: something else.

And, but kidnapping five children,
we're not talking about babies.

Angela: Yeah.

John: We're not talking about babies.

Five children is a quite the un huge feat.

I mean, that's quite an undertaking
in the house with the parents there.

Angela: Yeah.

John: Ah,

Angela: four other kids.

John: Right.

Angela: I don't.

That baffles me.

John: And I don't believe for an an
instant that the solders were involved.

You do not spend 50 years.

Angela: Yeah.

John: With a billboard up and
trying to find your children.

If you're somehow guilty, you want that
story to go away as fast as possible.

They did everything they
possibly could to keep it alive.

Yeah, they did.

They are not responsible for this.

So it is a freaking weird one.

Strange.

So if you assume the children were taken,
what scenario feels most plausible?

Local retaliation, organized
crime or something else?

Angela: Retaliation.

I think he did something else.

John: Yeah, I just, it
was an organized crime.

'cause what's the point?

Angela: Yeah.

John: Like, you know the mafia
for all the bad shit they do.

Killing children is not high on the list.

No, there's like, none
of that shit happens.

But let's just say it was a mafia figure.

They're not gonna steal 'em.

They wanna hang those bodies out
where everybody can steal 'em and

be like, Hey, you mess with me.

Yeah.

This is what you get.

Angela: Exactly.

John: It's the horse's head
and the bed type thing.

I've seen the Godfather, I
know how the mafia works.

So I mean, but all jokes aside,
that's really how they operate.

They're, you're either
swimming with the fishes.

Yeah.

Where you're disappeared, you're con
whatever, or you're out there where

people can see it and they leave.

But if it's children, it's definitely
to send a message to the parents, in

which case they're gonna find the bodies.

It was not organized crime.

Angela: Yeah.

John: I already explained my feelings
on the whole Mussolini angle.

I don't buy that for a freaking second.

So I think it was something else.

I don't know what

Angela: he wronged somebody somewhere
and no one is talking about it.

John: But even still,
that's so remarkably rare.

Yeah.

Like I can't think of any actually.

You know, it's not like I, I have an
encyclopedia in my brain of every crime

case ever, but you know, most of the time
if children are taken and it's not for

sexual purposes, it's ransom purposes.

Yeah.

Or you have somebody, some
whacked out woman that wants

a baby and she steals one.

But that was not this.

Angela: That's happening
all too often lately.

John: And so you're either left with,
in my mind, you're either left with

like the sexual component, which
doesn't fit because boys and girls

of of multiple ages were taken.

Mm-hmm.

Doesn't fit there at all.

Or the ransom theory, which doesn't fit
because there was never a ransom, I can't

think of another kidnapping case that
of children that doesn't fit in there.

And I can't think really of kidnapping
case in general that doesn't fit in there

unless it's like a bank president taken to
get into the bank or some shit like that.

But just strictly kidnapping.

It's either very

Angela: weird.

John: It's so weird.

I don't know.

It feels like some kind of retaliation.

Angela: But

John: to what a means to what end?

Angela: Yeah.

Yeah.

John: Like you take the kids
and you're like, you stop doing

this shit, or the kids are dead.

You stop doing this shit and
you'll get your kids back.

But

Angela: there was nothing else.

John: Right.

So, and if the person that
you're retaliating against.

Doesn't understand that they're
being retaliated against.

Exactly.

What point does it serve?

Angela: Yeah.

John: I don't know, man.

I don't have an answer
to this question neither.

That's why he said we're gonna have
to dig into it for like a main show

episode because I got to know more.

Angela: Yep.

John: And it's gonna take a
lot of research because you're

talking freaking old records.

Angela: Yeah.

John: But I definitely see that in
our future because this one kind

of has its hooks in me, obviously.

Yeah.

Angela: I like, I like this

one.

John: I've covered it like
twice in less than a month.

So if you assume the children died in
the fire, what explains the continued

credible leads and the later photograph?

Angela: Mm-hmm.

John: And that's another weird one.

Angela: Yeah.

John: They carry this shit on for years.

Angela: I mean, I feel like I've
heard that there was a letter later

too in other things, like there was
another form of communication later.

John: And you might be right, I
don't know if, if the letter is.

What is referred to as the writing
on the back of the photograph, or if

there was an additional letter as well.

I haven't seen anything
about the letter, but maybe

Angela: I could be wrong because we know I
don't remember these things as well, and I

could be remembering from something else,
but I feel like a missing sibling reached

out to a not missing sibling in a letter.

John: Maybe.

Angela: I feel like, I don't know if
that's a hundred percent true, but

if it's, it's a memory I'm having,

John: I don't know.

It's weird as shit, you know?

I mean, it's just the whole story's
weird and no theory fit, you know?

Yeah.

It's like.

The children ran away
from an abusive household.

Okay.

Well, abusers don't
typically spend 50 years.

Angela: Yeah.

John: Desperately seeking
their missing children.

Yeah.

That's really not how it works usually.

Angela: And why only some of them again?

John: Right.

And why didn't the other
four come forward later?

Angela: No.

Get abused.

Come on.

John: Right.

Angela: Yeah.

John: In a 1945 house with nine
children, I mean, they weren't

described as like super wealthy.

I've got to imagine it
was a pretty small house.

Kids were sharing bedrooms.

It was a typical 1945
big family home beds.

They very well might've been sharing beds.

So the, you know, and
it just, nothing fits.

That's what this story
is so freaking bizarre.

Angela: It is very,

John: I do not believe that
they were killed in the fire

that I could say unequivocally.

Angela: No, I don't think so either.

John: What happened and why I got nothing.

I got nothing.

But then there was the other story, Craig,
I covered in the Christmas special too.

That was another freaking
really crazy one.

I mean, we know who did that.

The father took his children into town
and then got 'em all dressed up, bought

'em new clothes, which was very strange
because it was like 1912 and they were

dirt poor farmers in North Carolina.

Took 'em all into town, got 'em all
new clothes, had family photos taken.

Took 'em all home, got his shotgun,
killed everybody, and then went out in the

woods and walked around a tree until he'd
literally worn a path around the tree.

And then when people
showed up, he shot himself.

So we don't know, but yeah, you
have to listen to that episode.

It's kind of a fun one.

We

Angela: haven't gotten
to it yet, but I, because

John: all those happened on Christmas.

And that's why.

That's why this one was in there.

It happened on Christmas Eve.

Yeah.

That's why that one was in there.

It happened on Christmas.

That was my sadistic weird ass.

True crime minded Christmas special,
because that's what we do here.

Angela: That's what we do.

Yep.

John: Alright.

Well.

That is all that I have for us tonight.

That is the black, or that
would, it's not the black screen.

It would be the black screen.

It would be the black screen.

But I decided I needed reminders of
everything we need our listeners to do.

So if you like what we do and how
we do it, please give us a review.

Leave us a thumbs up,
a like a hit the bell.

But all the freaking things that
I don't really understand how they

work or why they work, but I know
that they do work and we need them.

And we need them.

And if you're interested in getting
involved, you can always check

out our Adopt a Victim Program
on Dark Dialogue Collective.

All the information for that
can be [e-mail].

And you can support the show on
Patreon, on Coffee, on Substack.

You can take care, you can take
advantage of the members only

benefits that can be found.

On those sites.

And you also could check out all the
rest of our entire catalog of shows,

dark dialogue, name show, we have Dark
Dialogue, rocking on Reckoning, dark

Dialogue, distilled Dark Dialogue,
unraveled Truce, dark Dialogue Gals

and Gunfights, because I'm insane.

And I like to torture myself and write
and edit and do nothing else ever.

So that's that's all for you people.

So is all I ask for in return is
like a thumbs up alike review?

That's it.

That's it.

That's easy.

It's free.

And I keep producing all this nonsense
and you get to keep listening and being

like, wow, this guy is out of his mind.

So with that, do you have
anything else to add?

Angela: I actually do.

John: Ah, hit me with it.

Angela: It's amazing.

Right,

John: right.

Angela: So I don't know exactly
when this is going up, but we have

already teased a little bit that
we're collaborating with JJ Hawk Band.

John: Yes.

Angela: And there is a contest brewing

John: the.

Drake.

Angela: Yes.

So you get entries when you interact
with these things as John just

asked you to interact with, like
follow shares, whatnot, subscribing.

John: Is there rules?

Angela: Um, I am not a hundred percent
on rules other than the more you

interact with us and the more you
interact with the JJ Hawk Band on

TikTok, on Instagram, on Facebook.

Are the more entries you get to
all of these and there's a lot

of different tiers of prizes.

John: Oh, there's all kinds of
merchandise from the JJ Hawk Band.

Angela: Yeah.

John: Yeah.

And I mean, that collaboration
is super exciting.

They're freaking awesome.

Yeah.

Check out their music all over the place.

It's, it's unique and it's,
it's, it kind of, I don't know.

I mean the song I picked for Karen Pinnell
was almost had a country vibe to it.

Angela: Mm-hmm.

John: And then there's songs
that definitely have a,

have a rock vibe and yeah.

It, they're so unique and just, it's a

Angela: lot of mold.

John: They really do.

Yeah.

It's really cool.

It's exciting as hell for me.

Yeah.

And we'll see.

We'll get those rules and then we
can announce 'em on a later show.

Do you know like the timeline,
when is this gonna happen?

And

Angela: I feel like I
heard Valentine's Day.

John: Valentine's Day

Angela: feel.

John: Okay.

Okay.

Angela: We're headed to Valentine's Day
and I did hear that one of the prizes does

include a hundred dollars Visa gift card.

John: Oh yeah,

Angela: three things like,
like share and subscribe

John: t-shirts and on man mugs and
guitar picks and all kinds of stuff.

Angela: There's same clock from the band,

John: sign clock.

Yeah.

Blankets.

All kinds of cool shit.

So

Angela: for dialogue we'll
have some merchandise in it.

John: Yep.

So yeah.

So let's, let's see if we
can lock down those details.

Mm-hmm.

Um, as soon as we can so we have
it on our next production so we

can get that information out to
our listeners and everything.

And they can be sure to get in there, but

Angela: like, I just wanted to
give a little plan, a little

bug in their ears right now.

John: Absolutely.

And

Angela: interact with things.

John: The interactions.

The interactions right now will count.

Yes.

You don't have to wait until we
announced all the rules and everything.

Like you interact with this, you
interact with the JJ Hawk Band, those

interactions are going to count as Yes.

Entries into

Angela: now they

John: into all of this.

So, yeah.

So thank you for that.

Angela: Come, I finally had something.

I can't believe it.

John: Right on.

Well, I don't have anything
else, so if you don't.

Other than stay safe, everybody.

Yep.

This has been John and Angela.

Have a great night.