Eerily Beloved

Urban Legend: Propman

Madeline Edwards Episode 24

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0:00 | 24:11

Have you heard of PropMan? In 1944, a WWII B-24 bomber crashed into Mission Ridge near Wenatchee, Washington and one crew member was never found. Since then, hikers, ski patrollers, and Boy Scouts have reported terrifying encounters with a figure in a military uniform, missing limbs, and a propeller blade protruding from his chest. This Pacific Northwest urban legend has been scaring kids to stay in their cabins for decades. Is it fact, fiction, or something in between?

Have an eerie PNW encounter of your own or a case you want us to look into? Share it it with us eerilybelovedpodcast@gmail.com

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Intro music by Don Edwards

SPEAKER_02

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to the podcast and eerily beloved, we are gathered here today with the Pizzler. Mom.

SPEAKER_05

Dad.

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I think this is Dad's first official episode. No second. You were in the the Italy one and I was in another one. I guess third. That'll be third.

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Look close. He's still a rookie.

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Right.

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Yeah, I'm still a noob.

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He's he's he's learning. Okay, do we have any uh life updates admin to get to before we get into the episode? No.

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Like, share, comment, rate the podcast.

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Send in your stories to early belovedpodcast at gmail.com or send them to me on Instagram threads, TikTok, wherever, wherever you want. And you potentially could be featured on the next episode.

SPEAKER_03

It's super, it's super fun. Like, who wants to be on the podcast? It's pretty fun.

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Everybody.

SPEAKER_04

Everybody.

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Well, today we're gonna be talking about Prop Man. Have you guys heard of Prop Man?

SPEAKER_03

The Hat Man. What? Wait, say what you're spell what you're saying. P-R-O-P man. Prop man. Yep.

SPEAKER_05

Like movie props. He just goes around high school stealing the stealing sets. Okay, okay.

SPEAKER_03

I can't I can't even wait.

SPEAKER_04

Nope, I have not heard of propellant.

SPEAKER_03

But prop, like a like an airplane prop. Like a propeller. Okay. That's where that's where I was headed. I'm looking at Promp Man because I'm interested. You're gonna learn about him. No, but it's like, what is a prop man? Prompt man incorporated. Property management stands for property management. That's logging into Promp Man Portal. Mom mom.

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Why would you why would you self-sabotage? I wanted to look it up so I had some interesting insight. Crommudge Carl, self-sabotaging Sally.

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Danger Dawn.

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Oh nice. Nice. Nice. Okay. For decades, boys and girls at summer camps have been terrified to venture out of their cabins for fear that they would run into Prop Man.

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Boy Scout Trooper.

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And where is Prop Man? The lines between fact and fiction have been blurred as the tale passes from one generation to the next. But if you want to hear about what's been scaring campers when the sun goes down, all you have to do is find yourself around a summer camp campfire. Or listen to this episode.

SPEAKER_03

Thank God I'm not around a summer camp campfire.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, on the dark and stormy night of September 30th, 1944. I'm not kidding. That's old. Mm-hmm. Okay. Flight crew 22 set off on a training mission from the Army Air Base in Walla Wall, Washington. Remember, the Air Force did not exist until 1947. Right. So what we learned in the Maury Island, yeah. Okay. So the B-24 heavy bomber became off course due to poor weather and over the Cascade Mountain Range. Heavy fog removed any visibility that they had in stormy conditions, and around 8 p.m., residents in the Beehive Lookout area reported hearing the drone of a plane very low, followed by a fire in the trees that was illuminated in the fog. Okay. Unfortunately, due to unsafe conditions and rough terrain, rescue efforts were delayed until the morning. So the plane crashed.

SPEAKER_03

And where's Beehive? I need details.

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Look, I I I get foggy things.

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It was 1944.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, I'm sure we didn't have an altimeter.

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When rescuers reached the crash the crash site, all six of the crewmen were pronounced dead, and the site of the crash on Mission Ridge, twelve miles 12 miles north of Winnachie, Washington.

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Okay.

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Do you know where that is? Yes. Okay. Is now referred to as Bomber's Bowl. This is all according to the official plaque that marks the wreckage site today.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, so still today. Okay. So we're 80 years later.

SPEAKER_02

Yep. However, many questions about this crash still remain. Why did this training mission happen with such poor weather? Primarily. That's the main question. According to Money, Flight 22 was carrying sensitive war documents that could not under any circumstances become public knowledge. One of the duties of the recovery team was to find any of these documents in the wreckage and put them in the fuselage and add TNT and make sure nothing would be found.

SPEAKER_05

TNT?

SPEAKER_02

1944. TNT.

SPEAKER_05

Why wouldn't they just light them on fire?

SPEAKER_02

So, okay, super sus. Why is that like one of the main roles of the recovery team?

SPEAKER_05

Okay, well, I mean, they're dead. It's plane crash.

SPEAKER_02

I guess.

SPEAKER_05

But why would a bomber be carrying secret documents instead of like a different plan?

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Because it was during World War II We dropped Okay.

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So Okay, so this is a good one.

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Okay, so because of this, the crash site was very diligently searched and only five of the six bodies were actually recovered. Some believe Cap the captain ordered the men to parachute out when they lost visibility, but only one of the men, the tail gunner, was able to get out of the plane seconds before it crashed. Because of the lack of lead time, the tail gunner was unable to create distance between him and the plane. When he landed, a partial propeller blade struck him. Searchers found a bloody trail away from the scene to what's known as now Prop Prop Man's cave, but never a body, nor the remaining propeller fragment. The legend of Prop Man states that while his injury should have been catastrophic, something happened in that cave that transformed him into something not dead, but not alive either.

SPEAKER_04

Okay. So this is Propeller Man.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. Okay, so that's the story.

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Okay, so he, tail gunner, only one that can leave the plane, can't leave the plane safely, gets No, he was the only one that left the plane.

SPEAKER_03

But mutilated on the way out and then dies sometime in between his landing, and they never found the body, but they see bloody footprints. Okay.

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Well, he didn't die. They don't know. They never found the body. Since the crash in 1944, numerous hikers, skiers, and members of ski patrol have had encounters with what they call prop man. One account comes from a former ski patroller who realized someone was following him during an evening training session near Barmer's Bowl. Assuming it was a lost skier, he offered directions back to the mountain base. That's when he got a good look at the figure. The ski patroller described the man who was still in his uniform and even still had his canteen as having swollen features, missing body parts, and most notably a propeller blade protruding from his chest. Okay. Traumatized by the encounter, he quit the ski patrol and stopped skiing altogether.

SPEAKER_05

Why didn't you help the guy out?

SPEAKER_03

What was he supposed to do?

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He had missing body parts.

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Okay, that's that's that's creepy. Okay, keep going.

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That was an evening session. At night on the mountain.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, I would I would have quit my job too.

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Another account comes from 2010 when a Boy Scout came forward with his own encounter. While trying to catch up with his group, he noticed that he was being watched. However, unlike the patroller, it was just after lunch and not after dark. He turned the corner to see it was Prop Man following him before he raced back to his camp. He requested to go home and never set foot in the forest again. He also left the Boy Scouts altogether shortly after the encounter.

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Okay, well nowadays we know quite a bit about the Boy Scouts.

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Okay.

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Multiple reasons to quit and never come back.

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Okay.

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Prop Man could be one of them, but so multiple sightings.

SPEAKER_04

Multiple sightings. Seeing the same type of person.

SPEAKER_03

Yes. And we're talking about years when was the first encounter? It just didn't give a year. But then 2010. I mean, we're talking that was 70 years later. Yeah. 70-ish years later.

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Yep.

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Okay. So we'll tell that aside.

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Maybe a warring to stay off the trails during the day and out of the woods after dark. But regardless, if you find yourself alone on Mission Ridge, be on the lookout for the tattered undead man haunting the mountains of Wenatchee.

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So two eyewitnesses.

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Two eyewitnesses. However, however, many have heard this story over the years. So this person said, I first heard this story in the mid-80s while staying overnight at Scout of Vista. Our troop leader waited until everyone was in sleeping bags and told the story. At the same time, one of the parents went outside and rattled the windows. Needless to say, we were all petrified. It was a long night.

SPEAKER_05

So just like ghost stories around the campfire. And it was that same first eye count that they got like perpetrated. Everyone was just spreading that.

SPEAKER_02

This other one says mine actually comes from Campfire Girls' camp at Lake Wenauchee in the 70s. Apparently he traveled there. They used to tell us the story around the campfire, but I think it was a scarce into not leaving our cabins at night.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, I mean that's a I could see that. That's a pretty good one.

SPEAKER_03

I mean, I worked at a, you know, girls' camp, and yeah, anything you could do to keep him in the cabins at night was a good thing.

SPEAKER_02

That's all the person says. I remember them saying several people, including a scout of Vista caretaker, swore they had seen him. I remember them telling the story in others at night and then daring us to go by ourselves with no flashlight to the bell tower and to ring it. What?

SPEAKER_05

Okay, so it just had the opposite effect then. It just motivated him to go out.

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Someone else says, I've never been so scared in my life. I was in fifth grade at Girl Scout camp. This is the first time I had been away from home. We had to sleep in tents up near Mission Ridge where it happened.

SPEAKER_03

Okay, we don't need to be tormenting children.

SPEAKER_02

Well, yep. Well, I mean, it's actually really interesting having having So we have someone from the 70s, someone from the 80s, someone from 2010. Like this has been kind of happening.

SPEAKER_03

They didn't find the body ever. So for years and years.

SPEAKER_02

Well, the official plaque on the mountain says that they recovered six of the six bodies.

SPEAKER_03

Okay.

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But other things say further investigation due to the sensitive documents, which is why they had to scramble and yeah, which is why they had to look do a deeper investigation into the wreckage. They actually found five of the six bodies. Not six of the sixth.

SPEAKER_03

I mean, I feel like did you look up the FBI files? Because you were able to find those FBI files on Moray Island, so there's nothing. Nope. Personally, I would like to know: do they find five or six bodies? Like for real. That would make it.

SPEAKER_02

The wing, the wing of the bomber is on Mission Ridge. And I guess it's considered good luck if you rub the wing.

SPEAKER_05

No thanks. Why would I rub the wing of a plane that got down to the bomber?

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You can hike, you can hike during the summer and see the wreckage of the plane still.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, no thanks. I don't want to see Prop Man.

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There is a cave that they call Prop Man's Cave.

SPEAKER_05

Okay, yeah, I'm not going there.

SPEAKER_04

But the the the few accounts that we have on this, he he wasn't like chasing anybody. He wasn't like threatening. Just ended up seeing this person with a prop sticking out of him.

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Allegedly, he's looking for help. So he's like crawling towards someone. Unclear of what kind of help he's looking for.

SPEAKER_05

And that ski patrol guy just ran away.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. That's kind of messed up, but he is kind of this like crazy guy person like haunting the mountain, allegedly.

SPEAKER_03

I mean gave him directions, right? To the lodge. That's what it said. The ski patrol guy gave him directions to the lodge.

SPEAKER_04

I wanna know what body parts he's missing.

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I don't know.

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How can you walk if you're missing a a foot or a leg? Must be an arm. So it must be Must be an arm.

SPEAKER_02

Well, and if the propeller is going through his chest.

SPEAKER_03

But probably an arm. Can you repeat and tell me what the ski patrol guy told Prot Man in that account?

SPEAKER_02

Um, he offered directions back to the mountain base, linking, thinking it was a lost gear.

SPEAKER_05

Okay. A lost gear with missing limbs and a propeller through his chest.

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He just he just saw it was dark. It was dark on a mountain. It's not lit.

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So he thought, okay, this person is looking at Yeah, he was just being reasonable at his job at the time.

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But then he saw that the person was wearing the uniform of someone who'd be flying one of these planes. Had swollen features, missing body parts, and a propeller blade, a propeller blade protruding from his chest.

SPEAKER_05

And then just Jane Arms' day.

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No, he quit and never went back.

SPEAKER_05

Okay.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, I think, okay, so let's talk about creepy factor first. No, no, no, let's do believability first, because that's way easier. Believability. I mean, there are eyewitness accounts, multiple, right? But I would I really do question if if the plaque says they recovered six of six bodies, is it just a a story? Or are these accounts believable? And I think based on what you're saying, I'm not I'm not sure. I don't know that I believe it. Like if if the official description is they've recovered six of six bodies, why would they say that? And they have a wing there that's at the ridge, and I think we can look it up. So from my perspective, because my believability and creepy are kind of tied together. So if I don't believe it, it's gonna be less creepy. I think if they say they recovered six of six bodies, then my believability factor of prop man goes way down to like right.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, but why were they doing a training mission in poor weather in Washington in the case?

SPEAKER_03

I'm not discreeting. I'm I'm saying if my believability is well, hold on.

SPEAKER_04

Also, to the same point, if it's a training mission, why do they have all these sensitive documents in the plane?

SPEAKER_03

Right, right. Yes, it's not adding up. So I'm saying believability has to be tied to the creepy factor if we understand what happened. So a training exercise, were all the bodies recovered, was there sensitive documentation? We're not sure. We know there is a plaque that says they recovered six of six bodies, and we know that there's a wing there that you can. And there was a plane that did go down. Yeah, there was a plane that went down and there's a wing that you can go see. So if my if I believe that six of six bodies were recovered, then it's not creepy at all.

SPEAKER_05

Two things, mom. One, does the government never lie? And two, who said there were sensitive documents on that plane? Like, was that after the fact?

SPEAKER_03

I don't know.

SPEAKER_05

That could have just been some made up.

SPEAKER_03

Okay, so so then we just have to go based on what you feel like. Well, we know, yes. Which is I have a lot of questions.

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Which is partially fact, partially fiction, as I said in the beginning. We don't really know.

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I need to know more.

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I can't tell you anymore. That's all.

SPEAKER_05

I feel like a body could burn up in the crash too. Like that could be a reason they only found five.

SPEAKER_02

Well, but bones, as we know, can't be incinerated. Okay. They can melt steel beans. And and unless it's like very high temperatures, but it was raining, which is why the fire went out shortly after the crash happened.

SPEAKER_03

And bad visibility, they couldn't get there that night. So I'd say believability. I mean, I have to believe it. If there there is a plane, the plane did crash, bodies were were recovered. Recovered at on some level.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, but that's all fact. We're talking about it.

SPEAKER_03

Is there is there a prop man? Yeah. No. I'm not buying it. You don't think there's a prop? I'm not buying it.

SPEAKER_04

I'm saying zero on prop man.

SPEAKER_03

I think it's I think it's one of these stories that they told just just because. So kids stay in their camps. Yeah, I think it's a very folk tale, yeah. Yeah, folks, I I really don't no one's gonna see someone skiing down. Like, okay, first of all, how'd Prop Man get skis?

SPEAKER_01

I don't know, Mom, he's not skiing.

SPEAKER_03

Well, didn't the ski patrol see the man that I think he's just walking. Okay, and okay he's like a zombie, and that's even worse because you wouldn't be up on a mountain walking without skis, someplace where you couldn't have got no.

SPEAKER_05

Sir, do you need a Medivac? No, okay, uh base camp's that way. Okay, so go ski down on your shoes.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, okay, all right. It was dark again. He wouldn't know that the person didn't get skis.

SPEAKER_05

So I mean he must have seen him walking.

SPEAKER_03

I feel like I need to research more and come back and report. It's my answer's different, but I feel like believability fact check that it's zero. I gotta fact check it because uh prop man. Do your worst. Not that I don't get that a plane flew, a plane crashed, there was an explosion, whatever. Fine. But prop man, no, zero.

SPEAKER_02

Believability zero?

SPEAKER_03

My first zero.

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Dad thinks it's zero too.

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, I gave mine. Yeah, zero.

SPEAKER_02

Garrett, what do you think?

SPEAKER_05

This is a big fat triple zero.

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Really? Zero, zero, zeros.

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What man is gonna crawl from the wreckage of a downed plane?

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He droops into an immortal zombie.

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He somehow finds his way into a cave and becomes an immortal zombie.

SPEAKER_03

When you say that, that's an immortal zombie. Okay, okay, okay.

SPEAKER_05

That sounds that sounds like a hell.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, creepy factor. Imagine if you're a fifth grader, sure, you're at sleepawe camp for the first time, you're sleeping outside where this plane went down.

SPEAKER_03

Totally different. Creepy factor is up there because while I don't camp, but I did camp when I was young. Clamp. This would be an absolute no for me. No, it would scare me. I need a number, not a no. It would it would scare me.

SPEAKER_01

Okay.

SPEAKER_03

So creepy factor, if I'm gonna be scared about it. I mean, I'm not going in the woods to check out Prop Man. So Creepy Factor is gonna be a well, he doesn't hurt people from what we know.

SPEAKER_02

So maybe creepy factor is he's only missing limbs and a swan has a propeller protruding from him. Mom, if you heard this today. If you heard this today and it was dark and you were outside, you would be scared. Maybe a nine.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_05

An hour being honest.

SPEAKER_04

Yeah, for me, and based on what I already said about him not being scary or trying to hurt anybody, um, yeah, it'd be disturbing to see that in the dark in the woods. But I don't know. I just still give it a two, maybe three.

SPEAKER_05

If I'm in fifth grade and I'm with a Boy Scout leader, that's already about an eight. Okay. We add in prop man, I'm at a ten. I'm so glad I was never in Boy Scouts.

SPEAKER_03

You're welcome.

SPEAKER_05

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02

Well, I was in Girl Scouts, so I would put this out of ten.

SPEAKER_05

A little different.

SPEAKER_03

Yeah, it would be scary. Imagine sleeping in a little covered wagon.

SPEAKER_02

Covered wagons. Uh Kemp Whispering Winds Whispering Windsor with one other person, prop man, and we're at the edge of absolutely not. And there's a force behind us. Okay, but hold on.

SPEAKER_04

We're not talking about 10-year-old kids here. We're talking about us right now. I said fifth grade me. Our age. How what's our creepy factor for that was a zero?

SPEAKER_01

Ten.

SPEAKER_04

Now that was believability. What's creepy?

SPEAKER_01

Oh, same thing.

SPEAKER_03

Zero. He said zero. Garrett's calling the woods tonight.

SPEAKER_05

Not with any boy scout troop leaders, I'm not. Those things are scarier than prop man.

SPEAKER_03

I mean, I've never heard of this before. And knowing that it's so local and so close, I'm I'm really glad that you bring these types of things up, even though, like, I mean, we we joke about them and can, you know, make fun of them.

SPEAKER_02

But it's really you've never heard of Prop Man the Immortal Zombie that's wandering central Washington.

SPEAKER_05

See, if somebody told me it was an immortal zombie, I'd probably just laugh.

SPEAKER_02

I it does sound a little ridiculous.

SPEAKER_05

Like just the name is it would make me less scared for sure.

SPEAKER_02

I'd be scared. This person's missing limbs, he's bloated, and there's a propeller hanging out of him. Absolutely not.

SPEAKER_05

You wouldn't ask for help, you'd run the other way?

SPEAKER_02

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05

He's like crawling towards you.

SPEAKER_02

Bro.

SPEAKER_05

Help, help.

SPEAKER_03

Okay, okay, okay, okay. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05

Speed in the other way.

SPEAKER_03

I'm just glad that we learned about it. It's it's good information. So I think it's, you know.

SPEAKER_02

It's similar to Bandagem, but the Central Washington version. Yeah. Bandageman? But there's more people that have encountered Band Bandageman as of recently. If you've had any encounters with Prop Man. If you've heard of Prop Man, if you grew up and you went to summer camp and you heard of Prop Man, please let us know because Garrett and Mom and Dad don't believe that he's gonna be.

SPEAKER_03

I mean, are these real credit threads about Prop Man or Propeller Man? I mean, how did we get to Prop Man? Like, I feel like shortening stuff is like fairly new.

SPEAKER_05

Like Yeah, I mean, I don't know about fairly new.

SPEAKER_02

But a lot of the people that have heard of him are from like the 70s and the 80s and the 90s when parents would send their kids to summer camps.

SPEAKER_03

I feel like we need to phone a friend and find out.

SPEAKER_02

Phone a friend? Who? Who was in Boy Scouts?

SPEAKER_04

Maybe Grammy knows. Who would we? I went to summer camp in in Idaho.

SPEAKER_03

Okay, well, speak up, bro. Was there a propeller man? Did you have a propeller man?

SPEAKER_04

No, it's Idaho.

SPEAKER_03

Oh, did you have a different man? Did you have maybe you had fire truck man, ladder man?

SPEAKER_05

Yeah, John the troop leader.

SPEAKER_02

You don't have any scary stories that you remember?

SPEAKER_04

Nah. Mm-mm. Sorry. Pretty boring.

SPEAKER_03

Wait, they didn't tell you any scary stories around the campfire? I feel like that's a very common thing that they do for kids at campfire.

SPEAKER_02

I don't know if they do it anymore, but they probably used to. Bro, I didn't have a phone. What's scarier than staying in a covered wagon?

SPEAKER_03

Madeline's traumatized for cancer.

SPEAKER_02

I'm so traumatized. King Boy Spring runs, I'm coming for you.

SPEAKER_04

Hey, you know what? That's better than TP's that I had to.

SPEAKER_02

No, it is not. Bro, it is not better than that.

SPEAKER_05

TPs are cool, historically accurate.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, anyways, if you've heard of Prop Man, if you were a Boy Scout, Girl Scout during the 60s, 70s, 80s, or 90s and you listen to this, please give us a five-star review. And also let us know if you heard of the Prop Man. And what is your believability creepy factor on a scale of one to ten? Because these people don't think it's very creepy or scary. Or believable. And follow us on Instagram, threads, TikTok, all the things, early beloved podcast. And we will see you next week. Bye. Bye. That's not saying bye.

SPEAKER_04

Bye.