Can You Slip Out of Reality? | The Backrooms, Liminal Spaces, and Thin Places

The Backrooms began as internet horror: endless yellow rooms, damp carpet, fluorescent buzzing, and the terrifying idea that someone could slip out of reality and land somewhere they were never meant to be.

But is that fear really new?

In this episode, we explore the Backrooms as modern folklore — a digital-age version of much older stories about thin places, fairy mounds, haunted thresholds, time slips, caves, and other worlds hidden just beneath our own. From Gettysburg ghost stories to Saint Patrick’s Purgatory, King Herla, and real cave isolation experiments, we look at why certain places feel wrong, why time seems to bend underground, and why humans have always feared the spaces between worlds.

New episodes released regularly.

Join Paranormal Mystery Author Terri Reid and researcher Andrew T. Reid as they explore ghosts, cryptids, alien encounters, and other unexplained mysteries.

If you'd like to share your opinion, thoughts, or your own paranormal experience with us, please contact us at vftattic@gmail.com. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

They say that it's an afterlife, not for people, but for places. For every chain storefront demolished, every retail outlet brought on, every dead mall raised to the ground. A limbo for every building without purpose. Those in-between spaces. Endless structures so unfathomable, yet so clearly man-made. Edges in the curtains of memory, corners that open up at the seams of reality to let the unlucky wanderer in. Be careful out there, for the footsteps that fill these holes may not only be your own. From the back rooms of wiki. Listen closely, the old walls still speak. Some things are hidden, not to be forgotten, but to be kept.

SPEAKER_05 0:55

The old house remembers what others forget.

SPEAKER_01 0:59

What is remembered is most truly.

SPEAKER_05 1:02

Listen closely, and you too may just hear voices from the attic. Hi. Welcome to Voices from the Attic. So uh today we're doing we're talking about some things that I have no idea what we're talking about. So this is going to be a learning experience for me. I'm Terry Reed. Hi. I'm an author, um, a podcaster, um, researcher, and a mom.

SPEAKER_01 1:41

I am Andrew T. Reed. I am an editor, researcher, uh, YouTuber. I guess we're kind of YouTubers. Yeah. Yeah, we're YouTubers. I also have done YouTube in the past, and I'm a big old giant nerd. I'm also a son, and today I'm gonna be the resident millennial uh as I talk about um and I know I guess I don't even know if backrooms is necessarily a millennial or a Gen Z or maybe uh uh Zillennial, I guess maybe, because it's kind of I feel like it's kind of both, you know. It's but it's definitely internet age stuff.

SPEAKER_05 2:18

We're not just talking about the backrooms, like like we I don't wanna No, we're gonna expand and we're gonna do like uh how that whole idea, the concept of backrooms, also has kind of been around. You know, we talk about fairy mounds, you talk about time slips, you talk about thin places. Yep. So we're gonna take the idea of backrooms and really, really expand because we're gonna do this in in two shows today.

SPEAKER_01 2:42

Two episodes.

SPEAKER_05 2:43

So um yeah, we have lots, lots.

SPEAKER_01 2:46

And we're probably, I mean, both episodes. My guess is we're gonna be able to focus primarily on those time slash space slip anomaly things that really I feel are the main point of the backrooms. But the the backrooms I think part of the the success and popularity of it is the fact that it really gets into the it taps into that zeitgeist of a bunch of different experiences that people have had throughout the years, as well as uh mythol uh mythological ideas and um just there are a lot of ideas that people have strong belief in that it it it really ties closely with, but also kind of flips those ideas on its head as well, which is extra scary because it's like what if what if that other reality place that you know that I guess maybe heaven or or that other you know realm, whatever, what if that's actually just a monotonous series of hallways that never end uh with fluorescent buzzing everywhere? Like that honestly, to me, even without the monster part, which there are monsters as well, that that to me tear is terrifying. But we're also kind of tapping, we're talking about this a little bit as well because of the movie that came out fairly recently. Um and you know, I haven't seen it yet. I do plan on seeing it. Uh, I want to go and see it. It's it's uh I I saw like the when I looked at, you know, the ratings and everything. I tend to to look at ratings of movies to to see, you know, if it's something I want to watch. Um because sometimes I feel like the ratings can be like advertisements for themselves. And this one definitely feels like it because this one is rated R for uh it sounds like a little bit of gore, but primarily body horror. Um, so it's it's gonna tap into like the thing levels.

SPEAKER_05 4:46

Is body horror like when a middle-aged woman or beyond middle-aged woman looks in the mirror at her?

SPEAKER_03 4:54

So it's that body horror, you know? It's like sorry, Edge.

SPEAKER_01 4:59

I I uh It's when I look in the mirror. Uh I will not be uh those are all landmines that I will just be I I see the land field, the landmine field, and I'm gonna go, I'm gonna just walk away from that.

SPEAKER_05 5:14

So we we uh I know you're really surprised we got ahead of ourselves and we didn't do our usual um you know because we're always yeah right on task. We never we never stray from never so anyway, uh first of all, we want to thank all of you who have subscribed. It's amazing how many new subscribers we have.

SPEAKER_01 5:35

And it it I love it because it's it's like it's growing. It seems like every week we're going a little bit faster. And uh, but also like you know, even even slow weeks are fantastic. But I'm I yeah, we really appreciate just the support that we've seen. Uh, we're getting more and more comments in our videos. Um, and and we are at the point where we're still reading them. Uh and they're I will always read them. I've seen some YouTube like YouTube videos that there are thousands of comments. Oh, really? I uh I don't know if like I I hope I would love to get to the point where I'm not able to read all the comments, um, just because you know, but we're not there yet and we won't be there for a while. And I'm I'm I'm we will answer all the comments. Yeah, we'll do our best to answer it. So also if you have any questions as well, that's a perfect place to do it too, or any clarifications that you like us to to make. If we said something that you disagree with, um, you know, comment as well.

SPEAKER_05 6:34

I'll make Andrew answer that one so he can cry.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Yeah, yeah. Because like I like I always say, I want not I I won't, I don't want necessarily. No, I want. I'm gonna double down. What do you always say? I want somebody to make me cry. I want somebody to go, oh man, these guys are morons, and just like, you know, just verbally abuse me in the comments. Do it. I'm into it.

SPEAKER_05 6:57

Anyway, uh this is a whole new scary side of Andrew that I've never seen before.

SPEAKER_01 7:04

That yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 7:05

Anyway, thank you for your comments. And um, and sharing. I'm getting so many comments about, oh, somebody shared this with me, or sending me something saying, hey, I just shared this with a friend. Thank you for sharing. That's the way that we get our name out there and then get more subscribers. So thanks for all you're doing. Yeah. And if you haven't subscribed, um, why not? Subscribe.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

What are you waiting for? It's just a click of the button. I don't know why I decided to go Irish for that one.

SPEAKER_05 7:35

I don't know, but it was pretty it was pretty cool.

SPEAKER_01 7:38

Thank you. I feel I feel pretty good about that one. Uh that one slipped a little bit. I'm not, I'm not proud of that last one. But yeah, no, I mean it if you if you are liking what you're listening to, all you gotta do is click that subscribe button, and then you'll be able to keep up on us, but also help us reach out to more people because you're letting YouTube know, hey, I'm interested in this. People like me are also gonna be interested in this. So it's also part of the reason. I I'll be fully honest. That's also part of the reason why we are talking about the backrooms uh or backroom adjacent ideas as well, because I've noticed a trend that YouTube really likes to promote the backrooms, and so we're hoping to get this out to maybe some different audiences, different eyes, because we're talking-thought. Exactly. Because we're talking about a topic that I have seen other like uh YouTube horror or paranormal, I guess. Maybe horror is the wrong word, but paranormal podcasters, they do talk about. I mean, there's one person I I watch in particular who has a full episode called The Backrooms. I don't know if we're gonna call this one the backrooms necessarily, um, but we definitely, you know, I feel like it's just in general a great excuse to talk about a lot of different ideas because it really does incorporate a lot of different ideas.

SPEAKER_05 8:57

So, because this whole backrooms idea, and and we were talking about the word liminal.

SPEAKER_01 9:03

Yes.

SPEAKER_05 9:03

And you know, I I'm a fairly, you know, well-versed, well-read person.

SPEAKER_01 9:08

It's almost like you're an author. An author, I know. You you read and write for a living.

SPEAKER_05 9:13

I do. Liminal is not a word that that really was in my vocabulary. Andrew uses it a lot, but it is not in my school concept, I think. So what I want to do, if that's okay with you, is kind of do my version of what I think from a boomer point of view, what this whole backroom thing is, and then you can then correct me.

SPEAKER_01 9:36

So we're calling this uh the uh the boom scoop corner, the boomer. I love the the yeah, the the the scoop scoop from the boomer.

SPEAKER_05 9:46

Scoop from the boomer. Yeah. Definitions from boomers. And then there should be you should get me some like Andy of Mayberry music to play in the background as I'm talking about this.

SPEAKER_00 9:56

I I don't know what Andy of Maybeberry is. The Andy Griffith show. Oh. Could be walking down the road with Ron Howard and going fishing.

SPEAKER_05 10:06

You don't know that? I mean, I know this afternoon we're pulling up Nickelodeon, Young Man, and you're gonna watch that.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

You're gonna watch Nick at Night and you're gonna like it. No, I I know the Andy Griffith show. I don't watch it. I don't think I've ever technically watched it. I've seen clips of like I I saw the one pool clip, I think it's from the Andy Griffith show. Uh, there was a clip where a lady like hits uh a pool cue and like and it was in one take, all it wasn't supposed to happen. She somehow manages to get all of the the the balls into all the different things in in one hit. And I think it was Andy Griffith who's just I could be wrong. Honestly, I'm probably wrong. I'm probably thinking somebody uh Dick Van Dyke. I'm thinking that's Dick Van Dyke.

SPEAKER_05 10:49

That is totally different from uh Andy, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

I totally I corrected myself. I know I was wrong, okay, and I am sorry.

SPEAKER_05 10:58

No, Andy Griffith is like good old, I think maybe we're supposed to be in North Carolina, and um he's can't he's the sheriff in town, and Don Knotts is his deputy, Barney Fife.

SPEAKER_01 11:13

Yeah, I know I I definitely know the characters.

SPEAKER_05 11:15

I know I know the characters and uh it is home spun down home kind of yeah. Anyway, I'll get back to um my definition in Boomer's Corner, yeah, and we'll figure out the music later. Um so this is what I I understand from back rooms.

SPEAKER_01 11:38

Okay, so are we talking back rooms or liminal spaces?

SPEAKER_05 11:40

Backrooms. Okay, because I so don't understand liminal spaces, so I'm not even gonna try that one. So back rooms, from what I understand, the idea was it started out that you know you if you were playing uh an internet game or a video game. So let's say you were playing uh Harry Potter video game.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Sure. The the the latest one, Harry Potter uh Hogwarts. It's not even Harry Potter, it's Hogwarts uh Legacy. Thank you. Okay, thank you. That was uh that was Ash our knower of all things. Yes, Ash with the facts. Uh he's our uh sound producer and just all around amazing guy knower of things and Jack of all trades.

SPEAKER_05 12:20

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 12:20

So his name is not Jack.

SPEAKER_05 12:24

I think we cleared that up last week. Anyway, so say you're playing Hogwarts Legacy, and within that game, you are confined as a player to Hogwarts. You know, there's castle walls. It say let's for the sake of the extra.

SPEAKER_01 12:42

Sure, yeah, yeah. So this this is uh Hogwarts Legacy uh DLC that is just Hogwarts only. It's you can't leave the premises.

SPEAKER_05 12:50

Right.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 12:51

So somehow you are able to hack through the castle wall and go back to a place where like the designers maybe um, you know, when you're you're working on Canva and stuff and you've got an image and you think, oh, I don't need that anymore, and you just take it off and you kind of it gets lost somewhere in the white space because it disappears. All of those kind of things are back there. And so you're in this space that's really not part of the game, but it's kind of created back there. And you can find all of these things that were maybe going to at one part be in the game but aren't in the game anymore. And so you're like off-grid. It's kind of like when I use my old GPS and uh they've I have I don't like updating my GPS. Well, this is you know, the old GPS is in the car where you had to get a new DVD and stick it in.

SPEAKER_01 13:47

Oh, okay. DVD, I was I understand. Yeah, because I I just hear that and I go, I don't like safety.

SPEAKER_05 13:52

I don't, I don't like having updated road systems. It's so we have uh we have a 2009 Honda pilot that has like 300 and maybe 50,000 miles on it.

SPEAKER_01 14:03

Yeah. I it she's she's uh she's a butte. She's still running. Wonderful. Yeah. We took uh I took a trip to Chicago last week. Yeah, and you know, she ran fine. I mean, uh the air conditioner was hit or miss sometimes on the road. Sometimes I would get, you know, normal air. Right. It was me and a bunch of other um young single adults just going to Chicago, but usually it was good air conditioning.

SPEAKER_05 14:29

Okay, good. Anyway, so for the the there's an in uh there's a GPS system in the car, but what you had to do is you take out the DVD every year and they update it. And but the DVD is like $150. And I would think, really, are the roads gonna change that much? I mean, it's now been um 17 years, but we don't use it anyway because you use your phone.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

But anyway, this updates automatically, right? Automatic. Thank you, Google.

SPEAKER_05 14:59

Um, so when you're on that, and if the road has changed, like in 10 years, all of a sudden you're you're not on a road in your car. You're you're off, you're going through this video. The GPS is yelling at you. What are you doing? What are you doing? And so that's to me what this this back rooms is. It's like you've gone off grid, you've gone off, and you've gone into unexplored places where anything can find you.

SPEAKER_01 15:29

I mean, that's I I think that's that's pretty decent. Like that's that's a that's a good that's a good uh yeah, yeah. Um so now educate us even more, Angie. Yeah. So uh I actually I wrote out a whole thing about the the origins of the backrooms. Uh so that I think also will give us a good understanding of what it is and and where it comes from. Um and then yeah, we're also gonna talk about some of those terms that that you hinted at that you didn't necessarily use the actual name of. That's okay. Uh because sometimes we'll uh we didn't know the X room.

SPEAKER_05 16:01

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Because things like noclip and and those kinds of things are are deeply involved in the backrooms. And so this is kind of an explanation for people who don't understand what those are. So if you do know the backrooms intimately, um, I mean, you this might just be fun, but so so you can keep listening balls. So you can go ahead and skip ahead as well if you don't want to hear.

SPEAKER_05 16:21

So no clip has nothing to do with bangs, right?

SPEAKER_01 16:24

No, but uh I I definitely clip or no clip. I uh I do feel called out though. I do need to clip my hair.

SPEAKER_05 16:33

I it wasn't it wasn't a call out.

SPEAKER_01 16:35

I'm just hoping that eventually we start talking, we we eventually run back to feral people, in which case I will have you know a great the look. Yeah, I'll I'll I'll have a good platform to talk about feral people since I will look like one. Um so in 2018, an anonymous 4chan user uh posted an image of an unsettling yellow tinted office room on a thread about unsettling images in 4chan's paranormal board. I don't know how it's technically pronounced. I'm gonna call it slash X slash, or it's just X, but it's like that's their paranormal board. Okay, it's X on R410. Yeah, okay. Yes, probably that's probably what it's what's what it's based on. Mom's brilliant. Yeah. Uh and it was named that before um X Files came out? No. Okay, but before Twitter switched. Oh, to X, okay. It was named X before So this is not the Elon Musk files. No. Though there are probably some of those on the paranormal board, I could see. Uh in 2009, the image was seemingly used again in a similar thread. This one encouraging people to post pictures of disquieting images that just feel off. Now I haven't shown you the picture.

SPEAKER_02 17:51

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 17:51

Uh, and I I could probably pull, but I just, you know, since this is technically a podcast, right? Um though I might I might put the picture for those of you who are watching on YouTube. Um, but for those of you who aren't, I mean, if you just Google Backrooms image, it will probably be the first one that that it's it's kind of like it it's got a little bit of that um um oh what's the what's what's it called where the the camera's tilted a little bit? What's the term? That is Ash with the Facts is gonna re-educate me because I've I completely forgot the the term. That's a Dutch angle or Dutch angle. Dutch tilt. Okay. Thank you.

SPEAKER_05 18:34

You guys are so smart.

SPEAKER_01 18:35

Uh so it's so it has a bit of that going on, a bit of that Dutch angle. It also has a uh an entrance into like a hallway, but it's slightly off. Ooh. Like it it's just not on on the third, and it is it is very yellow. It looks just it's but it's like that gross shade of yellow.

SPEAKER_05 18:56

Um like dirty linoleum yellow.

SPEAKER_01 18:58

Yes, yes, like yeah, like that that classic um 80s yellow. Uh so after the picture was posted, someone else commented on that picture saying if you're not careful and you know clip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the backrooms where there's n where it's nothing but the stink of old moist carpet, the madness of mono yellow, the endless background noise of fluorescent lights at maximum humbuzz, and approximately 600 million square miles of randomly segmented empty rooms to be trapped in.

SPEAKER_04 19:39

Ooh.

SPEAKER_05 19:40

Who did that? Do they have a name of whoever posted that?

SPEAKER_01 19:43

It's since it's 4chan, it's all anonymous. Oh think think like when you think of 4chan, think of like Reddit, but more anonymous.

SPEAKER_03 19:52

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 19:53

Um, which also can unfortunately mean more degenerate degenerate sometimes.

SPEAKER_05 19:57

It can get so mom's not going to be. Yeah, don't go to 4chan.

SPEAKER_01 20:00

Don't uh, you know, I mean yeah. Anyway, and then the it that's not the end of the quote. It says, and I'm I'm gonna edit this just a little bit. Heaven help you if you hear something wandering around nearby, because it sure as hell hurt you. Yeah, and it was it was vague enough to really get people's you know, creative, creative, creative juices flowing, yeah, uh creative engines revved up. And so it got it started to get uh posted other places, people started talking about it in different avenues and different forums and everything. Uh, and then it eventually led to a lot of video games inspired on this idea, but also um the the big one that I think really brought it to popularity is uh is when youtuber Kane Pixels started making some short videos on YouTube about it. He mixed he mixed the backrooms with analog horror, which analog horror is its own sub-genre on YouTube primarily of it it takes the idea like takes nostalgia and twists it on his head. Where it's like, remember these old old VHS tapes that we used to watch and listen to? What if they were haunted? Or what if, you know, there's one of my favorite YouTube channels. Um uh I forget the name of it, but it's a like uh a classic news channel where it looks like that old like local, I think it's like local news something, something. Okay. Uh somebody in the comments let me know. I I might also just, you know, look it up and look it up. Yeah, but it's it's local news something or other. Uh and it has it it shows what like local news from the 90s or even early 2000s. It it showed as if somebody recorded that, but it's like weird things. Like, you know, don't open your windows tonight because the moon will see you. And like, you know, just some of the like. It's it's just it's haunting because it takes the idea or the um it takes those images that you had when you were younger, uh for those of us who you know are growing up with YouTube, uh, when you were younger, and it turns them on their head. And so analog horror is really well known for that. And what this did, it it took that idea of like uh a found footage handheld, somebody had like a a VHS or uh or a digital tape recorder. Okay, and they went into the back room. So there's like a a little bit of like uh analog overlay.

SPEAKER_05 22:33

So like Blair Witch?

SPEAKER_01 22:35

Yes, yes, okay. It's similar to that. Um, and in fact, I think even like the similar quality as well. Okay. Uh and he started to started to weave lore of the backrooms. There's something going on, but not only of the backrooms itself, but also outside entities and organizations. When I say outside, I mean outside of the back rooms. So, like in our world, okay, entities and organizations that are trying to research this place and and trying to to do things, you know, with it. And so um there's there's a lot of like hints about different things, which is why we're talking about it now, because it it eventually led um studios to see the popularity of it, and they reached out to Kane Pixels specifically, um, and he directed uh the the movie that came out uh a couple of weeks ago. Yeah. And so um, so you talked about this idea, but it was wait, wait, oh sorry, go ahead.

SPEAKER_05 23:37

No clips.

SPEAKER_01 23:38

That's exactly what, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 23:39

Okay, okay. Look at that.

SPEAKER_01 23:41

We are on the same wavelength. So scary. We are still in think. Um uh that was from the ASDF videos. If uh yeah, again, I'm just showing my millennialness. Anyway, uh, so so uh to be on the safe side, I'm gonna quickly explain what no clipping means, why it's called clipping, all that stuff. So in video games, noclip is actually a cheat or developer. Actually, it's really a developer command. Um, that so you open up like in a lot of video games, uh specifically in computer games, you can open up a um a command console while you're playing a game, and then you can type in noclip. And what that will do, it'll allow you to be able to zoom around the map, go through walls, you know, do everything. It was it was primarily used for developers to be able to get into some of those, well, to be able to access different areas of the map quickly. So, like if there is a specific area that was buggy, they could zoom to that area and then play through it to see, you know, what the bugs might be. Um and so also one of the most iconic examples was actually in the um the early Doom, like the first original version of Doom. Uh, the game, you couldn't actually win the game uh unless you noclipped because there was a uh an area, there was a wall that you couldn't access unless you typed in that command. And in there there was the I've I'm forgetting his name, but the um the guy who the like the main lead of Ed uh Software, the guy who who developed it, uh it was a picture of him. Oh fine. And it's like throwing fireballs at you, and you have to go and you have to kill him, basically. You have to kill the creator of the game in order to beat the game. Um I mean that's not the canon ending. The canon ending is the the the sad, the bad ending where he goes back to Earth and Earth has actually been conquered by hell. Um but it's okay, because then we get you know the rest of the series of Doom. And uh so I'll I'll I'll take that. But um, but it's and it's called no clipping because like uh a clip I I don't fully understand the term clip, but like in in video games, it's kind of like the the physics, it's called like uh when you you can clip the you probably know.

SPEAKER_00 26:07

Oh, clipping is like you're setting boundaries within the map of your game.

SPEAKER_02 26:11

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 26:12

So you can't go beyond it, so it doesn't take you out of the game. Perfect. There we go. So that's that's the terminology.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Thank you, Ash. Ash with the facts once again. Good and and yeah. John Romero is the guy you're thinking of. I knew it was a Romero. I just couldn't think of the first name, and I didn't want to, because I think there are other Romeros as well that I was afraid of confusing him with. Um Caesar Romero.

SPEAKER_05 26:39

That's who came to mind for me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

Joker.

SPEAKER_05 26:42

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 26:43

The original with the mustache. Yes. The first the first DC um superstar to uh demand not to be able to shave his mustache, and it looked, you know. I mean, him, it looked okay. Henry Cavill, not as much. I don't know if you knew that.

SPEAKER_05 26:59

I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01 27:00

For the reshoots, um was it the reshoots for Josh Wheaton, or was it the reshoots for the the Snyder cut for Batman v Superman? Oh, I don't know any of that.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

I don't know that stuff.

SPEAKER_01 27:11

Well, so Henry Cavill for one of the reshoots had to come back, but he was already doing another movie where he um wasn't he had a he had a mustache and so he wasn't able to shave. And so they digitally removed it, and it looks atrocious. It is so bad. I I thought, sorry, you you had your hand there, so I thought you were gonna comment on that. But yes, yes, so it was bad. It was bad.

SPEAKER_05 27:36

And uh who's looking at the mustache on Harry Cavill? Well, let's be real.

SPEAKER_01 27:42

Well, the problem is that it's attached to the upper lip, and so the upper lip look bad. Uh so it wasn't necessarily the fact that it wasn't the mustache, it was yeah, it was everything else. I I kind of I feel like that's kind of what they try to do. Anyway, uh yeah back to the story. So back to the story. So that is an example of the the no clipping when it comes to like the console command, but the term is also being used for accidental no clips. Okay. So sometimes when a um when a video game is created, you have the you know the boundary set and everything, every once in a while, just because of the geometry of and the physics of like how things align up, sometimes there's a small wonkiness with the physics, whether there's like a little crack or there's some weird glitch or or you know, some exploit, I guess you could call it. Because a lot of um a lot of speedrunners try to find these kinds of glitches and exploits. Uh, if you if you take your character and you like jam it into the geometry of the map, you will either somehow bounce yourself up out of the out of the bounds of the map through like the ceiling, because often video games they they don't take into account the um this the the ceiling geometry because nobody's gonna be able to get that high right unless you find a random jump thing and so then you're out of the map there. Or uh in in I think probably what they're referring to in this case, you can jam yourself into an area and then slip out of the uh of the map. And so now you're outside of the map. And in different video games, you do have that thing where where you know what you were talking about, various assets that people you know pulled in and everything, they will take them out, or they will have the assets preloaded um in an area outside of a room that hasn't fully loaded in yet, so that when you walk in, then the asset is already there. They don't have to wait for that rendering time and it will just pop into a different location. Often you also have characters um walking out of those as well because you know they're on a st on a on a predetermined path. Okay. Um, and sometimes you'll also be able to see in in one map, you'll actually be able to see two different maps. Um, and so you know, you can you can almost access one from the other in this giant void of nothingness. And it's it's cool, it's also a little terrifying sometimes. Like I I have accidentally myself out of a map, um, or the floor just won't load. Um Alan Wake 2. I had that problem pretty often, unfortunately.

SPEAKER_00 30:18

This is actually really fascinating for me because I'm a tech nerd.

SPEAKER_06 30:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 30:22

So Silent Hill, the video games do this a lot, especially the first one where they will preload assets you don't actually have access to. But if you can, if you uh have the developer tools, you can turn off the clipping and you can zoom out and see where stuff is in other parts of the map.

SPEAKER_01 30:38

Yeah, one of my favorite um, another one of my favorite niches that I sometimes look at is um other people accessing that noteclip to see what various um characters do when they're not on screen to see what their movement and interaction is. Um, one of the most fascinating ones is um Hagrid in the shower. You really are a hairy wizard. Um no, um uh in Resident Evil Village, Resident Evil 8, um, there was uh a video where it talked about Lady uh Dimitresque uh as she leaves, like when you don't see her, yeah, what her path is. And she she has because it looked like a lot of people thought it was a random path. Um, but then as you know clip out, you see that it is actually a there is a method to the madness. It's just it's such a long path that it appears to be random. But she's like leaving various segments of the map that you know the player can't access. Um and also when you don't like as soon as she walks up, because she has like a walk cycle, as soon as she leaves the map, if I remember correctly, she like T-poses as she goes to the other side and then she gets back into the walking animation and those kinds of things. But yeah, a lot of interesting um uh just there are a lot of exploits that developers try to use to make the game feel seamless as it loads into things. The the less assets they have to load in, the faster the transition will happen from one scene to the other. It's an efficiency thing for them to do it.

SPEAKER_05 32:15

That makes sense. So now we understand kind of clips and no clips. So how does that relate to real world?

SPEAKER_01 32:27

Well, so the idea with the backrooms is I don't know if it if it's trying, if it's intentionally meaning that we are living in like the if it's the the matrix theory where everything is a simulation, we're living in a simulation, and so we are actually accessing that exact room, or if we they're just using those video game terms to uh uh to explain stepping into another reality. It seems like it's the former, it seems like it's kind of under the idea that we are living in a simulation, uh, because of how they how mundane yet wrong and twisted the other side is. Um, and so basically the idea I wrote this down. Basically the idea is that the real world there um there were places where the I called it the great physics engine, our great physics engine, um, which is our reality, right? Uh it would it would be weak or have some kind of wonky physics, and you would find yourself accidentally outside the bounds of the map. And so there are just various different realities that the backrooms are where it's just storing things that you know are supposed to be in our world, but aren't for some reason. Um and so, and also just a complete you know random fun fact. Uh, the location of the picture of that picture, it it was found, uh, was taken at a former furniture store space in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, uh, which later connected to Hobbytown and Revolution Raceway Renovations. So um that kind of explain a little bit the backrooms side of things. Right. Um now there are, like I mentioned, there are different I I think I mentioned that there are different levels. So you have that office space, but then other people started to add on to this idea where if you go to different levels, you have um different they they they take spaces that are meant to be filled, generally speaking, and they remove the people out of them and they turn the atmosphere to uncomfortable. So it gives us this uncanny valley, um, where it's you know, this office space, for instance, it looks worn down, it looks weathered, and there should be people, but it's completely empty asterisk.

SPEAKER_05 34:48

So that's the liminal thing.

SPEAKER_01 34:51

Yes and no. And so actually, let me I do I do talk about I do transition into liminal here.

SPEAKER_02 34:57

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 34:58

Um so the internet might call that liminal, and this is this is where I'm one of those people, I I like to be specific with the terminology. The the internet, I won't say has hijacked the the concept of liminal to mean something else, but I think a lot of people don't fully understand what liminal is supposed to be, and they see the backrooms and they call that a liminal space. Uh people call that liminal space, which technically it is, um, and they go, okay, so creepy aesthetic, where it's a it's something that people attribute to having people there, but it's it's now creepy and abandoned. That's liminal, but it's not. Um, because I've seen like in r slash liminal spaces, I saw like uh a playground as one of you know in like a foggy okay, you know, and I'm and that's not a liminal space. So the word liminal comes from Latin, from the Latin word limin or threshold. Uh according to Miriam Webster, it means of relating to or situated on a sensory threshold, barely perceptible or capable of eliciting a response, um, or of or relating to being in an intermediate state, phase, or condition in between transitional. So the reason why the uh backrooms are liminal is because it's a bunch of office hallways. Okay. And that's part of what makes it so uncanny because you are your mind it it you are in a hallway. And so in your mind, you're like, okay, this obviously is leading to somewhere, but it never does. You open up a door and it's another hallway. And so it's a journey that doesn't have a point. And so that's part of that, you know, it's that mundane, you know, it's it's existential horror a little bit, which I think all this is. I mean, the idea that number one, we're in a simulation, that's existential horror right there right there. Also, the other world, this place that usually is so supposed to be fantastical, is this mundane, uh, creepy place. That's also, you know, that existential dread. And then on top of that, this place that we're in right now, this existential horror, um doesn't have an end. There's nowhere else. Like you're just walking and you have nowhere to go. But then on top of that, you drop in a monster, you know, because you you gotta have classic horror with your with your existential.

SPEAKER_05 37:24

Okay, so um a liminal place is a threshold. Yes. So it's a place where you go from one thing to another. So would a portal be considered a liminal?

SPEAKER_01 37:38

I think so. Okay. I think so. But say, for example, you you walk into a portal and you are now in an area that is a an in-between between one world and another. That would also be a liminal place. Okay. Uh, technically speaking, when you look at that, like the the world tree, um, Norse in Norse mythology, the the Igersil, um, I think that's how it's pronounced. Don't correct me in the comments, or do, and do it in the most mean way possible. Um, that would be considered a liminal place as well, because it's it the entire purpose of the tree is to connect all the realms together. Um, and so if you're looking at architecture, uh, roads are liminal places. Elevators. Elevators are liminal places. Okay. Um, stairs are liminal places. Um, I mean, I think in our first episode, I I talked about how you could argue that an attic is a liminal place. Um, it's more of a mentally liminal place where you know you we we place the memories that we want to preserve but don't want to look at there. And so it almost as you walk into an attic, it can feel like a mentally liminal place because you are walking from like your normal mundane into the past to nostalgia. Um, and because that's the other thing too. Liminal can also be mentally liminal. Yeah, there's a lot of times in our life. I mean, technically speaking, if you really look at it, we're always in a liminal state because we're always changing, we're always becoming, you know, going from who we were to who we are. But there are some definite, definite, specific times in our life when we're between jobs, we're like actively looking for a job. We're high school graduation. Absolutely, that's a huge one. Uh, marriage, like when you are okay when you have a fiance, that's a liminal period of time right there. Um also pregnancy is a liminal period of time. Okay. Often liminal places in our lives have a lot of high stress because of the high uncertainty because we don't know what we're walking into. We don't know what that area looks like. Um, and then, you know, of course, there also are the liminal spaces in mythology and in, you know, we we have a lot of transitional places. I would call them thin places. That is technically Celtic uh terminology, but I think that applies to a lot of religions anyway. Uh, you know, they might not call them thin places, but the idea is that there are places or days with Celtic religion. For instance, Sauheim is uh is a liminal period of time. Soin. Sawin, thank you. Um Halloween. Yeah. All Hollows Eve. That's right. Um, right before all saints all saints. Saints Day. Um also uh uh Chris around Christmas time, the the both of the solstice would also be liminal. Okay. Um I don't know if the the other ones I'm trying to think the other seasonal big equinoxes. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 40:50

I don't would those be I don't even know if those would be considered they are the movement of the spring equinox is from winter into spring. So yeah, that's a liminal. That would in in your definition, that would be a liminal space. Okay. Well, can we talk about thin places for a little bit?

SPEAKER_01 41:07

Let's do it.

SPEAKER_05 41:08

Okay. So um thin places, Andrew said, it's an old Celtic concept. And the idea is that there are locations where the barrier between worlds become thinner. And some of the examples include like ancient stone circles, sacred groves, remote islands, certain churches and monasteries. And then um, when people are in these places, they often described heightened intuition, unusual dreams, encounters with spirits, and feelings that time behaves differently. And yeah, and I have to say, to me, um, there's been a couple times where I felt like I was in a thin place. And one was um visiting Washington, D.C. and standing at the uh Vietnam Memorial, um, Vietnam War Memorial. It's a big, huge black wall.

SPEAKER_04 42:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 42:06

And it's got all of the names of all of the people who died in Vietnam. And I remember standing there and being overwhelmed with sadness, you know, and it was like those spirits, or or maybe just the emotions of the people who came to look at the names on the wall were absorbed in that black marble. But to me, that was a very thin place. Gettysburg. Um, being but but it's gotta be at a certain time because if you're there where you know the tour buses are there and people are all over the place and you've got everyone taking pictures.

SPEAKER_01 42:50

And the polo shorts, right? That's me sometimes. Actually, no, I don't wear shorts. I don't or Hawaiian shirts, actually.

SPEAKER_06 42:57

Right.

SPEAKER_01 42:57

That's exactly you're describing my outfit.

SPEAKER_05 43:02

But um, if you're in Gettysburg like early in the morning or or late in the afternoon, or we've been there in um like the winter, and so it's it's empty. And you go into some of those battlefields, you can feel. You can and there's some stories that we have about people actually being able to hear um what went on there. But for me, it's more, it is definitely uh an emotional thin place where I feel the sadness, I feel the horror, you know, the fear that and and you know, another place I just thought of Las Vegas.

SPEAKER_01 43:48

Oh, interesting. But it is um And you're really talking about a lot of said uh thin places.

SPEAKER_05 43:56

Going to Vegas uh for a convention and Um, what I felt was depression, you know, and and I thought, why am I feeling so sad?

SPEAKER_01 44:10

And then you looked around and you went, Oh.

SPEAKER_05 44:12

Well, and and that's it. You have all of these people down in the casinos, and I gotta say, those beautiful, very expensive casinos are not made because people win a lot.

SPEAKER_01 44:24

What you mean you're telling me that they that they can afford these giant buildings not because they give away all their money?

SPEAKER_05 44:30

Exactly, exactly.

SPEAKER_01 44:32

I always thought the house always loses, personally. That's what I that's what I was saying.

SPEAKER_05 44:35

That that's the truth. That's what they'll have you believe. But you have all these people who really believe that they were gonna come to Vegas and and they've spent more money than they thought.

SPEAKER_04 44:46

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_05 44:46

They've done things that they regret they, you know, and and and it's all it's all fake.

SPEAKER_01 44:52

Hashtag some regrets.

SPEAKER_05 44:54

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 44:54

A couple of rag rats.

SPEAKER_05 44:56

Yes. So I remember one time in Vegas and and this um, I'm not gonna be able to uh maybe Monterey Bay. Anyway, it was a huge casino convention center. But in that they had um in one of the lobbies as you walked in, they had these uh people-sized crystals. I mean, they were huge. And you could stand in that, and I did, you could stand in that lobby and feel that power from the crystal. And I needed it because it was like this cleansing thing after feeling all of the despair and so that's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 45:37

So well, I if you're a casino person as well, I I guess I wonder what the point of those maybe to give you better oh hey, I can do better tomorrow.

SPEAKER_05 45:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:47

Knock away all those bad feelings. Assuming you believe in in the powers of of crystals, and you know, they if you do believe in them, you know that they work a little bit differently for different people because everyone's got different, you know. Vibrations, we all vibrate differently, the vibes, yes.

SPEAKER_05 46:04

So, um, so thin places, and and let me let's I've got a couple well and I just want to go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 46:11

I do want to going back to the Gettysburg specifically. I mean, uh the other places I think you you also I think are are great examples of of a thin place, but especially if if we're uh kind of equating a thin place to be a liminal place as well, it makes sense at a battlefield specifically, right? Because there's so much I mean, I think hospitals would also be a great example of that kind of because it's it there were so many people that transitioned from this world to the other one, it would make sense that as long as the right atmosphere the right atmosphere is there, it would make sense that that people would um be able to feel some of those because just so much of it happened, I do think it would have thinned those that that barrier, those walls there.

SPEAKER_05 46:56

I and let me let me give you an example. Mark Nesbitt, one of the foremost authorities and authors on The Ghosts of Gettysburg, relates one of the area's most gruesome experiences. Pennsylvania Hall at Gettysburg College has been the site of many Civil War era ghost encounters, but perhaps none can compare to what two college administrators saw one night. Um, 100 years ago, the building had been used as a field hospital for many of the fierce battles wounded. But on this night, as the two administrators were taking the elevator from the fourth floor down to the first, the long-ago nightmare wasn't even on their minds. Inexplicately. Inexplicably There you go. That was that's that's a hard word sometimes. It is a hard word. Inexplicably. That was very nicely done. Thank you. Yes, I I feel quite proud of it myself. You should be. Yes. The elevator passed the first floor and continued on to the basement. When the doors opened, the administrators could scarcely believe their eyes. What they knew to be storage space was replaced by a scene from the hospital. Dead and dying men were lying about on the floor. Blood-covered doctors and orderlies were rushing about chaotically, trying desperately to save their lives. No sound emanated from the ghastly site, but both administrators saw it clearly. Horrified, they frantically pushed the elevator button to close the door. As the door closed, they said one of the orderlies looked up and directly at them, appearing to see them with a pleading expression on his face.

SPEAKER_01 48:44

That's both horrific and kind of sad. I mean, yeah, you know, like I get I understand that if you see a spirit just in general, that's that's scary. Right. But then, like that last little bit, imagine you're that spirit, you're like, come on, guys, help out, please. And it's yeah, but also there's nothing we can really do. Well, because yeah, it's already passed. Right, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 49:03

But it is like that scene in uh oh, the Hugh Jackman, um Ben Helsing Van Helsing, when he says, I want to live. Yeah, you know, it's kind of that sad, ironic, monstery, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:19

Which also one of the the first depictions of a very sympathetic and intelligent Frankenstein um in movies, and also my favorite depiction of a Frankenstein, because where the heart is, that's that that's just a that's just cool design.

SPEAKER_05 49:36

Where which oh in in Van Helsing, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:39

Frankenstein, yeah. That Frankenstein is one of the first, like, because the original Frankenstein was uh movie anyway, was always um not always, but fairly sympathetic, right? I feel like, but he wasn't as articulate as the book made him out to be. This is like, I think, one of the, if not the first, Frankenstein depicted in a movie that w had him being very articulate and sympathetic.

SPEAKER_05 50:03

Um, what was that one where the kids find the monsters? Monster Squad. And that Frankenstein was very sympathetic.

SPEAKER_01 50:11

But he wasn't articulate.

SPEAKER_05 50:12

No, he wasn't.

SPEAKER_01 50:13

Yeah, he was like the old universal, yeah. Still one of my favorites. Yeah, it was very sweet. I love it.

SPEAKER_04 50:19

With a teddy bear.

SPEAKER_05 50:22

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 50:23

Great movie.

SPEAKER_05 50:24

So I I'll add one more Gettysburg uh story if you don't mind.

SPEAKER_01 50:27

Yeah, no, I don't mind at all.

SPEAKER_05 50:29

Civil War battles have been the subject of many motion pictures, but one of the best and most moving was 1993's Gettysburg. During the filming of that movie, much of which was done right on location at the actual battlefield.

SPEAKER_01 50:42

Some of battlefield and actors as well. Yes. And that they I don't think they got paid. They just took their because they love Oh, really? Yeah, they they did it for the love of the game. And you know, I mean That's cool. I really do appreciate the the Civil War cosplayers.

SPEAKER_05 50:58

That's cool. I don't think they call themselves cosplayers. No. Some of the participants had an explain unexplained encounter because the film required so many extras to serve as soldiers. The production hired reenactors to portray the Union and Confederate armies. Okay, they hired them, so I was incorrect.

SPEAKER_00 51:16

Uh, also, did you did you have a fact? I was gonna say they are called reenactors. Thank you. My wife did that when she was in college.

SPEAKER_01 51:24

I know they're called, I I did know they're called reenactors. I just I'd like to point out the similarity of cosplayers and reenactors because they are they're different, and I acknowledge difference, but also they love history, so they reenact history. Cosplayers love the the fictional characters that they also put a lot of their time and money to to reenact as well. They're cosplayers with guns, which I think is the best kind of cosplayer.

SPEAKER_05 51:52

And and the cosplayers who actually go out and live the life. I mean, they sleep in tents, they cook over campfires. I mean so they're LARPing.

SPEAKER_01 52:04

I'm I'm purposefully inflaming everyone in the comments.

SPEAKER_05 52:08

That's right. No, they are reenactors, and they, I mean, I gotta say, I've seen some of the cosplay um costumes. Reenactors, uh, if they do it right, they they I mean, you don't have zippers, you know, if they didn't have zippers, you don't have it's a hundred percent authentic all the way down to every detail.

SPEAKER_01 52:29

And that is fair. That is fair. There is definitely, I feel like reenactors typically have a much higher bar that they set for themselves. Cosplayers, there are some cosplayers that do you're right, but there are a lot of cosplayers that they just shop on to to pro cosplay.

SPEAKER_05 52:42

And you know, and reenactors are at Gettysburg and cosplayers are at the mall.

SPEAKER_00 52:48

Fair like value. Women's clothing for the reenactors is let's say less convenient than modern clothes.

SPEAKER_01 52:55

Yes. That's fair. That's fair. I uh I I don't disagree with any of that.

SPEAKER_05 53:00

Good. Meanwhile, back to the story.

SPEAKER_01 53:06

Just gonna take a grenade.

SPEAKER_05 53:08

I'll sit in there. Um so we just said the production re hired reenactors to portray the Union and Confederate armies. During a break in filming one day, several of the extras were resting at Little Round Top and admiring the setting sun. Little Round Top is like a hill.

SPEAKER_01 53:29

Yeah, that's one of the most important parts of the battle that kind of made it made the made her break. I don't know how to phrase it. It it was what turned the tide.

SPEAKER_05 53:40

Okay, I like that. That's they were approached by a grizzled old man whom they described as wearing a ragged and scorched Union uniform and smelling of sulfur gunpowder. He talked to them about how furious the battle was as he passed around spare rounds of ammunition and then went on his way.

SPEAKER_01 54:01

I think I know where the story's going and I love it.

SPEAKER_05 54:03

At first, the extras assumed he was part of the production company, but their minds changed when they looked closely at the ammunition he gave them. They took the rounds to the man in charge of giving out such props for the movie, and he said they didn't come from him. It turns out the ammunition from the strange old man were genuine musket rounds from that period.

SPEAKER_01 54:26

And then they sold it on eBay saying this is uh this was a musket round that we got from a ghost. And um they made millions of dollars. Yeah. No, that is really cool though.

SPEAKER_05 54:38

So, you know, again, one of those thin places where and and I think most battlegrounds I I would agree are are thin places.

SPEAKER_01 54:45

And I mean, going back to Gettysburg one more time, even at the battlefield proper than itself, wasn't there also isn't there also a story, and I haven't done the research for it, so we won't be able to tell it here, uh, or tell it to its fullest extent. Yeah, proper or fullest extent. But isn't isn't there a story of of uh a group of people being either led or at the very least like encouraged, corralled by George Washington, who had died obviously years before?

SPEAKER_05 55:18

Yeah, there is a story about um this was a Civil War story though. Oh, well, but it wasn't in Gettysburg. Okay, it was just a different war story, and I can't remember where, but um it was late at night, and the troops were just they felt defeated. And on uh his horse, George Washington in his tricorn hat appeared and basically said, you know, come on, we can do this, or you know, and and called them to arms. So yeah, we but there is another, and and I don't have it written down, but there are many situations where people have gone out like at five o'clock in the morning and seen in the fog um battalions of men that's cool walking, you know, uh marching, and they they assumed it's reenactors, but it wasn't.

SPEAKER_01 56:11

But also, I mean, what reenactors would be up at five o'clock in the morning? Oh, they would be. Those reenactors would be.

SPEAKER_05 56:17

They would be, but cosplay guys wouldn't, because it would be like I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 56:21

Can I can I just hit snooze one more time? I don't know about that. I don't know about that. Having lived in Utah, which are a lot of people I I know a uh a fair amount of cosplayers. There are some who who aren't that diligent, but man, there are some that are very diligent in what they do.

SPEAKER_05 56:37

So um, but so thin places, and and it's interesting because it feels like we could say that, you know, okay, so that was a thin place, but we could also say that was a time slip. Yeah, I mean, so all of these, um, and and I okay, so I'm gonna throw one more into the mix.

SPEAKER_01 56:58

Okay, let's hear it.

SPEAKER_05 56:59

So we talk about these um backrooms, and right, back rooms, and they they have these little entrances that you can get squeezed through or aren't there for a lot of people, but are there for one person, and you start thinking about fairy mounts. And you know, so you go back into you know that whole idea of um you know the um I I was thinking about the book Ghost, and I can't remember who wrote it. I love the book.

SPEAKER_04 57:29

Wait, was it Ghost? No, fairy fairy tale.

SPEAKER_01 57:32

Oh, fairy. I haven't finished that one yet, and I I really want to.

SPEAKER_04 57:35

It's a good it's a scary horror fairy book.

SPEAKER_01 57:39

I don't know why I stopped because I remember being really into it. I think honestly, I think another book came out. Okay. Probably, let's be honest, it's me, probably like a Jim Butcher. Dresden Files book dropped, and I was like, man, I'm gonna put this one to the case. It's a I need to go back and reread it because it was years ago.

SPEAKER_05 57:54

In this book, this guy had to go down to ferry. And so the the basically you had to go around the ferry mound, walk around it like at sunrise or sunset, and walk around it one of those transitional periods counterclockwise, and then the portal, the opening would appear to you, and you could go in. And and and it it has a lot of the same rules as the backrooms. I mean, you you might get lost, you need to stay on the path. Yep. Um, there might be monsters, you know, there um time will work differently.

SPEAKER_01 58:28

Time's gonna work different. Yeah, so also location. One of the um early one of the early videos, uh, you have the person, the the the guy. I don't remember if if he or only his camera, but they he walks in and then through a series of of different hallways and everything, the camera at the very least ends up getting no clipped back, no clipped back in, but it's like super high in the sky, like above where uh uh an airplane would be. Wow, plummets to the ground. I don't know, I don't remember if only the camera or if the guy and the camera go together. Um, but you know, at the very least the camera is shatters, and I think that's actually what f leads some bigger organization to finding out about this place because they recover that footage uh that was, you know.

SPEAKER_05 59:23

So that would be the horrifying body stuff if it was with him.

SPEAKER_01 59:27

I mean, that probably would be the gore, I think. I don't I don't think that's the the body horror because I saw a um a brief little screenshot of some of the body horror. It's the monsters that look like warped versions of people. It it does look like I don't know if you've seen any clips from John Carpenter's The Thing.

SPEAKER_05 59:45

Uh no.

SPEAKER_01 59:46

Okay, okay. Um Ash is looking like he has. Can you describe, I guess, some of the creatures from that version of the thing? Because I'm guessing that's probably closer to what you we would see in the backrooms.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:01

Oh my gosh. No, I mean if you think about like the crazy like horror stuff, man, like the stuff they do in the in the thing is like top shelf stuff. It's bonkers, yeah. It's like uh so this alien thing is like inside people, right? And then like, you know, like flesh starts popping out of their chest, and you start having like arms and legs, like deformed arms, like growing out of different parts of their body, and they're scurrying around.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:30

And one of the most iconic is like a guy's neck elongates.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:34

Yeah, elongates out of his head. But it's like super gross. It's like all fleshy and it's like Mr.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:40

Stretch from Fantastic Four.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:42

Yes, but imagine Mr. Stretch and uh the thing, uh, because it's the all like the the skin, like it doesn't it doesn't stretch naturally with it. It's like very, it's large and foldy, and it's like yeah, it's it's there's also one where a guy like tries to punch a guy in the chest and the chest just like opens with teeth. Yeah, it opens up like jaws.

SPEAKER_06 1:01:03

Oh, ooh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:05

It's gross. I'm assuming those kinds of things would be, and I I don't know. I don't know if it's gonna be that detailed, but I do know I the the screenshot that I saw looked like a super like distorted version of what a human should look like. And I believe actually it did have like a mouth that looked like it was kind of down here, but it looked like normal eyes, but just like a slit with like maybe a little bit of open stuff, like right, you know, from the center of the body down. Which sounds cool. I mean, also sounds terrifying. Okay. Sounds cool.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:40

So getting back to uh fairy mouth, so um you have a hard time getting out of there. Yes um you encounter strange entities, and reality feels wrong. So, um and okay, so here's uh so um why I think backrooms feel like a modern secular version of fairy lore. A medieval Irish storyteller might explain a difference by saying he found a door into the land of the she. A modern internet storyteller might say he no-clipped through reality. I mean, so it's that that's kind of thing. So um Do we want to move into um other areas? So we've got we've got the fairy lore. Then actually we've got the folklore.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:42

Well, because there's I one of the one of the beats and notes that I have when it comes to it's not just it's not just Celtic fairy lore that this kind of seems okay very similar to. I mean, and I I I I don't I won't go through all the different examples, um, but there are just throughout ancient religions and mythologies, there are a lot of examples of these transitional places. And a lot of them are physical locations, like you know, with whether you're saying the thin places were often ferry mounds, caves, also some bodies of water as well. I think you probably mentioned that. Uh, there are a lot of a lot of these seem to be either underground or they involve bodies of water, which also can either be underground or have like if they're rivers, um, you know, that that has that other secondary liminal idea where they're you know the ancient highways.

SPEAKER_05 1:03:37

Okay, I was gonna say, is a river then considered a liminal place because it's always moving? It's a transitional place.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:44

I I think so, because it again it was also used as um as a highway. That's true. That's it was used as a rope. Yes. So I would consider, you know, okay. I guess I think it depends on on what creature you are. If you're a fish, it might not be because that's where you live.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:57

But that's that's true.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:59

But if you're a human, I think you know, you don't want to step spend all your time there. And so I I would consider that uh liminal place.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:06

Um what other places do you have for us?

SPEAKER_01 1:04:09

You got uh in in Greek religion, you got Hades, um, and in ancient Greek tradition, I'm gonna mispronounce some of these, uh, and some of these might be wrong.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:18

So he's doing it on purpose.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:20

He knows exactly how I'm inflaming everyone. I want everyone to be super upset at me. Uh but in ancient Greek tradition, there are a few entrances, including uh Archeon or Archron River. Um there's another one that forgive me for this one. Uh uh Necromantian.

SPEAKER_05 1:04:40

Oh, okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:40

I think uh Cape Taneron uh or Cape Uh Matapan. Lake Lake Avernus near Kum uh Kume, caves, volcanic openings, and some other places with some weird vapors. Uh speaking of vapors, you got Pluto's Gate at uh Heropolis. Um this one's extra fun because one way or another, it is definitely a doorway to another world since it was discovered the site emits dangerous carbon dioxide from a cave or fissure. I remember Josh Gates went down there and they did, was it uh Expedition Unknown or I think it was Oh, if it was Josh Gates was there, probably Expedition Unknown, because Expedition X, he's like I thought he was there and the guy in the in the chair.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:24

Right. Yeah. Usually though there are some episodes. Yeah. But they were going down to this cave and they had a carbon monoxide detector. And sometimes this place doesn't have carbon monoxide, and then sometimes it's like dee dee dee dee.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:37

Yep, yep. Caves are very or cave systems or places near near I mean, places near any tectonic movement, you're gonna have potential carbon dioxide.

SPEAKER_05 1:05:48

And you start thinking about okay, so you know, these now background with these creatures. Yeah, and I'm thinking like Mammoth Cave and all of the Stories about mammoth caves.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:02

So many just caves in general.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:03

Well, that's that's very true. And the whole cave system around that part of the country, because that's where like Bell Witches, that's where all of these cryptid paranormal stories, and a lot of them kind of uh associate with the cave system there. And so that's very interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:24

Well, and and so I'm gonna I'm gonna move to I got because now we're talking about caves. Go right ahead. I got a couple of really interesting, I got some fun cave things because you're right. There are a lot of a lot of ancient religions, the Maya religion, um, the um a lot of religions, even Celtic folklore, look at caves as at the if not a gateway, at the very least, a place where the worlds are very close together. And it seems like again, I've I've said this before, a lot of underground. A lot of underground places.

SPEAKER_05 1:06:59

Which is what the she is. It's the mound dwellers, you know, the people that live underneath the earth.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:04

I mean, she literally translates to mounds because you're talking about, you know, the the Aishi, the people of the of the mounds. Um, so so the first intro the first fun thing about uh or the first destination, the first cave I'll talk about is uh St. Patrick's Purgatory. I thought this was so interesting. I hadn't heard about this. So um this is something in uh I guess I put this like a lot of uh a lot of Catholics probably if they haven't heard about this, you know, this is you're welcome. But a lot of Catholics might know or or those those Catholics that are really invested in the deep lore of the Catholic Church. Okay, um, so it's now called Station Island, but uh St. Patrick's Purgatory earned its name from experience Saint Patrick supposedly had on the island. The earliest written account of it is found on in Treaties on St. Patrick's Purgatory, a Latin text written about uh sorry, written around 1184 by a monk named H. of Saultrey or Saultry. It describes a disgruntled Patrick paying for help to convert the stubborn Irish, those dang pagans. Um apparently God's answer was to invite Patrick into the pit of purgatory. Hey, Patrick, want to come down to purgatory? It's not quite hell, but it's close. That's right. It's a good time. Party party. Well, I think the idea was that then Patrick would be able to essentially tell the Irish people what they're in for because he's experienced it, what they might be in for if they don't get baptized. Exactly. You know, they're not like if you're a bad person, you don't necessarily go to hell, you but you do have to go to purgatory. And this idea is that purgatory is still not great. Yeah, this is not a pub. Right. And I I mean, yeah. Okay. Uh according to the Smithstone magazine, medieval texts claim that this pit could still be founded on a remote island in uh Ulster. While accounts of St. Patrick's Purgatory vary, many early visitors reported it to be a cave of modest dimensions, roughly the size of an ancient Irish sweat house, in which smoke was traditionally inhaled for spiritual or medicinal purposes. As Gerald of Wales wrote in his twelfth century History of Ireland, this part of the island contains nine pits, and should anyone perchance venture to spend the night in one of them, he is immediately seized by the malignant uh by by the malignant spirits. Anyone who survived the experience as a penance, supposedly upon him, would not afterwards undergo the pains of hell unless he commits some sin of a deeper die. So at first it seems like it was supposed to be something that Patrick could then relate to the people of Ireland. Right. But then later on, it kind of became if you deal with these, if you go to these uh pits of purgatory and you deal with it, then that you will have basically like a penance? Yeah, a penance. You'll have already dealt with some of that punishment instead of going to hell for these crimes or for these sins.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:12

So you go to the church and you go into the confessional and you say, you know, forgive me, father, for I've sinned, and then you tell them the sin. And generally, you know, it's the you know, say several our fathers and Hail Mary's Hail Mary's, do the rosary, that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:32

Do five jumping jacks, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:10:33

No, I've never heard that one. But so this one is go to Ulster, spend the night in a pit.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:41

It sounds like it was more of a personal pilgrimage. So somebody else would like to. So he's had the father saying, Yeah, yeah, here the pits. Yeah, go to the mines. Go to the mines. They call it a mine. A mine. Um later on, uh oh, sorry, there's uh it later gives an account of another who went to this purgatory at around 1153, a knight named Owen. Okay. For entering St. Patrick's Purgatory, Owen fasted and prayed for 15 days. That's a lot.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:15

That's a lot. Good for him.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:16

Yeah. I I'm curious if that includes water, because I think that's like that's dangerous. That's dehydration mode right there. The monks in charge of the site conducted a funeral mass for him, marking his symbolic death.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:28

Okay, so maybe he didn't drink water. Maybe.

SPEAKER_01 1:11:32

They led there. They led Owen to the entrance of the cave, then locked him inside. Over the next 24 hours, Owen supposedly faced a series of tests and temptations involving dragons, demons, and serpents. He saw people nailed to the ground, hanging from iron hooks, spinning on a wheel of fire, and strung up on a spit. He had entered a land of pain and suffering, and he only survived his ordeals, ordeals by repeatedly calling on Christ. One of the quotes is Jesus, as thou art full of might, have mercy on me, sinful knight. Which rhymed. Oh, I I think it is it's supposed to be kind of poetic. Like a Chaucer's tale kind of thing. Right, right.

SPEAKER_05 1:12:14

So, okay, so he actually saw what happened in Purgatory.

SPEAKER_01 1:12:18

Yes, according to this uh Okay. It's the same account that talked about. It's that it looks like it's that same treatise on St. Patrick's Purgatory. Okay. Um, so he he went in and he suffered a lot of these, you know torture things. Yeah. Yeah. Uh but uh that's one example of I guess experiences people have of a cave where, you know, whether it's it's whether it's a hallucination or going or, you know, just an example. A lot of people used to go to this cave anymore, uh cave. Unfortunately, you can't anymore. Um, a lot of the the structures, the Catholic structures that are built up around this cave, because again, it used to be a place that a lot of people would pilgrims to. In fact, the Smithsonian magazine that I uh the Sm Smithsonian article that I read said that it's part of the reason why Ireland got so popular. Um it's what put our Ireland on the map. Oh, they apparently they would go there to do penance in those pits. Exactly. Exactly. Um, but then when the I don't I don't remember, I don't know if it's a Protestant church, but but it's I mean Church of England. Yeah, yeah. Um once there was conflict between the Catholic Church and and you know the Church of Right Church of England uh they they unfortunately went and destroyed the oh the sites there. Okay. Um it has been remade, I believe, in 1988. I I didn't write the exact date down. Okay, but there is now a new church built there. Unfortunately, you can't access the caves. Well, maybe fortunately, depending on the case. I was gonna say, nah. If you want to. It might not be the Church of England, but it is the Protestant church. Right, you're right. Yeah, it was it was the the church that was very the church that was popular in Ireland at the time that was very against the the Catholic church. And yeah, they they since then the the caves have been filled in. Uh you can't go into them, but you can still go to a cathedral on the site itself. So and it's a cool-looking cathedral. It's like grey brick. Oh. Uh or grey stone, I guess. It's it's a it's a pretty building. Uh, it's all a picture of it. I haven't been there myself yet.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:33

I don't know if that's one of the places I'd like to go.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:35

I think it'd be cool just to see, you know, look look at where the cave was and go, man, that used to be a hell mouth. They called it a hell mouth.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:43

Even though it's a purgatory mouth.

SPEAKER_05 1:14:44

But if you get bad vibes from Vegas, how are you gonna feel standing in that church with that right underneath you? I mean, are those are those spirits still being tortured even though they're covered up with dirt?

SPEAKER_01 1:14:59

You know, I guess that's fair.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:00

Is there a party party still going on down there?

SPEAKER_01 1:15:02

If it really is uh an entrance to that place, then probably. Yeah. I but the description of what was going on definitely didn't seem like purgatory to me. It seemed a little bit too tortury for purgatory. It felt definitely more like one of the layers of hell.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:19

Okay. Um isn't purgatory supposed to be one of the layers of hell, like one of the top layers.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:26

That's a good question. I haven't read that book.

SPEAKER_05 1:15:30

We'll have to get back to that. Yeah. Or if you know, please let us know.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:34

Let us know in the comments. Um, also, I probably still, just because I I I want to, I might still end up reading that book. I don't know if we'll ever do an episode on hell and the level layers of it. But you know, that might be it probably is good knowledge for me to have anyway. So yeah. Okay. Uh, but then the other the other cave thing. Yes. The second cave thing. Uh, this is more I think it's it's closely tied with the idea that they're that thin places are often found in caves.

SPEAKER_02 1:16:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:05

Um, basically it's it's scientists there there were two there there have been a lot of, but two specifically that I'm gonna call out uh different scientific explorations on people who spent a good amount of time living in caves and what it did to them. Um aka cave time distortion because there are so many it's folklore stories. Rip Van Winkle.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:34

I was gonna say Rip Van Winkle, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:36

Uh uh King Herla, um, which we might talk about later, uh or not. If you have look up King Hurla, it's really interesting.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:43

Uh he did a similar thing, like a Rip Van Winkle kind of thing.

SPEAKER_01 1:16:46

But yeah, basically, I guess I'll give the the the short version because it's a longer tale. I'll give the short version. Uh King Herla was approached by a uh what what the text calls a pygmy uh or a dwarf king. Okay. Um and the this king is like starts to give him all these flattery, you know, he starts talking very, very um flatteringly to him. So I'm I'm a king of so many different lands, but I just I had to come to you to see, you know, to Okay. And so schmoozing him. Exactly. And then he's like, if I I see that you're gonna get married soon, if I go to your wedding, uh, then in a year, in a year's time, will you come to my wedding when I call upon you? He agrees to this. At their at King Herla's wedding, um this pygmy king shows up with way more servants than King Herla has. And basically, like his King Herla's servants just kind of sit there watching as as this Pygmy King takes care of everything.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:46

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:17:46

Uh, and so then afterwards, it's like, okay, so you know, when I come back, the next time I come back in about a year's uh uh time, you have to come with me to my land. And so a year passes, he does so, he invites him in, and it's uh to an underground cave type place. Does feel very failike, you know. It is a little the the the little people, so probably um and similar things happen. They just give him so many gifts, so many amazing things, including a greyhound. Uh they gave him a dog. I believe it's a greyhound. Yeah, not now yeah. The bus wasn't around at the time. Uh um I they say dog, I don't remember exactly uh if it was a greyhawk or not. But anyway, give him this this beautiful dog. But um he with with the with the idea, yes, here it is. The um Yep, pig the pygmy conducted his guests to darkness and at a parting gave them a small bloodhound to be carried in arms, strictly forbidding any of Hurla's whole company to dismount until the dog should leap forward from his bearer. Then, having said farewell, he returned to his country. When Hurla in a short time was restored to sunlight and his kingdom, he accosted an old shepherd and asked for news of his queen by name. Then the shepherd regarded him with wonder. Thus he replied, My lord, I scarce understand thy language, since I am a Saxton and thou art a Briton, but I have never heard of the name of that queen, save the met that men tell of one so called, a queen of the very ancient Britons, the wife of King Hurla, who is reported in legends to have disappeared with a pygmy into this cliff, and to have been seen nevermore on earth.

SPEAKER_02 1:19:38

Oops.

SPEAKER_01 1:19:39

The Saxons, having driven out the natives, have possessed this kingdom for two for for full two hundred years. The king, who had deemed his stay to be of three days only, could scarcely sit his horse for wonder. Some of his fellows forsooth, heedless of the pygmy's warnings, dismounted before a descendant of the dog and were immediately changed to dust. Time caught up with them. Oh but the king, understanding the reason for this change, prohibited by threat of death uh by threat of like death anyone to touch the earth before the descent of the dog. But the dog never descended.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:17

So he's still on his horse, though.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:19

So the idea has the story. Yeah, so uh the story hath it that King Herla in end his want in endless wandering maketh mad marches with his army without stay or rest. So it kind of becomes this it becomes both a um I think it's an origin story for the wild hunt.

SPEAKER_02 1:20:38

Oh I believe.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:40

Okay. That's at the very least when I what I was reading that they called it King Herla and the Wild Hunt. So I'm assuming though they never explicitly say that, but it's also an example of a time warp situation where somebody goes into a cave and it comes out 200 years later, his entire kingdom he doesn't, it's not his anymore.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:00

Moral of the story. Don't go places with pygmy kings or dwarf kings.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:05

If if a if a king who is like three to four feet tall with long beards, that one of the things they talked about, how his beard went to his like uh uh um waist. Yeah, his waist. Also, if he has because this is another interesting point of his uh his thing, I I'm not gonna find it, but he has um at his thigh, it turns into to hoofs like pan. Um, if somebody walks up to you who looks like that, uh it's okay to stereotype and uh go, I'm not gonna go into the cave with you, good sir. Uh I don't care how many riches you have, I don't want to die. So wow.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:44

But I'm glad you told us.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:46

But go ahead with the uh that was an adjacent story to the that was a great story. An example of the the the time acting strangely in caves.

SPEAKER_05 1:21:58

And you guys know the Rip Van Winkle story, right? It's uh it I think Washington Irving um wrote it, and it's so it would be from like um 1800s, 1700s. 1700s, and and wasn't it what that same uh uh bridge, what is that triangle up in the uh bridge uh yeah, Bridgewater, Bridgewater Triangle, I think.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:22

Yeah, yeah, I think Bridgewater Triangle.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:23

And and it basically was this fellow who supposedly is told by the Faye to come. Did they give him something to drink?

SPEAKER_01 1:22:34

I I I haven't It's been a long time since it's been a while. Uh honestly, the version I remember, which I don't think is accurate, is he fell asleep under a tree.

SPEAKER_04 1:22:42

Right.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:42

But that's it. But I saw as well that there's a cave potentially involved too. Okay.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:49

And he was kind of one of those ne'er do wells. I mean, he was kind of a rip Van Winkle get to work, and he he wouldn't. You know, he'd go sit under the tree and he would dream his life away, and and so s sounds uh sounds like me. Ash has got something for us.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:07

It's it's been so long since I've read that one. Wasn't he playing a game with some dwarves? Like a bowling type game, and he was drinking with Oh, yes, yes. What was it? It was like uh ten pens or something. I don't remember the name of the game.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:21

Right, right, right, right. Like an early, yeah, an early bowling kind of thing. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:26

So that's another moral of the story. Don't bowl with dwarfs.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:29

Stay away from dwarves.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:30

Yeah. It just not not little little people are awesome. Little people are great. We're talking about the creatures, the the dwarfs that live underground. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:39

Uh or Tommy Knockers or yeah, any of those goblin-y kind of things.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:44

Yeah, yeah. Gnomes. Okay. So yeah, so that's Rip Van Winkle, but that was a uh New England, an American story.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:51

Yeah. But there, I mean, there's there's some of those kinds of stories in ancient China. Uh, there's there are a lot of those. Somebody goes into a cave and then they come out and it's 200 years later. Yeah, the one in China that I was talking about, he actually watches as his uh axe handle um slowly disintegrates with time. Uh it's really interesting. I wish I would have written that one down, uh, but there were a lot of names in there that I don't think I could have pronounced. So I chose to avoid that one. But um, but okay. There are some scientists that studied this. So in 1962, French uh Michel Sefer, Sefray. Um, I'm assuming I don't know how to pronounce that last name. That was good. Thank you. Um I believed it. Thanks. Yeah, I said it with confidence. That's all that matters.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:38

That's all that matters.

SPEAKER_01 1:24:39

Uh spent about two months isolated underground without sunlight, clocks, or calendars, studying how humans experience time without external cues. In an interview with the Cabinet magazine, he detailed his plan. I invented a simple scientific protocol. I put a team at the entrance of the cave. I decided I would call them when I woke up, when I ate, and just before I went to sleep. My team didn't have the right to call me so that I wouldn't have any idea what time it was on the on the outside. Without knowing it, I had created the field of human chronobiology. Long before in 1922 it had been discovered that rats have an internal biological clock. My experiment showed that humans, like lower mammals, have a body clock as well.

SPEAKER_04 1:25:24

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:24

Side note, except for people with ADHD, apparently. We have our now, this this is like uh thing that's been that's been studied. We are our internal body clock sucks. Um it's on snooze. Yeah. It's on uh 10 minutes sometimes. Uh if you feel like 10 minutes have passed, you better check the time because an hour and a half might have gone by. Anyway, he spoke about what he did while he was down there as well, as the stress he put on his body. He mentioned his feet were always wet and his body got to as low as 93 degrees Fahrenheit. But the interesting bit for our purposes is that he talked about the psychological uh about psychological tests. He says I had to count from one to one twenty at the rate of one digit per second. With that test, we made a great discovery. It took me five minutes to count to one twenty. In other words, I psychologically experienced five real minutes as though they were two. Oh wow. Later he says, I descended into the I descended into the cave on July 16th and was planning to finish the experiment on September 14th. When my surface team notified me that the day had finally arrived, I thought that it was only August 20th. I believed I still had another month to spend in the cave. My psychological time had compressed by a factor of two. He later talks about how he exper he went on to experiment with others as well. And he observed that most people eventually slipped away from the 24 um hour sleep cycle that we have up on the surface, and instead began having 48-hour cycles.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:01

Interesting.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:03

That's exactly what I thought too. Apparently, without the sun, he's he he mentioned that he didn't slip and he actually wanted to go back down there, so he could eventually slip into that 48-hour cycle. But without the the sun, you start to accumulate and like because he said that he went to bed when he was tired. That's what all these other people did. They went to bed when they were tired, and they woke up and they did things, you know, and and for some reason down there, they their days were 48-hour cycles as opposed to our 24 hours. I'm assuming. Interesting. Um, let's see. And then in 2021, Spanish mountaineer Beatrice Famini.

SPEAKER_04 1:27:46

Um that was well, really well done.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:48

Thank you, but I think I mispronounced it.

SPEAKER_05 1:27:50

It's okay. You did it with confidence.

SPEAKER_01 1:27:51

Thank you. Uh, went to a cave for a similar experiment about time and didn't leave until April 14th, 2023. It was supposed to be a 500 day experiment and an Becoming a 509 day experiment and the cave with total isolation. According to NPR, she said she lost track of time after about two months in the cave and thought she had only been there for some 160 or 170 days. She described the experience as excellent, unbeatable, telling reporters that she had never even considered hitting the panic button. Um, I did also see something, I wasn't able to verify it. Um because the place that I was trying to get to that I briefly saw this idea from, it was from a uh magazine that I will not name, but uh it showed me the article, and then as I scrolled to read it, it uh paywalled me. Oh, okay, and said, uh, you know, hey, you can you can read this article for uh one dollar subscription. Right. Um anyway, so but from what I briefly saw, uh there might be a report that at some point she felt a strong urge to collect cave stones. So she thought that must mean it's harvest time, but it was actually summer. She also reported about having a strong urge for fried chicken at one point in time, too. But I think that's just a natural.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:17

Yeah, I understand that. Yeah, I too had that urge.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:20

I think I don't have to live in a cave to have that urge. That's right. But uh how about sweet and sour chicken? Uh it only only talks about uh fried chicken. Just kidding. Yeah. And one more interesting thing, this is just I I went on a tangent with with caves. So um this is according to the weather channel, there are some caves that have their own weather system.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:44

Oh.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:45

So uh they found an entrance to the hidden. I'm not gonna pronounce this correctly, but I think the name is really funny because I'm 12. Uh Ur Wang Dong cave system.

SPEAKER_05 1:29:57

Okay, it is funny.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:58

It's it's kind of funny. Um funny to us because, you know. Anyway, uh they were st and so they found a cave, uh they found an entrance to that hidden cave system, and we're stunned to see a space so large it contains a cloud.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:14

Oh wow.

SPEAKER_01 1:30:16

They called it cloud ladder hall, which measures about 12 and a half acres or 12 football fields. Uh, or about yeah, 12 football fields, and the fog conceals the roof at 128 feet above.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:29

He's a so is it a cloud or just condensation from what like what is a cloud, but condensation? It is condensation, but it just that feels kind of like I mean if you saw if you saw pictures of the cave system. Would I say it's a cloud?

SPEAKER_01 1:30:45

It looks okay. Yeah, I mean, the fog really does can like it's foggy, but then the higher it goes, the more condensed it becomes. And also it sounds like uh just because of the rains above, that cave system is very um, there's a a large danger of like flash flooding.

SPEAKER_05 1:31:05

Oh, okay. Um, so so those clouds actually rain down.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:09

I I don't know if it they actually rain down or if the flash flooding is coming from, you know, oh the surface coming down. Even still, it it I mean, at the very least, I haven't seen a cave system personally that is so big that it's able to contain the fog because it contains that fog, it's not just there, like eventually it moves over, but like that that fog is constantly there, it has its own uh biome, essentially. Um one of the the photographer um and caver Robbie Stone said, I'd never seen anything quite like the inside of Cloud Ladder before. Thick cloud and fog and fogs hang in the upper half of the cave where it gets trapped unable and unable to escape through the small passage in the roof. So it's just yeah. So yeah. So anyway, so it even barring the the fact that it is probably also a thin place, connected, you know, to some some other place, some way, caves are just a world of their own. Yeah, there are a lot of other stories of people who go into there that have, I mean, there are some religious experiences. Johnny uh Cash had a religious experience in a cave. Um in a safe uh similar cave that somebody else ended up. He had, you know, he suffocated a little bit, but he was it he had he was scuba diving and he found himself in a portion of the cave where wasn't much oxygen, but rescuers came in and when they saw him, he asked if there were angels. Um we don't know exactly what he experienced. Right. There have been some crazy experiences that people have had in caves where they don't have light as well. Um but it's also hard to find any of them that aren't. There are a lot of places that claim these some of these might be fabricated by uh cave tour guides. Okay. So anyway, yeah, caves are just they're a world of their own.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:01

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:33:02

Oh, yeah. Um, yeah, thank you guys. And if you have an experience of your own, or if you have any interesting information that you'd like to share with us, either comment down below or reach out to us through our email. Um v FTAdic voices from theatic at gmail.com. That's vftic at gmail.com.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:22

He does that so well. Okay, have a great week. Thanks for coming. Bye.