48. Down The Rabbit Hole: The Bell Witch

In the final installment of our Bell Witch series, we're throwing open the trapdoor and diving headfirst down the rabbit hole. It's time to talk theories—what really happened on that Tennessee farm in the 1800s? Was it a ghost, a witch, a poltergeist… or something even stranger?

We're unpacking everything from cultural context to psychic projection to why some stories age like haunted wine and others... not so much. And for the first time ever, Nicole shares a theory about the infamous "talking" of the Bell Witch that—despite all the research—she hasn't seen anyone else bring up. Spoiler: it's weird, it's compelling, and honestly? It might be the most likely explanation of all.

Bring your open minds, your skepticism, and maybe a pinch of salt—we're connecting the dots, crossing the veils, and wrapping up this series the only way we know how: with curiosity, cackles, and just a lil' bit of chaos.

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Welcome to the Real Ghosts of Podcast, where we explore haunted locations in and around Austin, Texas. We're your hosts Nicole Ricardo and Damien Shelacy.

SPEAKER_03 0:17

Listen along as we couple in-depth historical research and paranormal investigative techniques with a sixth sense of the unknown.

SPEAKER_04 0:31

We're going.

SPEAKER_01 0:33

Alright.

SPEAKER_04 0:34

Alright.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

Good morning.

SPEAKER_04 0:36

Yeah, it is morning.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

Uh I am sorry in advance, everyone, that I sound like shit. My allergies are killing me.

SPEAKER_04 0:43

Yeah, and it's a glorious morning outside. It is gray and cold.

SPEAKER_01 0:47

And drippy.

SPEAKER_04 0:49

Drippy?

SPEAKER_01 0:50

Yeah. Because it's not quite like raining.

SPEAKER_04 0:53

It's just dripping on us. Yeah. Drippy. Good word.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

It's a little drippy, yeah. A little drippy. My favorite weather.

SPEAKER_04 1:01

It's the perfect weather to talk about the Bell Witch.

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Old Gate. Old Gate Matt. Yep, so we are uh going down the rabbit hole. So this episode is just gonna be us uh shooting the shit about what the fuck we think about the bell witch. Though I do have some some updates on things. Updates. Um yes. Uh okay. So one of the big questions.

SPEAKER_04 1:33

Real quick. We have some reviews to read out.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:37

We don't forget about our bruvs. Here we go.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Let me get my phone. Yeah. Which by the way, just thank you so much to everybody who has been leaving reviews because we actually we've been getting quite a few recently.

SPEAKER_04 1:50

And some nice metter message matters, messages.

SPEAKER_01 1:55

Especially if you're being nice to us because we're people and we have feelings. Well, um, so thank you so much for that. That's amazing, and we really appreciate it. Um okay, so here is one from Ro Romere. Ro Romier. And also just joined our Patreon, which is amazing. And we love you so much. Yes, yes. Thank you.

SPEAKER_04 2:16

Yes, thank you, Ro Romere.

SPEAKER_01 2:18

So she said, like several other recent reviewers, I discovered RGO because of their collab with Night Owl. First, I listened to the episodes about the same location, and then I went back and listened to basically the whole podcast. It is, of course, a different experience from Night Owl, but I have come to really enjoy the dynamic between Nicole and Damien. I like that they have different opinions, but respectfully disagree. I'm excited to learn more about their theories on the supernatural and deeply annoyed, I'm nowhere near the Para Museum.

SPEAKER_04 2:48

Oh no. The museum wants to see you. Uh on so thank you. We'll stream it for you. We'll stream. So thank you very much for that. Um, as you were reading that, we just got a brand new Patreon member.

SPEAKER_01 3:00

We just got a new Patreon member. Just to wait, I feel like we need one of those like horn sound effect things. You know, prepare.

SPEAKER_04 3:06

Yeah, Gwen Bai.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

Gwen.

SPEAKER_04 3:09

Gwen Bai uh is now a well, you've joined the cult, Gwen.

SPEAKER_01 3:14

Thank you so much, Gwen.

SPEAKER_04 3:16

Yes, thank you, Gwen. We have some new members. Which we just did a whole spiel on uh talking about all the new Patreon members over at Para Peculiar on that podcast.

SPEAKER_01 3:25

Shouted everybody out.

SPEAKER_04 3:26

Yep, shouted everyone out.

SPEAKER_01 3:27

Um then I want to read one more. Um we have this one from Otters and Owls.

SPEAKER_04 3:33

Otters and Owls.

SPEAKER_01 3:34

Which is cute as fuck.

SPEAKER_04 3:35

Is that a store?

SPEAKER_01 3:36

I wish. I would love to have an otter, to be honest. I love otters. Why? That's I always tell you hurricane reminds me of an otter. Hurricane I never heard you say that. Yes, I have. Hurricane has big otter energy, and that was also my my card for the year. I got otter because we did He's got big dog energy. It's from the spirit animal deck or whatever. Oh yeah. Oracle deck, which I just love.

SPEAKER_04 4:01

Um, and so you have ottered a horse up there, haven't you?

SPEAKER_01 4:04

Yeah, you got horse and I got otter. So I need to play more and have more fun. And you need to be more serious and graceful.

SPEAKER_03 4:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

What else is new?

SPEAKER_03 4:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

Shocking.

SPEAKER_03 4:14

Very shocking.

SPEAKER_01 4:14

And stop interrupting people. Oh my god. Too soon. God, even the fucking ghost told you to shut up.

SPEAKER_04 4:20

It's worse than a 9-11 joke.

SPEAKER_01 4:22

Um God. Alright, so otters and owls. Uh, they said, What I love about this show is that Nicole and Damian seem like real people, they are people you might hang out with. I love that so much, and please come have a beer with us.

SPEAKER_04 4:35

Well, we are we are real people. We are not AI. This is not a robot.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

We are, in fact, real people.

SPEAKER_04 4:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:41

Um, you get to listen to their investigations in real time and follow along with them as they research and learn more about the paranormal. It's like having a conversation with your friends each week each week.

unknown 4:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:50

Well, we are your friends. We need friends.

SPEAKER_01 4:52

So that is, in fact, what we both intend. And actually, in the because we just recorded a parapeculiar episode right before this, and we were literally eating breakfast.

SPEAKER_03 5:01

In fact, we're still having coffee.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

You could hear me chomping, chomping away, chomping away, and you know, I did not bite the spoon once. You I'm very proud of you. I might have punched you in the face if you had done that. That oh my god. Yeah. If you want to know how to annoy Nicole, that's like worse than nails on a chalkboard to me. It's like biting your utensils. Oh my god, it's me. It's making me cringe, even thinking about it. I can't.

SPEAKER_04 5:25

Wonderful noise. So thank you for the people that uh joined the Patreon. Thank you for the people that left us reviews, send us messages. Um, it's something you can do. You can you can leave us a review on Apple Podcasts, please. It really helps the show. It helps get eyes on us.

SPEAKER_01 5:38

It does. When people are um searching for paranormal podcast wanted things, spooky stories. Um, the more reviews we have, it allows us to actually show up in the search results.

SPEAKER_03 5:48

And you know, be nice.

SPEAKER_01 5:49

Be nice. Um, be nice or leave. So thank you so much. We love you so much. And was that all the intro stuff?

SPEAKER_03 5:59

I believe so.

SPEAKER_01 6:01

Okay, so move right along to the Beow Witch.

SPEAKER_04 6:04

You were on fire this morning. You were how many cups of coffee or tea have you had?

SPEAKER_01 6:08

I only have one cup of tea. This is my first cup of coffee. But I also mind you, I haven't had coffee in the country. Did you get the S'mores coffee? Yeah, I had the I had the S'mores coffee. What do you think of it? With creme brulee creamer. You like it? It's a very good, it's very sugary and very good. I'm very happy right now.

SPEAKER_04 6:23

Not to go off the rails, but speaking of creamer, we were very disappointed, I would say, in our Kit Kat creamer purchase.

SPEAKER_01 6:30

Yeah, we got the Kit Kat creamer from Target.

SPEAKER_04 6:32

Well, because we're Kit Kat grills.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Target always has the random, like, I don't know, novelty flavors of creamers. Hot tip. Um hot tip. Yeah, and it I yeah, it's good. I wouldn't identify it as like, oh, that tastes like a Kit Kat, but it's it's good.

SPEAKER_04 6:48

Yeah. We were both excited because with I thought it was gonna taste like liquid Kit Kat. Yeah, but it did not.

SPEAKER_01 6:52

No, my favorite creamer right now, and this is mind you, at any given time, we probably have like at least four different creamers in the fridge. Um, creme brulee, I think, is where it's at right now. Yeah, it's so good. So good. Um, okay, so anyway. All right, Bell Witch. So I do first want to address one of the things that came up for me when we were talking about this previously.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

Um was it is a bit controversial among historians as to so M V Ingram's book on the Bell Witch, which is typically regarded as, you know, one of the, you know, the kind of like the source material. The book. Um, there's a few others by the bells, but anyway. Um yeah, and so it is a bit controversial with historians as to whether he just kind of made all of it up or how much of it was stories from the family, and then he kind of elaborated on things, you know, what's fact, what's fiction, the the age-old tale. It's a tale as old as time. Um, so we were wondering, you know, what materials were published prior to that that spoke about poltergeist activities specifically. Yeah, we looked that up. That potentially could have informed this. So I'm gonna read these out and then we can talk about it a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 8:14

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 8:15

Um so I did use Chat GPT for this because we're smarter, not harder. So there's Pliny the Younger's Haunted House Letter, which was the first century CE.

SPEAKER_04 8:26

Basically, the very let me just note on that. That's pretty much the first like account of like uh what you might call a poltergeist or house haunting, if I'm correct in my rememberings of history.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

Yeah, and so it says um would not have been readily available in the US until much later. English translation translations began appearing in print in the 16th century, but they became much more widely circulated in the 18th and 19th centuries. Um, so there's that one. Probably wouldn't have had access to that.

SPEAKER_04 8:59

William of Newberg's Well, and it's also worth noting that it is, yes, that account, the the Ply the Younger account is certainly Poltergeist in Nature, but it's not um as wild as some of the the Bellwitch claims. And we'll we'll we'll get there.

SPEAKER_01 9:13

Right. And so again, just for a reminder, that MV Ingram was published uh 1894. 1894, I believe. So um then we have William of Newburgh's Chronicles from the 12th century, uh, written between like 1196 to 98 CE. Um the work remained relatively obscure until it was printed in 1719 in Latin. English translate translations didn't become available in the 19th century. Okay, and again, mostly read by like scholars, scholars, scholars, scholars and occult enthusiasts in the US.

SPEAKER_04 9:50

That is the new word, by the way. Scholars.

SPEAKER_01 9:53

What a gentleman and a scholar.

SPEAKER_04 9:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

Um so guessing with both of those because they're so old, probably like pretty obscure. I doubt they would have had access to those.

SPEAKER_04 10:02

Right, because it's also worth noting that this family uh was in an area pretty rural. Yeah, so it the reason we're even bringing this up is why, pray tell. Like, why are we bringing it up?

SPEAKER_01 10:13

Wait, well, hold on, there's a few more.

SPEAKER_04 10:15

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 10:15

Um, so the first poltergeist accounts available in the US, okay, because there are a few. I have not personally looked at any of those. I would like to acquire these for the Para Library. I think it would be good to have, especially, especially since it's talking about poltergeist activity. So I would be curious to go down the rabbit hole and look at these what specific activity these works are talking about.

SPEAKER_04 10:40

We may have, I'll have to flip through it. It's been years since I've looked at it, but we have in the para library uh a pretty nice book. It's the history of poltergeist activity, and it really tries to trace it back. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 10:51

Well, shoot, bruv. Why didn't you tell me that before we started recording? You know I would have read that last night.

SPEAKER_04 10:56

Absent-minded.

SPEAKER_01 10:58

Um, so anyway, yeah, ADD. What else is new around here? Forgetting glasses on tables and you know.

SPEAKER_03 11:04

Yeah, if you want to hear about all that, go listen to Parapee. We talked about that.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

That was wild. Spoiler alert, I didn't. It might have been an apportation. Anyway, um Joseph, we have Joseph Glanville's Seducus Triumphus from 1681, a popular English work on witchcraft and codes. Discussing poltergeist-like disturbances. Seducus Seducismus triumphus. It sounds like a Harry Potter spell. Seducus.

unknown 11:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:34

Seducusmus triumphitus. Uh, then we have Cotton Mathers, Magnalia Christi Americana from 1702.

SPEAKER_04 11:42

Fucking Cotton Mathers.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Yeah, goddamn cotton mather. Um, written in colonial America. It includes ghost stories and supernatural events. His focus was mainly witches, though. Get rid of them, witches. Uh Daniel Daniel Defoe's. Not to be confused with William Defoe. Defoe. Uh what? Do that again. Oh fuck, you're not a How I Met Your Mother person.

SPEAKER_04 12:03

Defoe. Is that what that is from? Well. I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Uh I love How I Met Your Mother. Anyway. Daniel Defoe's a true relation of the apparition of one Mrs. Veal from 1706.

SPEAKER_04 12:17

I love Veal.

SPEAKER_01 12:18

Um, yeah, it makes me feel a little bit bad to eat it, but it's so good. So good. Uh, one of the earliest ghost stories printed in English, including Spirit Interactions. Um, so those are the ones they all potentially could, I mean, they were there, they were available. Would anybody in the Bell family have had access to them?

SPEAKER_04 12:39

More importantly, we you know, we'd have to do an entire episode on those accounts, anyways, to see if it's even relevant or if it's even close to the type of stuff that was being reported in the source material for the Bellwitch, right?

SPEAKER_01 12:51

Right. We would have to go through and see. But um, so I just wanted to note that there are some instances of things being published in regards to poltergeist activity specifically that was published prior to the Bellwitch event occurring.

SPEAKER_04 13:09

Well, yeah, occurring, but it's also again for this episode, it is worth noting that the what we call a source material book was published, written probably, I definitely definitely, after all of this was actually here. And if this was after the spiritualism even came about. Okay, so it is interesting that we will never know if some of the phenomena in this book was actually reported by any family of the bells at all.

SPEAKER_01 13:32

We do know that Well, we have the books from the bells, the the few that are from them. Sure, but at the same time, there's so many ways to look at it and be like, well, that's an easy thing to capitalize on if you wait years and years and years after this story, and then all of a sudden, and this was kind of the the debate that we were having before recording, is like, you know, one of the biggest controversies with all of these the original source material, right? Ingram's book, um, the bo the various records by the bells, is all of them. If you want to be skeptical, you're gonna be skeptical, right? Like, even if somebody were to find a handwritten manuscript that they're plopping on the table, like, yep, here's Ingram's manuscript, and here's the manuscript that was written by Bell. Like, we don't have any other handwriting samples from any of these people to compare to to know, but also you don't know if they made it up.

SPEAKER_04 14:24

We don't even have uh handwritten accounts uh from the Bell's original telling of the story that Ingram apparently said that he had had. So the the interesting thing is this. So let's just start here is you got this source book, the Ingram book. That is what you know Nicole read on the history portion of this whole series, and that is the history you're typically gonna get if you go and you visit the cave, which we have done. Uh one of the episodes during this series, we literally brought out some of the rocks from the cave. Um but that is typically the history you're gonna get.

SPEAKER_01 14:53

There's a couple of other books, and we're just gonna name them quickly before we go down the rabbit hole on this, on our thinking on this, which is Well, I named all of the one the original ones that I used um in the first episode, but I do have a few other ones today that I want to talk about. So the one, the first thing we're gonna get into is some of the predictions that the Bell Witch had made.

SPEAKER_04 15:17

But yeah, do you not want to talk about that? No, it's a tough one for me because I that is so not verified.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

And isn't it well it's not verified, I guess. Because it's not in the source material. None of this. Well, it is, because this is from Charles Bailey Bell.

SPEAKER_03 15:31

Um I guess I guess.

SPEAKER_01 15:33

But this is also like it's pu it was originally published prior to any of this shit happening. World War II. Anyway, so we have that book. Um there is another book that I want to mention. I had originally considered reading this. What one? For doing the history on the The Bell Witch by the Brent Monaghan book. And I do want to note The American Witch Book? It's a fiction book.

SPEAKER_04 15:58

It's yeah, it's it's written as fiction.

SPEAKER_01 16:00

It's a fiction book.

SPEAKER_04 16:01

But we I I actually want to look, because we've gone back and forth as to why that is, and it is looked at as a quote source book in this whole story. It's one of the ones that people talk about. Now, I think though, since this whole story, even any of the source material cannot at all in any way be verified, does that mean that there is some thing, like a reason that you have to call it fiction because there's no historical accounts, it's all based on story. Because if we're talking about the Bell Witch, even if we are writing accounts from the source book, it would have to be looked at as something like Beowulf, right? Like, and that's a fiction book.

SPEAKER_01 16:38

Well, I think, hold on, let me look at this other book and see if it's fiction. So this uh so anyway, yeah, the Brent Monahan book. I ended up, I decided not to use that. I didn't even read it. Um, I just to be honest with you, when I was reading the preface about oh, found this manuscript in her uh attic, and I can't tell you her name or show you the manuscript manuscript. I know I'm a horror writer, but I'm gonna write. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 17:02

It's just Ingram books the same way.

SPEAKER_01 17:04

It just made me feel a little bit weird. I understand, but also like this is this is recent. Shoot you know, it just anyways.

SPEAKER_04 17:11

The hardest part about it is there's no fucking chapter breaks. Yeah. It's a whole manuscript.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

So it's just do with that one what you will. I chose not to use it. It's listed as fiction. I I don't know. I just don't I I would rather read the bell accounts, but anyway, so the next one. Um I'm looking to see if I can see if this one's listed. Got a lot of contents in here. No, it doesn't have it listed in here. Um if it's fiction or not. I guess I could look on Amazon, but anyway, um, the the Bell Witch, the full account by Pat Fitzhugh, who we had discovered in when you were looking things, he's apparently uh a bare uh basically like the preeminent like researcher I guess on the Bell Witch stuff.

SPEAKER_04 17:55

I want to get him on parapecular and talk about this because I think they got issues with some of this book. I mean, it's interesting where they go with what they think it is.

SPEAKER_01 18:04

Well, yeah, like I think the research that he has done, some of it um where he has cited and given other uh I don't know where things have come from basically um is sound. Some of it he doesn't always cite or say where it's coming from, with I which I don't love, which one of the things that's his website though is full of that stuff. Yeah, the navigation on it, Pat. If you need a new website, please reach out to me. It's uh the navigation is it's atrocious. It gives me anxiety. Um then I have to deal with Nicole's anxiety. But I will say it's something interesting in here. He apparently was able to find that article from the Saturday Evening Post, the you know, the controversial article that people are like, oh, it didn't exist, whatever. So he apparently it does exist, but he did not cite in here anywhere where he found it. Oh, well so that's the thing where I'm like, oh bruv, but we need that.

SPEAKER_04 19:00

No, I think we have it. There's research. There's an article that I read that's it that article had. But but regardless though, what that article even says is it's someone else's account of telling a story that, oh, this reminds me of some ghost story I heard about the bells a long time ago, so on the bell farm a long time ago, something like that. Nothing that like I like literally says anything about the phenomena. So it's very clear to me that this whole story to to kind of get into it is it's almost like maybe this small haunting happened that turned into this legend because this story was written, uh, I think mostly fictitiously. And I think we know that because of the way the ghost talks, that that the bell witch talks, very racist, very of her time. Um I I think what we've got here is maybe a small case of phenomena happens to a family that gets blown out of proportion, and over the years is so convoluted that 99.9% of it is completely off the point of what actually happened.

SPEAKER_01 20:14

I don't know, we'll talk about it. Uh but there's there's one more book I want to mention. I haven't gotten into this yet. I found this because we uh went down the rabbit hole and well, hold on, I gotta read it before you're yanking it.

SPEAKER_02 20:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

Uh The Bell Witch, The Truth Exposed by Camille Moffat Headley with Chris and Walter Kirby, which is interesting to me because they are the current owners of the Bell Witch Cave. And so that book apparently has more of the um like things that have been occurring recently, with which uh Pat Fitzhugh's book does have a lot of um those accounts as well.

SPEAKER_04 20:47

I just opened random page, you saw me.

SPEAKER_01 20:49

Does it say North Carolina? I swear to God, North Carolina. There you go.

SPEAKER_04 20:55

That is wild.

SPEAKER_01 20:57

We've been getting a lot of North North Carolina synchronicities recently, which actually, oh, because I guess y'all heard um on the last episode when we did that live investigation, we had some of the stuff coming through with Anna, and we got Silas Creek, which turns out it's uh somewhere over in North Carolina, and since then, dude, we've been getting so many synchronicities and seeing stuff about North Carolina everywhere. So now we're like, well, obviously we gotta go to North Carolina.

SPEAKER_04 21:22

We got to. We're gonna find a reason. We'll be there soon. This is what I'm already taking issue with the book. I'm just gonna read the back. Can I do that?

SPEAKER_01 21:27

Read the back.

SPEAKER_04 21:27

Great. So look, first off, I want to preface this by saying we went to the Bellwitch Cave, we have rocks, we love the people there, they're very nice.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

Go and this is you saying this, not reading the back.

SPEAKER_04 21:35

Yeah, correct. We love the Bellwich Cave people, yada yada yada. But we know also for a fact that if you look at the history and what historians have shown, the cave uh never had anything to do, ever. And and they the accounts of the Bellwitch even being in that uh uh potential cave are so probably just not true and came so long after the fact, was never talked about in any of the

SPEAKER_01 22:00

Original story stuff, yes. Yeah. Um, it seems that the cave kind of came into play afterwards.

SPEAKER_04 22:07

Well, now this is the part that that I'm reading the back of the book, and it says this is the only book written with and endorsed by the Kirby family owners of the historic Bell Witch Cave and Farm. Now, do they own the actual property?

SPEAKER_01 22:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 22:23

They own the actual Bell property? Okay. All right.

SPEAKER_01 22:26

They're the ones. That's who we met when we were there.

SPEAKER_04 22:28

Yes, and it is the only book that reveals the truth, and the truth is a thousand times more riveting than the myth. We can't say the truth. The only way, you know what? We gotta go back.

SPEAKER_01 22:36

We'll know the truth when we die.

SPEAKER_04 22:38

Maybe. We have to go back though. We've been talking about this, haven't we?

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Yeah, we'll we just need to do that whole trip again. Do octagon, bell witch, wait, roll.

SPEAKER_04 22:46

And we'll do an RGO episode using just our mobile mics from the cave, and we'll just call it a return to the bellwitch, and then that'll be the episode, and we'll get some more rocks.

SPEAKER_01 22:58

Yeah. Anyway, um, okay, so well, can we talk about I do want to talk specifically a little bit about some of the shit that the Bell Witch said that's in Charles Bailey Bell MD's book. This is that after, you know, I'll return in seven years, and she came back and told him a whole bunch of shit.

SPEAKER_03 23:14

Yeah, go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 23:15

That ended up being prophetic.

SPEAKER_03 23:17

Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 23:18

There's some wild shit in here, okay? And this is again controversial, whatever, whatever you believe, this was written and published before any of this shit actually happened.

SPEAKER_04 23:28

Hold on. When was this written? Because don't they um predict World War II or something in here?

SPEAKER_01 23:35

Yes. Um, where is it? I don't have it. Doesn't say oh 1934. There you go. 1934. 1934. Okay. So uh first, here's the quote from the Bell Witch, okay, that I just think is interesting in regards to what she is. I am a spirit from everywhere. Heaven, hell, the earth. I'm in the air, in houses, any place, at any time. Yeah. Have been created millions of years. Okay, so she's kind of talking about that. Um but then yes, the predictions that she made, she she predicted the Civil War, she predicted uh World War.

SPEAKER_04 24:16

So this came out in 1934. I'm looking for predictions that happened after 1934.

SPEAKER_01 24:20

World War I, World War II. Uh also, if you want to get existential, the how the world is gonna end. Um, but uh this other thing, and here this is you will find this interesting. Okay, I'm gonna read it to you. Do it. Uh to John Jr., because again, this is all of these predictions are being made to John Jr. Um, to John Jr., it asserted that it had known of Africa millions of years ago, and that parts of that country now covered by the jungles and also parts of the Sahara Desert had been inhabited by a race of people superior to any the world had before or since known, and continued to be so civilized for thousands of years, then sunk so low in vice, corruption, and cruelties to each other that it was entirely destroyed, and there remained not a vestige of human life for thousands and thousands of years. Then came several other races. Some 10,000 years ago, Egypt developed a civilization that was superior to that of this country. Carthage and a few others attained a high degree of civilization, no account of which is in your histories. This was long before your histories began. Yeah. So talking about that stuff too.

SPEAKER_04 25:25

That's Atlantis, that's Anunnaki, that's that stuff that that's the world I live in. And that's look, that is what is interesting about a lot of this story is not just that, but uh the the phenomena that happens itself that that whether or not it was fucking fake or whatever, or written and or or fiction, it basically shaped how we perceive and experience the phenomena uh in in the modern times because it is very modern thinking. As an example, the the bell witch saying I am uh everything at all places at all times, I was here millions of years ago. This is a a way of looking at the phenomena when you go away from the idea of oh well a ghost is a dead person walking around. This is a different kind of thinking that you don't see back then for sure.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

And there's even uh at another point in there saying, like, I am a spirit, I was never human, I was created as a spirit.

SPEAKER_04 26:18

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 26:19

Um so you're talking about that, which again would have been pretty, you know, like what for that time.

SPEAKER_04 26:23

Phenomena starting outside the house and then moving into the house and then the bangs and the taps and the the the cannonball-looking thing that came down, then all these things and the reading of minds, and it's wild shit.

SPEAKER_01 26:34

I'm like, like, I know you you kind of already, you know, you let the cat out of the bag on what you're thinking about all of this. Well, I so yes and no. I don't know that I agree that like majority of it was fake because it's like, dude, I don't know, with all this prediction stuff and all this stuff that we now know like is common for the city. Okay, so let's start with the prediction. Okay, hold on, bruv. Um, it's like, I don't know, like either somebody in that family was like the best fucking psychic this world has ever seen and was creating all of this shit, or like some of this shit actually happened.

SPEAKER_04 27:07

Okay, some of it probably definitely did. And we talked about this the other day with with Betsy Bell and and the voices of the Bell Witch. Because that was the one thing about the case that for you, you were like, This seems so crazy because of the amount of talking that this apparent entity is doing. That's something that just doesn't ever happen.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_04 27:23

So here, so we want to get into my so we were talking then about um the Enfield poltergeist and the little girl in London that was speaking like this man. You've heard the voices, and even you were like, What that's wild. But could it have been something like that? All right, uh, to the point where even some guy that was looking at ventriloquism or whatever apparently went to the farm, which is which a lot of people tested them for that. Here's the thing these people in this source book that were going to the farm to debunk it, this almost the fact that it's even in the book almost debunks the story itself because they're talking about titles like Detective that did not exist during the apparent time of the haunting. They only existed around the time when the book itself was written. Because remember, the book was written like what, 70 years after the apparent story. So you have all these things that came into modern times that are being written in this modern book that would not have been part of the time that the story came from. So then you have the accounts of of the Bell Witch, sure, these prophetic things, which again I would have to look up and see if this book how relevant it is and what sources it pulls from. Because, sure, maybe this witch was saying these profound things on one end, but then a second later starts dropping in words and being racist as can be, and and literally saying like really horrible things, like really racist things that would have only been thought at that time. So you can't have this all-knowing being who's also talking that way because they were clearly wrong in that way of thinking, right?

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Like, well, sure, but we also will have, you know, a spirit come through the spirit box, you know, saying bitch, you know, so it's like, I don't know, like they're fucking with you, maybe. But okay, so yeah, you're kind of getting into where my line of thinking is going with all of this. And I do just want to preface there's a million and one theories on what the hell was going on here. Um, everybody has a different opinion. I don't know that mine is even fully formed at this point or if it will ever be. So, all of this that you're hearing, like this is, you know, just us in real time talking about this. And we actually we have been saving this. We haven't really discussed any of this.

SPEAKER_04 29:25

No, I've been biting my tongue on the other episodes. You've had to be like Damien.

SPEAKER_01 29:29

Yeah, so that way we can, you know, I want you guys to get like our in real time kind of thinking and going back and forth on this. But um, if you wanna, you know, you can go, you know, type in the Bell Witch into podcasts and listen to a million episodes, and everybody's gonna have different stories, you know. So really what we're gonna focus on is just kind of our thinking on it. But to your point, so yes, we one of the other episodes we had listened to when we were driving over to Florida um was the Enfield case, the Enfield poltergeist. And for me, you know, they're talking about, as you had mentioned, this this little girl, and she starts talking in this completely different voice, right? And they're even you can go find recordings of it. It does not sound like something that would be emerging from a little girl. Like a 12-year-old girl, yeah. And you can go do when you uh listen to research on this, you know, there are people who are like uh specialize in vocal things and doctors and whatever, and they're like, no, even like because I guess she was using like her back vocal cords or something, and they're like, even with that, you know, it's difficult to sustain a voice like that, and you're gonna whatever. Anyway, so that started the bacon's in the pan. It got us, it got the bacon sizzling starting to sizzle, okay?

SPEAKER_04 30:41

But then which is funny because you just mentioned we were in a car on the way to Florida, yes, talking about this. And imagine the madness that most people would feel after that car ride. But we felt refreshed.

SPEAKER_01 30:52

These are our drives, yeah. It's fucking 20 hours of us talking about this shit, okay? Um, so yes, this is our real lives. Um, but anyway, so there was that, but then something else that also struck me on that ride because we did, we went through and we did type in Bell Witch and we listened to I don't even know how many episodes, just hearing other people's theories, their research, whatever.

SPEAKER_04 31:14

Which shout out last podcast on the left, by the way, for having probably the most entertaining. They're my new favorite podcast. The voice.

SPEAKER_01 31:21

I oh my god, yeah, the voices that they do. I'm like, honestly, like that's I wish I could be that funny.

SPEAKER_03 31:27

They're great.

SPEAKER_01 31:28

Shout out to fucking hilarious, and they literally just don't give a fuck. No, they do not give a single fuck.

SPEAKER_04 31:34

No.

SPEAKER_01 31:34

But anyway, um, and they interrupt each other all the time. Yeah. But anyway, um, so we're listening, and one of the things that struck me as we're listening to all of these different podcasts and these different retellings is you're hearing the game of telephone happening in real time. And one specifically was okay, so they talk about in the original story, you know, the vial of poison that apparently aborted that, you know, killed Mr. Bell. It's all referred to as a vial of dark brown liquid. Yeah. Okay. A vial of dark brown liquid. Then in one of the stories that we're listening to, it turned into a vial of black poison. Well, so you're well, hold on, hold on. So you're hearing in real time, we're going from a vial of dark liquid to now a vial of black poison. So we're hearing in real time and then hearing this Enfield stuff, and then you know, we get back, and well, actually, we didn't even get back because I had this book shipped to me when we were in Florida. Yeah. Um, this Fitz Hugh book, there's a part in here that rang rang a little bell in my brain. Okay. So I'm gonna rang a little bell. I'm gonna read this to you.

SPEAKER_02 32:46

All right.

SPEAKER_01 32:46

Uh it's pages 272 and 273 if you're interested. But it says the second great awakening was the first revival in which a noticeable number of people spoke in tongues. James Johnston, John Bell's closest friend and neighbor, aka, the very first person that they called over to the house that they told about this activity, had spent the night, okay. Very same, was a strong supporter of this movement and founded a campground for prayer meetings and revivals on his property. Okay. So this, I'm like, mmm, speaking in tongues, and then I'm thinking about the Unfield case, and then I'm thinking about the game of telephone, and honestly, and this is this is something I don't know that my opinion on this will change. I think this might be pretty a pretty set theory for me at this point. I feel like the talking from the Bell Witch, I think was coming from Betsy Bell. I believe that 100%. I think it comes down to a game of telephone, you know, because somebody could easily like hear it and be like, oh, well, it, you know, I don't know what it was, but it wasn't her. It wasn't her. So then it comes down to, oh, this voice, you know, it wasn't her, right?

SPEAKER_04 33:57

Because you're missing the fact that this is back that it wasn't like their houses were full of electricity, they turn lights on, they're candlelight, it's dark out, people are around. This voice coming from this little girl, you know, could be misconstrued as coming from somewhere else, right? But it's there. And it's interesting, it's another 12-year-old girl with poltergeist activity happening, affecting her, that's now affecting the family. And then the more attention it gets, just like in most poltergeist cases, pops off. Yeah, this happening. And it is also interesting. This was happening around a time where this 12-year-old was set to be married off to someone in their 30s. Okay.

SPEAKER_01 34:32

Well, not originally. She was engaged to somebody who I think he was like five years older.

SPEAKER_04 34:37

No, around her age, like just a couple years, I believe. And that's who she like wanted to be with. But this whole story is all about apparently this witch telling her to go be with the 30-something year old.

SPEAKER_01 34:47

Well, the witch just said don't marry Josh Gardner.

SPEAKER_04 34:50

Period, though, like, full stop. It's almost like a poltergeist activity brought on by this little girl who's in this horrible situation. Let's remember John Bell married his wife, her mother, when she was 12 and he was like in his 30s. So that's I know at the time it was normal, I guess. So it didn't, it probably look, I mean I it probably didn't affect uh her like it would a 12-year-old girl in today's times. I I don't know, but but that's still interesting to me that that is that piece of the story I don't think is talked about enough because that could be a lot to do.

SPEAKER_01 35:25

Well, I think a lot of people uh there's a a lot of people have the theory that it was poltergeist activity coming from Betsy. I haven't heard anybody really say that they think the voices were coming from her.

SPEAKER_04 35:37

No, that's our thing. I think that we kind of thought about that because we were listening to that Enfield episode, and it made sense. It kind of clicked.

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Yeah, and I mean it makes sense how it would, you know, through the game of telephone over the years come into like, oh, it was this disembodied voice, right? When really it was just some, I don't know, voice like the Enfield poltergeist case, right? We're like, it's coming from Betsy, but like it's not her, it doesn't sound like her. Um, you know, um the the only thing that kind of put puts a I don't know, what is it, a spoke in the wheel? I I don't know what the saying is. Yes, a spoke in the wheel is it there are accounts of it still occurring even when like Betsy was not there. I don't know that any of them specifically said like the voice happening when she wasn't there. They were just accounts saying, you know, oh the activity would still happen even when Betsy wasn't present. So I don't know what specifically, or you know, perhaps that was something that, you know, maybe she wasn't in the room and a knock happened, and everybody's like, oh, see, it still happened.

SPEAKER_04 36:36

Yeah, well, what's interesting about the whole story is and again when we have the vial of black liquid, you know, black poison or whatever, that is uh probably confirmed, like the dude died, he was poisoned. And it's just interesting to me that the doctor goes over to the house and finds this poison, they're like, Well, the ghost left it, and they're like, ah, that ain't from me. You know, like I mean, that makes to me that sounds like that they wanted to kill this guy.

SPEAKER_01 36:58

So this I think go leads into I think probably one of the most popular theories.

SPEAKER_04 37:03

The telephone part, I won't touch on that because I don't think the telephone part is really I think where the telephone part comes in is these wild stories that have actually been proven when you look at it from a historian point of view, uh, false. Uh the big one is Andrew Jackson showing up. He apparently went there with his guys and like they fought the bell witch, and then like the bell witch showed up and and literally like made one of the guys like it was like pulling his tongue out of his mouth or whatever, or pulling his ear.

SPEAKER_01 37:31

He was pulling his nose around.

SPEAKER_04 37:32

But here's the thing the historians have shown that Andrew Jackson at that time, his knowings, his whereabouts were very well documented and known, and the guy never wrote about it in any of his memoirs, like nothing.

SPEAKER_01 37:42

Yeah, and that's why I didn't even like include it in the original thing. Because I mean it's also just like a tangential side story, you know, like it's not really relevant.

SPEAKER_04 37:52

It's a big though story. That's that the guy became an American president, and it it's an interesting piece of the story that a lot of people think happened. Like, well, Andrew Jackson showed if you read it.

SPEAKER_01 38:01

Right, and that was something that I did not appreciate in a lot of the podcasts that we listen to, is people are just including stories like this willy-nilly, right? You know, and they have actually done the research, you know, which I understand some of the bigger shows, especially, like they just have people researching the shit for them, you know. But it's like, I don't know, dude, if you're gonna tell this stuff, like at least like find out as much as you're able to on what actually occurred versus what didn't. At least that we're able to show.

SPEAKER_04 38:34

Yeah. Well, this whole story is so full of things that become legend that then become almost egregorish, right? Like a great example is the rocks from the cave. You know, you've talked about this. We uh showed it or read some of them on the last episode, I believe, of people sending letters about taking rocks from the cave. Right. Well, can we and the bad luck and people died.

SPEAKER_01 38:58

I mean the egregore thing, yeah. Can we can we come back to that? I think that's a whole other rabbit hole. Because I want to talk about before we even get there, with the um, you know, to your point that you were talking about potentially the activity coming from Betsy and she's young and getting into puberty, which, you know, if you go research anything about poltergeist, that's typically what things are saying, you know. Um and I think when you're girls get in their menses. Yes. Um, one of the probably most popular theories currently uh about, you know, Betsy causing the poltergeist activity and all that, and talking about, which again, we don't have any substantiated claims about this, so I'm hesitant to even talk about it, but talking about how potentially Betsy was like being abused by her father. That is so and that she, you know, that was kind of leading to her doing all of this, and so that that explains why it was mostly focused on John Bell and why it wanted to kill her and poison the problem I have with her.

SPEAKER_04 40:02

Yeah, the problem I have with that is we are looking at that, I believe, from a modern viewpoint of how we view the world.

SPEAKER_01 40:08

Well, sure.

SPEAKER_04 40:09

Whereas we I think we look at that and people see that John Bell had married his wife when she was 12 and now his daughter is 12, and this kind of but back then that was that was okay and that was normal, and you know, it it's not so the bottom line is this the idea that uh John Bell was somehow uh doing m molesting his fucking daughter, right? Yeah, is such a a wild claim that sin to put that on someone's name, right, you have to be very, very sure. So I'm very hesitant to talk about that one.

SPEAKER_01 40:42

It's just like all the conjuring stuff that's gonna be Aba, right?

SPEAKER_04 40:45

What did yeah, what did but what did Bellwitch say that prompted that? It was something to the effect of I'm gonna jump on John Bell, like he I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 40:52

It's shit that people are reaching, really. Yes and no.

SPEAKER_04 40:55

I mean, there is some weird shit that that that when you read it, you can be like, okay, I gotta I can see how that could make sense. But I think because that is such a strong thing to put on a person's name and legacy, I think with that one we have to be very careful because uh again, it's like we're going from zero to sixty.

SPEAKER_01 41:11

Well, right, and there's people, you know, typically alongside those stories, you'll also hear, like, oh, well, when they were living in North Carolina, he killed somebody. Yeah, you know.

SPEAKER_04 41:21

Oh, they did they did, didn't they? There was that story.

SPEAKER_01 41:23

There's no reports that anybody has been able to find of that happening. Granted, just like there's no reports of time, like it was so long ago, you know. Did it possibly happen and it just wasn't documented anywhere? Sure. However, it's like, where are you getting the information to even make that claim from? You know what I'm saying?

SPEAKER_04 41:47

And then they're and then they're they're making up their own thing with it. Because here's the deal if if there's one thing that people love, is it's a mystery to solve. Okay. And that this story is always and always will remain because of the lack of any kind of evidence or documentation. It's a mystery.

SPEAKER_01 42:04

I just I think a lot of this, I don't know, like, especially what we were just talking about with the like molestation and you know, oh, John Bell killed somebody in North Carolina, whatever, you know. Like, I don't know, sure, like maybe they read way too far into some of the stuff that the Bell Witch said, but like, she didn't say anything that was even alluding to this shit, you know. Like, she literally didn't even give any reasons as to why she was doing this to John Bell. So it's like, bruv, I don't know, the people who are playing telephone that hard, like, they they need to go be in PR because they are spinning a fucking tail.

SPEAKER_04 42:35

So I'm gonna try to find this, um, because it's relevant, I think, on this episode. Uh, yeah, on the Tennessean here. This is an article I'd found. And when we talk about some of the phenomena that was happening to John Bell, well, this lady here, um, uh, this uh Dr. Megan Mann, an assistant professor of chemistry, uh, talks about her research and subsequent uh theories on the Bell Witch. Um and uh you'll have to read all through this, but from what I understand, she looks at um where is it at here? She dove to a written account of the haunting, our family trouble. Okay, so in an I'm gonna read this. In an effort to learn more, she dove into a written account of the haunting, Our Family Trouble, the story of the Bell Witch by Tennessee of Tennessee by Richard Williams Bell, John Bell's son, and quote, his son talked about all of these strange medical symptoms he was having, and a lot of them sounded very neurological to me, as someone who knows a bit about things like biochemistry and toxicology, man said. Uh, quote, he would have trouble swallowing, his tongue felt weird, he would start getting this weird twitching sensation in his face, and eventually it grew to the point where it was kind of impacting him in other parts of his body. And if that happened to someone now and you went to your doctor, they would send you to a neurologist. Even if John Bell's medical ailments could be explained, the fantastical events are less easily understood. Okay. So quote We have no way to authenticate them one way or the other, man. Said. Like his shoes would go flying off and they just couldn't be kept on his feet, and he felt like he was being smacked in the night. We can't make heads or tails of any of that. Now, if someone was going through these weird medical uh symptoms, uh even let's say um seizures uh whatnot, they might not understand it in this place and time and and attribute it immediately to something ghastly, something special.

SPEAKER_01 44:23

Right, everything was the devil or a witch.

SPEAKER_04 44:25

Well, and then that might make the symptoms pop off more in a way that feels like slaps.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

Right, you know, I think over matter, your brain controls your body. Yes.

SPEAKER_04 44:33

So anyway, she uh looking back to 1817 when the haunting began, man discovered about fifty known elements, ten of which could cause the blue flame that the family observed. That's in the source material, actually.

SPEAKER_01 44:44

Right, when they threw the vial of poison or whatever into the fire.

SPEAKER_04 44:48

This led her to investigate arsenic and lead as possible poisons. Lead was quickly debunked because John Bell would quickly recover from his symptoms. The heavy metal also remains in the body for a long period of time, continually building on itself. It didn't add up, but arsenic did. It's a solution that can be explained in the death of the cat as well.

SPEAKER_00 45:06

Okay.

SPEAKER_04 45:07

Man said, uh, cats lack a certain type of metabolism known as glucuronic acid conjugation, leading man to believe the chemical used to poison John was metabolized through that pathway. Arsenic is metabolized through glucuronic acid conjugation conjugation. Jesus, uh, allowing the body to quickly recover from small doses. And it can be fatal in doses as small as 0.3 grams, much less than lead's lethal dose of 21 grams. Okay, at the time, arsenic was widely available. It could be found in nearly every barn as it was commonly used as a rodent, uh rodent aside to keep mice and rat populations down on the day.

SPEAKER_01 45:43

They definitely would have had that probably sitting in their own barn.

SPEAKER_04 45:46

Correct. Correct. So man believes John Bell was a victim of long-term arsenic poison. She believes he received small doses of the poison over the course of about three years after the symptoms first occurred and a large fatal dose on the night before he died.

SPEAKER_01 46:01

Right. And that's even something in those small quantities. I mean, even if he's using that around the barn, it's still gonna be getting in your system from inhaling skin.

SPEAKER_04 46:12

Yeah, so check this out. Historical evidence also shows abused wives poisoning their husbands. This is not, this would not have been like an outlandish thing. Uh quote. I mean, it could have been someone that didn't like them from church, she said, illustrating how difficult it would be to figure out who may have actually poisoned John Bell. Like any folklore and legend, every time it gets retold, it gets changed to be more crazy and more fantastical. So it literally could have been a story of this guy just getting poisoned, and those stories turn into something else, something else, something else, because obviously the probably the person doing it, Mrs. Bell, which again, the ghost liked her, didn't it? Yep. Ghost liked her. And that seems interesting to me.

SPEAKER_01 46:50

I mean, I definitely, and even in uh, what is it, the Charles Bailey Bell MD, um, he does even point out that it was likely some sort of neurological condition that John Bell had, which I do believe that to be the case. Uh, I also do believe that if the story of that vial is actually true and how he died and being poisoned, I do believe that somebody put that poison out.

SPEAKER_04 47:14

Well, most certainly. Look, because look, a ghost, and it's funny if you go to the Wikipedia page about John Bell, I believe it says he's the first person to have been murdered by a ghost. And I think the uh you know, the idea of a spirit harming someone like that, you never hear about it being like they're not gonna use a gun, right? Like they're not gonna use a vial of poison. That is something a human would use. So that poison being found, and the fact that everyone in the town sees it and they're like, Well, it was the bell witch. Yeah, and the doctors are like, Well, that's right, the the bell witch has left this vial of poison here. Like, that doesn't in today's world, we'd be like, All right, bitch, you're coming downtown. We're gonna have to ask you some questions.

SPEAKER_01 47:48

Yeah, and so here's the thing, you know, when we go down that road, because I do fully believe that yes, Mr. Bell was suffering from some sort of neurological uh condition.

SPEAKER_04 47:57

But do you think it was from prolonged poisoning, or do you think it was a natural ailment?

SPEAKER_01 48:01

Whereas Oh, I don't know. I mean, the poisoning back then, like uh like they said, arsenic, you're gonna have it in your fucking barn. Dude, the wild amount of shit that he was probably ingesting and getting on like in contact with his skin on a regular daily basis.

SPEAKER_04 48:15

No, no, but this seems like he was given to it and it would then basically point to Mrs. Bell or Betsy Bell or both.

SPEAKER_02 48:25

Yeah, I I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_04 48:26

Which I think is when people go to this idea of he was doing things to her because you know, why would they do that? Maybe he was abusive, we don't know.

SPEAKER_01 48:36

Um, yeah, I don't know about that. And then there is also, you know, the other end of the spectrum, which electricity, right? Yes, I do believe that spirits can fuck with the human body in the form of like the electrical currents and stuff, right? That's always why I'm why I'm always worried about my my damn heart. Um, but you know, I it what caused which, I don't fucking know. But um it's interesting because if we go down the route of like, okay, well, if we're operating under the assumption that Mr. Bell did have an actual medical condition that's causing all of this, we also assume that that vial uh of poison was put there and he was poisoned by an actual human, right? Which I do personally believe to be the case. Then we look at, like you're saying, you know, was all of the the other things that occurred just kind of this game of, you know, retelling the story and it's getting wilder and wilder and wilder. But even if you think about, you know, like if we look at some of the claims of, you know, the Pells are reportedly all of these people are coming over there and they're witnessing these events, blah, blah, blah, right? Okay, that must have been true though.

SPEAKER_04 49:44

Well, that's the thing. Could a lot of this have been suggestionslash lie uh perpetrated by if it if their long-term poisoning, you know, Mrs. Bell's or Betsy's or both or whatever, was causing John to have these um this this these things happen to him.

SPEAKER_01 49:59

That would be some wild level scheming.

SPEAKER_04 50:01

Well, back then though.

SPEAKER_01 50:02

Long-term planning.

SPEAKER_04 50:04

Sure, but meaning like maybe they didn't realize that him having that happen and then maybe probably attributing it to like, well, there's a damn curse on me or something, and then like the town here, now you get all these people showing up. Yeah. So now they almost have to like perform, and you hear the knockings and you hear these things, and then the more attention it gets, the more the voices come out. So may who knows?

SPEAKER_01 50:22

Maybe it was like and I don't even know what the so to your point of the you know, oh, this condition starts happening and nobody knows what's going on. They're like, oh, I'm cursed, you know?

SPEAKER_02 50:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 50:34

So I could easily see that being the case, and then they start, you know, they're just getting paranoid at this point, right? So is it possible that, you know, it's really windy out and some trees are banging against the side of the house, right? And they're like, Oh, what is that? You know, like same thing with the whistle. We've fucking done that before too, right?

SPEAKER_04 50:52

Like the amount of noises and stuff that they could have potentially hurt and that are just normal, and they're like, oh but and we have to say this because this is something that you and I have uh off air gone off on like crazy for hours, which is let's let's say for instance, that the whole thing is fiction. Let's just say that, okay? Well, if that were the case, that would mean that actual paranormal supernatural phenomena that gets experienced by people today that we have experienced the whistling, the banging on the walls, the taps, all of these things, the disembodied voices, the theories that the ghost was giving, I am everything all at once, I've been here a million, all of this, they would have basically, through a lie, we'd have to surmise, say that they also kind of predicted the truth. And that's like what the hell?

SPEAKER_01 51:43

So going back to in the beginning, when I was like, either somebody in that family was like the most psychic psychic in the goddamn world that ever has been, or like idiots of aunts, you know, they just like predict this thing, which I don't think that's the key.

SPEAKER_04 51:54

That's where this whole thing cooks my bacon a little bit. It really does, and that's where the story gets me and pulls in my pair of heartstrings. And that is the beautiful thing about the Bellwitch story, because as it is really the first great American haunted story, there's so much there to unpack and such a mystery, and so much of it is relevant in the way that we experience the phenomenon today, which that's the part that gets me.

SPEAKER_01 52:17

Yeah, and I'm I'm slightly inclined, and I know a lot of people talk about like oh poltergeist, whatever. Like, sure, I could be swayed that way, I could be swayed that. I I think I'm a bit more inclined to believe that, okay, sure, Mr. Bell has this like neurological condition, whatever, and simultaneously, which sure sounds a bit far-fetched. However, we've experienced some fucking far-fetched things that were like, dude, people are gonna think we're making this shit up, but we know we're not.

SPEAKER_04 52:42

Well, we are gonna talk about it because it's relevant on this episode. We just got done recording about it for the parapecliar episode, but the apportations that started during our Bell Witch deep dive.

SPEAKER_01 52:53

Yes. Well, so So where I was going with that though, before I ADD all over the place, um, is you know, Mr. Mr. Bell is experiencing this BS, and then simultaneously, perhaps Betsy Bell is also experiencing something that is perhaps supernatural. Because I do personally also believe that there is some truth in here as to the things that were happening. Do I know where the line is and what would it, you know, I do think that there's also exaggeration and lore and game of telephone, right? Of course. Um, but was it, you know, potentially Betsy Bell is creating some sort of poltergeist uh nonsense and things are popping off, and maybe this voice is, you know, coming from her, maybe she's possessed by a fucking demon. Or what if I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 53:38

What if the the trauma, the anxiety of living in this rural area and your father going through this medical um phenomenon where he's shaking and maybe having to what if that then causes the the this poltergeist activity, even you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 53:57

Like it's going through a traumatic time in a time where that would be stressful.

SPEAKER_04 54:00

Yeah, and I think back then, not to not to compare, but like I I think back then everything was more traumatic than it is today, you know.

SPEAKER_01 54:06

Yeah, I mean, just think about and put yourself in this position. Like I know I've certainly been in this position where, you know, a loved one, a family member, some some insane medical thing is going on and they're in the fucking hospital, and there's literally nothing you can do, right? There is no worse fucking feeling when somebody that you love is like literally laying there and you think that they're about to fucking die. Yeah. And there is nothing that you can do. And you don't understand it. And even now, you know, with our modern medicine and stuff, at least we're able to have some sort of, you know, oh, this is what's going on and this is what we're gonna try. Da-da-da-da. They didn't have any of that back then. So I imagine it must have been, you know, amplified like tenfold, right? That like anxiety and that fear and that stress. Like, that's awful.

SPEAKER_04 54:52

That's an awful thing to experience, and especially, you know, to your point, with how long John Bell was experiencing this, like that had to be so scary for his family going through that too, and watching him experiencing well, and also keep in mind that back then, you know, uh the the the truth is the patriarchy, uh the patriarchy of the family was who provided and took care of things. So if you lose them, that was again back then, that was a bigger deal. Yes, you know. So who knows? There's all these things. But uh I want to bring this up because the interesting thing about the Bellwitch story, when I mentioned the aggregore parts of it, okay. Let's talk about the aggregore now. The fact that to sum it up, uh, even us as we started to do our deep dive, again, this does happen to us quite often with Jeff and Steve and all these other entities that make themselves known. But ship starts happening, is what you just said.

SPEAKER_01 55:45

Shit?

SPEAKER_04 55:46

No, you said ship. Well ship happens.

SPEAKER_01 55:48

Probably a lot of things that I'm saying right now are gonna sound not great because you know, listen to me.

SPEAKER_04 55:54

Here's the deal. So, one thing that we didn't even talk about on the peripliar episode when we talked about the uh the apportations is we started doing this deep dive right before we went to Florida. I'll never forget this. I'll never forget this. It was the night before we left. We were leaving for Florida. We go to lay in bed and we're trying to go to bed early, and the bed sheets, which we talked about on the no, no, not the bedsheets. That's already one. We talked about the bed sheets with the hand prints.

SPEAKER_01 56:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 56:20

I go to pull the covers up over my face, and I get slapped on my hand.

SPEAKER_01 56:24

Oh yeah, you got hit in the face.

SPEAKER_04 56:26

I get hit, and you hear you see me, I go, oh, like that. And you're like, what happened? I go, I you I thought that when I pulled the blanket that your phone had fallen on you. The remote, that the TV remote had come flying and hit me in the head. So then we're looking at the case.

SPEAKER_01 56:39

Yeah, you said that, and I was like, And the remote's right here.

SPEAKER_04 56:42

The remote was not even anywhere near me, and uh projectile, I guess is the word. If that would have happened, the phone the remote would have been near me in my head because it would have flown, hit my head, and then but nothing there. No, and it was a very that way.

SPEAKER_01 56:57

Yeah, you and you could hear it too. Like this, like to me as a witness, yeah, it sounded like a laughing witness, a jovial witness. Yes, it sounded like something hit you in the head.

SPEAKER_04 57:08

Yeah, so I assumed remote because it felt hard.

SPEAKER_01 57:11

It felt like so you're getting slapped, and I'm gonna go.

SPEAKER_04 57:14

So we noticed that got slapped. We got things got slapped, and um other things were happening. Oh, uh, I'd been messing with some of our equipment uh before because we were packing up to go on the trip and it starts smoking. I smell smoke.

SPEAKER_01 57:26

And what's interesting though, too, because I think we had mentioned that, we had mentioned the bed sheets last time. I forgot about you getting about that. Good job, Ghost.

SPEAKER_02 57:35

Yeah, um bitch.

SPEAKER_01 57:36

But what's interesting too is both of us have gotten multiple messages from people who have also been experiencing having weird shit start happening during the bell while they're and poltergeist stuff, like somebody, their their phone flew off the stand, you know, like stuff, little things like that. Or a bunch of tech glitches too. The tech which listening to the episode.

SPEAKER_04 58:00

So speaking of tech glitches, we just got done recording the Parapeculiar podcast 10 minutes before we started this one. We took a quick little break and I looked at my phone, and who had called me during the recording of it? You I said, Did you call me? Why'd you call me? And you go, I didn't call you, you looked at your phone.

SPEAKER_01 58:14

Yeah, you were at like you were like at 10 a.m., which we were recording.

SPEAKER_04 58:17

We were recording at that time. So you looked at your phone and it did not show that. I showed you mine. I was like, look right here, and there was a missed call from Nicole.

SPEAKER_01 58:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 58:24

Wow. That's weird.

SPEAKER_01 58:26

There's all that happened. Well, somebody who knows shit about cell phones, I don't know. Tell us how that would even happen.

SPEAKER_04 58:31

That shit happening. And then so we decided because of all this, because we knew that when our whole Bell Witch story started, it was in Kentucky was in Tennessee, it was at the cave on our Kentucky trip uh a year ago. Yeah, and we got the rocks, and we had the experience there with the handprints on the truck and all these things, and and you know, when we start talking about it now, it started popping off. So we get this idea of let's take the rocks out, let's do a uh live investigation, which we did on our last episode.

SPEAKER_03 58:56

Right.

SPEAKER_04 58:57

During that, such profound stuff had come through our little session.

SPEAKER_01 59:03

Yeah, you probably y'all heard um when we got Anna, which is something just to give a little bit more detail. So our friend Wayne, aka the mayor, um we've all been fucking around with the SPI app and Wayne has a haunted doll that we're spirit phone innovations, Sean Austin SPI app, yeah. Um and Wayne has a haunted doll that we had gifted him from the Parapeculiar Haunted Museum. Yep.

SPEAKER_04 59:28

Um gifted him a lot of haunted dolls, by the way.

SPEAKER_01 59:31

He was he was use uh using the app and trying to communicate and had gotten the name Anna, that that was the name of the doll. Uh, and he had gotten a few other things that were applicable. Um, and so then yeah, that's why we were all like, what? When we were getting Anna, and then it said Wayne, and then it said Mare. And we did actually, so the investigation that y'all heard on the last episode that we did live with y'all, we did keep going after we ended the podcast episode. So if you want to get more into, you know, the Anna story because some weird, very applicable things came through on that. It's uh the full video is on our Patreon.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:08

But is the name Anna? Did we is that are we overlooking that it's in this story somewhere? The Brett and the Bell Witch at all? Um because no, now you might be asking yourself, dear listener, why pray tell when you're talking about the Bell Witch? Are you talking about this this session with Anna? Well, I'll tell you. So the other night we went up at 2 a.m. to do a session to look to talk to this Anna entity. And the, you know, it was basically telling us through the SPI app, you know, what gear to use, what frequencies to use, all these things. So we go up.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:38

I very specifically told you.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:40

So we go up there, we're doing it next morning. And it was a profound session. Things were going nuts. And that's on the Patreon. You can look at that video, it's actually really cool.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:48

I have never heard that radio do that.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:50

Next morning, apportation with your glasses.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:53

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:53

Okay, this now this is interesting, and I'll tell I'll get to why it's important for this episode. That happens, I'll let you tell the story, but then you had Marcella come over and her phone gets moved from one place to the other. And then there is the ribbon that was apported seemingly for you.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:11

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:11

Apportations happening, things moving around the house, things now showing up that were not here, that no one brought, that you had been secretly thinking about how you wanted.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:20

That is Bell Witch behavior.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:22

Yeah, it is.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:23

And people right now are thinking that I'm lying because I'm like talking about showing up. I'm looking at the ribbon right now.

SPEAKER_00 1:01:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:29

Tell the story, please. That because that is that to me that's about the ribbon. To me, that is part of this because as we started this, this phenomenon reminiscent of the Bell Witch, which again gets me back to the fact that this could be so aggregor-ish in nature.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:44

Yeah, and so this is we did do a deeper dive recounting all of these different events in the pair peculiar episode we just recorded. Do you know what you're gonna title it yet?

unknown 1:01:54

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:54

I don't know, put something with apportation.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:56

Probably worse than our worst episode ever.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:58

Um, cool. So go listen to that. But the the basic gist of the ribbon story is yeah, Rachel and Marcella were over here because we were doing a spring equinox thing, um, making flower crowns together.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:12

Put me in a bear suit.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:13

Yes. Uh yes, we burned you outside. Somehow you're still alive, unfortunately. I'm a both of you guys. Yes, you're actually you are.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:20

We're talking through a hurricane's mouth.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:22

You're recording this from the great beyond.

SPEAKER_04 1:02:24

From the great beyond.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:25

So we're making the flower crowns, and I got the flowers. Rachel brought the snacks, Marcella brought the materials. So she brought some wire, she brought a single spool of ribbon, uh, some floral wrap, whatever. And so we're cleaning up, and I go to hand her this spool of ribbon, this white ribbon, um, not the same ribbon that Rachel and Marcella used. Okay, they used the ribbon that Marcella brought, and I go to hand her this white ribbon. I'm like, oh, here you go. She's like, she looks at it weird, she looks at me weird. She's like, that's not mine. I thought it was yours. I'm like, no, it's not mine. And then I asked Rachel if it was hers. She brought the snacks, okay? She didn't break any craft stuff, and she's like, no, that's not mine. We're like, oh, what the hell?

SPEAKER_04 1:03:01

Because we specifically tell Rachel, Rachel, when she comes over, do not try to bring anything else. We need your mind clear because you're the best fucking snack pack that a parapack could ever ask for.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:11

Yes, Rachel always has the best snacks.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:13

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:13

Um, so yeah, I don't know, just fucking ribbon, which it's funny. I had been wanting.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:18

And it's not a new pack, it's an older pack. It looks like years old, and it's just this random ribbon that showed up out of nowhere. That apportation and I'm calling it an apportation because it lines up with the other things that it happened with your glasses with with Marcella's phone. Um, so I it's just weird. Do we now have this egregore energy that I think people were experiencing when they really believed that the rocks were gonna cause them harm and then it did?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:49

Um Yeah, and so I think, well, to also kind of further clarify when we're talking about egregore, so I think regardless of what is not true in the original Bell Witch story, I think at this point it is now today, an egregore has been created. A there is a Bell Witch egregore because enough people over the years have been going and they're telling this story and blah blah blah, right? So just like Santa Claus, the Bell Witch exists. There is a fucking egregore of the Bell Witch. So I don't know, do we haul it in?

SPEAKER_04 1:04:21

I think she's hanging out.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:22

Like, as long as she's gonna keep like bringing me ribbon and stuff, you know, like I'm fine with that. She's slapping me around in the belly. She can slap you and she can give me the things that I've got.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:32

She has not asked me to pay hourly for it. I think that's great. Yeah, but so it's an interesting thing that happens. And I think anyone listening to this episode, pay close attention to your audio because we we have gotten so much weird stuff happen during our Bell Witch uh dive, and this concluding that episode or that series for now, at any rate, uh there could be something there. Um, because we have found that on both of our podcasts, this one and parapeculiar, uh, the amount of times that we get disembodied sounds and voices is fucking wild. Yes. Okay. So it might be on there. Um, this makes me, Nicole, want to immediately go back to Tennessee and go back to the cave.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:08

Yeah. Well, I just really want to do that whole trip again because all of the places that we went, like Octagon Hall, Bellwitch, Waverly, they were all such like talk about a fucking paranormal bucket list trip.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:22

Yeah, and you know, I bet at Octagon Hall we'll be able to dial in and talk to Bear. I bet so. I bet so.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:31

Yeah. R.I.P.

SPEAKER_04 1:05:33

R.P. Um so speaking of R.I.P. R.I.P., um, are we done with this? Did we have anything else to talk about? I mean, it's you know, my my uh sum-up of this is I think that something happened in this story historically. It could be minuscule, it could be an actual pretty legit haunting that we'd we'd call haunting. Regardless of that, though, I'm not interested in that because. Point because none of that can be proven. Okay, none of the history can or ever will be proven as we know of now. But what we do know is that the story has over the years uh uh built up such a strength to it and a truth to it and a legend to it that I believe that is the importance here and how our perceptions, how our stories, our legends, our lore, how it turns into something very tangible.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:29

Yes. And um also just as a note for anybody who does want to read further about more recent happenings in it, um, the book that I had mentioned, The Bell Witch by Pat Fitzhugh.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:41

Oh, does this go over the people that live there?

SPEAKER_01 1:06:43

As well as the Bell Witch, the truth exposed book. Both of those have more of the recent occurrences in it. Yes, this has a lot of the recent accounts of things.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:54

You know what? Send us, if you're listening, send us a message if you want us to reach out and set up a time to go in that goddamn cave. I want to go in there and investigate. But I want people to let us know if they want us to do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:05

Why?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:06

I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:06

We're gonna we would probably do it anyway.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:08

We're gonna do it anyways. We're gonna go camping.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:10

We're gonna go fuck around and find out. We'll get bell witched for ya.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:12

Yeah, we will get our little uh fucking uh Girl Scout badges for you know caven.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:17

I slept in the Bellwitch Cave and all I got is this stupid t-shirt.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:20

Should we go in there with little things and make s'mores in the Bellwitch Cave?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:24

Oh, well, I don't know about that. It's an enclosed like space, right?

SPEAKER_04 1:07:27

It's a bunch of spiders.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:30

Are there? Well, I don't we don't know that. We haven't we know that. Well, there's sure there sure as heck is a bell witch in there.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:38

I didn't go deep, deep, deep, but I have heard that people see like horrible spiders.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:43

Well, I mean it's outside. It's a cave. It's a cave. Uh hopefully there's bats. Like cape bats.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:50

Ooh, all right, would that be a big thing?

SPEAKER_01 1:07:52

And that was the legend.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:54

The lore.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:55

The mystery of the growlies.

SPEAKER_03 1:08:00

Let's see if we can get him to do it.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:01

The growlys. Oh, he's not gonna do it. He's not gonna do it. Well, I if I move him, he will. Do you want me to do it?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:06

Bring the microphone down to him.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:08

You have to hold it.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:09

Hold on.

SPEAKER_00 1:08:10

Hurricane, do you have some growlies? Oh you have growlies?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:16

Oh, okay. There you heard it. Wasn't the bell witch at all. That was the hurricane. Alright, we're ending this episode now. So um hope you liked it. Hope you like this series. Let us know your thoughts, let us know your opinions. Please leave us a review on Apple Podcast. It really helps. Right? It really helps. And if you really like us, come join our Patreon.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:34

It just helps us to not feel uh like crazy people.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:37

Yeah. Come be crazy with us. Let us, let our madness become your come hang out with us on live streams.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:41

Come do live investigations and experiments with us. Uh, you can do them from anywhere because they are virtual. So we would love to see you and talk about weird things with you and hang out with you. And come do that. Patreon.com backslash parapecculiar.

SPEAKER_04 1:08:56

Don't make us stalk you. Goodbye.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:58

What?

SPEAKER_04 1:08:58

Yeah, we'll be gonna be like that we're gonna become like the first stalkers that try to get like fans. Like people that like listen to us once and comment, we're like, ugh, a friend, and we'd like to show up at their house and we like show up, we're like, hey, comment more, give me more.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:10

Okay, well, that's not accurate at all. But we will you can sit with us.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:14

You can sit with us.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:15

We're very nice, and we would like to hang out with you.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:17

Yep. All right. We'll see you guys in around.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:20

We'll even bring the beer. Okay, bye.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:22

Bye.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:27

If you enjoy following along our investigations, consider joining our Patreon. You can find that at patreon.com backslash para peculiar.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:37

And a huge shout out to Dr. Angela Glestro, who composed all of our original music for The Real Ghosts of. If you are interested in getting any music for your own show, film, whatever, you can find her on Instagram and check her out there at Angela Glestro.