46. The Real Ghosts Of... The Bell Witch: Part 1

Welcome to Part One of our deep dive into one of the most iconic hauntings in American lore: the Bell Witch. This week, we're cracking open the ghostly grimoire and sifting through the stories, superstitions, and straight-up what-the-hells that surround this infamous Tennessee spirit.

Was it a vengeful neighbor with a flair for the dramatic? A full-blown witchy poltergeist situation? Or just a family drama that got wildly out of hand and picked up some spooky fanfic along the way? We're breaking down the "history," exploring the earliest accounts, and side-eyeing the inconsistencies—because you know we're not just here to read dusty old stories, we're here to dig deeper.

So light a protection candle, pour yourself a drink, and get ready for creepy voices, ghost slaps, and some truly unhinged 1800s energy. The Bell Witch is in the house... and she brought receipts.

BOOKS READ TO COMPILE THIS EPISODE:

An Authenticated History of the Famous Bell Witch by M.V. Ingram

Our Family Trouble by Richard Williams Bell

The Bell Witch by Charles Bailey Bell, MD

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Transcript

SPEAKER_04 0:00

Mid woodland bowers, grassy dell, by an enchanted murmuring stream, dwelt pretty blue-eyed Betsy Bell, sweetly thrilled with love's young dream. Life was like the magic spell that guides a laughing stream, sunbeams glimmering on her fell, kissed by Lunar's silvery gleam. 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 Shelacey.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Listen along as we couple in-depth historical research and paranormal investigative techniques with a sixth sense of the unknown. This episode is part one of our series diving into one of my favorite ghost stories, The Bell Witch. And I often refer to it as the first great American ghost story.

SPEAKER_01 1:07

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

There's a lot to unpack, and we're going to start from the beginning by giving you the accounts and the baseline history of this story. And over the course of this series, we're going to dive in more and more. But we want to start at the beginning.

SPEAKER_04 1:26

Yes, and by the beginning, um, I am referencing the original, I guess, manuscripts retelling this story. So all of this just blanket statement. This is coming from these three books that I pulled from, okay? Uh The Bell Witch by M. V. Ingram, which also has inside of it Our Family Trouble by Richard Williams Bell, and The Bell Witch by Charles Bailey Bell M.D. Now, also worth noting The Bell Witch by M. V. Ingram. Um, that is allegedly a manuscript that came from one of the Bell children. He wrote it, but then everybody kind of agreed, well, let's not publish it while we're all still living, so it was handed out to a son who eventually then gave the okay for it to be published uh in this book by M. V. Ingram. So all of these are kind of the the first source. Is that what it is? Source material, yep. Source material. There you go. The original source material from the family themselves is what I'm going to be referring to for this episode. Just kind of giving you the lay of the land, giving you the legends, the lore, what is reported in these books. Now, as we know, with any paranormal things, but also especially things that are as old as this, um things can get a little convoluted. So we'll we'll talk more about that when we get into the down the rabbit hole episode. But I wanted to we originally had talked about maybe not even like including the history of this, but when we got back from our trip, this was on the road trip where we went to uh Octagon Hall, Waverly Hills. We also stopped at the Bell Witch property um on the way from Octagon to Waverly. But anyway, I was surprised when we got back from the trip. The amount of people when I was talking about this and kind of mentioning the Bell Witch, a lot of people just weren't actually familiar with it. Right. So we're gonna give you the um Nicole version, uh, you know, Nicolefied history, well, legend, lures, well, we'll give you basically reading verbatim from this account.

SPEAKER_00 3:40

Now, listen, there is a ton to unpack here, and along the way, you're gonna learn that this story isn't as it seems, much like anything. And we are going to conclude this series with what I think is potentially something, if I'm not wrong, that has never been done on a podcast before. We are going to do, and Nicole, you don't know about this yet, we are going to do, we're gonna wrap up the series with a live episode uh where you can join virtually, and we are going to do an investigation with some of the things that we now have here at our home uh taken from the Bellwitch Cave. So if you have a question for the Bell Witch, show up to that. It's gonna be a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_04 4:25

Yeah, actually, I love that a lot. So we'll do a little live stream because we had talked about for the, you know, investigation in quotes episode of this, we didn't do like your typical overnight investigation there. However, we did have some experiences and so we want to talk about those. And we had talked about, well, as you mentioned, we have some things from there.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 4:47

Um, and we had talked about doing like a little mini investigation just kind of live as we're recording the episodes. So yeah, love that. Why not? We'll live stream it. So um when we get there, obviously I'll set like a date and time. Maybe I'll do so by the time this episode airs and put it in the show notes below. But I'll definitely be sure to post it on the real go sub Instagram and on our Patreon. So if you're interested in joining for that and just kind of hanging out with us as we do our live podcast recording um and mini live investigation that eventually y'all will hear. But if you want to be there while we're doing it, um, yeah, I'll post the link in again on the real go Instagram and on our Patreon. Good idea, bruv.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

Yeah, I think it'll be interesting. Hopefully we don't curse all of you that do show up because some of these items that we have, if you know the lore of the bell witch, you know what I'm talking about. If you don't, just hold on tight. We'll get there eventually. But for now, let's start from the very beginning. And Nicole, if you would guide us through the OG history of the Bell Witch.

SPEAKER_02 5:54

The tale.

SPEAKER_00 5:56

The legend.

SPEAKER_02 5:59

The story.

SPEAKER_00 6:00

The lore. Alright.

SPEAKER_02 6:03

Of the growlies.

SPEAKER_00 6:06

No one knows what growlys is yet. You're still letting them get used to bruv.

SPEAKER_04 6:11

Yeah, bruv. Well, grow growlies. That's what hurricane. Hurricane has some little growlies. He's very he's very grumpy, just oh dare he is. He gets very grumpy at night when he's sleeping, and if you try to move him, he doesn't like it, and he g he gets a little growly. But now, but now he knows the word growly, and I started calling it is that like your little purr? And so he does it. So I'm gonna laugh if he starts doing it now. But anyway, okay. Um the legend of the growlies. No, just kidding. It's the legend of the bell witch. Uh so here we go. Alright, so John and Lucy Bell moved from North Carolina to Tennessee in 1804. And when I say moved, they did not pack up the U-Haul and drive on over. They moved Oregon Trail style in a train of wagons. However, nobody that we know died of dysentery.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

That's good.

SPEAKER_04 7:06

Yes, very good. So uh, but to put this into context, because I personally have zero concept of time, so Tennessee got its first colony of British soldiers in 1756. The first permanent settlers came in the 1760s, and then Tennessee was declared the 16th state on June 1st, 1796. And then we have the bells in 1804. Okay, so Tennessee was very new and still being settled when they moved there.

SPEAKER_00 7:35

Harsh times.

SPEAKER_04 7:36

Yes, but they they very quickly became beloved members of the community. And one thing to know and keep in mind for later is apparently during this time when people would stop through town, someone would just house them. Um, you'd roll on up in your wagon, knock on someone's door, and they would just take you in and feed you and house you uh until you decided to leave, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Um that's how you get bell witches.

SPEAKER_04 8:02

Yes. Uh yes, well, yes, exactly. Um, and apparently in in their local area, the bell home was that house, okay? Uh the bell home, it was just she was that girl. So already they're having some bit some visitors, okay. But granted, back in this time, honestly, I can't imagine how frequently people were traveling through little like rural towns and areas, as it was such an ordeal back then to travel. So we have nothing to really use as a baseline for how many and how often they were hosting these travelers, unfortunately, but we just know that this was a thing. So, fast forward 12 years, popping out a few kids. John Bell had become one of the wealthiest and most influential men in the community. Also clarifying it wasn't John Bell that popped out a few kids. It was his wife Lucy that popped out a few kids.

SPEAKER_00 8:57

And let's just uh say it wasn't a few.

SPEAKER_04 8:59

It was more than a few. It was a few of a few. They nine? Uh yes. So they had nine kids. They had seven sons and two daughters. They had Jesse, John Jr., Drew Re with an extra R, Drew Ree, Benjamin Esther Zadok or Zadok, I'm not exactly sure how to say it, Elizabeth, aka Betsy, who was apparently a little smoke show at the time.

SPEAKER_01 9:24

Town Fox.

SPEAKER_04 9:25

Yes, and uh Richard Williams, who's the one that wrote the manuscript that was then passed down that eventually got turned into the MV Ingram book, um, and Joel Egbert. So that is who uh comprised of the Bell family. But let's get into the lore, okay, about the Bell Witch, also known as Kate the Witch. We will talk about that at the end as to why uh and how she became called Kate. But anyway, so this story starts around 1817. They say that there was likely some things happening, you know, a little something here and there prior to then, but they didn't really make anything of it until things started getting a bit more dramatic. And when they did, they kind of thought back and they were like, oh, maybe it was these things that kind of started. So here's the uh, oh, maybe it was these things when it kind of started, which they're saying was about 1817.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

So Whit is worth noting that for anyone that looks at the history of this stuff, this is so far back that this predates even uh what the Fox Sisters were doing with their seances and and spirit communic well, a legend spirit communication, um, by many, many years.

SPEAKER_04 10:45

Yes, which that was interesting. You noted that earlier, and I think that's a really interesting component to this because for this beginning prior to the Fox Sisters, I mean, there literally would have been nothing for them to compare any of this to. So, um, all right, so we start with, and I'm quoting this uh from the MV Ingram book. Mr. Bell, while walking through his cornfield, was confronted by a strange animal, unlike any he had ever seen, sitting in a corn row, gazing steadfastly at him as he approached nearer. He concluded that it was probably a dog and having his gun in hand, shot at it when the animal ran off. Which I'm just like, dude, why are you if you think it's a dog sitting in your yard, why are you gonna shoot at it?

SPEAKER_00 11:31

Well, I think It's a little silly. A little bit it would be these days, but also I think if we try to remember, like you mentioned earlier, very sort of this undeveloped area. And you really had to worry about things like wild animals back then. And I the accounts that I had heard, I had thought that the dog apparently looked monstrous in some form. Is that not the case?

SPEAKER_04 11:54

In the resources that I consulted, there was nothing of that sort. So I think that that little tidbit is likely something that was kind of, you know, telephone over the years that somebody exaggerated upon it. So what I just said, that was literally quoted from um would what would have come from uh Richard Williams manuscript and retelling of this.

SPEAKER_00 12:19

Apparently just shooting dogs on the Bell Farm.

SPEAKER_04 12:21

Yeah, minus one for Mr. Bell for that. But anyway, so some days later, Drew Bell saw a big ass bird perched on their fence, thought it was a turkey, went into the house to get a gun to kill it, as apparently the bells do, and as he approached it, the bird flew off, and I quote, and then he was mystified in discovering that it was not a turkey, but some unknown bird of extraordinary size.

SPEAKER_00 12:47

So, first off, and I am not a bird expert by any means.

SPEAKER_04 12:51

What?

SPEAKER_00 12:51

No, not at all.

SPEAKER_04 12:52

Why not? Well, I don't know what the fuck I'm doing here. I'm leaving.

SPEAKER_00 12:56

You should here's the thing. How though do you confuse? A turkey's a very uh easy to identify. Turkey turkey looks like a turkey. Especially if it makes the bird noise that it does. Gobble gobble. Gobble gobble. And how do you say, oh look, there's a turkey, and then when you go to kill it, you're like, wait a tick. That's not a turkey at all. That's some sort of weird creature that I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 13:19

Well, we'll give him the benefit of the doubt here. Maybe it was like, I don't know, evening or something and it wasn't well lit, or maybe he's like me and just, you know, has very poor vision and can't see. I don't know. I'm not putting too much stock into that one because like I'm sure at that time there were probably a lot of unknown birds of extraordinary size that they probably didn't know what the fuck it was. Yeah. So I I do think that in a lot of this, there's, you know, like when you're a kid, right? Well, maybe this was just me. Maybe it's just the Catholic guilt, but the whole, like, oh, the devil made me do it, right? You know, oh, it's the bell witch. I feel like it was just kind of an anything and everything. They're like, Well, it was the goddamn bell witch, you know.

SPEAKER_00 14:00

Um oversized bird.

SPEAKER_04 14:02

Yeah. So that one, I don't know. I'm not putting a lot of stock into, but here's where it gets, you know, maybe slightly more interesting. So uh one evening, Betsy went outside with some of her younger siblings and saw what she described as, again, as I quote, a pretty little girl dressed in green swinging to a limb of a tall oak. Okay, so I mean, not out of the realm of possibility that a local kid could have been doing that, but also that seems real dangerous and probably not. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 14:34

Probably not back then, because keep in mind, if I remember correctly, I don't know, I couldn't give you the exact mileage, but I don't think that the Bell uh homestead, as it were, um, was very close to neighbors. I don't believe it.

SPEAKER_04 14:46

They they literally uh I'm I'm pretty sure it was like thousands of acres that I read, or like a thousand acres or something. It was it was a lot. They're in the sticks, and they had a little bit of land there.

SPEAKER_00 14:56

And again, for the time, you know, it wasn't uh developed, uh obviously as we know now. So I just think that it would be a lot more peculiar at that point for something like that to be seen.

SPEAKER_04 15:06

Parapeculiar, if you will. What? Um, okay, so anyway, uh the last one that kind of you know made them go, hmm. You gonna make your reference? No, I'm not.

SPEAKER_00 15:17

I'm done with that reference.

SPEAKER_04 15:18

Um, was uh one of their enslaved people, Dean, said that every time he would go visit his wife, he would see a large black dog that would walk along the road in front of him, go up to the cabin door, and then disappear. That's curious.

SPEAKER_00 15:37

Well, that's yeah, it gets curiouser and curiouser. One, you see a dog and then you'd like, oh, I don't know what it is. Then you see a big ass bird, you're like, I don't know, a mothman. But now all of a sudden animals are showing up and just disappearing.

SPEAKER_04 15:47

Right. So they, as I said earlier, they didn't really think too much of a lot of these things until more dramatic things began occurring. So it started with hearing knocking on the door and the walls of the house, sounding like it was outside, until eventually it moves to inside the house, and it started in the boys' room and appeared like rats, gnawing the bedposts.

SPEAKER_00 16:12

I just want to touch on this, and this is something that we're gonna say a lot during this series. So what you just mentioned is really interesting. It started outside and eventually made its way inside. We hear this all the time at specific types of hauntings, namely places like Hill House, where the you had like the whistling that we've heard, it started outside.

SPEAKER_04 16:36

Yep, that's what Sonny and Kathy said. Yeah. So yeah, you do hear that often, which again, the thing that's interesting about this, you know, of course, we can't distinguish between like what's fact, what's fiction, what's legend, what's a bad game of telephone, right? However, as you mentioned, this starting even prior to all of the Fox sisters stuff, what the f like they have nothing else to compare this to.

SPEAKER_00 16:59

This wasn't a time where there was a million ghost shows or movies or things that were all featuring all of this phenomena. Right. Basically, what we're getting at is the phenomena that's being reported in these uh accounts, whether or not they are a hundred percent false or a hundred percent true, that doesn't matter because what is interesting is regardless of that fact. The reports of the activity itself itself is something that we see time and time again in the paranormal world. So there must be something to it, unless if we were to say, Oh, well, they just made it all up, well, that would mean that they literally got it right on the nose.

SPEAKER_04 17:32

Yes. Somebody in there was real psychic, huh?

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Real psychic.

SPEAKER_04 17:36

Um, okay, so started uh started in the boys' room, appeared like rats gnawing the bedposts, then they hear what starts sounding like dogs fighting, then the sound of chains being dragged across the floor. But of course, as soon as they would light a candle to see what was going on, everything stops. Um, it also started soon really antagonizing Betsy. It was not a fan. She was kind of having a little budding romance with one of her uh friends, I guess, Joshua Gardner.

SPEAKER_00 18:09

Um the most modern-sounding name we've said so far.

SPEAKER_04 18:12

Yes. Good old Josh. So yeah, they uh she started getting tormented. She would end up screaming in her room, she was getting slapped, having her hair pulled. And when I say slapped, I'm referring to in these books, like multiple other people saying they witnessed this, saying you could hear the slaps, you would see the red mark on her face. Okay, like pretty, pretty extreme, honestly. Um, and they also talk about how this activity, what I just spoke about, was going on for about a year. And they essentially tore that house up from top and bottom, trying to find any possible explanation for this, looking for rats, looking for anything. They were even like, I don't know, is there just an earthquake or like what's going on here? They could not, they could not find any sort of explanation for it.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

And I think it's if I'm correct me if I'm wrong, but they even got to a point of having people, their friends come over to help them with this, and no one was finding anything.

SPEAKER_04 19:14

Well, we're about to get there. So, like I said, that activity was going on for about a year. Now it starts getting again, we're we're progressing a little bit more. So now it begins really targeting Mr. Bell as well as Betsy. And Mr. Bell then becomes ill, having what he described as a stiff tongue, which would make it where he was not able to eat. And he said he felt, and this is quoting, like a small stick of wood crosswise in his mouth, pressing out both cheeks. And when he would attempt to eat, it would literally push the food out of his mouth. And he kept this all under wraps for a long time. Again, we're thinking about a year. We don't have an exact detail on the timeline here, but um, he swore the entire family to secrecy. Nobody talked about it until it became so bad, especially with these bouts of like he he literally can't even eat. Okay. Um, where he finally confided in one of the family's close friends, James Johnson and his wife, even inviting them to come stay night at the house to see if they would experience it too. And they did. So as soon as everyone goes to bed for the night, the knocks and bangs start, the blanket gets ripped off of their bed. I believe they witnessed Bessie, Betsy being slapped. So they're witnessing all of this activity and they're just like, dude, what the hell? Like, I don't know what's going on here either. So they did suggest that the bells do start talking about it openly and allow people to come in and investigate and see if someone might be able to help or might be able to help them figure out what's going on. So Mr. Bell did take that to heart and he did then finally let people know about what was happening, which led to the bell house being a essentially a non-stop revolving door of people coming to visit and coming to investigate the property.

SPEAKER_00 21:15

Which seems to happen. And again, this is reaching a little bit, but it's still an interesting piece of the story of how it really mirrors the kind of things that we still see today. So the Chris Bledsoe story, which you heard me talk about, he had people showing up to his house. He had to tell them, like, please, just you can't. You know, they'd be parked literally camped out in his front yard.

SPEAKER_04 21:35

Yep, and that's what happened at the bells, too. There were so many people coming to visit, they literally could not even house them all in their home, so people would come show up with tents and camp in their yard.

SPEAKER_00 21:46

Which is really intrusive. Oh, I heard you got a witch. You know, like uh well, I'm I'm coming over.

SPEAKER_04 21:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

Better have some big ass bird to feed me.

SPEAKER_04 21:55

Yeah. Okay. Well, I mean, think about at that time too, they couldn't even really like like they probably Probably really didn't get a heads up. Well, no. Even. These people were just like, alright, I'm heading on down to the bells and just like show up and knock on the door.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Because for our listeners that are of a certain age group, um back in the early 1800s, there were no cell phones to use.

SPEAKER_04 22:14

Mm-hmm. Or com computers, no computers, no internet.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

None of it.

SPEAKER_04 22:19

We di m we had carrier bats.

SPEAKER_00 22:23

We didn't have those either, but um yes, so it is interesting how that s story seemingly spread and people would come from pretty far away, as I understand it, to get a look.

SPEAKER_04 22:34

Yes, from the reports in here, it was all over the US. So the Bell Witch, now known as Kate, they would call her Kate, uh, she's talking. Not only are we banging around and ripping people's blankets off and rattling some chains, she's talking.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

This is where for me this the story has always went from zero to sixty in like two seconds flat, because when you say talking, and you're gonna cover this, but we're not talking really disembodied voices. We're obviously not talking things like EVPs. No, man, these are we're talking full conversations.

SPEAKER_04 23:16

Full conversations. She she and I quote, could quote any text or passage in the Bible and was able to maintain a discussion with the ablest theologians. She would accurately report the news or events from the day from John Bell's old neighborhood back in North Carolina, and was just generally on her absolute worst behavior for everyone except for Mrs. Bell, who she called Old Luce. So I do want to illustrate this point a little bit more in terms of her affinity for Lucy Bell. So in 1820, we're kind of, you know, fast-forwarding a few years here, 1820, Mrs. Bell gets really sick with pleurisy, which is basically a chest infection. And Kate was at her side constantly talking to her, asking how she was, singing to her, because Mrs. Bell was apparently very fond of listening to music and singing, which reportedly Kate had just an absolutely angelic voice, and people were known to cry listening to her sing to them.

SPEAKER_00 24:17

That's that's it's interesting. I mean, again, I'm gonna note it with the type of phenomena that we still see today.

SPEAKER_04 24:23

The We've heard women hummings, like humming a tune. We've heard that. Um, so Hurricane's heard it too. Yes, Hurricane has heard it too. He's he's very moved by uh singing, Kate's singing. Quite literally, but uh yeah, and if Mrs. Bell needed anything, Kate would immediately apparently she'd start telling everyone in the house, tell them exactly where to find whatever it was that Mrs. Bell wanted. Okay, Kate's like, I'm on it. But unfortunately, Mrs. Bell kept getting worse. Now, eventually she gets to a point where she was not even eating. She just didn't even have an appetite. And so people from around the area, they start bringing her food, trying to see if anything might, you know, uh sound appetizing to her and help get her eat, which they think is where Kate possibly got the idea of offering her food. So now we're gonna kick it up a notch, okay? Trying to be helpful. Kate starts trying to help her eat as well, telling Mrs. Bell, hold out your hands, I will give you something. So Mrs. Bell did as Kate requested, and two hazelnuts dropped into her hands. Yeah. And this was witnessed on multiple occasions by multiple other people. They even were examining the ceiling, they were looking for holes that it might have been dropped through, they were looking for pieces of wood that potentially could have fallen off that maybe had fallen into her hands. Anything that they could think of, but they could not find anything that would explain it. And eventually, Kate also tried giving her grapes, which was also witnessed by multiple different people on multiple different occasions. So we have apportations.

SPEAKER_00 25:58

Yeah, apportations now. And and again, you know, uh we we know that this isn't like the very first time that this kind of thing had happened, but it's just such a there's so much going on that I just this was doesn't seem like it was the norm. It's not the norm now, but it there certainly wasn't the norm then of a haunting.

SPEAKER_04 26:19

Right. And I'm I'm almost wondering at this point, and this is I haven't done this in-depth research on it. And I know you you brought up a couple, a couple bruvs who this apparently like literally is their specialty, and they have kind of dedicated their lives to researching the Bell Witch case, which actually I think would be really cool if we could get them on for an interview and talk to them on a parapeculiar episode. But um anyway, I'd be really curious to see as to like what types of things in regards to paranormal um stories or hauntings, I guess, even would have been published or available to people at this time. Because I'm like, I I don't know, like where did they like ha did they even have the opportunity to see this kind of stuff anywhere? Sure. You know what I'm saying? Like a porting, like that's so niche.

SPEAKER_00 27:10

It is it is it's niche and it's wild, but when you combine all this different phenomenon together and the fact that you have these people saying that they'd seen it, it is wild. Now there was you you could easily go out and there was low, you know, papers local, and uh there was publications and ghost stories were I you know they've been told since the beginning of time. So but all of this stuff seems like too just too wild for them to be making up for any kind of a reason.

SPEAKER_03 27:38

Yeah, and we'll we'll get to that.

SPEAKER_04 27:41

We'll get there at the at the end. But we'll get there. Um okay, so we have so we've established Kate loved old Luce. Now, on the opposite end of the spectrum, as mentioned earlier, uh, she really just had it out for Mr. Bell, for John Bell, and she called him Old Jack. And since I gave a story to illustrate how much Kate loved Mrs. Bell, I also want to read a story to you that really just illustrates how much she hated Mr. Bell. And this one, for me at least, when I read it, especially knowing that this is supposedly a first-hand recollection from their youngest son, Richard Williams Bell. Um, he recounts this in his book, Our Family Trouble. It really tugs at the heartstrings. It shows how much torment this family was being put through. And so it is a little bit longer, but I do want to go ahead and just read the story to you directly so you can kind of see.

SPEAKER_00 28:41

And this is from the book.

SPEAKER_04 28:42

This is from the the MV Ingram book. His um The Our Family Trouble is included within this one. However, from what I understand though, um, because I got this specific copy when we were at Bellwitch, the property, um, I think that this copy you can only get there. The one that has all of them together. Yes. And I did try looking it up on Amazon because if I'm able to link things, I I will link things. But um, the only copy that I found that is of this book, granted it looks like it's much older, was like, I don't know, like $1,500 or something.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Sure.

SPEAKER_04 29:19

Um, so typically people will buy the MV Ingram account and the Our Family Troubles account separately. Yeah. So, all right, here is the uh story. About the middle of October, father had a very severe attack, which kept him confined to the house six or eight days. The witch cursed and raved like a maniac for several days and ceased not from troubling him. However, he temporarily overcome this attack and was soon able to be out, though he would not venture far from the house. But it was not destined that he should enjoy a long respite. After a week's recuperation, he felt much stronger and called me very early one morning to go with him to the hog pen, some 300 yards from the house, for the purpose of giving directions and separating the porkers intended for fattening from the stock hogs. We had not gone far before one of his shoes was jerked off. I replaced it on his foot, drawing the strings tight, tying a double hard knot. After going a few steps further, the other shoe flew off in the same manner, which was replaced and tied as in the case of the first. In no way that I could tie them would they hold, notwithstanding his shoes fitted close and were a little hard to put on, and we were walking over a smooth, dry road. This worried him prodigiously.

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Prodigiously.

SPEAKER_04 30:46

I don't know if that's how you say that. Prod prodigiously, prodigiously, whatever. Um, nevertheless, he bore up strongly, and after much delay and worry, we reached the place and he gave directions, seeing the hogs properly separated as he desired, and the hands left for other work, and we started back for the house. We had not gone many steps before his shoes commenced jerking off as before, and presently he complained of a blow on his face, which felt like an open hand that almost stunned him, and he sat down on a log that lay by the roadside. Then his face commenced jerking with fearful contortions. Soon his whole body, and then his shoes would fly off as pat as fast as I could put them on. The situation was trying and made me shudder. I was terrified by the spectacle of the contortions that seized Father as if to convert him into a very demon to swallow me up. Having finished tying Father's shoes, I raised myself up to hear the reviling sound of derisive songs piercing the air with terrorizing force. As the demonic shrieks died away in triumphant rejoicing, the spell passed off, and I saw the tears chasing down Father's yet quivering cheeks. The trace of faltering courage marked every lineament of his face with a wearied expression of fading hope. He turned to me with an expression of tender, compassionate, fatherly devotion, exclaiming in a woeful, passionate tone, Oh my son, not long will you have a father to wait on so patiently. I cannot much longer survive the persecutions of this terrible thing. It is killing me by slow tortures, and I feel that the end is nigh.

SPEAKER_00 32:25

Yeah, and that's uh a wild thing to think about, too, because we don't know what was happening here, but uh whether this was I I don't know. Is there any kind of mental illness that they wouldn't have known about back then that has the faces contorting but the shoes flying off?

SPEAKER_04 32:42

I guess Well, in the um something interesting to note in the Bellwitch book by Charles Bailey Bell MD, he does talk a bit about the contortions, as they called them, um, and said that they believed, so even him writing this, that they believed he probably had some sort of um like nerve condition going on that could have been causing these things, which even could have potentially caused, you know, not being able to eat or stuff like that. However, he does say kind of say in there, you know, okay, well, he had this, but was this also something that was caused by, you know, the haunting or the spirit? What was going on? Uh, we don't know.

SPEAKER_00 33:27

It's a wild story. Um, that open hand slap thing is something you'll hear. Um, the singing, the songs, I I guess that that that he was hearing that sounded demonic, I guess, in nature.

SPEAKER_04 33:40

And the songs, a lot of the songs, um people, well, not a lot of them, but there's some of them people even like would write down the lyrics to them. So some of the lyrics you can find throughout these books as well, saying like these were not songs that anybody in the area knew or sung or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 33:58

Yeah. It's it's it's very wild because even if we look at uh Mr. Bell and we say, well, he may be had some other medical condition going on, that's not gonna account for the stuff that everyone else was witnessing as well.

SPEAKER_04 34:11

Right.

SPEAKER_00 34:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 34:12

Um yes. So okay, so now we're gonna get into one of the parts, and I I told you before we started recording, there were two little sneaky little tidbits.

SPEAKER_00 34:21

You did, which is why I got you first.

SPEAKER_04 34:24

Yeah, with the live stream.

SPEAKER_00 34:25

With the live stream, I think, yeah, because I had I was like, I'm gonna I gotta get her if you apparently you're you've got something for me, some nugget.

SPEAKER_04 34:30

I have I have two little nuggets for you, okay? So we're getting into nugget number one, and I'm really excited because these are again coming from these firsthand accounts, and this is a little piece of information. It's it's very short, it's literally like a couple sentences, very easy to gloss gloss over in a book that's you know hundreds of pages. But in the things that I've listened to of the Bell Witch, the stories that I've heard, you know, the retellings, I've never heard anybody mention this. Um, but you're immediately going to understand why I find this so interesting. So what I'm talking about here is I'm I want to go a little bit deeper as to how Kate started talking, okay? Because when when I hear this, I'm like, well, I don't know what she just like popped up one day and started having a fucking conversation with people, or like how did how did this all happen? Okay. So there is a part in the book where he says, and I'm quoting this, okay, and this is from the one the R family troubles. Okay, so again, the the one of the kids recounting this experience, and this is I'm quoting this. The phenomena continued to develop force, and visitors persisted in urging the witch to talk and tell what was wanted, and finally it commenced whistling when spoken to.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

Whistling.

SPEAKER_04 35:52

In a low broken sound, as if trying to speak in a whistling voice, and in this way it progressed, developing until the whistling sound was changed to a weak, faltering whisper uttering in distinct words. The voice, however, gradually gained strength in articulating, and soon the utterances became distinct in a low whisper, so as to be understood in the absence of any other noise. I do not remember the first intelligence, intelligent utterance, which, however, was of no significance, but the voice soon developed sufficient strength to be distinctly heard by everyone in the room. But yeah, whistling.

SPEAKER_00 36:23

Whistling. That is actually wild because I have looked at this story for many years, and it's something I guess I glossed over, or maybe didn't pay any attention to because I myself had not experienced uh yet something like a whistle.

SPEAKER_04 36:34

Well, I don't think it's something that anybody like I don't think any normal person would take that, you know. It's literally like what he says, whistling like two or three times in there, you know, and take that and be like, hmm, this is setting off my spidey sense.

SPEAKER_00 36:46

Well, it sets off ours.

SPEAKER_04 36:47

But given what we've experienced, and if you've listened to our, you know, Hill House saga, you know why we're like, hmm.

SPEAKER_00 36:54

This is even more wild for again, I'm a synchronicity uh girly here, but t today, this morning, uh when I was up, I was looking at Morse language uh in regards to using it and binary code as a way to uh talk to the city.

SPEAKER_04 37:12

Morse language like like Morse code.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Like Morse code, yeah. So I'm reading about some of these things, and I didn't ever realize this. And I went down this rabbit hole this morning, but whistling is this form of communication that is sort of part of that idea of language. And there are literal people that still teach this way of communicating. It's whistling. And you people would do it because it was a way to communicate by long distances.

SPEAKER_04 37:39

So it is still an active form of communication that some people know.

SPEAKER_00 37:45

Oh, yeah. And I found people that will teach it and everything else, and I had never heard of that before, to be honest. And and I uh I mean I immediately started listening to these, and they sound so familiar to the whistless that we have heard and that we have heard other people hear. Um that is interesting. And when I read that, oh, it's they communicate long distances, like I don't know. I mean, it must be what if that is just how these things communicate? I don't know. Uh it's an interesting synchronicity that I was reading about that today, and then you tell me this nugget of the bell which I didn't even really pay attention to before about this whistling.

SPEAKER_04 38:18

It's an interesting little tidbit, that's for sure.

SPEAKER_00 38:21

And then if it gradually turned into utter like whispers, does that mean that the whistling could be like the first attempts at trying to communicate with you? More attention you give it, it can then turn into words.

SPEAKER_04 38:33

Yeah, that's kind of what it well, if we are going based on the reports from the Bell Witch, it seems like that's at least for them what occurred.

SPEAKER_00 38:42

Pretty wild.

SPEAKER_04 38:42

So yeah, next time we hear our whistler, I think we should just start like keep asking questions. And perhaps, because if you think about back in this day, they didn't have any, you know, radios or spear boxes or whatever to try to communicate, all they could do would be like, who goes there, you know, and hope for a reply. So that really would have been aside from tapping or knocking.

SPEAKER_00 39:03

Well, there's the other synchronicity. So I literally was saying that I was looking at Morse language, Morse code language. There's the whistling aspect that I got into, but tapping, what do you think that is?

unknown 39:13

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 39:14

That's so it it's almost I'm sitting here right now and it's not gonna be able to get out of my brain. Um is Morse code the way to talk to these things?

SPEAKER_04 39:24

Well, yeah, and that's I uh I know I told you about this a a while ago, but um when we did our investigation on the Hornet, the USS Hornet over in California, an old military ship, right? Um we had the REM pod sitting out, and I got it on video. I'd have to go back and look for it. I might have posted it on Instagram, but it literally sounded like it was Morse code. It was going, it was an extended period of time that it was going off. It was not the battery because we had it even after that area of the ship with us. Totally fine. Nothing happening, nothing going. It sounded like Morse code. We even said at that time we were like, shit, I wonder if we should try to find somebody who knows Morse code to send this to and see if it's saying something.

SPEAKER_00 40:08

Can we also um address the fact that on either the last or last two uh RGO episodes here, we get a very clear beep come through that's on the recording out of nowhere, and that is part of Morse code, beeps, right? And we also get what sounds like a woman talking.

SPEAKER_03 40:29

Yes, we did.

SPEAKER_00 40:30

What's up, Kate?

SPEAKER_03 40:31

What's up, Kate? Good old bell witch.

SPEAKER_00 40:35

Okay, real quick, for everyone listening. We took a little break from recording. So we stopped the recording, and something happened, didn't it?

SPEAKER_04 40:44

Yeah, we took a little pause because we're actually we're back recording and we're heading out tomorrow for Florida, hence trying to get all this done. I was washing the sheets and stuff, and I went to put the sheet on the bed, and it's a white sheet, and noticed that there were like I don't know, it looked like drips kind of all over it, and I was like, what the hell is this? Um, and asked if you had seen them. Definitely wasn't on there before, but you came down and like on the other side of the bed, you're like, hold on, there's like fucking hand prints everywhere on this.

SPEAKER_00 41:20

Everywhere and they were multiple of them. Three-fingered handprints. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 41:24

With three fingers.

SPEAKER_00 41:25

Sometimes very long fingers. Sometimes like dragon. It looked kind of like a like what a scratch. We are gonna get there why this is important as well, but it absolutely coincides with an encounter that we had with potentially after we um I mean, what was it, the day we left?

SPEAKER_04 41:45

Bellwitch or was it the day.

SPEAKER_00 41:47

No, it was that day.

SPEAKER_04 41:48

After we left. Yeah, that's right. It was that day.

SPEAKER_00 41:51

Had those handprints, and we're gonna talk about this later.

SPEAKER_04 41:53

So we'll talk about that when we get to the investigation episode, but just sharing that in real time, we took a little breaky break and handprints on the bed. Got some handprints, probably. Three fingered ones. Probably from the the Bellwitch.

SPEAKER_00 42:06

Well, it's interesting as we're talking about it, this happens. Also, it is piece a piece of the lore that people that are taking things from the the Bellwitch property or or whatever, like she can cause this bad luck, apparently, right? Yes, bad luck. Well, literally today as well, I was working on one of our devices we use, just plugging things in and out, and I almost lit the house on fire. I like smell something burning, I'm like, what the hell? And things just started shorting out. That's not a thing that happens.

SPEAKER_04 42:36

I'm not attributing that to Bellwitch. But I think you're hooking too many things up with electrical charges. No, these are little bitty error.

SPEAKER_00 42:44

Little like five watt things. No, not at all. Like, this is believe me on that, but it's just odd that that happens. Then this weird thing on the sheets, three fingers it looked like.

SPEAKER_04 42:53

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 42:54

Very weird.

SPEAKER_04 42:55

Okay, well, I need you to stop thinking about it though, because I swear to God, if anything happens on this trip, I'm saying that you manifested it. Because you're trying to blame it now, saying, Oh, it's gonna be something says something bad's gonna happen. Well, maybe you should have thought about that before you decided to take some of the bell witch's goddamn rocks, huh?

SPEAKER_00 43:16

Which you let the cat out of the bag. Those will be what we will be um experimenting with on the when we close out this block of episodes.

SPEAKER_04 43:26

Yeah, well we'll talk we'll talk about that more. And I'll also read you some of these stories that I took pictures of when we were there. They have an entire binder full of people who decided to take a rock. A rock and then sent it back.

SPEAKER_00 43:41

Not like me, where I got a handful of them. Yes. So, anyways, uh So anyway, get fucked, I guess. Yep, I had to just throw that in there. Uh, proceed with the history.

SPEAKER_04 43:50

Okay, the history. So we had just been talking about uh Kate beginning to talk and how it started to whistle. So at first, as we heard the talking. Was barely even really talking and just really difficult to even hear. But with all the people coming and going during this time, trying to investigate and help the bells figure out what was even going on here. One night someone was yet again asking, Who are you and what do you want? To which she finally replied, I am a spirit. I was once very happy, but have been disturbed. Richard Williams Bell then writes, This was uttered in a very feeble voice, but sufficiently distinct to be understood by all present. Now, also worth noting is later on she did reply with essentially the same thing. And when they asked, How were you disturbed? Her reply was, I am the spirit of a person who is buried in the woods nearby, and the grave has been disturbed, my bones disinterred and scattered, and one of my teeth was lost under this house, and I am here looking for that tooth. Which I'm trying to give you the too long didn't read version here. That had actually happened, okay? That is something that actually happened when they first moved onto the property. Um, John Bell ended up tearing up some of the floorboards, looking for this freaking tooth, because he was like, Oh shit, maybe this is this is what's going on here. Couldn't find it, nobody could find anything, and then finally the voice comes out and says it was just a joke to fool old Jack. Um, which she apparently was just really tickled by because another time she convinced them that there was buried treasure down by the spring, and got three of them to go down there and spend all day moving this huge ass rock and digging underneath it until they realized there was obviously nothing there.

SPEAKER_00 45:48

Which is again, I'm gonna keep noting this as it happens. This is something we see all the time in paranormal investigations.

SPEAKER_04 45:57

Kind of things coming through and things that aren't relevant.

SPEAKER_00 46:00

Sending you on little wild goose chases.

SPEAKER_04 46:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 46:02

There's something in the wall, there's something here, go left, go right, look up. And it's just interesting that potentially all that's happening there is they're like, look at these fucking idiots.

SPEAKER_04 46:11

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 46:12

They're doing what we say.

SPEAKER_04 46:13

Mm-hmm. I mean, it's probably like when you're, you know, playing with Millie with the laser pointer, and you're like, heh, Jasis around. Yes, but I'm actually getting enjoyment to her enjoyment. Or they're cats.

SPEAKER_00 46:24

Yeah, maybe. Maybe. Or their pet goldfish. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 46:28

Yeah. Um, so anyway, uh her talking continued to strengthen, and it eventually got to a point that everyone in town was kind of afraid to do anything wrong because if they did, Kate knew about it. Did you do something sinful? Well, guess what? Kate announced it to the entire town. And then we have her infamous sermon account where there were two different churches 13 miles apart. They were having sermons on the exact same day, exact same time, and Kate reportedly was at both of them. Afterwards, people are at the bells, both of the reverends happen to be there. She recites both of the sermons, okay? And both of the reverends confirm, like, oh shit, yeah, that was what I said. That's what I said. Um, and it freaked people out so much that they actually then did become really afraid of her. Before it was kind of like, okay, cool, like, do something wrong. I dare you. Kate's just gonna tell on you. You know, she was kind of the keeping, kind of keeping the peace for everyone, um, except for the bells where she's banging on walls and rattling chains all night. But the people of the town were kind of like, you know, yeah, I can get down with this, right? But after reciting the two sermons, I guess that was kind of like a line for everyone. They didn't really know what to make of it, how to process it.

SPEAKER_00 47:40

I mean, if that if that's a thing that happened, that would be wild because that would literally mean like your first thought would be like, okay, whatever this is is in everyone's heads. Our thoughts aren't safe. So that's a that is probably one of the most terrifying things that you could have a realization of, right? Like, okay, my thoughts are not even safe.

SPEAKER_04 47:58

Well, yeah, and I mean, obviously, back in this time too, anything to this level, everybody's probably gonna be like, oh, it's the work of the devil or it's evil. Let's be honest.

SPEAKER_00 48:09

If that was if that were now, that would be the Well, yeah, a lot of people still say that.

SPEAKER_04 48:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:14

I mean, it would be wild.

SPEAKER_04 48:16

So it is wild. So um now, mind you, while all of this is going on, we still have this never-ending revolving door at the bellhouse of people coming to stay, coming to experience this. All people, mind you, that the bells are feeding on their own dime. Okay, which obviously is creating a massive financial strain on the family. They were essentially going bankrupt, and people reportedly would even offer to pay, you know, say, hey, you can't go on like hosting people like this. And John Bell, every single time, was like, no, because at that time, you know, that just was your duty when people come. You host them, you feed them, you take care of them. And so he he took that to heart. He took that seriously. Um, but after Kate's little fall from grace, after reciting the sermon, she just really did not give a single fuck after this. Okay, she gets a little uh ghost gone wild. She was reportedly showing up very drunk, two places. Drunk. Very drunk, which um how do we tell if a ghost is drunk? I have no idea, but that's what she said. She blamed it on some some bruv in the town saying, Oh, well, I got the whiskey at John's house. And then she makes the whole house smell like whiskey. She's cursing at people, she's angry, she is filling the house with bad breath. She is spitting on people, she's turning chairs over, she's still pulling the blankets off a bed, she's pinching and slapping children, and also really has amped it up with giving Betsy a whole lot of shit to the point where Betsy and even Mr. and Mrs. Baller, like, I don't really feel comfortable with you ever even being alone. So a couple of the neighbor girls kind of took turns like spending the night with her.

SPEAKER_00 49:58

I think this is probably the only account of a haunting that I've ever heard of, and I've heard a lot of them. Of a ghost being drunk.

SPEAKER_03 50:09

Yeah, drunk ghosts. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 50:12

And I have my thoughts on what might have been happening there, which we will wait for the other episode to talk about. But I do want to note that it's interesting already, even in just these accounts, it's an interesting progression from taps and little scratches outside to then inside, to then talking, to then talking more, to then getting in people's heads, to then showing up. There is a very it seems to be that the more uh uh attention, focus that people would give this entity. Yeah, the worse it would get.

SPEAKER_04 50:46

Yes, and which then leads us to she claimed to be all things and said she could assume any shape, form, or character, that of human, beast, varmint, fowl, or fish. And at one point, she in fact took on four different characters, acting as if she was four different spirits, even having arguments with each other. So just imagine that sitting down for dinner, and uh you can't even have a peaceful meal because your your ghost um is now ghosts and they're arguing with each other.

SPEAKER_00 51:19

Very, very, very interesting. Um I I I can't it's a in a way, it's kind of like the life we live here. Can't stop the podcast for five minutes, you're gonna get some fucking claw marks on your bed.

SPEAKER_04 51:32

You can't even wash your goddamn bed sheets in here.

SPEAKER_00 51:34

Weird.

SPEAKER_04 51:35

Um, so let's fast forward now to December 19th of 1820. So if you're keeping track, this started about 1817, at least when they started keeping track of it. So the Bell family has now been being tormented for four years. And also to give a little more context, we don't have an exact time frame, but from Richard Williams Bell's account in Our Family Trouble, this is the next big event that occurs after he and Mr. Bell had the incident of his shoes flying off and that whole ordeal when they had gone on a walk to check the pens. Um, so December 19th, 1820. Mr. Bell apparently was an early riser and was usually the one to end up waking everybody up in the morning and then would go about starting his daily tasks and just generally getting things taken care of for the day. But on this morning, he actually was not the first one up. So Mrs. Bell is like, oh wow, this is great. He's finally getting some sound sleep. I want to let him rest, right? So she gets everyone up, she cooks breakfast, she has the kids go starting to take care of the things around the farm, around the house, those duties, so that way Mr. Bell can get some rest. Until now it's like mid-morning and Mrs. Bell starts being like, mmm, okay, yeah, this isn't really like him. This seems a little bit weird. So I'm gonna go check on this bruv. So she goes to check on him, and he won't wake up. So of course, she panics, she sends for the doctor as well as their neighbor, John Johnson. They also sent for the reverend. And as soon as Mrs. Bell realized that he wouldn't wake up, John Jr. goes to the medicine cabinet to see if he can find something to help and discovers this vial of dark liquid. And he starts asking everyone if they recognize it, like, hey, where did this come from? And nobody has any idea. And even when the doctor gets there, which any medicine that would have been in that house would have come directly from the doctor. This wasn't like you can go run down into CVS, right? And even the doctor is like, dude, I don't I have no idea what this is. I it didn't come from me. So at this point, obviously everyone is like, dude, what the fuck is going on? They're concerned, they have no clue where this file came from or what it even is, and they have no idea what's wrong with Mr. Bell. They just know that he won't wake up. So finally, good old Kate pops in and says, It's useless for you to try to relieve old Jack. I have got him this time. He will never get up from that bed again. And then when they asked her about the vial of medicine from the cabinet, she said, I put it there and gave old Jack a big dose out of it last night while he was asleep, which fixed him.

SPEAKER_00 54:26

So he's dead.

SPEAKER_04 54:28

Basically.

SPEAKER_00 54:29

Yeah. Worth noting. I believe it even says this, like on the Wikipedia article. Uh, it's an interesting fact, that he was the first, I think, in history, to have seemingly been uh, you know, murdered by a ghost.

SPEAKER_04 54:45

Murdered by a ghost, bruv.

SPEAKER_00 54:46

What a great like sort of title to win in your life.

SPEAKER_04 54:51

I mean, I definitely would want that on my headstone TV.

SPEAKER_00 54:54

I remember him first in the whole world to be murdered by a ghost. I and I think the the only one. It is so weird to me, though. I think anyone listening probably hears that there is a vial found and they're immediately at the ep questions. That's a weird thing. If a ghost is gonna kill a guy, it's a weird thing for them to do it with the a poison.

SPEAKER_04 55:13

Right, which is of course, I think anybody's first thought is gonna go to, okay, well, somebody in the house obviously put that there, and you know, they just murdered old John, you know. Um, but we also do have the reports of the apportations that Kate was causing. So we do know at this point, you know, based on the reports, that she was able to abort things.

SPEAKER_00 55:36

So uh just gonna apport some poison over here because uh real bad boy. So I'm gonna take care of you. That's wild.

SPEAKER_04 55:41

Oh yeah. So who knows? Um, but yeah, so nobody knows where this vial came from. And so after Kate says this and trigger warning here for anybody who's sensitive about animals, um, they do probably the only thing they could have done at this time to try to figure out what this is. So a couple of the boys go outside, they catch a cat, and they use a straw to get some of the liquid out of the vial, give it to the cat, which then dies. Apparently, according to the reports, it kind of had some went into some convulsions and then it dies. So, uh, despite trying various medicines and basically whatever they could think of, nothing helped. John Bell remains unresponsive and he does end up passing away the next morning on December 20th, 1820. To which Kate then pops in again and she is just absolutely over the moon. She is singing songs, she is laughing, she is just on cloud nine, and apparently she did this again at his funeral, starting up as soon as they had finished burying him. And that was the last that anyone heard of the Bell Witch.

SPEAKER_00 56:50

For now.

SPEAKER_04 56:51

Yeah, just kidding, it wasn't. Um, so apparently, after Mr. Bell's passing, she did stick around for like another year. Granted, the activity was apparently much less. She made it very clear from the beginning, like, I just want to kill John Bell. Um, so after accomplishing her goal of killing him, uh, if you remember earlier, I had mentioned that she really just did not like the romantic relationship between Betsy and Joshua Gardner for whatever reason. She never really gave a reason. But um, that's where she now turned her attentions to essentially sabotaging this relationship. And she kept begging and pleading with Betsy, don't marry him, don't marry him. So she ends up not marrying him because she was so fearful that Kate would essentially haunt them for the rest of their lives, and they just would never have any peace or actual happiness. So um Betsy was absolutely just distraught over this because she did love him by all accounts. They were very, very sweet together and really, really cared about each other. So it did affect her for quite a few years after this happened.

SPEAKER_00 57:53

As it would.

SPEAKER_04 57:54

Right. I mean, a ghost just like, hey, how's your husband?

SPEAKER_00 57:57

Well, he's dead. How? Ghost.

SPEAKER_04 57:59

Uh yeah. I mean, what that's what yeah, that's what she was afraid of. So, um, so after after all of this, Kate finally decides to say goodbye, but she lets them know that she will return in seven years to visit again, which she in fact does. But in the book The Bell Witch by Charles Bailey Bell, MD, the grandson of John Bell Jr., he gives us a bit more insight into what Kate says when Kate says goodbye to the family. And this is the this is the other one for you, Damien, the other tidbit for you that I had not ever really heard of in any of the retellings or stories, things that I had listened to about the Bell Witch, and it really it's it's like one sentence. But it it pi it just made my spidey sense tingle, okay? So he says, and I quote, the spirit made its final visit, bidding us all goodbye one evening as we were all sitting around the fire after our evening meal. A ball, something like a cannon ball, rolled down the chimney and out into the room, bursting like a smoke ball. A voice clearly called out, I am going and will be gone seven years. Goodbye to all.

SPEAKER_00 59:17

Yep. Okay, so that is wild. For a lot of reasons.

SPEAKER_04 59:24

Little cannonball rolling down the chimney.

SPEAKER_00 59:26

And we we're just Damien, you can do this. Do not go down this rabbit hole in this episode. You wait.

SPEAKER_04 59:33

Well, we already we did air the plasmoids episode.

SPEAKER_00 59:37

So it's beyond the plasmoids. I mean, we I have this these spheres, okay. Like, I very much think that that's what that was, if that's what happened. But it is just interesting that these people say that that happened because they obviously this this idea of these spheres, they were not caught on cameras until very recently. Uh you can go listen to it right now and type in, you'd probably just type in uh silver UFO sphere, and they're all over the place. They're all over the place. We know people that look into these things and are saying that they're seemingly responsible for paranormal activity.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:10

Right. Well, the if if this is a rabbit hole that you want to go down, the source that's coming to mind for me is that book Quantum Paranormal.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:17

Um, which, you know, I'm not I don't uh necessarily agree or believe everything that's in there, but it does give a lot of information on this, and he has done a lot of research on it. Um, so that's you know, if you want to go down the rabbit hole on it. But we also, you know, we talked about it on the the plasmoids episode and how it's like. Yeah. That we took and we do from from a little house on a hill.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:41

Literally, when you see something like you're in a house and you you we were in Hill House and you walk up the stairs and you're taking burst photos, and there's a big like silver sphere on the stairs.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:52

Mm-hmm. That's not there. Okay, it was not there. They don't even have anything in the house that looks like that. We checked.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:58

This is the only part of the rabbit hole going down. I actually sent that picture to the guy who wrote that book. And months go by and he actually reached out to me, what was it, a week ago? And he was like, hey man, that's absolutely one of those. Look, you can see this area here, and this is where this opens up and smaller ones come out. And he's like, We cannot talk about this through email. You need to add me on this secret app thing that's encrypted. And he gave me the info. Wild.

SPEAKER_04 1:01:19

Meanwhile, we're talking about it on podcasts, so get fucked. Yeah, that's us. Uh, that's probably why we have handprints on sheets and you know, just our lives are just generally burning down around us. But uh here we are doing it for you. So uh on that note, please leave us a good review if you are picking up what we're putting down because we are burning down our lives to fuck around and find out. We do this for you. For you. For you. Um, so anyway, okay, yeah. So uh like a cannonball coming down the chimney. So seven years later, the activity does begin again in the bell house, exactly as it started the first time, starting with the knocks and bangs on the walls, then going to people's blankets being ripped off the bed. And at this time, the only people still living in the house were Mrs. Bell, Joel, and Richard Williams Bell. So they talk about it together. They agree not to talk to Kate, to say nothing about this to anyone, which they do. And within two weeks, all the activity stops, however, unbeknownst to them, and we'll get into this more in the down the rabbit hole episode. Um, she had also reappeared to John Jr., who he was living separately from them at this time, um, but was having some pretty wild conversations with him, which he later documented. It's in the book The Bell Witch, um, by Charles Bailey Bell MD, that's John Jr's grandson. Um we'll talk more about that. But anyway, um, so the at the the bell house they don't talk to him, go goes about two weeks, activity stops, and then finally now, that was the last that anyone heard of the bell witch.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:02

But not really. Because we're gonna get to the countless letters.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:08

Yeah, we'll talk about the letters and stuff.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:10

We'll talk about what happened to us on the trip.

SPEAKER_04 1:03:12

Yeah, and I don't know that anybody, you know, in terms of like this activity of like her talking, whatever. But what's interesting though is something that John Jr. had predicted, if you will, um, and is documented in this book by his grandson Charles Bailey Bell. Um, he had said that sh when she returns, it's not going to be the same. Like she'll communicate with us, but in different ways. And she did at one point, um, after this seven-year thing, I guess she had said that she would return in 107 years the next time. Um, I I don't know. I was like at the edge of my seat when this Charles Bailey Bell one ended. I was like, Oh, is there an next one? Did you write a follow-up? Like, did she come back? You know, but um we I I don't know. If you if you know, let me know. But anyway, so uh did you have anything else to add?

SPEAKER_00 1:04:00

Yeah, certainly one thing to keep in mind is even if that activity seemingly stopped, the Bell Witch um left her legacy and is very much still with us in a part of our lives because the story is there. Whether or not anything that we said actually happened, something happened, and that energy will probably forever live on.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:19

Well, yeah, I mean at this point, there's it regardless, like you said, of what did or did not happen, there's definitely a fucking egregore.

SPEAKER_00 1:04:27

Um at this point for sure.

SPEAKER_04 1:04:28

Yes. Uh, but I wanted to round this out by just talking about what the popular theories uh of the time were and what people thought was going on here. So while it was occurring, a lot of people believed that Betsy Bell conspired with her two brothers, John and Drew Re to fake all of it to make money by the exhibitions. They were saying that John and Drew Bell had learned ventriloquism and magic tricks, essentially, taught it to Betsy, and that that's how they were duping people. But like, okay, first of all, they were in fact losing money because of this whore whole ordeal. They were essentially going bankrupt because of how many people were coming and they're housing them and feeding them. Uh, so there's that. But also, there were many occasions that John, Drew, and or Betsy were not present, but the activity was still happening with witnesses other than the bells. So, rightfully so, the Bells, the Bell family, they actually got really upset by this rumor. And that is actually what led to Williams Bell writing down his recollection and his uh kind of diary, if you will, um, so that people would have the story direct from the horse's mouth to hopefully put an end to these rumors, trying to blame it on Betsy, John, and Drew. Granted, it was a whole convoluted process on even getting this published because. After he wrote it, uh, they kind of decided they didn't want to publish it while anyone was still living, the immediate family. So it was passed down to his son, James Allen Bell, who eventually then allowed it to be published by uh M. V. Ingram. So that's how that ended up getting published. But that's how it came about was to put a stop to the rumors.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:19

Yeah, let me um these books, uh they are great to have for your collection, and they are certainly great to read. But I do want to give everyone listening, you know, a warning. If you've not, if you don't have these books, if you haven't read these stories, um, if you decide to go get these, uh they're they're readily available. Um be mindful that they come from a time uh that is really cringy and all that.

SPEAKER_04 1:06:43

Well, they they definitely would be cancelled if they were published today, for sure. The Bell Witchful um was in fact a racist. Well, big time. That is talked about in there for sure.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:52

But what's wild is this. This is what really where she gets me in a negative way, is we were reading this last night, this account of something that she was saying that was incredibly it ended up being incredibly, incredibly, really badly racist.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:07

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:07:08

Um but I was she got me all excited and was cooking my bacon because she's talking back then, she's talking about people that lived thousands of years ago that were like, you know, bigger and more intelligent than us, etc. Like, you know, thriving. Anunnaki anybody. And then all of a sudden she hits you with the bad racist shit. You're like, what the fuck? And it's wild because I I've never heard of a racist ghost. Yeah, well, the bell witch. Or a ghost that gets drunk, or a ghost that kills people with poison. Well, the bell witch. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 1:07:38

Um, now the other popular rumor here was that they were being haunted by Mrs. Kate Batz, which was an actual person. She was somebody who lived in their local community and who people liked to claim that she was a witch. Because how dare a woman be outspoken. Um, so let's talk about Kate, the person, because honestly, I'm kind of a big fan. So Kate was married to a man by the name of Frederick Batz, and they had three children. Now, for the greater part of his life, and I'm not sure what happened to cause this, I wasn't able to find anything in these books, but Frederick was severely disabled. So Kate was actually the one who had to take on running their farm, all the family and business affairs, and was apparently pretty good at doing it because they were doing, they were doing well financially. However, because the townspeople thought that Kate was a bit eccentric and she was also very outspoken, everybody kind of kept their distance. She was, uh, she would even like get into arguments with men, which of course at that time was like a you know, how dare she? Right? But like she's over here trying to run their entire freaking farm and their business and generate an income and support her family, right? Like, good for her. Not too dissimilar, it brings up for me. It's giving Harriet the hand. Harriet from from Octagon Hall, right?

SPEAKER_00 1:08:57

Yeah. Oh, Harriet the hand. What was that? That it was a hurricane.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:02

Well, no, it sounded like something fell. Didn't you not hear that first? No, I thought my phone fell, but then I was like, oh, my phone is in my lap. That sounded like some telephone. There's nothing on the floor. There's nothing on the floor. And he also doesn't just get it.

SPEAKER_00 1:09:19

Well, that was loud enough to where we would have that's gonna be recorded on there. Well, it's recorded on there. So anyway.

SPEAKER_04 1:09:27

Yeah, it was it was something. So um anyway. Kate stopped disturbing the parapet, okay?

SPEAKER_00 1:09:44

I get it.

SPEAKER_01 1:09:58

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

SPEAKER_04 1:10:01

Y'all can listen. Y'all can listen and be the judge of that. I don't fucking know anymore. Um, but anyway, so yeah, Kate is getting shit done. She's running their farm. Now, in addition to her outspokenness, there are some reports of specific situations involving Kate that Mias definitely are a little eccentric. Okay, so one of them, supposedly, she would ask every woman she met for a brass pin, which at that time pins were used to fasten clothing or keep your hat on your head, things like that. So it was common that you would probably have at least one, but more likely a few pins on you at any given time. But because of superstitions at the time, that if you were able to acquire something that belonged to someone, you would then have power over them. This fed into the belief that she was a witch, thinking that she was essentially going around collecting pins from everyone so that way she could then use her witchcraft to try to control them. Now, was she actually asking every single woman she met for a pen? If so, like, okay, yeah, fine, that's a little sus because that actually is a thing in witchcraft that if you have an item from someone, you can use it as a sympathetic link to then do workings on them. However, I personally think it's more likely that she maybe just like asked people a couple times, maybe like her hat was flying off her head or something, but then because people already just didn't really like her, you know, they they kind of use this as an excuse to maybe turn it into a rumor and just kind of make everyone like shun her even more.

SPEAKER_00 1:11:35

Well, it was a bit of a hysteria moment going on, and it still happens today, but you know, the the the hat pen thing, you know, you never know, it could have been she asked one or two ladies for it, and in a sewing circle, you know, they all say, Oh, she all asked me for one, and then this rumor gets start started. Right. And now, you know, years and years and years later, like this person who yeah, she was eccentric, but it it's interesting that I think people would have equated her or uh put her in the saying that she was the bell witch, because if the bell witch was running around and and loud and laughing and drinking, like that was Kate. She was that kind of she was loud and you know, louder than most women at the time.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:11

Yeah, she she sure said what she wanted to.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:14

Right.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:15

She did not really give a single fuck.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:17

So it makes sense that something this wild would be attributed to how.

SPEAKER_04 1:12:30

Right. Now, of course, even though people kind of like to steer clear of her, we're proper ladies, though. So nobody really liked to let her know these things in person. Everyone was all smiles and calling her Aunt Kate around town. Basically the 1800s version of bless her heart. Yet Oh my god. Okay, those are just the sirens. Yeah, I know. I'm like, what?

SPEAKER_00 1:12:54

Where in the sticks? Where are their sirens?

SPEAKER_04 1:12:56

Yeah, that sounds real close.

SPEAKER_00 1:12:59

Sounds real real close.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:01

Kate. Maybe you accidentally caught somebody else's. Oh, it drove right past us.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:06

A fucking fire truck with its alarms on.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:08

Maybe you accidentally set somebody else's house on fire, bruv.

SPEAKER_00 1:13:14

Let's get this episode over so this bitch leaves the house.

SPEAKER_04 1:13:17

Yeah. Kate, get out of here. Go on, get racist. Um, anyway, so yeah, everyone was kind of all smiles, you know, calling her Aunt Kate around town trying to be nice. You know, they're doing the 1800s version of Bless Her Heart, right? Um, but behind her back, yeah, she was definitely the person in town that everyone was trying to avoid. But my personal favorite story of Kate, and I debated just reading it directly from the book, but it's like four or five pages. So too long didn't re-version. It's hilarious. She wanders into church, they're, you know, giving a big sermon. From what I understand, it sounds like maybe she was a little drunky at the time, but I don't know. I don't know exact 100% how to interpret, you know, ye old English. But anyway, so she goes in and they have some people at the front. They're like on their hands and knees, like uh praying, I guess. They're they're being released of the spirits. And so she walks in and she sits on one of the dudes who's like, you know, on it on his hands and knees. And so, you know, some of the people in church are trying to nicely get her up, and she's like, Oh no, this is fine, this is good for me. You know, she's just totally like fucking oblivious, I guess. Um, but the dude who she's sitting on, I guess, interpreted it as like, oh wow, the spir spirit really has me. Spirit has me down, you know. And then of course, finally, when they get Kate up, he's like, Oh, I've been released from the grasp of spirit, you know, and everybody's trying not to laugh, like it caused a whole ordeal in town at the time, and people, you know, the kids are getting in trouble because the adults are like, stop laughing, you know. Um, but I just thought that that was kind of funny.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:54

Well, in a way, if you think about it, so if this entity was real, it was all her fault. Uh, because she actually at one point told a uh a priest, I believe it was, like, oh, I can't tell you a lie. I'm the I'm Kate Bats witch.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:08

Yes, the the spirit. So of yeah, and so that's that's how it all came about, actually. How so you know, how do we get from Kate Bats, the person, to Kate the witch, is Kate is the bell witch. Um, yes, it was one of the reverends in town was at the bells and he was demanding that this spirit tell them who it is. And so it said, and this is I will quote, it could not trifle with a preacher or tell Brother Gunn a lie, and if he must know the truth, it was nothing more than old Kate Bat's witch, and was determined to haunt and torment old Jack Bell as long as he lived.

SPEAKER_00 1:15:46

Can't trifle with the town preacher, but you can certainly be racist as shit, huh? That is this is an interesting, interesting story. There's so many weird pieces of this.

SPEAKER_04 1:15:55

Yes, it is, and it's also I just also thought another interesting tidbit was even John Bell himself was like, Yeah, she's not capable of that. It's not Kate Bats. But after that came out, you know, of course, it's the it's the hot goss around town. And so people then were like, Randomly open the page.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:12

Yeah, it's Kate. And there's your paragraph about the ball.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:15

About the ball?

SPEAKER_00 1:16:16

I just randomly opened the page, and there is the ball.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:18

There you go. It's the universe confirming through synchronicity. Um, but yeah, so that's how they began calling the uh bell witch by the name of Kate. And uh that is the legend the lore.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:34

We call it legend lore for a reason. The tale.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:36

The tale, the mystery, the magic of the drama.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:41

Of the growlies.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:42

Of the growlies of the bell witch, who I guess is now uh, you know, hanging out with us. Hates us just as much as she did old Jack.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:52

Well, she can hang out here old Jeff and old Steve.

SPEAKER_04 1:16:57

Yeah. Jeff, Steve.

SPEAKER_00 1:16:59

Steve, Kate, and Jeff.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:00

Y'all need to take care of this, okay? We only like helpful spirits here.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:04

And we don't like shit on our sheets.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:05

We really liked when you fixed the dishwasher. That was real nice.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:08

Jeff did that, yes.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:09

We like those kind of ghosts around here.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:12

That's what we like.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:13

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:13

Get the fuck out.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:14

No vials of poison.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:16

Please.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:17

And do not rip my covers off me at night, or you will get some growlies.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:24

The poor listeners are like, what the fuck is she talking about, growlies?

SPEAKER_04 1:17:27

No, we to we said the growlies are hurricane, hurricane gets the growlies.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:30

How do we say that?

SPEAKER_04 1:17:31

He gets his little purrs.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:32

That's gonna be the new thing, from bruvs to growlies.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:34

Growlies.

SPEAKER_00 1:17:35

Alright. Um I yeah, that's the story. So we we say legend, we say lore, because we can't properly say it's history. Uh because we don't know. You know, there's a lot to this, and we're going to cover that on the next segment, I believe. Yes, is when we're gonna really get in deep.

SPEAKER_04 1:17:50

Um well, I think maybe the next one, because when we do the down the rabbit hole, we're gonna refer to the experiences. So I think the next one should probably be talking about the experiences and um sharing some of the stories from people who had, you know, sent their rocks back to the farm.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:05

Okay, so we're gonna talk about um go from the ancient lore to the modern lore almost.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:12

Yeah, talk about that now. Because I I presume in the down the rabbit hole, like when we're, you know, given our hot takes, we're probably gonna talk about all of it, no?

SPEAKER_00 1:18:21

Yeah. I've got so many theories on this.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:23

So it's I mean, if not, you know, because you know how we are, we're fucking goldfish. If you want to fucking hit end and hit record and record our fucking thoughts right now, we can.

SPEAKER_00 1:18:35

I gotta put them together because again, this is something that for years has been a a big favorite story of mine. Uh it's it's very convoluted. And the more you get into it, the the the more way to get to it. But interestingly enough, the more that you get into the paranormal world and start doing this, the story becomes more interesting just because of some of the stuff.

SPEAKER_04 1:18:52

Right, exactly. Just like like the fucking whistling and the cannonball rolling down their fireplace. It's like, dude, like I've never heard any of these fucking stories and these retellings, whatever. Because there's a million and one fucking things on the bell witch.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:04

I'm gonna leave you here, you with this one, Nicole. Think about this, something we've all experienced. The big bang that happens makes the house shake. What if it's a fucking one of those balls and then it's poof, it's gone and the hauntings. I know it's just wild shit.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:19

I mean, yeah, because literally the first time that ever happened to me was at Hill House during a fucking live stream. You can still go see it. It's on the Rogos of Instagram. Um, that how I have always described it is it sounded like a fucking bowling ball hitting the wall.

SPEAKER_00 1:19:34

So it's happened here. I mean, it shook the entire house to the point where I ran outside to see if like something had happened. Nothing. So who knows? Um, that is me almost going on down the rabbit hole. But uh, I'm not gonna do that. You have to wait, dear listener.

SPEAKER_04 1:19:50

So but if you want to go down the rabbit hole, go get some of these books, and um, if you find anything else that's interesting or I don't know, send it our way. Oh, also uh P.S. We did get it we did get a P.O. box. I think it was the last episode we were talking about this, so we did send us more bell rituals. We do.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:09

No, if you pick some up and you're having a bad time with them, we will take them to you.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:14

Oh um, but if you know you want to send other things or snail mail or nice letters or whatever, um, we have a P.O. box now. So it is linked below in the show notes. So uh there you go. That is the Bell Witch. And um, I don't know. That's it.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:33

That's it for now. That's all I got.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:35

I'm hungry. I want pizza.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:36

Let's go get pizza.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:37

Okay, bye.

SPEAKER_00 1:20:38

So yeah.com backslash parapeculier.

SPEAKER_04 1:20:54

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.