Episode 189 - The History of The Bell Witch

This week Abby and Alan discuss the reported haunting of the Bell Witch in Tennessee during the early 1800s. The events centered on the Bell family and centers around unexplained noises, voices, and physical disturbances. The entity, often called “Kate,” was said to target specific family members.

The case became widely known and was later documented in An Authenticated History of the Bell Witch. There are also claims that Andrew Jackson visited the site. The episode reviews the reported events and their historical context.

Get Lunatics Merch here. Join the discussion on Discord. Check out Abby's book Horror Stories. Available in eBook and paperback. Music by Michaela Papa, Alan Kudan & Jordan Moser. Poster Art by Pilar Keprta @pilar.kep.

Sources

• An Authenticated History of the Bell Witch by Martin V. Ingram
• Tennessee State Museum article by Tori Kleinpeter: Tennessee Legends: The Bell Witch 
• MainStreetMediaTN.com article by Charlotte Reedy: Andrew Jackson and The Bell Witch

Transcript

Promises And The Bell Witch Setup

SPEAKER_01 0:18

Hello everyone, and welcome back to another episode of the Lunatics Radio Hour Podcast. My name is Abby Brinker. I'm sitting here with Alan Kudan.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

Hello.

SPEAKER_01 0:28

And today I want to talk about one of my biggest pet peeves in life, which is when people don't follow through with their promises.

SPEAKER_00 0:34

Oh. Uh oh.

SPEAKER_01 0:35

So, as such, as discussed last week, today we are going to talk about the history of the bell witch.

SPEAKER_00 0:42

Did we promise this?

SPEAKER_01 0:43

It came up in last week's episode that we were going to do a follow-up episode on the bell witch.

SPEAKER_00 0:47

Did I request this?

SPEAKER_01 0:48

You did. You said that you would be enthusiastic about it.

SPEAKER_00 0:51

Who's the bell witch?

SPEAKER_01 0:52

We're gonna I'm gonna tell you about it.

SPEAKER_00 0:54

I don't remember anything about the bell witch or what it is or why it was relevant. What was the last episode?

SPEAKER_01 1:01

Well, I was gonna that was gonna be my next question. Do you remember the last topic of last week?

SPEAKER_00 1:05

Dancing plague.

SPEAKER_01 1:06

Contagious curses.

SPEAKER_00 1:08

Oh, yeah, that was a good one.

SPEAKER_01 1:09

Thank you. And so the the case of the bell witch is an interesting kind of real life quote unquote example of a curse or haunting that feels contagious because it spreads.

SPEAKER_00 1:21

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 1:21

You you seemed mildly interested.

SPEAKER_00 1:23

I was probably very mildly interested.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

And here we are today.

SPEAKER_00 1:27

Yep, here we are.

SPEAKER_01 1:28

The interesting thing about the case of the bell witch, which I learned as I researched this, and I really didn't have this impression going into it, is that there's some parts of the story that are really grounded in fact and documented history, but that's not the vast majority of this. And so I also think the timing is really interesting because recently we've been talking a lot about urban legends, and I think this is a really good example of an urban legend and how a story has sort of evolved over time because it became more and more dramatized as it was retold and retold.

Urban Legends That Never Die

SPEAKER_00 2:00

By urban legends, you mean like that one kid that took acid and then stood on a street corner for hours because he thought he was a cup of orange juice.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

What?

SPEAKER_00 2:09

You you don't know this one? I dunno. This is the famous urban legend.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

How come this didn't come up in our urban legend episode?

SPEAKER_00 2:15

Because it's not scary at all. It's just a story that's so common, and so many people swear that it was their older brother's friend or a friend of somebody else, or just tangentially related to them.

SPEAKER_01 2:27

Tell us the story. Tell us as if it was your brother or your brother's friend or whatever.

SPEAKER_00 2:31

Yeah, my brother's friend famously took acid and then stood on a street corner without moving for four hours because he thought he was a cup of orange juice. And if he moved, he would spill all over the place.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Wow. That isn't scary. You're right.

SPEAKER_00 2:49

No, it's not. Uh, but I just got you know, this is a story that I was told some point growing up.

SPEAKER_02 2:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:56

And then it wasn't until later in life on Reddit where it just became known that this is a s this is an urban legend that in so much of suburbia, this is a common story.

SPEAKER_01 3:06

Funny. Okay, great. Tell us if you uh if you have that version of that story.

SPEAKER_00 3:10

Or the one with about the ankle slashers.

SPEAKER_01 3:12

What's the what's that one?

SPEAKER_00 3:13

There's a guy that will wait under your car, uh, and as you're coming back from the store at night with a little razor, he'll cut your ankles.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

I hate that.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

Yeah, it's not great. It's yeah, just nervous.

SPEAKER_01 3:24

Kind of like the plot of Midnight Snack, though.

SPEAKER_00 3:26

Yeah, that's where I got the idea.

Sources And What We Can Prove

SPEAKER_01 3:28

Okay, let's talk about our sources for today. We have an authenticated history of the Bellwitch by Martin V. Ingram, a little bit of a controversial source.

SPEAKER_00 3:36

Why is that controversial?

SPEAKER_01 3:37

All will become clear, Alan.

SPEAKER_00 3:39

Is it the pen name for J.K. Rowling?

Strange Animals And A House Turns Hostile

SPEAKER_01 3:42

A Tennessee State Museum article by Tori Klein Peter, Tennessee Legends, The Bellwitch, a Main Street MediaTennessee.com article by Charlotte Reedy, Andrew Jackson, and The Bellwitch. And there's some firsthand sources that we are going to cite as we go. And I did, I have to admit, I did dabble a little bit in Wikipedia because this one is a little bit of a tricky, tricky topic to research. So last week I wrongfully said, and I'm going to admit that I was wrong, but this is printed on the internet, and so more fact-checking was needed, but that Tennessee is the only state that has ever officially ruled a death to be caused by the paranormal. The story tragically ends with a man losing his life. But here's what we know about what led up to that tragedy. We know that reports of strange incidents happening at John Bell's farm in Tennessee started in 1817. John Bell himself alleged that he saw a strange creature that resembled a dog. When he shot at the animal, it disappeared. The farm, Bell Farm, was located near Adams, Tennessee.

SPEAKER_00 4:44

Quick point of clarity.

SPEAKER_01 4:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

When you say it disappeared, as if it as in it ran away or like disapparated.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Here's the thing about this story. This is all oral storytelling and things that have been action. Conjecture. Hearsay. It's hard to it's hard to kind of fact check any of it.

SPEAKER_00 5:01

So what do you what do you think?

SPEAKER_01 5:02

I think it's scarier, probably, and that's kind of I think this story became a victim of its own, you know, scary plots. So I think that it probably disappeared into thin air, according to the legend.

SPEAKER_00 5:15

I think he disappeared with a star wipe.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

No, that's not scary at all. So the farm itself is located near Adams, Tennessee. Today, you can visit a historic landmark called the Bellwitch Cave, the only landmark on Google Maps in the small town when you look it up, as I did. Around this time, John Bell's son Drew also claimed to see a strange animal. Drew said he saw a huge bird that was of, quote, extraordinary size, perched on a fence before flying away. And I do think it's an interesting note that he saw it perched on the fence because you would think that would be a good reference for scale. This started to get even stranger when John Bell's daughter, Betsy, claimed to see a girl in a green dress swinging from the limb of an oak tree on the property. The next incident was that an enslaved man named Dean, who was living on the farm, claimed that a large black dog would follow him around at night when he went to visit his wife.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

I remember this now because we were making jokes about the the Grim.

SPEAKER_01 6:10

That's right. It's all coming back to you.

SPEAKER_00 6:12

Another JK Rowling reference.

SPEAKER_01 6:15

Eventually the strangeness would migrate inside of the Bell farmhouse. The family started to hear knocking coming from the door and the walls. This turned into the sounds of gnawing, which the family reported coming from the beds. Also the sounds of dogs fighting without any actual dogs to be found, and the sound of chains dragging along the floor. The haunting escalated even further and became physical when John Bell reported the feeling of paralysis in his mouth. The family started to report sheets that were being pulled off of the bed while the children were sleeping. And the paranormal abuse of the children intensified as they reported being pulled from their beds at night. Betsy seemed to get the most targeted attacks. She reported having her hair pulled and being stuck with pins. The Bell family first turned to their friend, a man named James Johnson, to help them. Johnson stayed over and experienced the same paranormal abuse that the family had been enduring. He said to John Bell that it was, quote, spirit, just like in the Bible, end quote. At some point, the Bell Witch started to be known by the name Kate. More on this in a little bit. As word spread of the Bell Witch, those intrigued started to migrate to Bell Farm in the hopes of having an experience themselves. The spirit was asked, quote, who are you and what do you want? And allegedly responded, quote, I am a spirit. I was once very happy, but have been disturbed, end quote.

SPEAKER_00 7:38

I thought you were gonna say, and allegedly responded, mind your own business.

SPEAKER_01 7:43

Well, I think this spirit is a little more um fame-thirsty than others.

SPEAKER_00 7:48

Oh, so it's an influencer spirit.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

Exactly. Over time, the spirit revealed that it had a backstory. It claimed that its origin was related to the disturbance of a Native American burial ground, specifically a Native American burial mound that was located on the Bell Farm property. At one point, it sent Drew Bell and someone named Bennett Porter on a treasure hunt, which yielded no results. So it seemed to have a little bit of a mischievous spirit. But the entity continued to evolve and was able to take part in full conversations, so people claimed. On the Wikipedia, it says the entity was able to recite line for line two sermons given 13 miles apart at the same time. Now I wasn't entirely sure what this meant and what it was referring to, so I tried to verify it with other sources. As best as I could find, the claim that the bellwitch could recite verbatim two sermons given 13 miles away at the same time is meant to illustrate this idea that the entity possessed knowledge and awareness beyond normal human limits.

SPEAKER_00 8:48

Or these sermons were plagiarized.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

How would the the bell witch know that they were happening at the same time?

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Because those sermons could be coming from a similar source material. That the maybe the bell witch wrote these and these two preachers stole them.

SPEAKER_01 9:05

Yeah. I like where you're going to be able to do it.

SPEAKER_00 9:07

Preached the quote unquote good word.

SPEAKER_01 9:09

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:11

And now the the bell witch is just trying to get revenge.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

Okay. That's a good theory.

SPEAKER_00 9:15

Is it?

SPEAKER_01 9:16

You'll tell me in a few minutes.

SPEAKER_00 9:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 9:17

In this story, it suggests that the spirit could be in multiple places at once, or somehow access distant events and reproduce them perfectly. However, historians are highly skeptical of this detail because it does not appear in early contemporary accounts of the Bell disturbances. Instead, it shows up in later retellings, especially in works like An Authenticated History of the Bellwitch, which compiled oral traditions decades after the event. Because of this time gap, scholars generally view the sermon story as part of the legend's gradual expansion over time, rather than evidence of an original reported event, which is kind of a bummer because I think that's one of the coolest parts of the Bellwitch.

SPEAKER_00 9:57

Do we know the contents of the sermons?

SPEAKER_01 9:59

It's all it was like biblical. Like it was like the the witch, which we're going to talk about soon, was very well versed in in Christianity.

SPEAKER_00 10:07

Well, sure, but you know, sermons are usually very targeted.

The Voice Speaks And Tests Begin

SPEAKER_01 10:10

Because of this time gap, scholars generally view the sermon story as part of the legend's gradual expansion rather than evidence of an original reported event. It is often interpreted as folklore, an embellishment, added to make the entity seem more omniscient and to hypen the sense of mystery surrounding the narrative. So generally, the bell witch was known to take part in religious debates. Another one of its favorite activities was gossiping about things happening in other homes. Again, it was believed that it had this ability to leave the bell homestead, right, metaphysically, and know what was happening with other houses and farms and report back. So it was kind of the source of gossip. Neighbor to the Bell Witch, John Johnston, came up with a test, right? So this is the friend that the family had called in early on to help investigate and get to the bottom of what was happening with the Bellwitch. He decided to ask the witch something that only his family would be able to answer. He asked the entity what his Dutch stepgrandmother in North Carolina would say to enslaved people if she thought they did something wrong. The Bellwitch responded allegedly, in his grandmother's very specific accent, quote, Hut tut, what has happened now? End quote. There is a story about an Englishman who had come to visit and investigate the haunting himself. The witch allegedly woke him up by mimicking the voices of his concerned parents. He left immediately and later wrote a letter to the Bell family apologizing for his skepticism. We do have, and so this is interesting, this is one of the facts of the case that is grounded in reality. So what we do have, and I think to my understanding, this is one of the only things that I could find a firsthand source from the time, right? Not after the fact, but from the time.

SPEAKER_00 11:52

And just remind me, what time are we?

SPEAKER_01 11:55

1820s, Tennessee.

SPEAKER_00 11:57

Okay, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 11:58

We have the first hand account of someone named, confusingly, John R. Bell. Not to be confused with John Bell, a military officer who was on an expedition to explore the central Great Plains in 1820.

SPEAKER_00 12:11

Wait, wait, wait. They're still exploring the US?

SPEAKER_01 12:14

There was like a whole thing, like they were short on resources, and he was trying to figure out something. He had a specific, um he had a specific task, but I I didn't research it that hard. Huh. So he had heard of a disembodied voice that accompanied a young girl, and so he stopped by to witness the oddity for himself. So this is a quote from his journal. Quote Rather a singular circumstance was here related to me of a young girl of about fifteen years of age, residing about three miles from Murphy. A voice accompanies her, which says she should marry a man, a neighbor. Thousands of persons have visited her to hear the voice. In many instances, it will reply to a question put to it. The visitors have left as little satisfied in their curiosity as before they heard it. Many are under the impression that it is ventriloquism imposed upon the hearers, either by the girl or her brother, who it seems is generally in her company. Her family is respectable. End quote.

SPEAKER_00 13:14

It's just interesting. A man is on an expedition, and this guy hears about a f an unmarried 15-year-old and says, Don't mind if I do.

SPEAKER_01 13:24

No, no, no. This the weird thing about this story is that this guy's name is also John Bell. Yeah, but that's just a coincidence.

SPEAKER_00 13:31

It really nips the whole conversation in the bud of like, are you taking my name? Am I taking yours?

SPEAKER_01 13:36

You know, am I taking yours? Yeah, right. But he goes because he hears about this strange thing because the bell witch, as he says, has pulled in thousands of people that are coming. So that part is like real, right? That the this happened, this event happened. We know that. We know that there was something and rumors spread enough that people were going to experience it themselves. Now, what he says is that people generally did not leave more convinced that this was real, right? That a lot of people thought it was um ventriloquism, either by the girl or her brother, because they seem to always be together. But he does say that the family is respectable.

SPEAKER_00 14:10

Right. All the more reason to want to marry into the family.

A Journal Entry And Public Skepticism

Andrew Jackson Lore Enters The Story

SPEAKER_01 14:14

Oh, right. So there are some sources. This is where we're gonna jump the shark perhaps the most. There are some sources that claim Andrew Jackson himself actually visited Bell Farm. Uh you mean old Hickory? I didn't know that that was his nickname.

SPEAKER_00 14:29

He's famous for having a d nickname.

SPEAKER_01 14:31

What does it mean? Why do they call him that?

SPEAKER_00 14:33

Uh he was named at uh for being both tough and unyielding, just like Hickory.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

Understood. According to the Main Street Media Tennessee article by Charlotte Reedy, Andrew Jackson owned land in the area. And that is true. She goes into the article that there is historic deeds that prove that that is fact. So the legend goes that his wagon got stuck in the area of Bell Farm, and his men pushed but struggled to free the wagon. Only after Jackson quipped that it must be stuck because of the witch, did the wagon allegedly free itself from the mud. But it goes even further because Jackson made it to Bell Farm.

SPEAKER_00 15:11

So then witch was a nuisance until she got a little attention. Credit.

SPEAKER_01 15:15

Yeah. I'm telling you, she's an influencer. Yeah, you're right, you're onto something. She's the first influencer. So Jackson made it to Bell Farm. And, according to, you know, some disputed testimony, he watched and enjoyed the antics of the haunting. Allegedly, he said, quote, this beats fighting the British.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

And then yeah, she she just carved in blood. Make sure to like and subscribe.

SPEAKER_01 15:40

But the bell witch wasn't only a menace, it also seemed to have a soft spot, especially for Lucy, John Bell's wife, whom it described as quote, the most perfect woman to walk the earth, end quote. It was also known to sing hymns to her and bring her fresh fruit. That was not the case for how the witch interacted with John Bell, the patriarch of the family, whom she called, quote, old Jack, and would openly admit that she planned to take his life.

SPEAKER_00 16:07

Okay. Where where does this come from? The the family members? The dad himself? Do we know much about the family themselves?

SPEAKER_01 16:14

Yeah, so we know about the members of the Bell family, right? There's John Bell who's the dad.

SPEAKER_00 16:19

Well, my question is specifically about John Bell. Was he a particularly unlikable guy?

SPEAKER_01 16:25

I mean, I think the whole thing and the way it plays out begs the question: if this haunting is being put on by a member of the family, then this family fucking hates John Bell.

SPEAKER_00 16:35

That that was my question.

SPEAKER_01 16:36

Clearly the target. Yeah, certainly.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

Is this just an excuse for the family to be like, we fucking hate dad?

Illness Poison Claims And A Death

SPEAKER_01 16:42

Yeah, that's certainly a theory, right? There's also Lucy Bell, who we said is the mom, right? She seems to have a more sympathetic relationship with uh with the Bell Witch. And then there's Betsy Bell, who's their daughter, and um there there's more Bell children, right? There's Drew Bell and then John Johnston is the neighbor. Those are kind of the key, the key players. John Bell's health began to decline around 1820, with symptoms that included facial paralysis and difficulty speaking and swallowing.

SPEAKER_00 17:13

So he had a stroke.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

Well, it's interesting because this comes up earlier in in the research a little bit too, before kind of his eventual decline. It comes up as one of the early like things that the bell witch does is his paralysis that he's reporting. So yeah, I also think like in addition to everything else that's going on, it seems like he has some serious health issues that he is experiencing and perhaps not understanding and blaming it on this thing.

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Oh, sure. Like, you know, it's even as simple as you get poked with a rusty nail. And, you know, I I have no idea if people knew uh how dangerous that was.

SPEAKER_01 17:50

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 17:50

Uh, but you know, you're you're gonna get locked jaw.

SPEAKER_01 17:53

Right, right. According to later accounts, the situation took a darker turn when a small vial of unknown liquid was found in his medicine cabinet. The entity, again, Bell Witch sometimes called Kate, claimed responsibility, stating it had given Bell the poison while he slept. Now the family members, again, all allegedly, tested the substance on a cat, which died shortly after. So in December of 1920, John Bell Senior died, and the story quickly evolved into something even stranger, believe it or not.

SPEAKER_00 18:26

And that little vial was five-hour energy.

SPEAKER_01 18:29

Well, he it was four loco. But he like he again allegedly had one of these vials on him when he died. So in retellings of the case, it is often claimed that Tennessee officials recognized his death as being caused by supernatural forces, though there's no surviving legal document confirming a formal ruling. Instead, this idea appears to stem from how widely the cause of death was attributed to the witch in local lore, rather than from any verified government documents.

SPEAKER_00 18:59

Hey, uh Chief, how do you want me to write this up? Uh let's just write uh supernatural for loco.

Kate Batts And A Villain Is Born

SPEAKER_01 19:06

By insane influencer ghost. After the death of John Bell Sr. in 1820, the activity reported at the Bell House is said to have gradually faded. In most versions of the story, the presence known as the Bell Witch did not immediately vanish, but instead lingered around the household for a short period of time before eventually becoming less active. Betsy Bell later broke off her engagement to Joshua Gardner, a detail that's often included in retellings of the legend kind of as like a marker of her emotional trauma and distress after the events. In some versions of the legend, in some versions of the story that kind of read like uh like a an installment of Halloween, the legend is said to have promised to return again at a later date. But speaking of urban legends, we have to talk about Kate Bats and why the Bellwitch is sometimes called Kate and how that whole thing works.

SPEAKER_00 20:02

I think that's uh it's pretty simple, it's just just her name.

SPEAKER_01 20:05

But why is it her name?

SPEAKER_00 20:06

Because that's what her parents named her.

SPEAKER_01 20:09

So Kate Bats is one of the most debated threads in the Bellwitch story. In later versions of the legend, Kate Batz is described as a neighbor of John Bell Sr. who allegedly had a land dispute or some kind of financial issue with him, right? According to these retellings, she supposedly vowed revenge, and after her death, her spirit became attached to the Bell family as this entity known as Kate. This connection is one of the main attempts to give the haunting a human identity rather than this kind of purely supernatural, vague, amorphous being. However, historians point out that the Kate Bats connection does not appear in the earliest accounts of the Bellwitch disturbance. Instead, it emerges in the later 19th century retellings, most notably in works like, again, an authenticated history of the Bellwitch. In these versions, the name Kate seems to have been retroactively attached to the phenomenon, possibly because it provided a convenient narrative hook. This helped transform scattered reports of noises and disturbances into a more structured story with a character at its center, a villain, right? Many researchers now treat Kate Batts like the urban legend version of this story in nothing that's historically confirmed or accurate. But was the Bell Witch paranormal? Was it John Bell or some other family member that hated John Bell?

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Why would it be John Bell? Everyone's like, whoa, John Bell sucks.

SPEAKER_01 21:33

Because I think if he had some sort of like severe mental health issues, I don't know. Could be. Could be.

SPEAKER_00 21:39

A sp sure like a split personality disorder.

SPEAKER_01 21:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:42

That'd be insane. What a twist.

Hoax Psychology And Environmental Theories

SPEAKER_01 21:45

Like an M. Night Shyamlan movie. Let's talk about some of the leading theories. So the earliest written account that significantly shaped the modern narrative, again, is an authenticated history of the Bell Witch, which was compiled decades after the events it describes. And it really relied heavily on oral storytelling. Earlier references are sparse. They're very fragmented and very, very difficult to verify independently, especially in a week. Meaning much of the detailed narrative that we know today is kind of like likely urban legendy that developed over time.

SPEAKER_02 22:17

Sure.

SPEAKER_01 22:18

So as a result, many of the most dramatic elements of the story, including the named identities, Kate Bats for one, and this whole kind of thing with Andrew Jackson, uh, are generally understood by historians as part of like later folklore and not contemporaneous record. This does not necessarily dismiss the experience entirely, though, but it does highlight that the Bellwitch story is a blend of possible historical events and legend. Which I think, to be honest, is kind of like the key to life in history. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 22:50

What do you mean?

SPEAKER_01 22:51

Like I just think a lot of mythology, a lot of what we do and talk about on this podcast as we trace back the history of horror, is like real historic events that can be verified and then storytelling, such as life.

SPEAKER_00 23:03

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I agree. And it's a lot of cherry-picking the interesting bits.

SPEAKER_01 23:08

Exactly. And exaggering them a little for a good story.

SPEAKER_00 23:11

Of course, because it's being retold.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 23:14

And by the time it actually gets written down, it's been retold so many times.

SPEAKER_01 23:17

Yeah, exactly. So the cause of the bell witch has been debated for two centuries, and most explanations fall into a few different main camps. One of the most common is the neighbor dispute theory, which ties the events to Kate Bats, a woman said to have had conflicts with John Bell, and who later became linked to the entity and known as Kate. Another theory points to human trickery or hoax, suggesting that members of the Bell household, as we've discussed, or even others in the community, had staged the phenomenon, especially given how interactive and targeted the events were and how it started to grow a crowd, right? Because, oh, suddenly you have a little bit of attention. Oh, people are gonna keep coming. Like, oh, if I'm a 13, 15-year-old girl, I might, you know, I don't know. That might be fun for me. That'd be exciting. I live in the central Great Plains.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

I do that, which is so boring. So boring. Unless you're into Buffalo.

SPEAKER_01 24:10

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

Which at the time, no longer.

SPEAKER_01 24:12

I'm not.

SPEAKER_00 24:13

What?

SPEAKER_01 24:13

I mean, actually, that's not true.

SPEAKER_00 24:15

Yeah, you're that's a blatant lie.

SPEAKER_01 24:16

Yeah, I like Buffalo. Some researchers lean towards psychological or environmental explanations, such as stress, suggestibility, or even natural causes like animals or noises being misinterpreted rather than kind of like a hoax.

SPEAKER_00 24:33

Noises being misinterpreted.

SPEAKER_01 24:34

I'm gonna talk about it. I'm gonna talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 24:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 24:37

So the first thing that I talk about is suggestibility. So once unusual events are reported in the home, other family members may have begun interpreting ordinary sounds and sensations through kind of like this lens of fear, right? So for instance, if there's animals that are moving through the walls, right?

SPEAKER_00 24:55

Moving through the walls?

SPEAKER_01 24:57

Yeah, I mean, growing up I had animals in my walls.

SPEAKER_00 25:00

Oh, sorry. Like a rat in the wall and like a mouse in the wall.

SPEAKER_01 25:03

Yeah, yeah, not like they're walking through.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

I thought you were talking about like a bear coming through the wall.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

Not like hard to misinterpret. No, not like that. That's just a bear coming through the wall.

SPEAKER_01 25:11

Yeah. Some of the more dramatic reports also line up with what modern researchers recognize as sleep-related phenomena, like sleep paralysis. So episodes of being unable to move, feeling pressure in bed, or sensing a presence in the room closely resemble sleep paralysis, which can produce extremely vivid hallucinations that can feel physically real.

SPEAKER_00 25:33

You know that very well.

SPEAKER_01 25:34

So that combined with chronic stress, fear, and strong religious framing, these experiences could easily be interpreted as intelligent, hostile, or you know, whatever. It could there's there's something there, I think for sure. There's also something I'm calling environmental explanations, but it's really just like other physical things.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

It's the men in black explanation where they just go up to everyone like, uh, you just saw a bunch of swamp gas.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

Right, exactly. So like the homes in the early 19th century in Tennessee, you know, were not the same as the the standards of modern homes, right?

SPEAKER_00 26:08

So like probably built better.

SPEAKER_01 26:09

They creaked, they shifted, they echoed like with the changes of temperature and wind, right? That's something that certainly existed. There's also like a lot of wildlife around. So there could be weird animals that they saw that they weren't used to in the area, and that kind of kicked this whole thing off. And then once you have this feeling that something is amiss, or you're seeing paranormal animals on your farm, yeah, you start to freak out.

SPEAKER_00 26:34

At the time, nobody knew what the fox says.

unknown 26:37

I forgot about that.

The Bell Witch Cave And Modern Tourism

SPEAKER_01 26:39

Wow, what a throwback. Finally, there are those who take a more folkloric view, seeing the story as an example of how oral traditions evolve over time, with each retelling adding a new detail. So again, this one is what we've been saying the whole time, but just generally that, like, you know, maybe uh maybe Betsy Bell went through a little phase where she claimed something happened, and then the rest of it was kind of exaggerated over time. I want to talk a little bit about the Bell Witch Cave, which now is a privately owned cave system located near the town of Adams in northern Tennessee.

SPEAKER_00 27:12

I want a private cave system.

SPEAKER_01 27:14

I know. And I mean, listen, we can talk about hellier in the caves in Tennessee another time.

SPEAKER_00 27:19

Actually, I I retract my statement. That really scares me when I think about it. Caves do? A private cave system.

SPEAKER_01 27:26

Why does that scare you?

SPEAKER_00 27:28

Because like anything can go awry in a cave.

SPEAKER_01 27:30

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 27:30

You know?

SPEAKER_01 27:31

You're I've seen the descent.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Yeah, you're you're not even splunking, but just like exploring and something you get turned around, something collapses. But if you're in a private cave system, nobody is coming to rescue you.

SPEAKER_01 27:44

Well, it doesn't mean you have to go into it alone.

SPEAKER_00 27:47

Sure, yeah, but you don't have to be there alone, but if it's your land, the level of diligence is not required. You know, it's not like you have to check in with uh a tour guide or with some institutions. Like you're just going about your you go for a walk, you know? Yeah and something could go bad.

SPEAKER_01 28:05

That's true. Today it operates as a small tourist attraction that markets itself as part of the historical landscape of the Bell Witch hauntings. But in the folklore, the cave is said to have been part of the spirit's activity. Sometimes it was described as a place where the entity lived, traveled through, or used as kind of like a gateway between the bell farm and the surrounding area. Some later retellings even suggest that the witch originated from or was connected to something hidden in or near the cave, though these claims do not appear in early accounts of the bell disturbances. Again, if anyone wants to talk about Tennessee and Caves, just go watch Hellier. That's all I'm gonna say.

SPEAKER_00 28:47

It's good. It's really good. Shout out to Carl Pfeiffer, a good friend of the pod.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

That's right. An honor. We do have an episode with Carl where we talk about Hellier and Goblins, so we do.

SPEAKER_00 28:58

A great episode, definitely worth checking out. But I honestly we should really revisit that because Carl is just such a wealth of information in terms of paranormal exploration.

SPEAKER_01 29:07

Well, it was fun to talk to him too, because he's into the two main things that we're into, which is like the paranormal and filmmaking. Yeah. But he made that whole series.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

That's his entire career.

SPEAKER_01 29:19

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 29:20

So, you know, we we are enthusiasts at best. This guy is a pro.

Horror Movies And Why Legends Stick

SPEAKER_01 29:24

That's episode 127. I just looked it up. So go listen to episode 127 if you didn't know that we had uh an interview with the famous Carl Pfeiffer. But okay. We're back to talking about the cave. So historically speaking, the cave itself is real, and again, you can go and visit it, but it's really, I think its connection to this haunting is is a legend, right? That's as much as we know. I want to briefly mention two horror films that are inspired kind of in different levels of the Bellwitch haunting. Really? So the first is called An American Haunting from 2005. This is, I would say, the most well-known Bellwitch adaptation that I could find. It stars Sissy Spasick and Donald Sutherland.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 30:06

And it really kind of frames the legend through this modern investigation, right? So kind of like in modern paranormal investigators. Um, but there's a bit of like period horror in there and like certainly some psychological drama. There's some liberties that the movie takes when it comes to the historical accounts and things that we know, but from what I could tell, it's the closest thing to like a big studio Bellwitch film.

SPEAKER_00 30:29

I never expected this Bellwitch to have uh an actual film adaptation. This is kind of crazy.

SPEAKER_01 30:36

It is, and I I will say, like, this has been on my list probably since the inception of this podcast.

SPEAKER_00 30:42

The Bell Witch?

SPEAKER_01 30:43

Yeah. But it's because it's everybody talks about like, oh, it's like the American haunting, the Bellwitch, blah blah blah. But it's really hard to research. And like last week when we brought it up, I was like, okay, this is we just need to do it because I've been putting it off. It's quite difficult to research for the very reason we're talking about that there's so much hearsay, hearsay and nuance to what's real and what's not real. And you know, there's a lot almost every paranormal podcast out there, I would say, covers it. So it's very well covered. It didn't feel like there was a gap for us to fill in, but but but also it it feels so vanilla.

SPEAKER_00 31:14

The bell witch herself.

SPEAKER_01 31:16

Well, she I mean, this guy dies. Like that's real. John Bell dies. That's not vanilla.

SPEAKER_00 31:21

Right, but he dies of very explainable causes.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

I think he killed himself.

SPEAKER_00 31:28

Okay. Another explanation.

SPEAKER_01 31:30

I mean, he was taking poison. He was drinking poison.

SPEAKER_00 31:34

Sure. So yeah, he died he died of a of of a poison.

SPEAKER_01 31:39

Yeah. I mean, we don't know though.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Like that could have been himself, that it would have been his family.

SPEAKER_01 31:43

Or he could have died of a stroke, like.

SPEAKER_00 31:45

But they found the bottle. You know? Yeah. But so you know it's not like they found him splattered across the ceiling. That's weird.

SPEAKER_01 31:53

Or it could have been, you know, how they would have leeches clear people's blood. Like there's all kinds, like a doctor could have given it to him. We don't know.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

Oh, don't don't be hating on leeches.

SPEAKER_01 32:02

I I don't like leeches, and I don't need them to clear out my blood. And that's all I have to say about that. There's also another movie to mention called The Bellwitch Haunting from 2013, which is a lower budget found footage, which we love, style horror movie. It leans really heavily into modern ghost hunting tropes, and things kind of, you know, go off the rails in the modern time, which is a fun, you know, different, different uh version. The reason the Bellwitch story continues to persist, in my opinion, is mostly because of how it evolved in the first place. So again, I think this is a really good, almost perfect example of a contained urban legend. It combines a named family, a specific location, and a clear timeline. And there's parts of this that we really do know to be true and accurate, with tons of exaggeration, storytelling, or maybe all of it's true, but we just don't know, right? We don't have great sources. Stories tied to recognizable people like Andrew Jackson tend to endure because they feel anchored in reality, right? There's like a big name tied to it. It's shocking, it's exciting. Over time, the Bell Witch became less about a single event and more about the cultural narrative that reflects fear, faith, and uncertainty in early frontier life. It stands today not just as a ghost story, but as an example of how communities shape meaning from unexplained experiences until the story itself becomes more enduring than the original events. And that, my friends, is the power of horror, right? That's the power of storytelling and horror.

SPEAKER_00 33:36

That's the that's the power of an interesting story.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

Well, I do think fear and horror, yes, an interesting story, but I also will add to that, I think fear and horror are things that bring people together because they are A, there's something kind of like exhilarating about them that can be distracting from sad sadness and tragedy and difficulties. But also I think there's something that brings communities together when they all feel like they're in fear of a of a thing.

Fear As Community Glue And Alien Films

SPEAKER_00 34:01

Well, sure beautifying yes. So I just re-watched the 1996 classic Independence Day.

SPEAKER_01 34:08

Yes, I've never seen it.

SPEAKER_00 34:10

That's that's your fault.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

I'm gonna watch it this 4th of July.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Um, it's incredible. I it's um it's really amazing you've never seen it.

SPEAKER_01 34:17

It's about aliens, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:18

Uh no spoilers. But there is a but the main theme of the movie is that there's no uniting force quite like fear of the other.

SPEAKER_02 34:33

Well, sure.

SPEAKER_00 34:33

And the entire world comes together to battle this alien invasion. They all just put their differences aside, and you know, they show a wide swath of humanity.

SPEAKER_02 34:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:46

Uh that has to again put again their put aside their differences to make this possible. They're pu they're fighting something that endangers humanity as a species.

SPEAKER_02 34:55

Right.

SPEAKER_00 34:56

So yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:57

That's what we need right now, right?

SPEAKER_00 34:58

Yeah, I've I've said this many times. Like w we all just need some kind of common threat.

SPEAKER_02 35:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:05

You know, uh that is just so yeah, you'd think so, but that didn't work.

SPEAKER_02 35:10

No.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

I used to say we just need one good plague, but no, that's apparently not true.

SPEAKER_02 35:15

Not good enough.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

We need some kind of common aggressor that's easy to beat.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:21

To bring us all together.

SPEAKER_01 35:22

Yeah. What's your favorite alien invasion movie? Aliens Come to Earth. Like, what's mine is Science, obviously. It's the best one. War of the Worlds is also really good. Well, I think that's actually a controversial opinion, but I do like the Tom Cruise War of the Worlds. Or I did in when it came out.

SPEAKER_00 35:38

Favorite Alien Invasion movie would honestly probably be Independence Day. Because it's such a great film. But if I had to choose a runner-up, Mars attacks.

SPEAKER_01 35:49

I haven't seen either of those movies.

SPEAKER_00 35:51

What's wrong with you?

SPEAKER_01 35:52

I don't know. I like what I like, you know.

SPEAKER_00 35:54

I mean, uh, okay, f fine. You you want to really branch out? Yeah. Predator.

SPEAKER_01 35:59

You've lost me on that.

SPEAKER_00 36:00

Why? It's so good.

SPEAKER_01 36:02

The lore of it's so deep, it's too much. It's not deep. I watched that's that one where they the one Prometheus.

SPEAKER_00 36:09

Sure, but that's that's Alien. It's a totally different franchise.

SPEAKER_01 36:12

But isn't Predator related to Alien?

SPEAKER_00 36:14

No, you're confusing it with Alien versus Predator.

SPEAKER_01 36:16

Oh AVP. Predator's not related at all.

SPEAKER_00 36:20

No, Predator hunts aliens.

SPEAKER_01 36:22

But I'm saying the movie Predator that you just said is is one of your favorites, that's not related to the Alien franchise at all.

SPEAKER_00 36:27

It is not related. There was a crossover.

SPEAKER_01 36:30

Okay, so it is related. Yeah, okay, so it is related.

SPEAKER_00 36:35

Uh, it's just as much for crossover of when Godzilla has to fight the Power Rangers.

SPEAKER_01 36:40

Oh, okay. I got it. They're two totally different.

SPEAKER_00 36:43

Yes. Got it.

SPEAKER_01 36:44

Okay. Well, thank you all so much for being here. Stay safe. Stay safe. Stay spooky, and we'll talk to you soon. Bye. Bye.