April 29, 2025 • 49 mins
Have you ever experienced something bizarre -- some unexplainable coincidence, chilling interaction or even a run in with what some might call the supernatural? If so, then you may have the next story for Radio Rental. In this episode, the guys interview Payne Lindsey, creator of Up and Vanished, Atlanta Monster and more, about the inspiration behind his newest podcast, Radio Rental.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Fellow conspiracy realist. We are returning to you this evening
with episode a classic interview we did back in twenty
twenty with good friend of the show and personal friend
of ours, the legendary Payne Lindsay.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Indeed talking about a super cool show called Radio Rental
you might be familiar with, where in Pain and his
team find incredible, weird stories on Reddit and various other
places and then recreate them along with input from the
actual people who lived these stories.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Well, yeah, and it's usually the actual person telling you
a story in first person about what they went through,
and dang, is it cool. It's still one of my
favorite shows.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Guys, all grounded by the wonderfully bizarre Terry Carnation. Let's
just address him like he's a real human, because he really.
He is portrayed by the incredible Rain Wilson, But boy
does he inhabit that character holy and it's impressive and
a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
We're a vast, we contained multitude. It can be more
than one person in once. That's where those guys have
some depth. So let's roll the.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Tape from UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History
is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now
or learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
A production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noela.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
They call me Ben.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
We are joined as always with our super producer Paul
Mission Controlled decad. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
This is a this is a special episode for us.
We're pretty excited about this. We have a returning guest today.
Today we're joined by our colleague, longtime friend of ours,
(02:00):
Paying Lensy. That's right, the CEO, co founder of Tenderfoot TV.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
Pain.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
People will recognize you as the creator and host of
podcasts such as Up and Vanished, The Atlanta Monster, and
your latest project, which is why we wanted to talk
to you today, Radio Rental.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
Thanks, yeah, thanks for being on the show man. Thank you, guys.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Ye yeah, yeah, we've been listening to Radio Rental and
with the lights on, well, well yeah for me to start.
For me, I actually try and get to the darkest
place I possibly can.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I'd like to listen to it in my sensory deprivation.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
That's the best place.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Actually for me, it's in the car at night after
I've driven home from work, like it's getting late so
early now here in Atlanta where we are, by the
time I'm getting home, if it's like six seven something
like that, I'll sit in my car and keep listening
to an episode on purpose because the the show itself,
and we're going to tell you exactly what it is
(02:58):
after this, but the show itself has such an eeriequality
to it that it almost intensifies the experience. If you're
just alone in a car and it's kind of cold,
I don't know, I would.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
Spooky driveway moment.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Well, the purpose there is to like in my mind
and for me personally, is to it is to enhance
the experience, like to to get a an even further
sensory experience from something right. And to my mind, what
Radio Rental does with the sound design and the way
the stories are told, it does give you this sensory
(03:33):
experience of being there in a lot of these things.
So let's let's let's start off by pain tell us
what Radio Rental is, you know, as an overview, and
then we'll start getting into some of this stuff.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
I mean, basically, at its core, Radio Rental.
Speaker 6 (03:47):
Is just weird bizarre stories, kind of an homage to
Are You Afraid of the Dark, And it's presented in
this weird way where Rain Wilson is playing this video
store clerk who works in this old kind of eighties
retro video store called Radio Rental. Radio Rental means it's
(04:09):
like British Cockney slang for mad or you've lost your mind.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
They'd say you've.
Speaker 6 (04:14):
Gone radio rental and rhyme yellow and British Cockney rhyming
slangs yea. And so it's my first anthology series where
each episode is a new story, and there's about two
to three stories in each episode, and they're all true stories.
They're all real stories, and it's the real people telling
you them. And so there's other stuff like this out
(04:34):
there where people do retellings of stuff, but we put
a lot of effort into actually going to make the
connection with these people, vetting them as much as we
could and flying out to them wherever the hell they are,
and sitting down and interviewing them and making this kind
of short story cinematic experience out of it.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
And there's a lot of work that has to go
on behind the scenes, right, like just for the process
questions before you get into some of the real spooky stuff.
How from germination of the idea, genesis of the idea,
to actually getting the first episode out? How much time
did you and your team have to put into, as
(05:14):
you said, finding these people, vetting them, and speaking with them.
It seems like it must have been a pretty involved process.
Speaker 6 (05:20):
It was like every other podcast I've made where I
was like, this is a cool idea, let's do this,
and then like a few months in, I'm going, this
is a lot harder than I thought it was gonna be.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yeah, yeah, And.
Speaker 6 (05:32):
So this was that on a whole new level where
I'm very reliant on these people to want to do
this with me, because I mean, I can have I
can find a really great story, but if that person
is not interested in telling me that story, or maybe
they are, but they sound really weird on the microphone
or whatever, right, So there's so many factors that I
(05:56):
can't control, which makes it kind of scary. Initially, I
was looking all over the place and I didn't really
even know where to find these types of stories or
really what was going to merit a radio rental story
to begin with. And I knew that in these first
batch of episodes that whatever stories we put out there
(06:17):
that is going to be what radio Rental is.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
It will always evolve from there.
Speaker 6 (06:20):
But I need to set the standard for what is
a radio rental story. And you know, it's not every
single story that you hear, it's not every scary story.
It's this kind of in between area where you know
you know it when you hear it, like you hear
another story. And if you've heard radio Rental at this point,
if you hear another story out there, you would know, Okay,
that's probably a radio renal story. And so I wanted
to kind of coin that term and really kind of
(06:42):
set the standard for you know, what you're experiencing and hearing.
It was very difficult just to kind of find these
people and make contact with a stranger on the internet,
with someone we heard user name, and convince them to
let me fly to where they are and meet them
in a hotel, tell and record them for my podcast.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
So let's dive in a little bit deeper to something
I was thinking of the entire time that was listening
to the show, which is out now and available wherever
you get your podcasts.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
Do you want to point that out?
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Yeah, the full first season, right is, it's.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
All out and this is so we don't want to
spoil too much of the specific episodes, but we do
want to talk about some of the things. And one
of the things that haunted me throughout listening is the
this subtle, this subtle play.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
Of fact and fiction.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
You know, this is a lot of this feels like
there's some modern folklore elements to it, sure, which is
why I love that you point out are you afraid
of the dark? You know there's this this this kind
of chilling campfire.
Speaker 5 (07:53):
It could be true element.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
These are true stories because you did find again, this
is the part we should emphasize pain You did find
real people who told you these stories.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Were there ever times where you felt the little line
between like fact or fiction sort of blurred or did
or was it always to you was always clear? Or
were there are times where you were like, I don't
know if I should be alone in a hotel room
with this person.
Speaker 6 (08:25):
Oh wow, I mean there's definitely this line of where
I mean, there's a few stories in there for sure
where you can't really rationally explain what happened, and just
kind of structurally with what I was trying to build here,
I wanted to have a good balanced mix of stories.
I didn't want to come at you with the most
unbelievable stories ever and just shock you where people are like, nah,
(08:48):
this is just like unbelievable stories. I don't believe any
of these stories. I wanted to hit you with a
real thing that happened, definitive from the beginning. And so
every now and then you get this little twist where
you're like, ooh, I don't know, like I don't know
how to.
Speaker 5 (09:04):
Don't I can't explain that, yeah, but I don't not
believe it.
Speaker 6 (09:08):
So and that's how I feel about some of these
stories where it's like in this line of I don't
know how to explain what happened, but I believe this person,
but like what happened, And so you're you're thinking.
Speaker 5 (09:19):
About it like scratching your hand, like what the what
the hell happened.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
I think there's a pretty good example of this in
that first episode that we actually got to hear a
sneak preview of a while back. But man, it it's
one of those that is a true story of something
that really happened for sure, and then the story itself
as it's being told and as it's kind of revealing
things as you go, you don't even really you don't
(09:44):
think like, maybe this isn't real, maybe this isn't and
then it hits you right at the end, Oh, this
is a true thing that occurred. I remember this from
the news. So let's talk about I'm just I'm calling
it the flight. I don't know what you called it
in the within the episodes, but we hear about this
man's extraordinary experience doing something very ordinary, which is just
(10:05):
taking a flight. You can you tell us a little
bit about that story?
Speaker 6 (10:09):
Yeah, I mean it starts off he's a kid at
the time, and he's flying from Paris to Miami. It's
in December of two thousand and one, and he was
very familiar flying. He flied, He's flown several times with
his brother and his dad was in first class and
his brother and him were in the back and mid flight,
all of a sudden, this flight attendant starts screaming the
(10:30):
word no. And obviously anyone's screaming on an airplane, Nope,
not a good thing.
Speaker 5 (10:37):
Even if they're screaming, Yes, it's still.
Speaker 6 (10:39):
Exactly even that, you're like, come on, give me a Yeah,
screaming on an airplane not a good thing. And so
eventually that escalates to even louder and he sees this
kind of scuffle going on, and all of a sudden,
someone passes up this fire extinguisher and hits this dude
(11:02):
in the middle square in the face, and he's like,
what the hell is going on here? Chaos just erupts
on the flight. Turns out there was a terrorist on board.
His name was Richard Reid. And this is right after
nine to eleven, so you can imagine being on that plane.
I mean, that would be terrifying as hell. And this guy,
(11:22):
Richard Reid, he was six foot four, over two hundred pounds.
He had a bomb in his shoes and he was
attempting to light it with this box of matches. And
the flight tenant saw this, probably assuming that he was
trying to smoke a cigarette or something, not light a bomb.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Yeah, just to.
Speaker 6 (11:39):
Please, but that's ill too, you know, Yeah, sir, please
don't smoke a cigarette.
Speaker 5 (11:45):
And that escalates and she reaches for the matches.
Speaker 6 (11:49):
This guy bites her on the hand and it just
turns into a complete show on the plane, and eventually
they subdue the guy. Everyone kind of steps up to
be a hero, which is amazing, and they tie him
up with phone cords and belts and all kind of stuff,
and a doctor on board injects someone with a I
think he's dies a PAM or something, just to calm
him down, and they divert the flight. They landed and
(12:12):
SWAT team comes on board. All of a sudden, it's
all over the news and this is right after nine
to eleven. Absolute craziness. And this is literally why you
take your shoes off at the airport.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
Yeah, I mean yeah, they Richard, that was a real
dick move.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Well, it's it's incredible to me because the people on
that flight had no idea how dire that situation was,
even though they saw that maybe he's trying to light
something on his shoe. That's weird. Why would he be
doing that, Like, let's not do that could be a bomb,
But he had C four in his shoe that would
have obliterated that play.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Wait a minute, quick question. Can you detonate C four
with the match? Doesn't it require some sort of like
electric So he.
Speaker 6 (12:53):
Had a whole like, I mean, there's a picture of
his shoe online somewhere. They kind of gutted it, this
big black boot. And I mean he had some sort
of wiring system. I mean, there was a fuse He's
gonna light. I'm not sure exactly how it worked me.
It didn't work, thank god. I think they said it
only didn't work because his shoes were damp. One it
had rained that morning, and two he was just sweating,
(13:15):
just being nervous. I mean, it's crazy to think that,
like if they had gone off, the entire planets just
up in flames, and it's just no one lives right.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Oh for sure.
Speaker 5 (13:24):
C four.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
I mean that'll take out like a like a whole building.
I mean, if you have enough of it.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Yeah, insane, Yeah, C four Just for background, we don't
need to go into why I know this, but.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
C four, as we do, it's stable.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
It's stable enough that if you just put a if
you just put a match by the substance, or even
if you shoot it with a gun, it's not going
to explode. You do need that system that you just
described paying, which is the one of the scariest things
I think for people on the flight who were, of
course watching the news afterwards where they figured out, well,
(13:58):
sure this person clearly had some mental issues, but they
still had it together enough to build a shoe bomb.
You know, we joke about it now, but we only
joke about things like that because that was a real thing.
And to your point, Matt, one thing that stuck with
me about that is hearing the story. We're put in
the pov of that person and we don't know what's
(14:19):
happening either, and the way that the way that the
narrative plays plays out. I also had that moment at
the end where I went, you know, for lack of
a better phrase, I went, oh, I remember that actually happened.
Speaker 5 (14:36):
And that's that's something that had.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Me thinking too, like when we talk about the fact
in fiction, and when you're talking about the emphasis you
put on having this like, let's have this demonstrably true
thing in the very from the jump, because now every
other thing that happens, we're all waiting for that moment.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
Where we go, oh wait, oh no, oh man. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
So I gotta say another thing that was I think
incredibly important about that first story is it's terrifying now
in today's age, how we have so it feels like
we have so many events like that that we start
to forget them, and we shouldn't. And so maybe the
(15:22):
best maybe the best way to uh, to impact people
with that or to get the best moral is the
one that you just so perfectly described, which is and
that guy's the reason we can't wear shoes on plane.
You know, I've looked.
Speaker 5 (15:35):
I'm still pissed at Richard for that. Yeah, me, absolutely, Look,
I don't even have laces. I have to catch a
flight later today.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
So it reminds me of that.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Thing in Arrested Development, where like he's got the one
armed guy who always uses to teach his kids a
lessityes And that's why you always leave a note.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
I want to add really quickly here. There was a
twenty fifteen article I remember seeing an NBC, but I'm
not sure exactly who spoke with Richard read again, but
he expressed regrets, like tactical regrets about what he did.
Uh and I'm.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Tactical, like you should have done a better job of blowing.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Up the plane.
Speaker 5 (16:11):
And then he wished he did a better job.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
This is a crazy this is a quot friend says,
I do have some tactical regrets of a sort which
I won't go into here, but I don't regret losing
my freedom.
Speaker 5 (16:21):
Okay, dead eyed robot like Jesus.
Speaker 6 (16:24):
Physical, enjoy your males, Yeah right, enjoy your one hour.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
You can't go to Chili's anymore.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
So, Well, he goes on to talk about the Charlie
Hebdo thing, and he's like, no, I don't think that's
a tragedy. I think it's a tragedy that people can
belittle other people's beliefs in that way. Like, oh, okay, okay,
we'll move on then, thanks.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
We'll pause here and return to Radio Rental after a
word from our sponsors, and we're back. We can't really
spoil this show no matter what we talk, can Well
we are a little Yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:06):
Well that's where we're talking about one miss out.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Now, Yeah, that's one episode in episode or that's one
story in episode one.
Speaker 6 (17:13):
Right, there's a lot of stories, and there's at least
two in every episode.
Speaker 5 (17:17):
Anthony is over a dozen in the season.
Speaker 6 (17:19):
So I mean, even when you think you've got it
figured out, you don't, because we're trying to confuse ourselves
while we're making this.
Speaker 5 (17:26):
Anyone, everybody's confused.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
One one story that stuck with me, that actually that
I went back and re listened to and thought about
for a few days is the story about the person
who keeps receiving messages as someone that's closer and closer
and closer to.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
How basically that like?
Speaker 1 (17:53):
I that that felt so black mirror esque. Yeah, you know,
and it feels like that's the other thing. I don't
want to be too repetitive, but that that's one of
the ones, especially where I thought I.
Speaker 5 (18:05):
Could really happen.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
I gotta go beef up my where is my phone
number on the internet?
Speaker 5 (18:11):
I need to watch out.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Yeah, but that's also one of those things that feels
a lot like that folklore story that maybe we've heard before.
Speaker 5 (18:18):
You know what I mean, we're familiar calling from inside
the house.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Yeah, well where you going in and interviewing the person.
It's like, uh, now, I you know, have to listen
to this story and be as objective as I can,
but ultimately just take have this person take me through
this story as clearly as clearly as possible. Sure, and
the way the way he tells it just great. Oh
god man, it's creepy.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
That's yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
With that one especially, that's one of the tales where
I thought, and you know, like full disclosure, we all
know each other outside of the show as we do
like we we are actually friends. This is one of
the ones where I thought I should I gotta ask pain, like,
you know, maybe not in front of people were asking
(19:04):
me if I was an actor because that was really good,
and he was like, is.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
That a voice actor? I haven't asked you, but that guy, No,
he was great.
Speaker 6 (19:12):
I'm telling me he was. He was funny, he was
well spoken. I mean we actually it was Mike and
I who were in there. It was in Phoenix recording
this guy. I think after we recorded him, we're like.
Speaker 5 (19:23):
Do you do radio exactly? I mean, do you do podcasts?
Speaker 7 (19:27):
Right?
Speaker 5 (19:28):
But he's like no, but you know, I get that
a lot.
Speaker 6 (19:30):
And he's just kind of one of those guys who
was just I mean, he's the kind of guy who
would engage with the stranger, right. So he's kind of
you know, chipper and funny and just you know, just
kind of brightens people's days and says witty things and
you know, not afraid to say what he thinks.
Speaker 5 (19:45):
So, which is just that person.
Speaker 6 (19:47):
And he's well spoken, and he told it and what
I thought was a pretty comical way at times.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
Yes, but yeah he was. He was amazing.
Speaker 6 (19:56):
He's like, he was literally exactly what we were looking
for for this show. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
And when we talk about the show, I guess one
of the things we should do a little bit of
quid pro quo clarice stuff here is we mentioned some
things that we we found, uh had a lot of
staying power with us as listeners. I have to ask,
and it's totally all right, there's no wrong answer here.
(20:22):
I have to ask, Man, is there any anything that
you that you covered or that you found while you
all were creating Season one that stayed with you? Like
anything that you know you left and a day, month
weeks later you said, man, I don't, I don't.
Speaker 6 (20:43):
Know there's Uh, there's actually definitively one story that really
bothered me.
Speaker 5 (20:50):
I don't like to think that I'm desensitized to any
of it. I think that I'm I like.
Speaker 6 (20:55):
To look at it as if I've just gotten better
at compartmentalizing this stuff. Sure, okay, but like there's very
few things that really scare scare me. I don't like
paranormal stuff just because I'm like I don't know how
to deal with that if that ever came into my house,
you know. But those kind of stories are also easy
to kind of write off if you don't believe in
that or something, So you know, they're not always the
(21:18):
scariest as some people. To me, the scariest story that
bothered me the most in the whole season was a
story called Laura of the Woods.
Speaker 5 (21:26):
Oh.
Speaker 6 (21:27):
I don't know if you guys heard this one, but
the basic synopsis is this kid, he's ten years old
in this small Indiana town and he's playing in the
woods by himself with his gi Jones, and all of
a sudden, he gets this overwhelming just feeling of fear
that someone is looking at him, someone's watching him out there.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
And there's this like three story house pretty close to them.
Speaker 6 (21:51):
Right there is there's this like house in the neighborhood
that's like I mean, they called it like the ghost
house or something. It was like the classic haunted house
also in the neighborhood that no one knows who lives there,
and you know, you never see him go in and now,
but you know someone's in there. Everyone knows everybody but
these people, right, And so he's playing by the creek
(22:12):
right outside of this house, and he gets this overwhelming fear,
a feeling of just fear, and he turns around and
he sees this girl who's standing there, and as he
tells you the story, your first thought is that this
is a ghost because it's so surreal. It doesn't make
any sense, right, this person's out there. She looks really weird.
She's younger, but she has this weird hair, and her
(22:35):
outfit doesn't really fit her right. But either way, he
becomes friends with her, and you're like, okay. And so
he spends several weeks that summer playing with her out
there in the woods.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
And like physically doing things with.
Speaker 6 (22:46):
Her on the swing and you know, just physically playing
out there in the creek.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Even she showed him what a cigarette is.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
Right one day, she was like, hey, I want to
show you something. She took him to this tree and
she had carved her in am in it Laura. And
she put her hands a little hole in the tree
and pulled out this pack of marble red cigarettes and
taught him out of smoke. And he felt a little crazy,
like all bad, Oh man, I'm doing something real bad.
And she chiefed like ten cigarettes he smoked maybe a
(23:15):
half a cigarette.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
Probably coughed his gut stead bite puked afterwards.
Speaker 6 (23:19):
Yeah, but you know, he he became friends with this girl,
and you know, he told his sister about it, and
they're like, okay, they got a little girlfriend in the woods.
Speaker 5 (23:26):
Whatever.
Speaker 6 (23:27):
And then one day he went out there and she
was just gone, just nowhere to be found. Weeks went by,
months went by, never saw her ever again, and he
was like, what happened, you.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Know, yeah, where did she?
Speaker 5 (23:40):
God, you move whatever?
Speaker 6 (23:42):
And she had told him that she lived in that
creepy house, right, she told him that he that she
lived there on the third floor, and that she was
an only child, and you know, she had a mom
and dad who lived with her too, but she was
the only child and she was homeschooled. So he thought, okay,
maybe she's back, and maybe she got in trouble or something,
or she's just back in her house. Anyway, school starts
back up again and he goes back to the public school,
(24:05):
and all of a sudden, that house, that creepy house,
it goes up for sale, and so everyone of the
neighborhood's like, I want to go see the inside of
this house, right, and he's like, mom, we have to
go in here.
Speaker 5 (24:15):
Also, I want to see if Laura's in there, right, like,
where's Laura?
Speaker 6 (24:19):
And so they go to this open house right and
the mother is giving the tour and he sees what
is obviously her dad and then what is obviously her
mother because it looks just like Laura, like almost exactly
like her in the face.
Speaker 5 (24:33):
So he's like, okay, there has to be your mom.
You know, where's Laura?
Speaker 6 (24:35):
And so they're going through the tour and then they
stop on the second floor and the lady's like, yep,
and that's the whole house. And he's like, I know
that there's a third floor because I know that's.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
Where Laura lives.
Speaker 6 (24:48):
And his mom asked the lady it was like, hey,
you know, like I'm so glad to finally meet you.
We've been here for years and we never knew who
lived here. It's you know, we're so curious. And she
was like, yes, sorry, we don't want to leave the
house much after our daughter died a few years ago.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
And he's like, holy shit, well what or who was
I playing with in the woods.
Speaker 6 (25:13):
And then the mom does this really creepy thing where
she looks at him and says, what's wrong, boy, It
looks like you've seen a ghost.
Speaker 5 (25:21):
And he's like, stop, chill.
Speaker 6 (25:25):
And so all of a sudden, his mom and his
sister both looking at him, like, what the hell have
you been playing with in the woods?
Speaker 5 (25:32):
Whatever is going on? You can't go out in the
woods anymore. You're in trouble.
Speaker 6 (25:38):
And so he said one time he broke the rules
and he did go back out there because he was
convinced that Laura was being held captive in the house,
that something bad was going on.
Speaker 5 (25:48):
It made no sense. There was no way it was
a ghost. The third floor makes.
Speaker 6 (25:53):
Sense, right, she was being weird, the ghosts comment, and
he physically touched her. He smoked the cigarettes with her, right,
And so he goes out there one day and he
looks up at the house and the mom's just on
the third floor looking down at him, just staring at him,
and he said, it scare the sh of him.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
And he never went back after that, And.
Speaker 6 (26:11):
So for decades he lived with this story where he's like,
you know, what the hell happened? He told a few people,
and then years later he was back in that same
property because one of his family members and his uncle
bought the property nearby, and so like they were out
there in the woods, very close to where that area
was in that house, and someone in his family just
(26:33):
brought up, hey, remember.
Speaker 5 (26:34):
The whole Laura the Woods story. He's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
They're like, let's go see it, man, Let's go see
that tree.
Speaker 6 (26:41):
And says like, all right, whatever, And so he takes
his whole family over there, and as they kind of
wind through the woods, he sees the tree Laura carved
in it. He walks up to the tree, pushs his
hand in the hole, pulls out a pack of Marlborough's
Red cigarettes.
Speaker 5 (26:57):
Decades later, cigarette still in there.
Speaker 6 (26:59):
Wow. Everyone in his family's like, okay, this this is terrifying.
And he's like, okay, what was my childhood? What was
going on this whole time? And he said that weeks
later it was on his mind every day and he
was just having this really vivid nightmare one night and
he basically woke up and came to the conclusion that
(27:23):
he had this nightmare where he's walking through the woods
and then he saw Laura sitting on a bench and
then he like taps on the shoulder and she turns
around and looks at him, and she grabs her hair
and starts pulling on her hair and starts coming off,
and it's a wig. And it was literally the mother
the whole time, pretending to be a little girl in
the woods. And he's once he kind of snapped, I
(27:48):
guess into reality and realized what it was. He kind
of realized that he knew this all along, that he
and he was just somehow suppressing it or something. And
it was I mean, for decades it was a mystery.
But to me it was the scariest because it wasn't
a ghost. What's scarier than a ghost an old lady
(28:10):
pretending to be a little girl in the woods because
she's like snapped because or something out of grief or whatever. Right,
that's to me really scared me. And the guy was
so genuine. It's a real story, and just like the
way he was talking about it, I just that's the
one I just couldn't shake.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
I was like, this is just gives me the I
don't even know it was like.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
But it's like that wouldn't have been in the news
or anything. How do you find this guy?
Speaker 6 (28:38):
I found this story on Reddit and what's funny is
actually actually Mike found it on Reddit and it didn't
have that many likes even. It was just kind of
just buried in some subreddit I'm not even sure which one.
And I saw in the comments that some guy said, hey,
that's my story. You stole my story. This didn't happen
(28:59):
to you. I originally posted this on some other random
like band's website, like in their like forum, and so
we go to that, and sure enough, this guy posted
this story years earlier. This was like back in twenty ten,
this guy posted this, and I was like, what are
the chances this guy gets back to me? And sure
enough he did, and I was like, man, this is
(29:20):
like the scariest story ever. I hope he doesn't bail.
And literally he messed at the hotel and the first
thing he said was, hey, guys, not gonna lie. I
almost bailed in the lobby. I was like, dude, just
because he was like having second thoughts on should I
tell this story?
Speaker 5 (29:35):
Like should I? You know, is this dumb? I was like, no, man,
this is like, this is a genuinely scary story, and
I believe you. Let's tell it.
Speaker 6 (29:43):
I mean, like, that's the thing about you know, some people,
you know, if they're like doubters, might want to say,
you know, this story isn't true or you know whatever,
but like to be honest. On the other side of this,
the production side of this, most of these people were
very reluctant at times to tell all the details because
they are real stories and they're just like any other
(30:06):
interview subject to experience something scary, they're like, yeah, no
one's gonna believe me, or you know, it was a
horrifying experience that they're you know, cautious about reliving.
Speaker 5 (30:17):
You know, that's really what we're experiencing most of.
Speaker 6 (30:20):
The time, is like people being like, I don't know,
they're not just chopping at the bit to tell me
their story for radio rental, right, right, exactly, futal experience
that it's kind of scary, right Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
And there's one there's one thing that I respect avenously
is I know that you and your team did did
a lot of fact checking too, like does this match up.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
With this chronology? Right? Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (30:41):
And what's interesting about Laura and the Woods in particular,
which goes to something that you mentioned, is this absolutely
this absolutely could happen, and until there is a crime
committed an actual crime, there's no there's no reason law
enforce would be involved. It's not there's not a law
(31:04):
against dressing up as your deceased child.
Speaker 5 (31:07):
Yeah, how would you write it?
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Yeah, let's take a quick break and have a word
from our sponsor and then back with more from pain lendsy.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
And we are back. Can I bring up a story
that it feels very similar to this to me. It's
one that's just titled ham and cheese, like it's it's
just a ham and cheese sandwich or whatever you exactly.
I was written terrifying, So it's a perfect it's a
perfect story for us to discuss on this show. It's
(31:42):
it's about a man who's working as a sandwich I
forget the title of it, but he makes sandwiches with
subway right, yes, and he's just at work one day.
He says he lives in kind of a CD part
of town, so people are a little cautious, but it's not,
you know, terribly scary out there. He's just at a subway, right,
and he's going about his every day. Some dude walks
(32:05):
in and I don't I can't remember exactly how he
describes him. All I remember is he looks. I think
he's got like dark dark features, like dark.
Speaker 6 (32:16):
He was middle Eastern, okay, and he said he described
him looking a little bit like him, not like exactly,
but kind of same kind of dark features, uh you know,
dark eyebrows, yeah, thing.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
And kind of a younger man. And the one thing
he really noticed was the man always kept his hand
in his like his waistband in the.
Speaker 6 (32:36):
Back, yeah, behind his back, kind of thumbing his waistband, Like,
what are you doing back there?
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Man?
Speaker 6 (32:40):
And he got this vibe when he walked into just
like just kind of instincts like something's not right about
this guy, Like, you know, is.
Speaker 5 (32:48):
There a gun behind his back? Is there a knight?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Like?
Speaker 5 (32:51):
What is he doing?
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Yeah? And he's being really quiet and just you know
if he's going to say, if he says anything, it's
quick and and that's it. And the dude is super
nervous there making. He asked him, you know, what do
you want? The dude just says ham and cheese.
Speaker 5 (33:06):
Or ham and Swiss and Swiss, yeah, Swiss.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
And so you know, as a sandwich professional there, I
forget this artist. Sandwich artist artist, he's making the sandwich
and everything. And then he has to ask him, do
you want it toasted?
Speaker 5 (33:20):
Right?
Speaker 3 (33:20):
And there's this moment where he knows he's getting this
vibe off of this guy, like something's wrong.
Speaker 5 (33:25):
Is this going to be a robbery?
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Yeah, exactly totally, And he he has to ask him,
do you want it toasted? And he knows that to
toast it. If he does want it, He's got to
turn his back to the dude for a little bit.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
Wait, they toasted subway. I thought that was only quiz
exclusive man been toasting in California somewhere. This is in
La somewhere, Okay.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
So so he asked him this and the guy's just like, yeah, fine, whatever, Yeah,
toast it. So he turns around to do this thing.
Are our protagonist here is really really nervous and there's
nothing on this sandwich but bread, ham and Swiss, and
he just turns around to do He's like wrapping it
up to put it in the toaster, and for some reason,
(34:09):
his nerves get to him, everything gets to him, and
the sandwich falls, right, he drops the sandwcharps the sandwich man,
and it lands in a very certain, a very certain way.
Speaker 7 (34:19):
Right.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
It's almost like a pattern with this.
Speaker 6 (34:21):
Yeah, he just kind of like as soon as he
dropped it, which he'd never done in a thousand times,
and he drops the sandwich and like right as he's
dropping it, it's like time slowed down or something, and
this overwhelming rush of deja vu kind of hits him.
And so as the sandwich is falling and the way
the cheese landed, he was like really kind of taking
note of what it looked like and was like, just
(34:43):
had this dejau vu. I've been here, I've seen this
before a thing. And like right after he gets out
of his own head, he looks up because he's like,
oh shit, that guy's here. And he's just gone, like
not there at all. Didn't hear the door open or close.
Had only been a couple of seconds maybe, And his
(35:04):
first instinct is where is this guy? So he runs
out in the parking lot. There's not even a car
in the parking lot. There's nothing there. He even goes
around the corner. There's just no people around. Right now,
He's like, that makes no sense. How did that happen? Like,
I mean, I guess he ran. Was there a getaway car?
Speaker 1 (35:24):
No see in the restroom or something that would be
the only other option no.
Speaker 6 (35:29):
No, nowhere to be found. And he's like, okay, whatever, right,
weird enough, but it gets weirder, Yeah, because I think
it's a week or so.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
A little while out. Yeah, and he's back, you know,
at work doing his thing and here's the door open
and looks up and it's really strange because it looks
like pretty much the same guy but older. Yeah, like
really really similar almost, if not the same guy, but older,
Like yeah, discernibly older. Right, Yes, dude comes up ask
(36:04):
for a sandwich? What does he asked for?
Speaker 5 (36:06):
Ham and Swiss.
Speaker 6 (36:08):
He's got that same vibe to this, just kind of like, okay,
the same vibe that the other guy gave him as
soon as he walked in and then we said hamm
and Swiss. He's like, okay, what's going on? But I
mean also, you know, common sandwich. But then when he
noticed him thumbing in his waistband, yeah, he's like, oh,
you're kidding me, right, Like wow, what is this person doing?
Speaker 5 (36:29):
Is he messing with me?
Speaker 6 (36:31):
Is this it?
Speaker 4 (36:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (36:32):
And so he gets to the part where he has
to ask him if he wants it toasted, and this,
to him is like the drum roll ultimate test. If
I'm gonna die or if this is just the weirdest
thing ever, if he says yes, I'm gonna die.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (36:47):
And so he asked the guy do you want it toasted?
And he's just like, nah, I'm good. And he's like, oh, okay, cool,
So he's good.
Speaker 5 (36:55):
It's all good.
Speaker 6 (36:56):
Is fine, and then he goes through the checkout process
and he goes it's kind of tangent about how and
I guess there's some tax or something in California if
you want it.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Or for hot food.
Speaker 5 (37:08):
For hot food, if you wanted it toasted.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
It's been cooked. Basically, if you used energy in order to.
Speaker 5 (37:14):
Write cook the food, it's like ten cents or something.
Speaker 6 (37:16):
But they have a conversation about that, and then the
guy kind of gives him a snark remark back and
was like, you know, I would have paid the tax.
It's not why I that's not why I didn't it
come on, and he was like yeah, obviously, and so
he's kind of like whatever, and he pays for the sandwich,
and then he walks to the door and he's just
(37:37):
turns around and looks at him, and he kind of
gives him this all knowing grin, and he just says,
I still want you to drop it and then walks
out the door. It's like what and he said, it
literally just scared the out of it.
Speaker 5 (37:54):
Beautiful.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
And then, for a background for anybody who's not too
familiar with the Sandwich Change Subway, a lot of people
probably hearing this story, hearing Radio Rental and thinking, well,
doesn't he have co workers or something? Not really subway
is yeah, the subway is notorious for having one to
like a maximum of three people, you know, totally, totally,
(38:17):
So Souders said, you know, if I'm paraphrasing that, the
mark of a good story to him is that when
the story is over, you don't want it to end.
You want to know what else happens to the characters.
And that's one thing that I think is powerful about
this this story in particular, because like everybody listening now
to this episode, listening to Radio Rental is probably going
(38:40):
to say, well, what happened to la Sandwich guy?
Speaker 5 (38:44):
Is like, is he all right?
Speaker 3 (38:46):
So I wanted to pose it to you guys, like
for potential possibilities of what happened there, and we you know,
assuming that this is an absolute true story and it
happened the way this this person said it happened, right,
So is it possible that it's like like a father
and son who are incredibly similar and like the son
told him a story. What do you think? Is it
(39:09):
a time travel situation or is it a.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Really elaborate kind of stalking kind of like troll kind
of situation that's him?
Speaker 3 (39:17):
Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, maybe, but why did he
look so different and so much older only a couple
of weeks later?
Speaker 1 (39:24):
And elaborate prank sounds a little Rube goldberg Ess for this,
a little like the mouse trap game. But the first
thing I had thought of was, you know, a familial
relation uncle son, father son, something like that, given the
age difference.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
But to what end though, I don't understand, Like, like
what what's the what's what are you accomplishing?
Speaker 1 (39:42):
We travel to La a lot man, that place is crazy,
that's a weirdo. Yeah, but that the familial relation could
also explain certain physical habits like tucking one arm back.
Speaker 5 (39:56):
Just a major coincidence, right, maybe maybe, but that's the thing.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
You know, that's uh, there are like we can we
can all rationally accept one to two coincidences, right, but
as a coincidence as they accrete over the course of
something with the similarities the sandwich, even though I think
(40:20):
we're all being pretty fair in our skepticism, Like you
pointed out pain, You're like, well, it's a common sandwich,
but they have they make many different kinds of sandwiches.
So we've got physical similarity, right, We've got physical similar mannerisms,
same sandwich. We've got what appears to be a reference
to the earlier situation.
Speaker 7 (40:42):
Right.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
One of the questions I would ask is did the
door ding when the guy opened it and walked out,
because we see him walk out. She remembers no sound
of the dan in the first time.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
Yeah, the first time. So yeah, I don't know. I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
It's a it's a almost like trying to figure out
the nuts and bolts behind a magic trick.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
Right, Yeah, Yeah, I did have one printed question. He
is in California, Yep, A certain substance is legal there.
He is at work, Yeah, Like, were you high?
Speaker 5 (41:25):
He said he wasn't.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
Okay, okay, because that that moment, I'm not saying I
recognize this moment or identify with it, but the moment
of like something happening, like oh man, I just dropped
the sandwich I was making for somebody, and I watched
it hit the ground, And it's intriguing to me for
some reason or another. If in that state, I could
imagine that it takes longer than you thought, Like you
(41:47):
spend more time staring at the cheese than you thought totally,
and maybe you're like tuned out a little more. That
dude just like takes off and you're just like, oh man,
this feels weird. Wait where did that guy go?
Speaker 6 (41:58):
Yeah? Yeah, And this guy was totally willing to accept
that as what happened, right, He's not like this had
to be some ripple and time. He's like, you know,
rationally he's speaking. It was probably a guy who was
gonna try to rob him. In the beginning, he freaked
out and like didn't realize how long he looked at
the ground and was super nervous in his own head.
And the guy just darted out of there quickly and
(42:21):
just got the hell out. And then the next week
or two was just a super strange coincidence. And that
guy has no idea how much it terrified him, but
it was really kind of just the way that it
felt to him. It was like you know, and maybe
he just played it up in his head, because I mean,
the guy when he looked at him leaving the second time,
(42:43):
he just said he had this vibe, this feeling about
him where he's like, gotcha, you son of a bitch,
And he was like, it just felt like that to me.
Maybe that's in his own head, but like it was
really just the feelings and the way that like his
own sensory was kind of going on off, coupled with
all the coincidences and just the strangeness of it that
(43:04):
made him feel like maybe it was something more.
Speaker 5 (43:07):
Maybe it could be something more, but like what and
he doesn't know.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Yeah, And I think that that ambiguity too, is a
huge part of it, because everybody has had We've all
had some moment in our lives where something at the
very edge of the map of things we can explain occurs. Right,
And you know, as people are listening to this episode,
we're probably hearing stories. As a matter of fact, you
(43:32):
know what, right to us, right to nol Paine, Matt
Paul and I with your own strange stories.
Speaker 5 (43:39):
Definitely.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
Yeah, are you guys still accepting stories.
Speaker 5 (43:42):
For the future?
Speaker 3 (43:43):
We are.
Speaker 6 (43:44):
We've had a bunch of amazing submissions. We have an
email if you want to send them. It's just your
Scary Story at gmail dot com. So if you have
what you think is your radio Rental story and you
want to tell it, then we'll see what happens.
Speaker 7 (44:00):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
Yeah, okay, well, you know we're we're getting close to
time here. I do want to bring up just before
we close here, there are some stories in there about
real encounters with killers. Oh yeah, in in Radio Rental,
and I'm not going to spoil those because those are
some of the most impactful stories within the show, and
(44:22):
for me, we can. I just want to mention some
of the names. So, like, if you're interested out there
listening to this and you want to look up some
of these killers that I was somewhat unaware of before
listening to this. You guys touch on Mark Goodou, the
baseline killer.
Speaker 5 (44:41):
Yeah in Phoenix.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
Yeah, and there's a story in there that is so
freaking creepy.
Speaker 5 (44:47):
That's one of the scariest ones. I think.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
I completely agree. I mean, talk to you stop, okay, Yeah,
who was that, by the way, and who said can
I talk to.
Speaker 6 (44:59):
So the lady that I was interviewing, she was really
sweet and she had a great voice, and she just
went into the character and was like, yeah, I went,
you know, open the window, and.
Speaker 5 (45:12):
He just said can I talk to you?
Speaker 6 (45:15):
And so she that's her ddit and we just kind
of like altered her voice a couple of times to
kind of make it, but she whispered it several times in.
Speaker 5 (45:21):
Her interview and I was like, Wow, it was creepy
hearing her just imitate him.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
Yeah, that's not right, And that's a story. I don't
want to spoil any of that. It's just it's there's
another story about another serial killer that ends up getting
encountered in Baton Rouge, in Bad Rouge, where there's that
moment where this guy could have been picked up by
police that night. If things that would have gone one way,
(45:48):
he could have also killed this person's girlfriend that night.
And so when you think about just the concept of
multi universes, which we like to have talked about a
lot on this show, where all of these different things
are occurring, you know, somewhere out there within this realm
that the story that you have exists in this version
(46:11):
of our reality where again I won't spoil it, but
what happened happened in that story.
Speaker 5 (46:16):
Oh yeah, totally.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
It's crazy.
Speaker 5 (46:20):
So what our Pain and Matt talking about. We won't
tell you, but.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
You can learn for yourself when you dive into radio rental.
The first season is available in its entirety now wherever
you're listening to podcasts, wherever you found this show, probably
and we guarantee you it's a wild ride. Also, I
love that we mentioned this earlier. When I hit it again,
(46:48):
you may end up being part of a part of
the narrative in subsequent seasons.
Speaker 5 (46:57):
If that is, you have a story of your.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Own and you email Pain and his team in the meantime.
Of course, Paint as always, thank you so much for
being so generous with your time. Man, Sure coming on,
It's always a pleasure. If you have not checked out
Up and Vanished, then do check it out. If you
haven't checked out Atlanta Monster, do check that out.
Speaker 5 (47:22):
Those are both available in their entirety.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
You can also check out uh, the the second iteration
of Monster Matt and are you okay if I if
I plug this.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
Yeah, sure, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
It's a Monster Monster Zodiac which features our own Matt
Frederick in the.
Speaker 3 (47:43):
Yeah, it's called Monster the Zodiac Killer and last thing,
I'm just gonna go for it. Monster DC Sniper is
going to be out right now if it's if it's
early January, so go search for it and subscribe. It's
it's really great hosted by Tony Harris. He's a word
winning journalists. Okay, I'm done.
Speaker 4 (48:01):
Done.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
It's amazing and that's our classic episode for this evening.
Speaker 7 (48:07):
You can't wait to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 5 (48:08):
That's right. Let us know what you think.
Speaker 3 (48:09):
You can reach.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
You to the handle Conspiracy Stuff where we exist on
Facebook X and YouTube on Instagram and TikTok or Conspiracy
Stuff Show.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
If you want to call us dial one eight three
three std WYTK. That's our voicemail system. You've got three minutes.
Give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if
we can use your name and message on the air.
If you got more to say than can fit in
that voicemail, why not instead send us a good old
fashioned email. We are the.
Speaker 7 (48:36):
Entities to read every single piece of correspondence we receive.
Speaker 5 (48:40):
Be aware, yet not afraid.
Speaker 7 (48:42):
Sometimes the void writes back conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (49:05):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Fellow conspiracy realist. We are returning to you this evening
with episode a classic interview we did back in twenty
twenty with good friend of the show and personal friend
of ours, the legendary Payne Lindsay.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
Indeed talking about a super cool show called Radio Rental
you might be familiar with, where in Pain and his
team find incredible, weird stories on Reddit and various other
places and then recreate them along with input from the
actual people who lived these stories.
Speaker 3 (00:33):
Well, yeah, and it's usually the actual person telling you
a story in first person about what they went through,
and dang, is it cool. It's still one of my
favorite shows.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
Guys, all grounded by the wonderfully bizarre Terry Carnation. Let's
just address him like he's a real human, because he really.
He is portrayed by the incredible Rain Wilson, But boy
does he inhabit that character holy and it's impressive and
a lot of fun.
Speaker 1 (00:57):
We're a vast, we contained multitude. It can be more
than one person in once. That's where those guys have
some depth. So let's roll the.
Speaker 4 (01:05):
Tape from UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History
is riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now
or learn this stuff they don't want you to know.
A production of iHeart Radios How Stuff Works.
Speaker 3 (01:31):
Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
my name is Noela.
Speaker 5 (01:35):
They call me Ben.
Speaker 1 (01:36):
We are joined as always with our super producer Paul
Mission Controlled decad. Most importantly, you are you. You are here,
and that makes this stuff they don't want you to know.
This is a this is a special episode for us.
We're pretty excited about this. We have a returning guest today.
Today we're joined by our colleague, longtime friend of ours,
(02:00):
Paying Lensy. That's right, the CEO, co founder of Tenderfoot TV.
Speaker 5 (02:05):
Pain.
Speaker 1 (02:05):
People will recognize you as the creator and host of
podcasts such as Up and Vanished, The Atlanta Monster, and
your latest project, which is why we wanted to talk
to you today, Radio Rental.
Speaker 5 (02:19):
Thanks, yeah, thanks for being on the show man. Thank you, guys.
I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (02:23):
Ye yeah, yeah, we've been listening to Radio Rental and
with the lights on, well, well yeah for me to start.
For me, I actually try and get to the darkest
place I possibly can.
Speaker 2 (02:34):
I'd like to listen to it in my sensory deprivation.
Speaker 5 (02:36):
That's the best place.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Actually for me, it's in the car at night after
I've driven home from work, like it's getting late so
early now here in Atlanta where we are, by the
time I'm getting home, if it's like six seven something
like that, I'll sit in my car and keep listening
to an episode on purpose because the the show itself,
and we're going to tell you exactly what it is
(02:58):
after this, but the show itself has such an eeriequality
to it that it almost intensifies the experience. If you're
just alone in a car and it's kind of cold,
I don't know, I would.
Speaker 5 (03:09):
Spooky driveway moment.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
Well, the purpose there is to like in my mind
and for me personally, is to it is to enhance
the experience, like to to get a an even further
sensory experience from something right. And to my mind, what
Radio Rental does with the sound design and the way
the stories are told, it does give you this sensory
(03:33):
experience of being there in a lot of these things.
So let's let's let's start off by pain tell us
what Radio Rental is, you know, as an overview, and
then we'll start getting into some of this stuff.
Speaker 5 (03:44):
I mean, basically, at its core, Radio Rental.
Speaker 6 (03:47):
Is just weird bizarre stories, kind of an homage to
Are You Afraid of the Dark, And it's presented in
this weird way where Rain Wilson is playing this video
store clerk who works in this old kind of eighties
retro video store called Radio Rental. Radio Rental means it's
(04:09):
like British Cockney slang for mad or you've lost your mind.
Speaker 3 (04:13):
They'd say you've.
Speaker 6 (04:14):
Gone radio rental and rhyme yellow and British Cockney rhyming
slangs yea. And so it's my first anthology series where
each episode is a new story, and there's about two
to three stories in each episode, and they're all true stories.
They're all real stories, and it's the real people telling
you them. And so there's other stuff like this out
(04:34):
there where people do retellings of stuff, but we put
a lot of effort into actually going to make the
connection with these people, vetting them as much as we
could and flying out to them wherever the hell they are,
and sitting down and interviewing them and making this kind
of short story cinematic experience out of it.
Speaker 1 (04:53):
And there's a lot of work that has to go
on behind the scenes, right, like just for the process
questions before you get into some of the real spooky stuff.
How from germination of the idea, genesis of the idea,
to actually getting the first episode out? How much time
did you and your team have to put into, as
(05:14):
you said, finding these people, vetting them, and speaking with them.
It seems like it must have been a pretty involved process.
Speaker 6 (05:20):
It was like every other podcast I've made where I
was like, this is a cool idea, let's do this,
and then like a few months in, I'm going, this
is a lot harder than I thought it was gonna be.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yeah, yeah, And.
Speaker 6 (05:32):
So this was that on a whole new level where
I'm very reliant on these people to want to do
this with me, because I mean, I can have I
can find a really great story, but if that person
is not interested in telling me that story, or maybe
they are, but they sound really weird on the microphone
or whatever, right, So there's so many factors that I
(05:56):
can't control, which makes it kind of scary. Initially, I
was looking all over the place and I didn't really
even know where to find these types of stories or
really what was going to merit a radio rental story
to begin with. And I knew that in these first
batch of episodes that whatever stories we put out there
(06:17):
that is going to be what radio Rental is.
Speaker 5 (06:19):
It will always evolve from there.
Speaker 6 (06:20):
But I need to set the standard for what is
a radio rental story. And you know, it's not every
single story that you hear, it's not every scary story.
It's this kind of in between area where you know
you know it when you hear it, like you hear
another story. And if you've heard radio Rental at this point,
if you hear another story out there, you would know, Okay,
that's probably a radio renal story. And so I wanted
to kind of coin that term and really kind of
(06:42):
set the standard for you know, what you're experiencing and hearing.
It was very difficult just to kind of find these
people and make contact with a stranger on the internet,
with someone we heard user name, and convince them to
let me fly to where they are and meet them
in a hotel, tell and record them for my podcast.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
So let's dive in a little bit deeper to something
I was thinking of the entire time that was listening
to the show, which is out now and available wherever
you get your podcasts.
Speaker 5 (07:14):
Do you want to point that out?
Speaker 3 (07:15):
Yeah, the full first season, right is, it's.
Speaker 1 (07:18):
All out and this is so we don't want to
spoil too much of the specific episodes, but we do
want to talk about some of the things. And one
of the things that haunted me throughout listening is the
this subtle, this subtle play.
Speaker 5 (07:35):
Of fact and fiction.
Speaker 1 (07:37):
You know, this is a lot of this feels like
there's some modern folklore elements to it, sure, which is
why I love that you point out are you afraid
of the dark? You know there's this this this kind
of chilling campfire.
Speaker 5 (07:53):
It could be true element.
Speaker 1 (07:55):
These are true stories because you did find again, this
is the part we should emphasize pain You did find
real people who told you these stories.
Speaker 5 (08:05):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
Were there ever times where you felt the little line
between like fact or fiction sort of blurred or did
or was it always to you was always clear? Or
were there are times where you were like, I don't
know if I should be alone in a hotel room
with this person.
Speaker 6 (08:25):
Oh wow, I mean there's definitely this line of where
I mean, there's a few stories in there for sure
where you can't really rationally explain what happened, and just
kind of structurally with what I was trying to build here,
I wanted to have a good balanced mix of stories.
I didn't want to come at you with the most
unbelievable stories ever and just shock you where people are like, nah,
(08:48):
this is just like unbelievable stories. I don't believe any
of these stories. I wanted to hit you with a
real thing that happened, definitive from the beginning. And so
every now and then you get this little twist where
you're like, ooh, I don't know, like I don't know
how to.
Speaker 5 (09:04):
Don't I can't explain that, yeah, but I don't not
believe it.
Speaker 6 (09:08):
So and that's how I feel about some of these
stories where it's like in this line of I don't
know how to explain what happened, but I believe this person,
but like what happened, And so you're you're thinking.
Speaker 5 (09:19):
About it like scratching your hand, like what the what
the hell happened.
Speaker 3 (09:22):
I think there's a pretty good example of this in
that first episode that we actually got to hear a
sneak preview of a while back. But man, it it's
one of those that is a true story of something
that really happened for sure, and then the story itself
as it's being told and as it's kind of revealing
things as you go, you don't even really you don't
(09:44):
think like, maybe this isn't real, maybe this isn't and
then it hits you right at the end, Oh, this
is a true thing that occurred. I remember this from
the news. So let's talk about I'm just I'm calling
it the flight. I don't know what you called it
in the within the episodes, but we hear about this
man's extraordinary experience doing something very ordinary, which is just
(10:05):
taking a flight. You can you tell us a little
bit about that story?
Speaker 6 (10:09):
Yeah, I mean it starts off he's a kid at
the time, and he's flying from Paris to Miami. It's
in December of two thousand and one, and he was
very familiar flying. He flied, He's flown several times with
his brother and his dad was in first class and
his brother and him were in the back and mid flight,
all of a sudden, this flight attendant starts screaming the
(10:30):
word no. And obviously anyone's screaming on an airplane, Nope,
not a good thing.
Speaker 5 (10:37):
Even if they're screaming, Yes, it's still.
Speaker 6 (10:39):
Exactly even that, you're like, come on, give me a Yeah,
screaming on an airplane not a good thing. And so
eventually that escalates to even louder and he sees this
kind of scuffle going on, and all of a sudden,
someone passes up this fire extinguisher and hits this dude
(11:02):
in the middle square in the face, and he's like,
what the hell is going on here? Chaos just erupts
on the flight. Turns out there was a terrorist on board.
His name was Richard Reid. And this is right after
nine to eleven, so you can imagine being on that plane.
I mean, that would be terrifying as hell. And this guy,
(11:22):
Richard Reid, he was six foot four, over two hundred pounds.
He had a bomb in his shoes and he was
attempting to light it with this box of matches. And
the flight tenant saw this, probably assuming that he was
trying to smoke a cigarette or something, not light a bomb.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
Yeah, just to.
Speaker 6 (11:39):
Please, but that's ill too, you know, Yeah, sir, please
don't smoke a cigarette.
Speaker 5 (11:45):
And that escalates and she reaches for the matches.
Speaker 6 (11:49):
This guy bites her on the hand and it just
turns into a complete show on the plane, and eventually
they subdue the guy. Everyone kind of steps up to
be a hero, which is amazing, and they tie him
up with phone cords and belts and all kind of stuff,
and a doctor on board injects someone with a I
think he's dies a PAM or something, just to calm
him down, and they divert the flight. They landed and
(12:12):
SWAT team comes on board. All of a sudden, it's
all over the news and this is right after nine
to eleven. Absolute craziness. And this is literally why you
take your shoes off at the airport.
Speaker 5 (12:21):
Yeah, I mean yeah, they Richard, that was a real
dick move.
Speaker 3 (12:27):
Well, it's it's incredible to me because the people on
that flight had no idea how dire that situation was,
even though they saw that maybe he's trying to light
something on his shoe. That's weird. Why would he be
doing that, Like, let's not do that could be a bomb,
But he had C four in his shoe that would
have obliterated that play.
Speaker 2 (12:47):
Wait a minute, quick question. Can you detonate C four
with the match? Doesn't it require some sort of like
electric So he.
Speaker 6 (12:53):
Had a whole like, I mean, there's a picture of
his shoe online somewhere. They kind of gutted it, this
big black boot. And I mean he had some sort
of wiring system. I mean, there was a fuse He's
gonna light. I'm not sure exactly how it worked me.
It didn't work, thank god. I think they said it
only didn't work because his shoes were damp. One it
had rained that morning, and two he was just sweating,
(13:15):
just being nervous. I mean, it's crazy to think that,
like if they had gone off, the entire planets just
up in flames, and it's just no one lives right.
Speaker 3 (13:24):
Oh for sure.
Speaker 5 (13:24):
C four.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
I mean that'll take out like a like a whole building.
I mean, if you have enough of it.
Speaker 1 (13:28):
Yeah, insane, Yeah, C four Just for background, we don't
need to go into why I know this, but.
Speaker 5 (13:34):
C four, as we do, it's stable.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
It's stable enough that if you just put a if
you just put a match by the substance, or even
if you shoot it with a gun, it's not going
to explode. You do need that system that you just
described paying, which is the one of the scariest things
I think for people on the flight who were, of
course watching the news afterwards where they figured out, well,
(13:58):
sure this person clearly had some mental issues, but they
still had it together enough to build a shoe bomb.
You know, we joke about it now, but we only
joke about things like that because that was a real thing.
And to your point, Matt, one thing that stuck with
me about that is hearing the story. We're put in
the pov of that person and we don't know what's
(14:19):
happening either, and the way that the way that the
narrative plays plays out. I also had that moment at
the end where I went, you know, for lack of
a better phrase, I went, oh, I remember that actually happened.
Speaker 5 (14:36):
And that's that's something that had.
Speaker 1 (14:38):
Me thinking too, like when we talk about the fact
in fiction, and when you're talking about the emphasis you
put on having this like, let's have this demonstrably true
thing in the very from the jump, because now every
other thing that happens, we're all waiting for that moment.
Speaker 5 (14:56):
Where we go, oh wait, oh no, oh man. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
So I gotta say another thing that was I think
incredibly important about that first story is it's terrifying now
in today's age, how we have so it feels like
we have so many events like that that we start
to forget them, and we shouldn't. And so maybe the
(15:22):
best maybe the best way to uh, to impact people
with that or to get the best moral is the
one that you just so perfectly described, which is and
that guy's the reason we can't wear shoes on plane.
You know, I've looked.
Speaker 5 (15:35):
I'm still pissed at Richard for that. Yeah, me, absolutely, Look,
I don't even have laces. I have to catch a
flight later today.
Speaker 3 (15:41):
So it reminds me of that.
Speaker 2 (15:42):
Thing in Arrested Development, where like he's got the one
armed guy who always uses to teach his kids a
lessityes And that's why you always leave a note.
Speaker 3 (15:51):
I want to add really quickly here. There was a
twenty fifteen article I remember seeing an NBC, but I'm
not sure exactly who spoke with Richard read again, but
he expressed regrets, like tactical regrets about what he did.
Uh and I'm.
Speaker 2 (16:08):
Tactical, like you should have done a better job of blowing.
Speaker 3 (16:10):
Up the plane.
Speaker 5 (16:11):
And then he wished he did a better job.
Speaker 3 (16:13):
This is a crazy this is a quot friend says,
I do have some tactical regrets of a sort which
I won't go into here, but I don't regret losing
my freedom.
Speaker 5 (16:21):
Okay, dead eyed robot like Jesus.
Speaker 6 (16:24):
Physical, enjoy your males, Yeah right, enjoy your one hour.
Speaker 5 (16:29):
You can't go to Chili's anymore.
Speaker 3 (16:30):
So, Well, he goes on to talk about the Charlie
Hebdo thing, and he's like, no, I don't think that's
a tragedy. I think it's a tragedy that people can
belittle other people's beliefs in that way. Like, oh, okay, okay,
we'll move on then, thanks.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
We'll pause here and return to Radio Rental after a
word from our sponsors, and we're back. We can't really
spoil this show no matter what we talk, can Well
we are a little Yeah.
Speaker 5 (17:06):
Well that's where we're talking about one miss out.
Speaker 3 (17:08):
Now, Yeah, that's one episode in episode or that's one
story in episode one.
Speaker 6 (17:13):
Right, there's a lot of stories, and there's at least
two in every episode.
Speaker 5 (17:17):
Anthony is over a dozen in the season.
Speaker 6 (17:19):
So I mean, even when you think you've got it
figured out, you don't, because we're trying to confuse ourselves
while we're making this.
Speaker 5 (17:26):
Anyone, everybody's confused.
Speaker 1 (17:30):
One one story that stuck with me, that actually that
I went back and re listened to and thought about
for a few days is the story about the person
who keeps receiving messages as someone that's closer and closer
and closer to.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
How basically that like?
Speaker 1 (17:53):
I that that felt so black mirror esque. Yeah, you know,
and it feels like that's the other thing. I don't
want to be too repetitive, but that that's one of
the ones, especially where I thought I.
Speaker 5 (18:05):
Could really happen.
Speaker 1 (18:06):
I gotta go beef up my where is my phone
number on the internet?
Speaker 5 (18:11):
I need to watch out.
Speaker 3 (18:12):
Yeah, but that's also one of those things that feels
a lot like that folklore story that maybe we've heard before.
Speaker 5 (18:18):
You know what I mean, we're familiar calling from inside
the house.
Speaker 3 (18:22):
Yeah, well where you going in and interviewing the person.
It's like, uh, now, I you know, have to listen
to this story and be as objective as I can,
but ultimately just take have this person take me through
this story as clearly as clearly as possible. Sure, and
the way the way he tells it just great. Oh
god man, it's creepy.
Speaker 5 (18:43):
That's yeah.
Speaker 1 (18:43):
With that one especially, that's one of the tales where
I thought, and you know, like full disclosure, we all
know each other outside of the show as we do
like we we are actually friends. This is one of
the ones where I thought I should I gotta ask pain, like,
you know, maybe not in front of people were asking
(19:04):
me if I was an actor because that was really good,
and he was like, is.
Speaker 5 (19:08):
That a voice actor? I haven't asked you, but that guy, No,
he was great.
Speaker 6 (19:12):
I'm telling me he was. He was funny, he was
well spoken. I mean we actually it was Mike and
I who were in there. It was in Phoenix recording
this guy. I think after we recorded him, we're like.
Speaker 5 (19:23):
Do you do radio exactly? I mean, do you do podcasts?
Speaker 7 (19:27):
Right?
Speaker 5 (19:28):
But he's like no, but you know, I get that
a lot.
Speaker 6 (19:30):
And he's just kind of one of those guys who
was just I mean, he's the kind of guy who
would engage with the stranger, right. So he's kind of
you know, chipper and funny and just you know, just
kind of brightens people's days and says witty things and
you know, not afraid to say what he thinks.
Speaker 5 (19:45):
So, which is just that person.
Speaker 6 (19:47):
And he's well spoken, and he told it and what
I thought was a pretty comical way at times.
Speaker 5 (19:53):
Yes, but yeah he was. He was amazing.
Speaker 6 (19:56):
He's like, he was literally exactly what we were looking
for for this show. Mm hmm.
Speaker 1 (20:01):
And when we talk about the show, I guess one
of the things we should do a little bit of
quid pro quo clarice stuff here is we mentioned some
things that we we found, uh had a lot of
staying power with us as listeners. I have to ask,
and it's totally all right, there's no wrong answer here.
(20:22):
I have to ask, Man, is there any anything that
you that you covered or that you found while you
all were creating Season one that stayed with you? Like
anything that you know you left and a day, month
weeks later you said, man, I don't, I don't.
Speaker 6 (20:43):
Know there's Uh, there's actually definitively one story that really
bothered me.
Speaker 5 (20:50):
I don't like to think that I'm desensitized to any
of it. I think that I'm I like.
Speaker 6 (20:55):
To look at it as if I've just gotten better
at compartmentalizing this stuff. Sure, okay, but like there's very
few things that really scare scare me. I don't like
paranormal stuff just because I'm like I don't know how
to deal with that if that ever came into my house,
you know. But those kind of stories are also easy
to kind of write off if you don't believe in
that or something, So you know, they're not always the
(21:18):
scariest as some people. To me, the scariest story that
bothered me the most in the whole season was a
story called Laura of the Woods.
Speaker 5 (21:26):
Oh.
Speaker 6 (21:27):
I don't know if you guys heard this one, but
the basic synopsis is this kid, he's ten years old
in this small Indiana town and he's playing in the
woods by himself with his gi Jones, and all of
a sudden, he gets this overwhelming just feeling of fear
that someone is looking at him, someone's watching him out there.
Speaker 3 (21:47):
And there's this like three story house pretty close to them.
Speaker 6 (21:51):
Right there is there's this like house in the neighborhood
that's like I mean, they called it like the ghost
house or something. It was like the classic haunted house
also in the neighborhood that no one knows who lives there,
and you know, you never see him go in and now,
but you know someone's in there. Everyone knows everybody but
these people, right, And so he's playing by the creek
(22:12):
right outside of this house, and he gets this overwhelming fear,
a feeling of just fear, and he turns around and
he sees this girl who's standing there, and as he
tells you the story, your first thought is that this
is a ghost because it's so surreal. It doesn't make
any sense, right, this person's out there. She looks really weird.
She's younger, but she has this weird hair, and her
(22:35):
outfit doesn't really fit her right. But either way, he
becomes friends with her, and you're like, okay. And so
he spends several weeks that summer playing with her out
there in the woods.
Speaker 3 (22:45):
And like physically doing things with.
Speaker 6 (22:46):
Her on the swing and you know, just physically playing
out there in the creek.
Speaker 3 (22:53):
Even she showed him what a cigarette is.
Speaker 6 (22:55):
Right one day, she was like, hey, I want to
show you something. She took him to this tree and
she had carved her in am in it Laura. And
she put her hands a little hole in the tree
and pulled out this pack of marble red cigarettes and
taught him out of smoke. And he felt a little crazy,
like all bad, Oh man, I'm doing something real bad.
And she chiefed like ten cigarettes he smoked maybe a
(23:15):
half a cigarette.
Speaker 5 (23:16):
Probably coughed his gut stead bite puked afterwards.
Speaker 6 (23:19):
Yeah, but you know, he he became friends with this girl,
and you know, he told his sister about it, and
they're like, okay, they got a little girlfriend in the woods.
Speaker 5 (23:26):
Whatever.
Speaker 6 (23:27):
And then one day he went out there and she
was just gone, just nowhere to be found. Weeks went by,
months went by, never saw her ever again, and he
was like, what happened, you.
Speaker 3 (23:39):
Know, yeah, where did she?
Speaker 5 (23:40):
God, you move whatever?
Speaker 6 (23:42):
And she had told him that she lived in that
creepy house, right, she told him that he that she
lived there on the third floor, and that she was
an only child, and you know, she had a mom
and dad who lived with her too, but she was
the only child and she was homeschooled. So he thought, okay,
maybe she's back, and maybe she got in trouble or something,
or she's just back in her house. Anyway, school starts
back up again and he goes back to the public school,
(24:05):
and all of a sudden, that house, that creepy house,
it goes up for sale, and so everyone of the
neighborhood's like, I want to go see the inside of
this house, right, and he's like, mom, we have to
go in here.
Speaker 5 (24:15):
Also, I want to see if Laura's in there, right, like,
where's Laura?
Speaker 6 (24:19):
And so they go to this open house right and
the mother is giving the tour and he sees what
is obviously her dad and then what is obviously her
mother because it looks just like Laura, like almost exactly
like her in the face.
Speaker 5 (24:33):
So he's like, okay, there has to be your mom.
You know, where's Laura?
Speaker 6 (24:35):
And so they're going through the tour and then they
stop on the second floor and the lady's like, yep,
and that's the whole house. And he's like, I know
that there's a third floor because I know that's.
Speaker 5 (24:46):
Where Laura lives.
Speaker 6 (24:48):
And his mom asked the lady it was like, hey,
you know, like I'm so glad to finally meet you.
We've been here for years and we never knew who
lived here. It's you know, we're so curious. And she
was like, yes, sorry, we don't want to leave the
house much after our daughter died a few years ago.
Speaker 5 (25:06):
And he's like, holy shit, well what or who was
I playing with in the woods.
Speaker 6 (25:13):
And then the mom does this really creepy thing where
she looks at him and says, what's wrong, boy, It
looks like you've seen a ghost.
Speaker 5 (25:21):
And he's like, stop, chill.
Speaker 6 (25:25):
And so all of a sudden, his mom and his
sister both looking at him, like, what the hell have
you been playing with in the woods?
Speaker 5 (25:32):
Whatever is going on? You can't go out in the
woods anymore. You're in trouble.
Speaker 6 (25:38):
And so he said one time he broke the rules
and he did go back out there because he was
convinced that Laura was being held captive in the house,
that something bad was going on.
Speaker 5 (25:48):
It made no sense. There was no way it was
a ghost. The third floor makes.
Speaker 6 (25:53):
Sense, right, she was being weird, the ghosts comment, and
he physically touched her. He smoked the cigarettes with her, right,
And so he goes out there one day and he
looks up at the house and the mom's just on
the third floor looking down at him, just staring at him,
and he said, it scare the sh of him.
Speaker 5 (26:08):
And he never went back after that, And.
Speaker 6 (26:11):
So for decades he lived with this story where he's like,
you know, what the hell happened? He told a few people,
and then years later he was back in that same
property because one of his family members and his uncle
bought the property nearby, and so like they were out
there in the woods, very close to where that area
was in that house, and someone in his family just
(26:33):
brought up, hey, remember.
Speaker 5 (26:34):
The whole Laura the Woods story. He's like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
They're like, let's go see it, man, Let's go see
that tree.
Speaker 6 (26:41):
And says like, all right, whatever, And so he takes
his whole family over there, and as they kind of
wind through the woods, he sees the tree Laura carved
in it. He walks up to the tree, pushs his
hand in the hole, pulls out a pack of Marlborough's
Red cigarettes.
Speaker 5 (26:57):
Decades later, cigarette still in there.
Speaker 6 (26:59):
Wow. Everyone in his family's like, okay, this this is terrifying.
And he's like, okay, what was my childhood? What was
going on this whole time? And he said that weeks
later it was on his mind every day and he
was just having this really vivid nightmare one night and
he basically woke up and came to the conclusion that
(27:23):
he had this nightmare where he's walking through the woods
and then he saw Laura sitting on a bench and
then he like taps on the shoulder and she turns
around and looks at him, and she grabs her hair
and starts pulling on her hair and starts coming off,
and it's a wig. And it was literally the mother
the whole time, pretending to be a little girl in
the woods. And he's once he kind of snapped, I
(27:48):
guess into reality and realized what it was. He kind
of realized that he knew this all along, that he
and he was just somehow suppressing it or something. And
it was I mean, for decades it was a mystery.
But to me it was the scariest because it wasn't
a ghost. What's scarier than a ghost an old lady
(28:10):
pretending to be a little girl in the woods because
she's like snapped because or something out of grief or whatever. Right,
that's to me really scared me. And the guy was
so genuine. It's a real story, and just like the
way he was talking about it, I just that's the
one I just couldn't shake.
Speaker 5 (28:30):
I was like, this is just gives me the I
don't even know it was like.
Speaker 2 (28:34):
But it's like that wouldn't have been in the news
or anything. How do you find this guy?
Speaker 6 (28:38):
I found this story on Reddit and what's funny is
actually actually Mike found it on Reddit and it didn't
have that many likes even. It was just kind of
just buried in some subreddit I'm not even sure which one.
And I saw in the comments that some guy said, hey,
that's my story. You stole my story. This didn't happen
(28:59):
to you. I originally posted this on some other random
like band's website, like in their like forum, and so
we go to that, and sure enough, this guy posted
this story years earlier. This was like back in twenty ten,
this guy posted this, and I was like, what are
the chances this guy gets back to me? And sure
enough he did, and I was like, man, this is
(29:20):
like the scariest story ever. I hope he doesn't bail.
And literally he messed at the hotel and the first
thing he said was, hey, guys, not gonna lie. I
almost bailed in the lobby. I was like, dude, just
because he was like having second thoughts on should I
tell this story?
Speaker 5 (29:35):
Like should I? You know, is this dumb? I was like, no, man,
this is like, this is a genuinely scary story, and
I believe you. Let's tell it.
Speaker 6 (29:43):
I mean, like, that's the thing about you know, some people,
you know, if they're like doubters, might want to say,
you know, this story isn't true or you know whatever,
but like to be honest. On the other side of this,
the production side of this, most of these people were
very reluctant at times to tell all the details because
they are real stories and they're just like any other
(30:06):
interview subject to experience something scary, they're like, yeah, no
one's gonna believe me, or you know, it was a
horrifying experience that they're you know, cautious about reliving.
Speaker 5 (30:17):
You know, that's really what we're experiencing most of.
Speaker 6 (30:20):
The time, is like people being like, I don't know,
they're not just chopping at the bit to tell me
their story for radio rental, right, right, exactly, futal experience
that it's kind of scary, right Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:29):
And there's one there's one thing that I respect avenously
is I know that you and your team did did
a lot of fact checking too, like does this match up.
Speaker 5 (30:39):
With this chronology? Right? Absolutely?
Speaker 1 (30:41):
And what's interesting about Laura and the Woods in particular,
which goes to something that you mentioned, is this absolutely
this absolutely could happen, and until there is a crime
committed an actual crime, there's no there's no reason law
enforce would be involved. It's not there's not a law
(31:04):
against dressing up as your deceased child.
Speaker 5 (31:07):
Yeah, how would you write it?
Speaker 2 (31:08):
Yeah, let's take a quick break and have a word
from our sponsor and then back with more from pain lendsy.
Speaker 3 (31:21):
And we are back. Can I bring up a story
that it feels very similar to this to me. It's
one that's just titled ham and cheese, like it's it's
just a ham and cheese sandwich or whatever you exactly.
I was written terrifying, So it's a perfect it's a
perfect story for us to discuss on this show. It's
(31:42):
it's about a man who's working as a sandwich I
forget the title of it, but he makes sandwiches with
subway right, yes, and he's just at work one day.
He says he lives in kind of a CD part
of town, so people are a little cautious, but it's not,
you know, terribly scary out there. He's just at a subway, right,
and he's going about his every day. Some dude walks
(32:05):
in and I don't I can't remember exactly how he
describes him. All I remember is he looks. I think
he's got like dark dark features, like dark.
Speaker 6 (32:16):
He was middle Eastern, okay, and he said he described
him looking a little bit like him, not like exactly,
but kind of same kind of dark features, uh you know,
dark eyebrows, yeah, thing.
Speaker 3 (32:26):
And kind of a younger man. And the one thing
he really noticed was the man always kept his hand
in his like his waistband in the.
Speaker 6 (32:36):
Back, yeah, behind his back, kind of thumbing his waistband, Like,
what are you doing back there?
Speaker 3 (32:40):
Man?
Speaker 6 (32:40):
And he got this vibe when he walked into just
like just kind of instincts like something's not right about
this guy, Like, you know, is.
Speaker 5 (32:48):
There a gun behind his back? Is there a knight?
Speaker 2 (32:51):
Like?
Speaker 5 (32:51):
What is he doing?
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Yeah? And he's being really quiet and just you know
if he's going to say, if he says anything, it's
quick and and that's it. And the dude is super
nervous there making. He asked him, you know, what do
you want? The dude just says ham and cheese.
Speaker 5 (33:06):
Or ham and Swiss and Swiss, yeah, Swiss.
Speaker 3 (33:09):
And so you know, as a sandwich professional there, I
forget this artist. Sandwich artist artist, he's making the sandwich
and everything. And then he has to ask him, do
you want it toasted?
Speaker 5 (33:20):
Right?
Speaker 3 (33:20):
And there's this moment where he knows he's getting this
vibe off of this guy, like something's wrong.
Speaker 5 (33:25):
Is this going to be a robbery?
Speaker 3 (33:26):
Yeah, exactly totally, And he he has to ask him,
do you want it toasted? And he knows that to
toast it. If he does want it, He's got to
turn his back to the dude for a little bit.
Speaker 5 (33:35):
Wait, they toasted subway. I thought that was only quiz
exclusive man been toasting in California somewhere. This is in
La somewhere, Okay.
Speaker 3 (33:46):
So so he asked him this and the guy's just like, yeah, fine, whatever, Yeah,
toast it. So he turns around to do this thing.
Are our protagonist here is really really nervous and there's
nothing on this sandwich but bread, ham and Swiss, and
he just turns around to do He's like wrapping it
up to put it in the toaster, and for some reason,
(34:09):
his nerves get to him, everything gets to him, and
the sandwich falls, right, he drops the sandwcharps the sandwich man,
and it lands in a very certain, a very certain way.
Speaker 7 (34:19):
Right.
Speaker 3 (34:19):
It's almost like a pattern with this.
Speaker 6 (34:21):
Yeah, he just kind of like as soon as he
dropped it, which he'd never done in a thousand times,
and he drops the sandwich and like right as he's
dropping it, it's like time slowed down or something, and
this overwhelming rush of deja vu kind of hits him.
And so as the sandwich is falling and the way
the cheese landed, he was like really kind of taking
note of what it looked like and was like, just
(34:43):
had this dejau vu. I've been here, I've seen this
before a thing. And like right after he gets out
of his own head, he looks up because he's like,
oh shit, that guy's here. And he's just gone, like
not there at all. Didn't hear the door open or close.
Had only been a couple of seconds maybe, And his
(35:04):
first instinct is where is this guy? So he runs
out in the parking lot. There's not even a car
in the parking lot. There's nothing there. He even goes
around the corner. There's just no people around. Right now,
He's like, that makes no sense. How did that happen? Like,
I mean, I guess he ran. Was there a getaway car?
Speaker 1 (35:24):
No see in the restroom or something that would be
the only other option no.
Speaker 6 (35:29):
No, nowhere to be found. And he's like, okay, whatever, right,
weird enough, but it gets weirder, Yeah, because I think
it's a week or so.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
A little while out. Yeah, and he's back, you know,
at work doing his thing and here's the door open
and looks up and it's really strange because it looks
like pretty much the same guy but older. Yeah, like
really really similar almost, if not the same guy, but older,
Like yeah, discernibly older. Right, Yes, dude comes up ask
(36:04):
for a sandwich? What does he asked for?
Speaker 5 (36:06):
Ham and Swiss.
Speaker 6 (36:08):
He's got that same vibe to this, just kind of like, okay,
the same vibe that the other guy gave him as
soon as he walked in and then we said hamm
and Swiss. He's like, okay, what's going on? But I
mean also, you know, common sandwich. But then when he
noticed him thumbing in his waistband, yeah, he's like, oh,
you're kidding me, right, Like wow, what is this person doing?
Speaker 5 (36:29):
Is he messing with me?
Speaker 6 (36:31):
Is this it?
Speaker 4 (36:32):
Yeah?
Speaker 6 (36:32):
And so he gets to the part where he has
to ask him if he wants it toasted, and this,
to him is like the drum roll ultimate test. If
I'm gonna die or if this is just the weirdest
thing ever, if he says yes, I'm gonna die.
Speaker 3 (36:47):
Yeah.
Speaker 6 (36:47):
And so he asked the guy do you want it toasted?
And he's just like, nah, I'm good. And he's like, oh, okay, cool,
So he's good.
Speaker 5 (36:55):
It's all good.
Speaker 6 (36:56):
Is fine, and then he goes through the checkout process
and he goes it's kind of tangent about how and
I guess there's some tax or something in California if
you want it.
Speaker 3 (37:07):
Or for hot food.
Speaker 5 (37:08):
For hot food, if you wanted it toasted.
Speaker 3 (37:10):
It's been cooked. Basically, if you used energy in order to.
Speaker 5 (37:14):
Write cook the food, it's like ten cents or something.
Speaker 6 (37:16):
But they have a conversation about that, and then the
guy kind of gives him a snark remark back and
was like, you know, I would have paid the tax.
It's not why I that's not why I didn't it
come on, and he was like yeah, obviously, and so
he's kind of like whatever, and he pays for the sandwich,
and then he walks to the door and he's just
(37:37):
turns around and looks at him, and he kind of
gives him this all knowing grin, and he just says,
I still want you to drop it and then walks
out the door. It's like what and he said, it
literally just scared the out of it.
Speaker 5 (37:54):
Beautiful.
Speaker 1 (37:55):
And then, for a background for anybody who's not too
familiar with the Sandwich Change Subway, a lot of people
probably hearing this story, hearing Radio Rental and thinking, well,
doesn't he have co workers or something? Not really subway
is yeah, the subway is notorious for having one to
like a maximum of three people, you know, totally, totally,
(38:17):
So Souders said, you know, if I'm paraphrasing that, the
mark of a good story to him is that when
the story is over, you don't want it to end.
You want to know what else happens to the characters.
And that's one thing that I think is powerful about
this this story in particular, because like everybody listening now
to this episode, listening to Radio Rental is probably going
(38:40):
to say, well, what happened to la Sandwich guy?
Speaker 5 (38:44):
Is like, is he all right?
Speaker 3 (38:46):
So I wanted to pose it to you guys, like
for potential possibilities of what happened there, and we you know,
assuming that this is an absolute true story and it
happened the way this this person said it happened, right,
So is it possible that it's like like a father
and son who are incredibly similar and like the son
told him a story. What do you think? Is it
(39:09):
a time travel situation or is it a.
Speaker 2 (39:11):
Really elaborate kind of stalking kind of like troll kind
of situation that's him?
Speaker 3 (39:17):
Yeah, I don't know. Yeah, maybe, but why did he
look so different and so much older only a couple
of weeks later?
Speaker 1 (39:24):
And elaborate prank sounds a little Rube goldberg Ess for this,
a little like the mouse trap game. But the first
thing I had thought of was, you know, a familial
relation uncle son, father son, something like that, given the
age difference.
Speaker 2 (39:38):
But to what end though, I don't understand, Like, like
what what's the what's what are you accomplishing?
Speaker 1 (39:42):
We travel to La a lot man, that place is crazy,
that's a weirdo. Yeah, but that the familial relation could
also explain certain physical habits like tucking one arm back.
Speaker 5 (39:56):
Just a major coincidence, right, maybe maybe, but that's the thing.
Speaker 1 (39:59):
You know, that's uh, there are like we can we
can all rationally accept one to two coincidences, right, but
as a coincidence as they accrete over the course of
something with the similarities the sandwich, even though I think
(40:20):
we're all being pretty fair in our skepticism, Like you
pointed out pain, You're like, well, it's a common sandwich,
but they have they make many different kinds of sandwiches.
So we've got physical similarity, right, We've got physical similar mannerisms,
same sandwich. We've got what appears to be a reference
to the earlier situation.
Speaker 7 (40:42):
Right.
Speaker 1 (40:42):
One of the questions I would ask is did the
door ding when the guy opened it and walked out,
because we see him walk out. She remembers no sound
of the dan in the first time.
Speaker 5 (40:53):
Yeah, the first time. So yeah, I don't know. I
don't know.
Speaker 1 (40:59):
It's a it's a almost like trying to figure out
the nuts and bolts behind a magic trick.
Speaker 3 (41:05):
Right, Yeah, Yeah, I did have one printed question. He
is in California, Yep, A certain substance is legal there.
He is at work, Yeah, Like, were you high?
Speaker 5 (41:25):
He said he wasn't.
Speaker 3 (41:26):
Okay, okay, because that that moment, I'm not saying I
recognize this moment or identify with it, but the moment
of like something happening, like oh man, I just dropped
the sandwich I was making for somebody, and I watched
it hit the ground, And it's intriguing to me for
some reason or another. If in that state, I could
imagine that it takes longer than you thought, Like you
(41:47):
spend more time staring at the cheese than you thought totally,
and maybe you're like tuned out a little more. That
dude just like takes off and you're just like, oh man,
this feels weird. Wait where did that guy go?
Speaker 6 (41:58):
Yeah? Yeah, And this guy was totally willing to accept
that as what happened, right, He's not like this had
to be some ripple and time. He's like, you know,
rationally he's speaking. It was probably a guy who was
gonna try to rob him. In the beginning, he freaked
out and like didn't realize how long he looked at
the ground and was super nervous in his own head.
And the guy just darted out of there quickly and
(42:21):
just got the hell out. And then the next week
or two was just a super strange coincidence. And that
guy has no idea how much it terrified him, but
it was really kind of just the way that it
felt to him. It was like you know, and maybe
he just played it up in his head, because I mean,
the guy when he looked at him leaving the second time,
(42:43):
he just said he had this vibe, this feeling about
him where he's like, gotcha, you son of a bitch,
And he was like, it just felt like that to me.
Maybe that's in his own head, but like it was
really just the feelings and the way that like his
own sensory was kind of going on off, coupled with
all the coincidences and just the strangeness of it that
(43:04):
made him feel like maybe it was something more.
Speaker 5 (43:07):
Maybe it could be something more, but like what and
he doesn't know.
Speaker 1 (43:11):
Yeah, And I think that that ambiguity too, is a
huge part of it, because everybody has had We've all
had some moment in our lives where something at the
very edge of the map of things we can explain occurs. Right,
And you know, as people are listening to this episode,
we're probably hearing stories. As a matter of fact, you
(43:32):
know what, right to us, right to nol Paine, Matt
Paul and I with your own strange stories.
Speaker 5 (43:39):
Definitely.
Speaker 3 (43:39):
Yeah, are you guys still accepting stories.
Speaker 5 (43:42):
For the future?
Speaker 3 (43:43):
We are.
Speaker 6 (43:44):
We've had a bunch of amazing submissions. We have an
email if you want to send them. It's just your
Scary Story at gmail dot com. So if you have
what you think is your radio Rental story and you
want to tell it, then we'll see what happens.
Speaker 7 (44:00):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (44:01):
Yeah, okay, well, you know we're we're getting close to
time here. I do want to bring up just before
we close here, there are some stories in there about
real encounters with killers. Oh yeah, in in Radio Rental,
and I'm not going to spoil those because those are
some of the most impactful stories within the show, and
(44:22):
for me, we can. I just want to mention some
of the names. So, like, if you're interested out there
listening to this and you want to look up some
of these killers that I was somewhat unaware of before
listening to this. You guys touch on Mark Goodou, the
baseline killer.
Speaker 5 (44:41):
Yeah in Phoenix.
Speaker 3 (44:42):
Yeah, and there's a story in there that is so
freaking creepy.
Speaker 5 (44:47):
That's one of the scariest ones. I think.
Speaker 3 (44:49):
I completely agree. I mean, talk to you stop, okay, Yeah,
who was that, by the way, and who said can
I talk to.
Speaker 6 (44:59):
So the lady that I was interviewing, she was really
sweet and she had a great voice, and she just
went into the character and was like, yeah, I went,
you know, open the window, and.
Speaker 5 (45:12):
He just said can I talk to you?
Speaker 6 (45:15):
And so she that's her ddit and we just kind
of like altered her voice a couple of times to
kind of make it, but she whispered it several times in.
Speaker 5 (45:21):
Her interview and I was like, Wow, it was creepy
hearing her just imitate him.
Speaker 3 (45:26):
Yeah, that's not right, And that's a story. I don't
want to spoil any of that. It's just it's there's
another story about another serial killer that ends up getting
encountered in Baton Rouge, in Bad Rouge, where there's that
moment where this guy could have been picked up by
police that night. If things that would have gone one way,
(45:48):
he could have also killed this person's girlfriend that night.
And so when you think about just the concept of
multi universes, which we like to have talked about a
lot on this show, where all of these different things
are occurring, you know, somewhere out there within this realm
that the story that you have exists in this version
(46:11):
of our reality where again I won't spoil it, but
what happened happened in that story.
Speaker 5 (46:16):
Oh yeah, totally.
Speaker 3 (46:19):
It's crazy.
Speaker 5 (46:20):
So what our Pain and Matt talking about. We won't
tell you, but.
Speaker 1 (46:26):
You can learn for yourself when you dive into radio rental.
The first season is available in its entirety now wherever
you're listening to podcasts, wherever you found this show, probably
and we guarantee you it's a wild ride. Also, I
love that we mentioned this earlier. When I hit it again,
(46:48):
you may end up being part of a part of
the narrative in subsequent seasons.
Speaker 5 (46:57):
If that is, you have a story of your.
Speaker 1 (47:00):
Own and you email Pain and his team in the meantime.
Of course, Paint as always, thank you so much for
being so generous with your time. Man, Sure coming on,
It's always a pleasure. If you have not checked out
Up and Vanished, then do check it out. If you
haven't checked out Atlanta Monster, do check that out.
Speaker 5 (47:22):
Those are both available in their entirety.
Speaker 1 (47:24):
You can also check out uh, the the second iteration
of Monster Matt and are you okay if I if
I plug this.
Speaker 3 (47:33):
Yeah, sure, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (47:36):
It's a Monster Monster Zodiac which features our own Matt
Frederick in the.
Speaker 3 (47:43):
Yeah, it's called Monster the Zodiac Killer and last thing,
I'm just gonna go for it. Monster DC Sniper is
going to be out right now if it's if it's
early January, so go search for it and subscribe. It's
it's really great hosted by Tony Harris. He's a word
winning journalists. Okay, I'm done.
Speaker 4 (48:01):
Done.
Speaker 1 (48:01):
It's amazing and that's our classic episode for this evening.
Speaker 7 (48:07):
You can't wait to hear your thoughts.
Speaker 5 (48:08):
That's right. Let us know what you think.
Speaker 3 (48:09):
You can reach.
Speaker 2 (48:10):
You to the handle Conspiracy Stuff where we exist on
Facebook X and YouTube on Instagram and TikTok or Conspiracy
Stuff Show.
Speaker 3 (48:17):
If you want to call us dial one eight three
three std WYTK. That's our voicemail system. You've got three minutes.
Give yourself a cool nickname and let us know if
we can use your name and message on the air.
If you got more to say than can fit in
that voicemail, why not instead send us a good old
fashioned email. We are the.
Speaker 7 (48:36):
Entities to read every single piece of correspondence we receive.
Speaker 5 (48:40):
Be aware, yet not afraid.
Speaker 7 (48:42):
Sometimes the void writes back conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 3 (49:05):
Stuff they don't want you to know is a production
of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
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