September 2, 2022 • 47 mins
For decades, locals near England's B3212 spun a strange tale: a pair of disembodied hands might just take the wheel while you're driving -- and you just might crash. But how did this story come about? Why are so many people convinced they've encountered the infamous Hairy Hands? They don’t want you to read our book. They don’t want you to see us on tour.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission Control Decond. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. Uh. Today's episode begins with a
thank you shout out to fellow conspiracy realist Space Shift.
(00:47):
Space Shift, you reached out to hip us to a
strange story that we are, at least I, oddly enough,
have never heard of. You will most commonly hear this
refer to by the moniker Harry Hands. That is not
a self pleasure joke, but that is a little bit
(01:07):
of folklore, and that's what this episode is about. Let's
imagine we're on a road trip together. Here are the facts.
Also makes me think of like Charles Charles Dickens villain
Harry Hands, the evil manager of the orphanage um. But yes,
there are in fact facts Revenge of the Harry Hands. Uh.
(01:28):
So let's imagine we're on a road trip together. We're
in the UK, kind of in the center of it
really and heading on down through Devon. We don't know
much about it, to be honest about Devon, England, but
it looks gorgeous from Google Maps. Seriously, it looks incredibly gorgeous. Um.
(01:49):
And specifically you're in a place called Dartmoor and we're
riding on this road. It is titled if you look
at Google Maps B three to one two. Kind of
a weird name, right, yeah, like a mile marker. Just
sounds like an interstate right. Oh, yes's right, yeah that
just have different codes over there. But yeah, I think
that's right. Locally it is referred to as two Bridges Road,
(02:12):
which sounds like there maybe should be two bridges. Um,
perhaps that's the case. It's a little dull, centering, but good, good, important, yeah,
important to get these these names, these descriptives accurate. But
it's not boring. In fact, it's some very strange activity
of foot uh near those two bridges. Yeah that don't
(02:36):
let the boring name fool you. So this is in
the southwest of England. It's very easy to find maps
because you know, it's part of the road system. If
you pull it up, you're going to run into something
I really enjoyed, which are a bunch of very British names. Uh.
You'll see that B thirty two twelve runs from Moreton
(02:58):
Hampstead all the way to Yelverton and Yelverton think of
it as sort of a suburb of Plymouth. If you
take this route, if you go on a road trip,
as we are in this cinema of the mind, then
you will see that B thirty two twelve takes you
(03:18):
through some very rural areas rural for the United Kingdom
we mean, and you can drive for kilometers we should say,
or miles without running into another living person. This is
a very This is not London, nor is it the
City of London, which are weird to City of London,
(03:42):
so weird anyway, this is one of those like enjoy
the journey drives. There are probably quicker, more efficient ways
to travel if you are in a hurry. But if
you go down this stretch, and we do recommend like
in the maps, you're gonna see some really beautiful landscapes.
(04:05):
You're also true story, you're you're more likely to run
into livestock than you are another person or importantly another motorist.
But the thing about this stretch of road is back
at the turn of the twentie century, it became infamous
(04:25):
in England for the number of accidents that were occurring,
and journalists and people who considered themselves experts were pointing
out that it didn't make sense for road with this
low level of traffic to have this number of accidents.
(04:47):
So if you were traveling now, and if you call
some folks in the area like you did mat, then
you'll you'll see people are aware of this thing, even
this idea of harry hands or what we're ridg only
called unseen hands. Even back in twenty twenty two, um
folks have said that there's something odd right there in
(05:09):
their minds, in the minds of the true believers, the
math just doesn't add up. Think of the middle of
nowhere roads in your own neck of the Global woods, folks,
they have fewer accidents right in most cases than the
very busy roads right in Atlanta, Georgia. There is an
absolute death trap of interstate connections. I twenty and I
(05:35):
five go from like four or five lanes to one
lane to turn off, So it makes sense that there
would be more accidents there. But if you go outside
in the suburbs and you're talking about two lane roads
three lane roads, then there should be fewer cars and
there should be fewer accidents just because there are fewer variables.
(05:57):
But the locals at Dartmoor they think this road is haunted,
or some people I think this road is haunted. We're
gonna have a lot of some people in today's in
today's podcast. To your point, Noel, Yes, two Bridges Road
because the two bridges, there's also a community called post Bridge.
(06:18):
It's after the bridge. Yep, Yep, there's pre Bridge. Uh.
Slightly less interesting because they haven't the experienced the majesty
of crossing the bridge yet. Um, but yeah, I mean
that's right. Then there's the troll that lives under the bridge,
presumably the body that the hairy hands belongs to. But
(06:39):
we'll get to that. And Matt, you found it alternative
to this legend. But let's get to the original legends.
Where what are we talking about. We're talking about harry hands,
we're talking about ghosts, are talking about accidents being caused
by unseen forces. So let's let's go back to the map,
because this is not the entirety of the road. For
(07:00):
this is not We don't want you to think that
even the true believers are claiming the entire road is haunted.
That would be like saying the entirety of Root sixty
six or I forty or I is haunted. This is
a very specific stretch. So, uh, if you want to
(07:22):
play along at home, you can pull up the map
using your browser of choice and let's describe it. So
let's imagine you're in Plymouth p O Y M O
U T H which is uh in the southern part
of the stretch of road we're gonna be talking about,
and you're heading northeast on two Bridges Road or Bet twelve. Uh,
(07:46):
it's right by h MP Dartmoor by the way, which
if you look at on the map, guys, it's incredible.
It looks like a castle. There's this circular, huge circular.
It looks to be a concrete wall around owned the like,
I guess that's the police station. That's the h MP
would be uh local police, right, Yeah, it's Her Majesty's police.
(08:11):
Everything in England, as America's as Americans know, is h
M something nobody fact checked that. Yes, it is Her
Majesty's Police Dartmoor. Anyway, check it out in your map.
It's there in Plymouth, uh in Dartmoor, and you're gonna
head northeast on that two Bridges road until you hit
(08:31):
Post Bridge. It's only about five miles a five mile
stretch of road there, and on this road, that specific
stretch is where this legend takes place, allegedly, allegedly legend. Yes,
like any other road legendly a legendly a legend. Yeah,
like any other roadway. Accidents have happened here. Accidents have
(08:55):
happened on pretty much every road in the era of
the automobile or internal ushing engine, and they're likely gonna
happen again because cars are dangerous. Motor vehicles are dangerous.
Humans aren't really evolved to drive them. I say that
as a fan of um cars, if not humans. But
(09:15):
this case is a little different because the true believers
are claiming it's not speedy, it's not swerving, it's not
unfamiliarity with a vehicle or with landscape that causes accidents.
On thirty two twelve, according to folklore sources, I'll call
them the real cause of all these accidents is something
(09:38):
very much like a ghost. What are we talking about.
We'll tell you afterword from our sponsor. Here's where it
gets crazy. So if you love unsolved Mr Ree's, if
(10:00):
you loved all those time life books, and I love them,
I have an extensive collection, then you might have heard
of local legends like this. Today it's called Harry hands.
The story dates back, as we said, earlier, to the
turn of the twenty century. Sometime around nineteen ten, probably
(10:27):
more towards spring summer of nineteen folks started saying that
there was this pair of her hair suit, which is
just a fancy word for Harry disembodied hands that would
appear out of nowhere while you were driving or you
(10:48):
were on a bicycle. Didn't have to be it didn't
have to be a motor vehicle all the time. You
would be on a bike on this road, or you'd
be riding a motorcycle. You might be driving a car,
all of a sudden, out of nowhere, two hands, and
they have road rage, and all they do no known motivation.
(11:10):
All they do is grab the wheel and grab the handlebars.
Unlike other ghosts, they can affect the physical world and
they swerve you off the road and then they're gone.
That's like their things that they do. Um. Yeah, like
the Baba Booye guy. I can't said Babo that was
his whole thing, or like any number of of Rob
(11:33):
Schneider SNL characters that just like had the one line
in the one bit, or any of his movies even
were the one where he's the animal. You know, this
reminds me of those really creepy hands in Elden Ring. Um,
when you get to the castle of the School of
the castle outside of the Magic School, all of a sudden,
these giant, creepy crawley hands just kind of come at
(11:54):
you with weird rings and stuff, um, and they're terrifying.
I would, I would. Can you imagin all of a
sudden these like Harry hands appear and grab your your
handlebars or your wheel. Thank you? Yeah, no, thank you, no,
thank you very much. Uh, because you'd be in such
I would be, I'm sure as you would be in
(12:15):
such a crisis of this can't be happening, This can't
be happening, right, So then if you're steering wheel was
actually being manipulated in that moment when there's this supernatural
event occurring. How like, how are you going to react
to both things at the same time and make sure
you're safe or your passengers are safe. It's gonna be
(12:36):
tough for me at least. What's the motivation too that
that gets me? We'll we'll talk about this in a second.
So now these are known as Harry Hands, but they
were always known by that appellation. It's it's strange because
it's there. It's there. One thing, I don't think I
stuck the landing on the Baba Booey reference. I'm not
(12:57):
too familiar with Howard Stern, but the we know this
was considered a local oddity for about a decade, about
ten to eleven years, and every everybody in a smaller
town has some sort of story like this, you know
what I mean. Everybody's got a little bit of regional folklore,
(13:17):
a little bit of local uh a serving a smattering
of local legends. We would love to hear yours one
A three three st d W y t K or
conspiracy diheart radio dot com. But when you think about
this in the context of England and the United Kingdom overall,
this is a local oddity, right, It's not national news
(13:41):
not for the first decade. It doesn't have the chilling
appeal of something like Jack the Ripper or rumors about
the royal family. And I hate to say this, but
it wasn't more of a story space shift until people
started dying. This is where things take a darker turn
(14:05):
into June of there's a there's a place called Dartmoor
Prison at the time. There's a guy who's working there.
He's a medical officer. His name is Dr E. H. Helby,
and he's driving a motorcycle on what we call b
thirt this motorcycle as a sidecar. The governor of the prison,
(14:28):
basically the warden of the prison, has two daughters who
are writing with Dr Helbi and they're just they're just
two kids in a sidecar. And according to the story,
Helbi sees the hands but he encounters them under a
different name by the way, and he has just enough
(14:49):
time to warn these poor kids in the sidecar and
he yells jump out of the vehicle. You know, probably
not that articulate, he's probably just like jump and then
uh he is uh, he is thrown from the bike.
It swerves. The kids survived because they were able to
jump to safety. But poor Dr Helbeat dies instantly. This
(15:12):
is a tragedy, it's a human life, but it is
also not quite enough to prime the pump for the legend,
which is why we go just a few weeks in
the future, same year August. So this time there was
a young British Army captain who was known as a
(15:34):
motorcycle enthusiast. Is very experienced and had written for quite
some time. UM, and he had an account of an
incident that he experienced on the stretch of road. He said,
it was not my fault, believe it or not. Something
drove me off the road. A pair of hairy hands
closed over mine. I felt them as plainly as ever
I felt anything in my life, large muscular, harry hands. Uh.
(15:57):
I fought them for all I was worth, but they
were too strong for me. They forced the machine into
the turf at the edge of the road, and I
knew no more till I came to myself lying a
few feet away on my face on the turf. UM.
So you know, we had this death of this medical
officer weeks beforehand. Uh. This guy's telling this crazy story.
(16:19):
It starts to get some kind of I don't know
a hacky sort of yellow journalist wheels turning over in London, um,
and it starts to, you know, get a bit of
a water cooler conversation going, Well, let's talk about that
that that guy is an army captain. That guy is
not you know, he's not gonna be overpowered very easily.
(16:39):
And in this story that he's telling, like these things
were stronger than he could manage. That's intense stuff right there.
If you're talking supernatural strength of some sort, especially given
that there's no muscles connected to the hands. That I've
got to say that we know how long it took
for military personnel here in the States to be comfortable
(17:02):
even to a small degree talking about encounters they've had
with you know, U A p S. It strikes me
as a a little odd this guy would come right out
and say the story about these large, muscular, hairy hands,
you know, wrestling the moment, why not just cop to like, Oops,
I made I made a misque. It seems like a
really strange thing to come right out with and make
(17:24):
a statement around Well, let me give you some context
for this quote. And it's context I think gets ignored
when people are being a little bit overly credulous. The
folklore is evolving, and it has been evolving up until
two thousand and two. The let's get into this way.
(17:44):
A lot of the attention that gets focused on this
comes from journalists, writers like Mr T. Gifford. In October,
just a few months after this one guy survives, Gifford
goes to the area and he is aiming to investigate
(18:07):
three motor vehicle accidents which are apparently inexplicable in this vicinity.
I would I would argue that the fact, the fact
that our unnamed captain survives to talk about his experience,
whether or not he's being honest, whether with himself or
with others. Uh, that is more compelling to these journalists
(18:32):
than a death right, because the death is is one
story unless they have extenuating circumstances. Um. So this guy
is investigating this stuff. But here's why we have to
unpack this quote. At the time, people in Dartmoor as
well as London are not calling this Harry Hands just yet.
It's like that um, poor girl who was on that
(18:55):
child pageant show and is now called honey Boo boo
because she had to catch raise. Someone was being a
producer about this and they picked up the phrase harry hands. Originally,
this phenomenon was called unseen hands, which means that people
were encountering a sensation of something taking the wheel, not
(19:19):
a visual experience of something taking the wheel. If we
go back to that quote from that Army captain, we
see I don't want to be too synesthesia or sensory
of sensual. I'm using that correctly here, But he doesn't
describe seen anything. If you think about it, he describes
(19:46):
fighting a force. If you have ever been in a
vehicle without power steering, I would pose it, then you
have fought your own pair of unseen hands. And because
of this, this is where this is where the telephone game,
you know, really came into play. Because I think most
people when they're hearing about the story, they're thinking, you know,
(20:09):
the way cooler visual version, right, You're thinking like these
crazy yeah, crazy, like uh, what's that guy's name? The
bad guy and Popeye Blue do Brutish Yeah yeah, but
(20:30):
you know you're that's the cool idea. We're thinking of
those hands being there going over yours, you know, like
an evil version of Jesus take the wheel. But that's
not really what people were describing initially, that's not what
sparked the hysteria. That's not what what put the gas
(20:50):
in the folklore. And even if you look back at
the contemporaneous reporting, communities in the area like people were
naturally uh, just asking locals for their opinion, and um,
very various people who are like hilariously old salts, a
(21:11):
lot of curmudgeons in this area. At least when Gifford
was interviewing them, they gave quotes that indicated they were
very skeptical. One guy says, I've known them all my
life and this is the first time I've heard about
ghost It's too ridiculous to talk about. We've got another quote.
I only pulled two I found like and they're all
(21:35):
They're all people saying they think it's malarkey. I've been
traveling this road for eighteen years and I've met with
nothing worse nor myself. And I've written in fogs, no storms,
and all sorts of weather. It's all damn rot to
talk about ghosts. I love rot. That's great. Uh. Sorry,
I just had to go a little bit. You know,
you went with the area dight British voice. I had
(21:57):
to go with the Cockney um, but yeah, I mean
there's incredulity of bounds, and it does seem like a
lot of the sort of more hacky journalist that kind
of picked up the story, uh maybe for their own
ends in terms of like creating a sort of this
air of of the supernatural around this place are kind
of what got the conversation started. One in particular, guy
(22:19):
named Rufus Endell. Right then, Yeah, Rufus Endell uh is
an author who has written about this in related cases.
And Rufus is one of the many people who claims
they've gone to investigate and run and run across these
ghostly hands themselves. Ingle is interesting to me because he
(22:45):
is quoted by another author, a guy named Michael Williams,
who wrote a book called Supernatural Dartmoor. Full disclosure, I
haven't read the whole thing. I don't know about you guys,
but Williams claims that this guy Rufus Ingle, who is
investigating this case, he ran into the hands, he had
the encounter with the hairy hands. And he didn't just
(23:08):
describe running into this and successfully avoiding and crash. By
the way, he begged this other dude, Williams not to
publish the story. Don't tell anyone, he said, until after
I have died, because, just like we foreshadowed it earlier
in this episode, just like a lot of pilots, he's
(23:32):
terrified of not being taken seriously. So he is taking
this Harry Hands story to his grave and it will
be revealed after his death, if you believe Michael Williams,
which means that you also have to ask yourself if
you believe rufus Endel, you have to ask a lot
about belief with these things. And this way, I think
(23:55):
we pause and put our own hands on the wheel.
See if we can swerve this story a bit, we'll
be right back. So for a little bit of a tangent,
a little bit of a diversion in the road trip
(24:16):
of today's episode was in a conversation earlier yesterday about
the theme song of the original Ghostbusters. You know I
Am afraid no it ghosts right? Uh? What genre is
that song? Well, um, it's funny. I forget the guy's
(24:38):
name that composed or that's the joke there. I guess
that wrote that version. But it was such a close
copy of I Want a New Drug by Huey Lewis
and the News that. I believe the courts decided that
every royalty for that song, uh ever paid out would
go to Huey Lewis in the news. Um, but it's
it's it's kind of future funk, eighties kind of punk.
(25:00):
I guess it's ghost Corps. I like both of these.
I like, I'm gonna start telling people that I'm gonna say, guys,
I only listen to Ghost Corps Future funk. Do you gut?
Do you have any of that at the waffle House jukebox? So,
as a matter of fact, we do, and it's about
(25:21):
waffle House. So there is an ulterior motive for talking
about the Ghostbuster song because of the evolution that song
went through, which you describe very well. No, Uh, we're
seeing a We're seeing a spin on ideas, right, pre
existing ideas, agglomerations, accretions. The story of the Unseen or
(25:46):
Hairy Hands follows a model of putting a spin on
a longstanding trope. You don't have to read the entirety
of Joseph Campbell, you know, I have to sit through
A Hero with a thousand face is, which is a
good book, Uh, to know that there are a lot
of basic story elements that haven't changed for millennia. One
(26:08):
of those is a stranger ill met on a journey.
This similar to legends like a ghostly hitchhiker. I I
posit that over time, over um, over the past century,
the hairy hands story became very much like an agro
(26:28):
ghostly hitchhiker. Again, the hairy hands don't They're not like Loudon.
They don't have uh complex, uh complex past leading them
to this idea. None of the legends, and I don't
want to speak for you, guys, none of the legends
I could find described a plausible origin of the hands
(26:48):
as an entity. Wasn't there one about a minor? There
was a the hands were on a pick axe because
there was a minor that has hands chopped off. Well,
that came eater, No, No, that came. That came like exactly.
That's the thing when when I'm saying, like, if you
look back in the nineties twenties, those stories aren't around.
(27:09):
They come later, like they come after the report. And
I saw one um where there you know, it was
very There are a couple of versions of a kind
of vague one where it's like this guy died in
a in a car accident, or in a vehicle accident
in his fancy new automobile, sipping the Devil's juice gasoline,
(27:33):
and because he died, he doesn't want anybody else to
have a good day. Can you tell us more about
the minor thing or where the pick axe came from?
I just remember when we got the we got the
email in from what What's Who's what's the person's name?
Space Shift, space Shifts, space Shift. I looked at it and, oh, man,
(27:56):
I don't know if it was something that space Shift
sent to us, or it was just something in that
initial days research that I swear to you, I can't
find it right now that we're talking about it, but
it was. It was a story that was just on
one of those websites that you know, it's like run
by an individual or a small group of people, and
it had a story in there about a minor that
(28:17):
was punished for one reason or another and the guy,
the individual had very her suit hands and they were
removed from from his body and they were found like
still attached to at the have at the entrance to
this mind, they were still attached to a pick axe.
H Now, of course, see not that's just me making
(28:38):
up a legend that it's just maybe it's from a
completely different story. I'm just pulling into this, So give
me one moment. I guess we see how easy it
is to do that, though, I mean, uh, you know,
I immediately thought of candy Man, you know, the idea
of this wronged individual, you know, coming back to seek
revenge on those perceives to be in some way involved
in the person's misfortune. You know that that's sort of
(29:00):
the core of a legend like this, And so it's
really easy using local kind of colloquialisms and details of
region to kind of fill in the gaps, you know,
because it's kind of fun to do, even if it's
not in the best of faith. You know, a lot
of times these stories do just become campfire stories, and
that's how they evolve, because that's what stories do. But
(29:22):
I think to your point, Ben, it is hard to
find the nugget of you know, truth that led to
these reports. And I keep coming back to this kind
of yellow journalism of like it appearing once in like
a National Enquirer esque kind of publication, and then it's
something fun for people to talk about. Yeah, as the
story evolved over time, people started, you know, winding up
(29:46):
for the rumor mill. That's why you can find all
these claims that are attempting to retro actively explain this phenomenon.
But again, the part of the story, the part of
the legend that people are missing in this evolution of folklore,
is that Harry Hands originally described a sensation feeling a
(30:11):
pair of hairy hands on you fighting for control of
the wheel. These hands were unseen, right, there were hidden hands,
and uh, folks forgot that because in the mind, the
image of disembodied hands just floating around, cut off at
the wrist, ruining your day, that's just more compelling, you know,
(30:34):
It's very ghostbusters. And for being honest, we cannot explain
the entirety of the legend other than pointing to some
of those plot twists, which are very, i think, very
well trod patterns. Someone went with the cooler story and said,
don't let the facts get in the way. Right, I've
got I've got an article, do you know? At four
(30:58):
thirty or whatever they did, they went for the yellow journalism.
If it bleeds, it leads um And we know that
the story evolved over time because people want to participate
in these stories right, um, that you had called some
folks in the area and they do you want to
talk a little bit about what their takes are? Do
(31:20):
you want to save that? Yeah? I I called three
places called the Cherry Brook Bed and Breakfast and self catering.
I don't know what that means. Self catering. They make
the food there, they make the food themselves. Like that's
weird one. I guess it's just for me that implies
that you would be responsible for their own MUTI maybe
(31:44):
it's like a buffet, you know. I don't know. Maybe. Well, well,
I talked to Sue there, and I've got to quote
from Sue. She said, the little bridge about a mile
from here, and that's the two bridges that we were
talking about, Noel. There's two bridges kind of like this,
two little roads that kind of go around. Um, and
(32:05):
she says, legend has it when people pass over the
bridge at night, a pair of hairy hands grabs the
steering wheel and pulls you off the road. So yeah,
she just stated what the legend is that we're aware of.
And in each of these cases, guys, I asked, first,
are you aware of something a legend called the hairy hands?
And then could you describe it in your own words,
(32:25):
just to see how a local would say it, you know,
like in the Netherlands, have you heard of the Hague?
Have you heard of the US? Are you worried they're
you know what I mean? Just how would you describe
the relationship? Right? Give them a decision tree, keep it unbiased? Yeah. Um.
So then I decided to call a pub and I
(32:48):
thought this would be interesting because I figured, if you've
you know, got a few pints in you and then
you are either traveling as a passenger or a driver
along that stretch of road, maybe this legend is more
at the forefront of your mind or maybe you'd be
um more easily influenced to imagine something like that is happening. Right,
(33:10):
So talked to Abby at the Prince of Wales Pub,
which is in Princeton, and Abby said she's aware of
the legend, but she was talking to uh, quote an
anonymous local legend at the pub, so like a regular regular.
That regular described it as quote it comes out on
(33:31):
a dark evening when driving home from a pub or whatnot,
grabs hold of the steering wheel and takes you off
the road, which is interesting to me. You're driving back
home from the pub again like, okay, I can imagine
your chances are increased in experiencing the unseen or hairy hands,
or maybe you just look down you're like, oh those
(33:52):
are harry hands, my under my hands. Yeah. And then
last one Kate at Two Bridges Hotel, which is um
right there at those two bridges, like literally at the
two bridges that we were talking about here, Kate says,
now this is different from what I heard at school.
(34:14):
She was a bit younger, by the way, when walking
at a certain time of night or if the fog
was right, the two hands would come up from under
the bridge and grab your feet. Then you you were lost.
So this legend of the hairy hands has more to
do with the two bridges that are there and one
of the older bridges that if you walk across the
(34:36):
night you're you're and has nothing to do with driving.
Has nothing to do with an unseen force taking over.
It's like and under the bridge creature. That's interesting to
me to know. Whence the one that stood out to me? Um, okay,
So a couple of things. First, self catering is like
a better Airbnb. Uh, it's you know, you Okay, imagine Airbnb,
(34:58):
but also you have the mean is to make your
own meals. Like maybe they put stuff in the fridge
for you. You know, you've got stuff in the pantry.
Maybe it's just you have a microwave. You know, your
mileage may vary, folks, just like this story. What happens
with a lot of these things, based on patterns of
(35:19):
human behavior is that elements from earlier legends get recycled, reused,
remixed into newer legends. So again, you know, shout out
Joseph Campbell, the idea of the monster under the bridge, right,
(35:39):
the monster under your bed? Uh? This this makes sense
that it would occur in a school environment, people would
tell that version of this story. And our our question
then is for this iteration these kinds of legends, why
(35:59):
is on the road right other than other than one
story that you found, There's there's no one saying you
can just walk on B thirty two twelve and then
a pair of harry hands, will you know, grab you
by the shoulders and spin you around until you're dangerously dizzy.
You have to be in a vehicle for the vast
(36:20):
majority of these stories. Uh, And that that I think
is interesting because motor vehicles first start appearing on British
roads in early nineties or so. But when I say appearing,
they're appearing the way that um PS five's appeared during
(36:43):
the pandemic. You know what I mean. They're not super common.
No way a better uh oh, you know what a
better example is. They're appearing the way space travel appears
in the nine sixties, Like you know, people do it.
You probably yourself have not been on one because you
(37:05):
know they're like twelve people who have been on one
and you're not one of that dirty dozen. So motor
vehicles aren't very common. And even if you go forward
a couple of decades, when this story occurs, or when
it really hits its genesis, you see that motor vehicles
internal combustion engines are still kind of new to the
(37:27):
common people. They still had that new car smell for
lack of a better phrase, and I know I rolled
my eyes tone. This means that the drivers are unfamiliar
with what's happening. This is a new thing, and this
new thing means um that stuff you would have dismissed
(37:49):
earlier now gets reconsidered. Right, cars are magic, and you
can't blame people in the early for thinking so been
would these roads have been retrofitted for motor vehicle travel
or would these have been like older roads that have
been around since, you know, before the advent of the card.
(38:10):
It feels to me like it would have been the
second one. Yeah, it's the ladder for you nailed it. Yeah,
they're not What what do you do remake all the roads?
That's why older cities have those narrow lanes. Yeah, that's right.
And so there's that the unfamiliarity like you mentioned. And also, Matt,
I don't think it was you know, for nothing that
(38:30):
you called a couple of pubs and and and bread
and bed and breakfast type situations. I mean, you know,
if you're drinking coming home from the pub, you're a local.
That's I wouldn't be surprised if that's when some of
these accidents took place. I'd love to see, like how
many pubs are there in the area, and what was
the trajectory to those, you know, for these people that
(38:50):
that that had these you know, these motor vehicular incidents. Yeah. Oh,
and to be fair, I did call the Dartmoor Preservation
an association first, then the Princeton or Princetown Community Center,
and both of them were closing up around four pm
local times, so they did not answer. And let's humanize
(39:12):
a little further. If you have ever been in an
automotive dust up yourself, folks, you know that most people
don't go out of their way to acknowledge when something
is their fault. Most people are I like to think
that many people will do the right thing. Um, your
(39:34):
insurance company will tell you not to. By the way,
don't apologize, don't get out of your car and say
I'm sorry or anything. It's an admission of guilt, right, right,
That's exactly it. But so most people aren't going to
say it is not just human error, it is my
error placing the blame on something else or someone else,
(39:55):
even if that is a ghostly again, non visual force
that I keep sticking on that it's not visual. The
people who are telling the original story did not see hands,
they felt them, and that's getting missed. Look, it's just
really attractive to say like, hey, it's not me, it's
(40:16):
something else. Right, I am a bystander, I'm a victim here, right,
not a perpetrator. And if you're on the skeptical side,
of the spectrum. Then you know you doubtlessly agree, fellow listener. Uh,
there's also there's also some engineering here that I think
adds to the case, adds to the skeptical nature I
(40:37):
I think we can say, I don't know. Let me
let me present this case, and you guys tell me
what you think. The culprit the origin of the hairy
hands maybe a combination of high speed vehicles, right, the
(40:57):
likes of which had not been seen before in this
part of the world, and engineering to to the earlier
point about roads being built for different forms of transportation
in this day, this road, it's a narrow country lane
and it's got these high walls sides. If you've ever
(41:18):
seen a race track or like a bike track, then
you'll see that at times this road has a lot
of what's called cambers C A, M, B, E R.
That's the tilt you see on those things. That's why
your local race track isn't isn't a flat surface to
get a weird angle to it. So you're going faster
(41:39):
than you've ever gone before, and the road is got
this weird tilt. These different lanes right, and you are,
you are turning, you're following the lane all of a sudden,
unseen force happens. That just might be that just might
be the tires and the road, uh negotiating, right, And
(42:02):
if you are unfamiliar with this stuff, then it feels
very much like someone is negotiating against you. Who whose
hands are these? Why are there other hands pushing against
me on the steering wheel or the handlebars? That I
think explains a lot of it. And I wish, I
(42:22):
wish that there were explanations of visual hands, but they're
just not there in the original stories. It's a force, Yeah,
I think. I think that's probably the most skeptical, realistic
probable thing ben that because of how the unseen forces
described and because of the physical forces being exerted on
(42:43):
each other. I love that negotiating with the the tires
and the the track or the road or whatever. Um.
I want to present you guys a one more possible explanation,
just because of the introduction of large, heavy metal, metal
vehicles other than horses and buggies and other things like that,
(43:03):
what if there's a an anomaly of sorts that's occurring
right in that stretch of road that is magnetic in
nature and is pulling upon these vehicles in a way
that you know is unseen. Guys. Huh huh, A giant
fridge magnet. It's interesting, you see that, because there was
I swear I was thinking about this, and I I'm
(43:26):
not around, I'm you know, saw on the road, so
I haven't looked into it. But there was an account
I read many many years ago where a person claimed
to have prevented a bunch of accidents on a haunted
stretch of road by taking a box of copper stars
(43:50):
the metal copper popped into these star shapes, and burying
that box in a specific area where these road act
incidents were occurring. I'm gonna find this if you can
beat me to it. Folks, please right in, because this
is poor choice of words. This is haunting me for
a bit, the magnetism thing, though I like it, and
(44:13):
I want you to know there's there are other there
are people who have argued something very similar. Man, I
don't know if it was for this, though. I've got
to figure it out. So here's the alternative. Right, you've
just you just ate some pavement, right, You made a
rookie mistake. You were not quite the evil Kinevil you
thought you were. Are you going to tell people I
(44:36):
honestly overestimated my abilities. Are you what would you do
to be not embarrassed? Because it looks like in a
couple of cases, if you know about the local legend,
some folks have decided to say it wasn't me, it
was the hands. Yeah, I can imagine the army captain
doing that specifically, just that that would be embarrassing, right,
(44:59):
and that as in a crasher motorcycle. I think I'd
be more embarrassed to say that it was disembodied hairy
hands though, to be fair, Yeah, I mean, and he
may have even just been described Yeah, no, I'm with you.
He may have even just been describing the sensation and
someone took him literally, you know what I mean, like
(45:19):
he he may have Think again, back to journalism, a
little bit of editorial, a little bit of editorial parkour,
and you can you could just remove the phrase as
if it felt as if a pair of hands and
now you just put a pair of hands grabbed me.
(45:41):
We hope you enjoyed this episode. Shout out to anybody
who's encountered a road like this, really into haunted roads
right now. I don't know about you, guys, love to
hear about your haunted roads. We'd love to hear about
your experience with unseen forces, and we try to make
it easy to find us online. Boy do we ever?
(46:03):
All over the internet. We are I don't know why
I'm talking like Yoda, but just the same. We are
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(46:24):
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(46:55):
is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts
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Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:25):
My name is Matt, my name is Noel. They called
me Ben. We're joined as always with our super producer
Paul Mission Control Decond. Most importantly, you are you. You
are here, and that makes this the stuff they don't
want you to know. Uh. Today's episode begins with a
thank you shout out to fellow conspiracy realist Space Shift.
(00:47):
Space Shift, you reached out to hip us to a
strange story that we are, at least I, oddly enough,
have never heard of. You will most commonly hear this
refer to by the moniker Harry Hands. That is not
a self pleasure joke, but that is a little bit
(01:07):
of folklore, and that's what this episode is about. Let's
imagine we're on a road trip together. Here are the facts.
Also makes me think of like Charles Charles Dickens villain
Harry Hands, the evil manager of the orphanage um. But yes,
there are in fact facts Revenge of the Harry Hands. Uh.
(01:28):
So let's imagine we're on a road trip together. We're
in the UK, kind of in the center of it
really and heading on down through Devon. We don't know
much about it, to be honest about Devon, England, but
it looks gorgeous from Google Maps. Seriously, it looks incredibly gorgeous. Um.
(01:49):
And specifically you're in a place called Dartmoor and we're
riding on this road. It is titled if you look
at Google Maps B three to one two. Kind of
a weird name, right, yeah, like a mile marker. Just
sounds like an interstate right. Oh, yes's right, yeah that
just have different codes over there. But yeah, I think
that's right. Locally it is referred to as two Bridges Road,
(02:12):
which sounds like there maybe should be two bridges. Um,
perhaps that's the case. It's a little dull, centering, but good, good, important, yeah,
important to get these these names, these descriptives accurate. But
it's not boring. In fact, it's some very strange activity
of foot uh near those two bridges. Yeah that don't
(02:36):
let the boring name fool you. So this is in
the southwest of England. It's very easy to find maps
because you know, it's part of the road system. If
you pull it up, you're going to run into something
I really enjoyed, which are a bunch of very British names. Uh.
You'll see that B thirty two twelve runs from Moreton
(02:58):
Hampstead all the way to Yelverton and Yelverton think of
it as sort of a suburb of Plymouth. If you
take this route, if you go on a road trip,
as we are in this cinema of the mind, then
you will see that B thirty two twelve takes you
(03:18):
through some very rural areas rural for the United Kingdom
we mean, and you can drive for kilometers we should say,
or miles without running into another living person. This is
a very This is not London, nor is it the
City of London, which are weird to City of London,
(03:42):
so weird anyway, this is one of those like enjoy
the journey drives. There are probably quicker, more efficient ways
to travel if you are in a hurry. But if
you go down this stretch, and we do recommend like
in the maps, you're gonna see some really beautiful landscapes.
(04:05):
You're also true story, you're you're more likely to run
into livestock than you are another person or importantly another motorist.
But the thing about this stretch of road is back
at the turn of the twentie century, it became infamous
(04:25):
in England for the number of accidents that were occurring,
and journalists and people who considered themselves experts were pointing
out that it didn't make sense for road with this
low level of traffic to have this number of accidents.
(04:47):
So if you were traveling now, and if you call
some folks in the area like you did mat, then
you'll you'll see people are aware of this thing, even
this idea of harry hands or what we're ridg only
called unseen hands. Even back in twenty twenty two, um
folks have said that there's something odd right there in
(05:09):
their minds, in the minds of the true believers, the
math just doesn't add up. Think of the middle of
nowhere roads in your own neck of the Global woods, folks,
they have fewer accidents right in most cases than the
very busy roads right in Atlanta, Georgia. There is an
absolute death trap of interstate connections. I twenty and I
(05:35):
five go from like four or five lanes to one
lane to turn off, So it makes sense that there
would be more accidents there. But if you go outside
in the suburbs and you're talking about two lane roads
three lane roads, then there should be fewer cars and
there should be fewer accidents just because there are fewer variables.
(05:57):
But the locals at Dartmoor they think this road is haunted,
or some people I think this road is haunted. We're
gonna have a lot of some people in today's in
today's podcast. To your point, Noel, Yes, two Bridges Road
because the two bridges, there's also a community called post Bridge.
(06:18):
It's after the bridge. Yep, Yep, there's pre Bridge. Uh.
Slightly less interesting because they haven't the experienced the majesty
of crossing the bridge yet. Um, but yeah, I mean
that's right. Then there's the troll that lives under the bridge,
presumably the body that the hairy hands belongs to. But
(06:39):
we'll get to that. And Matt, you found it alternative
to this legend. But let's get to the original legends.
Where what are we talking about. We're talking about harry hands,
we're talking about ghosts, are talking about accidents being caused
by unseen forces. So let's let's go back to the map,
because this is not the entirety of the road. For
(07:00):
this is not We don't want you to think that
even the true believers are claiming the entire road is haunted.
That would be like saying the entirety of Root sixty
six or I forty or I is haunted. This is
a very specific stretch. So, uh, if you want to
(07:22):
play along at home, you can pull up the map
using your browser of choice and let's describe it. So
let's imagine you're in Plymouth p O Y M O
U T H which is uh in the southern part
of the stretch of road we're gonna be talking about,
and you're heading northeast on two Bridges Road or Bet twelve. Uh,
(07:46):
it's right by h MP Dartmoor by the way, which
if you look at on the map, guys, it's incredible.
It looks like a castle. There's this circular, huge circular.
It looks to be a concrete wall around owned the like,
I guess that's the police station. That's the h MP
would be uh local police, right, Yeah, it's Her Majesty's police.
(08:11):
Everything in England, as America's as Americans know, is h
M something nobody fact checked that. Yes, it is Her
Majesty's Police Dartmoor. Anyway, check it out in your map.
It's there in Plymouth, uh in Dartmoor, and you're gonna
head northeast on that two Bridges road until you hit
(08:31):
Post Bridge. It's only about five miles a five mile
stretch of road there, and on this road, that specific
stretch is where this legend takes place, allegedly, allegedly legend. Yes,
like any other road legendly a legendly a legend. Yeah,
like any other roadway. Accidents have happened here. Accidents have
(08:55):
happened on pretty much every road in the era of
the automobile or internal ushing engine, and they're likely gonna
happen again because cars are dangerous. Motor vehicles are dangerous.
Humans aren't really evolved to drive them. I say that
as a fan of um cars, if not humans. But
(09:15):
this case is a little different because the true believers
are claiming it's not speedy, it's not swerving, it's not
unfamiliarity with a vehicle or with landscape that causes accidents.
On thirty two twelve, according to folklore sources, I'll call
them the real cause of all these accidents is something
(09:38):
very much like a ghost. What are we talking about.
We'll tell you afterword from our sponsor. Here's where it
gets crazy. So if you love unsolved Mr Ree's, if
(10:00):
you loved all those time life books, and I love them,
I have an extensive collection, then you might have heard
of local legends like this. Today it's called Harry hands.
The story dates back, as we said, earlier, to the
turn of the twenty century. Sometime around nineteen ten, probably
(10:27):
more towards spring summer of nineteen folks started saying that
there was this pair of her hair suit, which is
just a fancy word for Harry disembodied hands that would
appear out of nowhere while you were driving or you
(10:48):
were on a bicycle. Didn't have to be it didn't
have to be a motor vehicle all the time. You
would be on a bike on this road, or you'd
be riding a motorcycle. You might be driving a car,
all of a sudden, out of nowhere, two hands, and
they have road rage, and all they do no known motivation.
(11:10):
All they do is grab the wheel and grab the handlebars.
Unlike other ghosts, they can affect the physical world and
they swerve you off the road and then they're gone.
That's like their things that they do. Um. Yeah, like
the Baba Booye guy. I can't said Babo that was
his whole thing, or like any number of of Rob
(11:33):
Schneider SNL characters that just like had the one line
in the one bit, or any of his movies even
were the one where he's the animal. You know, this
reminds me of those really creepy hands in Elden Ring. Um,
when you get to the castle of the School of
the castle outside of the Magic School, all of a sudden,
these giant, creepy crawley hands just kind of come at
(11:54):
you with weird rings and stuff, um, and they're terrifying.
I would, I would. Can you imagin all of a
sudden these like Harry hands appear and grab your your
handlebars or your wheel. Thank you? Yeah, no, thank you, no,
thank you very much. Uh, because you'd be in such
I would be, I'm sure as you would be in
(12:15):
such a crisis of this can't be happening, This can't
be happening, right, So then if you're steering wheel was
actually being manipulated in that moment when there's this supernatural
event occurring. How like, how are you going to react
to both things at the same time and make sure
you're safe or your passengers are safe. It's gonna be
(12:36):
tough for me at least. What's the motivation too that
that gets me? We'll we'll talk about this in a second.
So now these are known as Harry Hands, but they
were always known by that appellation. It's it's strange because
it's there. It's there. One thing, I don't think I
stuck the landing on the Baba Booey reference. I'm not
(12:57):
too familiar with Howard Stern, but the we know this
was considered a local oddity for about a decade, about
ten to eleven years, and every everybody in a smaller
town has some sort of story like this, you know
what I mean. Everybody's got a little bit of regional folklore,
(13:17):
a little bit of local uh a serving a smattering
of local legends. We would love to hear yours one
A three three st d W y t K or
conspiracy diheart radio dot com. But when you think about
this in the context of England and the United Kingdom overall,
this is a local oddity, right, It's not national news
(13:41):
not for the first decade. It doesn't have the chilling
appeal of something like Jack the Ripper or rumors about
the royal family. And I hate to say this, but
it wasn't more of a story space shift until people
started dying. This is where things take a darker turn
(14:05):
into June of there's a there's a place called Dartmoor
Prison at the time. There's a guy who's working there.
He's a medical officer. His name is Dr E. H. Helby,
and he's driving a motorcycle on what we call b
thirt this motorcycle as a sidecar. The governor of the prison,
(14:28):
basically the warden of the prison, has two daughters who
are writing with Dr Helbi and they're just they're just
two kids in a sidecar. And according to the story,
Helbi sees the hands but he encounters them under a
different name by the way, and he has just enough
(14:49):
time to warn these poor kids in the sidecar and
he yells jump out of the vehicle. You know, probably
not that articulate, he's probably just like jump and then
uh he is uh, he is thrown from the bike.
It swerves. The kids survived because they were able to
jump to safety. But poor Dr Helbeat dies instantly. This
(15:12):
is a tragedy, it's a human life, but it is
also not quite enough to prime the pump for the legend,
which is why we go just a few weeks in
the future, same year August. So this time there was
a young British Army captain who was known as a
(15:34):
motorcycle enthusiast. Is very experienced and had written for quite
some time. UM, and he had an account of an
incident that he experienced on the stretch of road. He said,
it was not my fault, believe it or not. Something
drove me off the road. A pair of hairy hands
closed over mine. I felt them as plainly as ever
I felt anything in my life, large muscular, harry hands. Uh.
(15:57):
I fought them for all I was worth, but they
were too strong for me. They forced the machine into
the turf at the edge of the road, and I
knew no more till I came to myself lying a
few feet away on my face on the turf. UM.
So you know, we had this death of this medical
officer weeks beforehand. Uh. This guy's telling this crazy story.
(16:19):
It starts to get some kind of I don't know
a hacky sort of yellow journalist wheels turning over in London, um,
and it starts to, you know, get a bit of
a water cooler conversation going, Well, let's talk about that
that that guy is an army captain. That guy is
not you know, he's not gonna be overpowered very easily.
(16:39):
And in this story that he's telling, like these things
were stronger than he could manage. That's intense stuff right there.
If you're talking supernatural strength of some sort, especially given
that there's no muscles connected to the hands. That I've
got to say that we know how long it took
for military personnel here in the States to be comfortable
(17:02):
even to a small degree talking about encounters they've had
with you know, U A p S. It strikes me
as a a little odd this guy would come right out
and say the story about these large, muscular, hairy hands,
you know, wrestling the moment, why not just cop to like, Oops,
I made I made a misque. It seems like a
really strange thing to come right out with and make
(17:24):
a statement around Well, let me give you some context
for this quote. And it's context I think gets ignored
when people are being a little bit overly credulous. The
folklore is evolving, and it has been evolving up until
two thousand and two. The let's get into this way.
(17:44):
A lot of the attention that gets focused on this
comes from journalists, writers like Mr T. Gifford. In October,
just a few months after this one guy survives, Gifford
goes to the area and he is aiming to investigate
(18:07):
three motor vehicle accidents which are apparently inexplicable in this vicinity.
I would I would argue that the fact, the fact
that our unnamed captain survives to talk about his experience,
whether or not he's being honest, whether with himself or
with others. Uh, that is more compelling to these journalists
(18:32):
than a death right, because the death is is one
story unless they have extenuating circumstances. Um. So this guy
is investigating this stuff. But here's why we have to
unpack this quote. At the time, people in Dartmoor as
well as London are not calling this Harry Hands just yet.
It's like that um, poor girl who was on that
(18:55):
child pageant show and is now called honey Boo boo
because she had to catch raise. Someone was being a
producer about this and they picked up the phrase harry hands. Originally,
this phenomenon was called unseen hands, which means that people
were encountering a sensation of something taking the wheel, not
(19:19):
a visual experience of something taking the wheel. If we
go back to that quote from that Army captain, we
see I don't want to be too synesthesia or sensory
of sensual. I'm using that correctly here, But he doesn't
describe seen anything. If you think about it, he describes
(19:46):
fighting a force. If you have ever been in a
vehicle without power steering, I would pose it, then you
have fought your own pair of unseen hands. And because
of this, this is where this is where the telephone game,
you know, really came into play. Because I think most
people when they're hearing about the story, they're thinking, you know,
(20:09):
the way cooler visual version, right, You're thinking like these
crazy yeah, crazy, like uh, what's that guy's name? The
bad guy and Popeye Blue do Brutish Yeah yeah, but
(20:30):
you know you're that's the cool idea. We're thinking of
those hands being there going over yours, you know, like
an evil version of Jesus take the wheel. But that's
not really what people were describing initially, that's not what
sparked the hysteria. That's not what what put the gas
(20:50):
in the folklore. And even if you look back at
the contemporaneous reporting, communities in the area like people were
naturally uh, just asking locals for their opinion, and um,
very various people who are like hilariously old salts, a
(21:11):
lot of curmudgeons in this area. At least when Gifford
was interviewing them, they gave quotes that indicated they were
very skeptical. One guy says, I've known them all my
life and this is the first time I've heard about
ghost It's too ridiculous to talk about. We've got another quote.
I only pulled two I found like and they're all
(21:35):
They're all people saying they think it's malarkey. I've been
traveling this road for eighteen years and I've met with
nothing worse nor myself. And I've written in fogs, no storms,
and all sorts of weather. It's all damn rot to
talk about ghosts. I love rot. That's great. Uh. Sorry,
I just had to go a little bit. You know,
you went with the area dight British voice. I had
(21:57):
to go with the Cockney um, but yeah, I mean
there's incredulity of bounds, and it does seem like a
lot of the sort of more hacky journalist that kind
of picked up the story, uh maybe for their own
ends in terms of like creating a sort of this
air of of the supernatural around this place are kind
of what got the conversation started. One in particular, guy
(22:19):
named Rufus Endell. Right then, Yeah, Rufus Endell uh is
an author who has written about this in related cases.
And Rufus is one of the many people who claims
they've gone to investigate and run and run across these
ghostly hands themselves. Ingle is interesting to me because he
(22:45):
is quoted by another author, a guy named Michael Williams,
who wrote a book called Supernatural Dartmoor. Full disclosure, I
haven't read the whole thing. I don't know about you guys,
but Williams claims that this guy Rufus Ingle, who is
investigating this case, he ran into the hands, he had
the encounter with the hairy hands. And he didn't just
(23:08):
describe running into this and successfully avoiding and crash. By
the way, he begged this other dude, Williams not to
publish the story. Don't tell anyone, he said, until after
I have died, because, just like we foreshadowed it earlier
in this episode, just like a lot of pilots, he's
(23:32):
terrified of not being taken seriously. So he is taking
this Harry Hands story to his grave and it will
be revealed after his death, if you believe Michael Williams,
which means that you also have to ask yourself if
you believe rufus Endel, you have to ask a lot
about belief with these things. And this way, I think
(23:55):
we pause and put our own hands on the wheel.
See if we can swerve this story a bit, we'll
be right back. So for a little bit of a tangent,
a little bit of a diversion in the road trip
(24:16):
of today's episode was in a conversation earlier yesterday about
the theme song of the original Ghostbusters. You know I
Am afraid no it ghosts right? Uh? What genre is
that song? Well, um, it's funny. I forget the guy's
(24:38):
name that composed or that's the joke there. I guess
that wrote that version. But it was such a close
copy of I Want a New Drug by Huey Lewis
and the News that. I believe the courts decided that
every royalty for that song, uh ever paid out would
go to Huey Lewis in the news. Um, but it's
it's it's kind of future funk, eighties kind of punk.
(25:00):
I guess it's ghost Corps. I like both of these.
I like, I'm gonna start telling people that I'm gonna say, guys,
I only listen to Ghost Corps Future funk. Do you gut?
Do you have any of that at the waffle House jukebox? So,
as a matter of fact, we do, and it's about
(25:21):
waffle House. So there is an ulterior motive for talking
about the Ghostbuster song because of the evolution that song
went through, which you describe very well. No, Uh, we're
seeing a We're seeing a spin on ideas, right, pre
existing ideas, agglomerations, accretions. The story of the Unseen or
(25:46):
Hairy Hands follows a model of putting a spin on
a longstanding trope. You don't have to read the entirety
of Joseph Campbell, you know, I have to sit through
A Hero with a thousand face is, which is a
good book, Uh, to know that there are a lot
of basic story elements that haven't changed for millennia. One
(26:08):
of those is a stranger ill met on a journey.
This similar to legends like a ghostly hitchhiker. I I
posit that over time, over um, over the past century,
the hairy hands story became very much like an agro
(26:28):
ghostly hitchhiker. Again, the hairy hands don't They're not like Loudon.
They don't have uh complex, uh complex past leading them
to this idea. None of the legends, and I don't
want to speak for you, guys, none of the legends
I could find described a plausible origin of the hands
(26:48):
as an entity. Wasn't there one about a minor? There
was a the hands were on a pick axe because
there was a minor that has hands chopped off. Well,
that came eater, No, No, that came. That came like exactly.
That's the thing when when I'm saying, like, if you
look back in the nineties twenties, those stories aren't around.
(27:09):
They come later, like they come after the report. And
I saw one um where there you know, it was
very There are a couple of versions of a kind
of vague one where it's like this guy died in
a in a car accident, or in a vehicle accident
in his fancy new automobile, sipping the Devil's juice gasoline,
(27:33):
and because he died, he doesn't want anybody else to
have a good day. Can you tell us more about
the minor thing or where the pick axe came from?
I just remember when we got the we got the
email in from what What's Who's what's the person's name?
Space Shift, space Shifts, space Shift. I looked at it and, oh, man,
(27:56):
I don't know if it was something that space Shift
sent to us, or it was just something in that
initial days research that I swear to you, I can't
find it right now that we're talking about it, but
it was. It was a story that was just on
one of those websites that you know, it's like run
by an individual or a small group of people, and
it had a story in there about a minor that
(28:17):
was punished for one reason or another and the guy,
the individual had very her suit hands and they were
removed from from his body and they were found like
still attached to at the have at the entrance to
this mind, they were still attached to a pick axe.
H Now, of course, see not that's just me making
(28:38):
up a legend that it's just maybe it's from a
completely different story. I'm just pulling into this, So give
me one moment. I guess we see how easy it
is to do that, though, I mean, uh, you know,
I immediately thought of candy Man, you know, the idea
of this wronged individual, you know, coming back to seek
revenge on those perceives to be in some way involved
in the person's misfortune. You know that that's sort of
(29:00):
the core of a legend like this, And so it's
really easy using local kind of colloquialisms and details of
region to kind of fill in the gaps, you know,
because it's kind of fun to do, even if it's
not in the best of faith. You know, a lot
of times these stories do just become campfire stories, and
that's how they evolve, because that's what stories do. But
(29:22):
I think to your point, Ben, it is hard to
find the nugget of you know, truth that led to
these reports. And I keep coming back to this kind
of yellow journalism of like it appearing once in like
a National Enquirer esque kind of publication, and then it's
something fun for people to talk about. Yeah, as the
story evolved over time, people started, you know, winding up
(29:46):
for the rumor mill. That's why you can find all
these claims that are attempting to retro actively explain this phenomenon.
But again, the part of the story, the part of
the legend that people are missing in this evolution of folklore,
is that Harry Hands originally described a sensation feeling a
(30:11):
pair of hairy hands on you fighting for control of
the wheel. These hands were unseen, right, there were hidden hands,
and uh, folks forgot that because in the mind, the
image of disembodied hands just floating around, cut off at
the wrist, ruining your day, that's just more compelling, you know,
(30:34):
It's very ghostbusters. And for being honest, we cannot explain
the entirety of the legend other than pointing to some
of those plot twists, which are very, i think, very
well trod patterns. Someone went with the cooler story and said,
don't let the facts get in the way. Right, I've
got I've got an article, do you know? At four
(30:58):
thirty or whatever they did, they went for the yellow journalism.
If it bleeds, it leads um And we know that
the story evolved over time because people want to participate
in these stories right, um, that you had called some
folks in the area and they do you want to
talk a little bit about what their takes are? Do
(31:20):
you want to save that? Yeah? I I called three
places called the Cherry Brook Bed and Breakfast and self catering.
I don't know what that means. Self catering. They make
the food there, they make the food themselves. Like that's
weird one. I guess it's just for me that implies
that you would be responsible for their own MUTI maybe
(31:44):
it's like a buffet, you know. I don't know. Maybe. Well, well,
I talked to Sue there, and I've got to quote
from Sue. She said, the little bridge about a mile
from here, and that's the two bridges that we were
talking about, Noel. There's two bridges kind of like this,
two little roads that kind of go around. Um, and
(32:05):
she says, legend has it when people pass over the
bridge at night, a pair of hairy hands grabs the
steering wheel and pulls you off the road. So yeah,
she just stated what the legend is that we're aware of.
And in each of these cases, guys, I asked, first,
are you aware of something a legend called the hairy hands?
And then could you describe it in your own words,
(32:25):
just to see how a local would say it, you know,
like in the Netherlands, have you heard of the Hague?
Have you heard of the US? Are you worried they're
you know what I mean? Just how would you describe
the relationship? Right? Give them a decision tree, keep it unbiased? Yeah. Um.
So then I decided to call a pub and I
(32:48):
thought this would be interesting because I figured, if you've
you know, got a few pints in you and then
you are either traveling as a passenger or a driver
along that stretch of road, maybe this legend is more
at the forefront of your mind or maybe you'd be
um more easily influenced to imagine something like that is happening. Right,
(33:10):
So talked to Abby at the Prince of Wales Pub,
which is in Princeton, and Abby said she's aware of
the legend, but she was talking to uh, quote an
anonymous local legend at the pub, so like a regular regular.
That regular described it as quote it comes out on
(33:31):
a dark evening when driving home from a pub or whatnot,
grabs hold of the steering wheel and takes you off
the road, which is interesting to me. You're driving back
home from the pub again like, okay, I can imagine
your chances are increased in experiencing the unseen or hairy hands,
or maybe you just look down you're like, oh those
(33:52):
are harry hands, my under my hands. Yeah. And then
last one Kate at Two Bridges Hotel, which is um
right there at those two bridges, like literally at the
two bridges that we were talking about here, Kate says,
now this is different from what I heard at school.
(34:14):
She was a bit younger, by the way, when walking
at a certain time of night or if the fog
was right, the two hands would come up from under
the bridge and grab your feet. Then you you were lost.
So this legend of the hairy hands has more to
do with the two bridges that are there and one
of the older bridges that if you walk across the
(34:36):
night you're you're and has nothing to do with driving.
Has nothing to do with an unseen force taking over.
It's like and under the bridge creature. That's interesting to
me to know. Whence the one that stood out to me? Um, okay,
So a couple of things. First, self catering is like
a better Airbnb. Uh, it's you know, you Okay, imagine Airbnb,
(34:58):
but also you have the mean is to make your
own meals. Like maybe they put stuff in the fridge
for you. You know, you've got stuff in the pantry.
Maybe it's just you have a microwave. You know, your
mileage may vary, folks, just like this story. What happens
with a lot of these things, based on patterns of
(35:19):
human behavior is that elements from earlier legends get recycled, reused,
remixed into newer legends. So again, you know, shout out
Joseph Campbell, the idea of the monster under the bridge, right,
(35:39):
the monster under your bed? Uh? This this makes sense
that it would occur in a school environment, people would
tell that version of this story. And our our question
then is for this iteration these kinds of legends, why
(35:59):
is on the road right other than other than one
story that you found, There's there's no one saying you
can just walk on B thirty two twelve and then
a pair of harry hands, will you know, grab you
by the shoulders and spin you around until you're dangerously dizzy.
You have to be in a vehicle for the vast
(36:20):
majority of these stories. Uh, And that that I think
is interesting because motor vehicles first start appearing on British
roads in early nineties or so. But when I say appearing,
they're appearing the way that um PS five's appeared during
(36:43):
the pandemic. You know what I mean. They're not super common.
No way a better uh oh, you know what a
better example is. They're appearing the way space travel appears
in the nine sixties, Like you know, people do it.
You probably yourself have not been on one because you
(37:05):
know they're like twelve people who have been on one
and you're not one of that dirty dozen. So motor
vehicles aren't very common. And even if you go forward
a couple of decades, when this story occurs, or when
it really hits its genesis, you see that motor vehicles
internal combustion engines are still kind of new to the
(37:27):
common people. They still had that new car smell for
lack of a better phrase, and I know I rolled
my eyes tone. This means that the drivers are unfamiliar
with what's happening. This is a new thing, and this
new thing means um that stuff you would have dismissed
(37:49):
earlier now gets reconsidered. Right, cars are magic, and you
can't blame people in the early for thinking so been
would these roads have been retrofitted for motor vehicle travel
or would these have been like older roads that have
been around since, you know, before the advent of the card.
(38:10):
It feels to me like it would have been the
second one. Yeah, it's the ladder for you nailed it. Yeah,
they're not What what do you do remake all the roads?
That's why older cities have those narrow lanes. Yeah, that's right.
And so there's that the unfamiliarity like you mentioned. And also, Matt,
I don't think it was you know, for nothing that
(38:30):
you called a couple of pubs and and and bread
and bed and breakfast type situations. I mean, you know,
if you're drinking coming home from the pub, you're a local.
That's I wouldn't be surprised if that's when some of
these accidents took place. I'd love to see, like how
many pubs are there in the area, and what was
the trajectory to those, you know, for these people that
(38:50):
that that had these you know, these motor vehicular incidents. Yeah. Oh,
and to be fair, I did call the Dartmoor Preservation
an association first, then the Princeton or Princetown Community Center,
and both of them were closing up around four pm
local times, so they did not answer. And let's humanize
(39:12):
a little further. If you have ever been in an
automotive dust up yourself, folks, you know that most people
don't go out of their way to acknowledge when something
is their fault. Most people are I like to think
that many people will do the right thing. Um, your
(39:34):
insurance company will tell you not to. By the way,
don't apologize, don't get out of your car and say
I'm sorry or anything. It's an admission of guilt, right, right,
That's exactly it. But so most people aren't going to
say it is not just human error, it is my
error placing the blame on something else or someone else,
(39:55):
even if that is a ghostly again, non visual force
that I keep sticking on that it's not visual. The
people who are telling the original story did not see hands,
they felt them, and that's getting missed. Look, it's just
really attractive to say like, hey, it's not me, it's
(40:16):
something else. Right, I am a bystander, I'm a victim here, right,
not a perpetrator. And if you're on the skeptical side,
of the spectrum. Then you know you doubtlessly agree, fellow listener. Uh,
there's also there's also some engineering here that I think
adds to the case, adds to the skeptical nature I
(40:37):
I think we can say, I don't know. Let me
let me present this case, and you guys tell me
what you think. The culprit the origin of the hairy
hands maybe a combination of high speed vehicles, right, the
(40:57):
likes of which had not been seen before in this
part of the world, and engineering to to the earlier
point about roads being built for different forms of transportation
in this day, this road, it's a narrow country lane
and it's got these high walls sides. If you've ever
(41:18):
seen a race track or like a bike track, then
you'll see that at times this road has a lot
of what's called cambers C A, M, B, E R.
That's the tilt you see on those things. That's why
your local race track isn't isn't a flat surface to
get a weird angle to it. So you're going faster
(41:39):
than you've ever gone before, and the road is got
this weird tilt. These different lanes right, and you are,
you are turning, you're following the lane all of a sudden,
unseen force happens. That just might be that just might
be the tires and the road, uh negotiating, right, And
(42:02):
if you are unfamiliar with this stuff, then it feels
very much like someone is negotiating against you. Who whose
hands are these? Why are there other hands pushing against
me on the steering wheel or the handlebars? That I
think explains a lot of it. And I wish, I
(42:22):
wish that there were explanations of visual hands, but they're
just not there in the original stories. It's a force, Yeah,
I think. I think that's probably the most skeptical, realistic
probable thing ben that because of how the unseen forces
described and because of the physical forces being exerted on
(42:43):
each other. I love that negotiating with the the tires
and the the track or the road or whatever. Um.
I want to present you guys a one more possible explanation,
just because of the introduction of large, heavy metal, metal
vehicles other than horses and buggies and other things like that,
(43:03):
what if there's a an anomaly of sorts that's occurring
right in that stretch of road that is magnetic in
nature and is pulling upon these vehicles in a way
that you know is unseen. Guys. Huh huh, A giant
fridge magnet. It's interesting, you see that, because there was
I swear I was thinking about this, and I I'm
(43:26):
not around, I'm you know, saw on the road, so
I haven't looked into it. But there was an account
I read many many years ago where a person claimed
to have prevented a bunch of accidents on a haunted
stretch of road by taking a box of copper stars
(43:50):
the metal copper popped into these star shapes, and burying
that box in a specific area where these road act
incidents were occurring. I'm gonna find this if you can
beat me to it. Folks, please right in, because this
is poor choice of words. This is haunting me for
a bit, the magnetism thing, though I like it, and
(44:13):
I want you to know there's there are other there
are people who have argued something very similar. Man, I
don't know if it was for this, though. I've got
to figure it out. So here's the alternative. Right, you've
just you just ate some pavement, right, You made a
rookie mistake. You were not quite the evil Kinevil you
thought you were. Are you going to tell people I
(44:36):
honestly overestimated my abilities. Are you what would you do
to be not embarrassed? Because it looks like in a
couple of cases, if you know about the local legend,
some folks have decided to say it wasn't me, it
was the hands. Yeah, I can imagine the army captain
doing that specifically, just that that would be embarrassing, right,
(44:59):
and that as in a crasher motorcycle. I think I'd
be more embarrassed to say that it was disembodied hairy
hands though, to be fair, Yeah, I mean, and he
may have even just been described Yeah, no, I'm with you.
He may have even just been describing the sensation and
someone took him literally, you know what I mean, like
(45:19):
he he may have Think again, back to journalism, a
little bit of editorial, a little bit of editorial parkour,
and you can you could just remove the phrase as
if it felt as if a pair of hands and
now you just put a pair of hands grabbed me.
(45:41):
We hope you enjoyed this episode. Shout out to anybody
who's encountered a road like this, really into haunted roads
right now. I don't know about you, guys, love to
hear about your haunted roads. We'd love to hear about
your experience with unseen forces, and we try to make
it easy to find us online. Boy do we ever?
(46:03):
All over the internet. We are I don't know why
I'm talking like Yoda, but just the same. We are
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(46:24):
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(46:55):
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