August 16, 2018 • 28 mins
In August 1971 a group of hippies were partying at Stonehenge when a freak lightning storm, accompanied by blue lights, took the group by surprise... and may have been the cause of their disappearance.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, everybody, Steve here. As we recently announced, we are
no longer producing new episodes of the podcast, but we
did have content that we had recorded that we had
not put into the regular feed for everybody to hear,
and we wanted to share that with you, of course.
So what you're hearing here is one of those episodes
of Down the Rabbit Hole that hadn't gone out into
(00:22):
the regular feed and had only previously been available through
the premium service. So enjoy and thanks a lot. This
episode of Thinking Sideways is not brought you by animated
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show Sharp Objects. When a young girl disappears from rural
wind Gap, Missouri, reporter Camille Preaker is sent to investigate
whether the case is linked to an unsolved murder. From
the author of Gone Girl, the producer of Get Out,
and the director of Big Little Lies, comes HBO's limited
series Sharp Objects, based on the novel by Gillian Flynn.
(01:48):
Amy Adams stars as reporter Camille Preaker, whose proximity to
the investigation, her chilly mother and mysterious half sister bring
her own scars to the surface. Hailed as a spell binding,
addictive immersion into a dark, small town mystery by Indy
Wire and the most captivating show of the summer by time,
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Sharp Objects also features Patricia Clarkson, Christmassina and Eliza Scanlon.
See new episodes every Sunday at nine and catch up
on HBO Now Thinking Sideways stories of things which simpy
don't know the answer to I don't know. Hey, guys,
(02:51):
Welcome to a very special episode of Thinking Sideways a
k a. Down the rabbit Hole with thinking Side figured
up by that awesome theme song. Yeah, I always forget,
you know, we don't have the theme the studio, so
I always forget that there's some side was kind of
deliation there. So it's always writing in the back of
(03:12):
my brain because I really liked that constantly running in
your head. It really is. It's it's why I'm like,
it's a good one. It's one of our special ones
on one of the runner ups in our contest. Yeah.
So today we're gonna talk about mystery. Actually, are going
to talk about a mystery. Yeah, it's super creepy. Yeah,
this mystery was suggested by somebody named Krista a very
(03:34):
long time ago. Thanks Christa. Basically, we're going to talk
about the story of some missing hippies. Yeah, because everybody
loves when the hippies are missing. We've been happy that
they've been missing for decades. But just a quick brief
little mention here if you didn't notice, we marked this
episode explicit because we're going to read some journal entries
(03:57):
and it has some foul language and I know a
lot of you have been waiting to hear us swear
a lot, so congratulations. But if you have little ears
and you don't want them exposed to that kind of language,
just you know. We're going to start with the story.
Oh that's crazy, okay. Unnamed date of August nineteen seventy one,
a group of what is always described as hippies decided
(04:18):
to set up camp at Stonehenge. Yes, this story involves Stonehenge. Wait,
I can ask which Stonehenge it is. Is it the
big one or is it a little one from Spinal Tap,
the one that was in danger of being crushed by dwarves?
The big one. It's also not the one that we
have up here in Washington. Well, that's not the real
thing Stonehenge. It's not very good replica. Frankly, it's not anyway. Sorry,
(04:41):
let's get totally off topic already. It's fine. Listen. Every
story is okay to be diverted towards Spinal Tap for
a moment. I agree. I personally think that's fine. Yeah,
this was before the monument was protected from the public.
It used to be open to the public. But you
may or may not know, believe it or not, People
just walk up camp. Yeah, take a crap do whatever
they want to ship. It's probably why it's in the
(05:03):
state that it is. Probably also, or as Joe always
kind of makes joke at or made note of in
every single spot he possibly could have in my script,
that maybe this was just when the public was not
yet protected from Stonehenge dangerous place. Those big stones could
have fallen on anybody at any time. That is an
(05:25):
insurance has well, there's a lot of mystical force that's
kind of focused in Stonehenge too well, so actually that
that plays into our story. The reason that this group
of hippies quote unquote was going to Stonehenge is because
they wanted to have a really big party. And you know,
Stonehenge is kind of or what at least was kind
(05:46):
of out there. But they also wanted to well it's
in between two highways, so it's pretty, but it was
more out there. They also wanted to absorb the spiritual
vibrations that surround this mystical monuments. A lot of that
stuff going on there. They arrived at about eight p m.
(06:06):
And they pitched their tents and got to partying right on. Yes,
I was just say, wait, how do we know all
these details? Where does it where? Does this this record
come from officially, just based on what I know is
going to come in later in the start a forensic
examination of the site. Okay. Now, actually there are some
(06:28):
journal entries and on sent letters that existed at the site. Okay,
so that's how they know that may decide they were
found very close by, though there's no real times mentioned
in the letters and journal entries. But just maybe don't
ask that question at all, Okay, I'll just let's just
(06:50):
my head and continue, let's get buying. Well it might
it might be too that they everybody just assumed they
were hippies and they were going to party and do
drugs and have one X, you know. But yeah, well
I just all I will say is that I'm asking
for a certain level of suspension of disbelief for Okay,
belief suspended. Great. So with that belief suspended, about a
(07:12):
p M. The group pitched their tent no disbelief, a
suspension of dispose. Around one fifty am, the partying was
still going on, but then at about two a sudden
flash of lightning rains down and a storm just let's loose. Yeah,
(07:33):
apparently on that you know that it rolls in kind
of quick there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's out on the well,
I mean, Britain's in Ireland and storms blowing off the
ocean all the time, and they're actually pretty quick. Yeah yeah.
The group, seemingly relatively undeterred by the storm, decides to
take the party to their tents. The storm is reported
(07:55):
to have been a pretty strong lightning storm. So there's
just lightning striking every you know, the rocks around them,
on the ground everywhere. Yeah, it's like Thor is just
really mad and throwing lots of stuff at them. I've
always presumed that was when Thor was drunk and just
dropping the hammer because you're so hammered. Yeah, that's that's why. Yeah,
(08:17):
well was it a Fantasia one episode part where one
of the gods had like all the lightning and it
was just dropping from behind him. Since i've seen it, anyways,
that's what I think was happening. He just dropped the
armful of lightning. Reports are that eventually the whole area
was bathed in uh eerie kind of blue light, perhaps
(08:42):
from the lightning, perhaps from something else. This report comes
from a police officer who happened to be on patrol
at two o'clock in the morning suspension of disbelief, and
it's corroborated by a farmer who was for some reason
out at two o'clock in the market, the midnight mushroom
suspension of disbelief. Both men said that the light was
(09:04):
so blinding that they had to avert their eyes. The
blue light was eventually accompanied by quote unquote a blood
curdling scream or many blood curdling screams. Both men reacted
to this whole thing by thinking, Oh, I'll just run
towards that blue light were from. I can if I
was standing there, and I would say to the cup, well,
I ain't going over there. I don't know how what
(09:28):
they how they were in relation to each other, A
couple of miles or you know, they must have been
like a couple of no, I mean to each other. Yeah,
where they're standing next to each other. YEA, no idea
about that, but yeah, maybe maybe they went running towards
the tents to see if people needed help. They both arrived, though,
(09:51):
like I said, I don't really know how long it
took either of them to arrive. If they arrived at
the same time, totally different times possible, but they discovered
either together or apart or whatever, that the tents had
been totally obliterated and the group was entirely gone. The
men investigated and did discover that some journals and notes
(10:12):
had been left behind, scattered kind of around the space,
immediately held down by rocks, I guess, or you know,
stuck on rocks or whatever. And though the tents and
all the other belongings had been obliterated, for some reason,
these journals survived. The only thing that was left in
the tents were the tent pegs. Smoldering tents. Yeah, they
were there, kind of like, you know, burnt, but yeah,
(10:34):
there were some tent pegs left. The first journal entry
was dated July tenth, nineteen one, and basically it was
just talking about how a couple of the men of
the group it was one of hippies, was one of
the guys male missing hippies. One of them, Um, it
(10:55):
was his journal. That would be the mm H, missing
male hippie. Yes, but yeah kind of yeah. Anyway, the
first general entry talks about how the guys went out
and basically just decided that they thought it would be
fun to go camp at the Big Rock Place in England,
which was Stumbhenge. I Like, I don't even know the
(11:18):
name of it. That's how dumb those hippies were. Yeah,
they decided that they would invite their girlfriends and then
m f H and then maybe some of their other friends,
but they weren't sure if the law enforcement would be
too close. The man man basically. The next one was
(11:40):
dated July eleven of the same year. They basically just
talked about, you know, talking to people about wanting to
take this trip. It sounds like they were kind of
on the American side of the pond here. Yeah, maybe
talked about crossing the pond. Yeah, that's they do. They
(12:01):
This one just briefly mentioned that one of the girls,
whose name is Wilma, said that she didn't really want
to go because she had had a dream of a
circle of rocks and God's hand striking or something like that,
so she didn't really want to go. And I think
this is the reason that this is often presented is
to kind of set up that Wilma was reportedly maybe
(12:24):
a little psychic about this whole thing. Well, Wilma's been
drinking a lot since Fred had died, though, because they
were they were not trusting her spiritual or psychic abilities
quite so much. Next entry is August seventeen, which I
believe is the day before the incident happened. I believe
(12:45):
the incident happened on August eighteen, though it's never actually
explicitly dated that it was August eighteen, but just for
the dates of the journal entrees and letters and things
like that, they are apparently out at somebody's farm doing
something in England, and it sounds like Wilma still not
(13:06):
really into the idea of going to Stonehenge, and come
to think of it, it's possible that the farmer that
was out was the guy whose farm they were working
on the day before that was Mr Jacobson, So I
guess it's possible. I don't really know. I don't really
know anything about this. They talked about working at Jacobson's farm,
they did, yeah, so it's possible that he heard the
(13:28):
lightning and knew they were going to be out there
and came out at two o'clock in the morning, and
that's why he was out there. I don't really know anyway.
The next journal entry was the final journal entry, and
it was on August eighteen, basically just kind of talking
about setting up camp, although it doesn't I don't know why.
If you were partying and all that stuff, you would
(13:49):
really uh be writing journals. But we've all been camping, though,
and there's a time when you get your camp set
up and your friends are still thinking around to get
their set up, and you've got time on your hands. Yeah,
and so you'll sit I've done. I think we've all
been set and said, well, I'll just read for a
couple of minutes or something. But if you are a
journal or you'd sit down and write in your journal,
(14:12):
I only this passage would have taken about five or
ten minutes to write. Even though this ding dong apparently
his hand cramps up after so little right now, Yeah,
he does say, might as well, Julius, Julia is calling
me to help, might as well because I'm getting to
just get it's getting bored just writing. My hands cramping up. Well,
(14:33):
then there's three letters, and will I guess go ahead
and read these three letters. By the way, I do
want to just mention that the the I mean, we've
summarized this, but there's a lot of talk of pot
there's a lot of talk of getting it on, you know,
typical hippie vernacular stuff that is in here. So it
(14:55):
very it's fits. It's very stiff stereotypical, is what I
want to say, supposed journal entries. Yeah, I will. I'll
read the first letter and then you guys can each
paper rock scissors over who wants to be Wilma. The
first letters from Julia, who was you know, the one
who was calling the journal or says quote, the guys
(15:18):
brought pot Can you believe that? I thought we'd just
take a trip down to see the place and have
a nice camping trip, but no, they had to go
bring that stinky ass grass ship here. Men just don't
know the first thing about manners. This chick calls yourself
a hippie. Yeah, really, well she doesn't. Everybody else calls
them a group of hippies. Listen, there's always group of
hippies that has one square among them. Always happens. So sorry,
(15:42):
I should have mentioned. All three of these letters are
dated August, even the same day. There are certainly a
letter writing busch, weren't they. I guess I don't know.
Convenient for a story. Yeah, and I don't know who
these letters were being written to or anything like that,
but there you go. So the next one was from
a guy named Lucas, and you guys can just do Lucas.
You know what I mean. Lucas, you want to be
will I don't care, all right, I'll be I'll be Lucas.
(16:05):
That's fine, Daniel and okay. So August nine, seventy one
from Lucas, Daniel and I are smoking it up. It's
times like this when us five are together, away from
our families in the city. That's smoking relaxes you the
most and makes you think maybe I'll quit my job
at the auto shop. When I get back. Julia is fuming,
(16:25):
smoke out of her ears that we brought the stuff,
but I don't mind. Almost every time she comes around,
she takes a drag, makes her loose, if you know
what I mean. Wilma huddles in front of the tent,
growing nervouser by the minute. She's swearing something bad's gonna happen,
that we're gonna die, or some other dark ship. I
wouldn't believe her lately, but she ain't been drinking for
(16:47):
a couple of weeks. If she don't brighten up soon,
I swear I'll push her out myself. Push her at
one with that. I don't know, ye, I don't even
know what push her out me, Probably maybe push her
out in front of a train or a truck that
I like to well. Wellness, yeah, wellness, the psychic one.
(17:07):
I'm gonna do it my Wilma voice. Right, it's raining.
I knew they'd be rain. Okay, Actually, please continue to
use your voice. There's always rain when the blue glow comes.
The blue glow comes for me every night, but only
when I'm not drunk. They took my paw straight into
the sky like nothing. He told me about them before that,
(17:29):
that they don't come after you if you're too drunk
to see your own hands. Okay, so that's why she
was drinking this past few weeks. I haven't been drinking,
and I've been having my future dreams again, but they
haven't come for me yet, not since the others started
talking about coming to Stone Hedge. She very scared of
the lightning, always has been. But that's not what you
should be scared about. I think the lightning is closed
(17:52):
the tree and the rocks too. I think the rocks
are there's the things rocks. They're glowing brighter than the lightning.
If someone find it's this out to this guy for
sack and placed down and the rest and this is
all allows eligible after that, presumably because of the blinding
light or something. So she was writing her last final
letter in the middle of the lightning under a lightning Well,
(18:13):
then we should have been We really missed an opportunity, devon.
We could have been in the background going some four
lot and make thunder noises. You're right, we should have been.
Right anyway, we're planning our parts. Sorry it is sorry everyone,
that's for this last letter again. You know, I think
it's meant to be have been composed during the storm,
(18:37):
but I'm again I'm not totally sure. That's an odd
thing to do in the middle of a lightning storm.
Yeah it is. Yeah, Yeah, that's our story, thank god.
So yeah, they So they all disappeared, and they left
some letters in journal entries behind, but that's it. No trace.
I guess we've got some names, um, but other than that,
I don't know they were where they're from. That's true.
(18:59):
So you guys to talk about theories about what this
could have been, let's do it. Let's talk about a
few theories. Sure, okay, but before we get into theories.
Let's take a quick break. Now that we're in this
wonderful ad break, I think I want to tell you
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(19:19):
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(20:02):
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(20:52):
talk about some hippies. So the first area would clearly
be aliens. This was an alien abduction human harvesting. She
even wrote in her letter about the things that come
down from the sky took her dad and stuff. I know,
I think they just took him. I think they probed him.
I mean maybe, but all we know is they took
(21:12):
they took him, they took his dignity, they took him away,
but it doesn't really matter. Took him straight into the
sky like nothing. And you know, they're camping at Stonehenge,
which is pretty much always referred to as kind of
an alien ancient alien technology spot. They can see it
from the from the from more of it the landing
doctor anyway, So that would be our first theory. I
(21:35):
think it's a pretty good one, blue Light. But you
guys don't like the theory ones. I mean, it makes
of all of the stuff that we have except for one.
It makes the most sense, fair enough, It actually does,
because let's be honest, for me to triangle is goofy,
well the Stonehenge to triangle, yeah, not a triangle for
(21:59):
me to call THEE and the I mean that is
the next theory, but we don't really need to talk.
Think we know. Yeah, uh next one, Joe added, I think, well,
oh yeah, spontaneous human combustion yeah, or spontaneous tent combustion. Yeah,
that too. Spontaneous all this stuff combusting journals, Yeah, well
(22:22):
those probably got blown away by the wind before they
got you know, you know, well that's yeah, it is.
Uh so this one is like you know what I mean,
I mean, actually, usually spontaneous human combustion, which apparently does
seem to happen occasionally, it's not exactly spontaneous. Usually there's
a spark of something that lights you on fire. But
if you're a certain level of fatness. Apparently you'll burn
(22:45):
like a candle. So it does happen. But I don't
know if these guys were you know, they're hippies. They
were scrowning, probably probably undernerished, Yeah, probably probably not good
candidates for spontaneous human combustion. Could have been a murder.
It could have been actually a murder of body wirling
screams and the bodies were taken away and the tents
set on fire. What if they're murdered by the cliche
(23:07):
that was their existence? Uh? Well, you know that it
could be that there was somebody there's somebody out there
kind of fancies himself the guardian of stone Age and
felt that these guys were disrespecting the sacred spot. That's true,
men in long robes with voluminous with big hoods on
I can't say that. Yeah, yeah, okay, And we have
(23:31):
one more theory. But before we talk about that theory,
do you guys have any other theories? Well, somebody here
wrote that there was the farmer was actually a former
Nazi scientist. I don't know. That's kind of funny, But
the Nazis did not actually have a death ray that
you know, so it obviously could not have been harvesting Stonehenge.
(23:56):
It could have been Tesla from the grave. It could
have been Tesla, the space coope Tesla, or the scientist test,
Scientist test with his death ray. Remember, yeah, I totally
remember his death ray. Yea. Even that this is quite
a while after World War Two, I could imagine the
Nazi scientist who was working on it back in the
(24:18):
third right days and managed to escape or be transported
to the West after the war, and which happened to
a lot of scientists, and he was just tinkering in
his basement with his death ray over the years and
eventually had a prototype built and decided, hey, there's some
sticky old hippies. Nobody's going to miss Semifi vaporize him.
So he went out and tested it. Um. So, if
(24:38):
I have to summarize that theory right there, yeah, that's
utter bullshit. I would say that's uh. I would say
it's unsubstantiated bullshit. Yea perfectly plausible. Last theory is actually
(24:58):
the truth. And I'm sorry, oh no, we solve the mystery.
We are going to solve the mystery. It's actually that
this is an urban legend and the basis of which
is based on a TV show called qua quater Mass. Yeah, professor,
a British professor named Quatermass. Yeah, this was like a
(25:21):
lead into one of these was abduction people being harvested
TV show thing. Yeah, I think at this particular point
in time, I understanding. I never saw the show, but
my understanding is at this time instead of setting in
the near future, and all the hippies joined this cult
and they call themselves planet People, and they gather at
prehistoric sites hoping, hoping to be essentially abducted by aliens
(25:44):
and transported to another better planet than our own. And
so that's we are being abducted, and so in the
food Yeah, well that's it. Spoilers seventy nine. I think
it's thirty years later. Yeah, it's not too soon. Yeah,
we've seen that happ and all that stuff. Um but yeah, sorry,
(26:05):
sorry everyone, everybody liked the story, but this is totally
from the first episode of that series. What was when
this happened? So yeah, but it's a fun little story,
and it is it is reverberating around the internet. It's
it's certainly cut and pasted in a lot of places.
It's all copy pasted. Yeah, pretty much believe. Yeah, I
(26:27):
except for the journal entries, I rarely found it anywhere
that it was told in anything but the same four paragraphs. Yeah. Yeah,
I think that actually the Devin Harris has actually performed
a valuable service for you all and and got it
together every bit of information there is about this particular story.
Generally when you see it, you don't see like you
don't see quotations from the letters of the journal entries
(26:49):
for example. Yeah, I mean maybe I'll post it on
a Reddit or something like that. Yeah, yeah, put it
out there. Well it, but yeah, I guess that's it. Sorry, guys,
thank you, don't be sorry. You sel the mystery. So
good detective work. Thank you. Yeah, good job. You know,
as you know probably this is str premium content, and
(27:12):
so we just want to thank you guys for subscribing
to us on Stitcher premium. It really really supports the show.
We really appreciate it. Yeah. So, I guess with all
of that having been said, we will see you next
time I'm down the rabbit hole next month, and we'll
probably before then because we've got our other regularly. You'll
see us regular but this is special. Wait, wait, guys,
(27:33):
before we end. We're kind of missing an opportunity here.
We've we've given the advisory. So is there any foul
language that you quickly want to air? Heck, poop, darn, sorry,
(27:54):
I have anything good anymore? All right, okay, well see
you next time. Everybody,
Hey, everybody, Steve here. As we recently announced, we are
no longer producing new episodes of the podcast, but we
did have content that we had recorded that we had
not put into the regular feed for everybody to hear,
and we wanted to share that with you, of course.
So what you're hearing here is one of those episodes
of Down the Rabbit Hole that hadn't gone out into
(00:22):
the regular feed and had only previously been available through
the premium service. So enjoy and thanks a lot. This
episode of Thinking Sideways is not brought you by animated
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by your local pet shelter ladies and gentlemen. There are
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whatever little critter it might be, but they need a
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And if you can't go to the shelter to bring
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they need, do what you can. It's gonna be a
good thing. This episode is also not brought to you
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(01:25):
show Sharp Objects. When a young girl disappears from rural
wind Gap, Missouri, reporter Camille Preaker is sent to investigate
whether the case is linked to an unsolved murder. From
the author of Gone Girl, the producer of Get Out,
and the director of Big Little Lies, comes HBO's limited
series Sharp Objects, based on the novel by Gillian Flynn.
(01:48):
Amy Adams stars as reporter Camille Preaker, whose proximity to
the investigation, her chilly mother and mysterious half sister bring
her own scars to the surface. Hailed as a spell binding,
addictive immersion into a dark, small town mystery by Indy
Wire and the most captivating show of the summer by time,
(02:08):
Sharp Objects also features Patricia Clarkson, Christmassina and Eliza Scanlon.
See new episodes every Sunday at nine and catch up
on HBO Now Thinking Sideways stories of things which simpy
don't know the answer to I don't know. Hey, guys,
(02:51):
Welcome to a very special episode of Thinking Sideways a
k a. Down the rabbit Hole with thinking Side figured
up by that awesome theme song. Yeah, I always forget,
you know, we don't have the theme the studio, so
I always forget that there's some side was kind of
deliation there. So it's always writing in the back of
(03:12):
my brain because I really liked that constantly running in
your head. It really is. It's it's why I'm like,
it's a good one. It's one of our special ones
on one of the runner ups in our contest. Yeah.
So today we're gonna talk about mystery. Actually, are going
to talk about a mystery. Yeah, it's super creepy. Yeah,
this mystery was suggested by somebody named Krista a very
(03:34):
long time ago. Thanks Christa. Basically, we're going to talk
about the story of some missing hippies. Yeah, because everybody
loves when the hippies are missing. We've been happy that
they've been missing for decades. But just a quick brief
little mention here if you didn't notice, we marked this
episode explicit because we're going to read some journal entries
(03:57):
and it has some foul language and I know a
lot of you have been waiting to hear us swear
a lot, so congratulations. But if you have little ears
and you don't want them exposed to that kind of language,
just you know. We're going to start with the story.
Oh that's crazy, okay. Unnamed date of August nineteen seventy one,
a group of what is always described as hippies decided
(04:18):
to set up camp at Stonehenge. Yes, this story involves Stonehenge. Wait,
I can ask which Stonehenge it is. Is it the
big one or is it a little one from Spinal Tap,
the one that was in danger of being crushed by dwarves?
The big one. It's also not the one that we
have up here in Washington. Well, that's not the real
thing Stonehenge. It's not very good replica. Frankly, it's not anyway. Sorry,
(04:41):
let's get totally off topic already. It's fine. Listen. Every
story is okay to be diverted towards Spinal Tap for
a moment. I agree. I personally think that's fine. Yeah,
this was before the monument was protected from the public.
It used to be open to the public. But you
may or may not know, believe it or not, People
just walk up camp. Yeah, take a crap do whatever
they want to ship. It's probably why it's in the
(05:03):
state that it is. Probably also, or as Joe always
kind of makes joke at or made note of in
every single spot he possibly could have in my script,
that maybe this was just when the public was not
yet protected from Stonehenge dangerous place. Those big stones could
have fallen on anybody at any time. That is an
(05:25):
insurance has well, there's a lot of mystical force that's
kind of focused in Stonehenge too well, so actually that
that plays into our story. The reason that this group
of hippies quote unquote was going to Stonehenge is because
they wanted to have a really big party. And you know,
Stonehenge is kind of or what at least was kind
(05:46):
of out there. But they also wanted to well it's
in between two highways, so it's pretty, but it was
more out there. They also wanted to absorb the spiritual
vibrations that surround this mystical monuments. A lot of that
stuff going on there. They arrived at about eight p m.
(06:06):
And they pitched their tents and got to partying right on. Yes,
I was just say, wait, how do we know all
these details? Where does it where? Does this this record
come from officially, just based on what I know is
going to come in later in the start a forensic
examination of the site. Okay. Now, actually there are some
(06:28):
journal entries and on sent letters that existed at the site. Okay,
so that's how they know that may decide they were
found very close by, though there's no real times mentioned
in the letters and journal entries. But just maybe don't
ask that question at all, Okay, I'll just let's just
(06:50):
my head and continue, let's get buying. Well it might
it might be too that they everybody just assumed they
were hippies and they were going to party and do
drugs and have one X, you know. But yeah, well
I just all I will say is that I'm asking
for a certain level of suspension of disbelief for Okay,
belief suspended. Great. So with that belief suspended, about a
(07:12):
p M. The group pitched their tent no disbelief, a
suspension of dispose. Around one fifty am, the partying was
still going on, but then at about two a sudden
flash of lightning rains down and a storm just let's loose. Yeah,
(07:33):
apparently on that you know that it rolls in kind
of quick there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's out on the well,
I mean, Britain's in Ireland and storms blowing off the
ocean all the time, and they're actually pretty quick. Yeah yeah.
The group, seemingly relatively undeterred by the storm, decides to
take the party to their tents. The storm is reported
(07:55):
to have been a pretty strong lightning storm. So there's
just lightning striking every you know, the rocks around them,
on the ground everywhere. Yeah, it's like Thor is just
really mad and throwing lots of stuff at them. I've
always presumed that was when Thor was drunk and just
dropping the hammer because you're so hammered. Yeah, that's that's why. Yeah,
(08:17):
well was it a Fantasia one episode part where one
of the gods had like all the lightning and it
was just dropping from behind him. Since i've seen it, anyways,
that's what I think was happening. He just dropped the
armful of lightning. Reports are that eventually the whole area
was bathed in uh eerie kind of blue light, perhaps
(08:42):
from the lightning, perhaps from something else. This report comes
from a police officer who happened to be on patrol
at two o'clock in the morning suspension of disbelief, and
it's corroborated by a farmer who was for some reason
out at two o'clock in the market, the midnight mushroom
suspension of disbelief. Both men said that the light was
(09:04):
so blinding that they had to avert their eyes. The
blue light was eventually accompanied by quote unquote a blood
curdling scream or many blood curdling screams. Both men reacted
to this whole thing by thinking, Oh, I'll just run
towards that blue light were from. I can if I
was standing there, and I would say to the cup, well,
I ain't going over there. I don't know how what
(09:28):
they how they were in relation to each other, A
couple of miles or you know, they must have been
like a couple of no, I mean to each other. Yeah,
where they're standing next to each other. YEA, no idea
about that, but yeah, maybe maybe they went running towards
the tents to see if people needed help. They both arrived, though,
(09:51):
like I said, I don't really know how long it
took either of them to arrive. If they arrived at
the same time, totally different times possible, but they discovered
either together or apart or whatever, that the tents had
been totally obliterated and the group was entirely gone. The
men investigated and did discover that some journals and notes
(10:12):
had been left behind, scattered kind of around the space,
immediately held down by rocks, I guess, or you know,
stuck on rocks or whatever. And though the tents and
all the other belongings had been obliterated, for some reason,
these journals survived. The only thing that was left in
the tents were the tent pegs. Smoldering tents. Yeah, they
were there, kind of like, you know, burnt, but yeah,
(10:34):
there were some tent pegs left. The first journal entry
was dated July tenth, nineteen one, and basically it was
just talking about how a couple of the men of
the group it was one of hippies, was one of
the guys male missing hippies. One of them, Um, it
(10:55):
was his journal. That would be the mm H, missing
male hippie. Yes, but yeah kind of yeah. Anyway, the
first general entry talks about how the guys went out
and basically just decided that they thought it would be
fun to go camp at the Big Rock Place in England,
which was Stumbhenge. I Like, I don't even know the
(11:18):
name of it. That's how dumb those hippies were. Yeah,
they decided that they would invite their girlfriends and then
m f H and then maybe some of their other friends,
but they weren't sure if the law enforcement would be
too close. The man man basically. The next one was
(11:40):
dated July eleven of the same year. They basically just
talked about, you know, talking to people about wanting to
take this trip. It sounds like they were kind of
on the American side of the pond here. Yeah, maybe
talked about crossing the pond. Yeah, that's they do. They
(12:01):
This one just briefly mentioned that one of the girls,
whose name is Wilma, said that she didn't really want
to go because she had had a dream of a
circle of rocks and God's hand striking or something like that,
so she didn't really want to go. And I think
this is the reason that this is often presented is
to kind of set up that Wilma was reportedly maybe
(12:24):
a little psychic about this whole thing. Well, Wilma's been
drinking a lot since Fred had died, though, because they
were they were not trusting her spiritual or psychic abilities
quite so much. Next entry is August seventeen, which I
believe is the day before the incident happened. I believe
(12:45):
the incident happened on August eighteen, though it's never actually
explicitly dated that it was August eighteen, but just for
the dates of the journal entrees and letters and things
like that, they are apparently out at somebody's farm doing
something in England, and it sounds like Wilma still not
(13:06):
really into the idea of going to Stonehenge, and come
to think of it, it's possible that the farmer that
was out was the guy whose farm they were working
on the day before that was Mr Jacobson, So I
guess it's possible. I don't really know. I don't really
know anything about this. They talked about working at Jacobson's farm,
they did, yeah, so it's possible that he heard the
(13:28):
lightning and knew they were going to be out there
and came out at two o'clock in the morning, and
that's why he was out there. I don't really know anyway.
The next journal entry was the final journal entry, and
it was on August eighteen, basically just kind of talking
about setting up camp, although it doesn't I don't know why.
If you were partying and all that stuff, you would
(13:49):
really uh be writing journals. But we've all been camping, though,
and there's a time when you get your camp set
up and your friends are still thinking around to get
their set up, and you've got time on your hands. Yeah,
and so you'll sit I've done. I think we've all
been set and said, well, I'll just read for a
couple of minutes or something. But if you are a
journal or you'd sit down and write in your journal,
(14:12):
I only this passage would have taken about five or
ten minutes to write. Even though this ding dong apparently
his hand cramps up after so little right now, Yeah,
he does say, might as well, Julius, Julia is calling
me to help, might as well because I'm getting to
just get it's getting bored just writing. My hands cramping up. Well,
(14:33):
then there's three letters, and will I guess go ahead
and read these three letters. By the way, I do
want to just mention that the the I mean, we've
summarized this, but there's a lot of talk of pot
there's a lot of talk of getting it on, you know,
typical hippie vernacular stuff that is in here. So it
(14:55):
very it's fits. It's very stiff stereotypical, is what I
want to say, supposed journal entries. Yeah, I will. I'll
read the first letter and then you guys can each
paper rock scissors over who wants to be Wilma. The
first letters from Julia, who was you know, the one
who was calling the journal or says quote, the guys
(15:18):
brought pot Can you believe that? I thought we'd just
take a trip down to see the place and have
a nice camping trip, but no, they had to go
bring that stinky ass grass ship here. Men just don't
know the first thing about manners. This chick calls yourself
a hippie. Yeah, really, well she doesn't. Everybody else calls
them a group of hippies. Listen, there's always group of
hippies that has one square among them. Always happens. So sorry,
(15:42):
I should have mentioned. All three of these letters are
dated August, even the same day. There are certainly a
letter writing busch, weren't they. I guess I don't know.
Convenient for a story. Yeah, and I don't know who
these letters were being written to or anything like that,
but there you go. So the next one was from
a guy named Lucas, and you guys can just do Lucas.
You know what I mean. Lucas, you want to be
will I don't care, all right, I'll be I'll be Lucas.
(16:05):
That's fine, Daniel and okay. So August nine, seventy one
from Lucas, Daniel and I are smoking it up. It's
times like this when us five are together, away from
our families in the city. That's smoking relaxes you the
most and makes you think maybe I'll quit my job
at the auto shop. When I get back. Julia is fuming,
(16:25):
smoke out of her ears that we brought the stuff,
but I don't mind. Almost every time she comes around,
she takes a drag, makes her loose, if you know
what I mean. Wilma huddles in front of the tent,
growing nervouser by the minute. She's swearing something bad's gonna happen,
that we're gonna die, or some other dark ship. I
wouldn't believe her lately, but she ain't been drinking for
(16:47):
a couple of weeks. If she don't brighten up soon,
I swear I'll push her out myself. Push her at
one with that. I don't know, ye, I don't even
know what push her out me, Probably maybe push her
out in front of a train or a truck that
I like to well. Wellness, yeah, wellness, the psychic one.
(17:07):
I'm gonna do it my Wilma voice. Right, it's raining.
I knew they'd be rain. Okay, Actually, please continue to
use your voice. There's always rain when the blue glow comes.
The blue glow comes for me every night, but only
when I'm not drunk. They took my paw straight into
the sky like nothing. He told me about them before that,
(17:29):
that they don't come after you if you're too drunk
to see your own hands. Okay, so that's why she
was drinking this past few weeks. I haven't been drinking,
and I've been having my future dreams again, but they
haven't come for me yet, not since the others started
talking about coming to Stone Hedge. She very scared of
the lightning, always has been. But that's not what you
should be scared about. I think the lightning is closed
(17:52):
the tree and the rocks too. I think the rocks
are there's the things rocks. They're glowing brighter than the lightning.
If someone find it's this out to this guy for
sack and placed down and the rest and this is
all allows eligible after that, presumably because of the blinding
light or something. So she was writing her last final
letter in the middle of the lightning under a lightning Well,
(18:13):
then we should have been We really missed an opportunity, devon.
We could have been in the background going some four
lot and make thunder noises. You're right, we should have been.
Right anyway, we're planning our parts. Sorry it is sorry everyone,
that's for this last letter again. You know, I think
it's meant to be have been composed during the storm,
(18:37):
but I'm again I'm not totally sure. That's an odd
thing to do in the middle of a lightning storm.
Yeah it is. Yeah, Yeah, that's our story, thank god.
So yeah, they So they all disappeared, and they left
some letters in journal entries behind, but that's it. No trace.
I guess we've got some names, um, but other than that,
I don't know they were where they're from. That's true.
(18:59):
So you guys to talk about theories about what this
could have been, let's do it. Let's talk about a
few theories. Sure, okay, but before we get into theories.
Let's take a quick break. Now that we're in this
wonderful ad break, I think I want to tell you
what this story makes me think of. It makes me
think of feet, because I think that these people should
(19:19):
have beat feet at the first sign of that storm.
They're crazy town. You know what else makes me think
of feet sucks because they go on my feet, and
that makes me want to think about Bamba sucks because
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(19:40):
the sock with innovations to make them way more comfortable.
They've got super soft cotton, so they keep you warm
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really awesome is there a company with a conscious They donate.
They donate one pair of socks for every pair they
sell to people in homeless shelters, so they've donated like
(20:02):
seven million pairs or some crazy huge number like that.
So far, I weared Bombas all the time. I love them,
and they're they're just wear them the gm. I can
wear them in the house. They're great socks, and I really,
really like them. They feel good and they look good.
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(20:26):
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your first order. Everybody loves feet and we're back. Let's
(20:52):
talk about some hippies. So the first area would clearly
be aliens. This was an alien abduction human harvesting. She
even wrote in her letter about the things that come
down from the sky took her dad and stuff. I know,
I think they just took him. I think they probed him.
I mean maybe, but all we know is they took
(21:12):
they took him, they took his dignity, they took him away,
but it doesn't really matter. Took him straight into the
sky like nothing. And you know, they're camping at Stonehenge,
which is pretty much always referred to as kind of
an alien ancient alien technology spot. They can see it
from the from the from more of it the landing
doctor anyway, So that would be our first theory. I
(21:35):
think it's a pretty good one, blue Light. But you
guys don't like the theory ones. I mean, it makes
of all of the stuff that we have except for one.
It makes the most sense, fair enough, It actually does,
because let's be honest, for me to triangle is goofy,
well the Stonehenge to triangle, yeah, not a triangle for
(21:59):
me to call THEE and the I mean that is
the next theory, but we don't really need to talk.
Think we know. Yeah, uh next one, Joe added, I think, well,
oh yeah, spontaneous human combustion yeah, or spontaneous tent combustion. Yeah,
that too. Spontaneous all this stuff combusting journals, Yeah, well
(22:22):
those probably got blown away by the wind before they
got you know, you know, well that's yeah, it is.
Uh so this one is like you know what I mean,
I mean, actually, usually spontaneous human combustion, which apparently does
seem to happen occasionally, it's not exactly spontaneous. Usually there's
a spark of something that lights you on fire. But
if you're a certain level of fatness. Apparently you'll burn
(22:45):
like a candle. So it does happen. But I don't
know if these guys were you know, they're hippies. They
were scrowning, probably probably undernerished, Yeah, probably probably not good
candidates for spontaneous human combustion. Could have been a murder.
It could have been actually a murder of body wirling
screams and the bodies were taken away and the tents
set on fire. What if they're murdered by the cliche
(23:07):
that was their existence? Uh? Well, you know that it
could be that there was somebody there's somebody out there
kind of fancies himself the guardian of stone Age and
felt that these guys were disrespecting the sacred spot. That's true,
men in long robes with voluminous with big hoods on
I can't say that. Yeah, yeah, okay, And we have
(23:31):
one more theory. But before we talk about that theory,
do you guys have any other theories? Well, somebody here
wrote that there was the farmer was actually a former
Nazi scientist. I don't know. That's kind of funny, But
the Nazis did not actually have a death ray that
you know, so it obviously could not have been harvesting Stonehenge.
(23:56):
It could have been Tesla from the grave. It could
have been Tesla, the space coope Tesla, or the scientist test,
Scientist test with his death ray. Remember, yeah, I totally
remember his death ray. Yea. Even that this is quite
a while after World War Two, I could imagine the
Nazi scientist who was working on it back in the
(24:18):
third right days and managed to escape or be transported
to the West after the war, and which happened to
a lot of scientists, and he was just tinkering in
his basement with his death ray over the years and
eventually had a prototype built and decided, hey, there's some
sticky old hippies. Nobody's going to miss Semifi vaporize him.
So he went out and tested it. Um. So, if
(24:38):
I have to summarize that theory right there, yeah, that's
utter bullshit. I would say that's uh. I would say
it's unsubstantiated bullshit. Yea perfectly plausible. Last theory is actually
(24:58):
the truth. And I'm sorry, oh no, we solve the mystery.
We are going to solve the mystery. It's actually that
this is an urban legend and the basis of which
is based on a TV show called qua quater Mass. Yeah, professor,
a British professor named Quatermass. Yeah, this was like a
(25:21):
lead into one of these was abduction people being harvested
TV show thing. Yeah, I think at this particular point
in time, I understanding. I never saw the show, but
my understanding is at this time instead of setting in
the near future, and all the hippies joined this cult
and they call themselves planet People, and they gather at
prehistoric sites hoping, hoping to be essentially abducted by aliens
(25:44):
and transported to another better planet than our own. And
so that's we are being abducted, and so in the
food Yeah, well that's it. Spoilers seventy nine. I think
it's thirty years later. Yeah, it's not too soon. Yeah,
we've seen that happ and all that stuff. Um but yeah, sorry,
(26:05):
sorry everyone, everybody liked the story, but this is totally
from the first episode of that series. What was when
this happened? So yeah, but it's a fun little story,
and it is it is reverberating around the internet. It's
it's certainly cut and pasted in a lot of places.
It's all copy pasted. Yeah, pretty much believe. Yeah, I
(26:27):
except for the journal entries, I rarely found it anywhere
that it was told in anything but the same four paragraphs. Yeah. Yeah,
I think that actually the Devin Harris has actually performed
a valuable service for you all and and got it
together every bit of information there is about this particular story.
Generally when you see it, you don't see like you
don't see quotations from the letters of the journal entries
(26:49):
for example. Yeah, I mean maybe I'll post it on
a Reddit or something like that. Yeah, yeah, put it
out there. Well it, but yeah, I guess that's it. Sorry, guys,
thank you, don't be sorry. You sel the mystery. So
good detective work. Thank you. Yeah, good job. You know,
as you know probably this is str premium content, and
(27:12):
so we just want to thank you guys for subscribing
to us on Stitcher premium. It really really supports the show.
We really appreciate it. Yeah. So, I guess with all
of that having been said, we will see you next
time I'm down the rabbit hole next month, and we'll
probably before then because we've got our other regularly. You'll
see us regular but this is special. Wait, wait, guys,
(27:33):
before we end. We're kind of missing an opportunity here.
We've we've given the advisory. So is there any foul
language that you quickly want to air? Heck, poop, darn, sorry,
(27:54):
I have anything good anymore? All right, okay, well see
you next time. Everybody,
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