August 25, 2023 • 50 mins
This week’s show will either frighten you or make you smile.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
And you're here.
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let's start with Strange Things with Joshua P.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Warren.
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Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and
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(00:45):
your own research and discover the subject matter for yourself.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
You get ready to be amazed by the wizard of
Weird Strange Things with Joshua Warren. I am Joshua PE Warren,
and each week on this show, I'll be bringing you
brand new mind blowing content, news, exercises, and weird experiments
(01:34):
you can do at home, and a lot more on
this edition of the show, Zombies, Scary or Silly. I'm
starting this podcast by letting you know right up front
that I have never really been into zombies. I have
(01:57):
known people who are absolutely terrified of them, but to me,
the concept of zombies has always just seemed kind of silly,
scary looking, yes, no doubt, but still just a little
too far fetched for me to take seriously. I just
(02:18):
was not all that interested, and so I don't think
I have ever done a podcast featuring zombies. And when
I realized that a few days ago, I decided that
if I could dig into zombies and find a way
to make them an interesting topic for me, well, then
(02:39):
hopefully it would do the same for you. Now, don't
get me wrong, I have read all about them throughout
my life, and even before doing research for this show.
I mean, I knew more about zombies than the average person.
I'm pretty sure we've all seen at least one movie
(03:00):
or TV show featuring a kind of zombie. But the
meaning of the word zombie has changed dramatically over the years.
As I will explain, zombies were once considered helpless, soulless slaves.
A person who became a victim who had been zombiefied,
(03:25):
sometimes even as a punishment. There was absolutely nothing to
fear from a zombie. That was the point. They were helpless,
and now most people think of zombies as attackers, as
humans that have transformed into some kind of flesh eating monsters.
(03:47):
So it's almost a complete one eighty really, and that's
a weird twist and actually kind of unexplained. I'm going
to get into that. But when it comes to movies,
the very first feature length zombie film was White Zombie,
released in nineteen thirty two starring Bela Legosi. It has
(04:13):
been a long time since I saw that movie. I
don't remember a lot about it, but it's about a
young woman's transformation into a zombie at the hands of
an evil voodoo master, and of course be La Legosi
stars as the zombie master. So that is a good
(04:34):
example for you of the zombie being a person who's
been victimized and turned into this helpless thing. However, all
that kind of changed in nineteen sixty eight when George A.
Romero's movie called Knight of the Living Dead came out.
(04:57):
In that case, and this is kind of interesting, I'll
dig more into that movie later, they were never called
zombies in that movie. They were called goules apparently, But
later the beings in that movie were being described as zombies,
and that was when they were attacking people and eating them,
(05:19):
and that just sort of completely shifted this whole idea
of zombies from being this sort of passive type of
being into this very aggressive, scary thing that's coming in
to invade and kill you. Odd how all that happened.
So you know how the creatures in contemporary zombie films
(05:40):
came to be called zombies, It's not fully clear. And
you know, Romero used the term ghoul in his original scripts,
and it seems like that later on some of the
media started using the word zombie, and then of course
he picked it up, and then he started using it
as well. But anyway, all that said, I was thinking
(06:04):
about how I was going to approach this topic, because
there are some really interesting, realistic aspects of zombie lore
that I find most intriguing. I actually bought this book.
It's over three hundred pages and it's called Everything You
(06:26):
Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies, and I guess it's
written by the top zombie scholar. His name is Matt Mock.
I guess I'd say he pronounced his last name m
og K, with a foreword by Max Brooks. Do you
know who Max Brooks is Max Brooks is one of
(06:50):
the top experts on zombies and zombie lore. And he,
oddly enough, is the son of filmmaker Mel Brooks, who
of course has known for his comedy classics like Young
Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles. And his mother was Anne Bancroft,
(07:15):
and she's no longer with us, but she was a
very popular actress. So their son, the son of Mel
Brooks and Anne Bancroft, is Matt Brooks, and he writes
all this stuff about zombies. Let's see here, he wrote
World War Z and Oral History of the Zombie War.
That's just kind of one of those funny, weird things
(07:37):
that some people don't know about. So I have this
book here that just really is kind of like the
Bible on the history of zombies. I'll refer some to
that a little bit later, but first off, let's just
get down to some basic definitions. According to Wikipedia, a
zombie is a mythological undead corporeal revenant. Let me let
(08:04):
me pause there for a second. Okay, well, I think
we all know what undead means. Corporeal means you actually
have a physical body, So we're not talking about some
phantasm like casper here, and a revenant is an animated corpse.
(08:27):
The word revenant is derived from the old French word
mean that means returning. Right, So that said, we're talking
about an undead, corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of
a corpse. It says zombies are most commonly found in
horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore,
(08:52):
in which a zombie is a dead body reanimated through
various methods, most commonly magical practices in religions like voodoo.
Modern media depictions of the reanimation of the dead often
do not involve magic, but rather science fictional methods such
as carriers, fungi, radiation, mental diseases, vectors, pathogens, parasites, scientific accidents,
(09:19):
et cetera. And goodness knows, I'm not going to break
it down into all those little categories because this really
would be a you know, like a four hour podcast.
But it is believed that well there there are various
opinions about the origin of the word zombie, but many
authors compare it to the Congo word vumby which that
(09:45):
actually means a ghost, a revenant of corpse, something that
still retains the soul versus a well. Actually, I guess
it has something to do with like whether or not
you have a soul. It's that kind of thing, all right,
So that's what we think it probably comes from. But
if you go down here and you start looking into
(10:05):
some of the beliefs, like the very original traditional beliefs here,
zombies are featured widely in Haitian rural folklore as dead
persons physically revived by the act of necromancy or a
sorcerer or witch. And a zombie remains under the control
of the witch they call them a bokor it looks like,
(10:29):
remains under the control of the witch as a personal slave,
having no will of its own. And so right there
you're talking about, you know again this idea that it
is it's a helpless entity. So that's kind of like,
you know, what the tradition goes back to. And this
(10:51):
is not just from Haiti though, I mean there are
people from out you know, from throughout that general part
of the world as well as Africa that all have
some kind of a belief system that revolves around this,
and I think that is best exemplified by this book
(11:13):
that was made into a movie called The Serpent and
the Rainbow. I know some of you have at least
seen this movie. The book was written in nineteen eighty
five and the movie came out in nineteen eighty eight.
And it's a really interesting story, and it's based on
(11:35):
well what supposedly happened to a real man who became
a zombie and then escaped and was able to rejoin
us and tell everybody what that experience was like when
we come back. I'm going to give you the facts
on that case. It's a wild story and a great
(11:58):
place to really start seeing your teeth into the mystery
of the zombies. Now, by the way, you know, I
go through these phases where I just get super generous
and I get crazy and I just start giving away
all kinds of cool stuff for free. You never know
what it's going to be. It might just be cold,
hard cash, it might be prizes, it might be tickets, experiences.
(12:20):
I'm about to start doing it, but only for people
who subscribe to my free e newsletter. You have to
go to Joshua Pawarren dot com. There is no period
after the P and right there on the homepage at
Joshuapewarren dot com. You'll see a little box and it
says click here for Joshua's free newsletter. When you click that,
(12:40):
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You'll be subscribed, and you will instantly receive an automated
email from me with some free online goodies just for
doing it, just to get you started, just to wet
your chops. Go to Joshua P. Warren dot com and subscribe.
I am Joshua P. Warren, and you are listening to
Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM
(13:04):
Paranormal Podcast Network, and I will be right back. Welcome
(13:41):
back to Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to
Coast to HIM Paranormal Podcast Network. I am your host,
the Wizard of Weird, Joshua P. Warren, beaming into your
wormhole brain from my studio in sim City, Las Vegas, Nevada.
Wherever he is Golden End every night is silver a
(14:04):
gietato zoomme. And when you look at this whole overview
of the sort of pop culture history of zombies, says here.
One of the first books to expose Western culture to
the concept of the voodoo zombie was W. B. C.
(14:24):
Brooks The Magic Island, published in nineteen twenty nine. Never
heard of that one. But then, of course they say.
A new version of the zombie, distinct from that described
in Haitian folklore, emerged in popular culture during the latter
half of the twentieth century. This interpretation of the zombie
(14:46):
as an undead person that attacks and eats the flesh
of living people is drawn largely from George A. Romero's
film Night of the Living Dead from nineteen sixty eight,
which was partly inspired by Richard mathe novel I Am Legend.
And of course from here you know that that gave
rise to like Dawn of the Dead, Return of the
(15:08):
Living Dead, and then it all just really takes off.
Who doesn't love Michael Jackson's thriller video, right, And then
you start working your way into the nineties Resident Evil,
House of the Dead. My goodness, this Sean Down of
the Dead remake Sean of the Dead. Of course, the
(15:31):
Walking Dead franchise comes out of that. I mean, it
just goes on and on and on. But when we
go back to that original story about you know what
is zombie was in Haiti Going back to who knows
(15:51):
who is this something that could have been around for
thousands of years, hundreds of years, I don't know, but
it takes us to this story from well. Like I
mentioned The Serpent in the Rainbow. That was a book
published in nineteen eighty five and made into a movie
by Wes Craven in nineteen eighty eight. The full title
(16:17):
of the book was The Serpent and the Rainbow, A
Harvard Scientist's Astonishing Journey into the secret societies of Haitian voodoo,
zombies and magic. And it was written by Wade Davis,
who is still alive, by the way, and still conducting
research at sixty nine years old. Now. Wade Davis is
(16:42):
an ethno botanist. Now ethno botany is the study of
a particular region's plants and their practical uses through the
traditional knowledge of a local culture and people. So you're
going there and you're really digging into the relationship between
(17:04):
people and their indigenous plants there. And in the late
nineteen seventies, this scientist, Wade Davis, read a newspaper article
about the supposedly true story of a man in Haiti
named Clivius Narcis. And this man had supposedly been a
(17:26):
zombie slave for at least two years before escaping. So
here is the story as I understand it. So in
a nutshell, this man in Haiti, Clarvious Clervius and his brother.
They lived in this very remote part of Haiti, and
(17:47):
they got into a prolonged land dispute. They were arguing
over some piece of land and it got more and
more heated, and eventually Clarvius's brother got a local witch
doctor involved to help him. Apparently Clivious was drugged. So
(18:11):
that's the idea of the story, is that Clivius's brother
got a witch doctor and they conspired and they drugged
Clarvious in some manner. He doesn't remember what happened, but
he did remember feeling some agonizing pain at some point,
and also at some stage in this although he was
(18:33):
fully conscious, he found that he was lying somewhere completely paralyzed.
In fact, two American trained doctors pronounced this man dead.
They issued an official legal death certificate, and Clivious actually
remembers being nailed into a wooden box and being buried,
(19:00):
although he could do nothing about it. So eventually this
witch doctor dug him up. At that point, Clarivius was
able to walk roughly, and he was led off to
a sugar plantation in the jungle, where he was constantly
(19:21):
fed drugs that kept him completely submissive in this kind
of groggy state. And for two years he was forced
to do manual labor in the fields and menial jobs
around the house. And then one day Clarvius found the
witch doctor lying there dead in the living room. And
(19:44):
at that point Clarvius wandered away from the plantation and
eventually made it back to his hometown, where he scared
the heck out of everybody, of course, including his brother.
I'm not sure how that they reconcile that situation. Well, anyway,
(20:05):
Wade Davis, he read all about this and so he
was just absolutely amazed. He flew to Haiti and he
interviewed Clarvieus in person. He examined the death certificate, and
Wade Davis was convinced that this story was true. And
as he continued his research, Wade finally met a witch
(20:27):
doctor who knew how to do this, how to turn
people into zombies. And of course the witch doctor did
not want to reveal the secrets, so Wade paid him
a lot of money and finally the witch doctor relented
and gave Wade some bags of the quote zombie powders
(20:49):
used to drug people and put them into this zombie state.
So Wade Davis took one of these powders to the
lab at Harvard, gave it to some rats, and shortly
thereafter the rats looked as if they had died. However,
(21:11):
some extremely sensitive you know EEG type brain wave machines
there showed that the rats still had brain activity and
that they were very much alive, but they just looked
at just like Clarvius had claimed he experienced. So Wade
(21:31):
analyzed the primary powder and he said that he found
it primarily contained a chemical derived from the pufferfish. You
know what a pufferfish is. It's the fish that blows
up and it's got the spines all over it. And
then another one of the powders, the one that kind
(21:51):
of keeps you in a slave state, the one that
you would be given, you know, after you are revived,
so to speak, and you're the one that keeps you
as zombie, is derived from a plant called Datura stramonium
or zombie cucumber. Turns out, you may have heard of
this plant. Called gemsen weed, and these powders, the one
(22:20):
from the puffer fish and the gemsum. These powders are deadly,
especially the puffer fish powder. So if indeed this is
what was being used, the witch doctor would need to
know just the right dose to administer to create the
zombie state without killing the victim. And you know that's
(22:42):
not an easy task. I mean, you're talking about having
to size up each person as an individual. Now, there
are those who criticize way Davis's work, but I think
he may have given us the best explanation for the
origin of these true zombie stories from Haiti. By the way,
(23:05):
in the legends of Voodoo, the serpent is the symbol
of Earth and the rainbow is the symbol of heaven,
and between the two all creatures must live and die.
But because he has a soul, they believe man can
be trapped in this terrible place kind of like a
(23:27):
like a limbo or whatever, a purgatory, And that's sort
of what the whole zombie idea is about. So again,
the serpent in the rainbow presents this case of this
man He's Clarivius is dead. Now who you know said
that this the zombification was the result of this complex
(23:47):
interaction between these these powders and these hallucinogens and such,
and that very much fits into what you know, the
Haitians claim was happening when they would encounter real zombies,
which is where this whole thing took off. Now let's
(24:07):
fast forward. Let's get back to Night of the Living Dead,
because all the way up until Night of the Living Dead,
zombies were pretty much described as behaving just like Clairviews did.
So Night of the Living Dead was made, like I said,
(24:29):
in nineteen sixty eight, and at that time, George A. Romero,
I don't think he'd ever made a movie before. Actually
he was twenty eight years old. This movie was made
for one hundred and twenty thousand dollars and it grossed
over thirty million dollars. Can you believe that? Okay, time
(24:54):
for a break. When we come back, I'm going to
tell you more about what that movie did. And then
also I'm going to tell you about, yes, some well
the closest thing to zombies that I have ever personally witnessed.
And then finally I'm going to get around to what's
my conclusion about all this zombie stuff, and then I
(25:15):
have another cool update for you. I'm Joshua P. Warren.
You're listening to Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast
to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network, and I will be
back after these important messages. Welcome back to Strange Things
(26:06):
on the iHeartRadio and cost to Coast AM Peronormal Podcast Network.
I am your host, Joshua P. Warren, And this is
the show where the unusual becomes usual. Night of the
Living Dead, released in nineteen sixty eight, is a movie
about a group of strangers trapped in a farmhouse who
(26:30):
find themselves fending off a horde of recently dead flesh
eating ghules. And it was it was an independent horror film, directed, photographed,
and edited by twenty eight year old George A. Romero,
(26:51):
and it was written by him and John Russo. And
as I mentioned, it was one of those things like
they just barely scraped the money together, around one hundred
and twenty thousand dollars, which, by the way, even by
today's standards, that would still be less than one million
(27:13):
dollars by today's money here in twenty twenty three. So
one of those typical stories you hear like they barely
scraped all this money together. They got all these investors
and then knocked it out of the ballpark because that
one hundred and twenty thousand dollars turned into over thirty
million dollars for this little black and white movie. I mean,
(27:37):
can you believe that? That's just the amazing thing about movies.
When you make one, there is a chance, however small,
however small, that you can turn just a little, grainy,
low budget film into a gold mine. And so that
was one of the most profitable movies ever made. That
(27:57):
should tell you something right off the bat about this
odd connection that people feel to this concept of what
we now consider zombies. And you know what's funny is
that Romero said that when he was writing his part,
(28:18):
and this was pretty you know, I know we had
a co author, but this is pretty much his thing.
He said he drew heavy inspiration from Richard Matheson's novel
called I Am Legend that was published in nineteen fifty four.
That's a horror novel about a plague that ravages a
futuristic Los Angeles and the infected people and I Am
(28:39):
Legend become these vampire like creatures and prey on the Uninfected,
and when discussing the creation of the movie Night of
the Living Dead, Romero once said, quote, I had written
a short story which I basically had ripped off from
Richard Matheson's novel called I Am Legend end quote, and
(29:04):
he went on to say, I thought I Am Legend
was about revolution. I said, if you're going to do
something about revolution, you should start at the beginning. I mean,
Richard starts his book with one man left. Everybody in
the world has become a vampire. I said, we got
to start at the beginning and tweak it up a
little bit. And I couldn't use vampires because he did. So.
(29:27):
I wanted something that would be an earth shaking change,
something that was forever, something that was really at the
heart of it. And I said, so what if the
dead stop staying dead and the stories are about how
people respond or fail to respond to this? That's really
all the zombies ever represented to me. And as a
(29:52):
matter of fact, interestingly enough, you know well, Richard Matheson's
novel I Am Legend appeared in some official film adaptations
in nineteen sixty four, The Last Man on Earth in
nineteen seventy one, as the Omega Man, and of course
the two thousand and seven release I Am Legend, and
Mathieson said he was not impressed by Romero's interpretation, said
(30:15):
he thought it was kind of cornball. But he also said, well,
George Romero is a nice guy, and I don't harbor
any animosity toward him, So I guess that's a good thing.
But you know, again, it goes back to what I
was telling you earlier. George A. Romero used the term
google in his original scripts, and then in later interviews
(30:40):
he used the term zombie, and then after that, well,
the word zombie is used exclusively by Romero in his
script for his sequel Dawn of the Dead in nineteen
seventy eight, according once in Dialogue, and so, according to Romero,
film critics were very influential in associating that term zombie
(31:05):
to his creatures, and he just eventually accepted that link,
even though he remained convinced that zombies actually corresponded to
the undead slaves of Haitian voodoo, as depicted in the
movie White Zombie with Bella Legosi. Isn't this kind of weird,
(31:25):
like how that connection was just made and they just
kind of went with it. Well, anyway, we'll never understand
precisely how that connection was made, I guess, but that
shows you the journey that the zombie has taken. Now,
(31:48):
when it comes to my own personal experiences with so
called zombies, I will tell you that, of course, I
spent a good fifteen years exploring in Puerto Rico, and
I just outright lived there for five years, and Boquerrone
on the south western side of the island in Caborrojo,
(32:12):
and one of the I guess you know, one of
the more significant towns that was close to me was
called Myos. And when I was living in Puerto Rico,
there was this terrible drug fad, if you will, that
was going around. For some reason, a lot of these
(32:35):
downtrodden Puerto Ricans were getting a hold of horse tranquilizers.
And I can't remember what all the official names are
for this stuff, but there are quite a few horses
in Puerto Rico. I mean, you got to be careful
when you're driving around at night because sometimes you'll come
around a tight curve and there'll just be like five
(32:56):
or six guys on black horses there, and you know,
no lights or reflective vests and so horse tranquilizers were
pretty prevalent, and during that period of time, people started
taking horse tranquilizers just you know, as the latest drug
(33:17):
to get off on. And but I mean, I'm telling you, like,
this is not something that like the kids would do
for fun. This was the people who you know, were
living in and alleyways. I mean, it's like the lowest,
most terrible level of It's basically a form of slow suicide.
(33:37):
When you start taking things like that, it's like people
who got hooked on I guess heroin and meth and finnel.
But anyway, the weird thing about these horse tranquilizers is
that sometimes you would encounter one of these people and
it was so eerie because when they would take it
(33:59):
at a certain times, they would reach a point where
they would absolutely freeze in place and looked exactly like
a statue. So and I mean they are standing up
on two feet. I mean you would see people that
look like they were walking and in mid stride, boom,
(34:24):
somebody hit the pause button and I don't even know how.
They would stay that way sometimes apparently for at least
an hour, and their eyes are open. But it's like
their soul is gone. It kind of reminds me of
those figures from Pompeii. But I had a friend who
(34:46):
was a skateboarder and his name was Rafael, and one
day he goes, man, look at this video. Was he
was skating downtown and there were one of these people
frozen in position like that, literally like right handback, left
hand forward, one foot forward, eyes open, just standing there
(35:06):
frozen on these horse tranquilizers. And as he was skating
on his skateboard, he took out his cell phone and
he filmed the person and then he kind of skated
around the person a little bit, and it kind of
had that matrix effect where it looks like the person is,
you know again, like frozen in time. And then you
(35:28):
see all these angles and people. People in Puerto Rico
said they these are the zombies. These are the horse
tranquilizer zombies. And there have been documentaries made about it.
I know the National Geographic Channel did a whole thing
about that phenomenon, so that was talking about disturbing and weird.
(35:51):
I still don't understand exactly how that happened. Maybe I
didn't even go back and look it up again for
this podcast but I guess I need to. I like
to go back and say, like, what's the latest on that?
And while on Earth did it have that effect on people?
Another interesting connection that I have to so I guess
(36:13):
the world of zombies is that, of course, you know,
I own, I created, and I own the Haunted Boulder
City Ghost and UFO tour here in it's outside of
Las Vegas, Nevada, about thirty minutes from Las Vegas, a
Boulder City, and we have everybody meet us at a
place called beer Zombies, which is a really cool joint
(36:35):
where the guy who created it as an artist and
he now he's a brewer and an artist, and so
he just brands everything with zombie imagery and he's got
a very successful franchise here. I don't know if you
call it franchise. He got a chain, I guess I
should say, of these places called beer Zombies around Las Vegas.
(36:57):
And so if you ever take the Haunted Boulder City Tour,
you'll be meeting up at Beer Zombies. That's Haunted Bouldercity
dot com. That'd be a great thing to do this fall,
of course, But when we come back, I also want
to tell you about an odd and unexpected run in
I had with well, I don't want to say I
(37:22):
had a run in. I saw Woody Harrelson one time
and it was connected to the Zombie Land movie. And
then I'm just going to give you my final thoughts
on this whole zombie business. And then I have a
very interesting update for you. I'm Joshua Pee Warren. You're
(37:43):
listening to Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to
Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network, and I will be right back.
(38:25):
Welcome back to the final segment of this edition of
Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM
Paranormal Podcast Network. I am your host, Joshua P One.
And now it's not much of a story really, it's
just something weird I thought about when the movie zombie
(38:46):
Land came out starring Woody Harrelson. I just so happened
to be in Chicago and when they were having the premiere,
the Zombie Land premiere. When was that like two thousand
and nine, Yeah, two thousand and nine, And so I
(39:07):
was not at the premiere, but I was actually there
working on a television show and I ended up passing
through the area where they were having the premiere, and
so you know, I just got a glimpse of whatdy
Harrelson at the Zombie Land premiere. I love that story. Okay,
(39:30):
so final thoughts, what are we gleaning from all this?
Now that I've given you some context for the whole
zombie phenomenon, let me go back first off to this
book Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Zombies by
Matt Mock. He has a section here called Final Thoughts,
(39:52):
and here is one of the things that he writes.
The modern zombie evolved from vampires, not from the soulless
voodoo slaves that share their name. But unlike vampires, the
walking dead don't carry with them the baggage of old
(40:14):
world superstitions and myths. They aren't supernatural, superhuman, super strong,
or particularly super anything. Just the opposite. Zombies are grossly
natural in their rotting flesh, imperfect brains, and limited physical abilities.
(40:36):
They don't pretend to be anything more or less than
what they are. But what they are is the end
of the world. Well, maybe that's why I don't like
the zombie thing so much, because I don't like thinking
about the end of the world. Maybe I just don't
(41:02):
believe in the end of the world because I know
that I'm not going to be here forever. None of
us are. We're all going to die. But I think
the world is going to continue to exist with people
in it because the world was put here to serve
a purpose. It's a big classroom, and no matter how
good or how bad things get, my feeling is that
(41:25):
the end of the world scenario is just not that
interesting to me. And that's why I'm not a big
doom and gloomer. I have a real I mean, I'm prepped.
I'm prepared for anything that happens. But all right, that said,
let's get into my ultimate conclusion from everything that I've
given you and everything we've been thinking about, let's get
(41:48):
back to the big traditional ideas of a zombie. So
silly or scary, Well, the original concept of the zo
zombie is truly terrifying because it is apparently real, especially
if we're to believe the story from the Serpent in
(42:09):
the Rainbow. I mean, we're talking about the idea that
you could be absolutely helpless to being secretly drugged by someone,
and that drug paralyzes you to the point that others
believe you are dead. And then you are buried alive,
even though you're still conscious. Now, if I stopped right there,
(42:34):
it would be one of the most horrible things you
could imagine happening to you. But then it goes even
further into you suffering underground in your coffin until someone
digs you up and then enslaves you the rest of
your life and you are physically incapable of doing anything
(42:55):
about it. It is truly a fate worse than death,
so obviously to call that scary is an understatement. However,
the newer version of the zombie as a soulless home
invading brain eater, you know, almost like a human shark.
(43:21):
It would be scary if it were real, but since
it is not, then I can't help it. I just
do consider it silly. Now, that does not mean that
I wouldn't be scared to death if someone in a
zombie outfit came crashing through my window. Of course, it
would scare the Jesus out of me. But that is
(43:45):
why I arm myself. And I'm pretty sure that no
matter how scary a zombie outfit may look, and it's
probably not bulletproof. So are zombies silly or Scar. Well,
my answer is both depending on the type of zombie
(44:08):
we are talking about. And I guess that's the best
I can do for you on zombies. And I hope
that you found that interesting and thought provoking at very
least now I've done a zombie podcast. Moving on, here
(44:30):
is the other thing I wanted to tell you about
that I think is pretty interesting. So you know, I
mentioned earlier in the podcast, and I mentioned this at
least you know once on every show, that if you
subscribe to my free E newsletter you get to participate
in special experiments. Well, recently I sent out an E
newsletter and I said, hey, I'm going to do a
(44:55):
version of a Roulette wheel experiment here in Las Vegas
that I've never done before. And the idea is that
you you get to participate for free. You just have
to go to this link, which I sent through my
E newsletter, and you have to tell me what space
(45:18):
you think is going to hit the next time I
go to a roulette Will. Because a typical American roulette
will has thirty eight spaces, and thirty six of them
are either red or black, and they're also numbered one, two, three, four, five, six,
seven up to the number thirty six, and then there
(45:39):
are two green spaces, and one of those spaces has
got a zero and the other has a double zero.
So whatever happens on a wheel like that, you're going
to hit one of those thirty eight spaces. And so
if you bet on one of those spaces and it hits,
then you get paid thirty five times whatever you bet
(46:01):
on that. So, for example, if I put a dollar
on one of those spaces and it hit that space,
and then you know they spend the wheel and you
know the ball lands on that space, well then they
give you thirty five dollars. If you put one hundred
dollars on one of those spaces and they spend the
wheel and the ball hits that space, well now you
(46:24):
get three hundred and uh what did I? What did
I just say? If you put if you put one
hundred dollars, you get thirty five hundred dollars. I've done
that before numerous times. So you put one hundred down,
you get thirty five hundred dollars. But I want to
go to that wheel and I want to put down
one thousand dollars on one of those spaces and they
(46:45):
spend the wheel and if the ball hits the space
that I put the one thousand dollars down on, then
they would give me thirty five thousand dollars just like that.
And so what I thought would be cool would be
to do an experiment where I involve my audience and
I say, if you pick the number that I put
(47:08):
the thousand dollars on and it hits, I'll split it
with you. So you'll get seventeen thousand, five hundred dollars
and I'll get seventeen thousand, five hundred dollars. But before
I I've got confidence in you, you have to prove
that you can do this. So we have round one
where everybody gets to go and pick what space it's
(47:30):
going to be. Is it going to be numbers one
through thirty six or zero or double zero? And then
from there you do it a second time and that's
round two, and the people who get it right the
second time get to move on to round three. And
by round three, I mean I'm thinking only one person
will get it, and that is the person who is
(47:53):
going to split the thirty five grand with me. When
I go at stage four and put the thought thousand
bucks down, So I put this out there, and I
mean hundreds of people from all over the world participated,
and well, the weirdest thing is that fifteen percent of
(48:15):
the people picked the number seventeen. That's a huge margin.
Why do you think that is? I don't know for sure.
I have a theory as to why that may be.
But why do you think that is? I don't want
to tell you what my theory is right now, but
why do you think fifteen percent of the people picked
the number seventeen? Well, anyway, I did it, and the
(48:39):
winning number was twenty nine. Eight people guests twenty nine,
and those eight people are now moving on through the
rounds and pretty soon, hopefully one of us, well one
of you, one of those people will have seventeen thousand,
five hundred. All right, my friends, here is the good
Fortune tone. That's it for this edition of the show.
(49:24):
Follow me on Twitter at Joshua P. Warren, Plus visit
joshuapwarren dot com to sign up for my free e
newsletter to receive a free instant gift, and check out
the cool stuff in the Curiosity Shop all at Joshuapwarren
dot com. I have a fun one lined up for
you next time. I promise, so please tell all your
(49:47):
friends to subscribe to this show and to always remember
the Golden Rule. Thank you for listening, thank you for
your interest and support. Thank you for staying curious, and
I will talk to you again soon. You've been listening
to Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast
(50:09):
AM Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
Thanks for listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast
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our shows on the iHeartRadio app or by going to
iHeartRadio dot com
And you're here.
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Thanks for choosing the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast Day
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let's start with Strange Things with Joshua P.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
Warren.
Speaker 3 (00:25):
Welcome to our podcast. Please be aware the thoughts and
opinions expressed by the host are their thoughts and opinions
only and do not reflect those of iHeartMedia, iHeartRadio, Coast
to Coast AM, employees of Premiere Networks, or their sponsors
and associates. We would like to encourage you to do
(00:45):
your own research and discover the subject matter for yourself.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
You get ready to be amazed by the wizard of
Weird Strange Things with Joshua Warren. I am Joshua PE Warren,
and each week on this show, I'll be bringing you
brand new mind blowing content, news, exercises, and weird experiments
(01:34):
you can do at home, and a lot more on
this edition of the show, Zombies, Scary or Silly. I'm
starting this podcast by letting you know right up front
that I have never really been into zombies. I have
(01:57):
known people who are absolutely terrified of them, but to me,
the concept of zombies has always just seemed kind of silly,
scary looking, yes, no doubt, but still just a little
too far fetched for me to take seriously. I just
(02:18):
was not all that interested, and so I don't think
I have ever done a podcast featuring zombies. And when
I realized that a few days ago, I decided that
if I could dig into zombies and find a way
to make them an interesting topic for me, well, then
(02:39):
hopefully it would do the same for you. Now, don't
get me wrong, I have read all about them throughout
my life, and even before doing research for this show.
I mean, I knew more about zombies than the average person.
I'm pretty sure we've all seen at least one movie
(03:00):
or TV show featuring a kind of zombie. But the
meaning of the word zombie has changed dramatically over the years.
As I will explain, zombies were once considered helpless, soulless slaves.
A person who became a victim who had been zombiefied,
(03:25):
sometimes even as a punishment. There was absolutely nothing to
fear from a zombie. That was the point. They were helpless,
and now most people think of zombies as attackers, as
humans that have transformed into some kind of flesh eating monsters.
(03:47):
So it's almost a complete one eighty really, and that's
a weird twist and actually kind of unexplained. I'm going
to get into that. But when it comes to movies,
the very first feature length zombie film was White Zombie,
released in nineteen thirty two starring Bela Legosi. It has
(04:13):
been a long time since I saw that movie. I
don't remember a lot about it, but it's about a
young woman's transformation into a zombie at the hands of
an evil voodoo master, and of course be La Legosi
stars as the zombie master. So that is a good
(04:34):
example for you of the zombie being a person who's
been victimized and turned into this helpless thing. However, all
that kind of changed in nineteen sixty eight when George A.
Romero's movie called Knight of the Living Dead came out.
(04:57):
In that case, and this is kind of interesting, I'll
dig more into that movie later, they were never called
zombies in that movie. They were called goules apparently, But
later the beings in that movie were being described as zombies,
and that was when they were attacking people and eating them,
(05:19):
and that just sort of completely shifted this whole idea
of zombies from being this sort of passive type of
being into this very aggressive, scary thing that's coming in
to invade and kill you. Odd how all that happened.
So you know how the creatures in contemporary zombie films
(05:40):
came to be called zombies, It's not fully clear. And
you know, Romero used the term ghoul in his original scripts,
and it seems like that later on some of the
media started using the word zombie, and then of course
he picked it up, and then he started using it
as well. But anyway, all that said, I was thinking
(06:04):
about how I was going to approach this topic, because
there are some really interesting, realistic aspects of zombie lore
that I find most intriguing. I actually bought this book.
It's over three hundred pages and it's called Everything You
(06:26):
Ever Wanted to Know About Zombies, and I guess it's
written by the top zombie scholar. His name is Matt Mock.
I guess I'd say he pronounced his last name m
og K, with a foreword by Max Brooks. Do you
know who Max Brooks is Max Brooks is one of
(06:50):
the top experts on zombies and zombie lore. And he,
oddly enough, is the son of filmmaker Mel Brooks, who
of course has known for his comedy classics like Young
Frankenstein and Blazing Saddles. And his mother was Anne Bancroft,
(07:15):
and she's no longer with us, but she was a
very popular actress. So their son, the son of Mel
Brooks and Anne Bancroft, is Matt Brooks, and he writes
all this stuff about zombies. Let's see here, he wrote
World War Z and Oral History of the Zombie War.
That's just kind of one of those funny, weird things
(07:37):
that some people don't know about. So I have this
book here that just really is kind of like the
Bible on the history of zombies. I'll refer some to
that a little bit later, but first off, let's just
get down to some basic definitions. According to Wikipedia, a
zombie is a mythological undead corporeal revenant. Let me let
(08:04):
me pause there for a second. Okay, well, I think
we all know what undead means. Corporeal means you actually
have a physical body, So we're not talking about some
phantasm like casper here, and a revenant is an animated corpse.
(08:27):
The word revenant is derived from the old French word
mean that means returning. Right, So that said, we're talking
about an undead, corporeal revenant created through the reanimation of
a corpse. It says zombies are most commonly found in
horror and fantasy genre works. The term comes from Haitian folklore,
(08:52):
in which a zombie is a dead body reanimated through
various methods, most commonly magical practices in religions like voodoo.
Modern media depictions of the reanimation of the dead often
do not involve magic, but rather science fictional methods such
as carriers, fungi, radiation, mental diseases, vectors, pathogens, parasites, scientific accidents,
(09:19):
et cetera. And goodness knows, I'm not going to break
it down into all those little categories because this really
would be a you know, like a four hour podcast.
But it is believed that well there there are various
opinions about the origin of the word zombie, but many
authors compare it to the Congo word vumby which that
(09:45):
actually means a ghost, a revenant of corpse, something that
still retains the soul versus a well. Actually, I guess
it has something to do with like whether or not
you have a soul. It's that kind of thing, all right,
So that's what we think it probably comes from. But
if you go down here and you start looking into
(10:05):
some of the beliefs, like the very original traditional beliefs here,
zombies are featured widely in Haitian rural folklore as dead
persons physically revived by the act of necromancy or a
sorcerer or witch. And a zombie remains under the control
of the witch they call them a bokor it looks like,
(10:29):
remains under the control of the witch as a personal slave,
having no will of its own. And so right there
you're talking about, you know again this idea that it
is it's a helpless entity. So that's kind of like,
you know, what the tradition goes back to. And this
(10:51):
is not just from Haiti though, I mean there are
people from out you know, from throughout that general part
of the world as well as Africa that all have
some kind of a belief system that revolves around this,
and I think that is best exemplified by this book
(11:13):
that was made into a movie called The Serpent and
the Rainbow. I know some of you have at least
seen this movie. The book was written in nineteen eighty
five and the movie came out in nineteen eighty eight.
And it's a really interesting story, and it's based on
(11:35):
well what supposedly happened to a real man who became
a zombie and then escaped and was able to rejoin
us and tell everybody what that experience was like when
we come back. I'm going to give you the facts
on that case. It's a wild story and a great
(11:58):
place to really start seeing your teeth into the mystery
of the zombies. Now, by the way, you know, I
go through these phases where I just get super generous
and I get crazy and I just start giving away
all kinds of cool stuff for free. You never know
what it's going to be. It might just be cold,
hard cash, it might be prizes, it might be tickets, experiences.
(12:20):
I'm about to start doing it, but only for people
who subscribe to my free e newsletter. You have to
go to Joshua Pawarren dot com. There is no period
after the P and right there on the homepage at
Joshuapewarren dot com. You'll see a little box and it
says click here for Joshua's free newsletter. When you click that,
(12:40):
you just put your email address in there, hit submit.
You'll be subscribed, and you will instantly receive an automated
email from me with some free online goodies just for
doing it, just to get you started, just to wet
your chops. Go to Joshua P. Warren dot com and subscribe.
I am Joshua P. Warren, and you are listening to
Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM
(13:04):
Paranormal Podcast Network, and I will be right back. Welcome
(13:41):
back to Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to
Coast to HIM Paranormal Podcast Network. I am your host,
the Wizard of Weird, Joshua P. Warren, beaming into your
wormhole brain from my studio in sim City, Las Vegas, Nevada.
Wherever he is Golden End every night is silver a
(14:04):
gietato zoomme. And when you look at this whole overview
of the sort of pop culture history of zombies, says here.
One of the first books to expose Western culture to
the concept of the voodoo zombie was W. B. C.
(14:24):
Brooks The Magic Island, published in nineteen twenty nine. Never
heard of that one. But then, of course they say.
A new version of the zombie, distinct from that described
in Haitian folklore, emerged in popular culture during the latter
half of the twentieth century. This interpretation of the zombie
(14:46):
as an undead person that attacks and eats the flesh
of living people is drawn largely from George A. Romero's
film Night of the Living Dead from nineteen sixty eight,
which was partly inspired by Richard mathe novel I Am Legend.
And of course from here you know that that gave
rise to like Dawn of the Dead, Return of the
(15:08):
Living Dead, and then it all just really takes off.
Who doesn't love Michael Jackson's thriller video, right, And then
you start working your way into the nineties Resident Evil,
House of the Dead. My goodness, this Sean Down of
the Dead remake Sean of the Dead. Of course, the
(15:31):
Walking Dead franchise comes out of that. I mean, it
just goes on and on and on. But when we
go back to that original story about you know what
is zombie was in Haiti Going back to who knows
(15:51):
who is this something that could have been around for
thousands of years, hundreds of years, I don't know, but
it takes us to this story from well. Like I
mentioned The Serpent in the Rainbow. That was a book
published in nineteen eighty five and made into a movie
by Wes Craven in nineteen eighty eight. The full title
(16:17):
of the book was The Serpent and the Rainbow, A
Harvard Scientist's Astonishing Journey into the secret societies of Haitian voodoo,
zombies and magic. And it was written by Wade Davis,
who is still alive, by the way, and still conducting
research at sixty nine years old. Now. Wade Davis is
(16:42):
an ethno botanist. Now ethno botany is the study of
a particular region's plants and their practical uses through the
traditional knowledge of a local culture and people. So you're
going there and you're really digging into the relationship between
(17:04):
people and their indigenous plants there. And in the late
nineteen seventies, this scientist, Wade Davis, read a newspaper article
about the supposedly true story of a man in Haiti
named Clivius Narcis. And this man had supposedly been a
(17:26):
zombie slave for at least two years before escaping. So
here is the story as I understand it. So in
a nutshell, this man in Haiti, Clarvious Clervius and his brother.
They lived in this very remote part of Haiti, and
(17:47):
they got into a prolonged land dispute. They were arguing
over some piece of land and it got more and
more heated, and eventually Clarvius's brother got a local witch
doctor involved to help him. Apparently Clivious was drugged. So
(18:11):
that's the idea of the story, is that Clivius's brother
got a witch doctor and they conspired and they drugged
Clarvious in some manner. He doesn't remember what happened, but
he did remember feeling some agonizing pain at some point,
and also at some stage in this although he was
(18:33):
fully conscious, he found that he was lying somewhere completely paralyzed.
In fact, two American trained doctors pronounced this man dead.
They issued an official legal death certificate, and Clivious actually
remembers being nailed into a wooden box and being buried,
(19:00):
although he could do nothing about it. So eventually this
witch doctor dug him up. At that point, Clarivius was
able to walk roughly, and he was led off to
a sugar plantation in the jungle, where he was constantly
(19:21):
fed drugs that kept him completely submissive in this kind
of groggy state. And for two years he was forced
to do manual labor in the fields and menial jobs
around the house. And then one day Clarvius found the
witch doctor lying there dead in the living room. And
(19:44):
at that point Clarvius wandered away from the plantation and
eventually made it back to his hometown, where he scared
the heck out of everybody, of course, including his brother.
I'm not sure how that they reconcile that situation. Well, anyway,
(20:05):
Wade Davis, he read all about this and so he
was just absolutely amazed. He flew to Haiti and he
interviewed Clarvieus in person. He examined the death certificate, and
Wade Davis was convinced that this story was true. And
as he continued his research, Wade finally met a witch
(20:27):
doctor who knew how to do this, how to turn
people into zombies. And of course the witch doctor did
not want to reveal the secrets, so Wade paid him
a lot of money and finally the witch doctor relented
and gave Wade some bags of the quote zombie powders
(20:49):
used to drug people and put them into this zombie state.
So Wade Davis took one of these powders to the
lab at Harvard, gave it to some rats, and shortly
thereafter the rats looked as if they had died. However,
(21:11):
some extremely sensitive you know EEG type brain wave machines
there showed that the rats still had brain activity and
that they were very much alive, but they just looked
at just like Clarvius had claimed he experienced. So Wade
(21:31):
analyzed the primary powder and he said that he found
it primarily contained a chemical derived from the pufferfish. You
know what a pufferfish is. It's the fish that blows
up and it's got the spines all over it. And
then another one of the powders, the one that kind
(21:51):
of keeps you in a slave state, the one that
you would be given, you know, after you are revived,
so to speak, and you're the one that keeps you
as zombie, is derived from a plant called Datura stramonium
or zombie cucumber. Turns out, you may have heard of
this plant. Called gemsen weed, and these powders, the one
(22:20):
from the puffer fish and the gemsum. These powders are deadly,
especially the puffer fish powder. So if indeed this is
what was being used, the witch doctor would need to
know just the right dose to administer to create the
zombie state without killing the victim. And you know that's
(22:42):
not an easy task. I mean, you're talking about having
to size up each person as an individual. Now, there
are those who criticize way Davis's work, but I think
he may have given us the best explanation for the
origin of these true zombie stories from Haiti. By the way,
(23:05):
in the legends of Voodoo, the serpent is the symbol
of Earth and the rainbow is the symbol of heaven,
and between the two all creatures must live and die.
But because he has a soul, they believe man can
be trapped in this terrible place kind of like a
(23:27):
like a limbo or whatever, a purgatory, And that's sort
of what the whole zombie idea is about. So again,
the serpent in the rainbow presents this case of this
man He's Clarivius is dead. Now who you know said
that this the zombification was the result of this complex
(23:47):
interaction between these these powders and these hallucinogens and such,
and that very much fits into what you know, the
Haitians claim was happening when they would encounter real zombies,
which is where this whole thing took off. Now let's
(24:07):
fast forward. Let's get back to Night of the Living Dead,
because all the way up until Night of the Living Dead,
zombies were pretty much described as behaving just like Clairviews did.
So Night of the Living Dead was made, like I said,
(24:29):
in nineteen sixty eight, and at that time, George A. Romero,
I don't think he'd ever made a movie before. Actually
he was twenty eight years old. This movie was made
for one hundred and twenty thousand dollars and it grossed
over thirty million dollars. Can you believe that? Okay, time
(24:54):
for a break. When we come back, I'm going to
tell you more about what that movie did. And then
also I'm going to tell you about, yes, some well
the closest thing to zombies that I have ever personally witnessed.
And then finally I'm going to get around to what's
my conclusion about all this zombie stuff, and then I
(25:15):
have another cool update for you. I'm Joshua P. Warren.
You're listening to Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast
to Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network, and I will be
back after these important messages. Welcome back to Strange Things
(26:06):
on the iHeartRadio and cost to Coast AM Peronormal Podcast Network.
I am your host, Joshua P. Warren, And this is
the show where the unusual becomes usual. Night of the
Living Dead, released in nineteen sixty eight, is a movie
about a group of strangers trapped in a farmhouse who
(26:30):
find themselves fending off a horde of recently dead flesh
eating ghules. And it was it was an independent horror film, directed, photographed,
and edited by twenty eight year old George A. Romero,
(26:51):
and it was written by him and John Russo. And
as I mentioned, it was one of those things like
they just barely scraped the money together, around one hundred
and twenty thousand dollars, which, by the way, even by
today's standards, that would still be less than one million
(27:13):
dollars by today's money here in twenty twenty three. So
one of those typical stories you hear like they barely
scraped all this money together. They got all these investors
and then knocked it out of the ballpark because that
one hundred and twenty thousand dollars turned into over thirty
million dollars for this little black and white movie. I mean,
(27:37):
can you believe that? That's just the amazing thing about movies.
When you make one, there is a chance, however small,
however small, that you can turn just a little, grainy,
low budget film into a gold mine. And so that
was one of the most profitable movies ever made. That
(27:57):
should tell you something right off the bat about this
odd connection that people feel to this concept of what
we now consider zombies. And you know what's funny is
that Romero said that when he was writing his part,
(28:18):
and this was pretty you know, I know we had
a co author, but this is pretty much his thing.
He said he drew heavy inspiration from Richard Matheson's novel
called I Am Legend that was published in nineteen fifty four.
That's a horror novel about a plague that ravages a
futuristic Los Angeles and the infected people and I Am
(28:39):
Legend become these vampire like creatures and prey on the Uninfected,
and when discussing the creation of the movie Night of
the Living Dead, Romero once said, quote, I had written
a short story which I basically had ripped off from
Richard Matheson's novel called I Am Legend end quote, and
(29:04):
he went on to say, I thought I Am Legend
was about revolution. I said, if you're going to do
something about revolution, you should start at the beginning. I mean,
Richard starts his book with one man left. Everybody in
the world has become a vampire. I said, we got
to start at the beginning and tweak it up a
little bit. And I couldn't use vampires because he did. So.
(29:27):
I wanted something that would be an earth shaking change,
something that was forever, something that was really at the
heart of it. And I said, so what if the
dead stop staying dead and the stories are about how
people respond or fail to respond to this? That's really
all the zombies ever represented to me. And as a
(29:52):
matter of fact, interestingly enough, you know well, Richard Matheson's
novel I Am Legend appeared in some official film adaptations
in nineteen sixty four, The Last Man on Earth in
nineteen seventy one, as the Omega Man, and of course
the two thousand and seven release I Am Legend, and
Mathieson said he was not impressed by Romero's interpretation, said
(30:15):
he thought it was kind of cornball. But he also said, well,
George Romero is a nice guy, and I don't harbor
any animosity toward him, So I guess that's a good thing.
But you know, again, it goes back to what I
was telling you earlier. George A. Romero used the term
google in his original scripts, and then in later interviews
(30:40):
he used the term zombie, and then after that, well,
the word zombie is used exclusively by Romero in his
script for his sequel Dawn of the Dead in nineteen
seventy eight, according once in Dialogue, and so, according to Romero,
film critics were very influential in associating that term zombie
(31:05):
to his creatures, and he just eventually accepted that link,
even though he remained convinced that zombies actually corresponded to
the undead slaves of Haitian voodoo, as depicted in the
movie White Zombie with Bella Legosi. Isn't this kind of weird,
(31:25):
like how that connection was just made and they just
kind of went with it. Well, anyway, we'll never understand
precisely how that connection was made, I guess, but that
shows you the journey that the zombie has taken. Now,
(31:48):
when it comes to my own personal experiences with so
called zombies, I will tell you that, of course, I
spent a good fifteen years exploring in Puerto Rico, and
I just outright lived there for five years, and Boquerrone
on the south western side of the island in Caborrojo,
(32:12):
and one of the I guess you know, one of
the more significant towns that was close to me was
called Myos. And when I was living in Puerto Rico,
there was this terrible drug fad, if you will, that
was going around. For some reason, a lot of these
(32:35):
downtrodden Puerto Ricans were getting a hold of horse tranquilizers.
And I can't remember what all the official names are
for this stuff, but there are quite a few horses
in Puerto Rico. I mean, you got to be careful
when you're driving around at night because sometimes you'll come
around a tight curve and there'll just be like five
(32:56):
or six guys on black horses there, and you know,
no lights or reflective vests and so horse tranquilizers were
pretty prevalent, and during that period of time, people started
taking horse tranquilizers just you know, as the latest drug
(33:17):
to get off on. And but I mean, I'm telling you, like,
this is not something that like the kids would do
for fun. This was the people who you know, were
living in and alleyways. I mean, it's like the lowest,
most terrible level of It's basically a form of slow suicide.
(33:37):
When you start taking things like that, it's like people
who got hooked on I guess heroin and meth and finnel.
But anyway, the weird thing about these horse tranquilizers is
that sometimes you would encounter one of these people and
it was so eerie because when they would take it
(33:59):
at a certain times, they would reach a point where
they would absolutely freeze in place and looked exactly like
a statue. So and I mean they are standing up
on two feet. I mean you would see people that
look like they were walking and in mid stride, boom,
(34:24):
somebody hit the pause button and I don't even know how.
They would stay that way sometimes apparently for at least
an hour, and their eyes are open. But it's like
their soul is gone. It kind of reminds me of
those figures from Pompeii. But I had a friend who
(34:46):
was a skateboarder and his name was Rafael, and one
day he goes, man, look at this video. Was he
was skating downtown and there were one of these people
frozen in position like that, literally like right handback, left
hand forward, one foot forward, eyes open, just standing there
(35:06):
frozen on these horse tranquilizers. And as he was skating
on his skateboard, he took out his cell phone and
he filmed the person and then he kind of skated
around the person a little bit, and it kind of
had that matrix effect where it looks like the person is,
you know again, like frozen in time. And then you
(35:28):
see all these angles and people. People in Puerto Rico
said they these are the zombies. These are the horse
tranquilizer zombies. And there have been documentaries made about it.
I know the National Geographic Channel did a whole thing
about that phenomenon, so that was talking about disturbing and weird.
(35:51):
I still don't understand exactly how that happened. Maybe I
didn't even go back and look it up again for
this podcast but I guess I need to. I like
to go back and say, like, what's the latest on that?
And while on Earth did it have that effect on people?
Another interesting connection that I have to so I guess
(36:13):
the world of zombies is that, of course, you know,
I own, I created, and I own the Haunted Boulder
City Ghost and UFO tour here in it's outside of
Las Vegas, Nevada, about thirty minutes from Las Vegas, a
Boulder City, and we have everybody meet us at a
place called beer Zombies, which is a really cool joint
(36:35):
where the guy who created it as an artist and
he now he's a brewer and an artist, and so
he just brands everything with zombie imagery and he's got
a very successful franchise here. I don't know if you
call it franchise. He got a chain, I guess I
should say, of these places called beer Zombies around Las Vegas.
(36:57):
And so if you ever take the Haunted Boulder City Tour,
you'll be meeting up at Beer Zombies. That's Haunted Bouldercity
dot com. That'd be a great thing to do this fall,
of course, But when we come back, I also want
to tell you about an odd and unexpected run in
I had with well, I don't want to say I
(37:22):
had a run in. I saw Woody Harrelson one time
and it was connected to the Zombie Land movie. And
then I'm just going to give you my final thoughts
on this whole zombie business. And then I have a
very interesting update for you. I'm Joshua Pee Warren. You're
(37:43):
listening to Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to
Coast AM Paranormal Podcast Network, and I will be right back.
(38:25):
Welcome back to the final segment of this edition of
Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast AM
Paranormal Podcast Network. I am your host, Joshua P One.
And now it's not much of a story really, it's
just something weird I thought about when the movie zombie
(38:46):
Land came out starring Woody Harrelson. I just so happened
to be in Chicago and when they were having the premiere,
the Zombie Land premiere. When was that like two thousand
and nine, Yeah, two thousand and nine, And so I
(39:07):
was not at the premiere, but I was actually there
working on a television show and I ended up passing
through the area where they were having the premiere, and
so you know, I just got a glimpse of whatdy
Harrelson at the Zombie Land premiere. I love that story. Okay,
(39:30):
so final thoughts, what are we gleaning from all this?
Now that I've given you some context for the whole
zombie phenomenon, let me go back first off to this
book Everything You Ever Wanted To Know About Zombies by
Matt Mock. He has a section here called Final Thoughts,
(39:52):
and here is one of the things that he writes.
The modern zombie evolved from vampires, not from the soulless
voodoo slaves that share their name. But unlike vampires, the
walking dead don't carry with them the baggage of old
(40:14):
world superstitions and myths. They aren't supernatural, superhuman, super strong,
or particularly super anything. Just the opposite. Zombies are grossly
natural in their rotting flesh, imperfect brains, and limited physical abilities.
(40:36):
They don't pretend to be anything more or less than
what they are. But what they are is the end
of the world. Well, maybe that's why I don't like
the zombie thing so much, because I don't like thinking
about the end of the world. Maybe I just don't
(41:02):
believe in the end of the world because I know
that I'm not going to be here forever. None of
us are. We're all going to die. But I think
the world is going to continue to exist with people
in it because the world was put here to serve
a purpose. It's a big classroom, and no matter how
good or how bad things get, my feeling is that
(41:25):
the end of the world scenario is just not that
interesting to me. And that's why I'm not a big
doom and gloomer. I have a real I mean, I'm prepped.
I'm prepared for anything that happens. But all right, that said,
let's get into my ultimate conclusion from everything that I've
given you and everything we've been thinking about, let's get
(41:48):
back to the big traditional ideas of a zombie. So
silly or scary, Well, the original concept of the zo
zombie is truly terrifying because it is apparently real, especially
if we're to believe the story from the Serpent in
(42:09):
the Rainbow. I mean, we're talking about the idea that
you could be absolutely helpless to being secretly drugged by someone,
and that drug paralyzes you to the point that others
believe you are dead. And then you are buried alive,
even though you're still conscious. Now, if I stopped right there,
(42:34):
it would be one of the most horrible things you
could imagine happening to you. But then it goes even
further into you suffering underground in your coffin until someone
digs you up and then enslaves you the rest of
your life and you are physically incapable of doing anything
(42:55):
about it. It is truly a fate worse than death,
so obviously to call that scary is an understatement. However,
the newer version of the zombie as a soulless home
invading brain eater, you know, almost like a human shark.
(43:21):
It would be scary if it were real, but since
it is not, then I can't help it. I just
do consider it silly. Now, that does not mean that
I wouldn't be scared to death if someone in a
zombie outfit came crashing through my window. Of course, it
would scare the Jesus out of me. But that is
(43:45):
why I arm myself. And I'm pretty sure that no
matter how scary a zombie outfit may look, and it's
probably not bulletproof. So are zombies silly or Scar. Well,
my answer is both depending on the type of zombie
(44:08):
we are talking about. And I guess that's the best
I can do for you on zombies. And I hope
that you found that interesting and thought provoking at very
least now I've done a zombie podcast. Moving on, here
(44:30):
is the other thing I wanted to tell you about
that I think is pretty interesting. So you know, I
mentioned earlier in the podcast, and I mentioned this at
least you know once on every show, that if you
subscribe to my free E newsletter you get to participate
in special experiments. Well, recently I sent out an E
newsletter and I said, hey, I'm going to do a
(44:55):
version of a Roulette wheel experiment here in Las Vegas
that I've never done before. And the idea is that
you you get to participate for free. You just have
to go to this link, which I sent through my
E newsletter, and you have to tell me what space
(45:18):
you think is going to hit the next time I
go to a roulette Will. Because a typical American roulette
will has thirty eight spaces, and thirty six of them
are either red or black, and they're also numbered one, two, three, four, five, six,
seven up to the number thirty six, and then there
(45:39):
are two green spaces, and one of those spaces has
got a zero and the other has a double zero.
So whatever happens on a wheel like that, you're going
to hit one of those thirty eight spaces. And so
if you bet on one of those spaces and it hits,
then you get paid thirty five times whatever you bet
(46:01):
on that. So, for example, if I put a dollar
on one of those spaces and it hit that space,
and then you know they spend the wheel and you
know the ball lands on that space, well then they
give you thirty five dollars. If you put one hundred
dollars on one of those spaces and they spend the
wheel and the ball hits that space, well now you
(46:24):
get three hundred and uh what did I? What did
I just say? If you put if you put one
hundred dollars, you get thirty five hundred dollars. I've done
that before numerous times. So you put one hundred down,
you get thirty five hundred dollars. But I want to
go to that wheel and I want to put down
one thousand dollars on one of those spaces and they
(46:45):
spend the wheel and if the ball hits the space
that I put the one thousand dollars down on, then
they would give me thirty five thousand dollars just like that.
And so what I thought would be cool would be
to do an experiment where I involve my audience and
I say, if you pick the number that I put
(47:08):
the thousand dollars on and it hits, I'll split it
with you. So you'll get seventeen thousand, five hundred dollars
and I'll get seventeen thousand, five hundred dollars. But before
I I've got confidence in you, you have to prove
that you can do this. So we have round one
where everybody gets to go and pick what space it's
(47:30):
going to be. Is it going to be numbers one
through thirty six or zero or double zero? And then
from there you do it a second time and that's
round two, and the people who get it right the
second time get to move on to round three. And
by round three, I mean I'm thinking only one person
will get it, and that is the person who is
(47:53):
going to split the thirty five grand with me. When
I go at stage four and put the thought thousand
bucks down, So I put this out there, and I
mean hundreds of people from all over the world participated,
and well, the weirdest thing is that fifteen percent of
(48:15):
the people picked the number seventeen. That's a huge margin.
Why do you think that is? I don't know for sure.
I have a theory as to why that may be.
But why do you think that is? I don't want
to tell you what my theory is right now, but
why do you think fifteen percent of the people picked
the number seventeen? Well, anyway, I did it, and the
(48:39):
winning number was twenty nine. Eight people guests twenty nine,
and those eight people are now moving on through the
rounds and pretty soon, hopefully one of us, well one
of you, one of those people will have seventeen thousand,
five hundred. All right, my friends, here is the good
Fortune tone. That's it for this edition of the show.
(49:24):
Follow me on Twitter at Joshua P. Warren, Plus visit
joshuapwarren dot com to sign up for my free e
newsletter to receive a free instant gift, and check out
the cool stuff in the Curiosity Shop all at Joshuapwarren
dot com. I have a fun one lined up for
you next time. I promise, so please tell all your
(49:47):
friends to subscribe to this show and to always remember
the Golden Rule. Thank you for listening, thank you for
your interest and support. Thank you for staying curious, and
I will talk to you again soon. You've been listening
to Strange Things on the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast
(50:09):
AM Paranormal Podcast Network.
Speaker 2 (50:22):
Thanks for listening to the iHeartRadio and Coast to Coast
AM Paranormal Podcast Network. Make sure and check out all
our shows on the iHeartRadio app or by going to
iHeartRadio dot com
Host
Joshua P. Warren
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