Short Stuff: Dodleston Messages

It’s not everyday that a message from the 16th century appears on a computer from the 1980s, so when that happened it caught an English couple’s attention and launched a still-unresolved mystery  - across tiiiiiiime!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
Hey, and welcome to the Short Stuff. I'm Josh and
there's Chuck and this is short stuff. So let's talk
the mystery that annoys Chuck. Yeah, it annoys me too,
all right, good. I just found myself getting mad when
I read this. No, but it's it's interesting though at
the very least you got to give it that sure creative,

(00:24):
because Chuck we're talking about today has it all. It's
got poultry geist, activity, has time travel, it's got early
UM computers from the mid eighties, it's got the UK,
it's got a fraud. Yeah, it has a lot of
stuff in it. And um, what we're talking about. He
is known as the Dondalston Messages and it's a I

(00:45):
guess a fairly well known occult event that took place
in Doddleston, um, which is I think in Chess here, yeah, um,
in England in the mid eighties. I believe it was
eighty six over span of eighteen months. And it was
so strange that the people involved wrote a book about

(01:07):
it and we're still talking about it today, that's right. Uh.
There's a gentleman named Ken Webster and his wife Debbie
who bought an old cottage Meadow Cottage because they named
their cottages over there, and sure, and this thing was old.
It was eighteen century brick cottage and they were fixing
it up and um, and this is just sort of

(01:29):
a precursor to the messages. But apparently there was some
other weird goings on before the messages. Uh, and that
when they were fixing it up one night, Uh they
are one day they noticed some six toed footprints in
the dust that walked up the wall between the bathroom
in the kitchen. Uh ken that they reckoned it was

(01:50):
a prank and uh they had a guest staying with him, Nick,
and they all kind of decided it was a prank
by whom I don't know, But they decided to paint
over all that stuff off. And the next day they
found footprints in the paint as well. Yeah. And then
cat food packages or little cans were stacked up in pyramids,
real Poulter guy stuff. Yeah, Poulter Guests the movie by

(02:12):
Toby Hupairr. So Um, this this that was Yeah, like
you said, it was kind of a precursion to the
whole thing. Um, and it really took off and got
strange when um, what was the guy's first name Webster.
When Ken Webster, who was a teacher at a school,
brought home a BBC micro computer and it had a

(02:33):
word processor UM program on it called Edward w r
D pretty cute and um. He would write on it,
he would use it, and every once in a while
a weird message would pop up. And it got even
weirder when it turned out that the author of these messages,
who Ken Webster, his girlfriend Debbie, and their their house

(02:55):
guest Nick All said, we don't know who's doing this. Uh.
The author of those messages claimed to be living in
the year fifteen forty six, and it actually lived in
that same cottage, or was living in that same cottage
in fifty six when he's writing these messages to them
in which is immediately weird because it was an eighteenth
century cottage. Yeah. But the one thing we do want

(03:20):
to point out that wasn't quite clear to me at
first is that this computer was not hooked up to
some early kind of modem in some early weird version
of the Internet in the sticks of England. It was
just a computer sitting there alone, and ostensibly these messages
would just appear on that word program, right, Yes, and

(03:40):
all right, very very big, also really important. Anytime you
turn that computer off, like you couldn't save anything. You
could save it on like a floppy disc. But if
you turn the computer on it whatever was on their
last wouldn't just be there again. Okay, that's great. I
think before we take a break, we should read uh
some of the early posts. Um. The messages began by

(04:02):
saying basically, who are you people? Um, you've stolen my house.
The first message ever on the computer said the following,
true are the nightmares of a person that fears safe?
Or the bodies of the silent world? Turn pretty flower
turned towards the sun, for you shall grow and so,

(04:22):
but the flowers reaches too high and withers in the
burning light. Get out your bricks. Pussycat. Pussycat went to
London to seek fame and fortune. Faith must not be lost,
for this shall be your redeemer. It's pretty yeah, I
mean it's pretty creepy. Admittedly, if if I were to

(04:43):
get a message like that on a computer not plugged
into the Internet, it would be great. Yeah, it takes
a real turn with Pussycat. Pussycat went to London to
seek fame and fortune. It seems like a cusatory, you know. Yeah.
So this was I think that was the first message
that ken Webster got, and he went on to write
book I think in eight nine called The Vertical Plane
that chronicles all this and more. UM And like you said,

(05:06):
we're going to take a short break and we'll come
back and talk about this some more, because it gets
even weirder shortly after stuff you should know, stuf, stuff

(05:44):
you should you should know. Okay, So ken Webster's intrigued,
and he starts asking questions of this author who signs UM.
The early post is l W and then finally later
on L the L turns out to Standford Lucas with
a K, and Lucas is writing in what's called early
modern English UM, which is not really easy to recreate

(06:08):
in any kind of fast manner, which is one of
the defenses that Ken Webster UM brought whenever he's accused
of this being a hoax. He's like, first of all,
I don't know how to do that, and secondly, I
certainly don't know how to do it in any kind
of quick manner. And some of these supposedly came back
like answers came back rather quickly when he would ask

(06:28):
them a question. Yeah, he said, I doth have no
talent forthwith Uh, here's the second just it's fun reading these.
Here's the second message. I ride on behalf of many
What strange words you speak. You are a worthy good
man who has a fanciful woman, and you live in
my house, who dwell in my home with lights which

(06:50):
the devil makes It was a great crime to have
stolen bribed my house. Yeah, so this is the point
where Lucas is like, what are you guys doing in
my house? Um? And apparently in fairly short order they
developed kind of a fondness for one another. So like
the the accusations and the problems with them living in
that cottage, um get dropped pretty quickly and they start

(07:12):
going back and forth. And um, I just saw it
described as a mutual a deep mutual affection for one
another that developed. Yeah, from the other side, just a
pinbell from another dimension. But here's the thing, m h,
there's some there's some holes in the story. There's some
problems with the logic to all this. If you haven't

(07:33):
picked up on that by now at computer, one of
the ones that pops up and I didn't catch the
eighteenth century cottage thing, and apparently no one else in
the world did either except for you, Chuck, So congratulations
on that. But Um, one of the things that that
um Lucas does to kind of set a trap for
Ken to see if they're actually if he actually is

(07:54):
from the future like he reported, was that Lucas told
them that he was educated at Jesus College, Oxford Jesus
or hay Suits, one of the two um, and that
the problem with that is that that Jesus College wasn't
founded until fifteen seventy one. Remember he's writing from fifty six,
so he is saying, like, if you're from the future,

(08:16):
you would know that Jesus College wasn't founded yet from
the time that I'm writing from. But the problem with
that is, how would Lucas know that this Jesus College
was coming years and years after the time that he
is ostensibly writing from. It's a problem. There's a real
another name that came out later. Apparently Lucas wasn't the

(08:38):
real name, but it was Thomas either Harden or Hawarden,
and they say that someone that had that name existed
in the fifteen fifteenth nearby. No, not nearby, a hundred
and fifty miles away, which might as well be in
another dimension at that time. You know, well that's nearby
to me, but sure, I guess at the time it yeah,

(09:00):
in the fifteen fifties with a donkey pulling you around. Okay,
good point. Another cool thing that I think we should
mention is that there were times where it appeared that
Thomas a k A. Lucas could see what they were doing,
because the guy Ken had a picture of his car
a Jaguar near the computer, and like the the Thomas

(09:21):
person referenced that picture in the message and said, I
found a picture of your cart, but it is a
crude thing, for without the horse it won't go far.
So apparently this thing can see them, which is a
pretty key thing. But also I literally wrote ha ha
next to that, because it's so dumb. You see a
picture of a Jaguar automobile, do you think you'd be like,

(09:43):
that's a cart without a horse. I know exactly what
that is. Well, I mean I had wheels and it's squaring.
It's just I mean I could see that was the
one that was like, well, there's there's the basically the
admission of guilt by Ken Webster right there. Uh, this
thing gets a little weirder though even right does take
Chuck Well, a third player, a second ghost, and a

(10:05):
third player comes into this when uh, someone named one
O nine pops onto the scene. Yeah, and twenty one
nine popped onto the scene inadvertently because Lucas reference twenty
one O nine and a post because when Ken Webster
said he's from the year, Lucas says, I thought you
were also from twenty one o nine, like your friend

(10:27):
who brought the box of lights pray, And he didn't
say box of lights. He said Leam's boist, which is
early modern English four box of lights, which everyone has taken. Two.
They taken all that to mean that the traveler, the
time traveler from nine brought Thomas or Lucas a computer. Okay,

(10:48):
how would you operate a computer though in fifty six
is a big question that I have as well. Yeah.
The other question I have is, uh, did these messages
here before his eyes? Or I did see where he
would take like a car drive and come back, and
that they would they would be there? Is that how
it generally worked? That's what I saw. Yeah, Like he

(11:09):
never thought to just round the clock, sit there and
watch the computer. I guess not, or maybe he tried
and it didn't work, so that's when he would go
for a drive. Who knows, or maybe he made all
this up. So what was possible? So Ken Webster says, well,
there's a there's a third party involved in there from
twenty one o nine, I'm gonna start trying to message them,
and in very short order, twenty one o nine, who

(11:30):
only referred to themselves as they or them um, they
responded and they said, hey, man, we're not really happy
that you stumbled upon our presence. Like we're we've been
basically running an experiment here that you and Lucas and
Debbie are all involved in and it's going to change
the world. So just pretend like we don't exist. We're

(11:51):
gonna go back into the woodwork now and just keep
watching and manipulating. Right. Eventually they bring in a paranormal
investig Asian team, the Society for Psychical Physical Psychical. Yeah,
the s SPR. We've talked about them plenty of times. Yeah,
am I saying that psychical research? Uh, And they brought

(12:12):
them to investigate. They came out three times said we
got nothing, No, activity at all. Um Thomas eventually said that, uh,
he was forced out of the land, so maybe that
was the deal. He lived at a place that was there,
and it wasn't necessarily the same cottage, but at any rate,
he said he was never heard from again, and but

(12:33):
did say he would leave something for them to discover
in the future, right, Yeah, He said that he would
write from his perspective this series of events in a
book and would leave it in a place that it
could be discovered. So kenn and Debbie and everyone who
believes in the Dottalston messages are waiting for that book
to be found to prove this once and for all again.
It's possible that book doesn't exist. It's possible this was

(12:55):
a hoax. Um. There's a really good post on it
called um on um on a site called The Joy
of Mirror Words by Tom Ruffles. It's called The Vertical
Plane by Ken Webster. I guess it's a book review.
And Tom Ruffles, PhD is very generous by considering that
maybe Kennon Debbie we're doing this but weren't aware of it,
That maybe they were using telekinesis and weren't aware of it,

(13:18):
and that's how these messages were being generated. Before he
finally settles on it's likeliest that this was just all
a hoax. As for what Chuck believes, if you couldn't
tell fraud, Occam's razor tells me it is fraud. There
are no haunted computers the end. Yeah, which is kind
of a bummer because I I was anticipating us to

(13:40):
at least kind of entertain this for a second. But
it's impossible. It's impossible. Well, fun story, It is a
fun story. How about that? So Chuck said it's impossible.
I said, it's impossible. We've given our final judgments. That
means short stuff is out. Stuff you Should Know is
a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my

(14:01):
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