April 22, 2022 • 52 mins
Every town has its own rumors, tall tales and legends, and Springfield, Missouri is no exception. This idyllic American city is home to US Highway 66, some great barbecue, a vast underground of tunnels -- and, allegedly, vampires. So how did this rumor start, exactly? Is there any truth to the stories? Tune in to learn more.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is not They called
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Paul Mission controlled decades. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. Today, fellow conspiracy realists, we
are going underground. Literally, if you live in almost any city,
(00:48):
you probably already have some sense of just how much
stuff is beneath the surface, invisible, either by accident, negligence,
or in some cases by design. I am full disclosure
exploring a subterranean area near me A stay tuned for
updates on that. But that that got me thinking. I
think this was on our collective minds for quite some time.
(01:11):
You know, you think about what's underground. You think subway tunnels,
sewage lines, catacombs, maybe government bunkers, and in some cases
entire neighborhoods lay abandoned beneath the dirt. In today's episode,
we're exploring the story of one of those mysterious structures.
In particular, it's part of a local legend in Springfield, Missouri,
(01:31):
the so called Vampire Tunnels. But first, everyone, if you're
in a safe place, if you're not driving or whatnot,
or on a plane, look down. What do you think
is beneath your feet? What do you think is under
the surface? Here are the facts. There's an entire world
down there. Yeah, no doubt. And I know we're all
(01:51):
uh totally losing our minds with Elden Rang. And I
just found this area and Elden Rang, you go into
this temple thing and then is this platform with mystical
shimmers on the side, and it just goes and goes
and goes and just keeps going down, down, down, down down,
until there's this gorgeous subterranean world occupied by these like
(02:13):
barnacle covered, whispy spear bearers who one shot kill you
the moment you try to just take a look around
and take in all the beauty. But it's sure is
pretty and and creepy and terrifying. Oh yes, it's very difficult,
are you. Good luck to you, sir, Thank you sir, um.
But yeah, to your point, Ben, it's underneath most urban areas,
(02:33):
most cities. I was joking about where I am because
I'm just in a house kind of in the suburbs
of Atlanta that does have a crawl space which is underground,
and there's earth thown there. It's weird and kind of creepy.
But in most urban spaces, especially if you're in the city,
it's weird to think how much of an iceberg the
you know, what do they call it? The top streets
(02:54):
or the what is it in London? The high streets
like how the street? Oh yeah, especially in place as
old as London. Yeah, Europe is Europe and the Middle
East are chock full of these hidden hidden areas, you know,
and they're they're bigger than Elden Ring to. Honestly, I
(03:18):
gotta say, I don't know how many people one shot
you down there, but you do need to be careful.
We get so used to the compidous grind of human
activity on the surface on those high streets. We see
it in the air. The air is chock full of
towering structures. They're aircraft everywhere, But beneath it all there
is an often ignored substructure, superstructure, and they're all around
(03:42):
the world. The US has a China, Turkey has a
ton uh, South America, Europe, the rest of Asia, the
Middle East. People have been building these things since before
the dawn of the written word, and it makes a
lot of sense because think about it, you're you're humans
in the early days of the human fad, and you
(04:04):
need protection from the elements and from other hostile organisms,
so it makes sense to go to ground. Caves are
like houses that have already been made for you, so
you can just expand on those. Some are so so
incredibly old, like catal hook Uh in modern day Turkey.
We're not Turkish speakers, so part of our pronunciation there.
(04:26):
Check out our episode from more on that no spoilers,
is very freaky and we think we may have figured
out part of why it was built, but uh, we
might have to do an update on that one, depending
on when the world is Yeah, and I mean, you know,
much like say the catacombs in Paris or a lot
of these subterranean tunnels underneath London. Uh. Many of these
(04:47):
are the result of several phases, multiple phases of building
of construction that often can happen for different reasons throughout
history and You're people are just building on top of
things that pre existed and like used to serve a purpose,
like the catacombs in Paris again, which are like you know,
we're burial sites. Um. And as we know, I believe
it was in Paris that a lot of that stuff
(05:09):
started to come up, Uh, it started to become unearthed,
you know, due to like water, um, drainage or lack thereof,
like in the soil. And so there was a real
issue with having to dig up all those bones that
were just coming out of the earth and shove them
all in a different place where they wouldn't you know,
come back to life, but where one generation might establish
basic structures, later generations will continue to, like I said,
(05:30):
build on top of it. Um. That results in something
like a kind of you know, preserved time capsule left
over underground. Yes, you can see the story of a
city's evolution, you know, because all cities started out as
encampments basically based on geography or necessity, and only later
(05:53):
did they become the New York's or really the the
European capitals in the African city of note and and
just to apply it to a lot of to a
big theme of this episode, a lot of those encampments
start right near a water source, and that has a
lot to do with what's going on in this episode today.
(06:13):
Just like just like the excellent Civilization series, you want
to start your first city close to water if you
can swing it. And that's that's based on what real
life ancient cultures did. And you know, when I've I
think we've talked about this off air before, but it's
something that fascinates me about a city like Atlanta. Atlanta,
(06:34):
even back when it was terminus, is such an anomalous
thing for a city of its size because it's not
near a big navigable water source. What would have been
the water source has been replaced first by rail and
then by you know, the world's busiest airport. So it's fascinating.
I don't know if it is if it's sustainable in
(06:54):
the long term, but I guess that's depends on how
you want to define long term. Uh, let's talk a
little bit about all right. So I have I have brief,
ill fated personal experience with the largest official underground structure
of this sort. It's in Montreal. It could be called
an underground city. In fact, that's literally what its name
(07:17):
is uh, it's laville. Uh, pardon of the French speakers.
This is not a secret hideout for a relict population
of mole people or anything that sinister. Actually, I've got
a lot of nice restaurants. Uh. It's a vast series
of all these interconnected shopping centers, underground businesses, residential complexes
(07:39):
like apartment areas, hotels, even office towers are part of this.
And we're talking over twenty miles of tunnels, over four
and a half mile square miles of area. And this
if like, it's easy to get into as well, because
again it's not secret, it's not classified, it's public knowledge.
People go there every day. Some he might be in
(08:00):
Montreal listening to this show in this underground city now,
because it's that big. There are more than a hundred
and twenty known entry points, not county metro station entrances.
But we just want to give you a sense of
the scale here in terms of timeline and in terms
of sheer size. But today's episode is not about Montreal's
(08:23):
underground city, nor is it about Beijing's underground city, which
is a whole other thing. Both of them are fascinating,
they're not particularly citister anymore so than your average city
would be. But rumor has it there is something weird
going on underground in spring Filled, Missouri. The story starts
(08:44):
with something called Jordan's Creek home. So the legend says
to vampires, here's where it gets crazy. Now before we
dive in, Matt, this is what in particular that's been
on the docket for years and years and years. And uh,
I can't remember when we first talked about it was
(09:06):
the YouTube days. It might have been the YouTube days.
I want to say, a listener let us know about this.
At some point wrote to us, sent us a voicemail
or something like that, and it was a story I
think they had seen on Reddit about Jordan Creek in
a particular part of it that is covered. So let's
(09:27):
let's talk a little bit, a little bit more about Springfield,
Missouri and Jordan Creek and why it's important. Have you
guys been to Springfield, No, Matt, I haven't, no. Never.
It's it has some great outdoors stuff, it has some
museums that are quite enjoy It's not the biggest city
(09:47):
in Missouri, it's the third largest. And this is very
it's very much a Midwestern city in a Midwestern state,
and the population is right now, it's a little bit
under seventy thousand people. So it is definitely a city,
but it's not necessarily on par with you know, your
Chicago's or your New York's. But still, like in in place,
(10:11):
it has problems. It has some long standing racial disparity
intention but that's pretty much every city in the US.
You know, if you associate with something, A lot of
people when they think of Missouri, they think of barbecue.
They might think of Uncle Tupelo, maybe Wilco. They might
think of bass Pro shops if you like to fish,
(10:34):
their headquartered in Missouri. But I I don't. I don't
think a lot of us hear the word Missouri or
Springfield and immediately go boom vampires. Unless I'm wrong, unless
I just wasn't talking to the right people in Springfield. No,
you I've only been to St. Louis. I didn't see
the vampires there, so I can only speak to St. Louis. Well,
(10:55):
you know, it's just a weird thing about the title
of this episode. In the title of this I would
say a lot of people don't associate creeks or underground
water flow with vampires. But it's something that we've got
going on here apparently. Dude, that is such a good
point because anybody who's familiar with the old, the old
(11:18):
Western and Central European derived stories of vampires, you know
that running water is a big deal breaker for those guys.
They can't in many cases, they can't cross it. And
that we can one day do a show if we
haven't yet, about the evolution of vampire myths. It's it's fascinating,
it's super old. But you make such an excellent point there, man,
(11:39):
because it would be one of the last places that
a a typical vampire according to Western folklore, would like
to reside. But uh yeah, Jordan Creek is home to
this vampire myth, and this vampire myth is um something
we have to dive into. So if you go back
(11:59):
in the early history of the land that is called Missouri,
now you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of years
before Europeans arrived in this area, it was home to
multiple Native American populations, the Kickapoo, the Lena, as well
as the O sage. This was home to. This area
(12:20):
is home to what Europeans would later called Jordan's creek,
and it's a creek system that today runs beneath modern
day Springfield. And this is there's another interesting Atlantic comparison
here because the building we've been in for a long time,
m Pons the Leon Avenue, has an underground stream that
(12:42):
feeds into a cistern hidden in the tower and it
was paved over back in the day. The street is
named Ponts to lay on because long time ago, someone
was ripping off people by saying they had discovered the
Fountain of Youth and it was this stream, uh and
that you know, they sold, they sold a fake cure
(13:02):
for anything that ails you for like a nickel or
something or whatever the script was at the time. And
this and in Springfield, this creek is the reason that
people settled in this area. It was I believe one
family that moved in started like settled on that creek
or right around that creek in the area that now
has downtown Springfield in it, and then just a civil
(13:24):
or a town I guess arose from that from that family. Yeah,
towns like a mini civilization. And around that area you
also have these small caves that are along the side
of the creek, which is going to be an important
part of the story. A bit later. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's it's important part of the early story, and it's
important part of the legend. Right, So these things are true.
(13:47):
There is a Jordan Creek there. There are a were
a series of small caves that were along the sides
of this creek. Like you said, Noel as more bor
Europeans and European American settlers moved into this area. In
the eighteen hundreds, construction kicked into high gear. One thing
I didn't uh when that, I didn't put in the
(14:09):
notes here, but I gotta tell you, guys, because it's
so ridiculous. The town is named Springfield. There's a legend
about this. Apparently the town is named Springfield because there
was a vote over what they should call this town
when they decided to make it a permanent thing, and
one guy who was from Springfield, Massachusetts, said, let's name
(14:31):
it after my hometown. Uh, And anybody who votes from
my idea, I'll give you whiskey. So also a little
bit of the history of rigging elections. I hadn't heard that.
It's so funny how tales of the history of a
town like that exists. What I had heard is that
the one of the original settlers noticed, like within the
(14:52):
field there was this little um access to a very
deep well, and they called it the springfield. And again,
I feel like you could there's so many springfields. As
you say, that probably happens pretty frequently. People have the
same idea, all all those great minds thinking alike, well
it is it is true. I believe that one of
those founding families did settle purposely in a specific spot
(15:15):
because they found a natural spring. So let let us know.
I I like the rigged whiskey vote just because it's
a fun story, but either way, I either way, people
were pretty loose with how they named towns as as
Europeans expanded into what would later become the United States.
(15:36):
Send us your favorite weird town name there there are
thousands already. The very first developers of the town did
something really cool. They used those pre existing caves as
a kind of early hv A C system or really
just a C system, because the subterranean air was cooler
(15:56):
and they could channel that cold cave air into surface buildings. Uh,
there's a theater that's an example of this in town.
Is one of the first air conditioned buildings in Springfield,
and so this construction boom occurs, and it starts to
lead to trouble the roofs of the buildings that are
(16:17):
you know, being constructed willy nearly across the entire area.
Every time it rains, they're funneling increasingly large amounts of
water into the creek, and floods become a regular thing.
You know this because newspaper articles from the mid eight
hundreds are always talking about it. Flooding is going crazy.
There's not really a garbage collection system at this point either,
(16:39):
So every time it rains, uh, the creek doesn't just
flood with water, It floods with filth, animal waste, you know, uh,
byproducts of the livestock industry, human fecal matter. It's everywhere,
and the townsfolk are getting getting pretty fed up with this.
Rump for rump for rump. Something must be done. They
(17:01):
came up with the idea of burying the creek alive.
I'm being a little bit overly poetic, but not much.
They wanted to cap it. They wanted to cover it
such that when it flooded, it would just go essentially
through a big pipe instead of you know, throwing poop
all over the town. Well, it's also it was thought
(17:23):
to be a way to kind of protect the creek
from all the debris and stuff coming from civilization in
that downtown area. Right, So if you if you cap it,
you cover it with a tunnel, then that debris is
gonna at least sit on top of the concrete structure
rather than seeping into the water, which could be great
less pollution in your water source. I like that. So
(17:43):
let's uh, let's see what did they do. Did they
actually do it? Then? Uh? Yeah, guys, they did it.
Uh they spring into action, not a spring joke promise.
And they built these tunnels that they called boxes, so
they enclosed sections of the creek and ease This series
of boxes originally was about two thirds of a mile
(18:06):
starting at Water Street and Main Avenue going east leading
to where the creek went to the James River. And
after this construction, you've got what Tim Hidecker would call
free real estate. The boxes get paved over, people build structures,
they build actual buildings on top of this this paved area.
(18:27):
So really, the more I think about it, it's it's
not crazy to say the creek was buried alive because
they genuinely did build a new structure as the topic.
But isn't that kind of like a bit of a
dodgy foundation to build a whole new set of structures on.
I mean, there's there's some serious pilings in there, some bedrock,
the metal and stuff from concrete. I don't know. It
(18:50):
looks pretty strong to me. But that's not the only
tunnel that we're gonna talk about today. There's another tunnel,
another tunnel game in town, as you say, Ben, a
place called the Springfield Underground. I love a good underground
m hmm. This is this is a cool and you
can find Yeah, you can find a lot of neat
(19:14):
stuff about this First. It's huge and just like the
Jordan Creek, it did not start as an underground thing.
It was an open pit limestone quarry back in forty nine,
and they started digging tunnels in nineteen fifty four to
create open space storage space essentially that would later pave
(19:35):
the way for a bunch of underground facilities and these
are still active. Like truckers go into Springfield Underground. Yeah,
it's huge. I mean, we can't I can't tell you
how huge it is, Like just for incidence right now,
if you had the Springfield Underground dot com and you're
in need of some cold storage, so not freezing cold,
(19:57):
but around what they call ambient sixty two degrees fahrenheit. Uh,
you can right now at least a hundred and fourteen
thousand square feet from Springfield Underground. Again, a hundred and
fourteen thousand square feet. As of nine it was three
point two million square feet of space under all underground,
(20:21):
right and all at that nice cavernous temperature. Uh. You
can find this on Google Maps. The address is thirty
six ten East Kearney Street. Apparently it's just east of
US sixty. But that's again that's not a secret. It
is huge. It is Uh, it is huge enough to
(20:42):
be suspicious. You'll find some truckers who wonder whether it
is used for military purposes or whether it has been
in the past, because it looks like it would be
a good bunker. Honestly, but it looks like an amazing bunker.
My goodness. Can you can you imagine? Uh, you'd be
protected from all the elements. It would be tough to
(21:03):
really get a food so source going down there, unless
you had some excellent lights. Maybe you know those lights
that will help you grow hydroponics. You could live off
the largesse of craft foods because they were their second
people in that space, or the second company who was
their first refrigerated space. But okay, so we're establishing this.
(21:24):
So another another true thing we have established. There's a
lot of stuff going on beneath the surface in Springfield, Missouri.
But the question we have it answered yet is uh,
what's up with the vampires? Will pause for word from
our sponsor. We'll take a bite out of this story.
The story is not all gonna work. All right, we've returned.
(21:54):
Here's the crux of the story. What gives with the vampires?
You know, every town earth it's salt. Shout out to
Mark Landsky, author the book Salt readid if you haven't yet,
Every town has its own local legends. Like if you
grew up near Lake Laniar, you've heard tons of legends
about that lake. And you know, Matt, I'm sure you
(22:16):
would you had encountered some of those growing up nearby, right, Yeah, absolutely,
the the town that was flooded or the whole the
large swath of land that was flooded to create Lake Linear,
which included a town and true story in Church and
where people used to live before it was flooded. Uh yeah,
and every year people go missing in Lake Lanar. Quite often.
(22:40):
You get a nice mixture of debris at the bottom
of that lake which is very murky, and you know
plant life that you can get tangled up in with
those actual human structures. With the tendency for people to
drink when they go out on boats, seems a rife
for a spooky story or film. Yeah, and no, I'm
(23:03):
sure Augusta has many local like legends or urban legends
or rumors as well. Right, can you recall any well,
I'm sure there was some awful white people that did
some murders. Oh yeah, if you dig deep enough. Yeah yeah,
And I don't know. But you know what, that's not true.
(23:25):
There is a haunted pillar in Augusta. It's just a pillar.
I don't remember the story behind it, but it is
referred to collectively as the Haunted Pillar. And some friends
of mine actually had a small little record label they
named after that back in the nineties. So that's that's
the That's the only truly urban legend that I can
think of based in Augusta. And the point stands every
(23:46):
every place has its own collection. It's part of the
fabric that binds a human community together. This legend of
vampires living in the tunnels beneath Springfield. Though it's it's
fascinating because it's actually pretty recent. It dates back not
to some ancient myth, but instead to a specific news
(24:08):
article from two thousand seven in the Springfield News Leader.
At this point, we want to introduce you to a
student named Lacalia Wiggins. She was fifteen years old at
the time of this story, and she was a brilliant
kid who was a young prodigy getting an early start
(24:28):
at a place called Drury University. And she was kind
of bookish, right, as a lot of a lot of
brilliant kids are. But she wanted to fit in, you know.
She wanted to be part of the in crowd, like
a lot of kids do. She want to have friends.
And this weird series of circumstances lead her going to
a library that she wouldn't normally go to. Her math
(24:51):
tutor class had been canceled, or her appointment when the
matth two had been canceled. So she went to a
place called the Midtown Carnie D. Branch of the Springfield Library.
And she thought she'd run into some people she knew,
but instead she met a group of new people who
would become her new friends. They apparently had a heck
of a lot of revelations to drop on her. They
(25:13):
asked her several odd questions. We're not sure what they
specifically asked her, and then eventually they mentioned she might
be a vampire, but not just a vampire. According to
this story, they told her that perhaps in another life
or previous life, she had been a vampire queen. She
(25:34):
was in charge of stuff. Oh and she was a vampire,
remember remember that part? Um So, this is, you know,
a new group of people that are just kind of
telling her things. It's a bit weird, right. I'm trying
to imagine myself in that situation, Like, how would I
feel if I just met a new group of people
and they're telling me that It would feel probably quite flattering,
(25:55):
kind of exciting. But I imagine there's quite a bit
of skepticist them that could go into that conversation. Um So,
but what happened after this encounter? Yeah, you have to
ask yourself if someone is a vampire, why are they
out during the day, Why are they not you know,
suffering horrible reactions to religious iconic iconography or or garlic
(26:20):
or whatever. Apparently it's because she needed to be awakened.
That's that's when she would realize her past life as
a vampire queen. I'm also interested in the escalation there um.
They said, whatever was happening, they gave her a bit
of a hard cell. They needed to awaken her soon
because a grand reckoning was imminent, a looming war between
(26:41):
the forces of good and the powers of evil. And
as a vampire, she's on the powers of good. Unclear,
we are the good vampires. We have the white hat
vampires of Springfields. So for the next two months, Lacy
would hang around with these folks. They had their own
(27:04):
little clubhouse kind of situation, a little hideaway in the
tunnels underneath the city. Uh. And she'd learn about vampiric
folklore and even watch some of the group's members, about
twenty or so strong, um, cut themselves and drink, at
the very least taste lick each other's blood. Uh. And
(27:24):
a lot of the folks in this group kind of
consider themselves a bit of a clan almost, or a
kind of a cultic kind of situation. They were similar
ages or a little bit younger. UM. A lot of
them came from um, you know, kind of rough backgrounds,
their street kids, UM. And there were a few older
members and the leader of the group was a guy
(27:45):
in his twenties and Lacalia believe the members of the
clan were associated with street level non vampiric crime, almost
like a Fagan and Oliver twists and like Lost Boys
kind of situations. Actually, the what I'm thinking about, it's
very like the the Joel Schumacher Lost Boys kind of scenario,
live underneath the city doing crimes, not necessarily vampire crimes,
(28:09):
and not entirely the same time, similar vibe. I wonder
if they were with the Jackinson Red Sweet motorcycles. Yeah,
it reminds me of street kids, you know, traveling kids.
For anybody who's been in the traveler community, the age,
the age discrepancy is red flag honestly because in those
this has all the makings of a cult based on
(28:29):
the information we have now a space c u l
T not o c c u l T a cult
as the basis of it so far, but we've gotta
have a record scratch at this point. Perfect. This sounds
like a lot already. Right, this sounds like maybe it
could be exaggerated because so far they just have the
(28:50):
word of the kid, who is a minor at this time.
Journalists investigating this story thought so too. So they checked
around and we just want to jump outside of time here,
outside a linear narrative for a bit, and confirmed that
they did check with Lcalia's mother, one Latania Wiggins. She's uh,
(29:10):
she was a local first grade school teacher, and she
she confirmed this and more. And then she said she'd
also been suspended from her job just for telling her
coworkers about this story. So that's that's a weird shutdown.
And whenever you have some kind of shut down on
a story like that, it just feeds speculation. It's pouring
(29:33):
gasoline onto the fire. But the investigators also, just for
the record, they went to the place Lacalia told them
about and they found something in the Jordan Creek drainage tunnel. Yeah.
Surprisingly and maybe not surprisingly, they found evidence that people
(29:54):
were living there, some people, not sure who it was,
just signs of almost an encampment or something. And just
pause here for one moment. There's a YouTube video you
can watch, Ben that I think you found. It was
linked in an article here from that same news site,
where it's just a kid at night going through the
tunnels and looking. And there's this one particular place where
(30:18):
I've seen rumors that that this is the place where
kids were living or somebody was living, which is now
barred off and you can't access it anymore. But this
is the same thing that these investigators at the time found. Yeah,
and if you've ever been to like a hobo jungle
or crash pad, you know, you know the look. It's
(30:39):
a bunch of stuff strewn around, you know, cast off
furniture in tents and things. And uh, Localia did say
that members of what they called the Clan with a
C would live there every so often or on and off,
you know, come and go, just kind of like a
(31:00):
punk house, like a gutter punk house. And as a result,
the group just called this squat the house not a
vampire joke. But Lacalia was mesmerized and things started to
reach a climactic point as Halloween loomed on the horizon.
She ran away from her mother's house, and when Lacalia's mom, Latania,
(31:25):
quitn't find her, like any any parent, she understandably panicked.
She filed a missing person's report with the local p D.
At this point, we do have to pause here because
whenever we mentioned filing a missing person's report, we need
to bust a very dangerous myth. This is this is
hugely important, folks. If you have a loved one or
(31:49):
someone you care about, or just someone you know and
there and they have gone missing and you are expecting them,
you do not have to wait twenty four hours to
file a missing person's report. You should not wait twenty
four hours like do it as soon as you think
something is seriously amiss, because of those twenty four hours
(32:11):
can make a world of difference in the likelihood of
you finding that person. It's a really excellent point and also,
I mean a little suspicious if someone waits that long. No,
the trope is that the police would force you to
wait that long. Yeah. Unfortunately a lot of crime fiction
has ruined that for people. Um and then you know,
people say, oh, I don't want to bug the police
(32:32):
unless there's something seriously wrong. But the truth of the
matter is that is a myth. So hop on it
if you have concerns, And this time it worked. Police
did find Lecalia later that evening, she and her new
vampiric or pseudo of vampiric friends, we're going to Reportedly,
(32:54):
they're gonna buy some scissors and ritualistically cut her hair.
They were going to go to an your by cemetery
and they have this ceremony that would awaken the vampire
queen within her. But the police caught wind of it,
and they preemptively kind of head them off at the
pass and nipped them in the bud whichever wouldn't you
(33:15):
prefer um. Lacalia was returned to her home, and although
she did cooperate with police, Lacalia was apparently pretty hostile
to her parents when she came home. She doesn't exactly
strike me as the most mellow youth. She referred to
her parents using this as a term of abuse as humans.
She hissed, she spat um. She eventually began to see
(33:37):
a counselor, which is probably the right move, um, And thankfully,
after a little bit of time, you know, speaking to
this person, she started to return back to her normal personality.
But that's when some new wrinkles started to present themselves
in the form of death threats. Did we talk about
what the actual ritual was supposed to be. Not yet
(34:01):
it uh. It culminates in a nightmare for anybody with
hygiene issues because this this ceremony probably involved some you know,
some high fluting language right to build out the mythos
of the group depending on what they were doing, and
there are questions about that too, But it culminated in
(34:23):
having you, as the initiate, drink the blood of someone
who identified as a vampire, and then having them drink
your blood and return. So that's not not good hygiene. No,
it's super doesn't seem like that much of a ritual,
right don't you usually have to die to become a vampire? Well,
(34:44):
they're they're they're there, they're styling on it a little bit.
I mean, this is sort of this is some and
rice level ritualistic behavior. I would say from the outside
looking in, it feels maybe a bit performative and edgy.
But everybody's everybody has been a teenager. Most people have
(35:04):
been a teenager at some point, so this gets series though.
The death threats are coming in their anonymous notes saying
you know your tongue will be cut out for betraying
the clan, and strangers were sending like people she could
probably guess who they were, but uh, strangers were sending
death threats. And this, this story, this whole series of
(35:27):
events we've just outlined, is what brought the idea of
the Vampire Tunnels to larger public attention. But how much
of this is actually true? We're gonna pause for word
from our sponsors and return to the story of the
Vampire Tunnels, and we're back with more on the Vampire
(35:52):
Tunnels of Springfield, Miss area of then you posed before
the break. How much of this is true? Well, one
thing we do know is true. The tunnels themselves and
the area where this group, this clan had their will hideaway,
the referred to as the House. Can you describe the
way that looked, Ben, I think we can. Let's let's
(36:12):
crowdsources a crowd of three. So yeah, So the tunnels
are very real and that area they were in that
we described as looking like a crash pad for people
who did have permanent living situations. Uh, it was. It's
still underground, but it's it's removed from the drainage area, right.
(36:35):
Would you agree with that? Matt? I think you saw
the same videos. Yeah. What I what I saw was
that this place would be safe if there was flooding,
or at least safer if there was flooding within the drainage,
because you can kind of see where the walls go up,
and then this part is between the ceiling concrete within
the tunnel and within the kind of a I don't know,
(36:57):
I guess you would call it the top of the
tops of the walls. It looks to me like where
some structure has been built on top of these tunnels,
and this is like the underneath of that building, almost
like a crawl space area that's kind of accessible to
go into from the tunnels. You guys, you've you've both
seen The Lost Boys. I mean, I can't not picture
(37:20):
the Lost Boys hang out beneath the streets of San
Dimas you know, We're star and Uh and all the
other guys that with our buddy Alex Winter sporting an
amazing uh kind of a white boy Jerry Curl in
that film, and of course Keefer and Jason Patrick. But
that's what I'm picturing. Yeah, I was thinking of the
Lost Boy references as well looking into this. I'll tell
(37:42):
you what the Lost Boys hang out in that film
is uh an order of magnitude more extravagant and cool.
This is definitely this is definitely like a hidden crass
face kind of area. But it's pretty big. It's not
your average, you know, ranch home crawl space. Don't think
of it that way. You can stand up, you can
walk around, but yeah, but the that part is real.
(38:08):
And Lakalia's stepfather, a guy named David Morton, came back
to that area. He went with a couple of folks
after his stepdaughter left the group or the clan. He
came there to get her backpack and he said, quote,
it was strange. This is when he's speaking to the paper.
He says, you go back there and there's graffiti with
(38:28):
whatever weird stuff. It's pitch black. When we were there,
there were probably ten to twelve transient street kids up there,
so it's also not much of a secret in town.
I'd like to give a big shout out to this
awesome forum called underground Ozark's go to underground Ozark's all
one word dot com. There's a great resource for urban
exploration in the area, and folks on this forum are
(38:51):
very well aware of the tunnel. They even it even
has an exciting nickname, Hill's Church. But it's very tongue
in cheek, and I think that's specifically the area we're
talking about that we're describing the house the room that
I think that is what they are referring to as
Hell's Church. Yeah, yeah, I mean, just to humanize a
(39:13):
little more, someone threw a barbecue down there. In two
thousand five. People talk about racing a t v s.
They're explorers in the in the forum have long been
aware of a possible, possibly hostile at times presence from
people they describe as transients or vagrance. But if you
go on that just know this and advanced folks, if
(39:35):
you go on those forums and you talk about it
being a vampire clan, you're going to get laughed out
of the room, the digital room. Uh. There are, of course,
there are dangers with running into anyone, even playing old
garden variety of humans down there in the dark. That's
why you'll see posters on the forum say go to
(39:55):
a group. At least he was the Buddy system, just
in case there might be some people who are intoxicated
or who are looking for trouble. And yes, they're also
bats because the tunnel like this is perfect for bats.
Those bats also seem to be you know, just playing bats,
not even vampire bats, just regular bats. Fits. They're they're
actually kind of cute looking. I've seen some I've seen
(40:17):
some of the beats. They've been very cute for the beats. Uh.
You can you can also, you know, if you'd like,
you can find lots of anecdotes about the tunnel from
people who have explored it while they were in the area,
And there was one that really stood out to me
from a redditor who was talking about this on the
(40:38):
Springfield subreddit. It's kind of a long quote, but it's
a cool story, so maybe we can maybe we can
break it up and approach it as a group. My
favorite story from those tunnels is once I went into
the bat Cave slash Hell's Church and found a crumby
folding table with a pentagram and little tea like candles
on it and like razor blades and cigarette butts and
(41:01):
just general edgy teenager stuff. And next to it was
a backpack. What guys, this is not part of the quote.
What they found. This is the leavings of the of
the clan clearly or some copycatters. Maybe let's go back in,
presumably left by one of the participants. Yeah, we think
(41:21):
it was. It was like a normal high school kids
backpack with textbooks and whatnot, but there was a five
subject notebook with a big pentagram on it, and the
little subject separator tabs actually had labels in them, and
I still laugh about it to this day. The first
section was labeled members, and it had a list of
names with their like goth persona name next to it,
(41:44):
like Travis Keller, Dark Fire, Sarah Paulson, Lady Shadow, stuff
like that. Then the next section was labeled spells and
had all these papers printed off the internet with various
Wiccan stuff. Then the last section was labeled trivia and
was the running scoreboard of what looked to be a
Harry Potter trivia league. Yes, and this commenter, uh, you
(42:06):
can find this online, but just just because of Reddit rules,
we're not going to say they're using name right now. Uh.
But this redditor closes with this oddly wholesome line I thought,
and says, I like to think whoever's notebook that was
is now all grown up and has a successful career
in human resources or administration, because it does seem organized,
(42:27):
you know, or or and just hear me out the
poster on Reddit is the person who made that notebook? Yes,
but possibly you never know. You never know, and her
name is Sarah Paulson. So in this case, if we
(42:49):
we can make a we can't arrive at somewhat of
a verdict here. It seems that these could just be
kids playing you know, harmless somewhat edgy games. Right. These
could be especially in more recent years, what are portrayed
as vampires could actually be Larper's playing Vampire the Masquerade,
which is a fun game. Larber means live action role playing.
(43:13):
Trust us, you'll know it when you see it if
it's happening around you, because they go all all it
sometimes yeah, like uh so, uh yeah. You can see
an example of this, for instance, in the newest Hawkeye
series on on Disney. There's a lot of LARPing in there.
But on the other side, this could this could be
(43:36):
representative of Nissan's cult, like a charismatic older leader taking
advantage of young and or disadvantaged children and building a
cult of personality based on you know, a hodgepodge or
grab bag of amateur occult beliefs. Um happy to report.
I am happy to report that at the time of
(43:57):
this recording, like Hollio Wiggins is doing Justify it seems
to have survived with no ill ill effects. And this
story was reported originally with a little bit of tongue
in cheek stuff there too, right kind of Um, it
was self aware that was feeding into the satanic panics
(44:18):
that crop up in the US every so often. And
then since this story emerged during the age of the Internet,
and there's enough truth to it for it to be fascinating,
it's no wonder that so many people took it for fact.
And most of the people who took it for fact
do not live in Missouri, let alone Springfield. Although it
may sound like we're busting a bunch of myths here,
(44:40):
we do have to note it is very true that
the US is chuck full of hidden, occluded communities, cults,
groups with all sorts of eccentric, strange beliefs and practices.
You just don't hear about them as often. They're part
of what I like to call invisible America. They're underground,
(45:01):
They're more ways than one, and I would love to
do I would love to do a separate podcast on them. Um,
there are there is also one more, at least one
more Springfield vampire case that happened much later, unrelated to this,
in two sixteen, also with a teenager nineteen year old
(45:23):
named Victoria Vandatar. Yeah, this one is is really quite depressing. Uh.
It's reported on by k S HB out of Kansas
City and they reported it um this way. Uh, nineteen
year old Victoria van Ada van Ada perhaps um allowed
her intoxicated boyfriend to drink her blood and then she
(45:46):
stabbed him um during an argument that came soon after Um.
When the police arrived at their home, they discovered the
bloodied couple and the words I'm sorry written inside a
heart scrawled in blood on the wall. That's romantic. Yeah,
it's very misinformed, Vanda. And yeah, it just makes me sad.
(46:14):
I mean, look, I mean, as a father of a
thirteen year old burgeoning kind of moody goth teen, this
kind of stuff really freaks me out. Let me just
say that and be real. I mean, I know it's
not something that she's gonna go down this road or anything,
but it's like, God, you really give your kids a
hug man, you know, don't let them become weird, blood
(46:36):
sucky vampire weirdos. Just don't let it happen. Just show
them a little love. Only you can prevent vampireism. It's no,
I don't know. Oh yeah, no, give it a shot.
So yeah, this story it doesn't on a on a
sad note, or at least the time it happened in
six Vanatar said. Vanatar was was in debriated, according to
(47:00):
reports and Warren investigators that she had the potential to
become a serial killer. Turns out she had already been
jammed up for two previous assaults. We don't have an
update on there that in yet, but we just wanted
to put that in. Put that in there for anybody
who's wondering about the other Springfield vampire esque story. There
(47:21):
two separate incidents. But with all this now we've walked
through the facts and the fiction here you may ask
be asking guys, I like urban exploring. I love it.
I wonder what you all are getting into off air,
and I want to see this vampire tunnel for myself. Well,
you are in luck. This is how much of not
(47:43):
a secret this is. The tunnels are open for tours.
All you have to do right now is go to
Watershed Committee dot org and you can arrange a look.
See uh you can't go by yourself at midnight, not legally.
At least the tour groups need to have at least
eight people. They're going to be about two hours long,
and they're conducted sometime between eight am to five pm
(48:06):
Monday through Friday. So a vast conspiracy this is not.
But if you do want to take that tour, get
thee to the website now, you may not have the
chance to do so for much longer. There's been a
long movement underway to dig the creek up in a
process they called daylighting, as part of a larger downtown
(48:28):
revitalization effort, and it got got held off from COVID.
But I think they're going to go through with it
because they've they've got a lot of local support behind Yes.
I actually I called the Springfield, Missouri project manager who's
working on this. Uh his name's Kirkland, and he said, uh,
just he had some really interesting things to say. So
(48:50):
in the twenties, when they built that tunnel system over
the creek there, the thought was, as we stated before,
that it would control the flooding. But it turns out
it's nowhere big enough to control the flooding. When when
there's enough water like the hundred year flood that will
come through every hundred years or so. So the concept
(49:10):
is to actually open it up and make it more
like an arroyo that we just talked about recently on
the show, where it's more it's more of an open space.
And uh, there have been problems, but he assures me
and us and everyone that construction is going to begin
in the first quarter of to change things up. And
(49:31):
the last thing Kirkland said was he has not encountered
any vampires within the tunnels. Well, of course he's going
to say that, you know, and check that caveat within
the tunnels. What's going on at the video store? No spoilers,
but what's going on with the video store? Lost Boys
teaches you that's the first place you should check, especially
(49:53):
that's still open. The noodles they might be maggots, or
they might be noodles and they just look like maggots,
or they might be both. You know, these vampires are
tricksie devils and some mysteries it seems just can't last forever.
That's our show, folks, And now it's time for at
(50:15):
least one of my favorite parts where we get to
hear from you. What do you think is your neck
of the Global Woods home to any similar subterranean legends.
Are you a fan of urban exploration? If so, offer
on the record what's the strangest thing you've found so far?
Can't wait to hear from you. Be very careful with
(50:36):
that one, that last question. Make sure to let us
know whether we can use your voice and or message
on the air. But there's so many ways to find us,
why not hop online? You can do that. We have
a presence, if an online presence. You can find us
on Facebook. You can find us on YouTube, and you
can find us on Twitter under the handle conspiracy Stuff.
If you would prefer to check us out and picture
(50:58):
or form. You can find us on Instagram. Our Instagram
has recently got a bit of a kick in the pants.
I've been really enjoying the content myself, seeing some really
great conspiracy means a lot of stuff that's coming from
the amazing um posters over at Here's where it gets
crazy on Facebook that we're putting up on Instagram as well.
Uh and who knows we might be doing some live
e y V timey ymy type events over there too.
(51:19):
You can find that at conspiracy stuff show. Yes, there
are other ways to contact us. You can dial one
eight three three st d w y t K. When
you call, you will hear Ben and then you will
hear a tone. After that tone, tell us your nickname,
whatever it is. It can be anything, whatever your heart desires.
Then you've got three minutes say whatever you'd like. Please
(51:41):
include if you give us permission permission to use your
voice in message on the air, that'll be very helpful.
If you've got more to say than can fit in
the three minutes you are allotted for your voicemail message,
why not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Yeah stuff
(52:18):
they don't want you to know. Is a production of
I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
production of I Heart Radio. Hello, welcome back to the show.
(00:26):
My name is Matt, my name is not They called
me Ben. We are joined as always with our super
producer Paul Mission controlled decades. Most importantly, you are you.
You are here, and that makes this the stuff they
don't want you to know. Today, fellow conspiracy realists, we
are going underground. Literally, if you live in almost any city,
(00:48):
you probably already have some sense of just how much
stuff is beneath the surface, invisible, either by accident, negligence,
or in some cases by design. I am full disclosure
exploring a subterranean area near me A stay tuned for
updates on that. But that that got me thinking. I
think this was on our collective minds for quite some time.
(01:11):
You know, you think about what's underground. You think subway tunnels,
sewage lines, catacombs, maybe government bunkers, and in some cases
entire neighborhoods lay abandoned beneath the dirt. In today's episode,
we're exploring the story of one of those mysterious structures.
In particular, it's part of a local legend in Springfield, Missouri,
(01:31):
the so called Vampire Tunnels. But first, everyone, if you're
in a safe place, if you're not driving or whatnot,
or on a plane, look down. What do you think
is beneath your feet? What do you think is under
the surface? Here are the facts. There's an entire world
down there. Yeah, no doubt. And I know we're all
(01:51):
uh totally losing our minds with Elden Rang. And I
just found this area and Elden Rang, you go into
this temple thing and then is this platform with mystical
shimmers on the side, and it just goes and goes
and goes and just keeps going down, down, down, down down,
until there's this gorgeous subterranean world occupied by these like
(02:13):
barnacle covered, whispy spear bearers who one shot kill you
the moment you try to just take a look around
and take in all the beauty. But it's sure is
pretty and and creepy and terrifying. Oh yes, it's very difficult,
are you. Good luck to you, sir, Thank you sir, um.
But yeah, to your point, Ben, it's underneath most urban areas,
(02:33):
most cities. I was joking about where I am because
I'm just in a house kind of in the suburbs
of Atlanta that does have a crawl space which is underground,
and there's earth thown there. It's weird and kind of creepy.
But in most urban spaces, especially if you're in the city,
it's weird to think how much of an iceberg the
you know, what do they call it? The top streets
(02:54):
or the what is it in London? The high streets
like how the street? Oh yeah, especially in place as
old as London. Yeah, Europe is Europe and the Middle
East are chock full of these hidden hidden areas, you know,
and they're they're bigger than Elden Ring to. Honestly, I
(03:18):
gotta say, I don't know how many people one shot
you down there, but you do need to be careful.
We get so used to the compidous grind of human
activity on the surface on those high streets. We see
it in the air. The air is chock full of
towering structures. They're aircraft everywhere, But beneath it all there
is an often ignored substructure, superstructure, and they're all around
(03:42):
the world. The US has a China, Turkey has a
ton uh, South America, Europe, the rest of Asia, the
Middle East. People have been building these things since before
the dawn of the written word, and it makes a
lot of sense because think about it, you're you're humans
in the early days of the human fad, and you
(04:04):
need protection from the elements and from other hostile organisms,
so it makes sense to go to ground. Caves are
like houses that have already been made for you, so
you can just expand on those. Some are so so
incredibly old, like catal hook Uh in modern day Turkey.
We're not Turkish speakers, so part of our pronunciation there.
(04:26):
Check out our episode from more on that no spoilers,
is very freaky and we think we may have figured
out part of why it was built, but uh, we
might have to do an update on that one, depending
on when the world is Yeah, and I mean, you know,
much like say the catacombs in Paris or a lot
of these subterranean tunnels underneath London. Uh. Many of these
(04:47):
are the result of several phases, multiple phases of building
of construction that often can happen for different reasons throughout
history and You're people are just building on top of
things that pre existed and like used to serve a purpose,
like the catacombs in Paris again, which are like you know,
we're burial sites. Um. And as we know, I believe
it was in Paris that a lot of that stuff
(05:09):
started to come up, Uh, it started to become unearthed,
you know, due to like water, um, drainage or lack thereof,
like in the soil. And so there was a real
issue with having to dig up all those bones that
were just coming out of the earth and shove them
all in a different place where they wouldn't you know,
come back to life, but where one generation might establish
basic structures, later generations will continue to, like I said,
(05:30):
build on top of it. Um. That results in something
like a kind of you know, preserved time capsule left
over underground. Yes, you can see the story of a
city's evolution, you know, because all cities started out as
encampments basically based on geography or necessity, and only later
(05:53):
did they become the New York's or really the the
European capitals in the African city of note and and
just to apply it to a lot of to a
big theme of this episode, a lot of those encampments
start right near a water source, and that has a
lot to do with what's going on in this episode today.
(06:13):
Just like just like the excellent Civilization series, you want
to start your first city close to water if you
can swing it. And that's that's based on what real
life ancient cultures did. And you know, when I've I
think we've talked about this off air before, but it's
something that fascinates me about a city like Atlanta. Atlanta,
(06:34):
even back when it was terminus, is such an anomalous
thing for a city of its size because it's not
near a big navigable water source. What would have been
the water source has been replaced first by rail and
then by you know, the world's busiest airport. So it's fascinating.
I don't know if it is if it's sustainable in
(06:54):
the long term, but I guess that's depends on how
you want to define long term. Uh, let's talk a
little bit about all right. So I have I have brief,
ill fated personal experience with the largest official underground structure
of this sort. It's in Montreal. It could be called
an underground city. In fact, that's literally what its name
(07:17):
is uh, it's laville. Uh, pardon of the French speakers.
This is not a secret hideout for a relict population
of mole people or anything that sinister. Actually, I've got
a lot of nice restaurants. Uh. It's a vast series
of all these interconnected shopping centers, underground businesses, residential complexes
(07:39):
like apartment areas, hotels, even office towers are part of this.
And we're talking over twenty miles of tunnels, over four
and a half mile square miles of area. And this
if like, it's easy to get into as well, because
again it's not secret, it's not classified, it's public knowledge.
People go there every day. Some he might be in
(08:00):
Montreal listening to this show in this underground city now,
because it's that big. There are more than a hundred
and twenty known entry points, not county metro station entrances.
But we just want to give you a sense of
the scale here in terms of timeline and in terms
of sheer size. But today's episode is not about Montreal's
(08:23):
underground city, nor is it about Beijing's underground city, which
is a whole other thing. Both of them are fascinating,
they're not particularly citister anymore so than your average city
would be. But rumor has it there is something weird
going on underground in spring Filled, Missouri. The story starts
(08:44):
with something called Jordan's Creek home. So the legend says
to vampires, here's where it gets crazy. Now before we
dive in, Matt, this is what in particular that's been
on the docket for years and years and years. And uh,
I can't remember when we first talked about it was
(09:06):
the YouTube days. It might have been the YouTube days.
I want to say, a listener let us know about this.
At some point wrote to us, sent us a voicemail
or something like that, and it was a story I
think they had seen on Reddit about Jordan Creek in
a particular part of it that is covered. So let's
(09:27):
let's talk a little bit, a little bit more about Springfield,
Missouri and Jordan Creek and why it's important. Have you
guys been to Springfield, No, Matt, I haven't, no. Never.
It's it has some great outdoors stuff, it has some
museums that are quite enjoy It's not the biggest city
(09:47):
in Missouri, it's the third largest. And this is very
it's very much a Midwestern city in a Midwestern state,
and the population is right now, it's a little bit
under seventy thousand people. So it is definitely a city,
but it's not necessarily on par with you know, your
Chicago's or your New York's. But still, like in in place,
(10:11):
it has problems. It has some long standing racial disparity
intention but that's pretty much every city in the US.
You know, if you associate with something, A lot of
people when they think of Missouri, they think of barbecue.
They might think of Uncle Tupelo, maybe Wilco. They might
think of bass Pro shops if you like to fish,
(10:34):
their headquartered in Missouri. But I I don't. I don't
think a lot of us hear the word Missouri or
Springfield and immediately go boom vampires. Unless I'm wrong, unless
I just wasn't talking to the right people in Springfield. No,
you I've only been to St. Louis. I didn't see
the vampires there, so I can only speak to St. Louis. Well,
(10:55):
you know, it's just a weird thing about the title
of this episode. In the title of this I would
say a lot of people don't associate creeks or underground
water flow with vampires. But it's something that we've got
going on here apparently. Dude, that is such a good
point because anybody who's familiar with the old, the old
(11:18):
Western and Central European derived stories of vampires, you know
that running water is a big deal breaker for those guys.
They can't in many cases, they can't cross it. And
that we can one day do a show if we
haven't yet, about the evolution of vampire myths. It's it's fascinating,
it's super old. But you make such an excellent point there, man,
(11:39):
because it would be one of the last places that
a a typical vampire according to Western folklore, would like
to reside. But uh yeah, Jordan Creek is home to
this vampire myth, and this vampire myth is um something
we have to dive into. So if you go back
(11:59):
in the early history of the land that is called Missouri,
now you know, thousands and thousands and thousands of years
before Europeans arrived in this area, it was home to
multiple Native American populations, the Kickapoo, the Lena, as well
as the O sage. This was home to. This area
(12:20):
is home to what Europeans would later called Jordan's creek,
and it's a creek system that today runs beneath modern
day Springfield. And this is there's another interesting Atlantic comparison
here because the building we've been in for a long time,
m Pons the Leon Avenue, has an underground stream that
(12:42):
feeds into a cistern hidden in the tower and it
was paved over back in the day. The street is
named Ponts to lay on because long time ago, someone
was ripping off people by saying they had discovered the
Fountain of Youth and it was this stream, uh and
that you know, they sold, they sold a fake cure
(13:02):
for anything that ails you for like a nickel or
something or whatever the script was at the time. And
this and in Springfield, this creek is the reason that
people settled in this area. It was I believe one
family that moved in started like settled on that creek
or right around that creek in the area that now
has downtown Springfield in it, and then just a civil
(13:24):
or a town I guess arose from that from that family. Yeah,
towns like a mini civilization. And around that area you
also have these small caves that are along the side
of the creek, which is going to be an important
part of the story. A bit later. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah,
it's it's important part of the early story, and it's
important part of the legend. Right, So these things are true.
(13:47):
There is a Jordan Creek there. There are a were
a series of small caves that were along the sides
of this creek. Like you said, Noel as more bor
Europeans and European American settlers moved into this area. In
the eighteen hundreds, construction kicked into high gear. One thing
I didn't uh when that, I didn't put in the
(14:09):
notes here, but I gotta tell you, guys, because it's
so ridiculous. The town is named Springfield. There's a legend
about this. Apparently the town is named Springfield because there
was a vote over what they should call this town
when they decided to make it a permanent thing, and
one guy who was from Springfield, Massachusetts, said, let's name
(14:31):
it after my hometown. Uh, And anybody who votes from
my idea, I'll give you whiskey. So also a little
bit of the history of rigging elections. I hadn't heard that.
It's so funny how tales of the history of a
town like that exists. What I had heard is that
the one of the original settlers noticed, like within the
(14:52):
field there was this little um access to a very
deep well, and they called it the springfield. And again,
I feel like you could there's so many springfields. As
you say, that probably happens pretty frequently. People have the
same idea, all all those great minds thinking alike, well
it is it is true. I believe that one of
those founding families did settle purposely in a specific spot
(15:15):
because they found a natural spring. So let let us know.
I I like the rigged whiskey vote just because it's
a fun story, but either way, I either way, people
were pretty loose with how they named towns as as
Europeans expanded into what would later become the United States.
(15:36):
Send us your favorite weird town name there there are
thousands already. The very first developers of the town did
something really cool. They used those pre existing caves as
a kind of early hv A C system or really
just a C system, because the subterranean air was cooler
(15:56):
and they could channel that cold cave air into surface buildings. Uh,
there's a theater that's an example of this in town.
Is one of the first air conditioned buildings in Springfield,
and so this construction boom occurs, and it starts to
lead to trouble the roofs of the buildings that are
(16:17):
you know, being constructed willy nearly across the entire area.
Every time it rains, they're funneling increasingly large amounts of
water into the creek, and floods become a regular thing.
You know this because newspaper articles from the mid eight
hundreds are always talking about it. Flooding is going crazy.
There's not really a garbage collection system at this point either,
(16:39):
So every time it rains, uh, the creek doesn't just
flood with water, It floods with filth, animal waste, you know, uh,
byproducts of the livestock industry, human fecal matter. It's everywhere,
and the townsfolk are getting getting pretty fed up with this.
Rump for rump for rump. Something must be done. They
(17:01):
came up with the idea of burying the creek alive.
I'm being a little bit overly poetic, but not much.
They wanted to cap it. They wanted to cover it
such that when it flooded, it would just go essentially
through a big pipe instead of you know, throwing poop
all over the town. Well, it's also it was thought
(17:23):
to be a way to kind of protect the creek
from all the debris and stuff coming from civilization in
that downtown area. Right, So if you if you cap it,
you cover it with a tunnel, then that debris is
gonna at least sit on top of the concrete structure
rather than seeping into the water, which could be great
less pollution in your water source. I like that. So
(17:43):
let's uh, let's see what did they do. Did they
actually do it? Then? Uh? Yeah, guys, they did it.
Uh they spring into action, not a spring joke promise.
And they built these tunnels that they called boxes, so
they enclosed sections of the creek and ease This series
of boxes originally was about two thirds of a mile
(18:06):
starting at Water Street and Main Avenue going east leading
to where the creek went to the James River. And
after this construction, you've got what Tim Hidecker would call
free real estate. The boxes get paved over, people build structures,
they build actual buildings on top of this this paved area.
(18:27):
So really, the more I think about it, it's it's
not crazy to say the creek was buried alive because
they genuinely did build a new structure as the topic.
But isn't that kind of like a bit of a
dodgy foundation to build a whole new set of structures on.
I mean, there's there's some serious pilings in there, some bedrock,
the metal and stuff from concrete. I don't know. It
(18:50):
looks pretty strong to me. But that's not the only
tunnel that we're gonna talk about today. There's another tunnel,
another tunnel game in town, as you say, Ben, a
place called the Springfield Underground. I love a good underground
m hmm. This is this is a cool and you
can find Yeah, you can find a lot of neat
(19:14):
stuff about this First. It's huge and just like the
Jordan Creek, it did not start as an underground thing.
It was an open pit limestone quarry back in forty nine,
and they started digging tunnels in nineteen fifty four to
create open space storage space essentially that would later pave
(19:35):
the way for a bunch of underground facilities and these
are still active. Like truckers go into Springfield Underground. Yeah,
it's huge. I mean, we can't I can't tell you
how huge it is, Like just for incidence right now,
if you had the Springfield Underground dot com and you're
in need of some cold storage, so not freezing cold,
(19:57):
but around what they call ambient sixty two degrees fahrenheit. Uh,
you can right now at least a hundred and fourteen
thousand square feet from Springfield Underground. Again, a hundred and
fourteen thousand square feet. As of nine it was three
point two million square feet of space under all underground,
(20:21):
right and all at that nice cavernous temperature. Uh. You
can find this on Google Maps. The address is thirty
six ten East Kearney Street. Apparently it's just east of
US sixty. But that's again that's not a secret. It
is huge. It is Uh, it is huge enough to
(20:42):
be suspicious. You'll find some truckers who wonder whether it
is used for military purposes or whether it has been
in the past, because it looks like it would be
a good bunker. Honestly, but it looks like an amazing bunker.
My goodness. Can you can you imagine? Uh, you'd be
protected from all the elements. It would be tough to
(21:03):
really get a food so source going down there, unless
you had some excellent lights. Maybe you know those lights
that will help you grow hydroponics. You could live off
the largesse of craft foods because they were their second
people in that space, or the second company who was
their first refrigerated space. But okay, so we're establishing this.
(21:24):
So another another true thing we have established. There's a
lot of stuff going on beneath the surface in Springfield, Missouri.
But the question we have it answered yet is uh,
what's up with the vampires? Will pause for word from
our sponsor. We'll take a bite out of this story.
The story is not all gonna work. All right, we've returned.
(21:54):
Here's the crux of the story. What gives with the vampires?
You know, every town earth it's salt. Shout out to
Mark Landsky, author the book Salt readid if you haven't yet,
Every town has its own local legends. Like if you
grew up near Lake Laniar, you've heard tons of legends
about that lake. And you know, Matt, I'm sure you
(22:16):
would you had encountered some of those growing up nearby, right, Yeah, absolutely,
the the town that was flooded or the whole the
large swath of land that was flooded to create Lake Linear,
which included a town and true story in Church and
where people used to live before it was flooded. Uh yeah,
and every year people go missing in Lake Lanar. Quite often.
(22:40):
You get a nice mixture of debris at the bottom
of that lake which is very murky, and you know
plant life that you can get tangled up in with
those actual human structures. With the tendency for people to
drink when they go out on boats, seems a rife
for a spooky story or film. Yeah, and no, I'm
(23:03):
sure Augusta has many local like legends or urban legends
or rumors as well. Right, can you recall any well,
I'm sure there was some awful white people that did
some murders. Oh yeah, if you dig deep enough. Yeah yeah,
And I don't know. But you know what, that's not true.
(23:25):
There is a haunted pillar in Augusta. It's just a pillar.
I don't remember the story behind it, but it is
referred to collectively as the Haunted Pillar. And some friends
of mine actually had a small little record label they
named after that back in the nineties. So that's that's
the That's the only truly urban legend that I can
think of based in Augusta. And the point stands every
(23:46):
every place has its own collection. It's part of the
fabric that binds a human community together. This legend of
vampires living in the tunnels beneath Springfield. Though it's it's
fascinating because it's actually pretty recent. It dates back not
to some ancient myth, but instead to a specific news
(24:08):
article from two thousand seven in the Springfield News Leader.
At this point, we want to introduce you to a
student named Lacalia Wiggins. She was fifteen years old at
the time of this story, and she was a brilliant
kid who was a young prodigy getting an early start
(24:28):
at a place called Drury University. And she was kind
of bookish, right, as a lot of a lot of
brilliant kids are. But she wanted to fit in, you know.
She wanted to be part of the in crowd, like
a lot of kids do. She want to have friends.
And this weird series of circumstances lead her going to
a library that she wouldn't normally go to. Her math
(24:51):
tutor class had been canceled, or her appointment when the
matth two had been canceled. So she went to a
place called the Midtown Carnie D. Branch of the Springfield Library.
And she thought she'd run into some people she knew,
but instead she met a group of new people who
would become her new friends. They apparently had a heck
of a lot of revelations to drop on her. They
(25:13):
asked her several odd questions. We're not sure what they
specifically asked her, and then eventually they mentioned she might
be a vampire, but not just a vampire. According to
this story, they told her that perhaps in another life
or previous life, she had been a vampire queen. She
(25:34):
was in charge of stuff. Oh and she was a vampire,
remember remember that part? Um So, this is, you know,
a new group of people that are just kind of
telling her things. It's a bit weird, right. I'm trying
to imagine myself in that situation, Like, how would I
feel if I just met a new group of people
and they're telling me that It would feel probably quite flattering,
(25:55):
kind of exciting. But I imagine there's quite a bit
of skepticist them that could go into that conversation. Um So,
but what happened after this encounter? Yeah, you have to
ask yourself if someone is a vampire, why are they
out during the day, Why are they not you know,
suffering horrible reactions to religious iconic iconography or or garlic
(26:20):
or whatever. Apparently it's because she needed to be awakened.
That's that's when she would realize her past life as
a vampire queen. I'm also interested in the escalation there um.
They said, whatever was happening, they gave her a bit
of a hard cell. They needed to awaken her soon
because a grand reckoning was imminent, a looming war between
(26:41):
the forces of good and the powers of evil. And
as a vampire, she's on the powers of good. Unclear,
we are the good vampires. We have the white hat
vampires of Springfields. So for the next two months, Lacy
would hang around with these folks. They had their own
(27:04):
little clubhouse kind of situation, a little hideaway in the
tunnels underneath the city. Uh. And she'd learn about vampiric
folklore and even watch some of the group's members, about
twenty or so strong, um, cut themselves and drink, at
the very least taste lick each other's blood. Uh. And
(27:24):
a lot of the folks in this group kind of
consider themselves a bit of a clan almost, or a
kind of a cultic kind of situation. They were similar
ages or a little bit younger. UM. A lot of
them came from um, you know, kind of rough backgrounds,
their street kids, UM. And there were a few older
members and the leader of the group was a guy
(27:45):
in his twenties and Lacalia believe the members of the
clan were associated with street level non vampiric crime, almost
like a Fagan and Oliver twists and like Lost Boys
kind of situations. Actually, the what I'm thinking about, it's
very like the the Joel Schumacher Lost Boys kind of scenario,
live underneath the city doing crimes, not necessarily vampire crimes,
(28:09):
and not entirely the same time, similar vibe. I wonder
if they were with the Jackinson Red Sweet motorcycles. Yeah,
it reminds me of street kids, you know, traveling kids.
For anybody who's been in the traveler community, the age,
the age discrepancy is red flag honestly because in those
this has all the makings of a cult based on
(28:29):
the information we have now a space c u l
T not o c c u l T a cult
as the basis of it so far, but we've gotta
have a record scratch at this point. Perfect. This sounds
like a lot already. Right, this sounds like maybe it
could be exaggerated because so far they just have the
(28:50):
word of the kid, who is a minor at this time.
Journalists investigating this story thought so too. So they checked
around and we just want to jump outside of time here,
outside a linear narrative for a bit, and confirmed that
they did check with Lcalia's mother, one Latania Wiggins. She's uh,
(29:10):
she was a local first grade school teacher, and she
she confirmed this and more. And then she said she'd
also been suspended from her job just for telling her
coworkers about this story. So that's that's a weird shutdown.
And whenever you have some kind of shut down on
a story like that, it just feeds speculation. It's pouring
(29:33):
gasoline onto the fire. But the investigators also, just for
the record, they went to the place Lacalia told them
about and they found something in the Jordan Creek drainage tunnel. Yeah.
Surprisingly and maybe not surprisingly, they found evidence that people
(29:54):
were living there, some people, not sure who it was,
just signs of almost an encampment or something. And just
pause here for one moment. There's a YouTube video you
can watch, Ben that I think you found. It was
linked in an article here from that same news site,
where it's just a kid at night going through the
tunnels and looking. And there's this one particular place where
(30:18):
I've seen rumors that that this is the place where
kids were living or somebody was living, which is now
barred off and you can't access it anymore. But this
is the same thing that these investigators at the time found. Yeah,
and if you've ever been to like a hobo jungle
or crash pad, you know, you know the look. It's
(30:39):
a bunch of stuff strewn around, you know, cast off
furniture in tents and things. And uh, Localia did say
that members of what they called the Clan with a
C would live there every so often or on and off,
you know, come and go, just kind of like a
(31:00):
punk house, like a gutter punk house. And as a result,
the group just called this squat the house not a
vampire joke. But Lacalia was mesmerized and things started to
reach a climactic point as Halloween loomed on the horizon.
She ran away from her mother's house, and when Lacalia's mom, Latania,
(31:25):
quitn't find her, like any any parent, she understandably panicked.
She filed a missing person's report with the local p D.
At this point, we do have to pause here because
whenever we mentioned filing a missing person's report, we need
to bust a very dangerous myth. This is this is
hugely important, folks. If you have a loved one or
(31:49):
someone you care about, or just someone you know and
there and they have gone missing and you are expecting them,
you do not have to wait twenty four hours to
file a missing person's report. You should not wait twenty
four hours like do it as soon as you think
something is seriously amiss, because of those twenty four hours
(32:11):
can make a world of difference in the likelihood of
you finding that person. It's a really excellent point and also,
I mean a little suspicious if someone waits that long. No,
the trope is that the police would force you to
wait that long. Yeah. Unfortunately a lot of crime fiction
has ruined that for people. Um and then you know,
people say, oh, I don't want to bug the police
(32:32):
unless there's something seriously wrong. But the truth of the
matter is that is a myth. So hop on it
if you have concerns, And this time it worked. Police
did find Lecalia later that evening, she and her new
vampiric or pseudo of vampiric friends, we're going to Reportedly,
(32:54):
they're gonna buy some scissors and ritualistically cut her hair.
They were going to go to an your by cemetery
and they have this ceremony that would awaken the vampire
queen within her. But the police caught wind of it,
and they preemptively kind of head them off at the
pass and nipped them in the bud whichever wouldn't you
(33:15):
prefer um. Lacalia was returned to her home, and although
she did cooperate with police, Lacalia was apparently pretty hostile
to her parents when she came home. She doesn't exactly
strike me as the most mellow youth. She referred to
her parents using this as a term of abuse as humans.
She hissed, she spat um. She eventually began to see
(33:37):
a counselor, which is probably the right move, um, And thankfully,
after a little bit of time, you know, speaking to
this person, she started to return back to her normal personality.
But that's when some new wrinkles started to present themselves
in the form of death threats. Did we talk about
what the actual ritual was supposed to be. Not yet
(34:01):
it uh. It culminates in a nightmare for anybody with
hygiene issues because this this ceremony probably involved some you know,
some high fluting language right to build out the mythos
of the group depending on what they were doing, and
there are questions about that too, But it culminated in
(34:23):
having you, as the initiate, drink the blood of someone
who identified as a vampire, and then having them drink
your blood and return. So that's not not good hygiene. No,
it's super doesn't seem like that much of a ritual,
right don't you usually have to die to become a vampire? Well,
(34:44):
they're they're they're there, they're styling on it a little bit.
I mean, this is sort of this is some and
rice level ritualistic behavior. I would say from the outside
looking in, it feels maybe a bit performative and edgy.
But everybody's everybody has been a teenager. Most people have
(35:04):
been a teenager at some point, so this gets series though.
The death threats are coming in their anonymous notes saying
you know your tongue will be cut out for betraying
the clan, and strangers were sending like people she could
probably guess who they were, but uh, strangers were sending
death threats. And this, this story, this whole series of
(35:27):
events we've just outlined, is what brought the idea of
the Vampire Tunnels to larger public attention. But how much
of this is actually true? We're gonna pause for word
from our sponsors and return to the story of the
Vampire Tunnels, and we're back with more on the Vampire
(35:52):
Tunnels of Springfield, Miss area of then you posed before
the break. How much of this is true? Well, one
thing we do know is true. The tunnels themselves and
the area where this group, this clan had their will hideaway,
the referred to as the House. Can you describe the
way that looked, Ben, I think we can. Let's let's
(36:12):
crowdsources a crowd of three. So yeah, So the tunnels
are very real and that area they were in that
we described as looking like a crash pad for people
who did have permanent living situations. Uh, it was. It's
still underground, but it's it's removed from the drainage area, right.
(36:35):
Would you agree with that? Matt? I think you saw
the same videos. Yeah. What I what I saw was
that this place would be safe if there was flooding,
or at least safer if there was flooding within the drainage,
because you can kind of see where the walls go up,
and then this part is between the ceiling concrete within
the tunnel and within the kind of a I don't know,
(36:57):
I guess you would call it the top of the
tops of the walls. It looks to me like where
some structure has been built on top of these tunnels,
and this is like the underneath of that building, almost
like a crawl space area that's kind of accessible to
go into from the tunnels. You guys, you've you've both
seen The Lost Boys. I mean, I can't not picture
(37:20):
the Lost Boys hang out beneath the streets of San
Dimas you know, We're star and Uh and all the
other guys that with our buddy Alex Winter sporting an
amazing uh kind of a white boy Jerry Curl in
that film, and of course Keefer and Jason Patrick. But
that's what I'm picturing. Yeah, I was thinking of the
Lost Boy references as well looking into this. I'll tell
(37:42):
you what the Lost Boys hang out in that film
is uh an order of magnitude more extravagant and cool.
This is definitely this is definitely like a hidden crass
face kind of area. But it's pretty big. It's not
your average, you know, ranch home crawl space. Don't think
of it that way. You can stand up, you can
walk around, but yeah, but the that part is real.
(38:08):
And Lakalia's stepfather, a guy named David Morton, came back
to that area. He went with a couple of folks
after his stepdaughter left the group or the clan. He
came there to get her backpack and he said, quote,
it was strange. This is when he's speaking to the paper.
He says, you go back there and there's graffiti with
(38:28):
whatever weird stuff. It's pitch black. When we were there,
there were probably ten to twelve transient street kids up there,
so it's also not much of a secret in town.
I'd like to give a big shout out to this
awesome forum called underground Ozark's go to underground Ozark's all
one word dot com. There's a great resource for urban
exploration in the area, and folks on this forum are
(38:51):
very well aware of the tunnel. They even it even
has an exciting nickname, Hill's Church. But it's very tongue
in cheek, and I think that's specifically the area we're
talking about that we're describing the house the room that
I think that is what they are referring to as
Hell's Church. Yeah, yeah, I mean, just to humanize a
(39:13):
little more, someone threw a barbecue down there. In two
thousand five. People talk about racing a t v s.
They're explorers in the in the forum have long been
aware of a possible, possibly hostile at times presence from
people they describe as transients or vagrance. But if you
go on that just know this and advanced folks, if
(39:35):
you go on those forums and you talk about it
being a vampire clan, you're going to get laughed out
of the room, the digital room. Uh. There are, of course,
there are dangers with running into anyone, even playing old
garden variety of humans down there in the dark. That's
why you'll see posters on the forum say go to
(39:55):
a group. At least he was the Buddy system, just
in case there might be some people who are intoxicated
or who are looking for trouble. And yes, they're also
bats because the tunnel like this is perfect for bats.
Those bats also seem to be you know, just playing bats,
not even vampire bats, just regular bats. Fits. They're they're
actually kind of cute looking. I've seen some I've seen
(40:17):
some of the beats. They've been very cute for the beats. Uh.
You can you can also, you know, if you'd like,
you can find lots of anecdotes about the tunnel from
people who have explored it while they were in the area,
And there was one that really stood out to me
from a redditor who was talking about this on the
(40:38):
Springfield subreddit. It's kind of a long quote, but it's
a cool story, so maybe we can maybe we can
break it up and approach it as a group. My
favorite story from those tunnels is once I went into
the bat Cave slash Hell's Church and found a crumby
folding table with a pentagram and little tea like candles
on it and like razor blades and cigarette butts and
(41:01):
just general edgy teenager stuff. And next to it was
a backpack. What guys, this is not part of the quote.
What they found. This is the leavings of the of
the clan clearly or some copycatters. Maybe let's go back in,
presumably left by one of the participants. Yeah, we think
(41:21):
it was. It was like a normal high school kids
backpack with textbooks and whatnot, but there was a five
subject notebook with a big pentagram on it, and the
little subject separator tabs actually had labels in them, and
I still laugh about it to this day. The first
section was labeled members, and it had a list of
names with their like goth persona name next to it,
(41:44):
like Travis Keller, Dark Fire, Sarah Paulson, Lady Shadow, stuff
like that. Then the next section was labeled spells and
had all these papers printed off the internet with various
Wiccan stuff. Then the last section was labeled trivia and
was the running scoreboard of what looked to be a
Harry Potter trivia league. Yes, and this commenter, uh, you
(42:06):
can find this online, but just just because of Reddit rules,
we're not going to say they're using name right now. Uh.
But this redditor closes with this oddly wholesome line I thought,
and says, I like to think whoever's notebook that was
is now all grown up and has a successful career
in human resources or administration, because it does seem organized,
(42:27):
you know, or or and just hear me out the
poster on Reddit is the person who made that notebook? Yes,
but possibly you never know. You never know, and her
name is Sarah Paulson. So in this case, if we
(42:49):
we can make a we can't arrive at somewhat of
a verdict here. It seems that these could just be
kids playing you know, harmless somewhat edgy games. Right. These
could be especially in more recent years, what are portrayed
as vampires could actually be Larper's playing Vampire the Masquerade,
which is a fun game. Larber means live action role playing.
(43:13):
Trust us, you'll know it when you see it if
it's happening around you, because they go all all it
sometimes yeah, like uh so, uh yeah. You can see
an example of this, for instance, in the newest Hawkeye
series on on Disney. There's a lot of LARPing in there.
But on the other side, this could this could be
(43:36):
representative of Nissan's cult, like a charismatic older leader taking
advantage of young and or disadvantaged children and building a
cult of personality based on you know, a hodgepodge or
grab bag of amateur occult beliefs. Um happy to report.
I am happy to report that at the time of
(43:57):
this recording, like Hollio Wiggins is doing Justify it seems
to have survived with no ill ill effects. And this
story was reported originally with a little bit of tongue
in cheek stuff there too, right kind of Um, it
was self aware that was feeding into the satanic panics
(44:18):
that crop up in the US every so often. And
then since this story emerged during the age of the Internet,
and there's enough truth to it for it to be fascinating,
it's no wonder that so many people took it for fact.
And most of the people who took it for fact
do not live in Missouri, let alone Springfield. Although it
may sound like we're busting a bunch of myths here,
(44:40):
we do have to note it is very true that
the US is chuck full of hidden, occluded communities, cults,
groups with all sorts of eccentric, strange beliefs and practices.
You just don't hear about them as often. They're part
of what I like to call invisible America. They're underground,
(45:01):
They're more ways than one, and I would love to
do I would love to do a separate podcast on them. Um,
there are there is also one more, at least one
more Springfield vampire case that happened much later, unrelated to this,
in two sixteen, also with a teenager nineteen year old
(45:23):
named Victoria Vandatar. Yeah, this one is is really quite depressing. Uh.
It's reported on by k S HB out of Kansas
City and they reported it um this way. Uh, nineteen
year old Victoria van Ada van Ada perhaps um allowed
her intoxicated boyfriend to drink her blood and then she
(45:46):
stabbed him um during an argument that came soon after Um.
When the police arrived at their home, they discovered the
bloodied couple and the words I'm sorry written inside a
heart scrawled in blood on the wall. That's romantic. Yeah,
it's very misinformed, Vanda. And yeah, it just makes me sad.
(46:14):
I mean, look, I mean, as a father of a
thirteen year old burgeoning kind of moody goth teen, this
kind of stuff really freaks me out. Let me just
say that and be real. I mean, I know it's
not something that she's gonna go down this road or anything,
but it's like, God, you really give your kids a
hug man, you know, don't let them become weird, blood
(46:36):
sucky vampire weirdos. Just don't let it happen. Just show
them a little love. Only you can prevent vampireism. It's no,
I don't know. Oh yeah, no, give it a shot.
So yeah, this story it doesn't on a on a
sad note, or at least the time it happened in
six Vanatar said. Vanatar was was in debriated, according to
(47:00):
reports and Warren investigators that she had the potential to
become a serial killer. Turns out she had already been
jammed up for two previous assaults. We don't have an
update on there that in yet, but we just wanted
to put that in. Put that in there for anybody
who's wondering about the other Springfield vampire esque story. There
(47:21):
two separate incidents. But with all this now we've walked
through the facts and the fiction here you may ask
be asking guys, I like urban exploring. I love it.
I wonder what you all are getting into off air,
and I want to see this vampire tunnel for myself. Well,
you are in luck. This is how much of not
(47:43):
a secret this is. The tunnels are open for tours.
All you have to do right now is go to
Watershed Committee dot org and you can arrange a look.
See uh you can't go by yourself at midnight, not legally.
At least the tour groups need to have at least
eight people. They're going to be about two hours long,
and they're conducted sometime between eight am to five pm
(48:06):
Monday through Friday. So a vast conspiracy this is not.
But if you do want to take that tour, get
thee to the website now, you may not have the
chance to do so for much longer. There's been a
long movement underway to dig the creek up in a
process they called daylighting, as part of a larger downtown
(48:28):
revitalization effort, and it got got held off from COVID.
But I think they're going to go through with it
because they've they've got a lot of local support behind Yes.
I actually I called the Springfield, Missouri project manager who's
working on this. Uh his name's Kirkland, and he said, uh,
just he had some really interesting things to say. So
(48:50):
in the twenties, when they built that tunnel system over
the creek there, the thought was, as we stated before,
that it would control the flooding. But it turns out
it's nowhere big enough to control the flooding. When when
there's enough water like the hundred year flood that will
come through every hundred years or so. So the concept
(49:10):
is to actually open it up and make it more
like an arroyo that we just talked about recently on
the show, where it's more it's more of an open space.
And uh, there have been problems, but he assures me
and us and everyone that construction is going to begin
in the first quarter of to change things up. And
(49:31):
the last thing Kirkland said was he has not encountered
any vampires within the tunnels. Well, of course he's going
to say that, you know, and check that caveat within
the tunnels. What's going on at the video store? No spoilers,
but what's going on with the video store? Lost Boys
teaches you that's the first place you should check, especially
(49:53):
that's still open. The noodles they might be maggots, or
they might be noodles and they just look like maggots,
or they might be both. You know, these vampires are
tricksie devils and some mysteries it seems just can't last forever.
That's our show, folks, And now it's time for at
(50:15):
least one of my favorite parts where we get to
hear from you. What do you think is your neck
of the Global Woods home to any similar subterranean legends.
Are you a fan of urban exploration? If so, offer
on the record what's the strangest thing you've found so far?
Can't wait to hear from you. Be very careful with
(50:36):
that one, that last question. Make sure to let us
know whether we can use your voice and or message
on the air. But there's so many ways to find us,
why not hop online? You can do that. We have
a presence, if an online presence. You can find us
on Facebook. You can find us on YouTube, and you
can find us on Twitter under the handle conspiracy Stuff.
If you would prefer to check us out and picture
(50:58):
or form. You can find us on Instagram. Our Instagram
has recently got a bit of a kick in the pants.
I've been really enjoying the content myself, seeing some really
great conspiracy means a lot of stuff that's coming from
the amazing um posters over at Here's where it gets
crazy on Facebook that we're putting up on Instagram as well.
Uh and who knows we might be doing some live
e y V timey ymy type events over there too.
(51:19):
You can find that at conspiracy stuff show. Yes, there
are other ways to contact us. You can dial one
eight three three st d w y t K. When
you call, you will hear Ben and then you will
hear a tone. After that tone, tell us your nickname,
whatever it is. It can be anything, whatever your heart desires.
Then you've got three minutes say whatever you'd like. Please
(51:41):
include if you give us permission permission to use your
voice in message on the air, that'll be very helpful.
If you've got more to say than can fit in
the three minutes you are allotted for your voicemail message,
why not instead send us a good old fashioned email.
We are conspiracy at iHeart radio dot com. Yeah stuff
(52:18):
they don't want you to know. Is a production of
I heart Radio. For more podcasts from my heart Radio,
visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
you listen to your favorite shows.
Stuff They Don't Want You To Know News
Hosts And Creators
Matt Frederick
Ben Bowlin
Noel Brown
Show Links
RSSStoreAboutLive ShowsPopular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.