#119 Spring Heeled Jack: Man or Phantom

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Any one. And I looked out and there was this big, red,
blinking UFO. I can just say this, something's going on
in the woods.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Something's going on.

Speaker 1 (00:29):
They're not dogs, they're not coyotes. What could it be?

Speaker 2 (00:31):
Right?

Speaker 3 (00:32):
I had an encounter with a skunk cake and it
completely altered the course of my life.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
I got a call walk on building, what about? What
about stand sightings of a uf fo hovering over a farm.

Speaker 4 (00:47):
Really woke up from a dream, and when I went
into the bedroom, she said, there's a monster on the wall.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
They saw that the creature had run through a barb
wire fence.

Speaker 1 (00:56):
That they were able to obtain cares.

Speaker 2 (00:59):
They sent the hairs to their lab and it came
back as an online creature. Creature creature suck shit boy?
What is up? Bizarre Rights and welcome back to the
most bizarre show on the Internet. I am the one

(01:21):
that a few people call Shane Squatchquatch. You kind of
like a baby squatch. I guess I'm probably about about
the size of a baby squatch, my friend. And over
here I have the one that they call the big
bed boo Daddy, Sir Orrin Felix himself.

Speaker 3 (01:44):
You really just keep upping your game with these ridiculous intros.

Speaker 2 (01:47):
I got a bunch more. Actually, I've been kind of
making a little reserve of them where I just keep
mashing together good clips. And I was trying to space
that one so it would fall a little bit earlier.
But I was really bad the timing on that one,
so it was supposed to be a little bit better,
but I guess the end a little riff. Was still
funny all the same because you were not expecting it.

Speaker 3 (02:04):
I definitely was not expecting it, So like, this is
your new hobby, just making new intros like fuck show
notes and all that.

Speaker 1 (02:11):
It's just ridiculous ass intros.

Speaker 2 (02:13):
I started getting inspired by it.

Speaker 4 (02:15):
You know.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
I'll be sitting here for a second waiting for an
episode to finish converting over, and I have like a
bunch of random clips that I kind of just throw
off to the side, So then I just start combining
them while I'm waiting for the last project to finish up,
and then I just end up with a bunch of
these little two second little mini clips.

Speaker 1 (02:29):
I see.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Well, I'm glad you're doing something productive with the time.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
I found enough daddy clips. I mean, there's like websites
full of them, so you know it's an endless stock supply, my.

Speaker 1 (02:39):
Friend, I have no doubt about that.

Speaker 2 (02:42):
But getting into a little bit more serious matters at least,
we of course have a couple of news and updates.
I know that you have one that you've mentioned the
last couple of times, but in case anybody hasn't caught it,
once you fill them in on what you got going
on over there, Sir Orn Felix aka the Big Bad
Boo Daddy.

Speaker 1 (02:59):
Yeah, like I've been mentioned on the past few episodes, the.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
End of July, I think it's like July twenty fifth,
twenty six, something like that.

Speaker 1 (03:06):
Whatever.

Speaker 3 (03:06):
The last Saturday in July is Me and Jenny are
going to be at the Smoky Mountain Bigfoot Conference in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.
We're not gonna be vending or anything or just gonna
be hanging out. So if any of you guys are
gonna be there at the show, definitely hit us up.
And if you see us walking around and say, hey,
we'd love to hang out with you guys and maybe
drink some moonshine with yall.

Speaker 2 (03:26):
And on another flip side, I know that a lot
of you guys have been wondering what's been going on
with the Patreon. So the weight is finally over. I
finally have it back, not under construction. There are one
or two perks with one of the tiers that's under
construction just because I'm waiting for an update from the
merch store. But I'm the flip side. I made it
a little bit more simple. You guys can now get
one of two tiers. The first one is at free

(03:46):
in early access, and the other one is full access.
I tried to simplify it a little bit, so if
anybody's interested in hopping over there and checking out all
the new perks and all the new things I've added,
and possibly moving tiers if you're already a member to
one of the two tier options, because there's a third
tier currently because I didn't want to delete it yet
and kick anybody off. So if you guys want to
go check that out, of course, links are available for
that down in the show description.

Speaker 3 (04:08):
And our next YouTube live stream episode of Bizarre Inquiries
is going to be on July third, that's a Thursday.
It's going to be about seven to fifteen Eastern time
on the Open Minds Media YouTube channel so you guys
be sure to submit questions or articles or anything like
that that you want us to inquire about. And also,
you guys can join the chat as we're talking live.

(04:29):
That's a lot of fun getting to talk to you
guys as we're going through the material, So you guys
be sure to join the chat as well.

Speaker 2 (04:35):
And before we get into the show.

Speaker 3 (04:38):
If anyone out there is interested in being a guest
on the show, sharing their experiences or encounters, or contacting
us for any reason whatsoever, Shane tell them how they
can do that.

Speaker 2 (04:49):
First and foremost, you guys can email us at Bizarre
Encounters at outlook dot com. Of course, you guys can
always get ahold of us through social media, and the
last way you guys can get ahold of us is
through texting or calling the Open minds me hotline. I
updated the directions and the voicemail so it's a little
bit more clear on what's going on over there. But
if anybody wants to call in or text that, that
number is three one three, three six four one five

(05:09):
to five to one. And if you guys happen to
miss that, it is available directly down in the show notes.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
And as always, all this shit we've mentioned is in
the link tree and the show description, and tonight's episode
is one that Shane put together. I'm kind of excited
to dig into this. It's something that I've heard about
a lot but never really dug into. So, Shane, without
further ado, why don't you tell everybody what you've prepared
for us tonight?

Speaker 2 (05:34):
So tonight, I have been very fascinated with the Victorian
Age and diving into folklore and some different experiences from
the Victorian Age. So I figured that a good one
to hit because I haven't heard a lot of shows
talk about it, well, mainly kind of talk about it
a little bit in passing, but not do like a
full just episode on it. Tonight I have for you
guys the legend of spring Hill Jack aka the Rosine Bear.

(05:56):
Do you have any thoughts on this one? Before we
get directly into anything, anything you've heard about this, because
I've of course have a mix here where it kind
of separates two different legends. But before we get into it,
I kind of want to get some of your ideas
on what you've heard about spring Hill Jack.

Speaker 3 (06:10):
No, Like, prior to reading three year notes, I had
basically just heard like kind of the broad strokes of
the story, you know, the creepy guy with calls, jumping
out at ladies and Victorian times, and that's pretty much
all I knew about it, just like little snippets from
books and websites and whatnot that I've seen.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
So yeah, I'm excited to dig into this and see
some of the research you found out, all.

Speaker 2 (06:31):
Right, So diving into this one. Of course, a lot
of the different websites have scattered information on this, but
what I tried to do is compile everything into some
of the most prolific experiences and sightings for him. So
this is reference from a lot of different places of course, Wikipedia,
Monster Wiki, all those fun sites. But I tried to
compile this and the best I felt that I could
organize it to try to give you guys a full

(06:52):
gust of the story of what was really happening at
this time. So hopping into it. Spring Hill Jack was
a legendary and terrifying figure who reported stalk the streets
of Victorian era England, becoming known as the first Victorian
era urban legend. He was described as having a demon
or phantom like appearance with glowing eyes and pointed ears.
Reports also mentioned him breathing blue flames and having metallic claws,

(07:14):
but his most definitive feature was his extraordinary ability to
leap incredible heights, hence the name spring hill Jack. He
typically targeted loan pedestrians, especially women, startling or assaulting them
before vanishing quickly. He was never identified, which led to
speculation of his true identity. And just to kind of
lay a little bit of the groundwork on what was

(07:34):
going on at this current time, I have a picture
to share for anybody that might be watching as far
as video format goes, whether you're watching on the Live
or you guys are watching on the Patreon, to kind
of give you guys a little bit of a background
on what again, the times were as far as Victorian
era London goes, So bring this in just a little

(07:55):
bit here, all right. So first and foremost, it was,
of course a city of contrasts, which means that the
Victorian ara London was a rapidly growing city marked by
extreme wealth alongside widespread poverty and advanced technology, coexisting with
strong beliefs in the supernatural, which fuelled the public's imagination
and made people more susceptible to strange tales, just like
a lot of the weird folklore ghost stories that come

(08:16):
out of the Victorian Age. Of course, it was the
age where there was a lot of strange inventions going on,
and it was also an age where people were still
heavily based in spiritual beliefs, of course, so it kind
of created a weird mix as far as science and
spirituality goes. So you of course have these weird legends
where there's these mechanical factors to them, such as the
spring Heeled, but there's also this phantom aspect to it,

(08:38):
so it kind of definitely falls into kind of laying
the groundwork for some of the folklore. And of course
Victorian era London physically dark and full of dread. Even
with more gas lights, many areas remained shadowy and mysterious.
The air was often thick, with coal smoke adding to
a gloomy atmosphere, so it was just a very dark,
gloomy thick It's like, honestly, just the perfect place that

(08:59):
set up up for crime, whether it be something a
little bit more provocative such as what small or such
as what spring Hill jackets into, or even just simple
crimes like being able to pickpocket people. It was just
the perfect atmosphere for breeding a lot of crime, and
the last thing, deep social anxieties. With a large gap
between social classes, crime was on the rise, which led

(09:20):
to general fear amongst the population because you never know.

Speaker 1 (09:23):
What, I don't have to deal with that anymore.

Speaker 2 (09:26):
Yeah, right, So, do you have any comments that you
want to make as far as kind of setting down
the principal groundwork for what may have kind of led
into some of these folklore and folklore entails.

Speaker 1 (09:37):
Uh No, not really.

Speaker 3 (09:39):
I mean, I guess the only thing I'll add is,
you know, just from the description and the pictures you
pulled up, it's like very like a Sweeney todd Ass
type situation going on right here. So I think that's
kind of setting the mood perfectly for this story.

Speaker 2 (09:51):
And speaking of that, of course, I have to bring
up a picture of spring Hill Jack looking very creepy,
of course, and I have a bunch of different ones
that we can show as we go throughout the show.
But there is one of the news reports of spring
Hill Jack, Okay, but getting into it the lead up
in the earliest sightings in the early nineteenth century, there
is reports of ghosts that stock the streets of London.

(10:12):
These human like figures were described as pale. It was
believed that they stalked and prayed on lone pedestrians. The
stories told of these figures formed parts of the distinct
ghost tradition in London, which for some writers have argued
formed the foundation of later legends of spring Hill Jack.
The most important of these early entities was the Hammersmith Ghost,
which in eighteen oh three and eighteen oh four was

(10:34):
reported in Hammersmith, on the western fringes of London. It
would later reappear in eighteen twenty four. Another apparition, the
Southampton Ghosts, also was reported as assaulting individuals in the night.
This particular spirit bore many of the characteristics of spring
Hill Jack and was reported as jumping over houses, being
just over ten feet tall. Five miles to the southwest

(10:55):
of the crowded Capital city center, in the village of Barnes,
a rumor was beginning to spread. Villagers were talking about
ghosts that had been attacking people around the area throughout September,
with women being the most common target. So, as you
can see here, we're kind of leading into this phantom
idea kind of slowly turning into the spring Hill Jack idea,
which we'll get into a little bit later with theories,

(11:18):
but just to kind of lay a little bit of
the groundwork for that. According to these rumors, the ghosts
were shaped like white bulls. These ghosts soon traveled to
a neighborhood called East Sheen, although the people there claimed
it had taken the form of white bear instead of
a bowl. The attacks continued and the appearances of the
ghosts changed once more as it came closer to the
city center. Witnesses in Hampton, nine miles away from Barnes,

(11:41):
claimed that these mysterious ghosts was an unearthly warrior that
was wearing polished brass armor, clawed gloves, and spring shoes,
which again slowly starting to fall into the mythos of
spring Hill Jack. In eighteen thirty seven, a carpenter called
Jones was attacked by a ghost and armour on Cutthroat
Lane in London. According to rumors, Jones fought back, but

(12:04):
two more ghosts appeared and the men was severely injured.
But the initial reports of spring Hill Jack began to
surface in late September of eighteen thirty seven, primarily in
the London districts of Barnes and CLAMPSHNT or Clampham comment
before we get into the actual documented sightings of spring
Hill Jack, do you have any comments or anything to
make on the ghostly rumors that have kind of started

(12:27):
the foundation of some of the spring Hill Jack urban
legend folklore.

Speaker 3 (12:31):
Yeah. I think there's a lot of interesting things that
you touched on in this section. First off, the ghost
that was wearing armor, that's like the most Scooby Doo
ass shit I've ever heard.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
That's pretty funny.

Speaker 3 (12:42):
The fact that they had a street in London called
Cutthroat Lane. Again, that's the most Swingy Todd bullshit I've
ever heard, so also kind of funny. Just asking on
a more serious note, I did think it was interesting.
It says here that, according to the rumors, the ghost
was shaped like a white bull and then later took
the form of a white bear. I think both of

(13:03):
those are kind of interesting, especially the bull report, just
kind of in light of like stories you hear about
like minotaurs and things like that and their connection to
like the paranormal, and you know the fact that.

Speaker 1 (13:17):
These things kind of preyed on women.

Speaker 3 (13:20):
There's a lot of reports that I've come across with
kind of like incubus type encounters with women reporting them
being like bulls or minotar type entities. So I think
that's kind of interesting right off the rip here.

Speaker 2 (13:34):
And also to make an extended comment on that, if
everybody remembers our episode where he's dug into oh why
my Bohemian growth, we talked about the whole minotar concept
that you know, it was part of like the ritual
that the guy would dress up like a mentar and
essentially would run around and be able to do whatever
he wanted to do. And it seems to get into
this whole idea of like Moloch worship. And I'm not
necessarily saying that was the case with this, but you know,

(13:55):
there may be some weird connections there, or even like
we're always talking about the matter of whige, that some
people saw something that looked more like a ble to them,
while other people describe stuff that looked more like a
white bear. You know, you're looking at it from head on.
You have this like elongated face with these points over
on the sides, So I mean, depending on your perception,
I mean, if you're looking at something that's neither a

(14:15):
bear nor a bowl. You're kind of looking at something
that's this in between being. Then you know, you can
you can describe it either way. So they could be
talking about the same thing, just from two different perspectives.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
Yeah, Like we always say, people describing indescribable things with
the best language they have, And it could also be
a case of, you know, we talk about all the
time the phenomenon presenting itself in different forms to different people.
So yeah, there's a lot of different ways you can
go with just this little snippet of information.

Speaker 2 (14:42):
And just to leave a little bit of foreshadowing for
some of the theories at the end, of course, there's
a little bit more real world theories, so to speak.
And then of course there's some other weirder theories that
are coined by Lauren Coleman. So we'll definitely end up
getting into some of Lauren Coleman's research as far as
this goes too, But you guys will just have to
wait on that one for the back burner. But hold

(15:02):
on tight, guys, Bizarre Encounters will be right back after
this brief commercial break.

Speaker 3 (15:06):
But in the meantime, don't forget to follow Bizarre Encounters
on Instagram and Facebook for show updates and the weekly
live schedules. Also, don't forget to check out Open Minds
Media on YouTube and TikTok and tap that bell icon
while you're there to get notified anytime we go live.
And if you'd like to join the discussion with like
minded individuals, become a member of the omm discord community today.

Speaker 2 (15:27):
Links are available off of the link tree down in
the show description. And now back to the show, getting
into the first main documented encounter with spring Hill Jack.

(15:48):
This one was the encounter of Mary Steves and in
October of eighteen thirty seven, a girl by the name
of Mary Steves is walking to Lavender Hill where she
was working as a servant after visiting her parents and
batt'll see on her way through Clampton Common, a strange
figure leapt at her from the dark alley. After immobilizing
her with a tight grip of his arms, he began

(16:09):
to kiss her face while ripping her clothes and touching
her flesh with the claws, which was, according to her deposition,
cold and clammy as those of a corpse. In panic,
the girl screamed, making the attacker quickly flee from the scene.
The commotion brought several residents who immediately launched a search
for the aggressor, but he could not be found. The

(16:30):
next day, the leaping character is said to have chosen
a very different victim near Mary Stevens home, inaugurating a
method that would reappear in later reports. He jumped in
the way of a passing carriage, causing the coachman to
lose control, crash, and severely injure himself. Several witnesses claimed
that he escaped by leaping over a nine foot high
wall while cackling a high pitch, ringing laughster.

Speaker 3 (16:52):
Of course, is that an exact replica of the sound
he made?

Speaker 2 (16:59):
That was exact that he made? He went from gotcha bitch?

Speaker 1 (17:03):
Okay? So confirmed spring Hill Jack was an Italian plumber.

Speaker 2 (17:08):
Definitely an Italian plumber. I mean it wasn't Europe. It
was in England. I mean it's not that far off.
It's definitely a possibility.

Speaker 1 (17:14):
Close enough.

Speaker 2 (17:15):
They were secretly telling the story of spring Hill Jack
without you realizing it that the reason why this guy
was able to hop incredible bounds was because he was
clearly eating magic mushrooms.

Speaker 3 (17:26):
I mean, that's just as likely a scenario as anything,
is it not.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
Around the same time, broader reports originating from the Barnes
district described the mysterious entity in several different ways. Some
accounts even portrayed the figure as being in the shape
of a large white bull, which, of course we just
mentioned that aggressively confronted several individuals, with women being the
primary targets. Of course, in these earliest incidents, the apparent

(17:51):
intention seemed to be the infliction of severe fright and
psychological distress, rather than the causing of severe physical harm. Gradually,
the news report of strange characters spread. Soon the press
and the public gave him the name Spring Healed Jack.
Do you have any comments on this one and the
first encounter before we hop into official recognition.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
The only thing that I'll add, and this kind of
popped into my head as you were reading this section,
but the fact that it.

Speaker 1 (18:20):
Was reported as a white bull or a white bear.
You know, we've talked a lot about like.

Speaker 3 (18:25):
Ghostly white animal apparitions on the show. I mean, we
talked about the Snarliao a lot of times appears as
like a whitely or a whitely, a ghostly white dog.
And then we also talked in our Roanoke Colony episode
about you know, Virginia Dare and the white Deer. So
I think it's kind of interesting that, you know, across

(18:46):
the world and all these different reports, this motif of
like ghostly white animals kind of in concert with paranormal
activity keeps popping up again and again.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
So if there is a connection with some type of
human spirit with these ghostly animals, do you think that
there's a reflection of that person as a person such
as like Victoria Dare, gentle young girl turns into quote
a fawn, you know, a very gentle animal snarle yao.
I mean, if there was an origin dating back to somebody,

(19:20):
you know, it could be a result of some type
of like loyalty or some type of something that has
to do with the traits of like a dog. So
if you have somebody who's just a very aggressive individual,
who's just always in everybody's face, like, is it possible
that their spirit and for I, for lack of a
better term, I don't want to use the term spirit animal,
but their spirit representation that would be transformed into an

(19:41):
animal would be something that fits those characteristics, aka possibly
something like a bull or a bear or something that
would just be known to just ravage through something need
be like, does it seem like it might be fitting
with like the person's characteristics themselves.

Speaker 3 (19:54):
Possibly, So basically what you're saying is it's like a
real life patronis.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
Yeah, exactly, something like. I mean, of course, you know,
things are inspired by other things, so you know, there's
nothing new under the sun. I mean, the Harry Potter
concept probably came from some type of a cold philosophy,
which means that there probably is some type of grain
of truth to it.

Speaker 1 (20:11):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (20:11):
I mean, actually there's a lot of little nuggets in
those Harry Potter books that I mean as a child
or a young adult reading them, you don't really pick
up on, but you know, as an adult there's definitely,
you know, some stuff sprinkled in there. But back to
your larger point, Yeah, I think that's a really interesting
concept and not something I've really thought of before. You know,
I have like a very conflicted opinion about like ghosts

(20:34):
and hauntings and things like that. But you know, if
this is something that exists and does happen, I think
it would make a lot of sense, like in kind
of a karma and I mean that in like the
true sense of the word, not the you know, modern
day sense of you know, karma that everybody talks about now,
but like reincarnation and karma and things like that. I mean,

(20:56):
I think that would make a lot of sense if
you know, if you're stuck in this in between liminal state,
you take on these like almost elemental nature type spirits.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
Or aspects, Yeah, because you go back to like the
primal version of yourself. Like I mean, maybe that's what
the animal representation is is whatever your moral compass points
towards when you know you're at your base primal roots.

Speaker 1 (21:21):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:22):
No, I think that's the really interesting concept.

Speaker 2 (21:24):
But hopping into official recognition, and some of this is
direct quotes, so bear with me because of course it
is eighteen hundreds English. But a few months after the
first sightings, on January ninth, eighteen thirty eight, the Lord
Mayor of London, Sir John Cohen, revealed at a public
session held in the Mansion House an anonymous complaint that
he had received several days earlier, which he had withheld

(21:46):
in the hopes of obtaining further information. Their correspondent, who
signed the letter, a resident of Peckham wrote, it appears
that some individuals, or, as the writer believes, the highest
of or the highest ranks of life, have laid a
wager with a mischievous and foolheartedly compansion, that he durst
not take upon himself to task of visiting many of

(22:10):
the villagers near London in three different disguises, a ghost,
a bear, and a devil, and moreover, that he will
not enter a gentleman's garden for the purpose of alarming
the inmates of the house. The wager has, who, however,
been accepted, and the unmanly villain has succeeded in depriving
the seven ladies of their senses, two of whom are

(22:31):
not likely to recover, but to become burdens of their families.
At one house, the man rang the bell, and the servant,
coming to open the door, his worse than brute, stood
in no less dreadful figure than a specter clad most perfectly.
The consequence was that the poor girl immediately swooned, and
was never from the moment been in her senses. The

(22:54):
affairs has now been going on for some time, and
strange to say, the papers are still silent on the subject.
The writer has reason to believe that they have the
whole story of their at their finger ends, but through
interesting motives are induced to remaining silent. Though the Lord
Mayor seemed fairly skeptical, a member of the audience confirmed

(23:15):
that servant girls about Kingston, Hammersmith and Ealing tell dreadful
stories of this ghost or devil. The matter was reported
in The Times on January ninth and other national papers.
On January tenth, and on the day after that, the
Lord Mayor showed a crowded gathering a pile of letters
from various places in and around London complaining of similar

(23:36):
wicked pranks. The amount of letters that poured in suggest
that the stories were widespread in suburban London. One writer
said several young women in Hammersmith had been frightened into
dangerous fits and some severely wounded by sort of clause
the mischievous war on his hands. Another correspondent claimed that
in Stockwell, Brixton, Camberwell and Vauxhall, several people had died

(23:59):
of fright and others had fits. Meanwhile, another report said
that the trickster had been repeatedly seen in Lushingham and Blackheath.
The Lord Mayor himself was in two minds about the affair.
He thought the greatest exaggeration had been made and that
it was quite impossible, and that the ghost performs the

(24:20):
feats of a devil upon earth. But on the other hand,
someone he trusted had told him of a servant girl
at Forest Hill who had been scared into fits by
the figure in a bare skin. Remember this, he was
confident the person or persons involved in this pannemonium display
would be caught and punished. The police were instructed to

(24:40):
search for the individual responsible and rewards were offered. January
twentieth was also an important date for the mythology of
this mysterious being in The Penny Satire, a local newspaper,
it was the first time spring Hill Jack was used
by the press in connection with earlier ghost stories. Almost immediately,
other newspapers began to use the name to disc the attacker,

(25:01):
with large headlines mentoring the idea to help boost sales. So,
of course, like most stories, the news uses it to
be able to boost their profit and story sales. But
before we hop into some more of the prolific reports,
do you have any comments on the official recognition of
spring Hill Jack by the Lord mayor himself.

Speaker 3 (25:21):
I think I'm going to save my thoughts on this
section for later when we get a little deeper in
and get some more information under our boat. But you
want me to go ahead and jump in the next section.

Speaker 2 (25:33):
Yes, So we have four of the other main encounters
that we're going to go through as far as spring
Hill Jack goes. We're gonna go back and forth on
this one because I know you guys don't want to
listen to my voice the entire episode. So Orin will
hop in of course with the first mayor. Now second
main encounter.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
Okay, so this is the encounter of Jane Alsup. Jane
Alsup reported that on the night of February nineteenth, eighteen
thirty eight, she answered the door of her father's house.

Speaker 1 (25:59):
Turn what was anyway?

Speaker 3 (26:08):
She answered the door of her father's house to a
man claiming to be a police officer, who told her
to bring a light, claiming, quote, we have caught spring
hiled Jack here in the lane. She brought the person
a candle and noticed that he wore a large cloak.
The moment she had handed him the candle, however, he
threw off the cloak and quote presented a most hideous

(26:30):
and frightful appearance, vomiting blue and white flame from his mouth,
while his eyes resembled quote red balls of fire. Miss
Alsip reported that he wore a large helmet and that
his clothing, which appeared to be very tight fitting, resembled
white oil skin. Without saying a word, he caught hold
of her and began tearing her gown with his claws,

(26:51):
which she was certain were quote of some metallic substance.
She screamed for help and managed to get away from
him and ran towards the house. He caught her on
the steps and tore her neck and arms with his claws.
She was rescued by one of her sisters, after which
her assailant fled.

Speaker 2 (27:11):
Hang on, gotta That was the end of that one,
and then it goes into the next sighting. Yeah, because
we're gonna pick back up on that one in a second.
But I wanted to make sure that I put these
chronologically in order. But as far as this sighting goes,
what's kind of your thoughts on it? Because when I
was reading this originally and we're talking about these the
metallic fingers in the claws, like, does that does that
remind you of anything that we've covered or talked about

(27:33):
on the show before.

Speaker 1 (27:36):
Nothing's popping into my head right off the bat.

Speaker 2 (27:38):
What you're thinking, It's kind of reminding me a little
bit of like the Flatwood Flatwood's monster story.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
Yeah, yeah, I can see that kind of even like
the metallic suit aspect of it's kind of similar.

Speaker 2 (27:51):
And even kind of connecting a little bit more off
of that one, getting into Sam the sand Down clown.
If anybody remembers these like weird phantom like appearances that
happen in London or in England for whatever reason, Like
it seems like it. I'm not saying it's directly connected
by any means, but it seems like it has some
commonalities with a couple of other stories that we've talked about.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
Yeah, I mean, it definitely seems like there is something
to these. Well, this isn't a one off, because it
was like a whole string of events, but like, this
is not an alien, this is not a bigfoot.

Speaker 1 (28:23):
You know, these kind of.

Speaker 3 (28:24):
Just like very very specific sightings of phantoms or creatures
or whatever you want to call them. And you know,
this one does display some human characteristics, but obviously it
has a lot of non human characteristics as well. So
again this makes you wonder if this is just some
larger phenomenon wearing masks and taking on the guise of

(28:47):
something else.

Speaker 2 (28:49):
And we'll definitely have to touch base on a lot
of this when you get the theories, because that's the
issue that I keep having here. It's just like usual episodes.

Speaker 1 (28:55):
It's like you not say too much till we get
the theories.

Speaker 2 (28:58):
So getting into an other main sighting that will also
kind of fall way into some of the theories. On
February twenty fifth of eighteen thirty eight, Jack allegedly knocked
on the door of two Turner Street. Mister Ashworth was
the owner of the house, and his servant boy answered
the door. Like with Jane, the man pulled away a
large cloak and revealed the field what was described as

(29:20):
a most hideous appearance. The servant boy screamed and Jack
ran away. Of course, the servant did note that there
was an embroidered coat of arms with a W on
his cloak, and I want you guys to remember that
W because it may lead into some later on theories.
And this is the main base of where some of
those later on theories come into play. But do you

(29:40):
have any thoughts on this one before we hop onto
the next one?

Speaker 3 (29:42):
Sir, Nope, I'm gonna save my thoughts for when we
get into theories.

Speaker 2 (29:48):
We apologize guys for the interference, but we will be
right back and now back to the show.

Speaker 3 (30:03):
But I will jump into the next encounter, which is
the encounter of Lucy Scales. So on February the twenty
eighth of eighteen thirty eight, eighteen year old Lucy Scales
and her sister were returning home after visiting their brother,
a butcher.

Speaker 1 (30:20):
So was it Sweeney Todd.

Speaker 2 (30:22):
Yeah, It's definitely Sweeny Todd. Okay. He has multiple egos,
of course, because after he got caught a Sweeney Todd
and he went on the murder's rampage. You know, everybody
thinks he died at the end. He didn't actually die.
He just became a butcher, perfect all right.

Speaker 3 (30:33):
So a butcher who lived in a respectable part of Limehouse.
Miss Scales stated in her deposition to the police that
as she and her sister were passing along Green Dragon
alley Man, these names in old time in England were
just awesome. You had Cutthroat Lane and Green Dragon Alley. Dude,
they are small mess like this for streets anymore. I'm

(30:53):
curious if they kept any of these original street names
or if they changed them. Like I have never been
to London. If we have any London listeners, let me
know some of the streets still exist, because I'd love
the fact that of Cutthroat Lanes still exists. That's pretty
that's pretty fucking metal. It's pretty ominous. But anyway, passing
along Green Dragon Alley, they observed a person standing in
an angle.

Speaker 1 (31:13):
Of the passage.

Speaker 3 (31:16):
She was walking in front of her sister at the time,
and just as she came up to the person, who
was wearing a large cloak, he spurted a quantity of
blue flame in her face, which deprived her of her
sight and so alarmed her that she instantly dropped to
the ground and was seized with violent fits, which continued

(31:36):
for several hours.

Speaker 2 (31:38):
Her okay sorry.

Speaker 3 (31:41):
Her brother added that on the evening in question, he
had heard the loud screams of one of his sister's
moments after they had left his house, and on running
up Dreen Green Dragon Alley, excuse me, he found his
sister Lucy on the ground in a fit with her
sister attempting to hold and support her. She was taken

(32:01):
home and he then learned from his other sister what
had happened. She described Lucy's assailant as being of tall,
thin and gentlemanly appearance, covered in a large cloak, and
carrying a small lamp or bullseye lantern similar to those
used by the police. The individual did not speak, nor
did he try to lay hands on them, but instead

(32:22):
walked quickly away. Every effort was made by the police
to discover the author of these unsimilar outrages, and several
persons were questioned, but none but were set free.

Speaker 2 (32:32):
Excuse me, so, I mean just to not to get
into theories or anything like that, but we have two
references now of police like mentality. The first time, of course,
he shows up at the door and says that he's
a police officer. And then the second time there's reference
to this specific type of light that is known to
be held by police officers. So, you know, not getting
too far into theories and stuff, but you definitely have

(32:53):
to consider police corruption, especially in a time when you know,
there wasn't cameras everywhere, there wasn't really ways to try
any of this type of stuff, like if somebody had
some mischievous tendencies and they had the ability to masquerade
as a police officer for example, like you know, you
expose yourself, you do whatever you're doing, and then you
run around a corner and then you just throw your
fucking officer back thing back on, or you have that

(33:15):
on underneath whatever this leotard costume thing is. I don't
know if that's ever actually been addressed as a theory,
but you know, it's definitely seems like it's possible that,
you know, maybe this guy may have been linked to
the police department in some way, shape or form.

Speaker 3 (33:29):
No, again, not to jump too far ahead, but that
was kind of my pet theory. Reading through these notes,
it just seems like a lot of the apart from
you know, these two instances, a lot of the behavior
I just got like, man, I think this was some
old timing police officer, you know, and like you said,
it could be, you know, just one bad apple and

(33:49):
they were covering up for him. It could be, you know,
some guys got together and got drunk with their police
buddies and were just out with metal claws harassing women.
Who knows, but no, the spring Hill Jack was a
police officer theory so far is my favorite.

Speaker 2 (34:04):
I mean even just using the facade of the ghost
stories that already existed too, because this is like we
talked about with like the UFO phenomenon, where I get
into my theory about there possibly being some human intervention, Like,
if there's already a strange phenomenon going on that's being
reported cited, then why not take the opportunity to fly
under the radar and just be seen as part of
that phenomenon. I mean, it definitely seems like they've course

(34:25):
used all of the ghost phantom sightings as a backbone
to spring off into whatever this is, whoever this person
was behind all this.

Speaker 3 (34:34):
Yeah, and again not to get too far ahead, but
this could be one of those situations that we talk
about a lot on the show where you know, the
first initial report or instance of this weird thing happening
was some legitimately paranormal or unexplained event, and then it's
almost just like a rash of copycats and human beings

(34:57):
perpetrating the same behavior at that point. You know, I
think it's definitely possible that in light of all the
kind of weird ghost stories there was this you know,
devilish apparition at some point, and then you know, mischievous
police officers or social lights or what what have you,
doesn't matter, just kind of latched onto that and used

(35:18):
it almost to do some like fucking Tyler Darden fight
club shit at that point, you.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
Know, mentally manipulating the public into getting what you want
out of them.

Speaker 3 (35:26):
It's project Mayhem, just the old timey version exactly.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
I mean, it's kind of got to start somewhere. Like
we said earlier, nothing new under the sun. Right there
you go, and getting into the last of the well,
I don't want to say last of the man encounters,
but at least of this cluster of man encounters. The
Gardener story report from the Brighton Gazette from April fourteenth,
eighteen thirty eight, which of course is my birthday, I
want to point out, of course, not in eighteen thirty
eighteen thirty eight, In eighteen thirty eight. I'm actually a fantastic,

(35:52):
I am a phantom, I am actually spring Hill Jack,
and I am Jack the Ripper. I'm all of these figures.

Speaker 3 (35:58):
So you've been tearing at women blouse this with your
sharp metal, pointy calls for.

Speaker 2 (36:02):
Years for years, but stated from the gardener in Rose Hills, Sussex,
had been terrified by a creature of unknown nature on
April thirteenth. The gardener claimed it appeared in the shape
of a bear or some other four footed animal, having
attracted the gardener's attention by a growl. It then climbed

(36:23):
the garden wall and ran on all fours before jumping
down and chasing the gardener for some time. After terrifying
the gardener, the apparition scaled the wall and made its exit.
The Gauzette wrote, spring Hill Jack, as it seems, has
found his way to the Sussex coast. So this was
like the first encounter that I wanted to point out
that it seems like the phenomenons expanding. So we'll kind

(36:45):
of get into this again with theories later on, but
of course, kind of laying down some of the groundwork
for it. You definitely have to take into consideration the
whole copycat theory when it comes into.

Speaker 3 (36:54):
A lot of this stuff exactly, and as we'll see
in some of the other encounters we're gonna talk about,
there was obviously a big copycat factor at play here.
But I do think It's interesting that this one specifically
noted like the beayar or four footed animal apparition in
concert with this spring hill jack siding. So that kind

(37:15):
of makes me think this one had a little bit
more validity. Either they went really hardcore and like kind
of made up the entire encounter very accurately, or you know,
there's something to this one.

Speaker 2 (37:28):
I mean, one thing you also have token take any
consideration at these times too, was I forgot to add
it into a little bit earlier setting the principles of
Victorian London. But like, drugs were definitely a wide open
thing back then, Like you know, they had opium dens
which honestly led way to a lot of really interesting
writing from the time. So you also have to take

(37:49):
any consideration the fact that there's probably a good portion
of these people that were probably under the effects of
multiple drugs that weren't deemed as bad at the time
than have caused some hallucinary effects. Not saying that there
wasn't somebody out here doing this stuff, but as far
as like the glowing eyes that it transformed into an animal,
I mean, that could be some side effects of you know,

(38:10):
some of the drugs at the time.

Speaker 3 (38:12):
Well, and again not to jump too far ahead, but
I mean it seemed like a lot of times spring
Hill Jack wasn't preying on like the upper crust of
women in those days. I think it talks about one
of his victims like being a prostitute at one point,
so you know, it kind of does make sense that,

(38:34):
you know, these people could have been on some sort
of drug or substance or something and then something like
legitimate did happen, But it just got kind of confabulated
into this fantastical story of oh my god, he had
glowing eyes and it was breathing fire, when it could
have just been a creepy guy with some metal claws
on his hands.

Speaker 2 (38:52):
Or I mean, even on the other flip side, I mean,
somebody gets attacked and they want to be taken seriously.
Of course, the times were a bit different with women
getting attacked things like that. So you know, if you're
going into this full phenomenon of like, oh I got
attacked by spring Hill Jack, then people might actually listen
to the fact that you'd got an attack. So there
might also be a facade of you know, random attackers

(39:14):
that may not even be filling the spring Hill Jack Moniker,
but when we were reported to be taken seriously, they
fill in the I got attacked by spring Hill Jack
or also again, at the time, it wasn't like there
was a lot of means of entertainment. Everybody wants to
be part of the urban legend in the folklore, so
you know, everybody of course probably knew somebody at least
that had been attacked by spring Hill Jack at the time.

Speaker 3 (39:34):
Yeah, and if you're just some creepy dude that wants
to be out there like ripping at ladies' clothing, I mean,
what better opportunity.

Speaker 1 (39:41):
There's these crazy ass stories.

Speaker 3 (39:43):
Going around you just jump out there and just basically
start assaulting people and then you can just know it's
going to be blamed on spring Hill Jack. So this
could be one of those things that was just like
a perfect storm and a lot of different things going
on at one time.

Speaker 2 (39:56):
Yeah. At this time, dude, unless you got caught red handed,
like there wasn't any type of like forensics that was
gonna catch you. So it's like, you know, this was
the time that people could just get away with whatever
they wanted to, Like, you could probably murder somebody, leave
the body there on the floor, and if the gun
wasn't there and nobody found you with the gun, then
nobody's ever going to know who the hell did it.
It's all just theories at that point.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
I mean, depending on who you were, that might not
even matter.

Speaker 2 (40:19):
Yeah, exactly, So getting into some of the aftermath, The
Times reported the elected attacks on jen Aslop on March second,
eighteen thirty eight, under the heading the late outage at
Old Fort. This was followed by an account of the
trial of one Thomas Millbank, who, immediately after the report

(40:39):
reported attack on Jane Aslop, had boasted in the Morgan's
arms that he was spring Hill Jack. He was arrested
and tried at lamberth Street Court. The arresting officer was
James Lea, who had earlier arrested William Quorter, the red
bar murderer. Millbank, who had been wearing white overalls and
a greatcoat, which he dropped outside the high and the

(41:00):
candle he dropped was also found. He escaped convictingly only
because Jane Aslop insisted her attacker had breathed fire, and
Millbanks admitted he could do no such thing. Most of
the other accounts were written long after the date, and
contemporary newspapers of the time did not mention them. After
these incidents, spring Hill Jack became one of the most

(41:21):
popular characters of the period. His alleged exploits that were
reported in the newspapers had become the subject of several
Penny dreadfuls and plays, which further morphed the lore of
the spring Hill Jack, some even portraying Jack as a
hero or misunderstood vigilante figure. And I did bring up
one of these on the screen, and I did look

(41:41):
up a couple of these because I was curious so
just about the stories in general, And honestly, most of
them did not portray spring Hill Jack as any type
of malevolent being. They all pretty much described him as
almost like an early Batman figure. Like after reading some
of these Penny dreadfuls, like, I'm almost convince that some
of the inspiration for like Batman himself probably came from

(42:03):
some of these old Penny dreadfuls. So it heavily, heavily,
heavily morphed the idea and the folklore around spring Hill Jack.
So I feel like this is why it's one of
those things that's so hard to research and kind of
differentiate from the literal facts versus the folklore facts. Was
particularly because of the Penny Dreadfuls at the time.

Speaker 3 (42:24):
Yeah, I mean, I I kind of can't believe that
this is like legitimate eighteen hundred's you know, piece of
media here, because yeah, it looks like Batman.

Speaker 1 (42:35):
I mean, it's like if.

Speaker 3 (42:37):
Batman and my Chemical Romance had a child, it would
be this thing. So yeah, I think it's really cool.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
Here's another one too, just to bring it up. This
is another one of the Penny Dreadfuls at the time,
of course different artists. That last one was color Rise.
Originally it was black and white, but this is another
example of one.

Speaker 1 (42:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
So I mean, like I was gonna say, I think
it's really cool that this was at least taken seriously
enough at the time that you know, these Penny Dreadfuls
and what not latched onto it and kind of gave
it a life of its own.

Speaker 1 (43:07):
But yeah, it's kind of funny to me that.

Speaker 3 (43:09):
You know, this is a story that people know, but
it's not like super duper common. But it seems like it,
like you said, had a lasting impact on you know,
all sorts of media and culture.

Speaker 2 (43:19):
And even talking about some of the plays. Yeah, you
we adn't end up talking to Paul Stops on the
show yet. I've been trying to find a way to
contact him. But he talks about this whole idea about
like Harley Quinn's in the theater, that they're kind of
something that exists outside of the actual thing. They're like
breaking the third wall and they kind of interact with
the audience. I found a few references to spring Hill
Jack the in plays, and of course there were ones

(43:40):
where he was the main focal point, but there was
also theaters that just knew that this was such a
popular thing at the time that they would have somebody
dress up as spring Hill Jack and like hide on
balconies and like you know, interact with the audience and
like point down at girls and pretend like they're gonna
like come down and get him and stuff like that,
and they kind of created this thing where it was
almost like kind of reminds me of like the Harley
Quinn aspect of like old medieval theater, but with this

(44:02):
like kind of reference with spring Hill Jack kind of
fitting that character at the time where he was like
breaking the third wall.

Speaker 3 (44:06):
You know, well, and a couple times in the notes,
like in the direct quotes, they literally refer to him
as like a trickster type being, which is pretty interesting
in light of those facts, Like, I mean, could this
have been some sort of manifestation or apparition of like
trickster entities. I mean, it's very possible it started as that,
because I mean, whether that was the beginning of it

(44:30):
or not, a lot of that has kind of got
folded into this folklore and this legend throughout the years.
So I mean, I think it's pretty funny that it
doesn't matter what we talk about on the show, any
of this weird shit, at some point you can probably
trace it back to some sort of trickster entity.

Speaker 2 (44:47):
And just to make another weird connection that I was
thinking about, so of course making another connection with Bohemian
Grove talking about the whole menetar aspect of things. So
obviously eighteen hundred e is London, there was already the
whole freemason aspect of the underlaying of society existing at
this time, So could it also have been possible that
there was a group of high society that this was

(45:08):
essentially what they're doing at Bohemian Grove at the Menatar thing,
like this was their version of it that proceeded and
eventually became the Menatar at Bohemian growth. Like this could
have been like the origin of that that whoever wanted
to play who was whoever's chosen to play this character
would essentially be able to go out and just do
whatever they wanted as they were dressed up as this character.
So there could even be links to this with like
Freemason groups at the time.

Speaker 3 (45:29):
Well, even if it's not a direct correlation, I mean,
it seems to me it's the same general idea. And
in one of the quotes, you know, the guy literally
said that some you know, high society person or persons
was responsible for these attacks. So I mean you got
to consider eighteen hundreds high falute and high society London,

(45:50):
and there's probably Freemasons involved.

Speaker 2 (45:52):
Oh yeah, one hundred percent. And also I was going
to bring this one up, this other picture during when
we were talking about the Penny Dreadfuls, but I also
want to bring it up because this is another cover
of another Penny druntfull. At the time, I want to
make sure I collected as many of these as I
could find, because I thought they're pretty cool. But yeah,
there's another example with uh okay, yeah, so that.

Speaker 3 (46:12):
One looks a lot like that first one you showed with,
Like I said, the michemical core romance skeleton band leader uniform.

Speaker 2 (46:19):
On see like uh like, most of the interpretations that
they do for drawings all definitely fit the like devil
Moniker like. It doesn't seem like many of them fit
the like the bear look like. I haven't found any
artists renditions that really have like the bear look to him,
if I'm being honest with you, zooming.

Speaker 3 (46:34):
On the head of spring Hill Jack Bear if you
don't mind.

Speaker 2 (46:38):
He's got a mustache.

Speaker 1 (46:40):
So that to me also kind of looks like the
black phone mask in a way.

Speaker 2 (46:46):
It does.

Speaker 3 (46:47):
You're right, because you know, and he's wearing kind of
the mask with the horns and everything, and then he's
got like the black top hat. I mean, that could
be just a more modern rendition of this whole mythology
because he's like grabbing up kids and shit. So I mean,
I think that's kind of interesting.

Speaker 2 (47:04):
And just to make another reference to Batman, tell me
this doesn't look like a super Batman picture, like just
put like a like a like a Batman head over that,
even with the ears, like this just looks.

Speaker 1 (47:12):
Like it pretty much is a Batman head.

Speaker 2 (47:13):
It's as Batman art, Like, there's no way in hell
that Batman wasn't inspired by spring Hill Jack and it
just had a new vigilante spin on it.

Speaker 3 (47:21):
Yeah, I mean it's pretty hard to deny when you're
looking at these old timey pictures.

Speaker 2 (47:27):
Don't go anywhere, guys, We'll be right back with that
bizarre stuff you crave. But just a quick reminder.

Speaker 3 (47:31):
If you're interested in snagging some gear from this show,
inquiries of our reality or any of your favorite creatures
or topics, hop on over to the Open Minds Media
merch store for a wide range of designs, with new
drops regularly and T shirts for the low price of
just fifteen sixty eight. Wow, that's oddly specific plus shipping.
The link for that is available down in the show description.

(48:02):
And we're back with the high Strangs. Let's get back
into it.

Speaker 2 (48:05):
But hopping back in Even in his fame, even though
his fame was growing, reports of spring Hill Jack's appearances
became less frequent, if more widespread. In eighteen forty three, however,
a wave of sighting swept the country again. A report
from north Hamingshire described him as the very image of
the devil himself, with horns and eyes of flame, and

(48:26):
in East Anglia, reports of attackers on drivers coach of
mail coaches became common. In eighteen forty five, settings were
reported in the western areas of London, specifically in the
districts of Erling and Hanwell. Witnesses described observing a figure
exhibiting extraordinary leaping abilities, effortlessly clearing tall hedges and high

(48:46):
garden walls. These sightings were sometimes accompanied by eerie and
unsettling shrieking and groaning sounds. Interestingly, this period also saw
the apprehension of local authorities of the individuals in the
same general area who were subsequently identified as local practical
jokers hailing from Brentford. This individual was found to be

(49:07):
deliberately mimicking the reported leaping feats and frightening behavior attributed
to spring Hill Jack, serving as an early and concrete
indication that the widely publicized legend was indeed inspiring acts
of imitation and potentially making it increasingly difficult to differentiate
between genuine encounters and deliberate hoaxes or acts of public disturbances. So,

(49:28):
as you mentioned earlier, it was only inevitable before people
were able to just make a mask do this whole thing,
and just started doing copycat stuff. I mean, it's seen
with serial killers, it's seen with any of these types
of crimes. Like people have this inherent want apparently to
just do these things. And if people have that want
and they needed satisfied, I guess they just fly under
a flap and take the opportunity. You know.

Speaker 3 (49:49):
Yeah, like we said earlier, people just looking for an
excuse to do bad things. I mean, things like this
are a perfect opportunity exactly.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
In November of eighteen forty five, in the Bermancy disc
of South London, a figure identified as fire breathing Jack
was reported to have attacked a prostitute named Maria Davis,
a young girl described in some historical accounts as being
just thirteen years old and also a prostitute. Man mentioned.
The attacker allegedly breathed fired directly into her face and
before forcibly throwing her into the murky waters of Fully Ditch,

(50:20):
located on the notorious Jacob's Island, an impoverished and dangerous
area of the city. Tragically Maria Davis subsequently drowned. However,
this particular account has been the subject of considerable scrutiny
and debate amongst researchers over the years, with some historians
expressing doubts about its factual accuracy due to the lack

(50:40):
of readily available collaborating evidence in the coroner's records from
that specific time. So, just like most things, people start
creating folklore about it, or like with a lot of
this stuff with I guess even with like a lot
of local legends. You know, like there'll be somebody who
dies from like a car accident or somebody that passes
away in a and people put the facade of folklore

(51:03):
on top of that. So I mean, there may have
been a prostitute, a young prostitute that may have been
found dead in a river, and people didn't know the name,
so they added the name to it. They added the
spring Hill Jack thing, and they just kept adding components
to the story, and it inevitably took on a life
of its own, when at the simplest feed, it could
have been, you know, a young woman tripped and fell
over a bridge and drowned there, and then people created

(51:24):
folklore around it. But I definitely wanted to make reference
to it still because it seems to be the only
case where spring hill jack supposedly actively killed somebody, So okay.
In July eighteen forty three, a spring hill Jack investigation
in tike Mouth, Devin led to the Captain Finch being

(51:45):
convicted of two charges of assault against women, during which
he is said to have been disguised in a skin
coat which had the appearance of bullock's hide, skull, cap,
horns and a mask. The legend was linked with the
phenomenon of the Devil's Footprints, which appeared in Devon in
February of eighteen fifty five. And before we get into

(52:06):
the last reports, which there's a little bit of a
time jump, do you have any comments to make on
the last section that we just went over.

Speaker 3 (52:11):
I think I'm going to at this point hold my
comments till we wrap up. Do you want me to
read a section to give you a break here?

Speaker 2 (52:20):
Yeah? Absolutely, if you want, I can read the last
report section, and then if you want, you can read
an elder shot, and then I can hop in with Lincolnshire,
and then you can hit Liverpool and then we'll start
getting into theories and some other counterparts of this guy. Okay,
So diving into some of the last reports in the
beginning of the eighteen seventies, spring Hill Jack was reported
again in several places distant from each other. In November

(52:43):
of eighteen seventy two, the News of the World report
that Beckham was in a state of commotion owed to
what is known as the Beckham Ghost, a mysterious figure
alarming in appearance. The editorial posted out that it was
none other than spring Hill Jack, who terrified a past generation.
Similar stories were published in the Illustrated Police News in April.

(53:07):
In May of eighteen seventy three, it reported that there
were numerous sightings in Sheffield of the Park Ghost, which
locals also came to identify as spring Hill Jack. So
of course had to make reference to two more sightings
supposedly of spring Hill Jack, but also the reference and
interpretation to people believing that they're ghosts, giving them, of
course the moniker of Springham Ghost and of course the

(53:28):
moniker of the Park Ghost. So just another one where
it's just folklore kind of mixing in with these more physical,
apparently more real world explanations for what's going on.

Speaker 3 (53:40):
Okay, and next we're going to jump into the Aldershot sightings.
I guess you would call it. So. This news was
followed by more reported sightings until in August of eighteen
seventy seven. One of the most notable reports about spring
hil Jack came from a group of soldiers in Aldershot Garrison.

Speaker 1 (53:59):
This story went as follows.

Speaker 3 (54:01):
A century on duty at the North Camp peered into
the darkness, his attention attracted by a peculiar figure advancing
towards him. The soldier issued a challenge, which went unheeded,
and the figure came up beside him and delivered several
slaps to his face. The guard shot at him, with
no visible effect. Some sources claim that the soldier may

(54:21):
have fired blanks at him, others that he missed or
fired warning shots. The strange figure then disappeared into the
surrounding darkness with quote astonishing bound.

Speaker 2 (54:33):
He's out of here, springal Jack's gone.

Speaker 3 (54:35):
Lord Ernest Hamilton's nineteen twenty two MEMOIRIR Forty Years On
mentions the Aldershot appearance of spring heeled Jack. However, he
says that they occurred in the winter of eighteen seventy nine,
after his regiment the sixtieth Rifles had moved to Aldershot
and that similar appearances had occurred when the regiment was
barracked at coal Colchester, Colchester, Yes, yeah, Colchester in the

(55:00):
winter of eighteen seventy eight. He adds that the panic
became so great at Aldershot that Centuries were issued ammunition
and ordered to shoot the night terror on site, following
which the appearances ceased. I've got something i want to
add about that here. In a second, Hamilton thought that
the appearances were actually pranks carried out by one of

(55:21):
his fellow officers, a Lieutenant Alfree. However, there's no record
of Alfree ever being court martialed for the offense. So, yes,
we talked about the possibility that, you know, some of
this could be legitimate paranormal activity. A lot of it's
probably copycats and you know, real people doing things. The
fact that after this order was given that they could

(55:41):
shoot this motherfucker, that these attacks stopped, that leads me
to believe that this was someone who was, you know,
intimately involved in.

Speaker 1 (55:49):
This whole situation.

Speaker 3 (55:50):
So the fact that it could have been one of
these officers who was doing all this and just like
playing pranks on his comrades.

Speaker 1 (55:57):
I mean, that makes perfect sense to me.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
On the fuck around, but he didn't really want to
find out and I wouldn't either.

Speaker 3 (56:02):
Yeah, yeah, I mean it was all fun and games
till your ass is gonna get shot.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
So I mean he may have even been the one
that set up that blank as part of knowing that
this was gonna be just this practical joke that he
wanted to play.

Speaker 1 (56:13):
I mean, I mean, somebody's gonna beat the shit out
of him at some point.

Speaker 2 (56:16):
I mean, it just seems like a bad idea in general,
to try to pull a prank where you might get
shot at by people on a military base. That just
sounds like, even if you're in the military, just an
awful idea on all ends.

Speaker 1 (56:27):
Yeah, it's not fun anymore.

Speaker 2 (56:28):
But getting into some other sidings Lincolnshire in Lincolnshire, in
the autumn of eighteen seventy seven, spring Hill Jack was
reported at Newport Arc in London in lincoln Lincolnshire, wearing
a sheepskin, and angry mob supposedly chased him and cornered him,
and just as an elder shot a while before, residents
fired at him and had no effect. As usual, he

(56:51):
was said to have made use of his leaping abilities
to lose the crowd and disappear. Yet again. He's out
of here by Jack.

Speaker 1 (56:59):
Now we're gonna talk about Liverpool sightings.

Speaker 2 (57:01):
And this is the last sightings for spring Hill Jack.
But we will get into some counterparts. But this one
is the last sighting for spring Hill Jack.

Speaker 1 (57:08):
Okay, in Liverpool.

Speaker 3 (57:10):
By the end of the nineteenth century, the reported sightings
of Springhil Jack were moving towards the northwest of England.
Around eighteen eighty eight and Everton, North Liverpool, he allegedly
appeared on the roof of Saint Francis Xavier's Church in
Salisbury Street. In nineteen oh four, there were reports of
appearances in nearby William Henry Street. William Henry Street's really boring.

(57:33):
We didn't get like Cutthroat.

Speaker 2 (57:35):
Lane or Green Dragon Alley.

Speaker 3 (57:37):
Yeah, motherfucking Avenue, some shit like that.

Speaker 2 (57:40):
I also like Lincoln Lincolnshire. That one's a good one too, man.

Speaker 3 (57:44):
Just England doesn't seem like a real place. It's just
like so fantastical.

Speaker 2 (57:48):
I love it so much, And just to throw in
this detail, I didn't find any Drake links. But I
also just want to make reference to cause I learned
a little fun fact along the way with this one.
I was trying to see if there was any type
of connection between Jack the Ripper and spring Hill Jack,
obviously because of the obvious fact that they both have
the name Jack. But one thing that I learned in
the process of this is, just like with police reports now,

(58:09):
we use terms like John Doe or Jane Doe for
unidentified people. Apparently back in Victorian London, for unidentified males
they use the term Jack, and for unidentified females they
use the term Jill. For prettiest obvious reason. So if
you see a cluster of weird phenomenon or unnamed people
from Victorian age, they're all named Jack. There's no correlation
other than the fact that that's basically their version of

(58:29):
throwing the label John Doe on something. But I will
make reference to the fact that maybe some of the
Jack the Ripper sightings may have been or Jack the
Ripper murders may have been slightly slightly inspired by spring
Hill Jack because of the last main encountery supposedly attacked
the prostitute and throw over a bridge. I mean, that's

(58:50):
the only connection that I have, But I didn't think
it was enough to really make any real reference to
it in the notes, but again, learn some fun facts
along the way.

Speaker 3 (58:57):
No, that's really interesting. I didn't know that about the
whole jack and jail thing, but that's really cool. Makes
a lot of this make a lot more sense. But
just without taking us on a tangent. Off the top
of my head, I don't know like kind of the
general timeline of the Jack the Ripper siding, So that
was kind of after all this, I'm too assume.

Speaker 2 (59:16):
Jack the Ripper, let's see just to get the exact year,
because I want to make sure I get the right information.
But I believe it was like the eighteen eighties, Ok,
but just to give some years, let me let me
double check this up real quick. Jack the Ripper was
eighteen eighty eight through eighteen ninety one, so it was
not long after this. Yeah, it was like after the
main sightings of spring Hill Jack, but before the like

(59:37):
last little trickled sightings of spring Hill Jack. So obviously
it's not the same person, because nobody's going to be
in their sixties and be bouncing, you know, ten feet
over a wall without breaking their fucking legs. But definitely
some connections between it, Like I think that there could
have been some possible inspiration for Jack the ripper off
of maybe some of the Penny Dreadfuls or spring Hill
Jack stories.

Speaker 1 (59:56):
Yeah, no, that's interesting.

Speaker 3 (59:57):
Nonetheless, all right, guys, we got to take another break.
We'll be right back, and now we're getting back to the.

Speaker 2 (01:00:12):
Bazaarre getting into some possible counterparts. I was trying to
find things that were relatively close to spring Hill Jack,
and the closest thing that I could find is this
counterpart in Prague. The name is Parak, also known as
the Springman of Prague. He is a lesser known urban
legend from Czechoslovakia during World War Two. Emerging during the
Nazi occupation of Prague, Parak was described as a mysterious,

(01:00:36):
agile figure who could leap incredible distances, often attributed to
springs on his shoes or spring loaded device. He would
typically appear at night, often on rooftops or in dark alleys,
startling or evading Nazi patrols and collaborators. Unlike spring Hill Jack,
Paraq was seen more as a resistance hero or trickster.
While he exactly would make another tricksure reference while he

(01:00:59):
didn't directly engage in combat. His appearances served as a
symbol of defiance and hope for the oppression of the
Czech people. He was a phantom of resistance, a psychological
weapon against the occupiers, embodying the ideas that an unseen
force was working against the Nazis. His existence is generally
attributed to wartime propaganda and wishful thinking, providing a mythological

(01:01:20):
figure to rally spirits in dark time. So there wasn't
any newspaper reports, There wasn't any solid validity to this person.
But definitely it seems like something that may have been
inspired because obviously it came about sixty years after with
something that with spring Hill Jack more than likely probably
more so inspired off the Penny Dreadfuls, which, like I
mentioned earlier, kind of portrayed him as his vigilante or

(01:01:42):
somebody who was trying to save women rather than you know, try.

Speaker 1 (01:01:46):
To old timing superhero pretty much exactly exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:01:49):
Yeah, So getting into some of the possible theories, and
I know that you've been really looking forward to this section.
One of the main theories before we get into some
of the more out there theories. Well, I don't want
to say out there but phantom theories. There were many
different theories as to what exactly spring Hill Jack was.
Rumor was that it was Henry de la Pour Bensford,

(01:02:11):
the Marquis of Waterford, which could be the reference to
that w could be representing Waterford, an Irish nobleman, was
supposedly one of his one of the main suspects during
the late eighteen thirties. Henry was often in the news
for history of reckless behavior. Some of his reckless behavior
included smashing windows, offering money to people to fight him.

(01:02:33):
It's definitely Tyler Dirton, Okay, throwing meat out of a
butcher shop definitely seems pretty Tyler, dirt it and accosting
people while naked. And he was also arrested multiple times
for drunk and disorderly conduct, so definitely fitting into the
fight club moniker yep. And he was also known for
being an extravagant prankster, starting a riot and appearing in
court wearing bearskin coats and large kvas, which for anybody

(01:02:57):
that may not be familiar with what that is, it
was that almost like that bow tie looking thing that
people used to wear during the Victorian age. So they
showed up in bear skin for while wearing this like
little bow tie looking Victorian neck dressing. So also with
the Barrett skin kind of possibly you know, Lee's way
into possibly being connected with this in general disregard for

(01:03:18):
social norms, of course, quickly becoming coined the mad Marquis.
In eighteen eighty he was named as the proprietor of E.
Kohan Brewer, who said that the Marquis used to amuse
himself by springing on travelers unaware to frighten them, and
from time to time others have followed his silly example.
So also going into the idea of the spring heeled

(01:03:40):
portion of the spring Hill Jack theory, the theory that
spring Hill Jack was in reality a practical joker, or
perhaps a series of individuals engaging in similar acts of
mischief aka copycats take waiting for the opportunity, as we
mentioned earlier, remains one of the most widely considered and
plausible explanations of phenomenon. However, despite the circumstantial evidence and
popular speculation, concrete and irrefutable proof directly linking the Marquis

(01:04:04):
of Waterford or any other specific individual to the actions
attribute to spring Hill Jack was never fully uncovered, and
just to bring up a picture of the marquee if
anybody was curious what this gentleman looks like, here is
the Marquis of Waterford. So, I mean, I don't see
the jawline that seems to be really defined with a
lot of the spring Hill Jack sidings. But at the

(01:04:25):
same time, I feel like a lot of the people
that were doing the art weren't obviously seeing the sighting.
So I mean, I definitely think it's plausible that this
guy could have been the one that started it and
other people led by example, and the reason why they
couldn't specifically put their thumb on a specific individual was
because it was never a specific individual. But I do
think that there is a lot of solid validity to

(01:04:46):
the fact that at least the first couple of sightings,
there's a good chance that this guy was probably the
guy that started it.

Speaker 3 (01:04:52):
Well, and even if he wasn't one of the first few,
he probably jumped on that bandwagon after it.

Speaker 1 (01:04:57):
Got rolling, you know.

Speaker 3 (01:04:58):
I mean, he seems like so combination of, like we said,
Tyler Durden and Johnny Knoxville, So this would have been
just up his fucking alley. So I mean, even if
he wasn't the originator of a lot of this, I
think it makes perfect sense that he engaged in these behaviors.

Speaker 2 (01:05:13):
Oh yeah, dude, even just the whole idea that we
talk about all the time, the whole taboo aspect, like
if you're rich and you can afford everything and you
can do whatever you want, you eventually get to a
point where it's like, you want to be able to
do the things that you can't do, so you can't
go around and try to molest women, So you know,
it becomes a taboo thing that you inevitably might try
to do that, which I mean, obviously I'm not trying

(01:05:35):
to justify anybody's scandalous behavior, but it seems to be
a lot better than a lot of these dukes end
up doing, or you know, nobility end up doing, where
they end up becoming these prolific serial killers. About people
ever realizing it.

Speaker 3 (01:05:48):
Man, I sure am glad elites aren't doing that nowadays either.

Speaker 2 (01:05:52):
Wow, that'd be so crazy. And of course I have
to make reference to the scapegoat, as I kind of
did before. Whether real or imagine, Jack served as a
convenient and readily available scapegout for the wide array of
unexplained incidents, minor crime, and the general sense of unease
and anxiety of the time. So of course we talked

(01:06:12):
about how dark the streets were, We talked about everything
was just cold, smoke filled. So if people were going
to resort to penny petty crime, which definitely seems plausible
because of the wide gap there was between wealth at
the time, you know, taking the opportunities when you have them.
But the one thing that I will say for that

(01:06:33):
at least is you would assume that if it was
somebody that was poor, that they would be attacking the rich.
But I guess, trying to think of the psychology of this,
if you're attacking the rich, you're probably gonna get caught
pretty quick because there's gonna be a lot of money
behind investigating it. Where you know, if you go after
the poor people that nobody quote cares about, then there's
going to be less looking out of the crime at

(01:06:53):
the time, which is what a lot of serial killers do,
where they'll specifically go after a group of people knowing
that at the time the crimes aren't going to be
looked into, such as Dahmer, you know, going after the
African American community slash gay community. At the time, it
wasn't something the police were really looking into, so they
just took the opportunity. And with a lot of the
stuff with Alaskan serial killers going after the native population,

(01:07:15):
you know, they purposely will look go after people that
they know aren't going to be looked into. So you know, regardless,
if this was somebody trying to hide petty crime under
this like it would have made it sense to attack
the rich. You would have had to attack the poor,
otherwise it would have been investigated too much. But getting
into the last main theory and then if you want,
you can start throwing all your theories and ideas into
this one. But this is where we bring in the

(01:07:36):
idea of the phantom idea with Lauren Coleman the paranormal
possible explanation to this. A variety of speculative paranormal explanations
have been proposed to explain the origin of spring Hill Jack,
including that he was an extraterrestrial entity with a non
human appearance and features of superman agility deriving from life
on a high gravitational world with his jumping ability and

(01:07:58):
strange behavior, and that he was also a demon accidentally
or purposefully summoned into the world by practicing of the
occult who made himself manifest simply to create spiritual turmoil.
Forty A author, particularly Lorraine Coleman and Jerome Clark, lists
spring Hill Jack in a category named phantom attackers, with

(01:08:19):
another well known example being the Mad Gasser of Mattoon,
which we could probably cover at some point because that
one is also a pretty fascinating story. Typically, phantom attackers
appear to be human and may be perceived as prosaic criminals,
but may display extraordinary abilities, as in spring Hill Jack's jumps,
which it is not widely noted, would break the ankles

(01:08:39):
of a human who replicated them and or cannot be
caught by authorities. Victims commonly experienced the attack in their bedroom,
homes or other seemingly secure enclosures. They may report being
pinned or paralyzed, or, in other hands, described a siege
in which they fought off a persistent intruder or intruders.
Many reports can readily be explained psychologically, most notably as

(01:09:01):
the Old Hag phenomenon, recorded in folklore and recognized by
psychologists as the form of hallucinations. In the most problematic cases,
an attack is witnessed by several people and substantiated by
some physical evidence, but the attacker cannot be verified to exist.

Speaker 3 (01:09:20):
Hold that thought. We'll be right back. But if you
don't like hearing the ads, then boy, do we have
a solution for you.

Speaker 2 (01:09:26):
You guys can get ad free and early access to
this show and inqurease of our reality on the Open
Minds Media Patreon for just two dollars a month. That's
less than a bag of chips, and it's a great
way to support the show and all the hard work
behind it. And if you're interested in bonus content, merch
Star discounts premium video versions of the show along with
some other perks. Then become a member of the omm
family today or give it a try with a seven

(01:09:48):
day free trial.

Speaker 3 (01:09:49):
The link to that is available down in the show description.
And now back to the show.

Speaker 2 (01:10:04):
Now that we've gotten into theories, I want to hear
some of your ideas on this that you've been holding back.

Speaker 3 (01:10:09):
Honestly, I've ended up saying a lot of them throughout
the episode, but no, I think this end part is
pretty interesting. The kind of connections between the old hag
phenomenon and like sleep paralysis and things like that. But yeah,
kind of, like I said, I think the initial accounts,
especially with you know, the ghostly bears and bulls and whatnot,

(01:10:32):
this could have been some legitimate paranormal thing that happened.
And maybe some of these initial reports of spring Hill
Jack were some kind of you know, phantom or demon
or whatever you want to call it, even an extraterrestrial,
but I think the majority of these, it's safe to say,

(01:10:53):
was you know, elites or police officers, or some combination
of all of the of just you know, kind of
running them uk and perpetrating these attacks on women.

Speaker 1 (01:11:05):
So that's kind of where I fall on it.

Speaker 3 (01:11:08):
You know, like a lot of things we talk about
on the show, I think there could definitely be a
paranormal nugget of truth in here somewhere, but I think
a lot of it is kind of human intervention after
a while.

Speaker 1 (01:11:21):
So what do you think.

Speaker 2 (01:11:22):
That's kind of where I fall on it. I think
that there was some legitimate paranormal sightings that were happening,
and because of those, people took the opportunity to create
this character to be able to fly under the radar
and do the bad things that they wanted to do.
And originally I think it started off as one guy,
probably as we mentioned, you know, the Marquis of Waterford.
But as this started to persisting go on, he was

(01:11:45):
already known to have a group of friends that would
follow behind him and do all this crazy shit that
he would do. So you already have this group right
here that's already contributing to it. And then I think
it's something that kind of just expanded on that, you know,
once it became this urban legend, this character of foe
like people just use the opportunity to continue on past that.
And I think it's one of those things that it's
kind of like a lot of this eighteen hundred stuff

(01:12:07):
we dive into, such as like the the meat the
Kentucky Meat Shower. It's one of those things that it's
gotten too far back in time where we see the
solid evidence to it, but it's gonna be one of
those things that's gonna always remain a mystery and we're
never gonna know for sure. We're gonna be stuck with
these theories because there's no way to go back and
differentiate where exactly the folklore kind of differentiated from the

(01:12:28):
actual like police facts of the reports and what was
actually happening. Because even with the people at the time,
as you mentioned earlier, they were kind of growing through
this time where there was industrialization, but there's also a
lot of spiritual ideas going on. So you take something
that may have been an inventor that created some type
of weird contraptions, and even just through people's perspectives of

(01:12:48):
what's going on, you know, they're gonna perceive that as
something ghostly rather than something more real world because it's
still a new.

Speaker 1 (01:12:54):
Ideatic or something like that.

Speaker 3 (01:12:56):
Yeah, well, and I think that kind of highlights something
we talk about on the show all the time is
whether it's a more you know, probably real world, down
to earth thing like this, or some legitimate paranormal or
alien encounter. Your own views and thoughts and opinions are
always going to flavor your thoughts about anything out of

(01:13:18):
the norm, well anything really, but especially anything out of
the norm that happens to you. And you know, people
really didn't have much frame of reference. I wouldn't think
for things like this back in the eighteen hundreds, So
you know, if this weird guy with some sort of
contraption on his arms and legs, is running around and
doing god knows what, and you know, ripping ladies blouses off.

(01:13:41):
It's not much of a jump at that point to
say he's a devil or a demon or a ghost
or something like that. So I mean, I think given
the climate and you know, just the nature of the reports,
I think it's really easy to see how something kind
of more down to earth got you know, really blown
out of proportion as this story kind of went along.

Speaker 1 (01:14:01):
But yeah, I think this was a fun one. I
learned a lot.

Speaker 3 (01:14:04):
Like I said, I just knew the very very broad
strokes of this going in.

Speaker 1 (01:14:07):
I knew nothing.

Speaker 3 (01:14:08):
About the whole you know, ghost bull bear aspect of it,
which I think is kind of the most interesting part
of the story. So thank you for putting this research together.

Speaker 2 (01:14:17):
For us to absolutely and just to make another reference
to this for something that seems like it's pretty similar
to this idea we talked about on the show a
few times. You remember when we got into like the
Peruvian face peelers, we didn't do an episode on it,
we made.

Speaker 1 (01:14:29):
Reference to, But now we've talked about that a bunch.

Speaker 2 (01:14:31):
About this idea that from what a lot of the
reports seemed to be and from direct reports from the
main girl that supposedly got her throat cut and then
she got dropped in she ended up getting away from
the original Previan Face Peeler attacks. She referenced the fact
that they were speaking Spanish. She was saying that they
were like they seem like there were people using some
type of like advanced technology and of course using that

(01:14:53):
opportunity to do whatever their mischievous deeds were. So it
almost seems like it's the same same motif, just in
a different period that we didn't They didn't have the
same advanced technology that we have now, but it was
advanced of course for the time. So people are hiding
this this, I guess, experiments on trying to use this,
these new inventions or advanced technology that they're creating, and

(01:15:15):
they're hiding it under the facade of like some weird
event going on. Like it just seems like I was
trying to think if there was anything that was relatively
close to spring Hill Jack in more modern day, and
I feel like the closest thing that I could probably
relate it to as far as a phenomenon probably would
be the proven Face Peelers.

Speaker 3 (01:15:32):
Yeah, No, that's a pretty good point. And you know,
I think this is kind of maybe a weird in
between section between like.

Speaker 1 (01:15:42):
Ancient legends of like.

Speaker 3 (01:15:45):
Vampires and things like that and then the new modern
day UFO phenomenon. You know, this might be kind of
like the intersection between those two things.

Speaker 2 (01:15:54):
And that is a really good point. And you're talking
about a little bit earlier about the changing phenomenon. I mean,
of course, if it's morphing, it's not like it's overnight
in a switch. There has to be this kind of
like morphing period, and this could be some pretty good
documentation of this morphing period.

Speaker 3 (01:16:06):
Yeah, because I mean it does have a lot of
similarities to the vampire phenomenon, and you know, we talk
a lot of times about like the men in black phenomenon,
and vampires exhibit a lot of the same type behavior,
have to be you know, invited into the house, things
of that nature. So yeah, that just kind of popped

(01:16:26):
into my head here at the end, not to send
us on the tangent, but I kind of like that
idea maybe this is some like intermediate step in the phenomenon.

Speaker 2 (01:16:34):
And I mean, obviously there's a physical component to it,
because even like the mayor himself made reference to it,
but in his references, you know, it's not like the
old witch hunt things where it's like, all right, we
got a witch in our miss Like the way that
he was addressing it was from the state of it
being strictly an attacker and it wasn't any type of
fansom or ghost or anything like that. So regardless of this,
if it's part of the phenomenon, it's continuation that there

(01:16:55):
is a physical component to the phenomenon as much as
it does morphin shift.

Speaker 3 (01:16:59):
Yeah, absolutely, And you know, like we say a lot,
but I think this is a good kind of example
of it.

Speaker 1 (01:17:07):
With a lot of this stuff, there is a physical aspect.

Speaker 3 (01:17:09):
And there's a more metaphysical aspect as well, and this
kind of combines both of them, you know, with the
different spirits and spectors, and then you know, the the
literal attacks on people. It's not that different than a
lot of you know, UFO abduction cases now, So you know,
apart from the obvious copycats and tricksters and pranksters and

(01:17:33):
things like that, no, I think there definitely could have
been something legitimately strange and paranormal at play, who is
wearing the mask of this spring hilled Jack character.

Speaker 2 (01:17:44):
I mean, even continuing around with that, it's a theory
that we brought up a little bit earlier by I
want to make reference again, it doesn't seem like it's
not It doesn't seem implausible that this could also have
been in an early form again of what was what's
happening at Bohemian Grove where the freemasons of the time
were just wearing this mask in order to do whatever
this writer ritual was.

Speaker 3 (01:18:03):
Yeah, and I mean probably at the end of the day,
the correct answer is some combination of all those things,
you know what present or percentage excuse me to give
each of them, I don't know, but I mean I
feel like it's one of those things. The truth is
somewhere in the middle, you know.

Speaker 2 (01:18:18):
Yeah, exactly. And with that note, of course, if you
guys enjoyed today's conversation and you guys want to show
some love, we definitely appreciate if you left a review
or rating for the show on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or
any podcast you happen to use. Your continued support is
what makes the show possible, and your opinions go a
long way to help the show grow and improve. And
if you know anyone who would enjoy today's episode in particular,

(01:18:39):
share it with a friend. Grassroot support from listeners like
you guys is exactly how the show grows, so we
of course thank.

Speaker 3 (01:18:44):
You, And if anyone would like to get in touch
with us for any reason whatsoever, Shane tell them how
they can do that.

Speaker 2 (01:18:50):
First and foremost, you guys can email us at Bizarre
Encounters at outlook dot com. You guys can also get
ahold of us through social media Instagram and Facebook, of
course are the ones that were the most active on
You guys can also get ahold of us through the
submission form which is available at the top of the
link tree. And the last way you guys can get
ahold of us is through the hotline. You guys can
text or call that. The number is three one, three,
three six, four one five five to one. And as

(01:19:12):
you guys can see, there are a lot of ways
to get ahold of us, so make sure that if
you guys want to get ahold of us, you take
the effort to make contact and get ahold of us.

Speaker 3 (01:19:20):
And if you guys have some free time, be sure
to show some love to our friends and sponsors of
the show.

Speaker 1 (01:19:25):
We've got our buddies Rick.

Speaker 3 (01:19:26):
And Hans with Io Squatch for all your squatchy gear needs.
We got our buddy Dave aka the Snarly Yoo with
Snarly Yaw Natural Products. He's got beard oils and body
washes and things of that nature, and he also puts
on some kick ass events in the kind of West Virginia,
Maryland area, so definitely.

Speaker 1 (01:19:44):
Check him out.

Speaker 3 (01:19:45):
Our buddy Joe also, we've got him with Cryptoteology for
all your weowable equiptids.

Speaker 1 (01:19:51):
And we've also got big ape threads.

Speaker 2 (01:19:54):
And if you guys got some free time, don't forget
to check out our other friends with affiliate links. We
got to Mention Devices organized Instagram Mule with additional discounts
and credits available, and more information on that is of
course available down in the show description.

Speaker 3 (01:20:08):
And as always, all this shit we've mentioned is in
the link tree in the show description.

Speaker 2 (01:20:12):
And just like we tend to do on every single episode,
we maintain that mentality through our regular life. We always
always stay bizarre, So just like us, you guys should
always always stay bizarre, bizarre, bizarre.

Speaker 3 (01:20:26):
Springhilled Jack needs to leave prostitutes alone. Open the door,
or I'm gonna throw rocks through your windows, you dumbhore, gotcha, bitch?

Speaker 4 (01:20:39):
All right? Bet he's clamming your windows. He's snatching your
people up trying to write. And so y'all needs had
your kids, had your wife, and hadge hood because they
raping everybody out here.

Speaker 2 (01:20:56):
Oh my god, that is funny.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

Stuff You Should Know

Cardiac Cowboys

The Joe Rogan Experience

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}#119 Spring Heeled Jack: Man or Phantom

Episode Transcript

Popular Podcasts

.css-r6mb8g{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:1;overflow:hidden;}Stuff You Should Know

Cardiac Cowboys

The Joe Rogan Experience

All Episodes

#119 Spring Heeled Jack: Man or Phantom

Stuff You Should Know