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[Assistant] The trouble was, the white fell asleep. It's not easy to stay awake through the night if it's not something you do all the time, so let's cut him some slack. But that's where he was late Wednesday night, dozing in a chair beside a window in a dark room. And then, something woke him.


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[Assistant] There was a noise coming from the street outside, rather than in the store below as he would have expected.


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[Assistant] White stood up and peered out the window, his gun ready. And then he saw it.


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[Assistant] There was a utility pole across the street, standing in the darkness like a narrow wooden cross. But white noticed something odd about its silhouette. There was a shape perched on top of it.


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[Assistant] Not wanting the burglar to get away, White carefully slid his window open and fired at the shape.


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[Assistant] Rather than tumble to the ground as he expected it to, the dark figure stayed on the pole. A heartbeat later, a bright light flooded his window, nearly blinding him. At the same time, he began to notice a smell.


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[Assistant] It was nauseating and overwhelming and after a few shaky moments, White passed out, toppling backwards into his room. But the story doesn't end there.


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[Assistant] You see, the gunshot woke another nearby shopkeeper, a Mr. Greg, who actually came outside to see what was going on.


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[Assistant] As he exited his shop, his eye was immediately drawn to the same dark shape, because it was climbing down the pole toward him. This, of course, gave Mr. Greg a much better look at the odd figure. According to him, it was animal-like, and it was crawling down the pole like a bat, head first.


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[Assistant] When it reached the pavement, the thing stood up and looked down at him.


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[Assistant] I can only imagine what Greg was going through at that moment. Face to face with a monster in the middle of the night with no one around to help.


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[Assistant] And then, like a ray of light breaking through the clouds, the Daily Mail truck pulled onto the street, cutting the darkness with its headlights.


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[Assistant] Frightened, the beast scrambled off on all four legs before leaping into the air and flying away.


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[Assistant] According to Mr. Greg, it flew in the direction of the town's old coal mining complex. So, naturally, when the rumors began to spread the following morning, they were laser-focused. A giant bird creature had gone into hiding in one of the abandoned mine shafts outside of town.


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[Assistant] The mine had actually closed years before, but the land had been purchased by a tile and brick manufacturer who built their facility right there beside the old mine shafts, which were still wide open.


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[Assistant] Satan and a regiment of imps were coming forth for battle.


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[Assistant] Finally, a facility manager named J.L. Platt decided that enough was enough, and he grabbed a lantern and headed into the mine. He stepped inside and began to carefully explore. An old mine isn't a safe place to be, otherworldly creature or not, so he made his way methodically. But before he'd gone too far, another light appeared from deeper in. Two lights, actually.


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[Assistant] A moment later, both the lights seemed to float toward him, until finally he could hear the beating of wings.


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[Assistant] The townsfolk didn't wait for another sighting. Word spread, and they flocked to the mine with loaded guns, camping out in front of the old entrance to wait for the creatures to return. It rained that night.


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[Assistant] Soaking them all as they sat there, hour after hour.


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[Assistant] And then, just as the glow of the sun was beginning to bleed up over the eastern horizon, two dark shapes appeared in the sky.


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[Assistant] As they approached the mine, every single person with a firearm pulled the trigger. Bullets tore through the air like angry bees. One witness said the reception received would have sunk the Spanish fleet. And yet, nothing happened. The shapes kept coming.


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[Assistant] As the two enormous creatures slipped over the heads of the angry townsfolk and back into the mineshaft, the plan quickly changed.


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[Assistant] Working fast, everyone there began moving piles of debris and rubble into the mouth of the mine.


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[Assistant] It took them hours, and men stood guard with rifles in hand, ready for the creatures to return. In the end though, they succeeded. The sun was up. The rain was gone.


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[Assistant] The hole in the ground that served as a nest to their darkest nightmare had finally been closed for good. For what it's worth, no one ever saw the creatures again.


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[Assistant] Whether or not that means it's full of literal monsters is open to debate. But at the very least, some of our deepest nightmares seem to drift down upon us from above. Possibilities, it seems. Or wide open.


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[Assistant] From angels to aliens, and everything in between, the skies hold power, danger, and just about every other emotion we can experience. We've spent over a century conquering it with our technology, and yet it's still a place that seems to sit on the edge of the unknown.


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[Assistant] Which is why we have stories like the Piasaw legend. That gigantic flying birdman creature painted on those Mississippi River cliff walls all those centuries ago. Although, that's where things get tricky.


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[Assistant] You see, the earliest known instance of the name Piasaw in print actually comes from a map published in 1778, a century after Marquette's account. An account, by the way, that makes no mention of wings.


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[Assistant] That detail, along with a rich backstory full of battles between the monster and the local Native Americans,


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[Assistant] They're modern recreations of course, but they're based on Marquette's original sketches, and they certainly do a good job of bringing something so unknown and mysterious to life.


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[Assistant] For those people in 1903 in Van Meter, Iowa, the unknown and mysterious came down to dwell among them.


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[Assistant] In later years, the creature, whatever it actually was, became known as the Van Meter Visitor. But whether or not it was a hoax is still a hotly debated topic.


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[Assistant] Griffith, Dunn, White, and Greg, apart from sounding like a law firm, were all well-respected members of their community. And they all clearly saw something, as did the men who participated in the final ambush in the early hours of October 3rd.


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[Assistant] As far as I can tell though, no one has ever tried to reopen those mines and look inside for the creatures. Perhaps they're scared they'll find nothing but an empty cave. Or maybe they're afraid of letting something out.


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[Assistant] Of course, there have been attempts to bring answers to the conversation.


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[Assistant] Some people think the creature was a pterodactyl, a large flying reptile from the Mesozoic era which ended roughly 66 million years ago. Others believe it was a pterotorn, an enormous vulture-like bird of prey that went extinct just 10,000 years ago.


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[Assistant] That sounds like a crazy theory, until you remember that the once extinct fish known as the coelacanth was rediscovered in 1938, alive and swimming in the waters off the coast of South Africa.


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[Assistant] It's given some people hope that the Van Meter creature is yet one more relic from the past, perhaps just hanging on by a thread.


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[Assistant] But it's local folklore that seems to hold the most compelling notion of them all.


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[Assistant] The Native American tribes of the Van Meter area are said to have their own version of the legend of the Thunderbird.


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[Assistant] In their tales, the Thunderbird is part bird, part man. It makes its nest among the stones. And it does one other thing that sounds eerily familiar.


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[Assistant] It shoots lightning. From its forehead.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke. Research assistance was provided by the talented Marset Crockett.


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[Assistant] If you love the show, please take a moment to leave a rating and written review over at applepodcast.com slash lore. It helps the show reach new listeners and is the cheapest way to support something you love. And thanks in advance for doing that.


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[Assistant] Lore is a lot more than just bi-weekly audio stories in your podcast app. There are a lot more tour dates coming up later this year, so you can see the show live and in person. The first World of Lore book arrives on October 10th, and the Lore television show will premiere three days later on Friday the 13th. Busy busy, I know.


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[Assistant] And hey, if you like to dive deeper into these episode topics, there's a lore email newsletter called the Epitaph that delivers source material right into your inbox. And all of these things can be found in just one place.


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[Assistant] LOREpodcast.com. You can also follow the show on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter. Just search for LOREpodcast, all one word. And then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi.


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[Assistant] They had been searching for it for nearly 15 years. So when they uncovered a set of steps on November 2nd of 1922, you can imagine how elated they must have felt.


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[Assistant] Word was sent to the man who had financed the entire project. And by November 26th, the entire team found themselves standing in front of a sealed tomb door.


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[Assistant] Today, most of the world knows what they found. As archaeologist Howard Carter led his team inside, they stepped into the 3000-year-old tomb of the Egyptian pharaoh Tutankhamun. It was the discovery of a lifetime, and it was everything they'd hoped for.


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[Assistant] Things didn't go so well after that though. Lord Canarvon, the man who had paid for all 15 years of digging and searching, died less than two months later from an infected mosquito bite.


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[Assistant] It's said that at the very moment he took his last breath, all the lights in Cairo mysteriously went out. At the same time, his faithful dog howled mournfully, staggered on his feet, and then fell over dead.


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[Assistant] Carter's secretary, Richard Bethel, died young a few years later himself. One other archaeologist on the project, Hugh Evelyn White, said to have committed suicide after leaving a message. I have succumbed to a curse, he wrote, with his own blood.


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[Assistant] Whether the stories are rooted in fact or fiction, one thing is clear.


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[Assistant] People are convinced that their past can haunt them. That whether we like it or not, sometimes the things we've done follow us through life, waiting for that moment when they can take revenge.


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[Assistant] And as one story shows, it doesn't matter how far you run or how high you build your walls.


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[Assistant] They grew up near each other and didn't even know it.


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[Assistant] It was only for a couple of years, from 1850 to 1852, but later in life it would become one of those happy memories they pulled out at social gatherings to get a laugh. And that's fine. Sally was going to need all the happy memories she could get.


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[Assistant] She was born in New Haven, Connecticut, back in 1839. It was a large family, with Sally being the fifth born, and another after her, and for a while there, I think that was a challenge for her parents, Sarah and Leonard.


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[Assistant] Finally though, around the time of Sally's eighth birthday, her father's carpentry business began to take off. They eventually bought that temporary house over on Court Street.


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[Assistant] In 1852, with business booming and the money pouring in, Sally's parents purchased a large six-acre estate in a different part of town. I have a feeling they all exhaled a collective sigh of relief. They'd made it. They were socialites, climbing the ladder of the well-to-do and influential. Things were looking up.


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[Assistant] As the 1850s faded into the 1860s, other movements were spreading.


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[Assistant] Spiritualism had extended beyond its birthplace of upstate New York and was transforming the way many people viewed the natural world.


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[Assistant] In the South, rebellious tremors were shaking the structure of America due to a growing interest in banning slavery. I'd be putting it far too lightly to say that 1860 was a year of change.


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[Assistant] Under Confederate orders, General Beauregard attacked the Union-held Fort Sumter in Charleston, South Carolina, and effectively set a match to the dry and flammable mountain of tension between both sides.


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[Assistant] The American Civil War began that day, and the world was never the same.


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[Assistant] A little over a year later though, in September of 1862, Sally walked down the aisle on her wedding day.


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[Assistant] William was born in June of 1837. His father, Oliver, was a clothing manufacturer with a knack for improving the machines that he worked with. And that ingenuity paid off. Business was profitable and brisk, and as Sally's parents were climbing that social ladder, they were doing so right alongside William's family.


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[Assistant] If the families were to compare balance sheets, William's parents were vastly more wealthy than Sally's, but that didn't matter. The couple was in love, and Sally more than held her own in the relationship. She had a brilliant mind, having excelled in subjects like literature and music, and she spoke fluent French, which was a good thing.


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[Assistant] She was going to need every advantage she could get because life was about to climb to a whole new level very soon.


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[Assistant] You see, a few years before the young couple's wedding, William's father had acquired another business through some...


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[Assistant] It was officially known as the Henry rifle, named after Benjamin Tyler Henry, the employee who patented it.


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[Assistant] Although it wasn't the most common rifle used in the Civil War, it was certainly the most sought after. Infantry would save up their salaries for them or use their reenlistment bonuses, believing that its greater firepower might just save their lives.


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[Assistant] It's hard to tell if that hypothesis really played out in reality. What we do know is that by the time the war was over in 1866, the firearm had been so popular that William's father went all in putting his last name right there on the company and the star weapon it produced.


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[Assistant] In doing so, he gave it a name that nearly everyone today has heard of. The Winchester Rifle.


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[Assistant] I know, not the most sexy name in the world, but it got the point across in a way that even Apple could be proud of. This firearm was new. It was better. While the Henry had been a hit,


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[Assistant] This new Winchester model came with a few improvements, and that only served to increase demand.


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[Assistant] France would later buy 6,000 of them, along with over 4 million cartridges. That's roughly the same number of Henry rifles that sold during the whole span of the Civil War, all in one transaction. But it got better.


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[Assistant] When the Ottoman Empire needed weapons for a war against the Russian Empire, they purchased 45,000 of them.


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[Assistant] The model 1866 wasn't the only Winchester born that year. Sally, who at this point had dropped her childhood nickname in favor of her given name, Sarah, spent the first half of the year pregnant. In July of 1866, she and William became parents to a baby girl. They named her Annie after William's sister.


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[Assistant] But that was a joy they barely had time to soak in. Just nine days after she was born, Annie Winchester passed away, leaving her parents in utter and absolute grief.


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[Assistant] Most new mothers struggle with some level of postpartum depression, and many fathers do as well. But this was something darker. After months of anticipation, they'd lost their child.


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[Assistant] Sarah fell into a deep depression. By some accounts, the loss of Annie was a blow that would take her years to recover from. Although I'm not sure how you ever fully come back from something like that.


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[Assistant] So, when I tell you that the Winchesters had a new home built just outside of New Haven and moved into it a couple of years later,


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[Assistant] We have to see that move through the lens of her pain. She was running, starting fresh in a way, offered her hope.


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[Assistant] He worked as the treasurer of his father's empire, watching the company coffers fill at a mind-boggling rate. The Winchester Model 1866 gave way to the Model 1873, which was even more successful, if you can believe it. It would become known as the gun that won the West, and would stay in production for 50 years. Sarah and William would never have another child.


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[Assistant] Maybe they just didn't have the courage for the risk of more heartbreak. But that's the trouble with grief. You can build yourself a world without risk, but nothing will stop pain from breaking in on its own. And in 1880, that's just what happened. That's when William's father Oliver passed away.


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[Assistant] He wouldn't have a chance to enjoy it though. Less than three months later, William Winchester died at the age of 43. Like a lot of tragic deaths from the 19th century, his killer was tuberculosis. It had moved quickly, and when it was over, Sarah was alone.


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[Assistant] Alone and looking for answers. Because she'd lost her only child, her father-in-law, and her husband in a span of just 15 years.


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[Assistant] We're told that her deep grief in the spring of 1881 led her to seek out answers. The growth of spiritualism had put mediums, those individuals who claimed to speak for and with the spirits of the dead, firmly in the public eye. And so Sarah talked to a number of them.


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[Assistant] Finally, it was a man from Boston, Adam Koons, who delivered an answer she believed.


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[Assistant] Those rifles that had made her family incredibly wealthy had accomplished something else, something more horrifying. They had led to tens of thousands of deaths. And according to William Spirit, who Coons claimed to be speaking with in the room, those deaths had cursed their family. But there was a way out, if she was willing to try.


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[Assistant] William told her, through Coons of course, that she needed to follow the sun west. When she traveled far enough, he would tell her to stop. She was being invited to do something she'd become so very good at over the years. She needed to run away. So she did.


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[Assistant] After selling her estate in New Haven, Sarah Winchester packed up everything and began her long westward journey, always listening for the voice of her dead husband to tell her she'd gone far enough.


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[Assistant] She crossed the Mississippi and the Midwest, the Rockies and the Sierra Nevada.


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[Assistant] Don't know how long it took her, but in the 1880s, it was a journey that was far from comfortable and easy. Still, she did it.


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[Assistant] Once she finally stopped in 1886, she traveled all the way to California's Santa Clara Valley. Once there, she purchased a small farmhouse on a large piece of property, then began to build a new life for herself. But as you might have guessed, that's not all she would build.


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[Assistant] If Sarah Winchester's goal was to escape the past, California was a great destination.


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[Assistant] By the early 1880s, the press had begun to look more compassionately on the Native Americans who had suffered under the march of westward expansion. And one of the things they pinned the blame on was the Winchester rifle.


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[Assistant] Without it, they said, countless lives might have been saved.


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[Assistant] Her demons, though, were another story, and she was going to have to do something even more dramatic to keep them at bay.


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[Assistant] Now, I'll be the first to admit, much of what we know about her meetings with that medium come down to guesswork. We don't have transcripts, and Sarah herself never went on record with a detailed account of those conversations. This is the place where legend pokes its head into the story, like Kramer sliding into Jerry Seinfeld's apartment. It's there, uninvited, and now we have to deal with it. And that's how a lot of stories go.


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[Assistant] She had a bottomless pit of money, all the space she needed, and a whole lot of self-inflicted guilt, all of which powered the construction project. More and more rooms were added on, eventually expanding the original 8 to a massive 26, but she was far from finished.


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[Assistant] Over the years, that house exploded with new rooms and features. The structure itself grew to become seven stories tall. And with no architect guiding the process with skill and logic, the results were more than a bit unusual.


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[Assistant] I don't mean that things were crooked or poorly made. I mean that the house began to look more and more like an M.C. Escher drawing come to life.


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[Assistant] For example, there are staircases in the house that lead nowhere, literally ending at a blank wall or a ledge that a person could easily fall off. There are chimneys that you can see from the exterior, but when you look for their corresponding fireplaces or stoves inside, they just aren't there.


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[Assistant] And you might come upon a massive door and open it only to find a tiny closet. Or, because opposites are fun, you could open a small door and discover an enormous room.


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[Assistant] All told, the house has roughly fifty fireplaces, ten thousand windows, forty staircases, and two thousand doors.


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[Assistant] Some people have speculated that Sarah Winchester was simply trying to confuse the spirits that haunted her. That somehow, if the house were illogical and unpredictable enough, the spirits wouldn't be able to get out.


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[Assistant] They see the house as one giant puzzle box designed to trap things inside. To prove it, they point to the near lack of mirrors and the overwhelming abundance of objects with 13 parts like steps or window panes.


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[Assistant] In 1906, nearly two decades after construction began, San Francisco suffered a massive earthquake. The entire front portion of the Winchester house, along with the top three stories, all collapsed, leaving portions of the house in ruin.


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[Assistant] Sarah found herself trapped in her bedroom, and when she was finally rescued, she ordered the collapsed parts of the house, a section with at least 30 rooms, to be boarded up and ignored.


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[Assistant] Sarah Winchester spent her life running from pain. That's not something I'm faulting her for, believe me. Each and every one of us carries a bag that's overflowing with regret or guilt or suffering. We're all just too busy managing our own to notice everyone else is doing the same thing. So Sarah ran.


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[Assistant] Maybe her story is powerful and unique because she took running to a new level. She literally got on a train and headed west and then built walls around her inner struggles.


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[Assistant] Perhaps her story is attractive because she built a crazy house. Or maybe it's because it feels familiar. She did. But many of us wish we could.


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[Assistant] What she left us with is a monument to forgetting.


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[Assistant] That 8-room farmhouse she purchased in 1886 grew into a complex maze of stairs and halls and room after room of space. Heck, it's so confusing that there's no official room count. I've seen estimates range anywhere from 148 to 161.


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[Assistant] If the stories are true, even the staff who worked for her had to use a map to get around.


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[Assistant] And there's a colorful rumor that Sarah hid treasure somewhere in the house, locking away a piece of her vast fortune for some intrepid explorer to discover later.


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[Assistant] But of course, no one has ever tracked it down, if it even exists at all. The truth is probably a lot more simple. Most of her fortune was poured into the very building itself.


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[Assistant] There are other stories too. Legends without a lot of proof, but they're threads that add color to the tapestry of Sarah's story. They say that the moment the workers learned of her death, they just stopped and walked away, leaving nails sticking out of the wood.


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[Assistant] Visitors to the house today have noticed doors that shut on their own, cold spots, floating lights, and the distant sound of breaking glass.


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[Assistant] After all, a person built that house, however broken the reasons.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research assistance from Marsette Crockett, music by Chad Lawson, and administrative help from Carl Nellis.


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[Assistant] As I mentioned at the top, Lore is more than a podcast. Explore the book series, the television show, and old episodes over at theworldoflore.com slash now.


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[Assistant] And last, if you're a social media sort of person, you can follow the show over on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. When you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.


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[Assistant] Just a word of warning before we begin. This episode discusses some incidents of assault, and while they are very much paranormal in nature, some may find the details to be disturbing. Listener discretion is advised.


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[Assistant] The streets of London were a place of fear in 1790. There had been dozens of attacks, all reported by women. A man, it seems, had been stepping out of the shadows or from around corners and pricking them with a pin.


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[Assistant] Sometimes he was covert about it. There are reports that he fitted a bouquet of flowers with a sharp object and would ask women if they'd like to smell it. Who could resist?


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[Assistant] Others say he attached small blades to his knees and then used them to stab women in the backs of the legs. Then as the story spread, so too did the panic. They called him the London Monster, and within weeks, the entire city was on alert.


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[Assistant] In the autumn of 1803, the people of London were obsessed with a new story. It seemed that a ghost had been seen in the Hammersmith area of the city.


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[Assistant] There were whispers that he was the victim of a suicide, doomed to haunt our world forever, and many people claimed to have seen him.


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[Assistant] After months of hysteria and rumor, a police officer actually witnessed the ghost while on patrol. Francis Smith pulled his gun, called for the fiend to stop, and fired upon it. His shot was true and the ghost fell limp to the ground.


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[Assistant] It fell because it was, after all, just a man. Thomas Millwood had been a plasterer by trade, and because of this, he wore all white clothing.


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[Assistant] Officer Smith was tried for murder and found guilty.


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[Assistant] Few things can unite a city like fear. Hysteria spreads in much the same way the plague moved across Europe in the 17th century.


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[Assistant] That's not the unusual part. What's truly odd is the depths to which people will go to believe these fears. How easily they fall in with a public outcry and believe whatever it is they're told.


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[Assistant] For as horrible as the London monster and the Hammersmith ghost stories sound, a new fear swept the city decades later. This fear permeated so deep and spread so fast that it left a mark still visible today. Because fear, even when it's built on lies, can spread like fire. And sometimes, on rare occasions, there's a good reason why.


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[Assistant] On a cool September night in 1837, Polly Adams was on her way home from the Green Man, a public house in the Blackheath area of London. She was with friends, and they talked and laughed as they walked toward Shooter's Hill.


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[Assistant] Nearly home, the group was startled when a figure seemed to jump out of the darkness of an alley.


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[Assistant] Before anyone could react, the figure grabbed at Poly.


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[Assistant] According to her later deposition with the police, the stranger was clad in a black cloak, but his eyes seemed to burn with light. Oddly, she remembered that the man smelled of sulfur and then added, as if it were a normal thing to notice about a midnight attacker, that he also spat blue fire from his mouth.


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[Assistant] Rather than help her, Polly's three travel companions quickly ran away into the night, afraid for their lives. And rightly so. The attacker ripped through Polly's blouse with hands that seemed more like claws than anything else. But after tearing at the flesh of her stomach, the figure stopped.


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[Assistant] Pushing her to the ground, it turned and bounded away into the night.


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[Assistant] One month after Polly Adams walked home from the Green Man, Mary Stevens was making her way back to work after a short visit with her parents in nearby Battersea.


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[Assistant] Mary worked as a servant in a home on Lavender Hill, just south of the Thames and decided to cut through Clapham Common. Maybe not the smartest decision, no matter what century you live in.


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[Assistant] Yet Mary did just that and set off on a quick walk through the dark trees and bushes toward her place of employment. Near the edge of the park, a figure jumped out of the shadows. The man grabbed her and pushed her to the ground where he began to kiss her. Mary struggled, but the man's grip was beyond tight.


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[Assistant] According to Mary, the stranger then ripped at her clothing with a clawed hand that was cold and clammy as those of a corpse, she said. Afraid for her life, she screamed, forcing the attacker to release her and flee the scene. The screams brought several nearby residents to her aid, and a search was organized to locate the stranger, but no trace of him could be found.


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[Assistant] The following evening, in the very same neighborhood where Mary Stevens lived, another dark figure was spotted. This time, rather than an assault, a mysterious person stepped out onto the path of an oncoming carriage. The coachman, surprised by the appearance of the dark figure, lost control of the carriage before crashing into a building.


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[Assistant] The coachman was severely injured and the mysterious man cried out with a ringing high-pitched laugh that chilled witnesses to the core. And then, as if his work were done, the man jumped over a nearby wall and escaped.


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[Assistant] Three months later, the Lord Mayor of London, a man named Sir John Cowan, spoke up at a public session at the Mansion House about a complaint he had received in the form of a letter. This letter was anonymous, but the writer claimed to be a resident of Peckham, close to Battersea, and the 1837 attacks.


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[Assistant] The letter described how these attacks had all been a prank put on by an unnamed aristocrat as part of a dare. Researchers have speculated for over a century as to who the nobleman might have been, but no theories have ever panned out.


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[Assistant] Later in January of 1838, the mayor showed off a pile of letters he had received from people in and around London, all claiming to have witnessed, or been the victim of, similar attacks to what Polly Adams and Mary Stevens had suffered.


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[Assistant] Though the claims can't be proven, some letters reported that people actually died of fright, while others were permanently traumatized by their encounters with this mysterious figure.


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[Assistant] And many of the reports contained eerily similar pieces of information. This stranger was said to be able to leap over tall fences and walls. He was always described as having red eyes and clawed hands, and he always got away.


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[Assistant] Like a fever, the hysteria spread throughout London and the surrounding countryside. It didn't matter that the mayor was skeptical of the whole thing. People everywhere seemed to be catching glimpses of dark shapes leaping tall buildings and terrorizing their neighbors and servants.


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[Assistant] Like any movement or public experience, the people of London went looking for a name. What would they call the creature, human or not, who was the center of all these stories? And by late winter of 1838, they found it. A name that would forever become part of Victorian folklore. They called him Spring-Heeled Jack.


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[Assistant] Up to this point, sightings of Spring-Heeled Jack had consisted of second-hand accounts and attacks on women with little power to demand attention. But in the winter of 1838, all of that changed.


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[Assistant] On the night of February 28th, Lucy and Margaret Scales set off from the home of their brother who worked as a butcher on Narrow Street in the Limehouse district. History hasn't remembered their destination. All we know is that around 8.30pm that night, the two young women walked off into the shadows, naively confident in their own safety.


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[Assistant] Minutes later, their brother the butcher heard screams off in the distance, in the direction of a street known as Green Dragon Alley. When he realized that the voice was that of his sister Margaret, he dashed off to find her. I like to imagine he still had on his bloody apron, and most likely picked up a meat cleaver before making the run.


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[Assistant] When he found his sisters, Margaret was on her knees in the dark alley, Lucy's body cradled in her arms. The young woman wasn't dead, but she was unconscious, and Margaret was hysterical. As their brother helped the two women home, she told him the story of what had happened.


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[Assistant] They had stepped into the alley, but a few paces in, a dark figure stepped out of the shadows and approached them quickly. Lucy had been standing in front of her sister, just a few paces separating the two women. Because of this, it was Lucy who took the full brunt of the attack.


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[Assistant] The figure, she said, was that of a man. Margaret described him as very tall and thin, dressed in a manner of a gentleman and wrapped in a large dark cloak.


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[Assistant] He held a lantern known then as a bullseye, a small round type, typically carried by officers of the law, and maybe that was why the women let him approach so carelessly.


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[Assistant] But that's when things took a turn for the worse. According to Margaret's report, which she filed later with the office of the police in Lambeth, the cloaked man stepped close to Lucy and spat blue flames at her face.


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[Assistant] The flames, she claimed, erupted from the man's mouth, and the sight of them blinded and shocked Lucy, who collapsed on the spot.


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[Assistant] Margaret worried that she was next, but she had also been concerned for Lucy who lay on the cobblestone, writhing in the throes of some kind of seizure. And then, as if his mission had been accomplished, the dark figure leapt over Margaret and onto the roof of a nearby house, before vanishing into the London darkness.


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[Assistant] Sometime during the same week, the shadowy figure of Spring Hill Jack made another appearance.


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[Assistant] Jane Alsop was reading a book around 9pm. She lived in one of the nicer neighborhoods in the East End of London, along with her father and two sisters. And on the night in question, she was closest to the front door, which is probably why she was the one who heard the shouting.


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[Assistant] From across the small yard, a voice had cried out in the darkness. There was a gate there that allowed access to the property and served as a small measure of security. But the voice that had shouted belonged to someone professing to be a police officer. An officer, in fact, that claimed to have captured none other than Spring Heel Jack.


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[Assistant] The man had called out for a light and Jane, being a dutiful citizen, grabbed a lit candle and exited her home to deliver it to the officer. As she handed it to him, the man tossed off his cloak, exposing his true appearance by the light of the flickering flame. This was no police officer. What Jane saw took her breath away.


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[Assistant] The figure was clothed in what appeared to be a tight-fitting, one-piece suit of white fabric, along with a metal helmet. According to Jane, the man's eyes glowed red and were set within a face more hideous and frightening than any she had seen before. And then, without warning, the figure spat blue flames from his mouth.


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[Assistant] This time though, Jack wasn't content to stop there. With Jane partially blinded by the flash of bright flames, he reached out and grasped her with his arms. In the report that her family later filed that night with the same Lambeth police office where Lucy Scales told her story, Jane further described her assault.


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[Assistant] The man, if that's what he really was, tore into her dress with fingers that felt to her like they were metal claws. He tore through her dress and then cut through her skin, ripping deep, painful gashes in her abdomen.


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[Assistant] Jane screamed, perhaps from the pain or maybe from her primal fear. And then she ran.


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[Assistant] Her front door was just meters away and open and so she bolted quickly for that safe sliver of light in the shadow-covered facade of the house. She was mere steps from the doorway, a heartbeat from safety, when Jack caught up. His clawed hands grabbed at her neck and shoulder. Sharp metallic fingers tore at Jane's flesh. Patches of hair were pulled free from her scalp. Blood was everywhere.


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[Assistant] Her family had heard her screams though, and just as her attacker was slashing at her face, her father reached toward her from within the house.


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[Assistant] Grabbing her by the hand, he pulled hard and brought her back inside, slamming the door shut behind her.


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[Assistant] Many of the details surrounding Springhill Jack, details that were so out of the ordinary and unusual, seemed to be echoed in each new eyewitness account. The red eyes, the white bodysuit, the sharp claws. But something set Jane Alsup's story apart from all the others.


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[Assistant] You see, she was well off. Not part of the elite, but high enough up the social ladder that her story caught the attention of the local newspaper, as well as the police. And when the upper class feels threatened, they take action.


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[Assistant] When word spread that Jack was hunting women throughout London, the police began to arrest suspects, although none were ever brought to trial. Groups of vigilantes banded together and patrolled the streets at night, both to assist the police in protecting the people of London, and also with the hope of capturing the mysterious attacker.


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[Assistant] Upon reading about the attacks that had begun to plague the good people of London, one 70-year-old retired military veteran actually dusted off his guns, pulled on his boots, and rode off in search of the monster responsible.


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[Assistant] Although he was never successful in capturing the mysterious Spring Hill Jack, or even setting eyes on it, the gesture did much to calm the nerves of the locals. And how could it not? He was, after all.


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[Assistant] The Duke of Wellington, the man who fought Napoleon and won.


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[Assistant] Needless to say, the stories began to spread. Several penny dreadfuls were written about the mysterious Jack, whose exploits were perfect for the cheap serialized fiction that the genre was built around. In theaters around London, several plays appeared that featured the subject.


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[Assistant] Even the Punch and Judy puppet shows across London found a way to incorporate this shadowy public menace. In shows that once featured the devil, performers changed his name to Spring Heel Jack.


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[Assistant] There were, of course, a handful of additional sightings over the years to come, but while some of them stayed in the southwest area of London and Surrey County beyond that, others popped up in more distant locations.


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[Assistant] One report in Northamptonshire described an encounter with a creature that was, and I quote, the very image of the devil himself with horns and eyes of flame.


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[Assistant] In Devon, an investigation was mounted to find the man assaulting women in that area, and the suspect's description had some similarities to Spring Heel Jack.


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[Assistant] Lincolnshire, on the eastern coast of England, was the location of another documented sighting in the 1870s. One witness described a caped figure who was seen leaping over cottages in a small village.


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[Assistant] When the locals grabbed their guns and tried to shoot the figure, they claimed that they could hear the bullets strike him, but the only result was a metallic ringing sound. Jack got away.


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[Assistant] One of the last encounters of notes occurred in Aldershot, on the very edge of Surrey County. It was geographically closer to London than most of the other 1870s sightings, and some researchers believe that this proximity to the original reports lend this story more validity.


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[Assistant] On a night in August of 1877, Private John Reagan was standing guard in a small booth near a military munitions depot. While inside, he claimed to hear something metallic being scraped along the wood of the booth. He stepped outside, rifle in hand, and patrolled the area to find the source.


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[Assistant] When he was satisfied that nothing was there he headed back to his station inside the booth. And that's when something touched him.


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[Assistant] Looking up, he saw the figure of a tall man, wrapped in a cloak and wearing a metal helmet. Then the figure leapt into the air and landed behind him.


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[Assistant] Reagan pointed his weapon at the figure and called out for a name, but he claims the visitor, whoever it was, simply laughed.


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[Assistant] The soldier fired to no effect and the figure advanced. And then, without warning, blue flames erupted from his mouth.


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[Assistant] That's when Reagan did what any good soldier would do under the circumstances. He ran for his life.


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[Assistant] Spring Hill Jack never left the public mind. But as the legend slowly settled into popular culture, reports of actual appearances became less and less frequent.


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[Assistant] And then, just as Jack had seemed to cross the threshold into mythic territory, he did what every eyewitness claimed he was gifted at. He disappeared.


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[Assistant] There's a lesson deep inside the story of Spring Heel Jack. Like all of the most powerful and devastating diseases of the last thousand years, ideas have a tendency to spread like fire. Today we use the term viral and in many ways that's really close to the truth.


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[Assistant] Fear, panic, and hysteria are all communicable diseases, and when a culture is infected, sometimes there's no way to stop it.


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[Assistant] But unlike the plague or some new strain of the flu, it stands to reason that we could, at the very least, calm our fears and put out the fires of hysteria. So why is it so hard to do so?


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[Assistant] Spring Heel Jack is just one of countless examples that have been repeated all around the world throughout history. You would think that we have figured it out by now.


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[Assistant] Maybe we actually like mass hysteria. Not the hysteria itself, mind you. What I mean is, what if there's something about being part of a larger story that resonates with people? It binds us together. It unites us in a global conversation. It builds community. The big fears never really go away.


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[Assistant] Although Springhill Jack disappeared from the public eye in the last decade of the 19th century, some people still think he's around.


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[Assistant] In 1995, a school in a small West Surrey village was closed by the town. The students and teachers wanted to mark the occasion and so they put on a disco-themed celebration to say goodbye to each other and the school building they loved.


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[Assistant] That night as the party was winding down, a handful of students ran back into the school screaming about something they had seen outside. When asked by the teachers about it, these students all told the same story.


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[Assistant] They had all left the party earlier and had been hanging out near the playground. While there, a shadowy figure had approached them in the darkness. As the shape moved closer, they saw more details. The man wore black boots and a dark hooded cloak, but it was what they saw beneath the cloak that frightened them the most.


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[Assistant] As the story of Spring Hill Jack demonstrates well, people have been fascinated for a very long time by breaking the laws of physics. In the age of superhero films, it's easy to take flying humans for granted. But in Victorian England, that was captivating.


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[Assistant] But it's not the first time people have flown in folklore, and I've tracked down one more example that's sure to deliver, when it comes to thrills and chills.


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[Assistant] Stick around through this brief sponsor break to hear all about it.


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[Assistant] Joseph always had a way of rising above his peers. That hadn't always been the case, though.


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[Assistant] As a child, he was known for his lack of education. He had these moments in the village school where he would slip away mentally and would miss entire lectures or questions. It earned him the nickname Open Mouth because, well, I think that one makes a lot of sense on its own.


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[Assistant] Having been born in Italy at the start of the 17th century, there were a few career options available to Joseph without proper training. He didn't have a knack for most jobs and lacked the focus to get better at them. So he struggled and this went on for years until finally in 1625, he found some place to belong. The church.


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[Assistant] It wasn't always perfect, but Joseph managed to catch on and work his way into the hearts of the people around him. He was passionate, if not a bit unfocused and prone to odd behavior. And eventually that odd behavior would get him in trouble.


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[Assistant] In 1628, shortly after taking his vows as a priest in the Franciscan order, Father Joseph was taken to Naples for examination.


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[Assistant] He was interviewed by his superiors, but in the end they found nothing wrong with him. As a result, he was allowed to return to ministry, but they also kept a close eye on him. Right there in Naples, where he served at St. Gregory's.


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[Assistant] As always though, it would never be business as usual for Father Joseph. He was simply too well known for his unusual behavior. Still, what happened next was something few could have predicted.


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[Assistant] One day, while a number of the priests were inside St. Gregory's saying their prayers, a few of them glanced over to see Father Joseph sitting in a corner. It was his preferred place of prayer, off away from the others, but still in the room with them. This time though, when the others looked at him, they claimed that he did something astonishing.


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[Assistant] Father Joseph stood up and after a moment of silence with his eyes closed, he levitated off the floor.


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[Assistant] It's not that he stood taller, or that the shadows moved around him and made it appear as if he floated.


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[Assistant] No, Father Joseph literally flew up from the floor ever so slowly and then moved in the direction of the altar. A moment later, that's where he touched down.


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[Assistant] Those who were in the room with him said it was amazing and not just because of the flying. You see, Joseph stood there with his robes far too close to the candles of the altar to be safe, and yet they never once caught fire.


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[Assistant] And then, after a few moments, everything reversed and Joseph levitated up again and flew back to his spot in the quarter.


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[Assistant] Naturally, the other priests were floored. No pun intended, I promise.


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[Assistant] It was a miracle on so many levels, and that meant that they needed others to see it. And being in Italy, that also meant they could travel to the Vatican, where Father Joseph was asked to repeat his amazing powers of flight in front of Pope Urban VIII, along with many other high-level Church officials.


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[Assistant] And he did it. He levitated so high off the floor and for so long that he had to be asked to return by one of the men in the room. And that's the truly unusual part of this story. Because while it might be easy to assume he was faking it in some way if he did it in private and then later claimed it,


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[Assistant] The years that followed were full of more of the same levitation. It was never something done as a performance. Instead, at random times, Joseph would simply float toward the ceiling. And he did it for decades.


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[Assistant] When he passed away in 1663, he was so well known for his miraculous flying that one early biographer joked that this time the spirit had flown, leaving the body behind.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was researched, written, and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with music by Chad Lawson. Lore is much more than just a podcast. There's a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want more Lore in your life.


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[Assistant] I also make and executive produce a whole bunch of other podcasts, all of which I think you'd enjoy. My production company, Grim and Mild, specializes in shows that sit at the intersection of the dark and the historical. And you can learn more about all of our shows and everything else going on over in one central place. Grimandmild.com


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[Assistant] You can also follow this show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast, all one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.


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[Assistant] One of the most chilling historical events of the last 200 years, one that has fascinated me for most of my life, is the 1846 pioneer journey of the families and employees of James Reid and George Donner.


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[Assistant] I can't think of a last name that evokes as much emotion, as much fear, and as much instant visual imagery as the Donner name. In the years since that fateful winter, the name has become synonymous with mountain passes, frozen bodies huddled around dead campfires, and of course, cannibalism.


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[Assistant] The Donner story has a way of stopping us in our tracks. We are morbidly fascinated with their tragic journey.


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[Assistant] But even more so we're amazed at how far they went to stay alive. Their story forces us to look straight into the face of a fear that most people bury deep beneath the surface. People Eating other people


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[Assistant] We can look for justification. We can research the reasons behind their situation and write sterile and safe papers about the horrific plight they found themselves in.


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[Assistant] But at the end of the day, we are simply and powerfully horrified.


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[Assistant] From the story of Hansel and Gretel to the modern television show Hannibal, we have always maintained a repulsive fascination with those who cross the line. We can't stand to think about it, and yet we can't look away, either.


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[Assistant] Maybe it has to do with the morbid symbolism of one body within another body. Perhaps it's the realization that, like cattle or wild game, humans can sometimes become food for something or someone else.


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[Assistant] Humans have been confronted with cannibalism for a very long time. Archaeologists have discovered signs of the act that date back tens of thousands of years. In some instances, the reasons have clearly been ritualistic, while others have been driven by food shortages.


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[Assistant] There's a lot we still don't know, but what we do understand has highlighted the fact that long ago, it was far more common than it is today.


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[Assistant] In the realm of ancient history, Greek and Roman historians recorded instances related to war and conquering. The Roman siege of Jerusalem in 70 AD, for example, resulted in scattered reports of cannibalism. Decades later, when the Romans attacked Numantia, historians in Alexandria recorded similar stories.


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[Assistant] One interesting observation is that over the centuries, the accusation of cannibalism has been a political and colonial tool. The ancient Greeks assumed that all non-Hellenistic peoples were barbarians and cannibals and used it to justify their hostility toward them.


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[Assistant] For many empires, even up through the British Empire of the 17th and 18th centuries, it was a way to demonize a people group and to give themselves permission to come in and take over. To bring civilization, so to speak.


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[Assistant] Which led to deep prejudice against these people groups. One example from 1820 stands out.


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[Assistant] That was the year a whaling ship called the Essex was rammed and sunk by one of the whales it was pursuing.


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[Assistant] If that sounds familiar at all, that's because the story went on to inspire the novel Moby Dick.


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[Assistant] After the accident, the captain and crew of 21 boarded three of their whale boats. They had two choices for a route to safety. Sail 3,000 miles against the wind to Chile or half the distance with the wind to the Marquesas Islands.


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[Assistant] But the Marquesans were rumored to be cannibals, so the crew took the longer route. As a result, they spent months at sea and eventually resorted to cannibalism to survive. Reality can be cruel. And ironic, apparently.


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[Assistant] But something darker sits at the center of many cannibalism stories. At the core of almost all Native American cultures across Canada and the northern portion of what is now the United States, there are stories of the supernatural effects that eating other humans can have on a person.


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[Assistant] Each tribe seems to refer to the stories with different terms, but they are all eerily similar. Wabanaki legend speaks of the man-eating snow giant, Gewakwa. The Kree tell tales of the Witiko, also a giant and also a man-eater.


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[Assistant] The Mi'kmaq tribes of northern Maine up through Nova Scotia tell stories of the Chinu, creatures that were once human but had been transformed through some horrible crime that was usually cannibalism.


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[Assistant] The most common name for these creatures among Native Americans, however, is one we already know from popular culture. They are the Wendigo, a creature that was once human but had been transformed by their hunger for human flesh into a monster that can't ever be satisfied.


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[Assistant] One Native American description of the creature claims a wendigo is taller than a grown man with a gaunt body and dead skin that seems to be pulled too tightly over its bones. Tales speak of the tangle of antlers upon its head and the deep eye sockets that seem to be dead inside. And it smelled of death and decay.


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[Assistant] In Kree mythology, though, the Wendigo was simply a human who had become possessed by an evil spirit. It would take over and then turn its hunger and hatred toward the people around it. To the Kree, the Wendigo was most often just another person, a neighbor, a friend, a sister, or a son.


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[Assistant] There was no hope for those who were transformed into man-eating creatures. There was only one solution available. These creatures must be hunted and killed.


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[Assistant] It's fantasy. It's a cultural meta-narrative about something else, something deeper. At least, that's what the anthropologists tell us. But some have taken those legends at face value.


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[Assistant] Swift Runner was a Native American man from the Cree tribe that lived in the western portion of Canada. He was born in the early 1800s and worked as a hunter and trapper in the country north of Fort Edmonton, as well as a guide for the northwest mounted police.


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[Assistant] He was a big man, standing over six feet tall, and according to the reports, he was well liked and respected among his people. He and his wife had six children. It was said that he was a loving father who cared deeply for his family, which is why the winter of 1878 will be remembered as a tragedy.


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[Assistant] According to the reports, Swiftrunner stumbled into a Catholic mission in St. Albert sometime in the spring of 1879. He was distraught and unfocused. He told the priests there that the winter had been harsh and that his entire family had starved to death. He was, in fact, the only one to make it out alive.


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[Assistant] But something didn't sit right with the priests. For one thing, Swiftrunner didn't look like a man who had endured starvation throughout the winter months. He was a solid 200 pounds and seemed healthy and strong. And another hint that not all was well were his nightmares, which often ended with him screaming.


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[Assistant] In the end, the priests reached out to the mounted police. A group of investigators was dispatched to look into the matter, and they took Swiftrunner back to his winter camp.


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[Assistant] To his credit, Swiftrunner was helpful. He immediately showed the men a small grave near his campsite and explained that it was the grave of one of his boys.


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[Assistant] They even went as far as to open the grave, and everything lined up with his story. They were full of the bones of a child, and it was safe to assume the child was swift runners. But then the police found other clues that began to paint a darker picture. Around the camp in scattered locations, they began to uncover more bones, and a skull.


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[Assistant] Not just a few either. There were bones everywhere. Some of the larger bones were hollow and snapped in half, clearly the result of someone sucking the marrow out of them. They also found bits of flesh and hair. The evidence began to pile up, and they looked to Swiftrunner for an explanation. That's when he told them the truth.


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[Assistant] According to him, a Wendigo spirit came to their camp during the winter. It spoke to him and told him to eat his family. At first, he resisted, ignoring the voice. But slowly, over time, the Wendigo took control. And then it took action. Swiftrunner's wife was the first to die, then one of the younger boys. One by one, his family was killed and eaten.


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[Assistant] Then the creature moved on to his mother-in-law and his own brother.


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[Assistant] To Swiftrunner, it was just cold fact. A monster had eaten his family. And the police agreed. The only thing they disagreed on was who the monster was.


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[Assistant] The mutilated human remains were collected and transported to Fort Saskatchewan, along with Swiftrunner himself. His trial began on August 8th of 1879 and it was about as cut and dried as could be. Both the judge and jury refused to accept the story of the Wendigo. They saw the man as a murderer and sentenced him to be hanged.


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[Assistant] Over 60 people gathered at the fort on December 20th to watch that hanging. One witness to the execution, a man who had reportedly seen several hangings in his life, was said to have slapped his thigh and declared, boys, that was the prettiest hanging I ever seen.


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[Assistant] The Severn River in Ontario winds through the homeland of the Sandy Lake First Nation. This area of Canada is so isolated that it wasn't until the early decades of the 20th century that the Western world really made an effort to reach out and connect with the people who lived there.


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[Assistant] It's way up in the far western corner of Ontario, in the kind of territory where lakes have islands that have their own lakes.


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[Assistant] By the late 1800s, the Hudson Bay Company had closed down enough of its trading posts that the closest one to Sandy Lake was over 140 miles away. That was a 50-hour walk across rough terrain. I'm not really sure that isolated is a strong enough word. This place was practically alien. Jack Fidler was born in the 1830s.


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[Assistant] Or maybe it was the 1840s. Most people aren't sure. But we know that he was a Cree man who worked as a trader in that area.


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[Assistant] He made the trek between the villages and the trading posts for a living, and in the process he met a lot of people. He was the son of the Sandy Lake people's shaman, and over his lifetime he had five wives and many, many children.


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[Assistant] When Jack's father died in 1891, he took over as the leader of the Sandy Lake people.


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[Assistant] That sounds fancy, but in reality there were only around 120 living in his community. He had influence on the wider geographical area too, but his real power came from his role as tribal shaman.


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[Assistant] A shaman's powers were a vital part of his leadership. When Jack became the spiritual leader of his people, he became the keeper of their ancient traditions and their guardian against the approaching darkness that was Western civilization. There are even legends that tell of Jack Fiddler curing illnesses.


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[Assistant] But most importantly, Jack became their first and only defense against the Wendigo, often called upon to hunt down and kill them.


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[Assistant] I know, this sounds like the stuff of comic books or Hollywood movies, but Jack Fiddler lives up to the hype. In fact, over his lifetime, he claimed to have defeated 14 of the monsters.


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[Assistant] But Jack didn't go looking for tall, monstrous creatures with antlers and bony bodies. No, he understood the Wendigo to be more subtle. Some Wendigos, Jack said, had been sent to attack his people by other shamans. Others had been members of his own tribe who seemed to have been overtaken with an unstoppable urge to eat human flesh.


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[Assistant] When it was his own people, Jack said that he and his brother Joseph were the ones called upon to do the hard thing and kill the individuals.


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[Assistant] And not just kill them. No, that wasn't enough to stop the possession. You see, it was believed that the Wendigo spirit could actually hop from one body to the next. So those who died as a result of their possession were often burned to stop the infection from spreading.


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[Assistant] For the Sandy Lake people and many of the other Native American tribes that cover much of the northern half of North America, the Wendigo stories were more than hearsay.


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[Assistant] It was an idea that was rooted in ancient tradition. Ceremonies were built around the legend. People were warned and educated constantly about the dangers this creature posed to the community. And then suddenly, all of that tradition and history ran headlong into the modern world. And the results were disastrous.


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[Assistant] Sometime in 1905, Joseph Fiddler's daughter-in-law was brought to Jack's village. She was very sick, according to multiple first-hand accounts. She was in deep pain that often drove her to cry out and moan and constantly make noises. Some of the women tending to her would even have to hold her down to keep her under control.


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[Assistant] Jack and his brother Joseph were brought in. They were old men by then, both in their 80s and very frail, but they knew what was causing her illness, and they knew how to stop it. They had done this many times before, and so they did what they did best. They took a thin rope and looped it over her head, and then slowly, they tightened it.


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[Assistant] It wasn't done in cold blood. It was a calculated decision that these men came to only after deep discussion. But it was driven by fear.


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[Assistant] If the Wendigo spirit inside her had been allowed to take control, there was no telling how destructive it might have become. To them this was preventative.


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[Assistant] It was mercy, a form of euthanasia that protected the entire community.


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[Assistant] The fiddlers were mere instruments in the hands of a culture driven by superstition.


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[Assistant] Witnesses testified to their quiet, dignified nature. But that didn't help. The men were brought before a six-man jury later that year. The Toronto newspapers printed sensational headlines about the trial, crying out against devil worship and murder. And in response, people around the country cried out for a conviction.


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[Assistant] And they were guilty without question. These men had killed a member of their family. It might not have been a crime of passion, but they were still murderers. So when the final verdict came down, it was far from a surprise. Guilty.


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[Assistant] The Cree people of Sandy Lake lost their leader. They lost two of the most respected elders of their tiny community. And most frightening to them, they lost their last remaining Wendigo hunters.


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[Assistant] Superstition has often served to answer our questions and calm our fears. From the changelings of Ireland to the vampires of New England, the stories we tell have helped us explain the mysteries we don't understand.


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[Assistant] That's not all superstition does, I know, but it makes up a lot of the examples we find.


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[Assistant] We fear the unknown and we'll come up with anything to explain it away.


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[Assistant] Cannibalism is something that humans have feared for a very, very long time. Not because we're convinced that it could change us into supernatural monsters. No, at the root of it all, cannibalism is just a line that we don't think we should cross. And rightly so.


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[Assistant] History is littered with examples of people who have crossed the line. Not because their life was at risk or because they had no choice, but because of something darker.


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[Assistant] Deep belief in the folklore of their upbringing. Mental instability. Premeditated violence. Whatever the reason, every example reveals humans to be the true monsters. Capable of anything. Even the things we fear the most.


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[Assistant] And maybe Jack Fiddler understood this. Perhaps he knew that he represented the final entry in a vital ancient lineage. He saw the world ill-equipped to defend itself against the evils he had fought all his life. I have to imagine that the idea of it exhausted him.


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[Assistant] On September 30th of 1907, while on a walk outside with a police constable, Jack escaped into the woods, where he strangled himself with a sash he wore. His brother would later die in prison from tuberculosis.


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[Assistant] A century later, on July 30th of 2008, a man named Tim McLean was riding a Greyhound bus along the Trans-Canada Highway in Manitoba, when one of the other passengers attacked and killed him.


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[Assistant] The man, Vincent Lee, did more than kill McLean though. He stabbed him, beheaded him, and then proceeded to cannibalize the body.


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[Assistant] Today we would be quick to see the killer as mentally ill and desperately in need of help. But it's easy to see how an older worldview might point out his trip through Wendigo country and wonder if perhaps he met an evil spirit there. The courts, as you might have guessed, ruled in favor of insanity.


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[Assistant] In the end, he was held in a high security mental institute in Manitoba, but he stayed there for less than a decade. In May of 2015, he was released back into society.


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[Assistant] Few corners of folklore hold as many chilling tales as the world of the Wendigo. And while they are easy monsters to describe, there's a much deeper truth to them all. And if you stick around through this brief sponsor break, I'll tell you another story that demonstrates exactly what I mean.


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[Assistant] There have always been monsters around us. Whether it's an appearance of the modern Slender Man or tales of creatures from ancient mythology, it seems that wherever people go, we take our stories of monsters with us.


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[Assistant] So it shouldn't be a surprise that the Wendigo folklore has lasted so long. What is surprising though is just how consistent it's been over the past few centuries. The names may vary from one people group to another, but the Wendigo has seemingly always been there, like the shadows at the edge of the firelights.


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[Assistant] One common thread is the creature's physical description. That tall human-like body topped by an antlered skull is almost universal. And so is the claim that its heart is frozen solid like a block of ice. In fact, most of the indigenous cultures that whisper about the wendigo refer to it as a spirit of winter.


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[Assistant] At the very least, the stories about it have a way of giving us chills.


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[Assistant] And there are a lot of stories to pick from, too. In his book called Observations on Hudson's Bay 1743, fur trader James Isham tried his best to record customs and stories he learned from the Cree people that he traded with. Among a list of Cree words in his book, there's an entry for something called the Wittiko.


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[Assistant] In the column beside it, he simply wrote the devil.


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[Assistant] And other hunters from the same period warned of evil cannibalistic monsters in the area. Another Hudson Bay Company trader, Richard Norton, recorded the story of a pair of Cree women who arrived at Fort Churchill in the winter of 1741.


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[Assistant] They had fled the younger woman's husband who had become overcome with some supernatural force that drove him to murder and eat their children.


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[Assistant] But the most graphic and textbook description of this transformation was actually recorded nearly a century earlier, in 1661. That's when a Jesuit missionary named Paul Lujan wrote down a story that he experienced firsthand.


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[Assistant] He and a handful of other Jesuits have been traveling through the St. Lawrence Valley and were nearing a place where they would exchange guides. But when they arrived, only one man was waiting for them and he informed them that their new guides would not be coming to help. Why? Because they were dead.


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[Assistant] They are afflicted with neither lunacy, hypochondria, nor frenzy, he wrote, but have a combination of all these species of disease which affects their imaginations and causes them a more than canine hunger.


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[Assistant] This makes them so ravenous for human flesh that they pounce upon women, children, and even upon men, like veritable werewolves, and devour them voraciously without being able to appease their appetite. Ever seeking fresh prey, and the more greedily the more they eat.


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[Assistant] This ailment attacked our deputies, and as death is the sole remedy, they were slain in order to stay the course of their madness.


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[Assistant] And I think there's an important lesson we can learn from this eyewitness account which helps us better understand the folklore of the Wendigo. Even three and a half centuries ago, it was clear that the Wendigo were more than purely supernatural creatures lurking in the forest.


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[Assistant] They were people transformed by something evil who did unspeakable things to others.


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[Assistant] Today, modern historians and mental health experts have looked back on the trail of stories and given that sort of behavior a name. Wendigo psychosis.


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[Assistant] But let me be clear, mental health is always deeply complex, intensely personal, and easily colored by culture and tradition, especially when violence and folklore share the same space.


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[Assistant] Despite the story's chilling description of evil behavior, it's clear that it was people who made it happen.


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[Assistant] And I think that highlights the most frightening truth at the center of this folklore. Wherever people go, the real monster is never far behind.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was researched, written, and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with music by Chad Lawson.


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[Assistant] Lore is much more than just a podcast. There is a book series available in bookstores and online, and two seasons of the television show on Amazon Prime Video. Check them both out if you want a bit more lore in your life.


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[Assistant] I also make and executive produce a whole bunch of other podcasts, all of which I think you'd enjoy. My production company, Grim and Mild, specializes in shows that sit at the intersection of the dark and the historical. You can learn more about all of our shows and everything else going on over in one central place, grimandmild.com.


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[Assistant] And you can also follow this show on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Just search for Lore Podcast. All one word, and then click that follow button. And when you do, say hi. I like it when people say hi. And as always, thanks for listening.


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[Assistant] In 1890, the tiny Greek village of Messaria on the island of Kythnos was plagued by something otherworldly. Whatever it was, the villagers claimed that it would enter their homes, eat their food, break their dishes, and then move on to repeat itself elsewhere.


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[Assistant] They named this creature Andelavirus, and they claimed that it was a Vrikulakis, a close cousin of the traditional European vampire. Andelavirus drank their wine and smashed their belongings, howling like a wolf and making a loud, terrible mess.


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[Assistant] But the most interesting feature of this story is that no one actually saw Andalavarus do these things. The villagers claimed to witness it all, of course, but they said he was invisible. He was, in essence, a noisy spirit, but the only cultural lens they were able to view him through was as a vampire.


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[Assistant] And they weren't the first. Between 1591 and 1923, people across Europe told similar stories. An invisible monster that raided their homes and destroyed their belongings.


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[Assistant] Today we see events like these play out across the screens of our local movie theaters. Hollywood has been fascinated with invisible, violent forces since the early 1980s when they brought us Poltergeist. What once was looked on as overly spiritual and easily disproven is now attracting the attention of popular culture.


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[Assistant] But poltergeists have a history that runs far deeper than just the 1980s. From first century Roman accounts to modern newspapers, the stories of humans interacting with angry ghosts have been told for a very, very long time.


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[Assistant] Some are clearly hoaxes. Some are misinterpretations of natural events. Oftentimes they are a grab for attention or a cry for help. But sometimes, on very rare occasions, a story comes along that is nothing short of haunting.


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[Assistant] The word poltergeist evokes a number of ideas for most people. Most think of the movie. Some picture objects being thrown around a room by an invisible hand. They even might envision the sound of chains and doors creaking open in the night.


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[Assistant] And that wouldn't be too far from the truth. The word poltergeist is German, and it literally means noisy spirit. The idea is that while the typical ghost story only uses one of our five senses, our sight, stories of poltergeist can often sometimes tap all five.


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[Assistant] Most poltergeist accounts reference the same types of activity. Objects that are mysteriously moved or broken, noises in and around the house, physical attacks such as biting, pinching, hitting, and even tripping. Some people even claim to have seen objects or other people levitated by an unseen force.


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[Assistant] And unlike some folklore, stories of noisy spirits are nearly universal. Similar manifestations have been reported by witnesses in dozens of cultures for centuries, from Japan and Brazil to Australia and the United States.


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[Assistant] For those who view widespread distribution as major sign of proof, the poltergeist has become an indisputable fact.


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[Assistant] One of the earliest records of a poltergeist encounter actually comes from the first century Jewish historian Flavius Josephus. He recorded an exorcism in 94 AD that sounds eerily similar to those of us familiar with modern exorcism tales.


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[Assistant] In his report, he describes how, as the spirit was being driven from the person, a bowl of water all the way across the room was suddenly overturned by an invisible force.


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[Assistant] And Jacob Grimm, half of the famous Grimm brothers, who recorded many of the stories we remember from our childhood, also wrote more scholarly books. In his book, Deutsch Mythologie, Grimm recorded a story from the German town of Bingen am Rhein that took place in the 4th century.


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[Assistant] Gerald of Wales, the famous clergyman and chronicler, wrote in 1191 of a house in Pembrokeshire that was filled with poltergeist activity.


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[Assistant] Here, the unseen spirit was said to have thrown handfuls of dirt, as well as tearing clothing and breaking objects in the house. Most frightening to those who experienced it, though, was the fact that this spirit was also said to vocalize all of the secrets of the people in the room.


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[Assistant] In one story from the early 1700s, one family encountered unusual activity in the church rectory of Epworth, Lincolnshire. Reverend Samuel Wesley and his wife Susanna had 10 children and had lived in the house since it had been built shortly after the previous rectory burned to the ground in 1709.


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[Assistant] During the winter of 1716 and 1717, the family began to experience regular noises. They would hear knocking on the walls and doors, or the sounds of people running up and down the stairs.


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[Assistant] The house was searched from top to bottom, hoping to find the person responsible, but no cause was found. They even named the noisy spirit Old Jeffrey, and it was said that the spirit made himself visible on Christmas Day that winter. Shortly after, the noises stopped, never to happen again.


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[Assistant] In more modern times, one well-known story is that of the Black Monk of Pontefract. There, in the growing community just outside the city of Wakefield in West Yorkshire, England, reports began to circulate about the most violent poltergeist in European history.


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[Assistant] Joe and Jean Pritchard lived at number 30 East Drive in 1970, along with their son Philip and their daughter Diane. According to the report, they were plagued by problems in the house from the start. Objects were thrown, the temperature in rooms would suddenly drop, and they would even find puddles on the floor.


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[Assistant] They named their spirit Fred and soon learned that Fred was not just mischievous but also violent. Not only did the spirit throw eggs and take bites out of their sandwiches, but it also dragged their 12-year-old daughter Diane up the stairs by her neck, leaving handprints on her skin.


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[Assistant] After Fred attempted to strangle Diane a second time, this time with an electrical cord, the family asked for help.


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[Assistant] The police were brought in, as were a number of psychics and paranormal researchers. Even the mayor came by for a visit, but nothing seemed to help. Eventually, the Pritchards moved away, and the noises inside number 30 stopped.


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[Assistant] But according to the woman who lived next door in the house that's connected to number 30, Fred the Ghost hasn't gone anywhere. He still makes frequent visits to her side of the wall, and although he's usually very quiet, she claims that he sometimes stands in the room and glares at her with menacing eyes.


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[Assistant] Under the scrutiny of historical research though, most recorded poltergeist stories have been shown to be frauds. Oftentimes, they were nothing more than pranks put on by the homeowner or the person who stood the most to gain from the attention. But every now and then, a story comes along that defies explanation.


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[Assistant] And when that story involves violent physical attacks and a serious threat to human lives, it becomes downright chilling.


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[Assistant] In 1999, a homeless man broke into a large tomb in a prominent cemetery known as Greyfriars in Edinburgh, Scotland. It was cold and rainy that night, and the man was looking for shelter. I might have gone elsewhere to find a warm, dry place to sleep, but when you're down and out, anything will do, I suppose.


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[Assistant] This man wandered through the graveyard in the dark until he found a large mausoleum, something that looked large enough to allow him to get out of the elements and sleep in relative comfort. This one was known as the Black Mausoleum, and it was enormous. It resembles a large rotunda, with the spaces between the pillars filled in with cut stone.


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[Assistant] When the man stumbled upon this tomb, it was exactly what he had been looking for. It had plenty of room to stretch out and sleep in, and it was dry. So he did what anyone desperate for shelter would do. He broke in.


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[Assistant] Because it's rare to find a tomb with windows, the interior of the vault was completely black. Thankfully the man had a lighter with him, or some other form of illumination, and he used it to explore.


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[Assistant] In the center of the floor was a large iron grate, similar to what you might find over a sewer drain or in the sidewalk over a subway tunnel in New York City. Beneath the grate though,


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[Assistant] They were, of course, very old, and the man probably assumed that because of this, they would contain valuables that he might sell. I imagine he set down whatever it was he was using as a light on one of the nearby coffins, and then began to try and open another of them up. When it didn't open, he resorted to smashing the lid to break the lock. And that's when he took a step backward.


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[Assistant] The boards in the floor must have been very old. The man must have put his full weight in just the right spot. And all of those possibilities must have lined up perfectly in that moment.


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[Assistant] A brief groan from the wooden floor was followed by a loud crash and the man tumbled backward into a long forgotten pit, some part of an even lower level that dated back centuries.


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[Assistant] What they do know, however, is that the pit was sealed very well. So sealed, in fact, that when this man landed on the pile of 350 year old corpses, they were surprisingly well preserved.


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[Assistant] They weren't skeletal and dry, like you might expect. No, these bodies were wet with something that resembled green slime. Their clothing was intact, albeit ragged and torn, and their hair was matted to their shriveled heads. And of course, there was an overwhelming stench in the air.


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[Assistant] The man bolted, and I don't think there's a single one of us who could blame him. Fearing for his life, the man climbed out of the pit, up the stone stairs and into the vault, and out the door. He was in such a hurry that he even fell and cut his head on the doorway to the mausoleum.


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[Assistant] Outside, a security guard was patrolling the area with his canine partner when the man burst out of the tomb.


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[Assistant] Maybe it was the blood running down the man's face. Maybe it was the white dust that covered him from head to toe because of his adventures below the tomb. Or maybe it was the simple sight of a pale, shrieking figure charging out from the dark crypt.


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[Assistant] Whatever it was, when the guard saw the man, he turned tail and ran just as fast as he could, away from the darkness of the cemetery and into the city beyond.


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[Assistant] As difficult as it is to imagine, the frightening events of that night in 1999 were just the beginning. Like a tiny spark, igniting an entire barn, the break-in at the Black Mausoleum set in motion something that no one has since been able to adequately explain.


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[Assistant] It turns out the Mausoleum belonged to none other than Sir George Mackenzie, a man who died in 1690. Along with being a lawyer and Lord Advocate to the Crown of Scotland, Mackenzie had been instrumental in sending hundreds of Presbyterian Covenanters to their deaths in the late 17th century.


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[Assistant] Today he is known as Bloody Mackenzie, and according to the local reports, this invasion of his resting place set off a series of events that can only be blamed on a very angry spirit. And it didn't wait very long.


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[Assistant] The day after the break-in, a woman was taking a walk through the cemetery. It's unclear whether she was a tourist interested in seeing the Covenanter's prison area of the graveyard or a local just out for a walk.


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[Assistant] But when she drew near to the mausoleum, she decided to peer through one of the small grates in the tomb door. As she stood there, a gust of cold wind rushed out of the tomb with such force that she claims it knocked her backward and off the stone steps, landing on her back.


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[Assistant] A few days later, another woman was found unconscious on the sidewalk outside the tomb, sprawled out on her back as if she had fallen. She claimed that invisible hands had grabbed her around the throat and attempted to strangle her. And when she pulled back the collar of her shirt, her neck was ringed by a series of dark bruises, as if fingerprints had been driven into her skin.


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[Assistant] Soon after, another tourist, this time a young man, experienced something eerily similar.


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[Assistant] For others though, the consequences of visiting the tomb were more physical and lasting. Some people have found scratches on their arms, neck, or chest, while others have discovered burn marks. Many of these injuries disappear almost as quickly and mysteriously as they had appeared. Some though, claim to have been permanently scarred.


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[Assistant] All told, people have broken fingers, felt their hair pulled, been pushed or struck, and all by an unseen force.


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[Assistant] People have even felt nauseous or numb, or both. And not just one or two people, but hundreds. Sometimes these attacks happen near the tomb, and sometimes they happen later after visiting it.


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[Assistant] One story in particular stands out. A former police officer reported participating in a tour of the cemetery a few years ago. After returning to his hotel room that night, he picked up the book he had been given on the tour that covered the details of the hauntings. As he did, he felt a sharp pain, as if someone were trying to burn him.


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[Assistant] When he ran to the mirror to check, he found five deep scratches on his neck just beneath his chin.


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[Assistant] The following morning the officer visited his mother and told her what happened. He also gave her the book. According to him, he couldn't stand to have it around any longer and so he left it at her house.


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[Assistant] When he called her later and asked about the book, he caught her in the bathroom. She was standing in front of a mirror.


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[Assistant] Examining five long scratches on her throat.