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[Assistant] The centuries have transformed that turn up into something else, and the folks who imitate the legend have mostly forgotten why they do it. For a long time the tradition became more about using light to ward off evil spirits, but today it's honestly just a lot of commercialism.


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[Assistant] People take their folklore with them. It's one of the things I love most about story. It's ever so portable, travel-ready, and easy to transplant into new locations. And ghost lights are no exception.


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[Assistant] So it probably shouldn't be a surprise that stories of spectral lights managed to follow immigrants from Britain and Europe into the new world of North America. Which is why today you can look around the country and spot traces of them everywhere. Take, for example, the place called the Devil's Promenade.


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[Assistant] Located just outside of Joplin, Missouri, this location is known for random sightings of balls of light, sometimes grouped together and sometimes solo.


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[Assistant] Legend says that they appear near the spot where the Trail of Tears passes by the town, but there are other theories as well. From Confederate ghosts to lost lovers, the only thing more common than the sightings are the proposed reasons behind them.


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[Assistant] In the area northwest of Gurdon, Arkansas, they tell stories of the Gurdon Lights. This one seems to haunt a train track, which has led some to suspect that it's the ghost of a dead railroad worker named Will McClain, who was murdered near that location by a co-worker in 1931.


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[Assistant] It's certainly the type of story you'd expect to be paired up with ghostly lights, but whether it's true or not is up for debate.


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[Assistant] And we can't ignore the brown mountain lights, witnessed by many people in the brown mountains of North Carolina. Sometimes described as balls of fire, while other times as candlelight, these spectral lights have been spotted by travelers and locals for generations.


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[Assistant] The main story attached to them is that they are the spirits of Native American warriors who died in a great battle over eight centuries ago.


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[Assistant] But at the top of almost every list of American ghost-like collections is a location from Texas. The tiny village of Marfa is one of those blink and you'll miss it sort of places in western Texas. But for such a small community, it has a name that's practically legendary in the paranormal community. And the reason, of course, is the lights.


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[Assistant] They were first noticed way back in 1883. According to a young man named Robert Reed, who was a 16 year old cattle hand at the time, the lights appeared during one of the nights on a long cattle drive from Antelope Springs in Paisano Pass.


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[Assistant] And if we remember that this happened before people were walking around with glowing pocket computers or even flashlights, it's easy to see why Robert grew concerned.


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[Assistant] The lights he saw seemed to flicker all over a nearby mountain, and although he wanted to believe that they were the campfires of local Native Americans or even fellow ranchers, the way they moved in and out of visibility didn't seem to fit that theory. According to his daughter, who gave an interview many years later,


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[Assistant] Roberts apparently saw the lights on a regular basis, so much so that they just sort of became part of the environment for him. But a generation or so later, in 1916, the sightings began to take on, if you'll pardon the pun, a whole new light.


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[Assistant] That was the year Hailey Stillwell came to Marfa with some friends, riding in the back of a truck.


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[Assistant] They had stopped to chat with some locals that night when someone pointed out the odd collection of lights on the nearby mountain, the same mountain Robert Reed had camped beside. They too felt that the lights behaved in a way that


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[Assistant] Made a human origin unlikely. And so, jokingly, they refer to them as ghost lights.


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[Assistant] They were probably not the first to do so, but they definitely weren't the last. And over the years, the Marfa ghost lights, as they're now known, have become legendary.


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[Assistant] So much so that in 1943, a World War II pilot at a Texas Air Force base actually tried to fly over the lights to identify them. But the task turned out to be more difficult than they expected.


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[Assistant] Pilot Fritz Kahl said that he was given the location by a local and he and a co-pilot flew so low over that location that they could see the individual leaves on the plants growing there. But they never spotted the lights from the air.


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[Assistant] Those who do have the privilege of spotting them typically do so from a small area off of US Route 67, about 9 miles outside of Marfa. And I know what you're thinking. Seeing them so close to a highway probably means the lights are just odd reflections from headlights.


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[Assistant] But these lights do things that headlights cannot, like split apart or melt together, sometimes horizontally, and sometimes vertically.


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[Assistant] Today the folks in the area know they've got a good thing on their hands, no matter what the lights themselves might mean. They've made it easier for travelers to pull over at night and look for the lights, and even set up a bunch of picnic tables so people can eat while they watch.


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[Assistant] Back in 2003, the town used federal funds to the tune of about three quarters of a million dollars to build a viewing center there. Along with air conditioning and better seating, you can find binoculars, informational guides, and of course, restrooms.


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[Assistant] I'm not sure I'm willing to go on record as saying the Marfa lights are real, but I've also never been there and seen them with my own eyes. But what I do know is that for over a century, people in that area have been witness to something unusual, and I can see how easy it might be to build a mythology around it.


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[Assistant] The best thing any of us could do is visit that spot on Route 67 for ourselves, wait for the sun to go down, and look around for the lights. Just be sure to pull over before you do.


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[Assistant] As always folks, thanks so much for watching. Credits for today's episode are in the description below.


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[Assistant] Lore has been a podcast since 2015 with over 375 million downloads to dates. You can learn more about the show over at lorepodcast.com. And of course, be sure to click the subscribe button and the bell icon so that you don't miss future episodes. And if you enjoyed this one, be sure to click the thumbs up.


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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 watching.


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[Assistant] If you live there, you just sort of accepted the fact that at some point, things were going to disappear. But of course, that was the price you had to pay if you wanted to live in one of the most beautiful parts of Maine.


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[Assistant] It was a vast expanse of old growth forest just 20 miles north of Augusta, Maine's capital city.


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[Assistant] Those miles and miles of deep green treetops are only broken by the occasional lake. Great pond. East pond. The Narrows. And for as long as anyone could remember, if you had a cabin in that area, you'd be wise to lock it up. Because things had a way of going missing.


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[Assistant] His name was Christopher Thomas Knight. He'd lived there in the forest for nearly 30 years, subsisting entirely off nature and stolen supplies. And he'd been perfectly happy doing so.


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[Assistant] Until his arrest though, he was just one of hundreds of people who step into America's forests each year and just... vanish.


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[Assistant] After he went missing, everyone just assumed Knight was dead. Because when you slip away like that, into the dark embrace of the wild and wooded backcountry, your chances are pretty slim.


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[Assistant] We humans have tamed much of the world with our roads and maps. There are still a lot of unknown places out there, and the unknown always has a way of inspiring fear. Add in the chance of disappearing and never coming back, and the woods can be downright terrifying.


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[Assistant] Some locations, though, seem to attract a disproportionate amount of mystery. They act like magnets for tragedy or a dark beacon designed to lure people to their doom. And one of the most mysterious places of all is right here in the wilds of New England. So, let's take a walk.


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[Assistant] You never know what's waiting for you, just beyond the edges of the path.


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[Assistant] Bening Wentworth was a greedy, egotistical man, which made him a perfect fit for the age of British colonial expansion into the New World.


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[Assistant] In 1741, at the age of 45, he was appointed governor of the colony of New Hampshire. Eight years later, the Crown gave him the power to distribute land grants.


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[Assistant] In 1761, he drew up charters for new territory in what would one day become Vermont, arbitrarily drawing township squares all over the map.


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[Assistant] One of those random boundaries was drawn around a mountain in the southwestern corner of the state, just northeast of Bennington, a town, of course, named by Bennington Wentworth after himself. And this mountain and the township around it borrowed a magical name from England. Glastonbury.


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[Assistant] This mountain is an interesting piece of folklore jutting up from the landscape. Long before the British began to spread into the region, the land there belonged to the Algonquin Nation of Native Americans, specifically the Abenaki tribe, and they have stories about the mountain there. Stories that are not tourist friendly.


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[Assistant] The Abenaki stayed away from the top of the mountain because they believed it was cursed. Hunters would frequently get lost there thanks in part to the erratic wind that seemed to change direction every few minutes.


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[Assistant] But the biggest reason for staying away was the legend of the Enchanted Stone. They say it looked like any other boulder on the mountain, but if you were unlucky enough to step on it, you would vanish into thin air. So quickly, in fact, that you wouldn't even have time to scream.


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[Assistant] Because of all of that, when the first settlers arrived in southern Vermont, the Abenaki strongly urged them to avoid settling on the mountain. Which, of course, they did anyway.


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[Assistant] In 1791, at the time of the first state census, Glastonbury Township had a total of six families living there. But it wasn't until after the Civil War was over that the population broke 100.


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[Assistant] That's when people started to realize, hey, there are a lot of trees here.


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[Assistant] So they built a sawmill, and then another, and soon they were building kilns too, dozens of them, all running non-stop to create charcoal that was then exported to places like New York for use in iron production. And with all that economic growth, came a lot more people.


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[Assistant] In 1872, the Bennington-Glastonbury Railroad was constructed as a way to move the charcoal down the mountain faster, and to bring settlers back up.


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[Assistant] But wherever humans gather in large numbers, so does darkness. It's like a cloud that follows us around. Wherever we build communities, tragedy and loss and death just sort of come with the package.


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[Assistant] In 1892, a sawmill worker named Henry McDowell attacked another man, John Crawley, by picking up a rock and beating him to death.


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[Assistant] Before the authorities could capture McDowell, he skipped town and headed south.


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[Assistant] He made it as far as South Norwalk, Connecticut, before he was taken into custody. But it only got weirder from there.


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[Assistant] He confessed to the murder but blamed it on the voices in his head.


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[Assistant] They wouldn't stop, he said, and they wanted him to kill again.


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[Assistant] So, he was returned to Vermont and placed in the state asylum there. For a while, at least.


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[Assistant] Local legend says that McDowell escaped the facility and made his way back to Glastonbury by hiding on one of the train cars that headed up the mountain. If the legend is true, he lived out the rest of his days right there in the forest.


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[Assistant] Five years later, in 1897, John Harbor and his brother Harry were out hunting just south of Glastonbury Mountain. They had separated a bit, although in the forest all you really needed was a few dozen feet of distance before you felt isolated and alone.


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[Assistant] At one point, Harry heard a gun go off and then a cry for help from somewhere nearby. I've been shot, the voice of John had shouted.


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[Assistant] Harry searched the area, but he couldn't find his brother. He gathered some friends to help, but still, they had no luck. It wasn't until the following morning that they finally stumbled upon his body. But there was something not quite right about the scene they discovered.


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[Assistant] First, John's body was found laying under the wide branches of an old cedar tree, with his rifle laying beside him. But the gun was loaded and seemed to be just out of reach, as if someone else had placed it there later. And there were also drag marks in the pine needles and dirt, indicating that John had been dragged to the tree.


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[Assistant] No one ever figured out how John Harbor had been killed. No other hunter came forward to confess they accidentally shot the man. And no other clues came to light. It was murder. That much was clear. But it would forever remain a tragic cold case.


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[Assistant] Which, in most other towns, might stand out on the pages of local history as a major story.


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[Assistant] But Glastonbury wasn't like most towns. The people there were no stranger to unusual occurrences. Yes, John Harbor's death was mysterious, but it also wasn't the first time something unexplainable had happened. And tragically, it wouldn't be the last.


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[Assistant] There's a story about something that happened near Glastonbury way back in the middle of the 19th century, a few decades before the murders of John Crowley and John Harbor. If it's true though, it paints a frightening backdrop for a lot of the events that followed through the years.


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[Assistant] Before the train route was constructed between Bennington and Glastonbury, people who didn't want to hike all the way up the mountain were transported by stagecoach. This particular trip departed Bennington late in the evening, and by the time they were halfway to their destination, the skies had opened up and a torrential downpour had begun to fall.


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[Assistant] Which wasn't a great place to be. Glastonbury Mountain is steep, rising an average of 250 feet every mile. But the stagecoach would have been making that journey on a wide dirt path. Dirt, mind you. That would have quickly transformed into mud as the rain continued to fall.


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[Assistant] At first, the driver slowed down, but then he was forced to pull over and stop.


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[Assistant] Despite the rain, he picked up his glass covered lantern and climbed down from his seat.


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[Assistant] Then, careful not to slip, he began to inspect the wheels and the depth of the mud they were buried in. And that's when he noticed something odd.


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[Assistant] There were footprints in the mud around the coach. Footprints that were much larger than his own. And if the impressions were any indication, the feet that made them weren't wearing shoes.


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[Assistant] So, like any expendable extra in a horror flick, he turned


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[Assistant] And followed them, only to discover that they vanished into the forest.


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[Assistant] That's when something large and powerful slammed into the side of the carriage. Passengers began to exit the coach, spilling out into the mud and rain. A moment later, the stagecoach toppled onto its side.


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[Assistant] Then, slowly emerging from the darkness at the side of the road, a shape stepped into the weak lantern light.


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[Assistant] They say it was tall, perhaps two heads taller than a grown man. The thing, whatever it was, was covered entirely in wet, matted hair and its eyes seemed to reflect a yellow light back from the lantern.


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[Assistant] For a long, tense moment, the creature stood there beside the wreckage of the overturned stagecoach before turning away, blending into the shadows once again.


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[Assistant] Life in Glastonbury was certainly never boring.


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[Assistant] Between the nighttime encounter with what would become known as the Bennington Monster and the murders to follow a couple of decades later, people in the area never really felt completely safe in their isolated woodland community. But there was more to worry about than mysterious creatures. Glastonbury, you see, was dying. It was inevitable, really.


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[Assistant] When your only business is cutting down trees, chopping them up, and then burning them, it has a way of transforming a place.


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[Assistant] By the late 1880s, all the local forest was gone, stripped away by the economic greed of the town.


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[Assistant] They tried to fight it though. Beginning in 1894, everything was reinvented with an eye toward bringing in summer tourists. The local coal-powered train was converted over to electric passenger trolleys. Buildings in town were gutted and remodeled to serve as hotels and a casino. It was expensive, sure, but it was also their only hope.


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[Assistant] If they could no longer sell the forest, they had to market something else to the community. And for one season it worked.


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[Assistant] During the summer of 1897, scores of people traveled far and wide to experience life in a frontier resort town. The hotels were full, and the casino offered ample entertainment.


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[Assistant] But a mountain stripped of its forest is a mountain ill-prepared for spring and when the calendar rolled around and the snow began to melt something happened. A flood.


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[Assistant] The technical term for it is a freshet, when snow and rain overfill a river and cause flooding. And in the spring of 1898, a powerful flood rushed down the mountainside and washed away the trolley tracks. In one tragic moment, the town's new lifeline had been severed, and like a garden without water, everything began to dry up and die.


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[Assistant] Over the years to come, Glastonbury all but vanished. The hotels and casino fell apart. Homes disintegrated until nothing but their foundation stones remained. By the 1930s, the entire population of Glastonbury consisted of just three people. Ira Madison, his wife, and his mother.


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[Assistant] You see, the trees eventually returned. And with them came that sirens call that lures people into the woods. Except, these were probably not the best woods to wander around in. The Abenaki tribesmen had been pretty clear about that, after all. Despite all of that, people returned to Glastonbury Mountain. But when they did, they discovered a very difficult truth.


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[Assistant] It seemed that the darkness that inhabited the mountain had never really left.


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[Assistant] On November 11th of 1943, two men went hunting just north of Glastonbury Mountain. There was a chill in the air that morning as Carl Herrick and his cousin Henry set up their camp, and then the men grabbed their rifles and headed out into the woods. It was deer season, and they wanted to make the most of their time. During the hunt, the men split up.


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[Assistant] It was a common thing to do, even though it left each of them alone in a forest full of dangers.


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[Assistant] By afternoon, Henry had given up and wandered back to camp, but Carl wasn't there yet, so he waited.


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[Assistant] When daylight had faded into that gray hazy twilight between day and night, Henry finally decided something was wrong. So he hiked his way back out of the trees and ran to the police.


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[Assistant] After gathering some help together, everyone returned to the woods near the campsite to begin their search for Carl. It took them three days.


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[Assistant] Three days of slowly walking through the trees. Three days in the snow and cold. Three days of worry. But in the end, they found him.


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[Assistant] Carl's body was laying flat on the ground, and his rifle was nearly 100 feet away, just leaning against a tree.


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[Assistant] Interestingly, the ground around his body was covered in enormous footprints. The hunters who found him weren't sure what sort of animal had made them, but they guessed it had been a bear. Which was odd, because Carl Herrick hadn't been mauled or injured in any way consistent with a bear attack. He'd been squeezed to death.


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[Assistant] Sadly, Carl wouldn't be the last to experience the dangerous nature of the woods around Glastonbury Mountain.


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[Assistant] Just two years later, in 1945, a 74-year-old hunting guide named Middie Rivers was leading a group of visiting hunters through the trees when he slipped on a view ahead of them.


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[Assistant] A year after Rivers vanished into the unknown, Paula left her college dorm in Bennington to go for a hike. At 3pm on December 1st, she pulled on her bright red jacket and hiking shoes and set off on the well-known Long Trail where many people remembered seeing her. But she never returned.


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[Assistant] One elderly couple that saw her that day claimed that she had been about 100 yards ahead of them, but they lost sight of her when she rounded a bend where two trails intersected. When they reached the same crossing, they were surprised to no longer see her. She'd simply vanished.


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[Assistant] There was a massive search effort. There was a large cash reward. They had helicopters and dogs and over a thousand people. Everything that could have been done was done to find her.


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[Assistant] And with that bright red jacket on, you'd think she'd be easy to spot. But after three long weeks of fruitless searching, they all went home empty handed.


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[Assistant] Four years later, on October 9th of 1950, Paul Jepson was out with his mother in their truck. I've read that the Jepson's ran the town dump, or were maybe pig farmers, so I'm not exactly sure what Paul's mother was doing that day. But she pulled over there near the treeline and got out of the truck for a moment, leaving eight-year-old Paul inside. When she returned, he was gone. She shouted for him, but no one answered.


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[Assistant] Overcome with panic, she called the authorities for help, and soon a whole team of rescue workers began to scour the woods there. It also might be worth pointing out that, like Weldon, little Paul was wearing a red jacket. But it wasn't meant to be.


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[Assistant] Paul's scent was followed by bloodhounds all the way to an intersection where it vanished. The same intersection, according to some locals, where Paula Weldon disappeared in front of the elderly couple.


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[Assistant] The Glastonbury Woods, it seems, had claimed another life.


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[Assistant] Later that same month, Frieda Langer and her family were camped on the east side of the mountain.


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[Assistant] Frieda was 53, incredibly knowledgeable of the area around the mountain and a skilled hiker. So when she and her cousin Herbert Elsner headed out for a hike on October 28th, they expected a good workout through some beautiful scenery and nothing more.


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[Assistant] About 10 minutes into the hike, Frieda slipped while crossing a small stream. She wasn't hurt, but the fall had soaked her clothes and shoes, which she knew was not going to make for a comfortable hike. So she told her cousin to hold tight and ran back toward camp to quickly change.


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[Assistant] After waiting for almost an hour, Elzner started walking back toward camp.


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[Assistant] He wasn't sure what had been taking Frieda so long, but he assumed he would bump into her on the trail at some point. But he didn't.


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[Assistant] And when he stepped out of the trees and into camp, no one else had seen her either.


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[Assistant] Over the decades since all of the disappearances occurred, there have been a lot of theories tossed around. Perhaps that creature witnessed in the rain that night near Long Trail was still active and alive. Or maybe other humans are to blame, even a local serial killer.


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[Assistant] Some have even suggested that after Henry McDowell escaped from the Vermont state asylum, he took up residence in the forest right there and was somehow still alive and healthy enough in the 1940s and 50s to kidnap and kill people.


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[Assistant] Real people have stepped into those woods and vanished. People with lives and families and futures that all came to an abrupt end in the shadows between those trees. And all of that loss comes with its own fair share of real pain. It's a sobering thought.


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[Assistant] The one thing we all wish would vanish into the woods, all of that loss and pain and grief, seems determined to stick around.


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[Assistant] The woods have always been a dangerous place. We can hurt ourselves there. We can get hurt by other things. It's wilderness, after all, so it's about as far from safety as we can get.


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[Assistant] But when you take all of the stories into account, it feels like there's something more than dangerous about Glastonbury Mountain.


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[Assistant] Some people believe that wearing the color red is a surefire way to guarantee your disappearance, as noted in some of the cases. But I can't find any evidence that Frieda had been wearing a red coat the day she disappeared. The same for Midi Rivers.


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[Assistant] Sometimes coincidence is nothing more than that. Random details that appear to line up in a neat row, when maybe they really don't. Our brains like to connect the dots though.


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[Assistant] We look for patterns, like red coats or geographic epicenters. Patterns are like tire tracks in a dirt road because they're easy to slip into and hard to avoid. They feel significant, even though they often aren't.


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[Assistant] Rationally, all of these disappearances could be viewed as nothing more than pure coincidence. These are dense woods, after all, and hikers go missing all over the world every single day for a variety of simple reasons. They lose their way, they get hurt, or they encounter a wild animal.


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[Assistant] Local Vermont folklorist Joseph Citro was the first to call the area the Bennington Triangle, drawing comparisons to the more famous triangle off the coast of Bermuda. But rather than ships and fighter jets, the Bennington Triangle just seems to be interested in people.


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[Assistant] And the name has stuck. Probably because it feels like such a good fit.


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[Assistant] Some people think it's all because the mountain is cursed. Those enchanted stones, the ones the Abenaki claimed would swallow people whole, are like supernatural fly traps and the hunters and hikers who encounter them can never return.


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[Assistant] Interestingly, a number of small cairns, stone mounds or towers used to mark special locations have been found on the mountain.


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[Assistant] The local Native Americans won't take credit for them, and they're too high up to have been built by the loggers and farmers who once inhabited the town below.


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[Assistant] No one knows where they came from. It's just mysterious enough to make you wonder, isn't it?


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[Assistant] That wonder has a way of inspiring us. The legendary horror writer Shirley Jackson connected so deeply with the story of Paula Weldon that she included elements of the disappearance in her 1951 novel, Hangsaman, and then again in 1957 in a short story called The Missing Girl.


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[Assistant] To Jackson, there was a disturbing beauty in a life that was alive and thriving one moment and completely gone the next.


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[Assistant] Others, though, are drawn to the story of Frieda Langer, and for good reason.


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[Assistant] But the thing that makes her disappearance so different from the others isn't some small detail in what happened, or how, or where. It's the conclusion of it all.


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[Assistant] You see, long after the search and rescue teams had given up and gone home, after autumn, and winter, and well into spring, someone finally found Frieda Langer.


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[Assistant] Her body was discovered in a wide open area that had been thoroughly searched by hundreds of volunteers seven months before, just lying in the grass in plain sight. No cause of death could be determined.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was researched, written, and produced by me, Aaron Manke. And you can also follow the show on Facebook, Twitter, 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] Maria Arana was a Franciscan abbess who lived and worked in Spain during the first half of the 17th century. Later in life, she would become a prolific author, and everywhere she went she wore the blue garments of her order.


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[Assistant] But in 1620, when she was just 18, she started to report odd experiences.


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[Assistant] Maria claimed that she was having incredibly real visions. Visions, she said, of being in a foreign land far away from Spain.


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[Assistant] In those dreams, she encountered a tribe of people known as the Umano. But Mary considered these to be more than just dreams. She said that angels were literally transporting her to another place.


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[Assistant] For over three years, Maria spoke with the Yamano people, telling them of her work in the church and teaching them as best as she could. And then in 1623, her visions stopped.


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[Assistant] Six years later, a group of Native Americans from the western region of modern Texas approached the local Spanish authorities there, then asked for a missionary to be sent to their village.


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[Assistant] Before agreeing to do so, the local priest asked why.


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[Assistant] The men said that they'd been visited by a beautiful young woman dressed in blue, and that she had taught them many things.


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[Assistant] Those Native Americans, it turns out, were members of a tribe known as the Umano. And their arrival in 1629, along with their mysterious connection to a young abyss thousands of miles away, have sparked questions that are still impossible to answer, even now.


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[Assistant] In a world as enormous and enticing as our own, it's easy to see how people would dream of being somewhere else. We long for tropical vacations or a chance to visit our ancestral home.


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[Assistant] Right now, you might be in an office, or a classroom, or sitting in traffic, and at the same time your mind might be on a beach somewhere else entirely. But that's nothing more than a daydream. No one can be in two places at once. Or can they?


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[Assistant] There are nearly 8.5 million people living in New York City at this moment. Los Angeles is home to another 4 million, half of whom are probably sitting in their car on the 101 right now. And there are another 3 million souls in Chicago.


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[Assistant] Cities can be crowded places, no doubt about it. And it's not an American problem either. London is home to nearly 9 million human lives. Tokyo has over 13 million, and Shanghai clocks in at over 24 million. Everywhere we go, there's a crowd.


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[Assistant] And as our cities fill up faster and faster, it's no wonder some people feel a little lost. When there are 5 or 10 or 20 million other humans buzzing through our streets, how can anyone feel truly unique?


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[Assistant] How many other people on the subway with you are wearing the same color? Or the same jacket? Or sunglasses? Or headphones? How many other redheads work in your office? How many other guys in your dorm have a beard?


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[Assistant] The more of us we cram into a small space, the more our uniqueness becomes typical and common.


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[Assistant] Which is why we always step back and smile when we see someone who looks a lot like someone else, isn't it?


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[Assistant] They're an example of extreme odds, I know. The genetic role of the dice that results in your cousin looking a lot like Brad Pitt. Or Adrian Brody having more than a passing resemblance to the 17th century philosopher John Locke. Trust me on that. Look it up. It's crazy.


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[Assistant] But there's a huge difference between a genetic probability that someone somewhere else in the world might look like us and the belief that a Spanish nun could somehow transport herself around the globe through her dreams. That fantastical feat is what some writers call bi-location, which literally means two locations at once.


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[Assistant] There are stories involving by location sprinkled throughout history.


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[Assistant] Centuries ago, claiming to be present in two places at once was seen as an act of witchcraft. In fact, Maria Arana herself was investigated by the Inquisition, sort of a fanatical police force inside the Catholic Church that chased down heresy. In the end though, they didn't pursue her case.


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[Assistant] Some historians think that's because her bilocation resulted in true, fruitful missionary work, while others believed it was because she happened to be good friends with the King of Spain. Either way, her stories were believed. For others, the results weren't so positive.


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[Assistant] One of the common pieces of evidence brought up during the Salem witch trials was, in fact, by location.


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[Assistant] Many of the witnesses who claimed witchcraft had been used against them also claimed that they saw the witches themselves in spectral form inside their homes.


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[Assistant] And while the events of the Salem Witch Trial are now looked at as a horrific case of mass hysteria and social prejudice, those who lived through it firmly believed that these things were possible and therefore punishable.


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[Assistant] In more modern times, bilocation has been viewed less as an act of witchcraft, and more as a mystical ability, however fringe it might seem.


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[Assistant] Examples are found in Christianity, Judaism, Hinduism, and the occult. Famous occultist Aleister Crowley was known to appear in person in front of many of his friends while actually being far away in another location.


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[Assistant] In some cultures, these mystical duplicates are referred to as changelings, and their source is more sinister. Stories of changelings appear in the folklore of Wales, Ireland, Sweden, Poland, and many other places in Europe. And in all of them, the common thread is very dark and very terrifying to parents.


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[Assistant] Fairies from the dangerous world outside the home will, upon occasion, sneak inside and steal children.


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[Assistant] Sometimes they replace the stolen child with an enchanted wooden dummy they call a stock.


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[Assistant] Other times, they leave their own fairy child in its place. And because humans aren't skilled in caring for fairy babies or, you know, magical blocks of wood, these replacements would always fail to thrive.


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[Assistant] These tales were often used to warn mothers of the importance of watching their children closely. But when people felt that a loved one had undergone an inexplicable, dramatic shift in personality, this folklore also became the logical explanation.


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[Assistant] No ma'am, your husband hasn't become an angry, abusive monster overnight. He's just been replaced by a changeling.


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[Assistant] Today, psychologists think these stories have roots in a disorder known as Capgras Delusion, where a person believes someone close to them has been replaced with a look-alike imposter.


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[Assistant] Rather than being the work of elves though, it's a neurological disorder caused by lesions on the brain. Yet one more example of how science can take the magic out of folklore and replace it with something even more depressing and horrible.


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[Assistant] But there are other stories that are much harder to explain. Stories where more than one copy of a person has been witnessed, often times by people of strong reputation or those who can prove their claims. And while these stories have taken place in many different countries, most of them feature a term that we can trace back to one language in particular. German. And that word? Doppelgänger.


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[Assistant] The term doppelganger is one of those misused words, slapped on a whole slew of stories in a way that dilutes the true meaning.


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[Assistant] Do a Google search for celebrity doppelgangers, and you'll find lots of examples of that genetic game of chance I mentioned earlier. But strangers who look eerily like other strangers aren't doppelgangers in the true sense of the word.


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[Assistant] Doubleganger, as I said before, is a German word that means double walker, which, admittedly, isn't very specific.


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[Assistant] But in historical context, it's a term that's full of a magical connotation. Another term used interchangeably with doppelganger is the Irish Fetch. A core idea of both words, though, is the sense of seeing the ghost of someone who's still alive. An apparition or a spectral copy of a living human being.


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[Assistant] But the key characteristic of doppelgangers isn't what they are. It's what they mean.


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[Assistant] Because seeing a doppelganger or a fetch, the literal act of seeing one with your own eyes, can have powerful consequences. In fact, one common interpretation is that doppelgangers represent our true desires brought to life.


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[Assistant] Secondhand stories tell of individuals seeing the very things they wish would happen, or their spectral doubles participating in activities they long for.


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[Assistant] One story tells of a farmer who worked so long each day that he was never able to come home and see his family. On multiple occasions, his neighbors saw him walk up to the house in the afternoon and enter through the front door. All while the farmer claimed he had still been working in the fields.


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[Assistant] Sir Frederick Roche was a British military figure from the mid-1800s, and he also served as a member of parliament for over 20 years.


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[Assistant] In March of 1905 though, he was sick at home with influenza and wasn't able to travel to London to participate in a debate. He'd spent months preparing for this key political moment and was, understandably, full of regret and frustration.


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[Assistant] During the debate in London, though, another member of parliament, Gilbert Parker, turned in his seat and noticed Raj sitting toward the back of the room, near the door.


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[Assistant] Parker later said that Rosh looked, and I quote, pallid, steely and grim.


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[Assistant] But after turning away for a moment and then looking back, the sick man was gone.


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[Assistant] Later, Parker spoke with others in the room, including Sir Arthur Hayter and future Prime Minister Henry Campbell Bannerman. And both men confirmed what Parker had witnessed. Roche, they all confirmed, had been in the room.


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[Assistant] Except, he hadn't. He was still at home, sick in bed, and had never left. He wanted to be there, of course, and that, according to some, was enough to send a copy of himself.


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[Assistant] Some people, however, interpret doppelgangers as a sign or portent that something dark was about to happen. They're a visual premonition, if you will, a prediction acted out in spectral form right before our eyes. According to one story, English poet John Donne was privy to just such a vision.


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[Assistant] Dunn and his wife Anne had 12 children over the span of their 16-year marriage. In 1612, while his wife was due to give birth to their eighth child, Dunn traveled with a friend to Paris on business. And it was while he was there that he experienced a most unusual vision.


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[Assistant] One afternoon, his friend, Sir Robert Drury, entered their apartment to find Dunn in a state of shock. He was pale, almost vacant, and this worried the friend.


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[Assistant] When Drury pressed him for an explanation, Dunn told an amazing story.


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[Assistant] He'd been in his room earlier that day, when his wife appeared before him. But it hadn't been a happy vision. Anne, he said, had been weeping, and in her arms she held a dead child.


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[Assistant] Later upon returning home to England, Dunne learned that his wife had given birth to a stillborn baby on the very morning he'd witnessed her doppelganger.


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[Assistant] In other situations, seeing a doppelganger of yourself is viewed as an omen of your own impending death. And that's what happened to another writer in early 1822, according to his own account.


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[Assistant] Friends reported seeing him numerous times, only to discover that he was actually elsewhere, verifiable by other witnesses.


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[Assistant] One friend, Jane Williams, lived near the writer on a dead-end street.


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[Assistant] One day, she looked through her window to see him pass by, headed in the direction of the dead end. But after waiting for a few minutes, he never walked back.


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[Assistant] She looked outside and checked the street, but couldn't find a sign of him.


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[Assistant] More significantly though, he claimed to have seen himself on multiple occasions, which he reported later to his wife. Once, he claimed, he was walking alone on a terrace when a man approached him from the shadows. When the figure's face came into view, the writer was shocked to see that it was his own. And it spoke.


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[Assistant] How long, it asked him, do you mean to be content?


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[Assistant] Later, on July 8th of 1822, he was sailing across the Gulf of Spezia in Italy when a severe storm struck his boat, causing it to sink.


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[Assistant] All three men aboard were drowned, and their bodies washed ashore later that day.


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[Assistant] It seems that seeing your own doppelganger can, in some cases, truly end in death.


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[Assistant] The writer's name, by the way, was Percy Bish Shelley. He was a famous poet, a respected novelist, and a close friend of Lord Byron. But most remember him today as the husband of Mary Shelley.


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[Assistant] Author of the classic horror novel, Frankenstein.


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[Assistant] From the early 12th century until about a century ago, the region of Northern Europe on the coast of the Baltic Sea was known as Livonia. It's an ancient name that held on for a very long time. But today that area has become three separate countries of Estonia, Lithuania, and Latvia.


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[Assistant] The Latvian town of Almira is an important industrial center today, but two centuries ago it was home to a prestigious finishing school for girls.


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[Assistant] The school, known as the Pensiona Noiveca, was run by the Moravians and was highly sought after. If you were the daughter of a noble Livonia family, the odds were good that you would be sent there for your education. And in 1845, under the care of Principal Buch, there were 42 young women in residence at the school.


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[Assistant] One of those girls was Julie, the daughter of the Baron of Goldenstube, who was 13 years old at the time.


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[Assistant] Years later, Julie sat down with the American writer Robert Dale Owens and told him her story, which he reprinted in one of his books. It's a story that is, to say the least, peculiar.


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[Assistant] In 1845, the school welcomed a new teacher.


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[Assistant] She was in her early thirties and described as slim, with pale blue eyes and chestnut hair, and she'd traveled all the way from her home in Dijon in eastern France, although she appears to have also had family right there in Valmyra. Her name, according to Julie, was Mademoiselle Emily Sagui.


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[Assistant] A few weeks after she arrived, the students began to whisper about odd happenings. One of the girls walked into a room and asked if anyone knew where Mademoiselle Sagui was. One friend replied that she had just seen the teacher in a particular location moments before.


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[Assistant] Another girl said no, she had just spotted her in a different room. It struck the girls as odd.


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[Assistant] Weeks later, Mademoiselle Sagui was teaching a class of a dozen or so students and was using the blackboard to illustrate her lesson.


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[Assistant] While her back was to the class, the girls looked up to see a second Mademoiselle Sagui standing behind the first.


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[Assistant] They looked alike. They were dressed alike. They even moved with the same gestures. And then, after a few moments, the duplicate vanished.


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[Assistant] Which made for a tense moment a few days later when Mademoiselle Sagui offered to help one of the students clasp a difficult hook on the back of her dress. While standing in front of the mirror, the student looked into the glass to see not one, but two Mademoiselles Saguis standing behind her. The girl, frightened by what she saw, fainted instantly.


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[Assistant] Months went by, and more and more encounters were reported by the girls. Sometimes two of her would appear at the dinner table, side by side, but only one of the figures would be holding silverware.


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[Assistant] And then, just before the holiday season, the strangest event of all took place.


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[Assistant] All 42 of the students at the school had gathered in one room and were seated together at a long table. They were there to practice their embroidery and were being supervised by one of the teachers.


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[Assistant] On one wall of the room, though, was a series of tall glass windows that looked out onto the school's garden, and through them, all of the girls could see Mademoiselle Sagui, outside, gathering flowers into a basket.


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[Assistant] At some point in the lesson, their teacher stood and excused herself from the room.


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[Assistant] The girls had run out of blue silk, and she knew where to find more, so she went to retrieve it.


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[Assistant] A moment later, some of the girls gasped. Manoel Sagui had silently appeared in the vacant chair. She didn't speak or move, but all 42 of the girls saw her.


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[Assistant] The trouble was, when they turned back to the windows, they could still see her in the garden, gathering flowers.


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[Assistant] Two of the students were brave enough to stand up and approach the seated figure, and even tried to touch her. They later compared this sensation to pressing your fingertips to loose fabric. There was resistance, very little of it.


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[Assistant] When the school let out for the holidays that year, all of the girls went home and told their parents about the unusual events. And true to form, most of them were furious. How dare the school expose their daughters to such a bad influence?


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[Assistant] When school resumed weeks later, Principal Buch was shocked to learn that only 12 of the original 42 students had returned.


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[Assistant] Worried for the financial security and the reputation of the school, the principal had no choice but to fire Emily Sagui. Julie Goldenstuba was one of the few who had returned, and she claimed to have heard the teacher exclaim something to the effect of, Oh no, not again.


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[Assistant] When Julie asked her about this, Sagi replied that this wasn't the first time that this had happened. Or even the second.


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[Assistant] According to her, it had happened to her 18 times before.


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[Assistant] Julie also noted that Emily Sagui had remained in town for a few months after being fired. Apparently, her sister-in-law lived there, and Sagui had moved in and tried to find work in town. And Julie knew this because she'd actually gone to visit her there.


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[Assistant] When she arrived at the house, Julie claims that she was greeted by several young children.


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[Assistant] According to her, when she asked them where she might find Emily Sagui, the children shook their heads. They didn't know, but they told her that it was never difficult to find her.


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[Assistant] Maybe we look for similarities, because it helps us fight loneliness in a crowded world.


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[Assistant] Maybe we need those moments when we see someone else who looks a lot like someone we know, or a celebrity, or that college roommate we haven't seen in years.


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[Assistant] When we're all so very different, those similarities are like footholds giving us a place to stand, to feel safe, to find comfort.


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[Assistant] There's a bit of a rush when you see someone else wearing the same concert t-shirt you have on, or reading the same book as you in the cafe. That's one of the paradoxes of being human. We strive for individuality, and yet we long for inclusion.


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[Assistant] So it's no wonder that people for centuries have claimed to see their body double, or a duplicate of a friend or family member.


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[Assistant] On some level, it's just more of that same grasping for familiarity, isn't it?


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[Assistant] But how can over 40 students all have the same delusions? How can events repeat themselves month after month and all be explained away as just figments of the imagination? Where do we draw the line between those who can't be taken for their word and those who must?


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[Assistant] In November of 1860, a man found himself at the end of a very long, very exhausting day.


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[Assistant] Thankful to finally be home, he wandered into his bedroom and sat down on a lounge. Think of it as sort of a couch with no back, and maybe a headrest on one end. But after a long day on his feet, even a wooden bench would have felt amazing, I'm sure.


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[Assistant] He closed his eyes and felt exhaustion rush over him and then slowly lowered himself to lay down.


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[Assistant] Just a moment, he thought. That's all I need. Just a little bit of rest. Then he opened his eyes again.


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[Assistant] Straight ahead, just a few feet away, was a dresser with a mirror on top. The sort that can be pivoted to point up or down as your needs require. And the mirror appeared to have been tilted down enough that he could see himself stretched out there on the couch. But when he saw his face, he caught his breath. There were two of them. Not one.


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[Assistant] He sat up in horror and looked at the mirror again, but the duplicates were gone.


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[Assistant] He shook his head, probably mumbled something about being too tired to see straight, and then lowered himself back down once more. And there, in the mirror, he saw it again. Two copies of his own face looking back at him.


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[Assistant] He later told a friend that the faces were slightly different from each other. One of them he said seemed normal and what he might expect to find from any mirror.


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[Assistant] The other, though, seemed much more pale, more sickly. Almost dead, in fact.


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[Assistant] He shook it off for a while, but later that evening he told his wife about it. And she didn't like what she heard. Now, maybe it was her Irish and English heritage. Or perhaps it was just something she'd learned later in life. But the man's wife called it an omen. And not a good one.


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[Assistant] Much as it pained her to say it, the sign was clear. Her husband was fated to die unexpectedly, sooner rather than later. The doppelganger lore is pretty clear about it after all. Seeing your double can only end in tragedy. And it did.


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[Assistant] Less than five years later, a stranger held a gun to his head and pulled the trigger. And just who was that man in the mirror?


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[Assistant] The 16th President of the United States, Abraham Lincoln.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research help from Marset Crockett.


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[Assistant] And you can also follow the show on Facebook, Twitter, 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] In December of 1965, newspaper reporter George May was keeping the people of Frederick County, Maryland on the edge of their collective seats. For days, he had been their only source of news about something that had left almost everyone in a constant state of fear.


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[Assistant] A local man named John Becker had told his friends that something large and unnatural had attacked him outside his home a few days earlier. He described it as a dog the size of a bear with black fur and a vicious growl, and it stood on two legs.


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[Assistant] Becker claimed that this enormous beast actually attacked him, but he somehow managed to fight it off.


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[Assistant] There had been stories of something that fit Becker's description as far back as the 1890s, with sightings as recent as 1944 in nearby Carroll County.


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[Assistant] So a group of over 100 college students did the only logical thing they could think of. They organized a hunt. John Becker himself even applied for a hunting license, paying the $1 fee in cash.


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[Assistant] If anything ever came of the hunt though, it was never reported. Probably because it was all a hoax. You see, the police never received a report from John Becker about an animal attack. And the hunting license had a return address with someone else's name on it. The newspaper reporter himself, George May.


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[Assistant] It seems John Becker was no more real than the monster he was supposed to have fought. But what is real is the tension and fear.


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[Assistant] Rippled through the community there in 1965.


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[Assistant] Or maybe we know that the world holds more danger than we'd like to admit. And it's out there, waiting for us.


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[Assistant] Others dispel the darkness of superstition with the light of reason.


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[Assistant] But history holds a story of those who chose a different path. There are some, it seems, who took the fight to the darkness. So grab your metaphorical gun, embrace yourself. The hunt is about to begin.


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[Assistant] It's a seed, full of potential, just waiting for something to nourish it into maturity.


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[Assistant] And our story found its nourishment in the southeastern countryside of 18th century France.


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[Assistant] A 14-year-old girl named Jeanne Boulay from the village of Youbec was out watching over her family's cattle, up on the gentle slopes of the hills south of the city of Vivere.


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[Assistant] There are no detailed records of exactly what happened to her outside of the notes written down by a local priest upon her burial. But we know she was mauled by something. Something vicious and bloodthirsty.


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[Assistant] A month later, on August 8th, it happened again.


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[Assistant] A fifteen-year-old girl was torn to pieces by an unknown creature. Weeks later, at the end of August, a sixteen-year-old boy was found dead in the fields where he worked, clearly the victim of some sort of animal attack. It was horrible and tragic, and not at all something they felt safe dealing with. But it wasn't over either.


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[Assistant] September of 1764 saw four more deaths, three children and an adult woman. What was unnerving about her death was that it occurred just steps away from her home.


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[Assistant] All across the region of Gévaudan, people were beginning to feel unsafe.


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[Assistant] The threat of the unknown was creeping in and creating a vacuum of tension and fear, and rumor and superstition were rushing in to fill the space.


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[Assistant] These attacks weren't new to the people of rural France in the 18th century though. Over a century before, in 1634, the area around Yves Roux was plagued by a similar creature. They called it a beast because in their eyes the creature was behaving in a way that was just too unusual to be a natural thing. This, they believed, was a monster.


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[Assistant] In 1655, the province of Gethine went through the same ordeal. In 1743, it was Upper Brittany.


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[Assistant] Each time, people would die, often horribly.


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[Assistant] In the rare instances when the beast was finally killed, they would find human remains inside it. And then, the panic would shift to another community miles away, taking all that fear and superstition with it.


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[Assistant] Remember though, this is the cultural soil that we get the fairy tale of Little Red Riding Hood. Yes, it had already existed for centuries, but it was 18th century France, an era full of monstrous wolf-like attacks that gave the legend the flavor we know today.


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[Assistant] A wolf that behaves like a person and eagerly devours a little girl dressed in her red baptismal gown.


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[Assistant] No one, not even good Christian children it seems, were safe from this beast. And it didn't help that the killer seemed to be almost supernaturally violent. In October, just four months after the attacks began, three more children were mauled by the creature. Two of them died.


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[Assistant] On October 7th, a woman from the village of Apshi was literally decapitated. Her body was discovered the same day, but it took her neighbors over a week to find her head.


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[Assistant] Some, like the bishop in nearby Mond, believed that the beast had been sent by God to punish them.


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[Assistant] Others believed it was a monster of darker origin. And either way, for the uneducated farmers and shepherds of southeastern France, it was a symbol of their superstition. A monster from their darkest nightmares. A monster that needed to be destroyed.


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[Assistant] But to kill it, you had to hunt it. So in late October, a former captain in the French cavalry named Jean-Baptiste Douamel decided to do just that. When he rode into Gévaudan, it seemed to everyone as if the man had brought an army with him. At least 60 foot soldiers and another 20 men on horseback.


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[Assistant] Duamel also brought a bag of tricks with him, figuratively speaking. As he and his army moved from village to village, they would set up traps. In some places, they would build scarecrows filled with human blood and poison. On other occasions, some of his men would dress in women's clothes and walk through the woods like bait. It never seemed to work though.


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[Assistant] And then, after weeks of frustration, news of an actual sighting reached Duamel. He gathered his men and rode off to find the creature, spotting it from a distance in a wide open area. When the cavalry came within 10 meters of the beast, they opened fire, knocking it to the ground. Then, it got back up.


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[Assistant] They fired again, but the beast made a run for the tree line in the distance. Duhamel's army made chase, firing as they went, but the monster managed to slip into the shadows of the thick forest. The captain though was a determined man, and he ordered his men to step inside and follow the beast into the darkness.


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[Assistant] Nervously, placing one foot slowly in front of the other, they obeyed.


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[Assistant] When one of the men spotted the creature again, the group let loose a rain of bullets that would have taken down almost any large animal. And that seemed to be the case for them as well. The beast, off in the distance, appeared to fall to the ground. Finally, they had succeeded.


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[Assistant] The creature, whatever it had been, was dead, and the people of Gevudan were safe.


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[Assistant] All that was left now was to retrieve the corpse and bring it back for display. So they marched toward the body.


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[Assistant] The men walked with confidence, excitement even. They had won.


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[Assistant] But when they reached the spot where the beast had fallen, everyone stopped and stared.


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[Assistant] There before them lay something that inspired the deepest of fears and sent panic rippling through their ranks. Right there, where their prey should have been, was nothing. The beast was gone.


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[Assistant] Rumors of the beast had already been spreading quickly, but the news of its impossible escape from Duamel's hunting party only seemed to accelerate them. The thing they feared was still alive and apparently immune to the weapons of brave soldiers sent to defeat it.


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[Assistant] Two days after the forest hunt, more victims were discovered over three miles away. The following day, miles in another direction, the body of a young girl was found outside her family's barn, where she had gone earlier that morning to milk the cows.


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[Assistant] And that reminded people of another thing about this beast that was so different from all the others on record.


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[Assistant] The Beast of Gévaudan, it seems, really got around. Reports would sometimes occur 20 miles apart in a single day, and yet all of them would fit the exact same description.


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[Assistant] Soon, volunteers were flocking to the village to help Duamel. One report claims that at least 1200 men arrived, a stereotypical peasant army right out of a 1940s horror movie. But as the men assembled, so too did a whole new collection of rumors about the beast.


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[Assistant] There always seemed to be someone who had seen the monster and lived.


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[Assistant] One man claimed that the beast's rear legs didn't have paws as they might expect, but the hooves of a horse. Another suggested that the creature could walk on water, while someone else said they heard the thing laugh and speak.


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[Assistant] The descriptions of its attacks were just as varied. It decapitated some, but others were merely scalped. Some had their hearts removed, while others were completely disemboweled. And then,


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[Assistant] In January of 1765, something happened to validate everything.


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[Assistant] As the story goes, seven boys from Gévaudan, all roughly 12 years old, were playing near the woods on a cold winter day.


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[Assistant] While they were out there, a creature sprang out from the shadows of the forest and dragged one of the boys back into the trees.


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[Assistant] Terrified. Most of them fell back in horror and tried to run. Except one.


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[Assistant] His name was Portefe, then he was made of stronger stuff. He bolted into the woods and found the creature standing over the crumpled shape of his sobbing friend. Without hesitation, he picked up a sharp branch and stepped between his friend and the beast.


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[Assistant] And then, he swung at it, hitting the creature on the head and driving it away.


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[Assistant] When the story reached the ear of King Louis XV, the ruler took action.


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[Assistant] Now, maybe it was this tale of brave children, but it could also have been the report that local markets were shutting down out of fear, and that farmers were too afraid to go out and work in their fields. We would like to imagine political leaders were driven by compassion, but often it's the bottom line that they respond to best.


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[Assistant] Either way, King Louis put out a call to arms, asking for hunters with the experience and courage necessary to track down such an unnatural prey.


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[Assistant] Many willing volunteers arrived in Gévaudan that spring, each eager for a chance to please their king. But the most famous among them was a Norman wolf hunter named Jean-Charles de Navarre.


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[Assistant] When Deneval strolled into Gevaudan, he walked into a territory filled with tension.


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[Assistant] Maybe it was all of that pent-up frustration or such a large gathering of egos in one space. Maybe it was just fear pushing everyone against each other. But it seems that in the three months that followed the king's invitation, nothing was accomplished outside of annoying the locals who just wanted their lives to return to normal.


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[Assistant] Not for a lack of trying, though. More of those poisonous blood-filled scarecrows were set up in the region, but they were ineffective. Traps were set, and bait was laid out, but nothing was working.


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[Assistant] Still, extra credit goes to our old friend, Captain Duamel, for his own creative, if not a bit gruesome attempt.


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[Assistant] You see, a woman named Catherine Vallee had recently led her cattle to a nearby stream for a drink when the beast emerged from the trees and brutally killed her. When her body was discovered, her family did what families do. They mourned her death and prepared her for burial.


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[Assistant] But that's when Duamel stepped in, literally knocking on their door.


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[Assistant] He had an idea, albeit a very unpopular one, that historians have been able to piece together from a number of letters he later wrote. It seems he believed that the beast would return to the place where Velie had been found, looking for her body so it could finish the job. She's already dead, he told them. What difference will another day make?


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[Assistant] So he begged the grieving children to let him take their mother's body back out into the fields. Right to the very spot where they'd found her. As bait.


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[Assistant] When they finally agreed, Duamel and his men carried Vali's body back out, and then sat in a circle around her through the night, waiting for the beast to return. It didn't, though.


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[Assistant] But rather than take the body home and let the family begin the burial process, Duhamel kept it another day, instructing his men to patrol the wider area around it. In the end, the men were forced to admit defeat, gathering up the decomposing corpse once more and delivering it a day late to her children. The people of Gévaudan were at the breaking point.


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[Assistant] Fear and frustration pulsed through the communities all across the rural territory. And something needed to be done. They were desperate. And desperate times, as we know, call for desperate measures.


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[Assistant] The straw that broke the camel's back wasn't actually a straw. It was a crude wooden spear that had been carved to a sharp point by a woman named Marie Jeanne Vallee. She had left home one morning to take care of work in the fields, and that journey took her through a patch of nearby trees, where a small river cut through the undergrowth.


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[Assistant] And it was there as she was stepping across that river that she encountered the beast.


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[Assistant] She claimed that the beast walked toward her on its hind legs, its eyes almost seeming to glow. It was a common description that had earned the beast another name, the Lugaru, the Wolfman.


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[Assistant] But this woman wasn't afraid of the superstitions, apparently. She brought the spear up as the beast lunged toward her and pierced it directly in the chest. Amazingly, the creature that had evaded the countless bullets of all those hunters stumbled back and fell into the river. And then, it stopped moving.


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[Assistant] Marie-Jeanne ran back to her village and told the others, who rushed out to collect the body. But when they got there, it was gone.


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[Assistant] Perhaps washed away by the current, or maybe something else. Because the very next day, the creature was spotted outside another nearby village.


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[Assistant] King Louis had reached his limit. He called upon his gun bearer, a man named Francois Antoine. He was a knight, a military officer, and a member of the king's personal staff. If anyone could kill the beast, it would be the king's own game master and lieutenant of the hunt. So he was sent to Gévaudan.


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[Assistant] That was June of 1765. For the next few months, Antoine and his elite hunting party explored the region and made plans. He mapped the forests and hills. He spoke with witnesses and gathered help.


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[Assistant] It wasn't until September though, that they finally spotted the beast.


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[Assistant] The historical record tells us that on September 21st, Antoine's men managed to ambush the creature. After a number of shots that struck the beast but failed to bring it down, one lucky hunter managed to put a bullet right through one of the beast's eyes. And with that shot, everything seemed to come to a victorious conclusion. Antoine had the creature examined. But the report was less than encouraging.


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[Assistant] It seemed to be nothing more than an enormous wolf, roughly 6 feet long and 3 feet tall, weighing in at about 150 pounds. But the animal's stomach didn't contain human remains as they had morbidly hoped, and it certainly didn't walk on its hind legs.


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[Assistant] Despite this, he returned to Versailles with the stuffed wolf in tow. The king rewarded him handsomely, allowing Antoine to retire with a healthy pension and presenting him with the dignified cross of the Order of St. Louis.


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[Assistant] The king even gave Antoine permission to add the image of the beast to his own coat of arms.


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[Assistant] But if there was any doubt that the animal killed by Antoine was not the beast of Gévaudan, solid proof arrived in December of 1765.


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[Assistant] First, a girl went missing from the town of Marciac, and then a woman from a nearby village did the same.


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[Assistant] When that woman's severed hands were later discovered, the people of Gévaudan knew once and for all that their nightmare had never really ended.


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[Assistant] Winter arrived, and with it, a new ferocity from the beast. As 1766 began, attacks and sightings were reported almost every single day.


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[Assistant] But there was no one left to help them. All the hunters had gone home. The people were in a state of panic.


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[Assistant] For over a year, they were left on their own to defend themselves. In the six months between January and June of 1767, at least 16 people were officially reported as killed, slaughtered by a monster that defied capture or defeat.


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[Assistant] Taking the whole story into account. This was their darkest hour.


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[Assistant] Which is when the hero always seems to step into the picture, isn't it? Maybe that's just Hollywood's deeply embedded archetypes speaking into our past. Or maybe dark moments really do attract the right person at the right time. I'd like to think it's the latter.


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[Assistant] And it certainly was the case in June of 1767.


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[Assistant] The hero of Gévaudan was Jean Chastel, a 60-year-old peasant farmer from Montmouchet.


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[Assistant] He wasn't a decorated royal hunter or an experienced military officer with a dozen battles under his belt. But he'd heard that the beast had been sighted in a clearing nearby, so he went to see if he could help.


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[Assistant] When he arrived, the creature was nowhere to be seen. But rather than go home, he set up camp and waited in the trees.


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[Assistant] And that's where he was, holding his rosary beads tightly and whispering prayers like any good 18th century Catholic, when the beast arrived, stepping out of the trees into the sunlit clearing. Chastel raised his rifle, set his aim, and pulled the trigger.


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[Assistant] But the shot missed, alerting the monster of his location, and then it charged toward him.


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[Assistant] With his last remaining bullet, Chastel aimed once more, whispered another prayer, and then fired.


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[Assistant] The beast that lumbered across the clearing flinched slightly, seemed to trip, and then crashed to a stop and lay still. It was finally dead.


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[Assistant] They were caught in a morbid tug of war between utter disgust and joyous celebration.


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[Assistant] Inside the stomach was the body of a little girl.


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[Assistant] It's easy to be cynical about something like that, but at the end of the day, monsters really do exist. Sometimes they're a product of the horrible actions of the people around us. Humans can achieve amazing things, after all, but that greatness can just as easily be bent toward evil and destruction.


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[Assistant] Other times, monsters come to us from the outside. They are members of the unknown world outside our border. Things we don't fully understand.


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[Assistant] They may be natural and fully embedded in our world, but if they're strange or unknown to us we can't help but see them as creatures from our darkest nightmares.


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[Assistant] It's not that Southern France hadn't seen a wolf before. Quite the opposite, actually. In the century before the events in Gévaudan began, there were at least 775 wolf-related deaths officially recorded.


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[Assistant] And it didn't stop, either. In the decade that followed, another 130 would die in much the same way. As sad as it is for lovers of fairy tales and folklore to hear, the events in Gévaudan weren't unique or supernatural. It was just a temporary uptick in the natural order of things.


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[Assistant] What's more bizarre is the juxtaposition of the panic in southern France with what was happening in the big cities to the north.


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[Assistant] The enlightenment was spreading and people's understanding of the world around them was transforming rapidly. Disciplines such as mathematics, physics, biology, and even astronomy were all teaching us that the world around us was much less mysterious and dark.


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[Assistant] And yet, hundreds of miles to the south, an entire region of France had allowed itself to be driven to hysteria by superstition. The tales of old, the legends.


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[Assistant] The communal fear that had been passed down from one generation to the next.


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[Assistant] And as a result, wolves were hunted constantly.


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[Assistant] In fact, they were almost eradicated completely for over two centuries. It wasn't until 2004, though, that France finally outlawed wolf hunting without a license and a just cause. Thanks to that, their population is finally on the rise again.


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[Assistant] Jean Chastel was a product of that culture of fear-based superstition. He believed, like so many in the area around him, that the beast was real. A monster sent by God to destroy sinful man, more supernatural than natural. And even when the creature lay dead at his feet, he believed the stories were true.


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[Assistant] As far as he was concerned, the thing he had killed was no simple wolf.


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[Assistant] Like Francois Antoine, Chastel had his trophy embalmed for transport to the king. But it wasn't done properly. Before his carriage could reach Versailles, the corpse had decomposed so badly that he and his friends were forced to burn it right there on the roadside.


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[Assistant] He died two decades later, a hero in Gévaudan, but almost completely unknown to the king and his nobles back at Versailles.


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[Assistant] But there is a silver lining to it all. And we can find it in one last story about Chastel that I think bears repeating.


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[Assistant] It seems that the old religious farmer had used a tool that no one else had ever thought of until that moment.


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[Assistant] Before his hunt, it's said that Chastel had visited his local priest for a blessing.


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[Assistant] It makes sense. Fear of the Beast was almost palpable in 1767. All the great hunters had failed. Chastel needed any advantage he could get, even a divine one.


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[Assistant] But he brought something with him to the church that day as well. Something that he would later use to bring the monster down. Two things, actually.


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[Assistant] Whether or not they were true, Jean Chastel managed to put one legend to death that day, while giving birth to another.


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[Assistant] This episode of Lore was written and produced by me, Aaron Manke, with research help from Marsette Crockett. And you can also follow the show on Facebook, Twitter, 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] It came up for auction in Germany, and photos of the book managed to draw a lot of attention.


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[Assistant] Closed, it looks like an old 17th century book, roughly 14 by 9 inches in size and nearly 5 inches thick. There are a couple of book clasps mounted to the cover designed to keep it closed when not in use. There are even a few slender bookmarks poking out from the edges of the pages.


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[Assistant] But it's the photo of the open book that really caught people's attention. Because inside, the entire book turned out to be fake.


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[Assistant] On the inside of the front cover, a large etching of the human skeleton had been pasted on, most likely cut from an even older book. And where the pages should be was something altogether unexpected. A series of small wooden drawers.


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[Assistant] It's honestly pretty fascinating to look at, all those tiny little compartments. And each one is labeled too, with slender, handwritten notes describing the contents of those drawers.


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[Assistant] Each one of them apparently once held material from a poisonous plant.


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[Assistant] Wolfsbane. Nightshade. Thornapple. That sort of thing. A veritable Poisoner's Toolkit. Right there. Hidden inside a book.


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[Assistant] And I can't help but see this old book-shaped cabinet as a sort of metaphor for the world we live in. Because it's pretty clear that most things aren't what they appear to be, and that danger often lies hidden just around the corner. Most of us, though, are only aware of a small percentage of those threats.


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[Assistant] As the story goes, the ancient philosopher Socrates had become a bit of a thorn in the side of the political elite in Athens.


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[Assistant] His era was one of decline for the city-state of Athens. Democracy was losing its purity, with people of status and wealth wielding much more power than everyday citizens. And as a result, the people were losing faith in the system.


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[Assistant] And Socrates was one of the voices crying out against that change. Fellow philosopher Plato referred to him as an annoying insect and over time, that behavior pushed the leaders of the city too far. Socrates was arrested and put on trial on the charge of corrupting the minds of the youth.


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[Assistant] The effects of hemlock on the human body are uniquely destructive. While it has been used for a very long time in small doses to treat things like muscle spasms or seizures, larger amounts could shut down the entire body.


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[Assistant] First the voluntary muscles, then involuntary systems like breathing. It's a slow, terrifying death.


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[Assistant] This idea that one simple cup of a substance could control the life or death of another is an ancient one. It's right there in the mythology of many cultures, in the form of things like elixirs used to give life or take it away.


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[Assistant] In fact, toxic substances were already thought of as weapons long before cultures like the Athens of Socrates' day had been established, and it carried on long after it was gone as well.


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[Assistant] It seems that as the number of deaths climbed higher, this young woman approached one of the senior magistrates in the city and revealed that she could explain all of it, but only if he promised her immunity.


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[Assistant] After the magistrate agreed she told him about a large group of women, rich and poor alike, who had grown tired of the patriarchy. To end it, they had all banded together, trading in poisons that each of them used to kill off leaders they had access to.


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[Assistant] Stubborn to the end, they all agreed. Killing them all instantly.


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[Assistant] During her time in Rome, she helped a number of political figures overcome obstacles to their career through her use of poisons. But her big break came when she found herself employed by Empress Agrippina, wife of the Emperor Claudius. And her task was simple. Use her skills to get Claudius out of the way, so that Agrippina could rule independently.


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[Assistant] Years later, her services were called upon again, this time to ensure that Agrippina's son Nero inherit the throne rather than his stepbrother Britannicus. It's said that Nero himself beat and tortured Locusta until she produced a poison that worked as quickly as he envisioned.


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[Assistant] When she delivered, he rewarded her with wealth and property. But it would only last for a little while. When Nero's reign came to an end, so did Locusta's safety. Nero's successor had her arrested and sentenced to death.


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[Assistant] Thousands of miles away, another poison ruled the day in China. We're certain of its use as far back as around 600 CE, but it's likely that its roots stretch back even further. It was known as Gu, and made primarily in southern China.


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[Assistant] According to the stories, goo was made by placing five venomous creatures in a jar together. A snake, a spider, a centipede, a scorpion, and a toad. The idea was that they would slowly kill each other until the last man standing was filled with incredible levels of toxicity.


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[Assistant] If not given an antidote, victims would experience pain in their abdomen and chest as the poison slowly ate away at their internal organs.


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[Assistant] And because of that, there are seemingly endless stories about how to detect and avoid it. Even as recently as 1942, travelers were warned to eat their food with silver-tipped chopsticks because the silver would change color if it came in contact with the poison.


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[Assistant] Clearly humans have been comfortable with poison for thousands of years. It's been an instrument of execution and extortion and a backdoor to political advancement. But along the way, poison has also allowed a few people to do something else. It made them famous.


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[Assistant] Born in 1894, Olive was considered one of the most beautiful women of her generation. Had she been born today, she probably would have made a healthy income as an influencer on social media. But the beginning of the 20th century didn't have such things.


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[Assistant] It did, however, have beauty contests. In 1914, at the age of 20, Olive was crowned the most beautiful girl in New York City, an impressive claim for such a crowded place.


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[Assistant] And with that recognition came new opportunities. Soon enough, she was hired to join the other chorus girls performing on Broadway at the New Amsterdam Theater. And things just blossomed from there.


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[Assistant] In 1916, she made the leap that had seemed impossible just a year earlier, from stage to screen. Soon enough, she was starring in silent films and earning more in one month than most people earn today in a year. And along the way, she found love.


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[Assistant] Olive married actor Jack Pickford that same year, and for a while their romance was everything one would hope it could be. But Jack was soon wandering, which led to fights, tension, and, in Jack's case, syphilis. Olive's dream life seemed to be falling apart.


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[Assistant] In September of 1920, the couple decided to try and save their marriage by taking a second honeymoon. They sailed to Paris and checked in at the Ritz and began a fun and refreshing vacation focused entirely on themselves.


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[Assistant] And the doctors determined that she had been correct, she had been poisoned, only there was no one to blame but herself.


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[Assistant] Impaired by all the alcohol she'd had, Olive apparently mistook Jack's syphilis ointment for her sleeping medication. The chemical caused her kidneys to become inflamed, ultimately ending her life.


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[Assistant] Olive Thomas had accomplished much in her short career, but it was that one mistake in Paris that would get people whispering. She may have been famous before, but thanks to Poison, her story won't be forgotten anytime soon.


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[Assistant] The same might be said about another woman, although her fame didn't arise from a tragic accidental death. No, she earned her fame by using poison on others, becoming a household name for over a century. And her name was Julia DiMatteo.


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[Assistant] Julia was the very model of success in 17th century Italy. When she was born in 1620, her mother was already known throughout Sicily as the person you would go to if you were looking for poison.


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[Assistant] So when Julia's father mysteriously died in 1633, her mother was arrested, tried, and executed. But Julia had already learned everything she would need to make a name for herself later in life.


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[Assistant] It made the symptoms look like a normal illness, and it allowed the killer to choose the time and place of the final dose.


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[Assistant] Julia Tafana's business came to an end when one of her customers got cold feet at the last minute and confessed about the poison to her husband. The man then beat his wife until she revealed where she had purchased the drug.


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[Assistant] And shortly after, word went out that the authorities were looking for Julia.


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[Assistant] After hiding out in a church for a while, she was eventually dragged out, arrested, and put on trial. It's said that she claimed to be responsible for over 600 deaths over the course of her nearly two-decade career, and as a result was sentenced to death by execution in 1659. Just like her mother before her.


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[Assistant] It's said that the legendary composer Mozart believed that he had been poisoned with aqua tofana. But it's not true. It was just a rumor. One that Mozart started himself. But it demonstrates the power the mere mention of that poison could have over the general public. Poison.


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[Assistant] And those who used it as a deadly weapon have earned a special place in the pages of history.


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[Assistant] But there's one story that seems to defy the rules. It's a tale of mystery, of questions, and one of the deadlier qualities of the human mind. It's the sort of tragedy that can forever alter the way we perceive the world around us, and leave us feeling very afraid.