Latest / Weeknight Mysteries Podcast / Ep. 124 | Creepy Folklore - The Owlman Of Mawnan & The Ant Walkers Of Hiroshima

Transcript

Ep. 124 | Creepy Folklore - The Owlman Of Mawnan & The Ant Walkers Of Hiroshima · Weeknight Mysteries Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: It was April 1979. The Melling family were spending their
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Easter holiday in Mornan Smith, a picturesque village in Cornwall, England.
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: On Saturday the 17th, the two children of the family,
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: 12-year-old June and 9-year-old Vicky, had headed out on their
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: own to explore the area. They were passing by St.
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: Mornan and St. Stephen's Church when all of a sudden
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: in the sky above the bell tower, there appeared a
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: huge creature. It looked like a man but it had
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: the wings of a bird. The girls ran back to
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: their parents and they were so disturbed by what they'd
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: seen that their father cut the holiday short. Those girls,
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: it seems, had had an encounter with the Alman of Mornin.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: The origins of the Alman are unclear. A lot of
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: websites they read whilst researching this reference are a 1926
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: article in the Cornish Echo about two boys that were
• 0:54
  Speaker 1: chased by some sort of a large and ferocious bird.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: The problem is no website seems to provide any pictures
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: of the article so you can read it for yourself.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I had to go to the book The Alman and
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: Others by Jonathan Downs to find the article and read
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: it for myself. The bird was described as being about
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: three feet long with a body like a duck, cream
• 1:15
  Speaker 1: and brown colored plumage with black on the tips of
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: the wings. Now that doesn't sound anything like an Alman
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: to me but there's so many websites that are talking
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: about this article and linking it to the Alman story
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: that I had to put that in there. It seems
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: more likely that the boys were chased by an angry
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: goose rather than some sort of owl-headed cryptid. The first
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: clue we might have to the Alman's origins is when
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: the surrealist artist Max Ernst visited Cornwall in 1937 with
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: a group of other artists. Apparently this group went into
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: all sorts of weird stuff including occultism. The story goes
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: that Ernst and his cohorts went off into some Cornish
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: woods one night and performed strange rituals in an attempt
• 1:56
  Speaker 1: to summon animal-human hybrid entities. Max Ernst himself had a
• 2:00
  Speaker 1: weird obsession with birds and he often painted an alter
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: ego called Lop-Lop, a shape-shifting, part-man, part-bird creature. He also
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: painted scenes that, looking back on them now, seem to
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: mirror future encounters with the Almond. And take a look
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: at this one that was painted in 1924 and it's
• 2:19
  Speaker 1: titled Two Children Are Threatened by a Nightingale. The weird
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: thing about this is there are two children and a
• 2:25
  Speaker 1: nightingale but it's also this eerie human figure hovering above
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: the building carrying away another child in its arms. Apparently
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: the painting was inspired by a fever-induced hallucination that Ernst
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: had as a child but to me it reminds me
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: of June and Vicky Melling seeing that humanoid creature hovering
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: over the morning church. So did Ernst and Co. summon
• 2:46
  Speaker 1: the Alman? Maybe it's some sort of surrealist egregore, something
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: that stepped out from the picture frame and took on
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: a life of its own. Or perhaps the Alman is
• 2:56
  Speaker 1: the spirit of Ernst himself. It might just be a
• 2:59
  Speaker 1: coincidence but Max Ernst died on the 1st of April, 1976.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: This was just two weeks before the Melling girls had
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: their encounter. And three months after the girls' encounter, the
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: Alman was seen again. Behind the morning church the land
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: slops down through a wooded area until it reaches a beach.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: It was in this wooded area that two 14-year-old girls
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: were camping, Miss Sally Chapman and Barbara Perry. At around
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: 10 p.m. on the 3rd of July, 1976 the girls
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: were awoken by a strange hissing noise. They looked around
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: outside their tents and saw a weird figure standing among
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: the pine trees. He was described as being as tall
• 3:42
  Speaker 1: as a man but had the face of an owl
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: and was covered in grey feathers. His eyes were large
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: and glowed red and it had big pointed ears. On
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: its feet were large black pencil-like claws. At first the
• 3:55
  Speaker 1: girls thought it was someone in a costume but then
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: the creature flew up into the air and disappeared into
• 4:00
  Speaker 1: the trees. The following day another two girls had an
• 4:04
  Speaker 1: encounter with the owlman in the same area. A letter
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: was sent to a local paper from a girl saying
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: that on the 4th of July, 1976 she and her
• 4:13
  Speaker 1: sister were playing in the wood behind the morning church
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: when they saw a large creature up in a tree.
• 4:18
  Speaker 1: It was described as being as big as a man
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: but it had legs bent backwards like a bird's. Its
• 4:24
  Speaker 1: eyes were red and its feet looked like sharp black
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: crab claws. Unlike the last encounter the creature then flew
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: upwards and disappeared above the treetops. The first two encounters
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: were reported by a man named Doc Shields. Now Doc
• 4:40
  Speaker 1: Shields is an eccentric character to say the least, an artist,
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: stage magician and monster hunter with an interest in the occult.
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: At around the time of the Almond sightings he was
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: taking part in a hunt for the Morgra. This is
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: a sea monster that supposedly lived in the waters around Cornwall.
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: In March of 1976 two photos of the Morgra were
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: sent to a local paper from someone named Mary F.
• 5:04
  Speaker 1: Doc Shields came on a scene and he announced that
• 5:06
  Speaker 1: he was going to try and summon the Morgara to appear.
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: Morgara Morgara Morgara Morgara Morgara he then orchestrated an elaborate
• 5:14
  Speaker 1: magical ritual on the beach in Cornwall involving naked witches
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: which were his own daughters dancing around. As you can
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: imagine this brought a lot of press attention for Doc Shields.
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: It was because of his reputation for hunting monsters that
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: he was approached first by June and Vicki Milling's father
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: and later by Sally Chapman and Barbara Perry and they
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: both provided him with eyewitness accounts and drawings of the Alman.
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: Now there is a problem here. Doc Shields does have
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: a reputation for being a bit of a prankster. Over
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: the years he's written numerous books about how to fake
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: paranormal phenomena for stage magicians and he has books like
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: The Shields Effect, How to Become a Psychic Superstar. It
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: teaches you how to create a sort of mythos around
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: yourself which you can leverage for publicity and fame. Many
• 6:01
  Speaker 1: people suspect that Mary F., that mysterious woman that sent
• 6:04
  Speaker 1: the photos of the Morgara to the newspaper was actually
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: Doc Shields sowing the seeds for an elaborate hoax. Some
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: also suspect that Doc Shields invented the story of the Alman.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: As far as I can tell nobody else has ever
• 6:18
  Speaker 1: been able to track down the Melling family all the
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: two girls saw the creature in the woods. It's very
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: possible that they never existed at all. Similarities between the
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: eyewitness drawings suggest that they might have been drawn by
• 6:31
  Speaker 1: the same person although it does say that the drawings
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: are based on eyewitness sketches so Shields might have redrawn
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: them himself from the children's drawings. Some people have also
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: analyzed the handwriting between these two accounts and they think
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: they might have been written by one person. I don't
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: know much about handwriting analysis so I can't really say
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: for sure but there's something about how that Dr. Baudet
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: eyes drift slightly to the right in both the accounts
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: but as I say I don't know much about the
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: subject so I can't really comment on it myself. There's
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: no real proof that Doc Shields invented the Alman. It
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: could be as he says he had a reputation as
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: a monster hunter so he was genuinely approached by people
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: that had seen something strange. Shields seems to be a
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: chaotic neutral sort of character. a true surrealist who deliberately
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: soars the seeds of confusion and doubt around all that
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: he does. It doesn't necessarily mean that everything that he's
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: involved in is a hoax but it does mean that
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: we should take it all with a hefty pinch of salt.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: After the Alman flap of 1976 there were sporadic sightings.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: According to the book Alien Animals by Janet and Colin
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: Baudet there were two more sightings of the Alman in 1978.
• 7:42
  Speaker 1: Once by a 16-year-old girl and a few months later
• 7:45
  Speaker 1: by three young French girls but looking into these cases
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: a bit more Doc Shields' name crops up yet again
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: as the source of these stories. It doesn't necessarily mean
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: that they're fake. I suspect at that time anyone who
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: had an encounter with the Almond would think of contacting
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: Doc Shields. 11 years later in 1989 there was another
• 8:05
  Speaker 1: encounter and this time it seems that Shields had nothing
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: to do with it, at least not directly. There was
• 8:11
  Speaker 1: a young couple known as Gavin and Sally, although that's
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: not their real names. They'd heard the legend of the
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Alman and decided to go into the woods behind Morning
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: Church to investigate. Gavin later contacted the paranormal researcher Jonathan Downs,
• 8:26
  Speaker 1: author of the book The Alman and Others that I
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: mentioned earlier. He related his story about what happened that
• 8:32
  Speaker 1: night in the woods. He said, we had to torch
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: and I was shining its beam across the trunks about
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: 15 feet off the ground. Every couple of hours we
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: would walk along the fringe of the woods and this
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: was the third time that evening and it was beginning
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: to get dark. From a distance the trees looked black
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: but close up the branches and trunks could be seen.
• 8:54
  Speaker 1: We saw the animal at about 9.30pm. It was standing
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: on a thick branch with its wings sort of held
• 9:00
  Speaker 1: up at the arms. I'd say it was about 5
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: feet tall. The legs had high angles and the feet
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: were large and black with two huge toes on the
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: visible side. The creature was gray with brown and the
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: eyes definitely glowed. On seeing us its head jerked down
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: and forwards, its wings lifted and it just jumped backwards.
• 9:22
  Speaker 1: As it did its legs folded up, we ran away.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Six years later, in 1995 a letter was sent to
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: a local paper. It claimed to be from a student
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: of marine biology from Chicago. She'd been on holiday in
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: Mornan Smith and was walking through the woods behind the
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: church at around 9.15 when she saw in a tree
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: a creature described as the size of a man with
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: a gastelly face, a wide mouth glowing eyes and pointed ears.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: It had huge clawed wings and was covered in feathers
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: of silver-gray color. The thing had long bird legs which
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: terminated in large black claws. All attempts to track down
• 10:01
  Speaker 1: this Chicagoan witness have failed. Many suspect the letter to
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: be another of Doc Shields' pranks, although there's no real
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: proof either way. Sightings continued up until the present day
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: but most don't seem to have much more information about them.
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: So instead let's look at some unusual footage and this
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: was captured by a the internet channel called Ghost Adventures
• 10:23
  Speaker 1: of Cornwall. Thank you very much to Mark for letting
• 10:26
  Speaker 1: me use your footage in my video or put a
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: link to the original video in the description. They decided
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: one night to investigate St. Mornan and St. Stephen's Church
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: but there's one bit where the camera pans across the
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: graveyard and this figure is standing in the background. There
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: was two people in the graveyard. the guy holding the
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: camera and his friend who was stood behind him at
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: the time. They didn't notice this strange horned man until
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: they played the footage back frame by frame. Could this
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: be the almond finally caught on camera? I don't know
• 10:58
  Speaker 1: if the almond is a hoax, that could very well
• 11:00
  Speaker 1: be the case. However, I am a strong believer in
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: the idea that a fictional story can take on a
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: life of its own if enough people can be convinced
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: that it's real. I talked about this in my Ghostwatch
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: video how the fictional Ghost of Pipes managed to possess
• 11:15
  Speaker 1: the minds of many of its younger viewers, giving some
• 11:18
  Speaker 1: of them psychological effects that lasted longer after the program
• 11:21
  Speaker 1: had finished one person even took their own life. There's
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: also the case of the Slenderman. It started out as
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: a Photoshop contest and ended up with two girls dragging
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: their friend into the woods and stamming her 19 times
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: because they thought they were receiving instructions from the Slenderman himself.
• 11:39
  Speaker 1: Maybe something like this could have happened with the Alman.
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: You could look at it from a purely psychological perspective.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: You convince people that the Alman exists and next time
• 11:49
  Speaker 1: someone hears a strange noise or sees a dark shape
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: in the woods behind morning church, they might believe that
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: they had an encounter with the Alman itself. Oh, you
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: could get a bit more out there, you could look
• 12:01
  Speaker 1: at the Alman as a kind of topper, a thought
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: form made flesh, could the strange rituals performed by shields
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: and urns really have conjured something more solid up? Maybe
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: hoaxing it was a method for willing the alman into existence,
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: getting enough people to believe in it that it actually
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: becomes a reality, a decade-long prank and a genuine work
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: of magic at the same time. That might go a
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: bit far for some viewers, but I've been interested in
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: the interaction between the mind and physical reality ever since
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: I read the holographic universe when I was younger. I'm
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: not sure if I totally believe that the mind can
• 12:35
  Speaker 1: create an Alman out of nothing, but it's the sort
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: of thing that I like to speculate on and hey,
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: it's nearly Halloween so I'm allowed to indulge in some
• 12:42
  Speaker 1: spooky speculation. The Alman, he might be real, he might
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: be a prank, he might be in a elaborate work
• 12:49
  Speaker 1: of surrealist art, or maybe he's all those things at
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: the same time. So I hope you enjoyed this typically
• 12:56
  Speaker 1: conclusionless video. I don't really like telling people what they
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: should think. but I like giving them something to think
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: about so hopefully found it interesting. October always puts me
• 13:07
  Speaker 1: in the mood for a good spooky story so I
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: hope you guys are enjoying the content. Here's some more
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: recordings you might enjoy. Check out the creepy folklore playlist
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: if you like this sort of thing. On August the 6th, 1945,
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: the United States dropped atomic bombs on the Japanese cities
• 13:25
  Speaker 1: of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The bomb that was dropped on
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: Hiroshima was named Little Boy and it was designed to
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: detonate before hitting the ground. The city had a population
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: of around 350,000 people, the initial explosion killed over 78,000 people,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: but some would say that these were the lucky ones.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: It's the accounts of people who survived that truly describe
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: a hell on earth and it's those accounts that I'm
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: going to be exploring today. This is the horror of
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: the Hiroshima bomb. The accounts in this case come from
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: Charles Perler Greenhouse book To Hell and Back the Last
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: Train from Hiroshima. If you want to hear more stories
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: like this, I recommend reading the book because this case
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: only scratches the surface of the nightmares described. A short
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: time ago, an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy. That bomb has
• 14:20
  Speaker 1: more power than 20,000 tons of TNT. We have spent
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: more than $ 2 billion on the greatest scientific gamble in
• 14:27
  Speaker 1: history and we have won. Akiko Takakura and her friend
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: Asami were inside the Gabby Bank and they were just
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: about open when the bomb detonated. Although they were relatively
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: close to the hypocenter, just some 250 meters away, the
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: bank's sturdy granite and concrete structure provided significant protection against
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: the deadly atomic rays and the advancing shockwave. Nonetheless, when
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: the shockwave hits, Akiko felt a painful squeezing sensation in
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: her lungs. Asami was thrown against a wall and compressed
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: like an accordion. Then the decorative cladding on the wall
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: burst into shards of granite shrapnel. Akiko would later recall
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: drifting in and out of consciousness during the first few
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: minutes after the explosions. Her lungs ached and she struggled
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: to comprehend what was happening to her body. Then came
• 15:18
  Speaker 1: an overwhelming thirst, unlike anything they'd ever experienced. The bomb's
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: explosion had instantly caused water to evaporate from rivers, ponds,
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: and all exposed surfaces within a two kilometers radius, stripping
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: moisture from every living thing caught in the flesh, even
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: those who were inside buildings. They managed to fill air-raid
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: helmets with water from a ruptured pipe, but no matter
• 15:42
  Speaker 1: how much they drank, their thirst only became more intense.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: Within a short while, the air inside the bank became
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: unbearably hot and the women decided that they must evacuate.
• 15:54
  Speaker 1: At 8.25 a.m., ten minutes after the explosion, they finally
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: managed to step outside and they saw the extent of
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: the devastation. The sun had completely disappeared and the landscape
• 16:05
  Speaker 1: was bathed in red caused by fire rising from the
• 16:08
  Speaker 1: remnants of buildings that had been reduced to burning rubble.
• 16:12
  Speaker 1: Akiko looked down the streets and at first it appeared
• 16:14
  Speaker 1: to be empty, but then she noticed the charred remains
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: of people who had been walking towards the bank when
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: the bomb detonated. There were black and scorched bodies collapsed
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: over each other as far as you could see. Several
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: bodies had crumpled apart like sects of burning leaves spilled
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: under the ground, others had been reduced to charcoal and
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: piles of burning wax. Nearby, Akiko saw the body of
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: a man who was still standing, yet appeared to have
• 16:40
  Speaker 1: been flush fossilized whilst pulling a large two-wheeled cart. Inside
• 16:45
  Speaker 1: the cart she saw the bodies of two charcoal-crusted children,
• 16:48
  Speaker 1: they were sitting clutching their knees. Overwhelmed she crouched down
• 16:53
  Speaker 1: in the street trying to comprehend what she was seeing,
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: then she noticed something on the ground next to her,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: something that had remained soft and fleshy. It was a hand,
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: its fingers sticking up and burning like candles, the fat
• 17:05
  Speaker 1: being drawn to the fingertips from the tissues below. At
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: this point it began to rain and as the drops felly,
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: intense thirst returned, forcing Akiko and the Sarmie to turn
• 17:16
  Speaker 1: their faces towards the sky and drink the rain, opening
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: the mouth as wide as possible. The water tasted foul.
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: When Akiko looked down at her arm she noticed that
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: the water was staining her skin black. The rain was
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: thick and repulsive like crude oil, but the thirst was
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: so overwhelming that they just continued to drink. These cities'
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: vaporized moisture had ascended into the stratosphere. Here it had
• 17:41
  Speaker 1: absorbed the stratospheric soot and radioactive particles from the bomb's
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: cloud and begun to descend again. It was extremely toxic,
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: ingesting even small amounts of it delivered a deadly dose
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: of radioactive material. Whilst Akiko survived, Asami would quickly succumb
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: to radiation sickness and perish. A boy named Hiroshi Ito
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: was in school when the bomb was dropped. Five minutes
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: after the explosion he managed to emerge and scathe through
• 18:09
  Speaker 1: the roof of his collapsed school. Hiroshi stepped out into
• 18:13
  Speaker 1: a mist of black fog. All the other boys around
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Hiroshi appeared to be severely burned. The toxic black mist
• 18:21
  Speaker 1: and the black rain sent him and about 40 other
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: students running to a nearby swimming pool crying for help.
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: On the swimming pool's floor, Hiroshi saw rows of school
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: ghouls slumped at the water's edge. The ghouls were dying
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: one after another. Most of them wore only white shirts
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: and their dark pants had ignited when the flash came
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: and had burned away along with the skin on their legs.
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: When he later climbed out of the pool, everywhere he
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: looked he saw burned schoolchildren moving in an eerie silence
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: like automaton. They had blistered eyes and lips covered in
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: black ash. They appeared to be resigned, strangely lifeless despite
• 19:00
  Speaker 1: still being alive. Hiroshi looked across the river to the
• 19:04
  Speaker 1: opposite shore and he saw hordes of people fleeing from
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: the direction of the violent fires falling into the river
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: like swarms of insects. Riverside houses began collapsing into the
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: water and soon the people in the river were overtaken
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: by burning debris. The ground around Hiroshi began to erupt
• 19:21
  Speaker 1: into spontaneous fires, panicked he ran in random directions and
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: desperate to get away. A 13-year-old boy named Hiroshi Kada
• 19:30
  Speaker 1: also managed to survive the collapse of his school, cocooned
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: in an air pocket. He was able to push his
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: way to the surface almost immediately after the blast and
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: he saw a massive mushroom cloud towering over the city.
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: All around him, among the bricks and the rubble he
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: saw other children half buried and dying. Dozens of burned
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: hands reached out grabbing at yoshi's feet and shins desperate
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: to get his attention this was too much for him
• 19:57
  Speaker 1: and yoshi kata panicked he kicked out the hands reaching
• 20:01
  Speaker 1: up from the rubble and he ran as fast as
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: he could into the smoke Nearly two kilometers away from
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: the hypocenter, Mrs. Sasaki was in her guard and when
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: the flash occurred, she emerged from the rubble holding her
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: two-year-old daughter, Sardarco, in her hands, somehow they were both unhinged.
• 20:19
  Speaker 1: Years later, Mrs. Sasaki felt grateful that her daughter didn't
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: remember much of what they'd seen that day. She never
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: spoke to her daughter about the horrors that they'd witnessed,
• 20:28
  Speaker 1: especially the tap dancer who'd run past them moments after
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: the explosion. Initially, Mrs. Sasaki thought that everyone around them
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: had disappeared, then she noticed a strange man climbing out
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: of a collapsed house. He got up and ran past
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: them towards the curtain of whirling smoke and sparks. He
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: didn't cry for help and he appeared to be unaware
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: of anything or anyone around him. The only sound he
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: made was a rhythmic click clacking as he ran down
• 20:55
  Speaker 1: the road, as if he was tap dancing down the
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: street with metal taps on his shoes. Then Mrs. Sasaki
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: noticed that he wasn't wearing any shoes, instead, whereas feet
• 21:06
  Speaker 1: should have been there were two bony stumps. As he ran,
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: these protruding bones tapped against the pavement, chipping and fracturing
• 21:14
  Speaker 1: with each step. Soon the man disappeared into a cloud
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: of smoke and the nightmarish tapping faded into the distance.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: A soldier named Nishioka was stationed outside the city. He
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: heard the bomb going off and he saw a huge
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: mushroom cloud rising above Hiroshima. Shortly afterwards, from the direction
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: of the city, a train came running in. All of
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: the train's coaches had lost their windows. Most of the
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: passengers inside were burned to death, except for a few
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: stunned people who gathered by the empty windows, looking out
• 21:47
  Speaker 1: with blank expressions on their faces. The coaches were all smoldering,
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: at least two were completely engulfed in flames. The soldiers
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: looked on, stunned as the train rolled past them. It
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: didn't stop. The engineer at the front looked like a scarecrow,
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: his clothes, bloodied and tattered. He leaned out to the
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: portside window, vomiting out a foaming stream of vial. The
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: soldiers managed to stop the train and they took command
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: of the locomotive. They decided to head back towards Hiroshima.
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: The soldier Nishioka went with them. Within minutes Nishioka and
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: the other soldiers encountered lines of people walking along the
• 22:29
  Speaker 1: railroad tracks away from the city. The engine pressed on,
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: blowing its whistle to clear people off the tracks. The
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: further they got into the city, the worse the burns
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: on the walking wounded guards. There were more and more
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: people looking like the walking dead, shuffling along constantly murmuring water. Water.
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: They moved in a mechanical manner, forming long trails, one
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: horribly burned person after another slowly navigating through the smoke.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: Due to their burned blackened skin and their automaton-like movements,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: many survivors would lead to refer to them as the
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: Ant Walkers. Another soldier, Private Shigeru Shimoyama, was about six
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: blocks away from the hypocenter when the explosion came. As
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: luck would have it, he'd just stepped into a concrete
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: reinforced warehouse. The force of the wave tossed him against
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: the back wall, saving him from being crushed under a
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: collapsing roof. Outside the warehouse, his fellow soldiers had all
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: vanished in the blink of an eye. When he regained consciousness,
• 23:33
  Speaker 1: and to his horror, he discovered that he was hanging
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: about a meter above the ground. His arms and shoulders
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: were impaled on nails protruding from the wall. When he
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: finally broke free and emerged from the rubble, he saw
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: in the distance a group of pure cruts struggling through
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: the wreckage. These pure cruts were carrying a life-sized portrait
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: of the emperor away from the burning remains of the castle.
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: Then on the river, Shigeru noticed a naval boat navigating
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: through the debris and bodies. The boat slowed down and stopped,
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: the crew gathered on a deck to salute the portrait
• 24:08
  Speaker 1: of the emperor. This gesture seemed to stir something within
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: the ant people and many of these horribly burned people
• 24:14
  Speaker 1: turned towards the portrait and bowed the heads. When he
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: finally turned around, Shigeru found himself standing face to face
• 24:22
  Speaker 1: with a horse. This horse was strange looking, it was
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: pinkish white, and it took Shigeru a moment to realize
• 24:29
  Speaker 1: what he was looking at. All of the horse's skin
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: and fur were gone. This was caused by something known
• 24:36
  Speaker 1: as degloving, a phenomenon where the skin, when exposed to
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: a wave of compressed supersonic air, is pulled off like
• 24:43
  Speaker 1: a leather glove being pulled from a hand. The animal
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: didn't appear to be in any pain, but the sight
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: horrified Shigeru, so much to the beginner run away from
• 24:52
  Speaker 1: the area. Every time he glanced back over his shoulder,
• 24:56
  Speaker 1: he saw this skinless horse following him, staring at the
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: soldier pleadingly. Before the explosion, Father Matthias heard two planes
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: overhead revving their engines as if they were trying to
• 25:07
  Speaker 1: escape something. He doesn't know what happened after that. When
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: he regained consciousness, he realized that he joined hundreds of
• 25:15
  Speaker 1: other and dazed half-naked people and he'd become one of
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: the ant walkers. He looked at the man in front
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: of him and he noticed that his skin was hanging
• 25:23
  Speaker 1: loosely from his back like pieces of tattered shirts. All
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: of the flesh on his forearms had been stripped away,
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: revealing blackened bones. Father Matthias aimlessly followed this walking corpse
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: until he bumped into the frame of a charred streetcar.
• 25:39
  Speaker 1: Inside the car, Father Matthias saw the scorched remains of
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: a family, then he noticed movement, an unborn baby struggling
• 25:47
  Speaker 1: inside its dead mother. The horrified Father Matthias stumbled away,
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: he didn't know where he was going, he just wanted
• 25:54
  Speaker 1: to get away from the smoldering car as fast as
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: he could. He noticed more than a dozen ant people
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: had formed a line behind him and began to follow.
• 26:03
  Speaker 1: He didn't know how long he'd been walking but suddenly
• 26:06
  Speaker 1: a noise from above caught his attention. He looked up
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: and he saw the corner of a three-story brick apartment building.
• 26:13
  Speaker 1: It was the only structure still standing. Three naked children
• 26:17
  Speaker 1: clung to the top of the tower, screaming hysterically, one
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: of them seemed to be completely covered in blood. Father
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: Matthias continued walking, as he reached the river, the first
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: rescue boats began pulling corpses from the water. Waiting in,
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: he noticed the woman carrying a child towards him pleading
• 26:36
  Speaker 1: for the infant to open his eyes. When the woman
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: stepped into the water, her skin and muscles began to
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: fall away from her bones. At this moment, Father Matthias'
• 26:47
  Speaker 1: numbness began to crack and he was overwhelmed by a
• 26:50
  Speaker 1: sense of guilt. That's when he started to think about
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: the three children that he'd seen on top of the tower.
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Every day for the rest of his life, he wondered
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: what had happened to them. Each night, they were the
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: last thing that he thought about before falling asleep and
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: his dreams were plagued with their screams. Tsutomi Yamagoshi, a
• 27:10
  Speaker 1: ship designer, was nearly three kilometers from ground zero when
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: a bright flash almost blinded him. Instinctively, he dove into
• 27:18
  Speaker 1: an irrigation ditch and covered his head. The ground shook violently,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: tossing him nearly a meter into the air. When Yamagoshi
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: looked out, burning paper and smoldering clothes were falling from
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: the sky. One side of his body felt intensely hot.
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: The exposed skin on his left arm was burnt brown
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: and looked like an overcooked chicken. He was suddenly overcome
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: by an intense thirst and he ran towards the river.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: Despite the coppery scent of blood and the presence of
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: floating corpses, Yamaguchi drank the water. He noticed that the
• 27:54
  Speaker 1: bodies in the river appeared to have unnaturally long arms,
• 27:57
  Speaker 1: almost twice as long as normal. Upon closer inspection, he
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: realized that the flesh on their shoulders and arms had
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: melted and peeled away from the bones, floating on the
• 28:07
  Speaker 1: surface of the water like broken cobwebs still connected to
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: the people by their fingertips. By the river, he encountered
• 28:14
  Speaker 1: a group of children who he would later refer to
• 28:16
  Speaker 1: as the Pierced Boys. At first, he thought that their
• 28:20
  Speaker 1: boon and lacerated backset sprouted some kind of strange hair,
• 28:24
  Speaker 1: but as he looked closer, he realized that these weren't
• 28:27
  Speaker 1: hairs long, thin, blackened glass shards had been driven into
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: the boy's flesh by the shockwave. He tried to help
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: these children, advising them to pull the shards from each
• 28:37
  Speaker 1: other's backs, but this proved to be extremely difficult. The
• 28:41
  Speaker 1: children began to grow weaker and they seemed to be
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: dying one after another. All around him people moved in
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: a zombie-like fashion driven by an overwhelming thirst. They lay
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: down at the river and drank the false melting water
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: before wandering off aimlessly into the smoke. By this point,
• 28:59
  Speaker 1: Yamaguchi no longer cared about his military duties or the
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: war efforts. All he wanted to do was to get
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: home to see his wife and son. As he wandered
• 29:09
  Speaker 1: through the devastated landscape, bizarre one horror after another, a
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: mother singing a lullaby to her dead child, a horse's
• 29:16
  Speaker 1: head burning with an eerie blue-green flame. He had to
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: cross two rivers on his way home. One of these
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: rivers no longer had a bridge. but there were so
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: many corpses piled up in the shallows that they formed
• 29:28
  Speaker 1: a kind of natural dam that he had to cross.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: The experience of crawling over these burned bodies to cross
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: the river was extremely traumatic. For the rest of his life,
• 29:39
  Speaker 1: he would revisit that bridge in his nightmares. Walking in
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: a state of shock, Akihiro Takahashi, a 14-year-old boy, was
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: only mildly burned compared to the rest of the population.
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: He followed streetcar tracks past the wrecked corpse-filled trolleys until
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: he heard a friend calling his name as he headed
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: off towards his friend, a line of ant people began
• 30:00
  Speaker 1: to form behind him. His friend was so severely poisoned
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: by radiation that his teeth were falling out. Akahiro would
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: later say that before he died, his belly turned purple
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: and he vomited a continuous stream of blue-gray substance. On
• 30:16
  Speaker 1: his journey through the city, Akahiro saw many disturbing things.
• 30:21
  Speaker 1: He encountered a woman with her eyeball dangling on a cheek,
• 30:24
  Speaker 1: and he saw a skinned horse with exposed bloody muscle
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: lying dead in a water-filled system. As he walked through
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: the devastation, dozens of people followed him, although most of
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: them no longer looked like humans. He was so horrified
• 30:38
  Speaker 1: by these ant walkers that he tried to distance himself
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: from them, but it seemed that with every twist and
• 30:44
  Speaker 1: turn of his journey, new nightmares awaited him. He ran
• 30:48
  Speaker 1: past the body of a young mother who had been
• 30:50
  Speaker 1: completely decloved with her screaming infant lying next to her.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: This baby somehow was still alive, despite its entire skin
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: being turned to charcoal. And this wasn't the last or
• 31:01
  Speaker 1: even the worst horror that Akihiro encountered on his way.
• 31:06
  Speaker 1: He would later say that there were other sights that
• 31:08
  Speaker 1: were so horrifying that words can't describe them. The aftermath
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings was as harrowing as
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: the explosions. The cities were reduced to smoldering ruins with
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: just a few structures left standing and almost no life.
• 31:24
  Speaker 1: The initial death toll from the blasts was staggering, but
• 31:27
  Speaker 1: the long-term consequences were equally devastating. The survivors, known as Hibikusa,
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: faced not only the physical horror of their injuries, but
• 31:36
  Speaker 1: also the lasting effects of radiation exposure. Many survivors developed
• 31:42
  Speaker 1: acute radiation sickness which manifested as nausea, hair loss, and
• 31:46
  Speaker 1: severe burns that healed slowly if at all. In the
• 31:49
  Speaker 1: weeks and months to follow to the death toll continued
• 31:52
  Speaker 1: to rise as infections, organ failure, and cancers claimed many
• 31:56
  Speaker 1: more lives. The cleanup and recovery process was an extremely
• 32:00
  Speaker 1: grim task. Rescue workers many of whom were soldiers and
• 32:04
  Speaker 1: volunteers had to navigate through the charred remains of the
• 32:07
  Speaker 1: city and all of the horrors that they had to offer.
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: When soldiers sent by the war ministry arrived at the
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: city carrying stretches, they couldn't understand why they had been
• 32:17
  Speaker 1: sent because there was not a living thing in sight.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: When they entered the Crown Zero, they found a statue-like
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: figure of a naked man standing with his arms and
• 32:26
  Speaker 1: legs spread apart. The man had been turned into a
• 32:29
  Speaker 1: brittle pillar of charcoal crumbling at the slightest touch. He
• 32:33
  Speaker 1: must have climbed out of a shelter shortly before the
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: blast driven by the hot fumes only to be killed
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: and carbonized instantly where he stood. They encountered a young
• 32:42
  Speaker 1: petite woman carrying the bloated corpse of a dead child
• 32:46
  Speaker 1: on her back. She seemed to be completely insane, screaming incomprehensibly,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: her shouts getting louder and louder over time. They encountered
• 32:56
  Speaker 1: another woman whose mind appeared to have been completely wiped clean.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: She appeared to be unhinged except for a large slash
• 33:03
  Speaker 1: across her belly. The soldiers propped her up against the
• 33:06
  Speaker 1: wall where she spent the night. In their mourning, they
• 33:10
  Speaker 1: found her sitting in a pool of her own blood.
• 33:13
  Speaker 1: It seemed as if she'd spent the night carefully trying
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: to push her own intestines back inside herself. It was
• 33:20
  Speaker 1: at this point that they noticed that she was pregnant.
• 33:23
  Speaker 1: A baby only halfway to term had emerged from her
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: belly along with their intestines and had hung lifelessly from
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: her body. When soldiers approached to try and help her,
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: she gave them a hideous smile before collapsing and dying.
• 33:37
  Speaker 1: The psychological toll on the rescuers and the survivors was profound.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: For years afterwards, many struggled with the haunting memories of
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: the dead and dying, the airy silence of the devastated
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: cities and the incomprehensible sense of loss. Even now, decades later,
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: these scars both physical and emotional remain. So I hope
• 33:58
  Speaker 1: you found this case interesting. I think this provides just
• 34:02
  Speaker 1: a tiny snapshot of the kind of horrors that people
• 34:05
  Speaker 1: saw in the aftermath of the Hiroshima bomb. For every
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: horror story you've heard, there were probably hundreds of thousands
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: more that remained untold. It really does help me make
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: more recordings like this. So thank you very much to
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: all of you. If you're in a mood for more
• 34:22
  Speaker 1: recordings like this, I can recommend my Unit 731 video
• 34:27
  Speaker 1: or my video about the horrors of the Sonderkommandos of Auschwitz.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: I'll put a link to those in the archive now.