Latest / Crime and Horror / His Top Secret job turned him into a LEGEND - MrBallen

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His Top Secret job turned him into a LEGEND - MrBallen · Crime and Horror

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Speaker 1: Today, I'm going to cover three stories that all became
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Speaker 1: hugely famous as fiction. However, what most people don't know
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Speaker 1: is they're actually based on real life events and these
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Speaker 1: real stories are wild and those are what I'm sharing
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Speaker 1: with you today. But before we get into today's stories,
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Speaker 1: if you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious
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Speaker 1: delivered in story format, and you've come to the right place,
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Speaker 1: because that's all we do, and we upload two, three,
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Speaker 1: even four times every week. So if that's of interest
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Speaker 1: to you, please sneak into the like button's house and
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Speaker 1: replace their dish soap with cooking oil. Also, please subscribe
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Speaker 1: to our channel and turn on all notifications so you
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Speaker 1: don't miss any of our weekly uploads. Okay, let's get
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Speaker 1: into today's stories. One night in May of eighteen ninety six,
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Speaker 1: a young opera singer sat inside of her dressing room
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Speaker 1: at the Palais Garnier, which is this huge, beautiful theater
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Speaker 1: in Paris, France. A little while earlier, she finished a
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Speaker 1: performance of a very famous opera, and now she was
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Speaker 1: getting changed and taking off her makeup. However, as she
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Speaker 1: was doing this, she suddenly heard this sound in the
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Speaker 1: theater that immediately sent goosebumps up and down her body.
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Speaker 1: It sounded like a man was singing somewhere out there,
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Speaker 1: and his voice was very deep and very sad. And
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Speaker 1: really it wasn't so much the sound of the voice
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Speaker 1: that was so unsettling. It was just the fact that
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Speaker 1: she was hearing anybody in the theater at all. I mean,
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Speaker 1: she should have been alone in the theater. As far
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Speaker 1: as she knew, all of the other performers and crew
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Speaker 1: members had already gone home. So who was this? And
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Speaker 1: so she left her room and she stepped out into
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Speaker 1: the hallway and just began looking around, you know, thinking
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Speaker 1: maybe one of the other opera singers had maybe stayed
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Speaker 1: behind without her knowing. But she didn't see anybody else backstage.
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Speaker 1: And as she listened carefully to again this man who
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Speaker 1: was still singing somewhere in the theater, she realized that
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Speaker 1: the voice was actually coming from below her. And this
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Speaker 1: revelation made her go from just being unsettled to being
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Speaker 1: genuinely scared. So before she had ever worked in this theater,
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Speaker 1: she'd actually heard a rumor about this theater. It was
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Speaker 1: said that for the past several years, a man had
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Speaker 1: been secretly living inside of this theater, and apparently the
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Speaker 1: same man had been horribly injured in a fire at
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Speaker 1: a different theater that was nearby, and now he was
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Speaker 1: too scared to show his face in public, so he
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Speaker 1: squatted in the basement and the walls of the Palais
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Speaker 1: Garnier and only ever came out at night when he
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Speaker 1: believed he was alone. Now, this woman, this young opera singer,
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Speaker 1: had always assumed that, you know, this was just obviously
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Speaker 1: some legend made up to scare people, or maybe even
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Speaker 1: to entice people to come to this theater. But now
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Speaker 1: standing in the hallway and clearly hearing this strange, sad
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Speaker 1: voice echoing up from beneath her feet, she really couldn't
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Speaker 1: help but feel like maybe this story is true. And
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Speaker 1: how terrifying a thought that was. However, as she stood
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Speaker 1: there listening to this voice, she sort of slowly began
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Speaker 1: to convince herself that maybe it actually wasn't a man's voice,
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Speaker 1: Maybe this was the sound of water moving through the
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Speaker 1: pipes or something like that. I mean, to be honest,
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Speaker 1: that the sound was sort of far away, and she's thinking,
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Speaker 1: maybe I'm convincing myself this is an actual person's voice.
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Speaker 1: Maybe it's not, And so she's sitting there listening, and
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Speaker 1: sure enough, after a couple of minutes, she really had
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Speaker 1: convinced herself that now this is not a person. This
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Speaker 1: is just like late night sounds the theater makes. And
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Speaker 1: I'm not really here a lot by myself, and I've
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Speaker 1: never heard this before, so this, this is nothing. And
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Speaker 1: so she quickly, you know, because she told herself she
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Speaker 1: was convinced of this, but deep down she wasn't. But
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Speaker 1: she quickly went back into heardresom, she gathered up her things,
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Speaker 1: and she left for the night. A few days later,
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Speaker 1: on the evening of May twentieth, that same young opera
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Speaker 1: singer was waiting in the wings just off stage. She
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Speaker 1: and the rest of the cast were in the middle
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Speaker 1: of a performance, and she was waiting for her queue
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Speaker 1: to go on stage. But as she was watching the
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Speaker 1: show from backstage, she suddenly saw a movement above the stage,
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Speaker 1: way up in the rafters. And she looked up and
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Speaker 1: she saw there was a man in dark clothes who
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Speaker 1: was up there. Now, at first she thought, you know,
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Speaker 1: maybe this man is a stage hand, but as she
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Speaker 1: continued to look at him, she realized he wasn't doing anything.
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Speaker 1: He was just crouched up there, sort of hiding from
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Speaker 1: everybody else, just sort of staring down at the performance
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Speaker 1: like he was watching the performance. But then, you know,
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Speaker 1: as this young opera singer is staring up at the sky,
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Speaker 1: he suddenly turned and looked right at her. And this
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Speaker 1: young singer she had to hold back a gasp because
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Speaker 1: this man's face was obviously just totally disfigured what appeared
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Speaker 1: to be burn scars, and so terrified, this woman turns,
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Speaker 1: she rushes and grabs a crew member and she points
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Speaker 1: up into the rafters and says, there's somebody up there.
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Speaker 1: But when they both looked up again, the man in
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Speaker 1: dark clothes with the burned face was gone. Now, the
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Speaker 1: young singer, she felt certain that what she had seen
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Speaker 1: just moments before was real, but the crew member was
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Speaker 1: looking at her like, are you sure you saw that?
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Speaker 1: Like this seems pretty far fetched, like why would anyone
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Speaker 1: be up there? Certainly not some random person, Like what
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Speaker 1: are you talking about? And so she didn't know what
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Speaker 1: to do, but the show she was in had to
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Speaker 1: go on. About an hour later, the young singer was
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Speaker 1: standing on stage and bowing in front of a crowd
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Speaker 1: of nearly two thousand people. She and the rest of
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Speaker 1: the cast had just finished performing Act one, and the
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Speaker 1: young singer had barely made it through the performance because
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Speaker 1: she was still so shaken up by what she had
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Speaker 1: seen backstage, you know, up in the rafters. All she
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Speaker 1: wanted to do was get off stage and spend intermission
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Speaker 1: calming down. But now, even though it was only the
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Speaker 1: end of Act one, the crowd was so excited and
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Speaker 1: they loved the performance she had just done so much
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Speaker 1: they were calling for her, specifically her to do an
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Speaker 1: encore of her last aria. The singer knew she didn't
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Speaker 1: really have a choice, so she nodded to the conductor
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Speaker 1: and then reluctantly stepped forward and restarted the piece, And
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Speaker 1: as she sang, her anxiety actually began to melt away.
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Speaker 1: She let herself get lost in the music. She closed
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Speaker 1: her eyes and she belt at a high note. But
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Speaker 1: suddenly she heard this ear splitting bang, and she opened
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Speaker 1: her eyes just in time to see a brief flash
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Speaker 1: of light. Then she watched in horror as the giant
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Speaker 1: glass chandelier that hung above the audience came crashing down
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Speaker 1: and landed directly on top of a woman, killing her instantly.
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Speaker 1: Police immediately launched an investigation into the falling chandelier, but
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Speaker 1: quickly determined that the whole thing was really just a
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Speaker 1: freak accident. They said that one of the chandelier's candles
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Speaker 1: had caused a small fire, which had melted the cord
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Speaker 1: that held it up and caused it to fall. But
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Speaker 1: the young singer she didn't believe this because she'd seen
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Speaker 1: that burned man in the rafters just you know, less
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Speaker 1: than an hour before the disaster, and she couldn't help
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Speaker 1: but feel like he was to blame, and her theory,
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Speaker 1: as wild as it sounded, actually gained traction. Eventually, a
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Speaker 1: journalist named Gaston LaRue heard about it and started his
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Speaker 1: own investigation. He spent weeks searching for the burned man,
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Speaker 1: even showing up unannounced at the theater at different times
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Speaker 1: of day and night to try to catch him, but
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Speaker 1: he never did. However, Gaston did track down some construction
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Speaker 1: workers who had helped build the theater twenty years earlier,
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Speaker 1: and they claimed they knew exactly who the burn man was.
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Speaker 1: So before the garnier was built, there had been another
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Speaker 1: theater right down the block, but that theater had been
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Speaker 1: completely destroyed by a fire twenty years earlier, in eighteen
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Speaker 1: seventy three, On the night of that fire, a young
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Speaker 1: pianist named Ernest had been inside the building working on
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Speaker 1: a wedding march for his fiance, who was a ballerina
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Speaker 1: at the theater. Out of nowhere, he began to smell smoke,
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Speaker 1: and then before he knew it, flames blocked his only
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Speaker 1: way out. He had no choice but to run through
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Speaker 1: the flames, and by doing that he suffered terrible facial injuries,
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Speaker 1: but he would survive. Unfortunately, though his fiance did not
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Speaker 1: make it out. She died in the fire. The construction
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Speaker 1: workers told Gueston that after this horrible tragedy, Ernest had
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Speaker 1: sort of removed himself from society, like not only did
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Speaker 1: the burns make it difficult for him to be in public,
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Speaker 1: he was self conscious, but also he was racked with
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Speaker 1: grief about losing his fiance, And so they said Ernest
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Speaker 1: had taken refuge in the basement of the Palais Garnier,
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Speaker 1: which at this point was just under construction, and the
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Speaker 1: construction workers said they heard Ernest playing the piano at
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Speaker 1: all hours in this basement, obsessively trying to finish that
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Speaker 1: wedding march. For his fiance, and often while he was
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Speaker 1: doing this, he was screaming and crying out in agony. Now,
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Speaker 1: the workers told Gueston that eventually they stopped hearing Ernest
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Speaker 1: and they assumed at that point he had left or
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Speaker 1: maybe even died, or they said, you know, it's possible
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Speaker 1: they never heard of at all, and they had convinced
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Speaker 1: themselves that they were hearing him down there, you know,
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Speaker 1: they didn't know. But then after that, performers at the
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Speaker 1: now finished Palais Garnier reported hearing this, this sad voice
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Speaker 1: singing after hours in the building, and some even reported
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Speaker 1: seeing a scarred man, you know, the scars on his face,
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Speaker 1: creeping around the dark corners of the theater. But when
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Speaker 1: these people would periodically investigate to see where it was
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Speaker 1: coming from and who is that, nobody was ever there.
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Speaker 1: And so after hearing this star from these construction workers,
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Speaker 1: guest On LaRue, the journalist was, you know, sort of
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Speaker 1: conflicted in a way. On the one hand, you know,
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Speaker 1: he was sort of disturbed by you know, these two
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Speaker 1: tragedies separated by twenty years. You have the fire that
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Speaker 1: claim the life of Ernest's fiance, and you know, apparently
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Speaker 1: badly hurt Earnest, and then you have this this chandelier
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Speaker 1: falling and killing a guest at the theater at the
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Speaker 1: Palais Gargnier twenty years later. So like that was horrible,
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Speaker 1: that was tragic, But more than that, the feeling that
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Speaker 1: Gaston had was that he felt sort of deeply moved
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Speaker 1: by the story of Ernest's love for his fiance. You know,
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Speaker 1: whether or not the story was even true, whether or
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Speaker 1: not he really did go into the basement as construction
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Speaker 1: was being done and you know, try to finish that
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Speaker 1: song for his dead fiance, it didn't really matter. It
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Speaker 1: was like that, combined with these rumors of there being,
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Speaker 1: you know, this ghost in the theater, it was just
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Speaker 1: kind of moving. The idea that, you know, poor Ernest
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Speaker 1: and his fiance, you know, that's what stuck out to
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Speaker 1: the journalist, and so Gaston ended up writing a book
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Speaker 1: about the story, and the book was then adapted into
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Speaker 1: one of the most famous musicals of all time. Today,
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Speaker 1: Ernest is more often known by the nickname that Gaston
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Speaker 1: LaRue gave him The Phantom of the Opera. On September
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Speaker 1: twenty ninth, nineteen thirty nine, a British intelligence agent walked
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Speaker 1: through the door of the Royal Navy Headquarters in London
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Speaker 1: with an envelope tucked under his arm. When he stepped inside,
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Speaker 1: a dorman stopped him and asked to see his pass.
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Speaker 1: The agent flashed a badge that identified himself by the
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Speaker 1: code name seventeen F, and the dorman simply nodded and
11:53
Speaker 1: led him through. Agent seventeen F then continued farther into
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Speaker 1: the building and he went down this long silence into
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Speaker 1: white hallway to a black door with the number thirty
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Speaker 1: nine painted on it. After looking around to make sure
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Speaker 1: nobody was watching him, he reached down and he turned
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Speaker 1: the handle and pushed the door open, and right away
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Speaker 1: he was hit by this brightly lit office, and inside
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Speaker 1: it was absolutely chaotic. The air was full of smoke
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Speaker 1: from tobacco. Telephones were ringing off the hook, Typewriters were
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Speaker 1: clattering away, and men in dark suits were rushing back
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Speaker 1: and forth. This was the office of Great Britain's Director
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Speaker 1: of Naval Intelligence, and World War Two had just broken
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Speaker 1: out just a few weeks ago, so everything was nuts.
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Speaker 1: The spies that worked in this office were literally out
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Speaker 1: gathering intel and analyzing data and also coming up with creative,
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Speaker 1: sort of crazy ways to literally trick the enemy. Now,
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Speaker 1: Agent seventeen Haf was not actually an intelligence agent. He
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Speaker 1: was the director's personal assistant, so he had no spy training,
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Speaker 1: but he was very creative and had a way of
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Speaker 1: coming up with schemes that were so crazy they just
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Speaker 1: might work. And that really was a skill the department
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Speaker 1: desperately needed right now. The director was really practical and
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Speaker 1: analytical and pragmatic, and so he sort of liked having
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Speaker 1: someone around in his personal assistance, seventeen F, whose thought
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Speaker 1: patterns were just much more colorful. I mean, he really
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Speaker 1: thought differently than the director. So Agent seventeen F very
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Speaker 1: casually walked into this chaotic room and he strolled across
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Speaker 1: the floor and he reached the director's door and he knocked,
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Speaker 1: and a moment later the director called for him to
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Speaker 1: come in, and seventeen F walked inside, walked right over
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Speaker 1: to the desk where the director was sitting, and he
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Speaker 1: dropped that envelope he was carrying right on the desk,
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Speaker 1: and the director picked it up. He opened the envelope
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Speaker 1: and started reading what was inside, and as the director's
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Speaker 1: eyes scanned the page, Agent seventeen F couldn't help but
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Speaker 1: see what looked like an annoyed look come across the
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Speaker 1: director's face. So inside the envelope was a list of
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Speaker 1: ideas that seven had come up with for spreading misinformation
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Speaker 1: to the Germans. Basically, they were ways to confuse and
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Speaker 1: misdirect the German military by giving them fake information about
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Speaker 1: what the British were up to. Now, this is a
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Speaker 1: very normal thing that virtually every military does during a
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Speaker 1: time of war, but these specific strategies that Agent seventeen
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Speaker 1: F had come up with on this list were really
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Speaker 1: out there. I mean, even for his own standards, these
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Speaker 1: were sort of wild. For example, on this list there
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Speaker 1: was included this idea to have the British drop soccer
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Speaker 1: balls covered in reflective paint into the ocean so that
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Speaker 1: enemy submarines would you mistake them for explosives. There was
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Speaker 1: another suggestion to put fake intelligence messages into literal bottles
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Speaker 1: and just set them loose at sea and hope Germans
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Speaker 1: found them. Seventeen F also said he wanted to mail
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Speaker 1: out fake copies of The Times newspaper with made up
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Speaker 1: news stories and made up headlines to again sort of
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Speaker 1: trick their enemy. And so Agent seventeen F been pretty
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Speaker 1: excited to share this list with the director. I mean,
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Speaker 1: he was proud of these ideas. But now, you know,
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Speaker 1: looking at the director, it seemed like he was just
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Speaker 1: getting really frustrated, and so seventeen F wondered if maybe
15:13
Speaker 1: he had pushed it too far. But just then the
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Speaker 1: director stopped and clearly was fixated on one particular idea
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Speaker 1: on this list, and he looked up at seventeen F
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Speaker 1: and he said, actually, this one, this one seems workable.
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Speaker 1: So the idea that the director liked was actually based
15:29
Speaker 1: on something that happened in a crime novel that Agent
15:32
Speaker 1: seventeen F had read. Agent seventeen F was suggesting that
15:36
Speaker 1: they borrow a corpse from the naval hospital, dress it
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Speaker 1: in a British pilot's uniform, and put fake dispatches in
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Speaker 1: its pockets with details of a supposed military operation. They
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Speaker 1: then put a faulty parachute on the corpse's back and
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Speaker 1: fly over the German coast and drop the corpse out
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Speaker 1: onto the beach. And when the Germans found the corpse,
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Speaker 1: the idea was that they would of the assumed that
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Speaker 1: this was an actual pilot who had died when his
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Speaker 1: parachute failed, and then if they believed that, well, they'd
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Speaker 1: very likely believe that the information the British agents planted
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Speaker 1: in the corpse's pockets were actual military secrets that they'd intercepted.
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Speaker 1: And so in the end, the director told Agent seventeen
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Speaker 1: F that you know what, this list, this is actually
16:21
Speaker 1: pretty good. He did a good job, after all, and
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Speaker 1: so by the time Agent seventeen F left the director's
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Speaker 1: office and walked over to his own desk in the corner,
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Speaker 1: he was feeling proud that at least one of his
16:33
Speaker 1: big swings had potentially landed. Four years later, at a
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Speaker 1: pivotal moment in World War II, the British put a
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Speaker 1: version of seventeen F's plan into action. They called it
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Speaker 1: Operation Mincemeat, and amazingly it worked. British spies did plant
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Speaker 1: a corpse out on the beach with the faulty parachute
16:52
Speaker 1: with documents in its pockets saying that the Allied powers
16:56
Speaker 1: of America and Britain were going to invade Greece and Sardinia,
17:00
Speaker 1: which prompted the Germans to move a ton of their
17:03
Speaker 1: troops away from the allies real target, which was the
17:07
Speaker 1: island of Sicily. Sicily is part of Italy, and Italy
17:10
Speaker 1: was allied with Germany during World War Two, and so
17:13
Speaker 1: thanks in part to Operation mince Meat, you know, seventeen
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Speaker 1: F's big idea, the Germans were totally caught off guard
17:20
Speaker 1: by the invasion of Sicily and the Allies captured the
17:23
Speaker 1: entire island. This then paved the way for an invasion
17:25
Speaker 1: of mainland Italy, which was a major turning point in
17:29
Speaker 1: the war. And again it was all because of this
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Speaker 1: one idea inspired by Agent seventeen F. Now, to be clear,
17:36
Speaker 1: Agent seventeen F was not personally there for the invasion
17:40
Speaker 1: and he didn't publicly get credit for his role in
17:42
Speaker 1: planning it, even though Operation mince Meat would become pretty famous.
17:46
Speaker 1: But anonyminity was super important for anyone working in intelligence,
17:51
Speaker 1: which seventeen F was, and when the war ended, seventeen
17:55
Speaker 1: F might have stayed a ghost forever. But one slow
17:58
Speaker 1: afternoon at the end of the war, when the chaos
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Speaker 1: and Room thirty nine had died down and there were
18:04
Speaker 1: only a couple dozen people still working out of that office,
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Speaker 1: Agent seventeen F was sitting at his desk in the
18:10
Speaker 1: corner and the other agents nearby were talking to each
18:13
Speaker 1: other about what they were going to do next, and
18:15
Speaker 1: Agent seventeen F, even though he wasn't a part of
18:18
Speaker 1: their conversation internally, he sort of asked himself the same question, like,
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Speaker 1: what am I going to do next? I mean, he
18:24
Speaker 1: was so good at coming up with these wild ideas
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Speaker 1: and he really had so much fun doing it, Like
18:30
Speaker 1: how could he just stop doing that and go have
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Speaker 1: a normal job? Like this was his calling, doing what
18:35
Speaker 1: he did now is the only thing he wanted to do.
18:38
Speaker 1: But then he realized as he was sitting there that
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Speaker 1: maybe he didn't have to stop doing this after the war.
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Speaker 1: For years, Agent seventeen F kept on coming up with
18:50
Speaker 1: fantastical spy ideas, but this time, instead of giving these
18:54
Speaker 1: ideas to the government, he wrote them all down with
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Speaker 1: the intention of someday making a book around these ideas,
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Speaker 1: And finally, in nineteen fifty three he published the first
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Speaker 1: book under his real name, Ian Fleming, and his book
19:10
Speaker 1: was wildly successful, and he went on to write more
19:13
Speaker 1: books all about this same character who was a spy,
19:18
Speaker 1: and that spy's name was James Bond. One fall afternoon
19:38
Speaker 1: in eighteen thirty, a beaver trapper named Smith and his
19:42
Speaker 1: hunting partner, whose name was Bauman, hiked through the Bitterroot Mountains,
19:46
Speaker 1: which is a section of the Rocky Mountains in southwestern Montana. Now,
19:49
Speaker 1: where they were headed was this remote pond deep in
19:52
Speaker 1: the woods that was rumored to be full of beavers. However,
19:56
Speaker 1: despite that, nobody really ever dared to go there because
20:00
Speaker 1: the area was also said to be cursed. Now, the
20:03
Speaker 1: reasoning behind you know this rumor, the cursed rumor, is
20:06
Speaker 1: that about a year ago a hunter had traveled to
20:09
Speaker 1: the pond on his own, and he'd never come back home.
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Speaker 1: And eventually miners had passed through that area and they
20:15
Speaker 1: found his body, and his body had basically been torn
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Speaker 1: to shreds and actually partially eaten, and so naturally rumors
20:23
Speaker 1: had begun to spread that, you know, this pond was
20:25
Speaker 1: home to some kind of man eating monster. But Smith
20:29
Speaker 1: and Bauman, they didn't believe in curses or monsters. They
20:32
Speaker 1: believed in money, and they knew that they'd make a
20:35
Speaker 1: lot of money from all the beavers they would catch
20:38
Speaker 1: at this pond. And so, after several hours of hiking
20:41
Speaker 1: through the forest, Smith and Bauman did finally arrive at
20:45
Speaker 1: this cursed pond, and they hurried to set up their camp.
20:48
Speaker 1: They gathered firewood, and they built a lean to where
20:50
Speaker 1: they would stay for the next few nights. And then
20:52
Speaker 1: after that they set up a few beaver traps around
20:55
Speaker 1: the pond, and then followed this nearby stream several miles
20:58
Speaker 1: uphill and set up beever traps along the way. And
21:01
Speaker 1: so when they were done setting all these traps, it
21:03
Speaker 1: was around sunset, Smith and Bauman decided to head back
21:07
Speaker 1: to their camp the lean too they had set up
21:09
Speaker 1: and make some dinner and then go to bed, And
21:11
Speaker 1: so down the hill they went, and they're they're getting
21:13
Speaker 1: closer and closer to their campsite, and keep in mind,
21:16
Speaker 1: there's there's nobody else out here. They are in the
21:19
Speaker 1: middle of the forest. And as they're approaching their campsite,
21:23
Speaker 1: when they got within range and could actually see it,
21:26
Speaker 1: they just stopped because they're lean to. They had put
21:29
Speaker 1: together as soon as they got there, you know, they're
21:31
Speaker 1: lean to, and all their gear had basically been torn
21:34
Speaker 1: to shreds. It's like their campsite had a tornado come
21:37
Speaker 1: through it, and everything was just kind of all over
21:39
Speaker 1: the place, and there was no people, no animals, no, nothing.
21:42
Speaker 1: It was like something had happened while they were up
21:44
Speaker 1: the hills setting up these traps. Now, Smith and Bauman,
21:47
Speaker 1: their reaction was not, oh, my goodness, like a monster
21:50
Speaker 1: came through here. They're like, great, you know, a bear
21:53
Speaker 1: must have come through because bears were in this area,
21:56
Speaker 1: so this is like a nuisance at this point. This
21:59
Speaker 1: is not confirmation that the pond is haunted and that
22:02
Speaker 1: there's a monster here. They're just like, great, we got
22:04
Speaker 1: to reset up our camp now. So the two men
22:07
Speaker 1: walked over to their destroyed campsite and began rebuilding it.
22:11
Speaker 1: But as they were you know, putting their lean to
22:13
Speaker 1: back together and you know, packaging up their gear back
22:15
Speaker 1: into their bags, something really stood out that was pretty odd.
22:19
Speaker 1: So they're thinking that a bear must have come through here,
22:23
Speaker 1: and why would a bear come through here? Why would
22:25
Speaker 1: a bear tear all this stuff apart? Well, because the
22:27
Speaker 1: bear would be looking for food, as bears are known
22:30
Speaker 1: to do. But as they're packaging things up, both Smith
22:34
Speaker 1: and Bauman are seeing that none of their food was taken, like,
22:38
Speaker 1: no food has been taken, and quite a bit of
22:40
Speaker 1: it was out in the open, So there certainly was opportunity,
22:43
Speaker 1: but it wasn't. So they're thinking that's so weird, Like,
22:47
Speaker 1: clearly a big effort was made to look through the
22:50
Speaker 1: campsite for something. You know, it wasn't like an animal
22:52
Speaker 1: came over and just batting it around then left. There
22:55
Speaker 1: had to be a reason, like what were they looking for? Like,
22:58
Speaker 1: what's going on here? That's so odd? But both men
23:01
Speaker 1: figured that what likely had happened here was as they
23:04
Speaker 1: were coming back down the hill, this bear must have
23:07
Speaker 1: heard them and ran off before taking their food. And
23:10
Speaker 1: so ultimately they felt like they had just gotten really
23:13
Speaker 1: lucky here, and so Bauman went to go start a
23:16
Speaker 1: campfire to make their dinner, and Smith finished putting back
23:19
Speaker 1: together their lean to camp. But just a little while later,
23:23
Speaker 1: as Smith reconstructed their lean to, he couldn't shake the
23:27
Speaker 1: feeling that there really was something odd about whatever had
23:31
Speaker 1: happened here. You know, they had this explanation that maybe
23:34
Speaker 1: they got lucky, but it just felt sort of weird,
23:38
Speaker 1: especially considering that there was lots of lore about this
23:41
Speaker 1: place being kind of dangerous to people. You know, forget
23:43
Speaker 1: whether it's a curse or a monster. There was just
23:46
Speaker 1: a fear that something odd was going on here, and
23:49
Speaker 1: so Smith. He said to Bauman, Hey, you know, I'm
23:52
Speaker 1: just gonna for my own sanity here look around and
23:55
Speaker 1: just look for tracks. Let's let's confirm that this really
23:58
Speaker 1: was a bear. And so, you know, Bawman's like, great,
24:01
Speaker 1: go for it. He's you know, setting up the fire,
24:03
Speaker 1: and Smith, you know, began walking away from the campsite
24:06
Speaker 1: looking for tracks. However, you know, after stepping just a
24:09
Speaker 1: few feet away from you know, the campfire and their campsite,
24:13
Speaker 1: Smith realized it was just too dark out to actually
24:15
Speaker 1: see anything on the ground. So he went back to
24:18
Speaker 1: the campsite. He grabbed a torch and he lit it
24:20
Speaker 1: in the fire that Balman had made. And then now
24:23
Speaker 1: with this light source, he left the campsite and began
24:26
Speaker 1: scanning the ground looking for, you know, the tracks from
24:28
Speaker 1: this bear. And at first he didn't see anything. There
24:31
Speaker 1: were no tracks. It was just you know, some broken leaves,
24:34
Speaker 1: and there were some broken sticks and some you know
24:36
Speaker 1: brush that had been sort of trampled over that suggested
24:39
Speaker 1: an animal had come through here. But again there were
24:41
Speaker 1: no tracks. And so he's walking farther and farther away
24:45
Speaker 1: from their campsite until he gets to this clearing that
24:47
Speaker 1: was actually not very far from their campsite. But in
24:51
Speaker 1: this clearing he found some tracks. There were these massive
24:55
Speaker 1: paw prints that were in the ground. You know, tracks
24:58
Speaker 1: from this animal with huge claw It's like massive, massive paws.
25:02
Speaker 1: That certainly suggested this was a bear. And in a
25:05
Speaker 1: way this was sort of reassuring for Smith because ultimately
25:09
Speaker 1: he was going out here to confirm that this was
25:11
Speaker 1: a bear. Right, this wasn't anything else. This was a bear.
25:15
Speaker 1: But as he's looking at these tracks and watching them
25:17
Speaker 1: sort of meander their way through this clearing and back
25:20
Speaker 1: off into the woods, he noticed something strange about these tracks. Yes,
25:25
Speaker 1: they were paw prints that certainly suggested they were a bear,
25:29
Speaker 1: but the way they were landing in the ground suggest
25:32
Speaker 1: that it was just two paws, not four, and a
25:36
Speaker 1: bear walks on all four. Whatever creature was leaving behind
25:40
Speaker 1: these prints was walking on two legs. Bears don't do that.
25:46
Speaker 1: And so Smith couldn't help but feel like a little unnerved.
25:49
Speaker 1: I mean, he's seeing clear as day prints of a
25:53
Speaker 1: bipedal creature with huge paws, huge claws walking around near
25:58
Speaker 1: their campsite. I mean, did this is this a bear?
26:02
Speaker 1: He knew bears could get up on their hind legs,
26:04
Speaker 1: but they don't walk very far on just their hind legs,
26:08
Speaker 1: and so this this was unsettling. And again, you know,
26:11
Speaker 1: as much as he wasn't scared of, you know, the
26:13
Speaker 1: curse or monsters that were out here, it was hard
26:16
Speaker 1: not to think, like is there truth to that stuff?
26:19
Speaker 1: And so Smith sort of rattled, you know, he turns
26:22
Speaker 1: around and hustles back to the campsite and he tells Bauman,
26:26
Speaker 1: I found tracks, and I think it's bear tracks. But
26:31
Speaker 1: whatever it is is walking around on two legs. I'm
26:33
Speaker 1: telling you it's two legs. There's no four legged creature
26:37
Speaker 1: walking around. And Bowman laughed. He actually thought that Smith
26:42
Speaker 1: was just like playing a joke on him, like you're
26:44
Speaker 1: trying to scare me out here, right, But Smith is like,
26:47
Speaker 1: I'm not joking, Like I'm telling you the tracks one
26:50
Speaker 1: hundred percent are of an animal walking around on two legs,
26:53
Speaker 1: and it appears to be an enormous bear, you know,
26:57
Speaker 1: and you know, Bowman at this point he's like, wow,
26:58
Speaker 1: you know, bears can walk on their hind legs. But
27:00
Speaker 1: both of them are like yeah, but again not for
27:03
Speaker 1: long periods of time. And so the two men really
27:06
Speaker 1: didn't know what to make of this. I mean, by
27:08
Speaker 1: this point, their campsite was set back up, they had
27:10
Speaker 1: their fire, you know, their things are sort of back
27:12
Speaker 1: to normal, and that they're not hearing any animals or
27:15
Speaker 1: anything odd in the vicinity. And so pretty quickly they
27:18
Speaker 1: both were like, well, I guess that was just a
27:22
Speaker 1: standing bear, you know, hopefully it doesn't come back. And
27:26
Speaker 1: they just sat down by the fire and ate their dinner.
27:29
Speaker 1: So after dinner, the two men eventually did decide to
27:32
Speaker 1: just go to sleep. They were sort of in denial
27:35
Speaker 1: about the weirdness that was going on at their campsite,
27:37
Speaker 1: but they had both sort of without saying anything, elected
27:41
Speaker 1: to just not talk about it and just bury those
27:44
Speaker 1: feelings and just ignore this gut instinct. It's almost primal
27:48
Speaker 1: instinct that something was off here. It's the two men.
27:51
Speaker 1: They climbed into their lean two tent together and they
27:54
Speaker 1: lied down next to each other, and eventually they drifted
27:57
Speaker 1: off to sleep. Several hours later, when Smith and Bowman
28:00
Speaker 1: we're both fast asleep inside of this lean to right
28:02
Speaker 1: next to each other, there was this loud, almost moaning
28:06
Speaker 1: sound coming from somewhere in the forest, and it was
28:10
Speaker 1: loud enough that it woke both Smith and Bowman up,
28:13
Speaker 1: and so they sit up inside of their lean too.
28:15
Speaker 1: It's it's dark, but they can basically see each other,
28:17
Speaker 1: and they're sort of saying to each other, like, hey,
28:19
Speaker 1: did you hear that? Like what was that? Neither of
28:22
Speaker 1: them knew, but now they're sort of on edge, and
28:23
Speaker 1: they're just they're sitting in their lean to, obviously thinking
28:26
Speaker 1: about the fact that you know, this bear or whatever
28:29
Speaker 1: it was, had clearly come through here the day before.
28:32
Speaker 1: They're hoping it's not coming back, and they're just they're
28:34
Speaker 1: sitting there listening really intently to the noises coming from
28:38
Speaker 1: the forest, and there are regular night noises, you know,
28:40
Speaker 1: all across the forest, bugs and birds and animals, that
28:43
Speaker 1: kind of thing. But as they're straining to listen, they
28:46
Speaker 1: can hear something huge. It's making its way through the
28:51
Speaker 1: tree line in their direction, and so Bauman sort of
28:54
Speaker 1: reflexibly grabbed his rifle, and you know, he's just holding
28:57
Speaker 1: onto his rifle wondering what he's going to do, and
28:59
Speaker 1: Smith too is sort of not sure what to do.
29:01
Speaker 1: And then at some point, as whatever this is got
29:04
Speaker 1: close enough to their lean to, they can't see it.
29:06
Speaker 1: They're too scared to poke their head out to look,
29:09
Speaker 1: but they know it's getting closer. When it got close enough,
29:12
Speaker 1: they began to smell whatever it was. It was like
29:15
Speaker 1: this musty earth smell. And as the two men are
29:20
Speaker 1: like getting ready to actually make a plan about what
29:22
Speaker 1: to do, like obviously this thing is back, whatever it is,
29:27
Speaker 1: they hear the noise again that woke them up, but
29:30
Speaker 1: now it's literally coming from right outside of their lean to,
29:33
Speaker 1: and it's this guttural loud, almost like human moaning sound,
29:38
Speaker 1: but it's definitely not a person. It's just this eerie,
29:43
Speaker 1: low rumbling sound, and it's right outside the tent. And Bauman,
29:48
Speaker 1: as soon as he heard this, he just turned and
29:50
Speaker 1: he aimed his rifle and fired basically roughly in the
29:53
Speaker 1: direction of where this thing was, which again is right
29:56
Speaker 1: outside their lean to. And as soon as he fired,
29:59
Speaker 1: both men heard the sound of this huge creature right
30:02
Speaker 1: outside their lean to turn and start running into the forest,
30:07
Speaker 1: just bounding through the trees. Trees are crashing. It's like
30:10
Speaker 1: it's this totally chaotic sound is this huge thing is
30:13
Speaker 1: retreating into the woods. And then at some point all
30:16
Speaker 1: the noise stops and they don't hear it again, and
30:19
Speaker 1: the two men are like so frightened by whatever this was.
30:23
Speaker 1: It certainly didn't feel like a bear. They had not
30:26
Speaker 1: smelled something like that. They had certainly not heard a
30:28
Speaker 1: sound like that. And just the way it was moving,
30:31
Speaker 1: it was so agile and so huge, and did sound
30:35
Speaker 1: like something that was walking sort of upright, like even
30:37
Speaker 1: just the steps it was taking right outside their lean
30:40
Speaker 1: to it. Just it didn't sound like a typical animal
30:43
Speaker 1: moving around this. This was different. And so the two
30:46
Speaker 1: men they're they're terrified, and they're just up all night,
30:49
Speaker 1: you know, waiting for this thing to come back. By
30:52
Speaker 1: the time the sun finally rose the next morning, Smith
30:55
Speaker 1: was so anxious and so exhausted that he actually felt sick.
31:00
Speaker 1: He didn't want to leave the campsite because this trip
31:03
Speaker 1: was ultimately about making money and they had not caught
31:06
Speaker 1: any beabers yet, so this was not a profitable trip yet.
31:09
Speaker 1: But if they left now, I mean, they definitely wouldn't
31:12
Speaker 1: be catching anything, and this really would be a net loss. However,
31:16
Speaker 1: both he and Bauman both agreed that you know, whatever
31:19
Speaker 1: kind of creature here kept coming back to their campsite,
31:22
Speaker 1: it certainly did not act walk or sound like a bear.
31:27
Speaker 1: Whatever it was, clearly it was dangerous. So ultimately, what
31:31
Speaker 1: Bauman and Smith decide to do is they are going
31:35
Speaker 1: to basically wrap up this trip early. But first they're
31:39
Speaker 1: going to go check all those beaver traps they had
31:41
Speaker 1: set both around the pond and up the hill next
31:44
Speaker 1: to that stream. But normally they would do this together
31:47
Speaker 1: and it would take a really long time to go
31:49
Speaker 1: to each and every trap and check it, and you know,
31:51
Speaker 1: if there was a beaver in there to work through that.
31:54
Speaker 1: So what they decided to do instead, in order to
31:56
Speaker 1: be expeditious and be really quick, is they would split up.
32:00
Speaker 1: You know, it's broad daylight. They figured they were safe
32:02
Speaker 1: here from whatever this creature was, and they would split up.
32:06
Speaker 1: They would divide and conquer, check all the traps, and
32:08
Speaker 1: then meet back at the campsite before it was dark,
32:10
Speaker 1: pack up and leave a little while later, Bauman had
32:14
Speaker 1: finished checking all the traps that he was responsible for,
32:16
Speaker 1: and he had come back with three beavers over his shoulder,
32:19
Speaker 1: and he was feeling pretty good. It was pretty quick
32:21
Speaker 1: checking his traps. He's thinking, great, our plan's going to work.
32:24
Speaker 1: You know, I bet Smith is done too. We can
32:26
Speaker 1: pack up and get out of here, hopefully really soon.
32:29
Speaker 1: And so he's walking towards the campsite and he can
32:32
Speaker 1: see it up ahead, and at first glance, everything looked
32:34
Speaker 1: to be in normal order, you know, the lean to
32:37
Speaker 1: was still set up, and he could see there were
32:38
Speaker 1: some gears stacked up on the ground. And so as
32:41
Speaker 1: Bauman got closer to the camp he began calling out
32:44
Speaker 1: to his friend to Smith, and Smith didn't call back.
32:48
Speaker 1: Now Bauman didn't really know if Smith was actually back
32:51
Speaker 1: to the campsite yet, he could still be out checking
32:53
Speaker 1: his traps. So Bawman he walks into the campsite and
32:56
Speaker 1: Smith is not there. But that gear that he saw
33:00
Speaker 1: from a distance sort of stacked up in the middle
33:01
Speaker 1: of the campsite, well, it was Smith's gear and he
33:04
Speaker 1: had packed it all up and stacked it there, which
33:07
Speaker 1: certainly suggested that Smith had finished checking his traps, had
33:10
Speaker 1: packed his stuff, and had to be nearby like he
33:12
Speaker 1: was getting ready to leave too. And so Bauman's thinking, okay,
33:15
Speaker 1: I just got to find him, you know, maybe he
33:17
Speaker 1: walked off somewhere as he's waiting for me, And so
33:19
Speaker 1: Bawman he puts his beavers down and continues calling out
33:23
Speaker 1: for Smith, just sort of wandering around, you know, the
33:26
Speaker 1: rough vicinity of the campsite, you know, hoping to find Smith.
33:30
Speaker 1: But Smith never calls back, and Bawman's getting a little worried.
33:33
Speaker 1: You know. Again, they're obviously on edge here. Some weird
33:36
Speaker 1: things have been happening here. That creature obviously totally freaked
33:39
Speaker 1: them out. And so, you know, Bauman is yelling louder
33:42
Speaker 1: and louder, and he's sort of moving faster and faster,
33:44
Speaker 1: trying to find some sign of where Smith went. And
33:47
Speaker 1: at some point, Bauman makes his way into that clearing
33:50
Speaker 1: where the night before Smith had actually found those tracks
33:54
Speaker 1: that showed you know, this bipedal creature moving around. And
33:58
Speaker 1: when Bauman made his way into that clearing, he just
34:01
Speaker 1: stopped because the first thing he saw is there was
34:04
Speaker 1: blood all over this clearing. It was like a bloodbath everywhere.
34:09
Speaker 1: And then on the other side of the clearing, sort
34:12
Speaker 1: of draped up against this tree, was like this, this
34:16
Speaker 1: heap of meat. That heap of meat was Smith. Smith
34:21
Speaker 1: had been absolutely ripped to shreds, like his body was
34:26
Speaker 1: just destroyed. His limbs were all in different directions, like
34:30
Speaker 1: he was ripped to pieces and in Bowman, he didn't
34:33
Speaker 1: even have to go over to check to see if
34:35
Speaker 1: he was dead. He was definitely dead. There's no creature
34:39
Speaker 1: in the area. It's totally silent, eerily silent, and Bowman like.
34:43
Speaker 1: He's just staring at his friend wondering, like what does
34:46
Speaker 1: he even do. But as he's standing there staring at
34:48
Speaker 1: this just horrific scene, something else clicked. If it had
34:54
Speaker 1: been an animal that attacked his friend Smith, if an
34:57
Speaker 1: animal was responsible for this, it likely would have eaten Smith,
35:01
Speaker 1: or there would have been signs that Smith was was
35:04
Speaker 1: eaten by this animal. But Smith had no signs of predation.
35:10
Speaker 1: Smith had no signs that an animal was trying to
35:12
Speaker 1: eat him. His whole body was just ripped apart, like
35:15
Speaker 1: whatever killed him just wanted to kill him and basically
35:19
Speaker 1: fling him around like a toy as he was being killed.
35:23
Speaker 1: And so at this point, almost like instinctively, Bauman knew
35:27
Speaker 1: two things. One, the creature clearly killed Smith. There was
35:33
Speaker 1: no other explanation that made sense here. He didn't understand,
35:36
Speaker 1: you know, why, or even how, but the creature had
35:40
Speaker 1: to have done this. And two, the creature was not
35:44
Speaker 1: a bear, couldn't have been a bear. There's too many
35:47
Speaker 1: obvious signs that what they're dealing with here is not
35:51
Speaker 1: a bear or really any animal he had ever run into.
35:54
Speaker 1: And then also sort of a third thing was, you know,
35:57
Speaker 1: Bauman's thinking, I wasn't that far away like this horrifically
36:02
Speaker 1: violent attack. It sort of happened silently or just fast
36:07
Speaker 1: enough that you know, Smith didn't have time to scream.
36:10
Speaker 1: It's like this, this creature killed almost surgically, despite the
36:15
Speaker 1: sort of gratuitous nature of the scene. And so all
36:19
Speaker 1: that said to Bauman is he needed to leave right now,
36:23
Speaker 1: and so he literally left his friend, He left all
36:26
Speaker 1: the supplies, He just turned and fled. Over the next
36:29
Speaker 1: several decades, Bauman just lied about what happened to Smith.
36:34
Speaker 1: He told people that while they were out there, Smith
36:37
Speaker 1: was attacked and killed by a bear. And the reason
36:40
Speaker 1: he did that and did not tell people that, well,
36:42
Speaker 1: it was some bipedal monster that you know, wandered the
36:45
Speaker 1: woods and slaughtered my friend. You know, the reason he
36:48
Speaker 1: didn't say that is because he felt like nobody would
36:51
Speaker 1: believe him, that he would look crazy, and that, of course,
36:53
Speaker 1: like he's feeding into this this rumor that this particular
36:56
Speaker 1: area is cursed and there's a monster out there. He
36:59
Speaker 1: just didn't think people would take him seriously, so he
37:01
Speaker 1: kept it to himself. That was until about forty years
37:05
Speaker 1: later when Bauman met this man that he felt like
37:08
Speaker 1: he could trust with his real story. This man was
37:11
Speaker 1: an avid hunter and he was collecting unique stories for
37:14
Speaker 1: a book he was writing about wilderness exploration. And to Bawman,
37:18
Speaker 1: it felt like his story was a fit. So Bauman
37:21
Speaker 1: told him the truth. He told him all about you know,
37:24
Speaker 1: what they experienced out there, and you know the fact
37:26
Speaker 1: that he did not believe it was a bear. He
37:28
Speaker 1: felt like it was a monster, if you will. And
37:30
Speaker 1: this man who's hearing this story took Bauman really seriously.
37:35
Speaker 1: He took detailed notes as Bauman was recounting this, you know,
37:38
Speaker 1: horrific thing, and then he ultimately published Bauman's account in
37:42
Speaker 1: his book. In the book, the writer described this this
37:45
Speaker 1: creature that Bauman and Smith encountered in the woods as quote,
37:50
Speaker 1: something either half human or half devil, some great goblin beast. Now,
37:55
Speaker 1: to modern audiences, when you hear the details of the story,
37:59
Speaker 1: the one I've just shared with you, I mean, the
38:01
Speaker 1: monster really sounds an awful lot like Bigfoot or at
38:05
Speaker 1: least something Bigfoot adjacent. But the writer published this book
38:08
Speaker 1: published Bowman's account in eighteen ninety three, which was more
38:13
Speaker 1: than sixty years before the term bigfoot even existed. So
38:17
Speaker 1: today Bigfoot believers cite this book in particular Bawman's experience
38:22
Speaker 1: as one of the very first documented accounts ever of
38:26
Speaker 1: a monster that is now ubiquitous. But the writer of
38:29
Speaker 1: this book did not go down in history, as you know,
38:32
Speaker 1: being remembered for documenting Bigfoot essentially for the first time,
38:36
Speaker 1: or at least before anybody knew, you know, what Bigfoot was. No, instead,
38:41
Speaker 1: the writer would go down in history for what he
38:45
Speaker 1: did eight years after publishing that book. That was when
38:49
Speaker 1: he was elected as America's twenty sixth president. The writer
38:54
Speaker 1: was Theodore Roosevelt. Thank you so much for watching. Let
39:05
Speaker 1: me know what you thought of today's episode in the comments.
39:08
Speaker 1: And remember, we have hundreds of videos for you to
39:11
Speaker 1: binge right now. But if you're looking for a recommendation
39:14
Speaker 1: for me of that one video that's worth your time,
39:17
Speaker 1: well it's this one right here, So give it a watch,
39:20
Speaker 1: all right, until next time, see ya,