Latest / Crime and Horror / The Valley of Headless Men ( ANXIETY WARNING )

Transcript

The Valley of Headless Men ( ANXIETY WARNING ) · Crime and Horror

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  Speaker 1: Today's story is a classic don't go in the woods
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  Speaker 1: type of story. But before we get into today's story,
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  Speaker 1: let's get into today's story. Located in the far northwestern
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  Speaker 1: section of Canada is the aptly named Northwest Territories. It
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  Speaker 1: is a massive swath of land that virtually nobody lives
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  Speaker 1: inside of. To make that point crystal clear, consider the following.
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  Speaker 1: The country of Germany has a population of 83 million people,
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  Speaker 1: give or take. The Northwest Territories is four times as
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  Speaker 1: large as Germany, but only has a population of about 50,000 people.
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  Speaker 1: In addition to being this huge and mostly unoccupied space,
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  Speaker 1: the Northwest territories are almost completely wild. Think dense forests,
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  Speaker 1: huge mountains, massive rivers and lakes, and lots and lots
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  Speaker 1: of really big animals. Even for highly experienced outdoors men
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  Speaker 1: and women, The Northwest Territories can be a truly hazardous place.
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  Speaker 1: And within this truly hazardous place, there is one part
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  Speaker 1: that is the most hazardous. And it's right in the
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  Speaker 1: middle of the Northwest Territories. And it's this 11,000 square
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  Speaker 1: mile stretch of just pure wilderness that's called the Nahanni Valley.
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  Speaker 1: In 1976, the Nahanni Valley was made into a national park.
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  Speaker 1: But don't let that fool you. This is not some
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  Speaker 1: family park that anybody can go to. There are no
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  Speaker 1: tourist accommodations, so there's no hotels. There's really nothing inside
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  Speaker 1: of it. And there are no roads that lead into
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  Speaker 1: this park. The only way you can get inside this
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  Speaker 1: valley is by plane or by boat or by very
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  Speaker 1: stressful and difficult overland hike. But for those who are
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  Speaker 1: able and willing to make the effort to get inside
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  Speaker 1: of this valley, you have the opportunity to explore one
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  Speaker 1: of the most beautiful places on the planet, because this
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  Speaker 1: section of the world is almost completely untouched by man.
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  Speaker 1: It is really nature at its purest form. However, there
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  Speaker 1: is a catch. This valley is said to be haunted.
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  Speaker 1: Over the last 10,000 years, the handful of native tribes
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  Speaker 1: that have attempted to settle inside of the Nahanni Valley
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  Speaker 1: have all either suddenly disappeared without a trace, like the
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  Speaker 1: Naha tribe, that literally overnight just was gone, leaving behind
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  Speaker 1: their shelters, their food, their supplies, just gone. No one
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  Speaker 1: knows what happened to them. Or the tribes have abruptly fled,
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  Speaker 1: claiming they were being terrorized or stalked by creatures lurking
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  Speaker 1: in the forest, like these white demons and these large
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  Speaker 1: wolves they called Wahilas. Now, of course, this just sounds
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  Speaker 1: like folklore. And it might very well be that that's
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  Speaker 1: all it is, folklore. But starting in the early 1900s,
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  Speaker 1: some very strange things started happening in the Nahanni Valley
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  Speaker 1: that were not folklore. These things happened, and they were horrifying.
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  Speaker 1: These were horrifying, real events. And they might, depending on
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  Speaker 1: your viewpoint, give credit to some of the theories that
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  Speaker 1: the native tribespeople have about this valley, which is there's
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  Speaker 1: something evil lurking out in this forest, but we just
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  Speaker 1: don't know what it is. In 1904, three brothers, Willie
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  Speaker 1: Frank and Charlie McLeod, who all lived in the Northwest Territories,
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  Speaker 1: decided they wanted to go looking for gold in the
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  Speaker 1: Nahanni Valley. They figured, because so few people had ever
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  Speaker 1: been inside of this valley, that if there was gold
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  Speaker 1: to be found, then certainly it had not been found yet.
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  Speaker 1: And so after a very long and arduous journey using
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  Speaker 1: sled dogs and trains and homemade boats, they finally slipped
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  Speaker 1: into the valley and found themselves on what's called the
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  Speaker 1: Flat River, which runs right through the center of the
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  Speaker 1: Nahanni Valley. Now, the Flat River is kind of ironically
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  Speaker 1: named because it's anything but flat. It's actually more like
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  Speaker 1: a rapid at certain points. But either way, the three brothers,
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  Speaker 1: they're on their boat, they're making their way up the
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  Speaker 1: flat river, and at some point they pull off onto
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  Speaker 1: the riverbank and they set up camp. And then once
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  Speaker 1: their camp is set up, they go down to the
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  Speaker 1: river and they put their gold sluices in the water.
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  Speaker 1: A gold sluice is this long, skinny box that's usually
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  Speaker 1: made of wood and it has a strainer on one side.
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  Speaker 1: And gold miners will put it in the water, submerged,
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  Speaker 1: and they will kind of shovel the sediment on the
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  Speaker 1: bottom of the water into this little funnel And the
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  Speaker 1: big stuff will get stopped by the strainer and the
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  Speaker 1: dirt and the water will just kind of flow out
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  Speaker 1: the side. And so the idea is you can trap
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  Speaker 1: gold nuggets inside of the sluice. And so the three brothers,
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  Speaker 1: they get their sluices up and they start looking for gold.
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  Speaker 1: And right away, they hit pay dirt. There is tons
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  Speaker 1: of gold in this river. And so all day, all night,
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  Speaker 1: they get all this gold. The next morning, they do
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  Speaker 1: the same thing. And by the time all their containers
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  Speaker 1: are literally filled to the brim with gold, they decide,
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  Speaker 1: you know, hey, let's go back and turn this in,
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  Speaker 1: get some money for it, and then come back out here.
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  Speaker 1: And so they pack up their tent, they pack up
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  Speaker 1: all their supplies, and they put everything back in their boat.
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  Speaker 1: They get out onto Flat River, and at some point,
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  Speaker 1: very early on in their journey back, the boat capsizes,
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  Speaker 1: and the boat actually breaks apart from the strength of
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  Speaker 1: the rapids of Flat River. And so the boat actually
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  Speaker 1: just sinks, and much of their supplies sink, including all
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  Speaker 1: of their gold. But the three brothers are able to
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  Speaker 1: grab some of their supplies, like their rifle and some lumber,
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  Speaker 1: and some of their mining supplies, and they swim it
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  Speaker 1: all to shore. They catch their breath. They're totally devastated
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  Speaker 1: at the loss of the gold, but they're alive. They
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  Speaker 1: have enough supplies to survive. And so they figure all
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  Speaker 1: they can do is maybe try to go back to
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  Speaker 1: their original site, try to get some more gold because
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  Speaker 1: they did still have a sluice, and then try to
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  Speaker 1: get out of there and then, you know, regroup and
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  Speaker 1: come back another time. And so using some of the
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  Speaker 1: lumber they recovered from their broken boat, and then also
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  Speaker 1: by cutting down some trees, they literally fashioned another boat
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  Speaker 1: and then hopped back on the Flat River and they
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  Speaker 1: went back up to that site where they had found
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  Speaker 1: gold earlier. They set up their sluice, they set up
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  Speaker 1: their camp again, and this time they didn't find any gold.
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  Speaker 1: So all day, this very disappointing day that they've already
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  Speaker 1: lost all their gold, now they're not finding any more gold.
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  Speaker 1: And so that night when they went to bed, they
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  Speaker 1: decided that the next day they were just going to leave.
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  Speaker 1: And so the next day they get up, they pack up,
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  Speaker 1: they hop back on the Flat River on this new
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  Speaker 1: boat they built. and they're able to make their way
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  Speaker 1: out of the valley and get back to their homes.
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  Speaker 1: As soon as they get back home, the two younger brothers,
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  Speaker 1: Willie and Frank, start talking about how they want to
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  Speaker 1: go back into Nahanni Valley and go get more gold,
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  Speaker 1: because now they know there's gold out there. It's not
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  Speaker 1: a question, yeah, we didn't find it that second time,
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  Speaker 1: but we know it's out there. Charlie, the older brother,
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  Speaker 1: he wanted to get the gold, but he felt like,
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  Speaker 1: you know, hey, that was a close call with the
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  Speaker 1: boat flipping over. I don't know if it's a good idea,
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  Speaker 1: so I'm actually not going to go. You guys can go.
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to stay. And so several months goes by,
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  Speaker 1: and Frank and Willie have been doing all this preparation
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  Speaker 1: for this additional trip into the valley. And finally, in 1905,
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  Speaker 1: they're ready. And so Willie, Frank, and a third man
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  Speaker 1: called Robert Weir, who was a friend of theirs, he
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  Speaker 1: was going to replace Charlie. The three of them, they
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  Speaker 1: make their way up into the valley. Now, they didn't
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  Speaker 1: tell anyone how long they were going to be gone for.
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  Speaker 1: And so when they didn't send any word and no
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  Speaker 1: one had heard from them in weeks, Charlie was actually
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  Speaker 1: not that concerned because he knew there was lots of
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  Speaker 1: gold to be had out in the Nahanni Valley. And
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  Speaker 1: so he figured they must have struck it rich, and
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  Speaker 1: now they've decided to live out there long term, or
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  Speaker 1: at least maybe through the summer, or maybe the next year.
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  Speaker 1: And so he wasn't concerned, and because he wasn't concerned,
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  Speaker 1: nobody else was concerned about these three men. And so
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  Speaker 1: weeks turned into months, turned into a year, and still,
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  Speaker 1: no one's heard from these three men. No one's heard
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  Speaker 1: from Willie, Frank, or from Robert. But still, Charlie maintains
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  Speaker 1: that nothing can be wrong, because there's three of them
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  Speaker 1: out there, they're incredibly experienced. There is a ton of
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  Speaker 1: gold out there. I'm sure they're just killing it and
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  Speaker 1: they're just acquiring all this gold and we're going to
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  Speaker 1: see them in the next couple of months maybe and
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  Speaker 1: everything's going to be just fine. But a whole other
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  Speaker 1: year would go by. So they've been out there for
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  Speaker 1: two years and no one has heard from them. And
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  Speaker 1: at this point, Charlie thinks to himself, okay, you know,
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  Speaker 1: I have to go out and see if they're okay.
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  Speaker 1: And so he rounds up four other people from his
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  Speaker 1: town and he mounts an expedition to head back into
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  Speaker 1: the Nahanni Valley to go find his two brothers and
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  Speaker 1: find Robert Weir. Charlie and his search party eventually, after
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  Speaker 1: yet another long and arduous journey, they get into Nahanni
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  Speaker 1: Valley and they get onto the Flat River. And so
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  Speaker 1: they start making their way upstream along Flat River. So
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  Speaker 1: it must have been a very treacherous journey getting through
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  Speaker 1: the rapids of this river. and the whole time they're
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  Speaker 1: scanning the left and the right side, hoping to see
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  Speaker 1: some sign of life. They're looking for any indication that
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  Speaker 1: these three men are out here and just fine, but
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  Speaker 1: they didn't see any sign of them, and so they
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  Speaker 1: finally made their way all the way up to the
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  Speaker 1: very end of Flat River, or I should say the
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  Speaker 1: very beginning of Flat River, where it breaks off from
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  Speaker 1: a much larger river called the South Nahanni River. And
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  Speaker 1: once they turned onto the South Nahanni River, they began
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  Speaker 1: going downstream, And again, they're looking on either side for
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  Speaker 1: any sign of these three men. There's no sign of them.
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  Speaker 1: And then the river they're on takes a very sharp turn.
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  Speaker 1: It's actually called the Big Bend, and it's about a
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  Speaker 1: 45-degree turn. And as soon as you make that turn,
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  Speaker 1: it dumps you into this 10-mile stretch of river called
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  Speaker 1: Second Canyon. Now, along South Nahanni River, which is about
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  Speaker 1: 350 miles long, there are these four canyons that the
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  Speaker 1: water passes through. And they're labeled Fourth Canyon, Third Canyon,
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  Speaker 1: Second Canyon, and First Canyon. And these canyons are massive.
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  Speaker 1: These sheer cliffs on either side of the river shoot
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  Speaker 1: up up to 3,000 feet above the water. And in
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  Speaker 1: some parts, the water is actually... just as deep, thousands
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  Speaker 1: of feet deep. And Second Canyon is unique because the
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  Speaker 1: cliff faces are as sheer as you're going to get.
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  Speaker 1: And the cliff faces almost butt up exactly up against
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  Speaker 1: the water. So there's really very little shoreline on either side.
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  Speaker 1: So once you're in this 10-mile stretch, You're basically boxed in.
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  Speaker 1: You have thousands of feet of water below you. You
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  Speaker 1: have these massive cliffs on either side, and there's really
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  Speaker 1: nowhere to go. You need to get through this section
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  Speaker 1: of the river before you can effectively get onto the
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  Speaker 1: shoreline and take a break from being in your boat.
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  Speaker 1: And along these cliffs are these openings you see high
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  Speaker 1: up all over the cliffs on both sides that are
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  Speaker 1: openings to these massive cave systems inside of these thousands
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  Speaker 1: of feet tall cliffs. And because of how difficult it
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  Speaker 1: is to not only get to Nahanni Valley, but also
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  Speaker 1: to get up to these different cave openings, nobody's gone
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  Speaker 1: inside of them. We don't know what's inside of these caves,
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  Speaker 1: you know, save for the few that are down low
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  Speaker 1: enough that people can explore. So as you're passing through
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  Speaker 1: Second Canyon, it's almost like you're being watched because there's
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  Speaker 1: all these openings, but you can't see into them and
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  Speaker 1: you're just forced to go down this 10 mile stretch
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  Speaker 1: and you can't really go anywhere and whatever's watching you,
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  Speaker 1: it's watching you. As soon as Charlie and his search
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  Speaker 1: party entered into Second Canyon, it would have immediately gotten darker,
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  Speaker 1: because that's another part of being in Second Canyon. These
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  Speaker 1: huge cliff walls of this canyon obscure the sunlight, and
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  Speaker 1: so they would have entered into this canyon, it would
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  Speaker 1: have gotten darker, and it's very windy inside of Second Canyon.
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  Speaker 1: So the winds would have picked up, so it's dark,
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  Speaker 1: very strange setting for them to be in, and they
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: would have been looking on either side at these little
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  Speaker 1: strips of shoreline on either side, barely big enough for
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  Speaker 1: a boat to be. They would have been looking for
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  Speaker 1: any sign of life, but they didn't see anything. As
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  Speaker 1: they're making their way down this 10-mile stretch, as they're
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  Speaker 1: getting closer and closer to actually entering into First Canyon,
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  Speaker 1: which is the next canyon you would enter into, the
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  Speaker 1: sides of the river start to get slightly larger where
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  Speaker 1: you could actually beach a boat, there's some trees, and
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  Speaker 1: on the left-hand side, right before exiting Second Canyon, they
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  Speaker 1: notice there is actually a tent perched within some trees.
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  Speaker 1: And so the search party naturally goes right over to
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  Speaker 1: the shoreline, they hop out, But as soon as they
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  Speaker 1: step foot on land and they have a clearer view
• 12:14
  Speaker 1: of this tent and what's outside of it, they notice
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  Speaker 1: there is a body clearly lying on the ground outside
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  Speaker 1: of the tent. And so Charlie and the search party,
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  Speaker 1: they run over. And as soon as they're up close,
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  Speaker 1: they can tell this body is missing its head. And
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  Speaker 1: they see the clothes on this body are totally charred
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  Speaker 1: and burned. And whoever this was, they were reaching with
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  Speaker 1: their right arm when they died. And right outside of
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  Speaker 1: the reach of their right arm was a rifle that
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  Speaker 1: was propped up against a tree. And so they walk
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  Speaker 1: around this one body and they go around towards the
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: backside of the tent where the opening to this tent is.
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  Speaker 1: And they find another body, another very badly decomposed body.
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  Speaker 1: And it's positioned kind of halfway in the tent and
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  Speaker 1: halfway out of the tent. And there's a blanket kind
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  Speaker 1: of partially obscuring this person's body. And when they move
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  Speaker 1: the blanket, they see this body too is missing its head.
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  Speaker 1: So Charlie and the search party, they continue to search
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  Speaker 1: around the camp in hopes of finding the heads of
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  Speaker 1: these two people to try to figure out who they are.
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  Speaker 1: But they never find the heads. However, they do find
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: some personal effects both in the pockets of these two
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  Speaker 1: bodies and then also inside the tent that would confirm
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  Speaker 1: these are Charlie's brothers. As for the third man that
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: had been with them, Robert Weir, He was not at
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: the campsite, and in fact, he would never actually be
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: found officially. However, a little ways down the river, another
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  Speaker 1: partial skeleton would be found several months later that was
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  Speaker 1: attributed to Robert. However, that was not 100% confirmed to
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  Speaker 1: be Robert. The only other interesting thing that was found
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  Speaker 1: at this campsite was a carving in a nearby tree.
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  Speaker 1: And it just said, we have found a fine prospect,
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  Speaker 1: indicating that Charlie's brothers had found gold. but there was
• 13:52
  Speaker 1: no gold either on them or in their camp or
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: in the river nearby, nothing. There was no gold. Charlie
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: and his search party would leave the valley and get
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: in touch with the mounted police who would come out
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: to the site where the brothers had been found. They
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: would launch an investigation and ultimately they would come to
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  Speaker 1: the conclusion that all three of these men, the two
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  Speaker 1: brothers and Robert, had starved to death and then after
• 14:15
  Speaker 1: they had perished, animals had taken them off, which is
• 14:18
  Speaker 1: why Robert was found so far away and why the
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: skulls were missing from the two brothers. Now, Charlie did
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: not believe that. He believed they had been attacked by
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: native tribes in the area, but the police were not
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: buying that. They said this was a natural thing. This
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: was an accident. And so that's that. When the story
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: of these two decapitated men made the news, people went
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: crazy about this. People were very divided about what they
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: thought really happened. There was a percentage of people that
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: believed that partial skeleton that was found, that was not
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: Robert Weir. He had not died. He had murdered the
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: two brothers, decapitated them, and then made off with their gold.
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  Speaker 1: The other percentage of people believed that all three men,
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  Speaker 1: the two brothers and Robert, had been attacked by a person,
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: a group of people, an animal, a creature, something. There
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: was some sort of attack. And that's why the two
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: brothers were in those positions that indicated they had encountered
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: something horrifying with one brother reaching for the gun and
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: the other appearing to have leapt from his bed before
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: he ultimately died. But regardless of which side you fell on,
• 15:20
  Speaker 1: pretty much everybody at the time who heard about the
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: story became terrified of the Nahanni Valley. Specifically, they became
• 15:27
  Speaker 1: terrified of that stretch in Second Canyon where the two
• 15:31
  Speaker 1: brothers had been found. And so actually that stretch got
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: renamed the Headless Valley. And from that point forward, that's
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  Speaker 1: all it was known as. And so even though there
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: were obvious gold prospects in the Headless Valley and all
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: along the South Nahanni River and the Flat River, people
• 15:48
  Speaker 1: after the story broke were just not prepared to risk
• 15:51
  Speaker 1: going in there and potentially becoming another victim. And so
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: people kind of stayed away from Nahanni Valley. Eight years later, though,
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  Speaker 1: in 1913, a gold prospector named Martin Jorgensen decided, you
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: know what? I'm not going to let some scary stories
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: about some headless men and, you know, ghosts and killers
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  Speaker 1: on the loose. I'm not going to let any of
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  Speaker 1: that get in the way of me taking gold out
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  Speaker 1: of Nahanni Valley. So all on his own, Martin makes
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: the arduous trek inside of Nahanni Valley. He makes his
• 16:21
  Speaker 1: way up Flat River and he finally finds a spot
• 16:24
  Speaker 1: about 70 miles upstream of where Headless Valley was. And
• 16:28
  Speaker 1: he actually built a one-room cabin because he was gonna
• 16:31
  Speaker 1: stay there through the winter. And then the plan was
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: he would meet up with his partners the following summer.
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: And so right after he got there, he set up
• 16:38
  Speaker 1: his sluices and he started mining for gold. And apparently
• 16:41
  Speaker 1: he found a lot of it because he sent word
• 16:44
  Speaker 1: back to his partners outside of the valley that he
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: had made it rich. And so his partners were really
• 16:49
  Speaker 1: excited to meet up with him the following summer and
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: see how much he got. because they planned on going
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: back into the valley with him that summer. So that
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: summer rolls around, his partners go to the meeting spot
• 17:00
  Speaker 1: right outside the valley, but Martin doesn't show up. And
• 17:04
  Speaker 1: so his partners, they stay outside at this meeting space
• 17:07
  Speaker 1: for several days until finally, you know, when he doesn't
• 17:10
  Speaker 1: show up, they decide, you know, we have to go
• 17:12
  Speaker 1: in there and see if he is okay, because at
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: this point he should have been here, there's no excuse.
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: And so they end up going into the Nahanni Valley,
• 17:19
  Speaker 1: they make their way up Flat River, they go roughly
• 17:22
  Speaker 1: to the area where they knew he was staying based
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: on the message he had sent earlier he had described
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: where he was staying and they actually found his cabin
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: or i should say they found what was left of
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: his cabin his cabin had been completely torched burned to
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: the ground and laying on the ground next to the
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: burned out cabin was the burned out remains of another
• 17:43
  Speaker 1: headless corpse and this corpse belonged to martin jorgensen the
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: police did a thorough investigation but they were never able
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: to determine what actually killed him. The police did not
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: connect Martin's death with the two McLeod brothers' deaths, even
• 17:57
  Speaker 1: though they were all decapitated, they were in roughly the
• 18:00
  Speaker 1: same area, and it happened within a few years of
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: each other, and they looked very, very similar, even though
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: that all was true. The police said, nope, these are
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: totally separate. Martin died for some reason, and then animals
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: took parts of him away, and that's why his skull
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: is missing. Martin's skull was never located. and the gold
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: that Martin claimed to have struck it rich with was
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: also not at the cabin, not on him. There was
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: no gold anywhere in the vicinity. When Martin's death made
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: the news, people went crazy, and despite the police assuring
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: everyone that his death was not connected to the McLeod
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: brothers' deaths, even though the police were saying that, the
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: public didn't see it that way. It was just too
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: easy to connect one decapitation with two other decapitations that
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: have happened close together, in a relatively short time frame,
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: and so a lot of people assumed there must be
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: a killer on the loose somewhere in Nahanni Valley. Seven
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: years later, in 1921, the rumors of a killer on
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: the loose were still alive and well when gold prospector
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: John O'Brien and his partner decided, you know what, despite
• 19:03
  Speaker 1: the rumors of this so-called killer or whatever's going on
• 19:06
  Speaker 1: in the Nahanni Valley, let's go in to the Nahanni
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: Valley and try our hand. Let's try to get some gold.
• 19:12
  Speaker 1: And so the two of them made their way into
• 19:14
  Speaker 1: the valley and they set up camp in Headless Valley,
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: not far from where the McLeod brothers had been found decapitated.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: So they set up their camp and they're there for
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: a couple of days. They're doing well. They're finding gold.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: And then at some point, John tells his partner that
• 19:27
  Speaker 1: he's going to go out and check all of their
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: traps along the river. And he'll be back in about
• 19:32
  Speaker 1: eight or nine days. And so his partner waits eight
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: or nine days and John doesn't come back. A couple
• 19:37
  Speaker 1: of days after that goes by, And now John's past due,
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: and so the partner decides he has to go out
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: looking for him. And so there was another gold prospector
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: in the area. And so this partner contacted him, and
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: the two of them went to the river. and began
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: walking upstream until they found John. And he had frozen
• 19:54
  Speaker 1: to death. But it was very interesting the way he
• 19:56
  Speaker 1: was positioned. He was sitting in front of this obviously
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: previously lit campfire. He wasn't hunched over. He didn't look
• 20:02
  Speaker 1: like he was in pain. He looked like he was
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: just enjoying the fire. There was nothing on his face
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: that indicated discomfort or pain or fear. He was even
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: holding the matchbook in his hand. It was like he
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: was just sitting there enjoying the fire when something caused
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: him to suddenly freeze. In fact, witnesses would say John
• 20:21
  Speaker 1: looked like he had been flash frozen, as if it
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: had happened in a matter of seconds. because it didn't
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: look like he had reacted properly to freezing to death.
• 20:30
  Speaker 1: And the police, when they came out, they would say,
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: you know, this is odd. This is odd the way
• 20:34
  Speaker 1: he's positioned, but ultimately he died because he froze to death,
• 20:38
  Speaker 1: and so there's no foul play here, and so no
• 20:40
  Speaker 1: further investigation is needed. Five years later, in 1926, a
• 20:44
  Speaker 1: hunting party that included a young woman named Annie Lafferty
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: was camping out along the flat river inside of Headless Valley.
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: And so that night, they're all kind of joking around
• 20:54
  Speaker 1: the fire. And then at some point, they decide to
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: all go to sleep. And then the next day, when
• 20:58
  Speaker 1: everybody gets up, Annie is no longer in camp. And
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: there's no sign of where she went. And so they
• 21:04
  Speaker 1: begin by yelling out and walking around the immediate vicinity
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: to see maybe if she stepped away for a minute.
• 21:10
  Speaker 1: But Annie's just gone. And no one knows where she went.
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: And so the hunting party spends the rest of the
• 21:15
  Speaker 1: day looking for Annie. But there's no sign of her.
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: They ultimately leave the valley. They tell police. Police come out.
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: There's this huge search. But Annie's never found. Several months later,
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: a man named Charlie, who happened to have been out
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: near Flat River, near this hunting party when they were
• 21:32
  Speaker 1: out there, but Charlie himself was not in the hunting party.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: He didn't know Annie. He was just in the vicinity.
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: He overheard someone talking about a member of that hunting party,
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: specifically a woman, going missing. And when he heard that,
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: he knew he had to tell police what he had
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: seen that night out near Flat River. So he goes
• 21:51
  Speaker 1: to police and he explains that that night when he
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: knew there was this hunting party over there, he could
• 21:57
  Speaker 1: hear them. He knew they were over there. He said
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: at some point he went to bed and then he
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: woke up when he heard the sound of rocks falling
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: into the river in front of him. He was sleeping
• 22:06
  Speaker 1: along the river's edge. So he sits up and he
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: looks out across the river. It's totally dark, but there's
• 22:10
  Speaker 1: some moonlight. And he's kind of looking around wondering what's
• 22:13
  Speaker 1: causing the sound, but he can't see it. And then
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: he hears it again and he can tell it's off
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: to his left. And these are not huge rocks. These
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: are like medium to small size rocks, like rocks you
• 22:22
  Speaker 1: could just pick up and throw. And so he's looking
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: and all of a sudden he sees maybe a couple
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: hundred yards away through some sparse trees, he sees a
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: naked woman, a white naked woman, running on all fours
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: up this mountainside. And as she's running up the mountainside,
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: her feet and her hands are knocking little rocks into
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: the river down below. She's right on the edge of
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: this cliff. And as she's running up this hill, she
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: stops and she turns and And he gets a good
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: look at her face and Charlie would say he was
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: so taken aback by her face. It looked like she
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: was possessed. There was something wrong with her face. And
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: so Charlie instinctively ducked down and chose not to follow her,
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: even though he knew anybody running naked anywhere in the
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: wilds is doomed. But he felt like he could not
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: go near this woman. There was something wrong with this woman.
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: And so the police, they take the story down and
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: they say, hey, you know, this is what Annie looked like.
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: And Charlie would say, I mean, I think that's her.
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: I think that matches her description. so universally it's believed
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: this woman galloping up this hillside in the middle of
• 23:22
  Speaker 1: the night naked was Annie. The police ultimately would not
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: investigate Annie's disappearance any further because at the time Charlie
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: was telling them this piece of information she had already
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: been gone for months and the assumption was she was dead.
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: Four years later in 1931 another gold prospector decides to
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: try their luck in Headless Valley, a man named Phil Powers.
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: He makes his way into the valley, he finds a
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: spot off of Flat River, he builds a cabin, and
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: then shortly thereafter, his cabin burns to the ground with
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: him inside of it. Now, his skeleton was intact, but
• 23:54
  Speaker 1: the strange thing about his death is based on the
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: origin of the fire, which would have been on the roof,
• 23:59
  Speaker 1: he should have had an opportunity to climb out of
• 24:02
  Speaker 1: the cabin before it burned down, giving rise to the
• 24:06
  Speaker 1: theory that he was actually dead before the fire started. However,
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: the police said this was an accident caused by Phil
• 24:12
  Speaker 1: doing something with the stovepipe that led to it catching
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: on fire, And this was just all one big accident.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: But the vast majority of people that have followed along
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: to this point with all of these strange deaths, they
• 24:23
  Speaker 1: were just not buying it. Five years later, in 1936,
• 24:26
  Speaker 1: two more gold prospectors, William Epler and Joseph Mulholland, they
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: entered the Headless Valley to try their luck. And shortly
• 24:34
  Speaker 1: after arriving and getting set up, they went missing. A
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: search party came out to look for them. and they
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: found their cabin, and just like Phil Powers, it had
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: burned to the ground, but William and Joseph were not
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: in the ashes. They were not anywhere nearby. In fact,
• 24:49
  Speaker 1: they were never found. No one has any idea what
• 24:51
  Speaker 1: happened to them, and no one knows what caused the fire.
• 24:54
  Speaker 1: Nine years later, in 1945, yet another gold prospector named
• 24:58
  Speaker 1: Ernest Savard entered the Headless Valley to go looking for gold,
• 25:02
  Speaker 1: and then when he did not leave the valley for
• 25:04
  Speaker 1: an intended rendezvous with some of his partners, His partners
• 25:08
  Speaker 1: went looking for him and they would find him inside
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: of a sleeping bag laying down, decapitated right along the
• 25:14
  Speaker 1: flat river inside of the Headless Valley. And so the
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: police would come out, they would do an investigation and
• 25:19
  Speaker 1: they would call this an accident where, you know, he
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: starved to death or he died of hypothermia. And then
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: after he was dead, animals must have come in and
• 25:27
  Speaker 1: removed his skull. And that's why we can't find it.
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: And so the police did not, at least not publicly investigate.
• 25:32
  Speaker 1: connect his death to all of the other decapitations in
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: that small area. One year later, in 1946, another gold
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: miner named John Patterson went into Headless Valley and he
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: went missing. And so a search party went in looking
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: for him and John would never be found. But on
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: one of the last nights that the search party was
• 25:52
  Speaker 1: in the Headless Valley, they were camping out near Flat River,
• 25:55
  Speaker 1: some native tribes people came into their camp. And they
• 25:59
  Speaker 1: warned them about some white figures that were walking around
• 26:02
  Speaker 1: the valley that night. They're down near the river. They're
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: out in the forest. They're kind of all around here.
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: And so you really need to be careful. You don't
• 26:09
  Speaker 1: want them to see you. And then these tribespeople just left.
• 26:12
  Speaker 1: And so the search party is absolutely horrified. They know
• 26:16
  Speaker 1: about the rumors of this place. They're out here looking
• 26:18
  Speaker 1: for someone that's gone missing in this place. And all night,
• 26:22
  Speaker 1: all they hear are distant howls and screams that they
• 26:25
  Speaker 1: hadn't heard in the previous nights. They're hearing these wailing
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: sounds coming from all around them like these things that
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: are out there were intentionally trying to scare them to
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: get them to leave. It felt like they were not
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: supposed to be there. The next day, first thing when
• 26:40
  Speaker 1: they got up and they left, the leader of that
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: search party would say he just felt like the whole
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: valley was totally sinister and that constant wailing they heard
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: the night before said he will never forget. From the
• 26:52
  Speaker 1: mid-1940s onward there have been far less strange incidents reported
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: inside of Nahanni Valley, but one could attribute that to
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: the fact that far less people have been going into
• 27:04
  Speaker 1: Nahanni Valley ever since the 1940s. And in recent times
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: huge segments of the park have been permanently closed. The
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: park has said the reason they're doing that is to
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: protect that segment of the park, but other people have
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: speculated that at least part of the reason why they're
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: closing these segments, many of which are right near the
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: Headless Valley, is because they're trying to protect people from
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: getting anywhere near whatever it is that's lurking inside of
• 27:30
  Speaker 1: that park. But regardless, it is still a fact that
• 27:33
  Speaker 1: over the last century, there have been dozens and dozens
• 27:36
  Speaker 1: and dozens of people that have either gone missing or
• 27:39
  Speaker 1: who have died under very mysterious circumstances inside of this valley,
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: and the truth is, nobody knows why. So that's going
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: to do it, guys. If you found the secret in
• 27:49
  Speaker 1: today's episode, let us know in the comments section what
• 27:51
  Speaker 1: it is and where you found it. So give us
• 27:53
  Speaker 1: the timestamp. And if you're the first to do that,
• 27:55
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• 27:58
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• 28:00
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• 28:05
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