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Mount Shasta Mysteries: Lemurians, UFOs, Missing Hikers & a 60-Foot Hole · Aliens? Yes! But Maybe No | UFOs, UAPs & Alien Mysteries

• 0:03
  SPEAKER_03: Aliens.
• 0:07
  Travis: Yes.
• 0:09
  Travis: But maybe no.
• 0:20
  Travis: Welcome back to the show.
• 0:22
  Travis: This is Aliens, yes, but maybe no.
• 0:24
  Travis: With Josh and Travis.
• 0:26
  Travis: I'm Travis.
• 0:27
  Travis: I'm Josh.
• 0:28
  Travis: And this is an Otherworldly Podcast as ambiguous as our title.
• 0:31
  Josh: So last episode we talked about.
• 0:34
  Josh: Oh boy, here we go.
• 0:36
  Josh: Hold on.
• 0:36
  Josh: Not giants.
• 0:37
  Josh: Oh, it's not giants.
• 0:38
  Josh: Not everything is about giants.
• 0:40
  Josh: Today it is.
• 0:42
  Josh: Well, rocks.
• 0:43
  Josh: Giant rocks.
• 0:45
  Josh: Mm-hmm.
• 0:45
  Josh: I I guess.
• 0:46
  Josh: Pascagoula.
• 0:48
  Josh: We did an alien abduction.
• 0:49
  Josh: Pretty scary.
• 0:50
  Josh: Yeah, they're all a little spooky.
• 0:52
  Josh: If it happened or something happened, it's terrifying.
• 0:54
  Travis: No, thank you.
• 0:55
  Josh: But yeah, today we're talking about Mount Shasta.
• 0:57
  Josh: Not the soda?
• 0:58
  Travis: No, not the soda.
• 1:00
  Travis: Anything else going on in our lives right now?
• 1:02
  Travis: No.
• 1:03
  Travis: No, not at all.
• 1:04
  Travis: I'm talking about something very specific to you.
• 1:07
  Josh: What's my specific thing?
• 1:08
  Travis: And your producer.
• 1:09
  Josh: Oh, our anniversary?
• 1:10
  Travis: There we go.
• 1:11
  Josh: Oh, yeah.
• 1:12
  Josh: Yeah, it's my anniversary.
• 1:13
  Josh: Thank you.
• 1:14
  Josh: Love of my life for marrying me.
• 1:16
  Josh: Big part of our show.
• 1:18
  Josh: She's a researcher.
• 1:18
  Josh: She does all the stuff.
• 1:19
  Josh: Yeah.
• 1:20
  Travis: I feel like your anniversary is also my anniversary.
• 1:23
  Travis: So happy anniversary to us all.
• 1:25
  Josh: Yeah.
• 1:25
  Josh: I mean, if you could Venmo me some money for our dinner last night that you failed to show up to.
• 1:31
  Josh: Sure.
• 1:31
  Travis: You guys went to Burger King last night?
• 1:33
  Travis: That's easy.
• 1:34
  Travis: It's actually where we met for the first time.
• 1:36
  Travis: That's pretty cool.
• 1:36
  Travis: It's not as cheap as it once was.
• 1:39
  Travis: No.
• 1:39
  Travis: That's for sure.
• 1:40
  Josh: We can't afford it now.
• 1:41
  Travis: No.
• 1:41
  Travis: God.
• 1:42
  Travis: That's fine dining.
• 1:43
  Travis: What do they call that?
• 1:44
  Travis: Fast.
• 1:45
  Travis: It's not even fast anymore.
• 1:46
  Travis: I mean, it's fast error.
• 1:48
  Travis: They still have a drive-thru.
• 1:49
  Josh: There's some times I've had to wait like 10 minutes at the drive-thru.
• 1:52
  Travis: Yeah, but between that or chilies, you know, fast casual, I think is what they call it.
• 1:56
  Travis: You want to just talk about chilies and Shasta?
• 1:58
  Travis: And then Shasta, chasing it all down with a nice cold Shasta cream soda.
• 2:02
  Travis: That was my favorite.
• 2:03
  Travis: That was good.
• 2:03
  Travis: But yeah, now we're gonna get into it.
• 2:05
  Travis: So today, yeah, we're gonna talk about Mount Shasta and how weird and old this thing is.
• 2:10
  Travis: I mean, mountains, they're notoriously old.
• 2:13
  Travis: They are, but mountains as the earth shifts rise up and are turned to dust.
• 2:19
  Travis: What?
• 2:20
  Travis: Over millennia.
• 2:21
  Travis: Yeah.
• 2:21
  Travis: I mean, mountains.
• 2:22
  Josh: They can only go so high, is what you're saying.
• 2:24
  Travis: They can go so high, and then some mountains have just been disrupted through tectonic shifting.
• 2:30
  Josh: Hmm.
• 2:30
  Josh: It's a sad fate.
• 2:31
  Travis: I think some of the oldest mountains in Earth's history are on the East Coast.
• 2:37
  Josh: Oh.
• 2:37
  Travis: Like Appalachian.
• 2:39
  Josh: Interesting.
• 2:40
  Travis: That's like some of the oldest places on Earth.
• 2:42
  Travis: I had no idea.
• 2:42
  Travis: I don't know if that's true.
• 2:43
  Travis: I could just be making it up.
• 2:44
  Travis: Look it up.
• 2:45
  Travis: Yeah.
• 2:45
  Travis: Hit hit us up in the comments.
• 2:47
  Travis: Figure it out.
• 2:48
  Travis: Yeah, figure it out.
• 2:49
  Travis: We're not here to talk about Appalachia.
• 2:51
  Josh: We're just here to inspire you to do more research.
• 2:54
  Travis: Yeah, exactly.
• 2:54
  Travis: That's all we're doing.
• 2:55
  Travis: We're just like the intro to the rest of your life.
• 3:00
  Travis: Yeah.
• 3:00
  Travis: Yep.
• 3:01
  Travis: Just like graduating high school.
• 3:03
  Josh: Mm-hmm.
• 3:04
  Travis: This is where the rest of your life begins.
• 3:06
  Josh: So yeah, let's start this.
• 3:07
  Josh: Um, after this, near the end, we'll do a quiz for our next topic because we don't know what it is.
• 3:12
  Travis: But yeah, I got 100% last time.
• 3:14
  Travis: No, you didn't.
• 3:15
  Travis: Pretty fucking cool.
• 3:16
  Travis: I'm never going to forget it.
• 3:18
  Travis: I know.
• 3:18
  Travis: Me neither.
• 3:19
  Travis: So let's give you guys a little introduction to what we're talking about today.
• 3:23
  Travis: So obviously, if you haven't picked up on our very heavily handed context clues, we are talking about a giant mountain in Northern California called Mount Shasta.
• 3:33
  Travis: So today we are figuratively climbing a mountain.
• 3:36
  Travis: I'm gonna do it emotionally.
• 3:38
  Travis: I'm actually doing it.
• 3:39
  Travis: I'm really sweaty right now because I am actually climbing a mountain.
• 3:44
  Travis: You're using a field mic.
• 3:45
  Travis: Yep.
• 3:46
  Travis: I've got a big backpack on, and actually I have a Sherpa that's holding the microphone in front.
• 3:51
  Travis: He's getting really fucking mad.
• 3:52
  Travis: It's a boom mic.
• 3:54
  Travis: Yep.
• 3:54
  Travis: So he's carrying my bag, which is just full of rocks, because that's the kind of person I am.
• 4:01
  Travis: Okay.
• 4:02
  Travis: So 14,000 feet of snow, volcanic rock, and pure weirdness is what constitutes Mount Chasta.
• 4:09
  Travis: It rises straight out of the landscape.
• 4:10
  Travis: It's not attached to any other mountain range.
• 4:12
  Travis: And when looking at Mount Chasta, it actually feels like the mountain is looking back at you.
• 4:16
  Travis: So over the years, this peak has collected some truly wild stories.
• 4:20
  Travis: Somehow it became the go-to hotspot for secret underground cities, strange glowing sunrises, flying saucers, an astronomer who maybe never saw the thing everyone credits him with, and even a 60-foot hole in the ground that stumped investigators for decades.
• 4:34
  Travis: There's even a bizarre religious movement tied to this place that ended up all the way in front of the Supreme Court.
• 4:39
  Travis: Long before any of those modern legends, several indigenous nations traced their roots directly to this place.
• 4:44
  Travis: The Shasta, the Winamam Wintu, the Modoc, and the Klamath.
• 4:48
  Travis: For the Winamum Wintu, Chief Kayleen Sisk had described Shasta as the starting point of their creation story, tied forever to the sacred rivers running down its slopes.
• 4:58
  Travis: There's also no incredible Klamath legend about two powerful spirits, Skell and Lao.
• 5:02
  Travis: Locked in an epic battle, Skell stood on Mount Shasta while Lao stood over a hundred miles away at Mount Mazama, hurling boulders and fire across the sky.
• 5:11
  Travis: A story that echoes the ancient volcanic eruption that collapsed Mazama into Crater Lake.
• 5:16
  Travis: Wow, cool.
• 5:18
  Travis: Which is wild.
• 5:18
  Travis: I did watch a documentary on Crater Lake and how it is the deepest lake in the country.
• 5:24
  Travis: It's so scary.
• 5:25
  Travis: And it's just ice melt.
• 5:27
  Travis: There's no river that leads into it.
• 5:29
  Travis: So it's just very clear.
• 5:31
  Travis: Not like a lot of sediment gets in and muddies that water.
• 5:34
  Travis: So you can see very far down.
• 5:35
  Josh: And it was created from the spirit chief from Mount Shiassa throwing a big rock.
• 5:39
  Josh: Mm-hmm.
• 5:40
  Josh: I love it.
• 5:40
  Travis: Yeah.
• 5:41
  Travis: I'm in.
• 5:42
  Travis: Isn't that great?
• 5:43
  Travis: So these traditions carry deep ancient meaning.
• 5:45
  Travis: Then came the outsiders.
• 5:46
  Travis: Guess who they are?
• 5:48
  Travis: White people.
• 5:49
  Travis: Oh boy.
• 5:50
  Travis: Newcomers brought a completely different kind of myth to the slopes.
• 5:53
  Travis: They weren't looking for spirits or creation, they were looking for cha-ching wealth.
• 5:59
  Travis: Yeah.
• 5:59
  Travis: And that modern mystery kicked off with a British prospector named JC Brown and an expedition that never left.
• 6:06
  Josh: Seems like anytime we bring Native Americans in, the white people wronged them so bad, and it just sucks to hear about.
• 6:13
  Josh: So, according to the legend, JC Brown was a British prospector hunting for gold around Mount Shasta in 1904.
• 6:20
  Josh: While exploring a near cliff face, he stumbled on an opening that led into the rock.
• 6:25
  Josh: Naturally, he climbed inside.
• 6:27
  Travis: Yeah, that's exactly what you do.
• 6:28
  Travis: That's what you do.
• 6:29
  Josh: Yeah.
• 6:30
  Travis: You see a giant hole and you're just like, I'm gonna put some stuff in it.
• 6:33
  Josh: I'm gonna get in there.
• 6:34
  Travis: Yeah.
• 6:34
  Josh: So he went inside and he followed the tunnel, expecting a shallow cave, but it just kept going farther and deeper than any natural fissure should.
• 6:44
  Josh: And the deeper he went, the clearer it became this wasn't carved by nature, someone had built it.
• 6:50
  Josh: He claimed he stepped into massive chambers lined with sheets of copper, packed with strange gold artifacts and covered in bizarre symbols carved into the stone that no one could read.
• 6:59
  Josh: And then came the detail that turns all this into sci-fi.
• 7:03
  Josh: Deeper in the tunnels, Brown said he found 27 burial chambers.
• 7:08
  Josh: Inside each one was a set of human remains.
• 7:11
  Josh: And according to him, these mummies would have stood nearly 10 feet tall.
• 7:15
  Josh: Oh no.
• 7:16
  Josh: Uh so now Brown didn't run straight to the newspaper.
• 7:20
  Josh: In fact, 30 years went by before he finally tried to do something with what he'd seen.
• 7:25
  Josh: So in 1934, he showed up in Stockton, California, and gathered around 80 people, miners, scientists, and backers, ready to mount an expedition, head back into Shasta, and prove what he found.
• 7:38
  Josh: They bought the gear, they organized the team, and on the morning they were supposed to head out, JC Brown vanished.
• 7:45
  Josh: What?
• 7:46
  Josh: Just like that.
• 7:47
  Josh: Right out of town.
• 7:48
  Josh: Yeah, the only guy who knew where the entrance was disappeared into thin air.
• 7:52
  Josh: And the expedition never left the ground.
• 7:54
  Josh: Never happened.
• 7:56
  Josh: It's a wild story, but when you start digging for contemporary proof, the trail gets murky really fast.
• 8:03
  Josh: We don't have passenger manifests, police reports, or local newspaper coverage from 1934 confirming 80 people were left waiting on the train platform.
• 8:12
  Josh: We have nothing.
• 8:12
  Josh: So the question isn't just what was down in the tunnel, it's how much of JC Brown's story was ever real in the first place.
• 8:20
  Josh: That's the hard part with Mount Chassards.
• 8:23
  Josh: There's so much lore and myth, and it's like what's real, what isn't.
• 8:27
  Josh: It's tough.
• 8:28
  Josh: We should go.
• 8:28
  Josh: You ever been to a big mountain?
• 8:30
  Josh: Yeah.
• 8:31
  Travis: Okay.
• 8:31
  Travis: Name every big mountain.
• 8:33
  Travis: Mount Olympus?
• 8:35
  Travis: Yeah.
• 8:35
  Travis: Yeah, that's where the gods live.
• 8:37
  Travis: That's the main one.
• 8:38
  Travis: Yep.
• 8:39
  Travis: And that's it.
• 8:40
  Travis: Everest.
• 8:41
  Travis: Good job, we did it.
• 8:42
  Travis: We named all the mountains.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_03: Mm-hmm.
• 8:44
  Travis: So giant skeletons in a cave are crazy enough.
• 8:47
  Travis: But the next story gets even weirder because people started claiming those folks inside the mountain never actually died.
• 8:53
  Travis: What?
• 8:54
  Travis: No.
• 8:55
  Travis: Enter the Lemurians.
• 8:57
  Travis: So when you hear Lemurians, what are you picturing, Josh?
• 9:00
  Travis: Big lemurs?
• 9:01
  Travis: That's what I'm picturing.
• 9:02
  Josh: I could see that.
• 9:03
  Josh: Or little lemmings.
• 9:05
  Travis: Okay.
• 9:05
  Travis: Okay.
• 9:06
  Travis: Yeah.
• 9:06
  Travis: Something other than me, something different.
• 9:08
  Travis: You're not, yeah, you're not wrong.
• 9:10
  Travis: I don't know that you're right either, but neither am I, so.
• 9:12
  Travis: Yeah.
• 9:13
  Travis: So Lemuria actually started out as a real 1800s science theory.
• 9:17
  Travis: A lost continent invented to explain why similar fossils showed up on opposite sides of the ocean.
• 9:23
  Travis: The writers ran wild with it, turning Lemuria into a super advanced, ancient world that sank beneath the Pacific.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_03: Oh sounds familiar.
• 9:33
  Travis: Like Atlantis, maybe.
• 9:35
  Travis: Maybe.
• 9:36
  Travis: Except according to Mount Shasta legend, they didn't all drown, and the modern story behind how they got here sounds like pure comic book sci-fi stuff.
• 9:45
  Travis: According to later channeled accounts, the Lemurians were beings who could literally shift their bodies between solid flesh and pure light.
• 9:53
  Travis: Gross.
• 9:53
  Travis: But over time, their society got dragged into a massive prehistoric war with another ancient powerhouse.
• 10:00
  Travis: Atlantis.
• 10:01
  Travis: Ah, heard of it?
• 10:02
  Travis: I have.
• 10:03
  Travis: Probably like 10 seconds ago when we dropped that name in.
• 10:06
  Travis: But probably not before that.
• 10:07
  Travis: Yeah, but no, I I legitimately have heard it before that.
• 10:11
  Travis: Well, this is probably all news to you listeners out there.
• 10:13
  Travis: Atlantis was a city that sank into the water.
• 10:16
  Travis: Mm-hmm.
• 10:17
  Travis: That's why you come to this podcast is to get that information.
• 10:19
  Travis: The hot gas.
• 10:20
  Travis: Yeah, the hot ancient gas.
• 10:23
  Travis: Hot history gas.
• 10:24
  Travis: Yeah.
• 10:25
  unknown: Yep.
• 10:26
  Travis: Uh so supposedly the whole fight was about control.
• 10:29
  Travis: The Lemurians wanted to let younger civilizations grow on their own.
• 10:33
  Travis: But the Atlanteans wanted to run the show.
• 10:35
  Travis: The dispute blew up into a full-scale war fought with crazy advanced super weapons.
• 10:41
  Travis: This does sound like comic book sci-fi.
• 10:43
  Travis: Yeah.
• 10:44
  Travis: Both homelands were doomed.
• 10:45
  Travis: Facing total destruction, the Lemurian survivors went underground.
• 10:49
  Travis: They got permission from a subterranean network called Agartha to build a safe haven, and they picked a massive cavern right under Mount Shasta.
• 10:58
  Travis: Got permission?
• 10:58
  Travis: Uh oh.
• 10:59
  Travis: From who?
• 11:00
  Travis: There's more?
• 11:01
  Travis: Uh-oh, yikes! About 25,000 survivors made it to safety, sealed the doors, and named their new refuge Telos.
• 11:10
  Travis: The story continues with a working city, five levels, homes, schools, temples, gardens, and areas for animals.
• 11:17
  Travis: This is all life beneath the mountain.
• 11:20
  Josh: That's uh very detailed.
• 11:21
  Josh: Yeah.
• 11:22
  Josh: Yeah.
• 11:23
  Josh: How do they how do they know there's five levels?
• 11:25
  Josh: Counted them?
• 11:26
  Josh: Probably.
• 11:27
  Josh: Someone told.
• 11:28
  Travis: Yeah.
• 11:29
  Travis: So plants grow in water-based gardens.
• 11:32
  Travis: Residents travel between underground cities through a transit system, reaching a claimed 3,000 miles per hour.
• 11:38
  Travis: Nice.
• 11:40
  Travis: The inhabitants keep youthful bodies for thousands of years.
• 11:43
  Travis: Contact with people above begins in small groups and gradually grows.
• 11:47
  Travis: And once a story includes people visiting towns and buying goods, you can start asking for something concrete.
• 11:53
  Travis: A name shopkeeper, a record transaction, a photograph.
• 11:57
  Travis: One early account offered something that sounded even better: an astronomer who had supposedly seen their buildings.
• 12:02
  Travis: This sounds like Wakanda.
• 12:04
  Travis: Oh yeah, it does.
• 12:05
  Travis: Inside of a mountain, though.
• 12:07
  Josh: Yeah.
• 12:07
  Travis: How can you see the buildings if they're in the mountain?
• 12:10
  Travis: I mean, probably like like a dwarven city, right?
• 12:14
  Travis: Like if you've seen Lord of the Rings.
• 12:16
  Travis: Yeah, you're right.
• 12:17
  Travis: You just look up and you see mountains, but there's like little houses and caverns and shit.
• 12:21
  Travis: I like that.
• 12:22
  Travis: Pretty cool.
• 12:22
  Josh: So this astronomer guy was a real guy.
• 12:25
  Josh: He was named Edgar Lucian Larkin.
• 12:28
  Josh: And if you ask anyone deep into the Shasta lore, he's basically their star witness.
• 12:34
  Josh: The story really got big in the mainstream back in May 1932, thanks to a writer named Edward Lancer riding a passenger train called the Shasta Limited.
• 12:44
  Josh: Ooh, I like that.
• 12:45
  Josh: As the train rolled past the mountain right around sunrise, Lancer looked out the window and noticed this weird bright reddish glow coming off the southern slope.
• 12:54
  Josh: Another passenger thought it might be a forest fire, but Lancer pointed out that there wasn't any smoke.
• 12:58
  Josh: So Lancer asked the train conductor what was going on.
• 13:01
  Josh: And the conductor, completely deadpan, told him, Oh, that's just the Lumurians holding a ceremony.
• 13:08
  Josh: Well, no big deal.
• 13:10
  Josh: Lancer wrote up the whole experience for the Los Angeles Times.
• 13:13
  Josh: But he didn't just mention the sunrise glow.
• 13:16
  Josh: He repeated the wild rumor that Professor Larkin, a respected astronomer, had pointed a powerful telescope at Mount Shasta and actually spotted golden domes and marble temples hidden on the peaks.
• 13:28
  Josh: It sounds like an open-shut case.
• 13:30
  Josh: Except when people finally dug into it, the whole story crumbles.
• 13:34
  Josh: So for one thing, the story changes depending on who's telling it.
• 13:37
  Josh: Some versions claim he dragged a portable telescope up a nearby peak, but other tellings claim that he saw the mountain from an observatory in Southern California, which is about 500 miles away, well over the horizon and physically impossible.
• 13:50
  Josh: And the real nail in the coffin, while Larkin was a genuine astronomer, he never wrote down that he saw buildings through a telescope.
• 13:57
  Josh: The only thing researchers could actually find was an article from 1913 where Larkin talked about a fantasy book written about the mountain and nothing about a telescope observation.
• 14:06
  Josh: So his name got tacked into a wild rumor, and people kept repeating it over and over until everyone assumed a scientist had proven it was true.
• 14:14
  Josh: And then, alas, it became Shastalore.
• 14:17
  Josh: Alas.
• 14:18
  Josh: Interesting.
• 14:19
  Travis: All these sci-fi writers.
• 14:21
  Travis: Yeah, they keep popping up.
• 14:23
  Travis: Just keep pushing these stories.
• 14:25
  Josh: Well, that's what's so wild.
• 14:26
  Josh: When things get five layers, this many things, like when it gets really specific, I'm just like, come on.
• 14:32
  Josh: This is a creative writer.
• 14:34
  Josh: Like, there's no, this isn't first hand tellings.
• 14:36
  Travis: No, they've had time to sit and think about it and put their ideas into prose.
• 14:41
  Travis: Yep.
• 14:42
  Travis: So the astronomer never saw anything.
• 14:44
  Travis: And for most people, the beings tied to this mountain stay hidden away deep in the rock.
• 14:48
  Travis: Our next guy claimed one appeared right in front of him in broad daylight.
• 14:53
  Travis: Uh-oh.
• 14:54
  Travis: Back in 1930, a hiker named Guy Ballard was resting by a freshwater spring on Mount Shasta.
• 15:00
  Travis: Suddenly he claimed a surge of electricity shot through his body.
• 15:04
  Travis: He turned around, and standing right behind him was a young stranger who asked to borrow Ballard's drinking cup.
• 15:11
  Travis: Cool, normal.
• 15:12
  Travis: Ballard handed it over, nice guy, and claimed the cup filled up all by itself with a creamy liquid.
• 15:19
  Travis: And Ballard actually drank it.
• 15:21
  unknown: Oh no.
• 15:23
  Travis: Yeah, if someone were to just offer you weird milk, would you drink it?
• 15:26
  Travis: I don't even know if it's milk.
• 15:27
  Travis: It says creamy liquid.
• 15:28
  Travis: Just creamy liquid.
• 15:29
  Travis: I'm just saying, yeah.
• 15:31
  Travis: I mean, I don't think take it easy.
• 15:33
  Travis: Get on board with what I'm offering you, Josh.
• 15:35
  Travis: No, I don't think I'm giving you your own cup back with milk in it.
• 15:39
  Travis: Would you drink it?
• 15:40
  Josh: No, absolutely not.
• 15:41
  Travis: Mm-hmm.
• 15:42
  Josh: That's yeah, that's uh that's real gross.
• 15:45
  Josh: Like we know what it is.
• 15:47
  Travis: Jiz.
• 15:49
  Travis: The only true elixir.
• 15:51
  Josh: Reproductive serum.
• 15:52
  Travis: Yeah.
• 15:53
  Travis: So the stranger then revealed his identity as Saint Germain, a legendary that's a legendary spiritual figure known as an ascended master.
• 16:02
  Travis: That's funny if he's like, no, I'm legendary.
• 16:05
  Travis: You would have heard about me.
• 16:05
  Travis: And the guy's like, uh, I don't know.
• 16:07
  Travis: I don't know.
• 16:08
  Travis: Never heard of you before.
• 16:09
  Travis: He's like, no, but I'm I'm legendary.
• 16:12
  Josh: I'm a I'm a I'm a spiritual figure.
• 16:14
  Travis: Uh anyway, drink this milk.
• 16:16
  Travis: Keep drinking the milk, you'll find out.
• 16:17
  Travis: Keep drinking the milk.
• 16:18
  Travis: It'll all become clear to you.
• 16:19
  Travis: So he wrote about the encounter in his 1934 book, Unveiled Mysteries.
• 16:24
  Travis: Heard of it?
• 16:24
  Travis: I hadn't, but that's a great name.
• 16:26
  Travis: The show?
• 16:27
  Travis: Oh no, that's unsolved.
• 16:29
  Josh: Yeah, that was good too.
• 16:31
  Travis: Close enough.
• 16:32
  Travis: Along with his wife Edna and their son Donald, they used it to launch a massive new religious movement called I Am.
• 16:39
  Travis: Whoa.
• 16:40
  Travis: Like a declaration, I am.
• 16:42
  Travis: Before long, the I Am movement got into some hot legal trouble that took Ballard and his family all the way to the U.S.
• 16:49
  Travis: Supreme Court on mail fraud charges.
• 16:51
  Travis: Huh.
• 16:52
  Travis: Surprising.
• 16:53
  Travis: That's how they get them.
• 16:54
  Travis: I mean, that's usually how a lot of these cults get taken down, is like paperwork.
• 16:58
  Travis: It's how they get in and then they get them for everything else.
• 17:01
  Travis: Yeah.
• 17:01
  Travis: The court said jurors could examine whether the Ballard sincerely believed what they were telling people.
• 17:07
  Travis: Instead, in 1944, they made a landmark ruling.
• 17:10
  Travis: A jury can decide if you sincerely believe your claims, but the government can't put the truth of your religious experiences on trial.
• 17:17
  Travis: Weird.
• 17:18
  Travis: That's kind of nice.
• 17:19
  Travis: I guess like if you believe something hard enough, isn't that how Peter Pan flies and Tinkerbell?
• 17:26
  Travis: You just believe in something hard enough?
• 17:27
  Travis: I th yeah, absolutely.
• 17:29
  Travis: But what's the pixie dust?
• 17:31
  Travis: Believing powder.
• 17:32
  Travis: It's just salt.
• 17:35
  Josh: Perfect.
• 17:36
  Travis: So two years later, the convictions were thrown out in Tyler because women had been excluded from the churry pool.
• 17:42
  Travis: Classic.
• 17:43
  Travis: So the story started as a bizarre encounter at a mountain spring and ended up setting a major legal precedent for religious freedom in America.
• 17:50
  Travis: The court didn't decide that Bower met Saint Germain.
• 17:53
  Travis: It didn't decide that he didn't.
• 17:55
  Travis: It addressed what a court is allowed to judge when someone's extraordinary claim is also a religious belief.
• 18:01
  Josh: Weird.
• 18:01
  Josh: So this was kind of like one of the first big court versus religion topics.
• 18:06
  Josh: That's interesting.
• 18:08
  Josh: Huh.
• 18:08
  Travis: Yep.
• 18:09
  Travis: Mount Shass is bigger than I thought.
• 18:11
  Travis: I guess just say that it's part of my religion to steal from the banks.
• 18:15
  Travis: And if you believe it hard enough, they have to just let you do it.
• 18:19
  Josh: Hey, yeah.
• 18:20
  Josh: I heard there's a religion in Japan that's a fake religion, but they are real.
• 18:24
  Josh: People join it just so that they can get out of doing things like different holidays and work events.
• 18:30
  Josh: Oh, nice.
• 18:31
  Josh: And that's the whole premise of the religion is just to get out of doing stuff.
• 18:35
  Josh: Yep.
• 18:36
  Josh: So once the I Am movement put Mount Shasta on the map as a spiritual hotspot, the stories didn't slow down.
• 18:42
  Josh: They just evolved.
• 18:44
  Josh: The lore moved out of the lecture halls and into the woods and waters around the peak, starting with three witness accounts of cryptid reported in the area.
• 18:53
  Josh: Oh, here we go.
• 18:54
  Josh: None of these have physical proof, but the creepy details make them tough to forget.
• 18:59
  Josh: So 1970, Jenny's campsite.
• 19:02
  Josh: Ooh, it already sounds spooky.
• 19:04
  Josh: A camper named Jenny hung her food bag high up in a tree to keep it safe from bears.
• 19:09
  Josh: As you're supposed to.
• 19:10
  SPEAKER_03: Yep.
• 19:11
  Josh: Out of nowhere, two massive hairy figures showed up.
• 19:14
  Josh: Ugh.
• 19:15
  Josh: Locked in on that food.
• 19:16
  Josh: And what creeped Jenny out most was that they moved with almost zero sound in the quiet woods.
• 19:21
  Josh: She even measured their height against her own dad.
• 19:24
  Josh: It almost looked like they were negotiating over who got the bag.
• 19:27
  Josh: Wait, what?
• 19:28
  Josh: Is her dad involved in this?
• 19:30
  Josh: Yeah, I mean, she was camping with her dad, I guess.
• 19:32
  Josh: Or she just used her dad as a reference.
• 19:34
  Josh: Hopefully she's not camping alone.
• 19:36
  Josh: That's not smart.
• 19:36
  Josh: Don't do it.
• 19:37
  Travis: Yeah, especially in the 70s.
• 19:39
  Travis: Yeah.
• 19:40
  Travis: Scary time.
• 19:40
  Josh: Then 1979 Williams pickup truck.
• 19:43
  Josh: A 12-year-old boy was riding in the bed of a 1965 Chevy pickup on Shasta's northeastern slopes.
• 19:49
  Travis: Product placement, nice.
• 19:51
  Josh: Yeah.
• 19:51
  Josh: When something for Shasta.
• 19:53
  Josh: For the soda.
• 19:54
  Josh: Uh-huh.
• 19:55
  Josh: When something slammed into the truck hard enough to leave a dent.
• 19:58
  Josh: Ugh.
• 19:58
  Josh: A sharp scream rang out, close and fast.
• 20:01
  Josh: But the weirdest part, an egg carton was sitting in the truck bed.
• 20:05
  Josh: After the hit, the eggs were totally gone.
• 20:08
  Josh: Not smashed or broken, just gone.
• 20:11
  Travis: Hell yeah.
• 20:12
  Travis: The guy was just uh getting a little snack.
• 20:15
  Travis: Yeah, he was an egg robber.
• 20:16
  Travis: Yeah.
• 20:17
  Travis: It's probably I would I would blame Swiper for that one.
• 20:21
  Josh: Yeah, yeah.
• 20:21
  Travis: Swiper.
• 20:23
  Josh: And then 2014, down from the mountain on Chassel Lake, a man named Brandon was out on a sea dew when a tan colored head broke the surface nearby.
• 20:33
  Josh: The face looked flat and the eyes looked eerily, almost disturbingly human.
• 20:38
  Josh: It didn't chase him, it just slipped quickly back under.
• 20:41
  Josh: These are just a few, I mean, there's so many stories with cryptids, bigfoots.
• 20:45
  Josh: I don't like it.
• 20:46
  Josh: It's definitely something if you're going to Shasta, you want to keep an eye out.
• 20:49
  Travis: Never a dull moment at this party hotspot.
• 20:52
  Josh: No, no.
• 20:53
  Josh: And then on April 25th, 2019, up at Castle Lake, a couple walked up near desk just to see if the winter ice had started breaking up.
• 21:01
  Josh: Heading back to their car, they heard a strange low hum vibrating through the air.
• 21:06
  Josh: They turned around and saw a flashing, multicolored sphere hovering 50 feet above the water.
• 21:11
  Josh: At first, they figured it had to be an emergency flare or a climber's headlamp, but this thing hung dead still in the midair.
• 21:18
  Josh: After a few seconds, the sphere and that low humming sound just vanished in the thin air.
• 21:24
  Josh: Three days later, the report was submitted to the National UFO Reporting Center, but because the witnesses stayed completely anonymous and left no contact info, there was no way to follow up or ever verify what hovered over that lake.
• 21:37
  Josh: And this is a huge hot.
• 21:38
  Josh: I mean, there's so many UFO, UAP weird anomalies going on.
• 21:44
  Josh: It's weird.
• 21:44
  Travis: Yeah, it is weird.
• 21:46
  Travis: It's a little bit of everything.
• 21:47
  Travis: Yeah.
• 21:48
  Travis: So to add a little more depth, some people went missing.
• 21:51
  Travis: Uh beyond strange creatures and flashing lights.
• 21:54
  Travis: Mount Chasta has a darker side.
• 21:56
  Travis: People vanishing.
• 21:57
  Travis: Some cases are real life tragedies, while others Sound more like modern campfire folklore.
• 22:03
  Travis: Carl Landers in 1999, Carl was an experienced 69-year-old hiker.
• 22:08
  Travis: Nice.
• 22:08
  Travis: Good age.
• 22:09
  Travis: Yep.
• 22:09
  Travis: From Orinda, California.
• 22:11
  Travis: On May 22nd, 1999, he was climbing Mount Shasta with two friends.
• 22:15
  Travis: He left camp ahead of them to get a head start toward the Lake Helen area, but when his friends went to meet him, he was gone.
• 22:22
  Travis: Surgers covered the snowy mountain on foot, on skis, and by helicopter.
• 22:27
  Travis: Well, searchers had to use skis.
• 22:28
  Travis: Landers had worn crampons on his boots, but nobody could find a single trace of him.
• 22:33
  Travis: What's a crampon?
• 22:34
  Travis: They're like cleats that you put on outside of your Oh yeah, yeah, no, I know those.
• 22:39
  Travis: And there are different variations.
• 22:40
  Travis: You can use it to climb ice walls and things like that, like big heavy spikes, but there's also more accessible crampons that I actually used when I was in Idaho.
• 22:49
  Travis: It's just like a quick little cleat that just slip over the top of your shoes or your boots just to give you a little extra traction on ice.
• 22:56
  Travis: Okay.
• 22:57
  Travis: After ten days, the sheriff's department called off the active search, but he was never found.
• 23:03
  Travis: Wow.
• 23:04
  Travis: Later retellings claim his footprint simply vanished in the snow, but contemporary reports from the time don't confirm that detail.
• 23:11
  Travis: An experienced hiker disappearing on a dangerous mountain is mysterious enough without making things up.
• 23:16
  Travis: So I think there's a big lesson to be learned here.
• 23:19
  Travis: If you're out in the mountains with your friends, don't fucking go off on your own.
• 23:24
  Travis: Yeah.
• 23:25
  Travis: That is dumb.
• 23:26
  Travis: Dumb dumb dumb.
• 23:27
  Travis: Even if you're experienced.
• 23:29
  Travis: Even if you're experienced, even if you're not on Mount Shasta, if you're just out in the woods or whatever.
• 23:34
  Travis: Like Body system.
• 23:36
  Travis: Yes, exactly.
• 23:37
  Travis: Buddy system.
• 23:38
  Travis: And that includes if it's three people, don't leave somebody behind.
• 23:42
  Travis: Also, stick together.
• 23:43
  Travis: Yep.
• 23:44
  Travis: Because it's dangerous.
• 23:45
  Travis: The woods are dangerous, man.
• 23:46
  Travis: Yeah.
• 23:46
  Travis: That's why I hope she was camping with her dad, Jenny.
• 23:49
  Travis: Yeah, hope so.
• 23:50
  Travis: And she's like, hey dad, go stand by those guys over there.
• 23:52
  Travis: And the dad's like, no, fuck that.
• 23:53
  Travis: I don't want to.
• 23:54
  Travis: She's like, no, I need this reference just for my story.
• 23:57
  Josh: I'm a visual learner.
• 23:58
  Travis: I need to know how tall they are.
• 24:00
  Travis: Yep.
• 24:00
  Travis: All right.
• 24:01
  Travis: So this is, I think, the funniest title that we've covered.
• 24:07
  Travis: This is the robot grandma story, date uncertain.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_03: Ooh.
• 24:12
  Travis: Robot grandma, date uncertain.
• 24:14
  Travis: It's just really funny.
• 24:15
  Travis: So the robot grandma story, creepy robot grandma story, said to have happened near MacLeod Falls by the base of the mountain.
• 24:22
  Travis: A three-year-old boy reportedly wandered away from his family and was found hours later under a bush.
• 24:28
  Travis: But his explanation was wild.
• 24:30
  Travis: He said someone who looked just like his grandmother had led him to a cave.
• 24:34
  Travis: He called her a robot because something about her face seemed completely wrong.
• 24:39
  Travis: Four versions describe the cave being filled with spiders, old belongings, and motionless human-like figures.
• 24:46
  Travis: He said the figure finally told him to wait under the bush where searchers found him.
• 24:50
  Travis: Discovered in the Wi-Fi's Yeah.
• 24:54
  Josh: Sorry, I got caught in all that.
• 24:56
  Josh: That was uh that's terrifying.
• 24:59
  Josh: All of it.
• 24:59
  Travis: Yeah.
• 25:00
  Travis: I mean, so if you're interested in this, it'll be in our show notes.
• 25:03
  Travis: So it's an unsettling story, but hard to pin down.
• 25:05
  Travis: Retellings can't even agree on what year it happened, and there are no contemporary reports confirming the boy's disappearance or a story.
• 25:11
  Travis: It's an urban legend to take with a grain of salt, not a documented missing child case.
• 25:16
  Travis: But now we've got a hidden city, unusual beings, unexplained lights, and a real disappearance.
• 25:21
  Travis: So that story about the kid that goes off, he says that the grandma that walked him off brought him into a cave, and there were a bunch of frozen people in this cave, and this grandma started to examine him and then asked him to poop on a piece of paper.
• 25:38
  Travis: That's right.
• 25:38
  Travis: And he was like, uh I can't, I can't go.
• 25:42
  Travis: Yeah.
• 25:43
  Josh: Which is the correct answer.
• 25:44
  Travis: Yeah, if someone asks you to poop, if it's not a doctor and you're not in an office.
• 25:48
  Travis: I think uh I think even a doctor, I'd be like, you're not gonna just poop on a doctor's piece of paper that he's holding in his hand on his notepad.
• 25:56
  Travis: I mean, I'd poop on a doctor's notepad.
• 25:58
  Travis: Anything for the wolves.
• 26:00
  Josh: Man, yeah, that's a super spooky story.
• 26:02
  Travis: Yeah, like the Jordan Peel Us, where there's like alternate versions of us living down below.
• 26:08
  Josh: It could be a shapeshifter cryptid, too.
• 26:11
  Travis: Sure.
• 26:12
  Josh: Hmm, don't like that.
• 26:13
  Josh: Yeah.
• 26:14
  Josh: So putting all these stories together, here's the thing about Mount Chassis Legends.
• 26:19
  Josh: Almost all of them grew out of each other, like branches off the same tree.
• 26:23
  Josh: The hidden city idea didn't start with JC Brown's tunnel.
• 26:26
  Josh: Frederick Spencer Oliver was writing about a secret city beneath the mountains decades before Brown's supposed 1934 expedition.
• 26:33
  Josh: Then Selvius, Wishar Survey, and later Tellos writers each tacked on new details and new witnesses.
• 26:41
  Josh: And it's not one discovery being backed up by facts.
• 26:43
  Josh: It's just a bunch of campfire stories passed down, grown, and then just kind of supercharged over time.
• 26:49
  Josh: And the mountain itself actually just is begging people to do it.
• 26:54
  Travis: Just begging for it.
• 26:55
  Josh: Mash S is famous for making lenticular clouds, which are the smooth stack saucer-shaped clouds that hover right over the peak.
• 27:03
  Josh: They legitimately look like giant flying saucers.
• 27:06
  Josh: Yeah.
• 27:07
  Josh: So if you stand at the base of the mountain on the right afternoon and watch one settle over the summit, it completely makes sense why people look up and wonder, oh, there's something weird.
• 27:16
  Josh: And because there's no other mountains, it's not part of a mountain range, it makes its own weather too.
• 27:21
  Josh: So clouds kind of form and get stuck around it.
• 27:24
  Josh: Well, that's that's the case with a lot of mountains.
• 27:26
  Travis: No, yeah, that's what land does.
• 27:28
  Travis: I love when we get Josh talking about weather.
• 27:30
  Travis: He loves weather.
• 27:31
  Travis: I love weather.
• 27:33
  Josh: The early Polynesian wayfinders, one of the things that they would look for is cloud formations, and that's how they would kind of figure out where land potentially could be, is because clouds would form over islands.
• 27:45
  Josh: On top of the weather, which I love, there is enough real history around this to keep all these rumors and everything going.
• 27:52
  Josh: NASA actually trained astronauts on volcanic terrain across the region to help them prepare for the moon, which is wild.
• 28:00
  Josh: That sounds good.
• 28:00
  Josh: I mean, you gotta use what you know.
• 28:03
  Josh: Use what you have.
• 28:04
  Josh: Yeah.
• 28:04
  Josh: We have it.
• 28:05
  Josh: Got it.
• 28:06
  Josh: That brings us to the one thing on the mountain that actually someone did put there a 60-foot hole.
• 28:12
  Travis: What?
• 28:15
  Travis: Someone put a hole on the mountain.
• 28:18
  Travis: Put a hole in there.
• 28:19
  Travis: They're walking by going, you know what?
• 28:20
  Travis: There needs to be a hole here.
• 28:22
  Travis: Is that like a Roger Rabbit thing?
• 28:25
  Travis: Yeah, it's a Bugs Bunny where he just lays down holes.
• 28:28
  Travis: Yeah, just lays down a black circle and now it's a hole.
• 28:30
  unknown: Yeah.
• 28:31
  unknown: Yep.
• 28:32
  Travis: Okay.
• 28:33
  Travis: So this was covered in the This American Life story, which is very interesting.
• 28:38
  Travis: Yeah, and we'll post that in the show notes.
• 28:40
  Travis: So about a decade before a 2018 investigation into it, someone dug a hole roughly 60 feet deep into Mount Jasta's slopes.
• 28:48
  Travis: Even wilder, it appeared to be dug completely by hand.
• 28:52
  Travis: Investigators found buckets, a ladder, and traces of a pulley system.
• 28:56
  Travis: Whoever did this put serious time and muscle into getting inside that mountain.
• 29:01
  Travis: For local filmmaker Elijah Sullivan, one question turned into an obsession.
• 29:05
  Travis: Who dug it and what did they think was down there?
• 29:08
  Travis: He spent years chasing the answer for a documentary.
• 29:11
  Travis: The theories were as wild as Shasta's legends.
• 29:14
  Travis: Some people tied the hole straight to the mountain's spiritual stories.
• 29:17
  Travis: Accounts from people connected to the dig hinted at other motives, but even those stories couldn't agree on what the crew was actually after.
• 29:24
  Travis: Later, a U.S.
• 29:25
  Travis: Forest Service officer told This American Life that she tracked the workers' hotel rooms back to the person who paid for them.
• 29:31
  Travis: According to her, that person claimed they were looking for gold and paid a fine, but the reporter couldn't get a name or court records to independently verify that explanation.
• 29:42
  Travis: Just more campfire story.
• 29:43
  Travis: Yep.
• 29:44
  Travis: The hole has since been filled in.
• 29:45
  Travis: It doesn't prove there's a city beneath Shasta, but it does prove something worth thinking about.
• 29:50
  Travis: Somebody believed there was a reason to dig 60 feet into that mountain.
• 29:54
  Travis: And even after an investigation, we still don't know the whole story of why.
• 29:58
  Travis: So this is a weird thing.
• 30:00
  Travis: But I do want to talk about this a little bit because this guy was hired.
• 30:04
  Travis: He was kind of down on his luck and was trying to get out of like Reading, California.
• 30:08
  Travis: Yeah.
• 30:09
  Travis: He was hired to fix a fence.
• 30:11
  Travis: Yeah, well, build a fence.
• 30:12
  Travis: They're like, well, we're going out here to build this fence or whatever.
• 30:15
  Travis: And I guess the people in this crew had all been given different stories.
• 30:19
  Travis: And so they're just like, oh, what do they tell you?
• 30:21
  Travis: Ha ha ha ha ha.
• 30:22
  Travis: They've been staying in a motel.
• 30:24
  Travis: And then every morning they would all meet in the parking lot with their jugs of water and then hike up to this hole.
• 30:31
  Travis: There was like a rope tied around a tree to anchor this pulley system, and they were pulling dirt out of this hole.
• 30:37
  Travis: As the hole got deeper and deeper.
• 30:39
  Travis: So did their curiosity.
• 30:41
  Travis: And so did their curiosity and ours.
• 30:43
  Travis: Yeah.
• 30:44
  Travis: Like ladders had been taped together so that they could reach deeper and deeper into this hole.
• 30:49
  Travis: And then they started pulling out these weird spheres, like these rocks, and they were getting broken open by this guy who so these people were in like t-shirts, shorts, boots, working clothes.
• 31:01
  Travis: Working clothes, but then they had this guy that had the golden card who would walk up in like a very nice suit and would just sit around.
• 31:10
  Josh: Yeah, he was like the supervisor kind of person, the the in-between guy of who's actually running the project.
• 31:14
  Travis: But never told them what it was they were looking for.
• 31:17
  Travis: And so as they're building, bringing these things up and these rocks are being broken open, he's like doing it off outside of their prying eyes.
• 31:26
  Travis: So they never really got to see what was inside these rocks.
• 31:28
  Travis: And then suddenly the job was just called out.
• 31:30
  Travis: So like infinite funds were thrown at this, as far as they knew.
• 31:34
  Travis: Like if they needed something, they would get it.
• 31:37
  Travis: Tools, whatever, things to break rocks and you know, ladders, and then of course, uh paycheck and hotel fees or whatever.
• 31:45
  Travis: Yeah.
• 31:46
  Travis: And then as soon as this project started, it ended.
• 31:49
  Travis: With no answers.
• 31:50
  Travis: No answers.
• 31:50
  Travis: They asked this guy very early in the morning to help out and strike this campsite.
• 31:57
  Travis: They were working at a pretty fast pace, going up and down this hill, carrying these tools back down, basically just trying to erase most evidence of this dig of whatever they were digging up.
• 32:10
  Josh: The guy that they were interviewing for this, the guy that was hired to do the fence, his idea was what they were doing is someone with a lot of money believed in that and was trying to find it.
• 32:21
  Travis: And that was their job.
• 32:23
  Travis: He did find out that it was all tied back to Saint Germain, the saint that was rumored to have lived up here and had the key to like eternal life.
• 32:32
  Travis: And so this guy was like digging into this pit to try to find this like creamy liquid source or whatever, so that he could live forever.
• 32:40
  Travis: He wanted the cream.
• 32:42
  Travis: Yeah, he wanted that cream.
• 32:43
  Travis: Yeah.
• 32:44
  Travis: Cream, get the money, dollar, dollar, billion.
• 32:46
  Travis: I mean, if you're a Wu-Tang fan, cash rolls everything around me.
• 32:49
  Travis: That's cream.
• 32:49
  Josh: That is so Mount Shasta is crazy.
• 32:54
  Josh: For sure.
• 32:54
  Josh: This was more about like origins.
• 32:57
  Josh: Love it.
• 32:58
  Josh: And a little bit of lore, but there is so much more.
• 33:00
  Josh: Too much.
• 33:02
  Josh: There's too much.
• 33:03
  Travis: Too much for one mountain.
• 33:04
  Travis: It is.
• 33:05
  Travis: It really, really is.
• 33:06
  Travis: Like, stop hogging all the lore, Shasta.
• 33:08
  Josh: Yeah.
• 33:09
  Travis: Give it to someone else.
• 33:10
  Travis: Yeah.
• 33:11
  Travis: Give it to Bora, Mount Bora.
• 33:12
  Travis: I mean, Crater Lake has a little bit too, it looks like.
• 33:15
  Travis: Yeah, Crater Lake.
• 33:16
  Travis: These two, Crater Lake and Shasta were fighting.
• 33:18
  Travis: I know.
• 33:19
  Travis: That's wild.
• 33:20
  Travis: They were at war.
• 33:20
  Travis: They were at odds.
• 33:22
  Josh: Yeah.
• 33:23
  Josh: But there are stories of people living beneath the mountain.
• 33:26
  Josh: There's stories of beings walking through its forests, report of light above the skies and climbers who never came home, and an actual real enormous hole that somebody just dug.
• 33:37
  Josh: Or laid down a circle.
• 33:42
  unknown: Yeah.
• 33:43
  Josh: So if it's a yes, it's a mountain with remarkable stories, a genuine missing person case, documented excavation, and people who sincerely say they encountered something they could not explain.
• 33:53
  Josh: But maybe no, the strongest supernatural claims often lead back to later retellings.
• 33:58
  Josh: Channeled books or witnesses we can't question.
• 34:01
  Josh: An astronomer whose supposed sighting wasn't actually real.
• 34:05
  Josh: A real hole is evidence of digging, not evidence of what the diggers hope to find.
• 34:09
  Josh: All of these things that we talked about today have a hole, not the hole, but they there's just like a gap.
• 34:17
  Josh: Mm-hmm.
• 34:18
  Travis: A gap in logic, you might say.
• 34:20
  Josh: Yes.
• 34:20
  Travis: I get what you were trying to go for.
• 34:22
  Josh: Yeah, maybe I said whole too much.
• 34:24
  Josh: Is that where is that where I went wrong?
• 34:26
  Travis: No.
• 34:27
  Travis: I think like three or four more times you could say it before you hit that limit.
• 34:31
  Travis: I'm just, I'm not a whole doctor.
• 34:32
  Travis: We have a whole quota we have to hit on this podcast.
• 34:35
  Travis: We don't want to say whole too many times because this time next year, five percent more.
• 34:40
  Travis: We want to get just like close enough.
• 34:42
  Josh: We want to hit our whole whole quota.
• 34:44
  Travis: Yeah.
• 34:44
  Josh: Our whole whole quota.
• 34:46
  Josh: Yeah.
• 34:47
  Josh: This is a hard one.
• 34:48
  Josh: Like if we go to our final thoughts and conclusions, just because I mean a lot of this is myth and lore and campfire stories and not a lot of proof.
• 34:56
  Josh: And that's what's hard.
• 34:58
  Josh: But I I do know, and I've seen things on this.
• 35:01
  Josh: I mean, lots of things are happening.
• 35:02
  Travis: Sure.
• 35:03
  Travis: I mean, we could dive into any one of these things that we talked about.
• 35:08
  Josh: Yeah.
• 35:08
  Josh: I mean, we just talked about one UFO sighting.
• 35:10
  Josh: There's hundreds.
• 35:11
  Travis: Yeah, it could be a whole episode.
• 35:13
  Josh: Yeah.
• 35:14
  Travis: We talk about the city beneath the mountain.
• 35:16
  Travis: Or the ghosts that we didn't even talk about.
• 35:18
  Travis: Or the I am group.
• 35:20
  Travis: Yeah.
• 35:20
  Travis: The cream gang.
• 35:22
  Travis: Not much of a not much of a gang.
• 35:25
  Josh: But yeah, I think, I mean, I do know something is going on.
• 35:28
  Josh: It just seems like a lot of like games of telephone campfire stories passed on and then escalated and twisted.
• 35:36
  Travis: Like so many, so many things.
• 35:37
  Travis: So you know something's going on though?
• 35:39
  Josh: Yeah.
• 35:39
  Josh: I mean, there's just too many like when there's an abundance of things, that alone is enough proof for me that something's going on, you know?
• 35:48
  Travis: Sure.
• 35:48
  Travis: I believe something.
• 35:50
  Travis: I just don't know for sure, because I have not ever been to this place to experience this on my own.
• 35:55
  Travis: I believe that this stuff is happening.
• 35:57
  Josh: But if humans are more powerful than we give ourselves credit for, I mean, it could be that we are creating the thing by like giving it its attention and giving our energy to it and it became real.
• 36:10
  Travis: Oh, like that Supreme Court case.
• 36:13
  Travis: You believe in it hard enough, it becomes a thing.
• 36:16
  Travis: Yeah, you can't judge me on it.
• 36:18
  Travis: Damn it, you found a loophole.
• 36:19
  Travis: Mm-hmm.
• 36:20
  Travis: Yeah.
• 36:20
  Travis: That's what this is all about.
• 36:22
  Travis: This the whole podcast was all leading up to this.
• 36:25
  Travis: You finding this court case.
• 36:26
  Travis: Now it's all true.
• 36:27
  Travis: It just has to be because Josh believes in it hard enough.
• 36:30
  Travis: Yep.
• 36:30
  Travis: I don't not believe in it enough to counter Josh's belief in it.
• 36:34
  Travis: So uh.
• 36:36
  Travis: But I believe in you.
• 36:37
  Travis: Hey, I believe in you too.
• 36:38
  Josh: That's not Shasta, folks.
• 36:41
  Josh: I do want to visit, actually.
• 36:42
  Josh: I think that'd be really interesting.
• 36:44
  Josh: This is one of those like supernatural places I would enjoy to visit with like a 12-pack of cold ones.
• 36:50
  Josh: Cream soda.
• 36:51
  Josh: Am I right?
• 36:52
  Josh: I'll bring the shasta.
• 36:54
  unknown: Yeah.
• 36:55
  Josh: It's not one of those supernatural places like that uh that forest in Japan where people unaliving themselves?
• 37:03
  Josh: Yeah.
• 37:03
  Josh: That I would not go into.
• 37:05
  Josh: No.
• 37:05
  Josh: Like even if it's not real, it's just like real things have happened enough where it's like, no, I'm not gonna do it.
• 37:11
  Josh: Did this, yeah.
• 37:12
  Josh: I'd I'd sneak a peek.
• 37:14
  Josh: I'd go here.
• 37:15
  Travis: I wouldn't go to skinwalker rants, though.
• 37:17
  Travis: I don't like that.
• 37:18
  Travis: I would.
• 37:18
  Travis: I know you would.
• 37:19
  Travis: So let us know what you guys think.
• 37:22
  Travis: Please correct us on some of our faux pas.
• 37:26
  Travis: Actually, just kidding.
• 37:26
  Travis: I don't want to I don't want to hear about that.
• 37:28
  Travis: I don't want to hear about things that are like me saying a word too many times or not enough.
• 37:32
  Travis: But if we get any of our lore wrong, hit us up.
• 37:36
  Travis: Or if you have any questions, do that too.
• 37:39
  Travis: Like ask us questions.
• 37:40
  Travis: That's great.
• 37:40
  Travis: Do our best to answer.
• 37:42
  Josh: Oh, we will answer.
• 37:43
  Josh: We will uh read them on here.
• 37:46
  Josh: Yeah.
• 37:46
  Josh: Most of them.
• 37:47
  Josh: I mean, if we get like really big, we can't just have a podcast about reading stuff.
• 37:50
  Travis: But no, we can.
• 37:51
  Travis: We totally can give us give us five stars.
• 37:53
  Travis: We'll put your review in a hat and we'll draw your review out and read it.
• 37:57
  Travis: But it's got to be five stars.
• 37:59
  Josh: We have one here.
• 38:00
  Josh: It says major stuff you should know vibes from these guys.
• 38:04
  Josh: Great work.
• 38:04
  Josh: Keep it up.
• 38:05
  Josh: So stuff you should know, the podcast.
• 38:06
  Josh: That's a great compliment.
• 38:07
  Josh: I will take that all day for sure.
• 38:10
  Josh: So thank you.
• 38:11
  Josh: If you guys want your stuff read, send it to us.
• 38:14
  Josh: Or if you just want to chat, we can do that.
• 38:16
  Travis: Yeah, let's chat.
• 38:17
  Josh: Yeah, let's chat.
• 38:18
  Travis: Let's get a dialogue going.
• 38:19
  Josh: Yeah, let's get it back and forth.
• 38:21
  Josh: Yeah, for sure.
• 38:22
  Josh: Well, now it is time for our baseline quiz.
• 38:30
  Travis: Okay.
• 38:31
  Travis: Mm-hmm.
• 38:34
  Travis: I don't have it.
• 38:35
  Travis: Wait a second.
• 38:36
  Travis: Are you releasing it?
• 38:37
  Travis: How do I know you're not cheating?
• 38:40
  Travis: Hmm.
• 38:41
  Travis: I'm not.
• 38:42
  Travis: I know, but all we have is your word.
• 38:44
  Travis: My word is gold.
• 38:45
  Travis: Yeah, so's mine.
• 38:46
  Travis: I was honest about the one time that I looked at at the quiz.
• 38:51
  Travis: Your word was fool's gold.
• 38:53
  Travis: Pyrite?
• 38:54
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 38:55
  Josh: There we go.
• 38:56
  Josh: Oh my gosh.
• 38:57
  Josh: Okay.
• 38:58
  Josh: So I got it.
• 39:02
  Travis: And oh no, it sounds like another mountain.
• 39:05
  Josh: I don't know.
• 39:06
  Josh: Uh, so this word Diat Love Pass.
• 39:10
  Travis: Diaz love?
• 39:11
  Travis: Yeah.
• 39:11
  Travis: Is that how you say it?
• 39:13
  Travis: I'm gonna go out on a limb and say yes.
• 39:15
  Travis: That's how you say it.
• 39:15
  Josh: Diab Love Pass incident.
• 39:17
  Josh: Uh-huh.
• 39:18
  Josh: It's another mountain.
• 39:19
  Josh: I don't like this.
• 39:20
  Josh: I might have heard about this, actually, that I'm thinking about it.
• 39:24
  Josh: And I don't like it.
• 39:25
  Josh: I think I remember hearing about this.
• 39:27
  Josh: Okay.
• 39:28
  Josh: Well, we'll get into this.
• 39:29
  Josh: This is gonna be our topic for the next episode.
• 39:31
  Josh: In what year did the Diat Love Pass incident happen?
• 39:35
  Josh: Is it A 1928, B 1937, C 1943, or D 1959?
• 39:42
  Josh: And she always has a little picture up at the top, and I'm trying to, I can't date it by that picture.
• 39:47
  Travis: Well, is that picture true?
• 39:48
  Travis: Is that a true picture?
• 39:50
  Travis: Or is it a good idea?
• 39:50
  Travis: I mean, it's a real picture.
• 39:51
  Travis: I don't know if it has to do with this.
• 39:53
  Travis: It does have to do with this.
• 39:55
  Travis: And it might not be a real picture.
• 39:56
  Travis: It might, it might be AI, Josh.
• 39:58
  Josh: I think it does because I think the picture's famous.
• 40:01
  Josh: I'm gonna say 1959.
• 40:04
  Josh: Damn it.
• 40:04
  Josh: I already locked that in.
• 40:05
  Josh: Well, good.
• 40:06
  Josh: Okay.
• 40:07
  Josh: Next one.
• 40:08
  Josh: Where is Dyotlov Pass?
• 40:10
  Josh: Is it A, Northern Ural Mountains, Russia?
• 40:13
  Josh: B the Himalayas near Tibet, C the Carpathian Mountains near Romania, or D the Sierra Nevada Mountain Range, California.
• 40:21
  Josh: Well, I'm gonna go out on a limb and say Russia, because that looks like a very Russian name.
• 40:26
  Travis: Uh, I think that it's a very Eastern European name.
• 40:29
  Travis: I'm gonna deviate a little bit and say near Romania.
• 40:32
  Travis: Oh Carpathians, as everybody knows, that's where the Dracula myth started.
• 40:37
  Travis: Oh, I did not know that.
• 40:40
  Travis: I did know Romania.
• 40:42
  Travis: Yeah.
• 40:42
  Travis: So the travelers there that were tasked with moving, according to legend, Dracula's body around in the Carpathian Mountains.
• 40:50
  Travis: Like during the day when he couldn't move.
• 40:52
  Travis: Interesting.
• 40:53
  Travis: With a little piece of uh soil where he was born or whatever.
• 40:58
  Josh: Okay, next one.
• 40:59
  Josh: How many members of the expedition died?
• 41:01
  Josh: So A5, B7, C9, or D10?
• 41:07
  Travis: I like that you kind of struggled there because it was numbers and you're like, do I do one, two, or three?
• 41:12
  Josh: Yeah, it got me.
• 41:15
  Josh: It's like looking at one of those things where it's like, say the color.
• 41:18
  Josh: It's the word blue, but it's colored red.
• 41:21
  Travis: Yeah.
• 41:21
  Travis: I'm gonna say ten.
• 41:23
  Travis: Ten.
• 41:24
  Travis: Okay.
• 41:24
  Travis: I'm gonna say seven.
• 41:25
  Travis: Okay.
• 41:26
  Travis: No, you know what?
• 41:27
  Travis: I'm gonna say five.
• 41:28
  Josh: Whoa.
• 41:29
  Josh: Okay, next one.
• 41:31
  Josh: What was especially unsettling about the condition their tent was found in?
• 41:35
  Josh: Uh-oh.
• 41:35
  Josh: Is that A, there was a message written in blood on the fabric.
• 41:39
  Josh: B, the stakes had melted.
• 41:41
  Josh: Oh.
• 41:42
  Josh: C, there had been a fire set around it.
• 41:46
  Josh: Or D, it was cut open from the inside.
• 41:48
  Josh: These all sound like vampire stuff.
• 41:50
  Travis: A vampi like a Dracula came into their campsite and was like, well, these stakes have to go.
• 41:55
  Travis: That's my number one weakness.
• 41:57
  Travis: Yeah.
• 41:57
  Travis: Yeah, we gotta get rid of that.
• 41:58
  Travis: Get rid of those.
• 42:00
  Travis: Blood, obviously, that's my currency.
• 42:02
  Travis: That's what keeps me alive.
• 42:03
  Travis: Fire, dangerous.
• 42:05
  Travis: Tents.
• 42:06
  Travis: No.
• 42:07
  Travis: Don't like it.
• 42:08
  Travis: Because I have to ask for permission to come inside of even a tent.
• 42:11
  Travis: That's true.
• 42:12
  Josh: I'm gonna say that it was cut open from the inside.
• 42:14
  Josh: But that's why is that because that means they were trying to escape.
• 42:18
  Josh: That's spooky.
• 42:19
  Josh: Sure.
• 42:20
  Travis: It could also just be like the zipper was stuck.
• 42:22
  Josh: Maybe.
• 42:23
  Josh: Yeah, I don't know.
• 42:23
  Josh: I mean, it's all weird.
• 42:25
  Travis: I'm gonna say a message written in blood.
• 42:28
  Josh: The creepiest one?
• 42:29
  Josh: Come on.
• 42:30
  Travis: Uh huh.
• 42:30
  Travis: You're getting ready for spooky season, aren't you?
• 42:32
  Travis: We're getting ready for spooky season.
• 42:34
  Travis: Just we are.
• 42:34
  Travis: Wait.
• 42:35
  Travis: Wait for what we have in store for you.
• 42:37
  Travis: I have no idea.
• 42:38
  Travis: I think this is one of them.
• 42:39
  Travis: Good.
• 42:40
  Josh: Okay.
• 42:40
  Josh: Next one.
• 42:41
  Josh: Which of the following injuries were not documented among the victims?
• 42:45
  Josh: So all of these but one happened.
• 42:48
  Josh: Uh-huh.
• 42:48
  Josh: A.
• 42:49
  Josh: Multiple broken ribs.
• 42:50
  Josh: B gunshot wounds.
• 42:52
  Josh: C, skull fractures, or D, missing eyes and tongues.
• 42:56
  Josh: Holy crap.
• 42:57
  Josh: I'm doing gunshot wounds.
• 42:59
  Josh: That's what I was thinking too, because that's kind of the odd one out.
• 43:01
  Travis: Yeah, it's also like the most sensible humane one.
• 43:06
  Travis: If guns were involved, okay, great.
• 43:08
  Travis: This is this is modern cool, not some Eldritch ancient horror wreaking havoc on this.
• 43:13
  Travis: But broken ribs, don't like it.
• 43:16
  Travis: Skull fractures, holy shit.
• 43:18
  Travis: Missing eyes and tongues.
• 43:20
  Travis: Uh boy.
• 43:22
  Josh: Okay.
• 43:23
  Josh: And then final one what reported aerial phenomenon help fuel UFO and secret weapons theories?
• 43:29
  Josh: What?
• 43:30
  Josh: Oh man.
• 43:31
  Josh: Okay, so A, a flying saucer sighting in a military installation.
• 43:36
  Josh: B, a distress signal from a nearby craft.
• 43:39
  Josh: C, photographs of strange lights on the victim's camera, or D, scorch marks near the campsite shaped like a triangle.
• 43:46
  Travis: Now I kind of want to go back and change one of my answers.
• 43:48
  Travis: That there have been a fire set around it.
• 43:50
  Travis: Scorch marks.
• 43:56
  Travis: Everybody knows triangle is the most perfect shape.
• 43:59
  Josh: Yeah, we know.
• 44:00
  Travis: You don't have to keep reminding people.
• 44:02
  Travis: No, I do.
• 44:02
  Travis: That's how it becomes a thing.
• 44:05
  Travis: I have to keep reminding people.
• 44:06
  Josh: So I think photographs of strange lights on the victim's camera.
• 44:09
  Josh: That's what I'm going to put.
• 44:10
  Travis: Okay.
• 44:10
  Travis: I'm going to do the triangle, scorch marks, and a triangle.
• 44:13
  Josh: Of course.
• 44:14
  Josh: All right.
• 44:15
  Josh: We're going to submit and view our accuracy.
• 44:17
  Josh: Okay.
• 44:18
  Josh: I did pretty good.
• 44:19
  Travis: I did exactly the way you would expect.
• 44:23
  Travis: I got the first one right because Josh and I were united.
• 44:27
  Josh: So in what year did the Diotlov Pass incident happen?
• 44:30
  Josh: We both said 1959.
• 44:32
  Josh: That is correct.
• 44:33
  Josh: Yep.
• 44:34
  Josh: Moving right along.
• 44:35
  Josh: Yep.
• 44:35
  Josh: Where is Dyotlov Pass?
• 44:37
  Josh: It is in Russia.
• 44:39
  Josh: I said the Carpathians.
• 44:40
  Josh: Yeah.
• 44:41
  Josh: You said Romania.
• 44:42
  Josh: Uh next one.
• 44:43
  Josh: How many members of the expedition died?
• 44:45
  Josh: I said 10.
• 44:47
  Travis: I said five.
• 44:48
  Travis: It was nine.
• 44:49
  Travis: Yeah.
• 44:50
  Travis: So I mean, price is right rules.
• 44:52
  Travis: I win.
• 44:52
  Travis: That's true.
• 44:53
  Travis: But we're both wrong, so it doesn't matter.
• 44:55
  Josh: What was especially unsettling about what condition their tent was found in, I said it was cut open from the inside.
• 45:01
  Travis: I don't really find that unsettling.
• 45:02
  Travis: If I found a tent, how do you know that a tent was cut from the inside anyway?
• 45:06
  Travis: Forensic evidence?
• 45:07
  Travis: Well, we'll find out.
• 45:08
  Travis: Yeah, for forensics, man.
• 45:09
  Travis: Science, data.
• 45:11
  Travis: I guess.
• 45:12
  Travis: I mean, if it's just like canvas.
• 45:14
  Travis: Well, you said it was written in blood, right?
• 45:15
  Travis: I said written in blood, yeah.
• 45:17
  Josh: Okay.
• 45:17
  Travis: It was cut from the inside.
• 45:19
  Travis: Yeah.
• 45:19
  Josh: Next one, which of the following injuries were not documented among the victims?
• 45:23
  Josh: We both said gunshot wounds.
• 45:25
  Josh: That's correct.
• 45:26
  Josh: So that means they were missing eyes and tongues.
• 45:29
  Travis: And broken ribs and had skull fractures.
• 45:32
  Josh: No.
• 45:32
  Josh: Nope.
• 45:33
  Josh: Not gonna do it.
• 45:34
  Josh: And then lastly, what reported aerial phenomenon helped fuel UFO and secret weapon theories?
• 45:39
  Josh: I said a photographs of strange lights on victims' camera.
• 45:43
  Travis: Yeah, and I said scorch marks near the campsite and wanted to go back and change my answer, which would have been wrong on both counts.
• 45:49
  Josh: It was photographs of strange lights on the victim's camera.
• 45:53
  Josh: Okay.
• 45:54
  Josh: Okay.
• 45:54
  Travis: Well, we are officially in spooky season.
• 45:57
  Travis: And we're in one of the spookiest places ever, Russia.
• 46:00
  Josh: Oh my gosh.
• 46:01
  Josh: This is crazy.
• 46:02
  Travis: Pretty dark, forested place.
• 46:04
  Travis: Oh boy.
• 46:05
  Josh: Okay.
• 46:05
  Josh: Well, this is what we're gonna do.
• 46:07
  Josh: We're just gonna have nightmares for the next little bit, I guess.
• 46:10
  Travis: Thank you, aliens.
• 46:11
  Travis: Yes, but maybe no podcast for introducing new fears into my nightmares.
• 46:16
  Josh: Yep.
• 46:16
  Josh: All right.
• 46:17
  Josh: Well, thank you for listening, and thank you for reaching out.
• 46:21
  Travis: Yes, future people.
• 46:23
  Travis: Thank you for reaching out.
• 46:24
  Josh: Yeah, this is a preemptive thank you.
• 46:26
  Travis: Yeah.
• 46:26
  Josh: Thank you, Jordan, for putting our quiz together and our notes.
• 46:29
  Josh: Well, cool.
• 46:30
  Josh: Well, we will uh chat at you next episode.
• 46:32
  Josh: Thank you for listening.
• 46:33
  Josh: Okay, bye.
• 46:34
  Josh: Bye.