Latest / Weeknight Mysteries Podcast / Ep. 100 | Art From Suffering - Childhood Trauma & Genuine Poltergeist Activity Caught on

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Ep. 100 | Art From Suffering - Childhood Trauma & Genuine Poltergeist Activity Caught on · Weeknight Mysteries Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: In a first video we looked at drawings of torture survivors,
• 0:03
  Speaker 1: which was very literal depictions of abuse. The artists were
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: attempted to directly illustrate the things that were happening to them.
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  Speaker 1: This case deals a lot more with subconscious imagery and
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  Speaker 1: symbolism seen in mostly innocent pictures. Today we're looking at
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  Speaker 1: drawings created by victims of childhood abuse. There's been a
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  Speaker 1: few studies on the art of children that have experienced abuse.
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  Speaker 1: They take many drawings by children identified as being victims
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  Speaker 1: and then look through the images to try and find
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  Speaker 1: recurring themes and symbols. A lot of the pictures I'm
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  Speaker 1: going to show today come from those studies. As you
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  Speaker 1: might expect the drawing of genitalia and exposed bodies are
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  Speaker 1: a common theme. Sometimes when a child lacks the vocabulary
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  Speaker 1: to describe what's happening to them they will depict it
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  Speaker 1: in an artwork. In Brazil a five-year-old girl began displaying
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  Speaker 1: disturbing psychological problems so her parents sent her to a therapist.
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  Speaker 1: The therapist was unable to get the child to tell
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  Speaker 1: her what was wrong and so suggested to the parents
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  Speaker 1: that they should look through the child's drawings for clues.
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  Speaker 1: In her bedroom hidden in a book they found these
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  Speaker 1: disturbing images. What the child had been unable to tell
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  Speaker 1: the therapist she'd been able to describe in simple shapes
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  Speaker 1: and lines. A priest who had been giving the girl
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  Speaker 1: private English lessons was arrested soon afterwards and later admitted
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  Speaker 1: to the abuse. There are more subtle things to look
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  Speaker 1: out for in the pictures too. Notice their bare teeth,
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  Speaker 1: a universal symbol in most mammals of aggression and anger.
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  Speaker 1: In these drawings the teeth are drawn as sharp fangs,
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  Speaker 1: the smiles turn into angry grimaces. This symbol isn't confined
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  Speaker 1: to the children's art either. Going back to the children's
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  Speaker 1: drawings these two I find particularly disturbing. Not just for
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  Speaker 1: the bare teeth but for the general style of the art.
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  Speaker 1: If they were done by an adult I'd say they
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  Speaker 1: had a pretty good grasp of expressionism but when it's
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  Speaker 1: done by a child it just seems detached from reality.
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  Speaker 1: It's like the child tried to draw regular people but
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  Speaker 1: they were so disassociated that they depicted some weird inner
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  Speaker 1: psyche instead. Then again maybe I'm reading too much into
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  Speaker 1: it and they were just trying to draw a monster
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  Speaker 1: or some character of TV. There is another thing that
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  Speaker 1: disturbs me about them though they remind me a lot
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  Speaker 1: of another artist. These are some of the drawings done
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  Speaker 1: in jail by the serial killer Otis Toole. He himself
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  Speaker 1: was a victim of horrific childhood abuse and committed his
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  Speaker 1: first murder at the age of 14. The similarity between
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  Speaker 1: his art and this child's drawing is remarkable. It seems
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  Speaker 1: like some demons never leave you. In another common theme
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  Speaker 1: in the kids' drawings is depictions of helplessness. Often the
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  Speaker 1: victim will draw themselves without arms or hands or unable
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  Speaker 1: to defend themselves. Sometimes they will have no mouth or
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  Speaker 1: the mouth will be tightly shut. In comparison their abuser
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  Speaker 1: will often be drawn with elongated arms and long grasping fingers.
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  Speaker 1: The way they draw their home can also be an indicator.
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  Speaker 1: Houses without doors or windows can indicate that the victim
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  Speaker 1: feels trapped, unable to escape from their situation. The weather
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  Speaker 1: can also be an indicator of the child's mental state.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of children will draw a nice yellow sun
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  Speaker 1: in disguise or white fluffy clouds with some birds flying through.
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  Speaker 1: A child experiencing trauma will often draw dark stormy clouds
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  Speaker 1: menacing overhead or rain pouring down from above. It overabundance
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  Speaker 1: of hearts, supposedly is another sign but I'm not really
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  Speaker 1: sure why I can't find any papers that explain the
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  Speaker 1: psychological reason behind it. It's just that hearts appear a
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  Speaker 1: lot in the art of children that have experienced abuse.
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  Speaker 1: And finally the use of red apparently is also important.
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  Speaker 1: Red is often used in children's art to represent danger
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  Speaker 1: or aggression. For example, given here is a drawing bark
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  Speaker 1: out from a healthy and unambusive background. They were drawing
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  Speaker 1: someone throwing sand in the sand pit. As you can
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  Speaker 1: see the thrown sand is red and the red spikes
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  Speaker 1: of anger or danger around the person's head as if
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  Speaker 1: the represent that the child knows that these actions are
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  Speaker 1: dangerous or naughty. Now if we look at some of
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  Speaker 1: these drawings again by the abuse victims we can see
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  Speaker 1: how they may have used red in some of these
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  Speaker 1: situations to indicate where they feel the danger is coming from.
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  Speaker 1: A lot of these signs and symbols can be seen
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  Speaker 1: in this drawing. This was created by a child that
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  Speaker 1: escaped from the Branch Davidian Waco compound. I'm sure a
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  Speaker 1: lot of you know about Waco already but just to
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  Speaker 1: give a really quick rundown the Branch Davidians were a
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  Speaker 1: religious cult that owned and run the Mount Caramel Center.
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  Speaker 1: This was a closed compound in Waco, Texas. In 1993
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  Speaker 1: the Bureau of Alcohol Firearms and Tobacco obtained a search
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  Speaker 1: warrant for the compound because they suspected the Branch Davidians
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  Speaker 1: of stockpiling weapons. After they failed to gain entry to
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  Speaker 1: the Mount Caramel Center the compound was seeded by the
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  Speaker 1: FBI for 51 days. Then on the final day of
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  Speaker 1: the seed the FBI brought in tanks and attacked the compound.
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  Speaker 1: At some point during the assault the Branch Davidians set
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  Speaker 1: multiple fires around the Mount Caramel Center and burned themselves
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  Speaker 1: alive inside the building. 76 people died including 25 children.
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  Speaker 1: The site that I found this drawing on says that
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  Speaker 1: the picture shows the building being in golden flames and
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  Speaker 1: that this means the child knew that they were going
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  Speaker 1: to set the fire before it happened. Personally I'm not
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  Speaker 1: sure if this does show fire. Life for children in
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  Speaker 1: the Branch Davidians was one of constant discipline. They were
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  Speaker 1: severely beaten for the slightest infraction of the rules. They
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  Speaker 1: had this large wooden paddle that they called the helper
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  Speaker 1: and they used it to beat the children into obedience.
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  Speaker 1: Sexual abuse was also very commonplace. The leader of the
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  Speaker 1: cult David Kresh took many girls as his wives the
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  Speaker 1: youngest of which was just 10 years old. To make
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  Speaker 1: the picture shows the claustrophobic nature of life at the
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  Speaker 1: wake of compound. The red might not be fire at
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  Speaker 1: all it could just be representing the atmosphere of strict
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  Speaker 1: discipline the constant fear of physical punishment. Notice how it's
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  Speaker 1: all contained within the wars of the building a place
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  Speaker 1: filled with spikes and jagged lines and cage-like boxes. And
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  Speaker 1: of course in the multiple hearts some of them becoming
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  Speaker 1: pentagrams which is strange for a cult obsessed with biblical prophecy.
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  Speaker 1: Outside the building a life seems almost idyllic with the
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  Speaker 1: sun and rainbow overhead although there is the ever-present apocalyptic
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  Speaker 1: storm clouds right at the very top. Now although these
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  Speaker 1: symbols might reoccur throughout the drawings personally I don't think
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  Speaker 1: it's possible to identify abuse just from looking at a
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  Speaker 1: kid's drawing apart from in very overt drawings like the
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  Speaker 1: case from Brazil. Children draw all sorts of weird stuff
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  Speaker 1: and just because a kid starts drawing something like hearts
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  Speaker 1: and lots of red doesn't mean anything on its own.
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  Speaker 1: Maybe red is just their favorite color and then things
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  Speaker 1: hearts look cute. Maybe they can't draw hands or they
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  Speaker 1: leave them out or they draw a house and they
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  Speaker 1: forget to add them to the door. Maybe it's raining
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  Speaker 1: outside and so that's what they draw. It's similar to
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  Speaker 1: my video on mental illness and art. When you look
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  Speaker 1: at lots of art from people with certain mental illnesses
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  Speaker 1: you can see reoccurring themes but that doesn't mean that
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  Speaker 1: everyone who uses these themes has that mental condition. For
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  Speaker 1: example paranoid schizophrenics might draw lots of eyes but not
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  Speaker 1: everyone that draws eyes is a schizophrenic. I just wanted
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  Speaker 1: to say that in case somebody watches this and then
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  Speaker 1: they start getting paranoid about their kids' drawings. This kind
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  Speaker 1: of analysis can only really be done in retrospect. It
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  Speaker 1: may be possible to infer something about their mental state
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  Speaker 1: or look for common recurring symbols across the artworks but
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  Speaker 1: it only works when you know the history of the
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  Speaker 1: children that drew them. There have been blind studies where
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  Speaker 1: experts were given a load of kids' drawings and then
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  Speaker 1: asked to pick out the ones that had suffered abuse.
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  Speaker 1: The hit rate wasn't great and the drawings of children
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  Speaker 1: from unabusive backgrounds were often misidentified so kids' drawings probably
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  Speaker 1: aren't a good way of identifying abuse, at least not
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  Speaker 1: on its own. Still it's creepy to look at these
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  Speaker 1: images knowing that the children that created them experienced something terrible.
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  Speaker 1: After everything they went through they still wanted to create
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  Speaker 1: these jaunty pictures even when they were drawing the same
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  Speaker 1: people that abused them. It has a way of making
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  Speaker 1: the abuse seem normal or commonplace and perhaps this is
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  Speaker 1: how the child saw it in their mind. Not knowing
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  Speaker 1: any of a life this was just their world and
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  Speaker 1: so they thought very little of drawing what they knew.
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  Speaker 1: Even though it was far less graphic than my usual
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  Speaker 1: stuff it's one of those subjects that I find a
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  Speaker 1: lot heavier than any serial killer or some random atrocity.
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  Speaker 1: I suppose it's because with a serial killer or something
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  Speaker 1: like that you know it's a one-off rare event and
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  Speaker 1: that's what makes it significant whereas with something like this
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  Speaker 1: kind of abuse you know it goes on every day
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  Speaker 1: and all over the world. Anyway on that cheerful note
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  Speaker 1: I'm going to end this case. You allow me to
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  Speaker 1: make recordings on extremely depressing topics like this instead of
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  Speaker 1: chasing the algorithm so thank you. Here's some more recordings
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  Speaker 1: you might find interesting I've done a few where I
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  Speaker 1: look at strange artwork so check them out if you're
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  Speaker 1: in the mood for more. Until next time goodbye. This
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  Speaker 1: case was uploaded to the Ghosts of Redditch website and
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  Speaker 1: appears to show poltergeist activity happening in the Abbeydale Community
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  Speaker 1: Club in Redditch, England. The camera was set up after
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  Speaker 1: patrons and staff of the community club reported unexplained bangings
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  Speaker 1: and footsteps coming from the area. Keep an eye on
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  Speaker 1: the glass doors at the back. If anyone was standing
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  Speaker 1: on either side of these doors it would be clearly visible.
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  Speaker 1: Hit the doors seem to open and close on their own.
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  Speaker 1: Now watch this chair. Again anybody under the table or
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  Speaker 1: near the chair would be seen on the camera and
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  Speaker 1: yet the chair moves with nobody visible. Finally the camera
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  Speaker 1: itself is up to the floor. What's the spirit angry
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  Speaker 1: at being filmed? We will play the recording again without
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  Speaker 1: the commentary. Although filmed in an empty building the sounds
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  Speaker 1: of shuffling feet and strange bangs can be clearly heard.
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  Speaker 1: What did you think of the recording? Do you think
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  Speaker 1: it was a spirit or is there some other explanation?