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The Movie Scenes That Killed People & What Happened At Bluestone Walk · Weeknight Mysteries Podcast

0:01
Speaker 1: Movie scenes where people actually die for real. This was
0:04
Speaker 1: another one of those hotly debated topics when I was
0:06
Speaker 1: in school. I remember a kid telling me that there
0:09
Speaker 1: was a scene in one of the Nightmare on Elm
0:11
Speaker 1: Street movies where a person is actually murdered in real life.
0:15
Speaker 1: They said it was the scene where Freddy pulls a
0:17
Speaker 1: girl into a fridge, and at the time I hadn't
0:20
Speaker 1: seen any of the movies so I didn't know what
0:21
Speaker 1: they were talking about, but since then I've watched them
0:23
Speaker 1: all and I assume they mean it's this scene, Greta's
0:26
Speaker 1: death from Nightmare on Elm Street 5. I've looked into
0:30
Speaker 1: it and I don't think there was any injuries or
0:32
Speaker 1: accidents on set, and this death is definitely fake. It
0:36
Speaker 1: doesn't even look that realistic, so I don't know how
0:38
Speaker 1: the rumour started, but it just goes to show how
0:41
Speaker 1: these stories get spread around. I'm sure a lot of
0:44
Speaker 1: you have heard some version of this story, probably with
0:47
Speaker 1: a different movie. It's not all urban legend though. There
0:51
Speaker 1: are actually a number of movie scenes where people died
0:54
Speaker 1: during its filming, and I'm going to look at a
0:56
Speaker 1: few of them here today. Starting off with the silent era,
1:01
Speaker 1: The Captive was a romantic story set in the Balkan War.
1:06
Speaker 1: At about 40 minutes into the movie, the protagonists find
1:09
Speaker 1: themselves besieged in a house whilst soldiers try to break
1:12
Speaker 1: down the door from the outside. At first the soldiers
1:15
Speaker 1: fire their rifles at the door, and then they try
1:17
Speaker 1: to hammer on the wood with the butts of their guns.
1:21
Speaker 1: Unfortunately whilst they were banging on the door, one of
1:23
Speaker 1: the rifles went off and hit an extra named Charles Chandler.
1:27
Speaker 1: He was shot in the forehead and killed instantly. The
1:30
Speaker 1: director Cecil B. DeMille wanted the gunfire scenes to be
1:34
Speaker 1: extra realistic, and so, whilst they were firing at the door,
1:37
Speaker 1: the crew were using live ammunition in their rifles. Then
1:41
Speaker 1: for the scene where they're banging on the door with
1:43
Speaker 1: the butts of their guns, he ordered them to unload
1:46
Speaker 1: the live ammo and replace it with blank cartridges. It
1:49
Speaker 1: seems that one of the extras forgot to take out
1:51
Speaker 1: the live ammo and ended up killing a fellow cast member.
1:55
Speaker 1: As all the rifles had discharged, it was impossible for
1:57
Speaker 1: them to tell who had fired the killing shot. As
2:00
Speaker 1: for the footage itself, I can't say whether any of
2:03
Speaker 1: these scenes capture that fateful moment, or if they cut
2:06
Speaker 1: it from the final release of the movie. I've watched
2:08
Speaker 1: the footage in slow motion, trying to see if any
2:11
Speaker 1: of the guns discharged whilst they're hammering on the door,
2:13
Speaker 1: but I can't see anything definite. In some scenes, the
2:17
Speaker 1: ends of the guns are off-screen, so it could have
2:19
Speaker 1: been one of these moments, but that would just be
2:21
Speaker 1: speculation on my part. Onto the 1920s now. Noah's Ark
2:27
Speaker 1: was an epic, biblical-themed movie with spectacular disaster scenes. One
2:32
Speaker 1: scene in particular involved the flooding of a specially built
2:36
Speaker 1: concrete set with 600,000 gallons of water. The problem was,
2:41
Speaker 1: the set was full of extras, and none of them
2:43
Speaker 1: were given any warning on how big the flood would be. Apparently,
2:47
Speaker 1: head cameraman Hal Moore said to the director, Michael Curtis, Jesus...
2:52
Speaker 1: What are you going to do about the extras? And
2:54
Speaker 1: Curtis replied, They're just going to have to take their chances.
2:58
Speaker 1: This actually caused Hal Moore to quit on the spot
3:01
Speaker 1: in disgust. The scene went ahead as planned. The extras
3:06
Speaker 1: gathered on the set and the water was released. Thousands
3:09
Speaker 1: of gallons suddenly flooded the stage and the cast, now
3:13
Speaker 1: up to their neck in water and with more crashing
3:15
Speaker 1: down on them from above, began to panic. Three actors
3:19
Speaker 1: died during the scene and many more were injured. One
3:23
Speaker 1: of them had their legs so badly mangled that they
3:25
Speaker 1: had to be amputated. Watching the scene now, it seems
3:29
Speaker 1: insane that they were allowed to get away with it.
3:31
Speaker 1: I guess it was a different time back then. Clearly
3:33
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people here genuinely panicking for their lives.
3:36
Speaker 1: It's not just acting. There's even a horse in there
3:39
Speaker 1: with them. To be honest, I'm surprised that only three
3:42
Speaker 1: people died. It could have been a lot worse. It
3:45
Speaker 1: was this incident that led to film safety regulations being
3:49
Speaker 1: implemented in future movie productions. In 1967, filming began on
3:55
Speaker 1: an action movie called Cane. It was directed by Samuel
3:59
Speaker 1: Fuller and filmed in Mexico. In one scene, stuntman Jose
4:04
Speaker 1: Marco was supposed to interact with a white shark that
4:07
Speaker 1: was sedated and being kept behind a protective netting. Unfortunately,
4:11
Speaker 1: the shark wasn't sedated enough. It bit through the netting
4:15
Speaker 1: and attacked Jose, tearing into his abdomen and disemboweling him.
4:20
Speaker 1: Jose Marco's death was caught on camera, and the marketing
4:23
Speaker 1: team quickly put the footage to good use. Against the
4:27
Speaker 1: director's wishes, the film title was changed to Shark. The
4:31
Speaker 1: footage of Jose's death was inserted at the beginning of
4:34
Speaker 1: the movie, and promotional material was made that played up
4:37
Speaker 1: to the shocking nature of the accident. Shark will rip
4:41
Speaker 1: you apart, the posters read, next to an illustration of
4:44
Speaker 1: a man being disemboweled by a shark, and some text
4:47
Speaker 1: telling about the accident involving the stuntman. Tasteful it wasn't.
4:52
Speaker 1: In fact, director Sam Fuller was so disgusted that he
4:55
Speaker 1: asked for his name to be taken off the credits,
4:57
Speaker 1: which they refused to do. It just goes to show,
5:01
Speaker 1: no matter how tragic an event is, never underestimate a
5:04
Speaker 1: marketing team's ability to turn it into publicity. On to
5:21
Speaker 1: Thailand now. During the 60s and 70s, actor Mit Chai
5:25
Speaker 1: Bancher was one of Thailand's biggest stars. He was most
5:29
Speaker 1: well known for his Red Dragon character, a masked crime-fighting
5:33
Speaker 1: action hero. In 1970, he reprised the role of Red
5:38
Speaker 1: Dragon in a movie called In Si Thong. This was
5:41
Speaker 1: the first movie that Mit Chai Bancher had produced and
5:44
Speaker 1: directed himself. Sadly, it was also to be his final movie.
5:50
Speaker 1: The last scene in the film called for Red Dragon
5:53
Speaker 1: to grab hold of a rope ladder hanging beneath a
5:56
Speaker 1: helicopter and be carried away into the sunset. Chibanchi was
6:00
Speaker 1: supposed to climb onto the ladder with his feet on
6:02
Speaker 1: the bottom rung, but at the time of filming the
6:05
Speaker 1: helicopter was slightly too high, meaning that Chibanchi could only
6:08
Speaker 1: reach the bottom rung with his hands. Dangling dangerously from
6:12
Speaker 1: the ladder, he was lifted high into the air. Suddenly
6:16
Speaker 1: he lost his grip and plunged to his death. Apparently
6:20
Speaker 1: the footage of his fall actually made it into the
6:22
Speaker 1: finished movie and was shown to audiences across Thailand. The
6:27
Speaker 1: film was transferred to DVD in 2005 and although they
6:31
Speaker 1: do show him hanging from the ladder, they removed the
6:33
Speaker 1: part where he falls off. One of the most famous
7:03
Speaker 1: on-set deaths occurred during filming of the 1983 Twilight Zone movie.
7:09
Speaker 1: In the time-out section of the film, there's a scene
7:12
Speaker 1: where the protagonist is sent back in time to the
7:15
Speaker 1: Vietnamese War. In this scene, actor Vic Morrow carries two children,
7:20
Speaker 1: seven-year-old Micah Dinh Leigh, and six-year-old Reni Shin-Yi Chen across
7:25
Speaker 1: a shallow lake whilst explosions go off behind them and
7:28
Speaker 1: the helicopter flies overhead. The problem was they were filming
7:32
Speaker 1: in the early hours of the morning. Director John Landis
7:35
Speaker 1: couldn't get permission to use children at such a late hour.
7:39
Speaker 1: In order to get around this, he simply bypassed safety regulations.
7:43
Speaker 1: He hired the children without permits, paying the parents cash
7:46
Speaker 1: in hand so it wouldn't show up on any of
7:48
Speaker 1: the records. He also failed to inform the fire safety
7:51
Speaker 1: crew that there would be children on the set. Watching
7:54
Speaker 1: the footage now, it's clear how dangerous it was. The
7:57
Speaker 1: explosions are massive and the children must have been terrified.
8:02
Speaker 1: Apparently when the explosives started going off, the helicopter pilot
8:05
Speaker 1: decided it was too dangerous and tried to get out
8:07
Speaker 1: of there, but Landis told him just to fly lower.
8:11
Speaker 1: As Morrow and the children get about halfway across the lake,
8:14
Speaker 1: disaster strikes. A mistimed explosion catches the back of the helicopter,
8:19
Speaker 1: damaging the tail rotor. The helicopter crashes down on top
8:23
Speaker 1: of Morrow and the children. Vic Morrow and Micah Din
8:27
Speaker 1: Lee were both hit by the rotor blades and decapitated.
8:30
Speaker 1: Rennie Shin-Yi Chen was crushed beneath the vehicle. All three
8:34
Speaker 1: of them were killed instantly. If you watch this reaction
8:38
Speaker 1: from a crew member when he goes to help, you
8:40
Speaker 1: might get a good idea of what horrific state the
8:42
Speaker 1: bodies were in. The accident led to a massive lawsuit,
8:52
Speaker 1: with the director, the helicopter pilot, the production manager and
8:56
Speaker 1: an explosive specialist all being tried for manslaughter. They were
9:00
Speaker 1: all acquitted after a nine month long trial, and the
9:03
Speaker 1: families of the deceased received millions in settlement. The scene
9:08
Speaker 1: was cut from the final release of the movie, although
9:10
Speaker 1: it's pretty easy to find online. If you're watching on Patreon,
9:13
Speaker 1: I've included the uncut footage. If you're watching on YouTube,
9:17
Speaker 1: then I'm not taking any risks. It's pretty easy to
9:20
Speaker 1: find though if you just search for it. It's not
9:21
Speaker 1: that gory or anything, I'm just not sure what I'm
9:24
Speaker 1: allowed to show on here anymore. Finally, I couldn't make
9:28
Speaker 1: this video without talking about The Crow, the 1994 movie
9:32
Speaker 1: starring Brandon Lee, Bruce Lee's son. There's a scene where
9:36
Speaker 1: Eric Draven, played by Lee, tries to stop his fiancée
9:39
Speaker 1: from being attacked, and he gets shot with a. 44 Magnum.
9:43
Speaker 1: There's a few different shots in this scene. This one
9:45
Speaker 1: shows the gun close up, and for this they... gummy
9:48
Speaker 1: bullets into the gun. These are rounds with all the
9:51
Speaker 1: gunpowder taken out so from the front the gun looks
9:54
Speaker 1: like it's full of bullets but in actual fact they're
9:56
Speaker 1: completely inert. In another shot they fire the gun at
10:00
Speaker 1: and for this they removed the dummy bullets and inserted blanks.
10:05
Speaker 1: The problem is, one of the dummy bullets remained in
10:07
Speaker 1: the chamber. The explosion from the blank round launched the
10:11
Speaker 1: bullet out of the chamber, hitting Brandon Lee in the abdomen.
10:15
Speaker 1: He was rushed to hospital and underwent six hours of surgery,
10:19
Speaker 1: but then sadly died. A lot of people still believe
10:22
Speaker 1: that Brandon Lee's death was left in the final release
10:25
Speaker 1: of the movie. It's achieved a bit of an urban
10:27
Speaker 1: legend status as a kind of cursed film that shows
10:30
Speaker 1: a real killing. In actual fact, the scenes were reshot
10:34
Speaker 1: with a body double. Lee's face was digitally superimposed onto
10:38
Speaker 1: the double. This is the first time CGI was used
10:41
Speaker 1: to reanimate a deceased actor. There's been many more on-set
10:57
Speaker 1: deaths that I could talk about. This wasn't meant to
10:59
Speaker 1: be a comprehensive list, I just picked a few that
11:02
Speaker 1: I found interesting to talk about. Maybe I'll cover some
11:05
Speaker 1: more in a future video, so if you've got any
11:07
Speaker 1: suggestions then leave them in the comments below. Shoutout to
11:11
Speaker 1: everyone supporting the channel on Patreon and Paypal. Thanks a
11:15
Speaker 1: lot to all of you who keep the channel going.
11:17
Speaker 1: If you'd also like to help out, then check out
11:19
Speaker 1: the link to my Patreon on screen now. Another way
11:22
Speaker 1: you can help out the channel is simply by giving
11:24
Speaker 1: it a thumbs up and leaving a comment. Cheers for watching,
11:27
Speaker 1: and until next time, goodbye. Hello everybody, Shrouded Hand here.
11:41
Speaker 1: I was recently talking to Reeves from the Paratalk podcast,
11:44
Speaker 1: and he reminded me about a story that I've always
11:46
Speaker 1: wanted to cover but never got round to, so I
11:48
Speaker 1: kind of took this as a sign to look a
11:50
Speaker 1: bit more deeply into it. This is the utterly bizarre
11:53
Speaker 1: case of Gene Hingley, which is also known as the
11:56
Speaker 1: Mince Pie Martian Incident. Also, on a side note, I
12:02
Speaker 1: was recently a guest on the Paratalk podcast, so if
12:05
Speaker 1: you want to hear me and Reeves talk about all
12:07
Speaker 1: kinds of Weird stuff. I'll put a link to that
12:10
Speaker 1: in the description. Go check it out. So, the case
12:14
Speaker 1: of the Mince Pie Martians. This incident took place in
12:18
Speaker 1: a small council house on Bluestone Walk in Rowley Regis,
12:21
Speaker 1: which is in the Midlands of England, pretty close to Birmingham.
12:25
Speaker 1: It was a cold, dark, snowy morning on the 4th
12:28
Speaker 1: of January 1979. It was around 6.30am. Jean Hingley stood
12:34
Speaker 1: at the back door of her house, waving her husband
12:36
Speaker 1: Cyril off as he left to work at the local
12:39
Speaker 1: cement works. This house had a small back garden, with
12:42
Speaker 1: a shed and a garage at the end. After Cyril
12:46
Speaker 1: had left, Jean noticed that there was an orange glow
12:49
Speaker 1: coming from the end of the garden, and she assumed
12:51
Speaker 1: that he'd forgotten to turn off the light in the garage.
12:55
Speaker 1: She walked down to the end of the garden with
12:57
Speaker 1: her Alsatian dog Hobo, but as she got closer, she
13:00
Speaker 1: saw that the light wasn't coming from the garage. Confused,
13:04
Speaker 1: she and Hobo turned back to go towards the house.
13:08
Speaker 1: It was at this point that a glowing orange sphere
13:10
Speaker 1: appeared above the roof of the garage. This light, according
13:14
Speaker 1: to Jean, was bright enough to light up the whole garden,
13:17
Speaker 1: and she could feel heat radiating off it. Alarmed, Jean
13:22
Speaker 1: and Hobo retreated back inside the house and watched from
13:25
Speaker 1: the doorway. The sphere hovered over towards the house and
13:28
Speaker 1: settled on the lawn in the middle of the gardens.
13:31
Speaker 1: At this point, its glow changed from orange to white.
13:35
Speaker 1: Jean then heard a noise, which in her original report,
13:38
Speaker 1: she describes as sounding like Z, Z, Z. At this moment,
13:43
Speaker 1: three strange creatures floated into the house through the open door.
13:49
Speaker 1: She could see that these creatures were humanoid looking and
13:51
Speaker 1: they were around three to four feet tall, but they
13:54
Speaker 1: emitted such a blindingly white light that Jean couldn't get
13:58
Speaker 1: a good look at them. They hovered about a foot
14:01
Speaker 1: off the floor and they glided across the kitchen towards
14:04
Speaker 1: the living room door. Understandably, Jean was overcome with terror.
14:10
Speaker 1: She gripped onto the kitchen sink and she said that
14:12
Speaker 1: she felt as if all the blood was draining from
14:14
Speaker 1: her body. She felt as if she was completely frozen
14:17
Speaker 1: in place. She also noticed that her dog, Hobo, seemed
14:21
Speaker 1: to be hobbling slowly, swaying unsteadily as he walked. All
14:26
Speaker 1: of the hairs on his back were sticking up and
14:28
Speaker 1: he appeared to be in a daze. He hobbled over
14:32
Speaker 1: to his water bowl, then lay down on the floor
14:35
Speaker 1: and remained lying there motionless with his eyes open. After
14:39
Speaker 1: a while, standing there frozen, a change seemed to come
14:42
Speaker 1: over Jean. In her own words, she describes it like this.
14:47
Speaker 1: The fear seemed to leave me. I felt as if
14:49
Speaker 1: I were lifted up. I wondered what was happening to me.
14:52
Speaker 1: I felt as if I was a different person, as
14:54
Speaker 1: though I was in heaven, although I was still at home.
14:57
Speaker 1: I seemed to float into the lounge. I held the door,
15:01
Speaker 1: but my feet didn't touch the ground. The doors were
15:04
Speaker 1: wide open, and it was a bitterly cold morning, but
15:07
Speaker 1: I felt warm. As she entered the lounge of her house,
15:13
Speaker 1: the creatures were in there, but the light emitted from
15:15
Speaker 1: them was so bright that Jean had to cover her
15:18
Speaker 1: eyes with her hands. She says that at this moment
15:21
Speaker 1: she had the feeling that the entities were probing her mind,
15:25
Speaker 1: and then they seemed to understand that the light was
15:28
Speaker 1: too intense for her. When she removed her hands from
15:31
Speaker 1: her face, the lights appeared to have dimmed, and it
15:33
Speaker 1: was at this point that she got a good look
15:36
Speaker 1: at the creatures. She describes them like this. There they were,
15:40
Speaker 1: three little slim men in silvery grey tunics and silver waistcoats,
15:45
Speaker 1: with six silver buttons or press studs down the front.
15:49
Speaker 1: They were about three feet six inches to four feet high,
15:52
Speaker 1: all alike. Their pointed hands and feet were covered in
15:56
Speaker 1: the same silvery green, and they had pointed caps on
15:59
Speaker 1: the head of the same colour and with something like
16:02
Speaker 1: a lamp on the top. They had transparent fishbowl helmets
16:06
Speaker 1: over their heads which rested on their shoulders. There were
16:09
Speaker 1: no eyebrows or ears to be seen. Their faces were
16:12
Speaker 1: waxy white, corpse-like, and they had black diamond eyes. I
16:17
Speaker 1: don't know much about precious stones, but that is how
16:20
Speaker 1: I would describe them. I didn't notice their noses. Their
16:23
Speaker 1: mouths were very thin. Their wings were wonderful. Large, oval-shaped
16:29
Speaker 1: and glowing with rainbow colours. Red, violet, gold, blue, green.
16:33
Speaker 1: But more beautiful than our earthly colours. Their wings were
16:37
Speaker 1: covered in dots, like braille dots. I thought of Joseph's
16:41
Speaker 1: coat of many colours. Our colours seemed like chemical colours
16:44
Speaker 1: compared to them. She also noted that their arms and
16:49
Speaker 1: legs ended in simple tapering points, with no apparent hands
16:53
Speaker 1: or feet at the ends. Each being was surrounded by
16:56
Speaker 1: a halo of light, and they had numerous thin streamers
16:59
Speaker 1: that hung down from their shoulders. When they moved about,
17:02
Speaker 1: they held their arms clasped tightly to their chests, and
17:05
Speaker 1: their legs hung down limply below them. So one thing
17:09
Speaker 1: I like to do when I get these descriptions is
17:11
Speaker 1: to stick them into chat GPT and see what it
17:13
Speaker 1: spits out, so let's have a go. Yeah, I think
17:19
Speaker 1: we'll just stick to the drawings. A lot of these
17:21
Speaker 1: drawings come from the various books and reports that I've
17:24
Speaker 1: consulted to make the video, and they were based on
17:26
Speaker 1: Jean's eyewitness accounts. I think in some cases she was
17:29
Speaker 1: actually shown the drawings to confirm that they did look
17:32
Speaker 1: like the creatures that she described. The three beings were
17:37
Speaker 1: stood around Jean's Christmas tree, shaking it violently back and forth.
17:41
Speaker 1: They then floated around the room, picking up various objects
17:45
Speaker 1: and examining them. She also noted that as they floated around,
17:49
Speaker 1: their wings fluttered gently. Not in a flapping motion like
17:51
Speaker 1: a butterfly, but just a gentle flutter. It seemed to
17:53
Speaker 1: her like the wings were ornamental. They also made no
17:56
Speaker 1: sound as they flew about. Jean was again rooted to
18:12
Speaker 1: the spot, completely frozen. She couldn't do anything to stop
18:15
Speaker 1: their antics as they flew about the room. When she'd
18:18
Speaker 1: first seen them, she'd opened her mouth wide in a
18:20
Speaker 1: shocked expression, and now her face was frozen like that
18:24
Speaker 1: for a good amount of time. Eventually, though, she seemed
18:27
Speaker 1: to regain her ability to speak. At this point, she
18:30
Speaker 1: said to them, Three of you and one of me?
18:33
Speaker 1: What are you going to do? What do you want
18:34
Speaker 1: with me? The creatures put their hands to their chests,
18:38
Speaker 1: and they appeared to press the buttons there, There was
18:41
Speaker 1: a bleep sound from each of the creatures. Then three gruff,
18:44
Speaker 1: male-sounding voices said in unison, We shall not harm you.
18:49
Speaker 1: The voices seemed to be coming from their chest area.
18:52
Speaker 1: They didn't move their lips when they spoke. She asked
18:55
Speaker 1: them where they'd come from. They told her, We have
18:58
Speaker 1: come from the sky. In her own words, she says,
19:02
Speaker 1: Every word they didn't understand, they did one, two, three,
19:06
Speaker 1: ever so fast on their chests. Bleep, bleep, bleep, bleep.
19:09
Speaker 1: I said, You'll learn a lot of things from me
19:11
Speaker 1: with that bleep bleep. And they said, Yes, yes. Sometimes
19:16
Speaker 1: that bleep was very loud. It was such a high
19:18
Speaker 1: pitch it deafened me, because I had a lot of
19:20
Speaker 1: trouble with my ears a long time afterwards. The creatures
19:25
Speaker 1: began to shake the Christmas tree once again. This time
19:28
Speaker 1: they did it so violently that the angel on the
19:30
Speaker 1: top of the tree fell to the ground. Jean said
19:33
Speaker 1: to them, We put up a tree at Christmas because
19:36
Speaker 1: we believed Jesus was born then. The creatures replied, We
19:39
Speaker 1: know all about Jesus. The entities began looking at a
19:44
Speaker 1: newspaper on the coffee table. On the front of the
19:47
Speaker 1: paper was an honors list. Jean, they said, These people
19:52
Speaker 1: have been made lords. There is only one Lord. They
19:56
Speaker 1: spoke to Jean about various topics, including Jesus and the Queen.
20:01
Speaker 1: She wondered why the creatures would deem herself worthy enough
20:04
Speaker 1: to visit, and she told them that they should go
20:06
Speaker 1: see the Queen, or to see a real lady. The
20:09
Speaker 1: beings looked at Jean and they said, You are a lady.
20:14
Speaker 1: The three creatures began jumping excitedly up and down on
20:17
Speaker 1: the sofa. Jean shouted, Be careful of the furniture, and
20:21
Speaker 1: they stopped. She says that whenever she raised her voice,
20:24
Speaker 1: such as telling them to stop jumping on the furniture
20:26
Speaker 1: or chiding them for swooping around the room, they would
20:29
Speaker 1: emit a beam of light from their helmets, and this
20:32
Speaker 1: light would hit Jean between the eyes and momentarily paralyze her.
20:36
Speaker 1: Their manner seemed friendly enough, but she was aware that
20:39
Speaker 1: there was some kind of inner power that they had
20:41
Speaker 1: that could harm her if they felt threatened. Every time
20:45
Speaker 1: I asked them questions, they put the light on. They
20:48
Speaker 1: kept quoting me and putting the light on my forehead,
20:51
Speaker 1: and I said, don't do that, please. But when they
20:53
Speaker 1: put the light on, it wasn't so very hot. It
20:55
Speaker 1: seemed a bit cooler. I said my eyes were sore,
20:58
Speaker 1: and they switched it off. I said to them, why
21:01
Speaker 1: do you do that? but they didn't tell me why,
21:03
Speaker 1: so I didn't bother them too much, because if I
21:05
Speaker 1: kept asking them, they would punish with this light. She
21:09
Speaker 1: said to them, I can't call you creature, so I
21:11
Speaker 1: shall call you gentleman. And then she said, nice to
21:15
Speaker 1: see you, to see you nicely. In unison they replied, nice,
21:19
Speaker 1: and they began floating around the room again. The creatures
21:22
Speaker 1: floated out into the hallway and up the stairs. Finding
21:26
Speaker 1: all the doors upstairs closed, they floated back down into
21:29
Speaker 1: the lounge and they examined more objects. They picked up
21:32
Speaker 1: some cassette tapes and spoke to her about the singer
21:35
Speaker 1: Tommy Steele. They then examined the bottles of whiskey and
21:39
Speaker 1: sherry on the sideboard. Jean asked them if they would
21:42
Speaker 1: like a drink and they replied, water. By now Jean
21:46
Speaker 1: seemed to have regained her ability to move. She went
21:49
Speaker 1: into the kitchen and she fetched four glasses of water
21:52
Speaker 1: on a metal tray. She reasoned that she should bring
21:55
Speaker 1: a glass of water for herself so that she could
21:57
Speaker 1: drink it with them and show that the water wasn't poisoned.
22:00
Speaker 1: She put the tray down, and it seemed to slide
22:02
Speaker 1: across the coffee table towards them, as if magnetised. She
22:06
Speaker 1: says that they looked like they were about to lift
22:08
Speaker 1: up their masks, but when they noticed that she was
22:11
Speaker 1: watching them, they emitted this dazzling beam of light from
22:14
Speaker 1: their helmets, temporarily blinding her. When the light dimmed again,
22:18
Speaker 1: three of the glasses were now empty. The next bit
22:21
Speaker 1: of conversation I'll read directly from the report. They said,
22:25
Speaker 1: We've been to Australia, New Zealand and America. We come
22:28
Speaker 1: down here to try to talk to people, but they
22:30
Speaker 1: don't seem to be interested. Shall I tell people on
22:34
Speaker 1: earth about it, I asked, and they replied, yes. They said,
22:38
Speaker 1: we've been here before, and we shall come again. Another
22:41
Speaker 1: thing they said was, everybody will go to heaven. There
22:44
Speaker 1: are beautiful colours there. They seemed to put a light
22:47
Speaker 1: on me to draw out the words that they wanted
22:49
Speaker 1: to hear. I was stuttering with nervousness. I was talking
22:52
Speaker 1: about politics and women going to work, and I said,
22:55
Speaker 1: it's a man's world. They seemed interested and excited, as
22:59
Speaker 1: though they were listening and understanding. I told them that
23:02
Speaker 1: I'd not been to chapel for a year or two,
23:04
Speaker 1: as chapels had pop groups and guitarists these days, and
23:07
Speaker 1: I didn't like that kind of service. There is no
23:10
Speaker 1: need to worship in synagogues, they said. I didn't know
23:13
Speaker 1: until my husband told me later that this was the
23:16
Speaker 1: name of a Jewish place of worship. I said, the
23:18
Speaker 1: Bible is hard to understand, and they seemed to know
23:21
Speaker 1: what I meant. Jean went back into the kitchen and
23:26
Speaker 1: she fetched a plate of mince pies for the creatures.
23:30
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if mince pies are a thing in
23:31
Speaker 1: other countries. They're small individual pies filled with dried fruits,
23:35
Speaker 1: sugar and spices. In England we usually have them around
23:38
Speaker 1: Christmas time. I don't know whether other countries have the
23:40
Speaker 1: same thing so I thought I would explain what they are. Anyway,
23:43
Speaker 1: she brought the mince pies in, she put them down
23:45
Speaker 1: on the table and each creature picked up one of them. Again,
23:48
Speaker 1: the pies seemed to be magnetised to the ends of
23:50
Speaker 1: their hands. Then the creatures began examining a packet of cigarettes.
23:55
Speaker 1: Seeing their interest, Jean offered to show them how to smoke.
23:58
Speaker 1: She took out a cigarette and she lit a match.
24:01
Speaker 1: This appeared to frighten the entities. They started to back
24:04
Speaker 1: away from Jean. At the same time, there was a deafening,
24:08
Speaker 1: beeping noise from the back garden. Upon hearing it, these
24:11
Speaker 1: creatures flew out towards the back door. Jean quickly stubbed
24:15
Speaker 1: out a cigarette and she called for them to come back,
24:17
Speaker 1: but they continued out into the garden. She watched them
24:21
Speaker 1: from the window. In the garden, there was an orange
24:24
Speaker 1: glowing thing which he described as looking like a spaceship.
24:28
Speaker 1: It was like a round cylinder with tapering points. Or
24:32
Speaker 1: maybe it was more like a vase shape. The illustrations
24:34
Speaker 1: of this thing seemed to vary. It was 8 to
24:37
Speaker 1: 10 feet long and about 4 feet high. There were
24:40
Speaker 1: round glowing windows covered with a shining plastic which made
24:43
Speaker 1: it impossible to see inside. On one end, there was
24:46
Speaker 1: a short antenna-like stick which had a spoked wheel on
24:50
Speaker 1: the end. A bit like an aerial, I suppose. A
24:54
Speaker 1: doorway opened on the side of the craft and the
24:56
Speaker 1: beings went into it, still carrying their mince pies. The
24:59
Speaker 1: door then closed behind them without a trace. The craft
25:04
Speaker 1: lifted up and a bright blue light shone out from it.
25:07
Speaker 1: This light flashed twice, which Jean interpreted as the creatures
25:10
Speaker 1: saying goodbye. Then the craft flew off in a flash.
25:14
Speaker 1: At this moment, her dog Hobo seemed to overcome his paralysis.
25:18
Speaker 1: He walked out into the garden and began to sniff
25:20
Speaker 1: around as if investigating something interesting. At first, Jean felt
25:26
Speaker 1: a sense of calm and elation come over her, but
25:30
Speaker 1: then she was overcome with a terrible, painful sensation. When
25:35
Speaker 1: it was gone, I didn't drop to the carpet. I jumped,
25:38
Speaker 1: and then it happened. The blood rushed up, and I
25:40
Speaker 1: was in agony, pure agony. I was in pain. I
25:44
Speaker 1: didn't know where to put my arms. I squeezed myself.
25:46
Speaker 1: I was in such great pain. My legs, I couldn't
25:49
Speaker 1: feel them, and then I was wobbly and very, very weak.
25:53
Speaker 1: I grabbed the table. I slid my feet along the
25:55
Speaker 1: carpet and I got on the settee. I didn't know
25:58
Speaker 1: how long I was there. Jean was so weakened by
26:02
Speaker 1: the events that she lay on the sofa for the
26:04
Speaker 1: rest of the day. As she was lying there, Jean
26:08
Speaker 1: says that she saw a tall figure in a white
26:10
Speaker 1: robe materialise next to the Christmas tree and then disappear.
26:15
Speaker 1: At around 5pm, she felt like she'd recovered enough to
26:18
Speaker 1: get up. She went and spoke to a neighbour and
26:21
Speaker 1: she told her about the visitors. The neighbour told Jean
26:24
Speaker 1: that she should report it to the police, which she did.
26:27
Speaker 1: The police said that they would send someone round. Next,
26:30
Speaker 1: Jean rang her husband at work. I rang my husband,
26:34
Speaker 1: but he couldn't leave his job. I said to him,
26:36
Speaker 1: I've had visitors with wings. He said, what do you mean, birds?
26:41
Speaker 1: I was shaking and crying. I said, no, men with wings.
26:45
Speaker 1: He laughed and he said, why don't you go and
26:47
Speaker 1: have your hair done and tell the girls about it?
26:51
Speaker 1: The police did come round, and they looked around her house.
26:54
Speaker 1: They noted that she seemed extremely pale, like she'd had
26:57
Speaker 1: a massive shock, but there wasn't much they could do,
27:00
Speaker 1: and so they called in a local UFO investigation team.
27:04
Speaker 1: This investigation team found a number of interesting things. Where
27:08
Speaker 1: the craft had landed in the garden, there was an
27:10
Speaker 1: oddly shaped impression in the snow. The snow here melted quickly,
27:14
Speaker 1: and the grass wouldn't grow on this area for the
27:17
Speaker 1: remainder of the year. There was a circle of about
27:20
Speaker 1: 8 inches in diameter scratched into the glass on the
27:23
Speaker 1: window of the back door. Jean claims that this circle
27:26
Speaker 1: hadn't been there before the encounter. Inside the house, they
27:30
Speaker 1: discovered that the television set, the radio and the clocks
27:33
Speaker 1: in the lounge room were all malfunctioning. When they tried
27:36
Speaker 1: to play the tape cassettes that the creatures had touched,
27:39
Speaker 1: the sound was warped and distorted. Jean says that the
27:43
Speaker 1: tapes had worked perfectly before the encounter. Jean's physical health
27:48
Speaker 1: was also affected. She was left with hearing problems, which
27:52
Speaker 1: she says was caused by the loud beeping noises that
27:54
Speaker 1: the entities had emitted. Also, the bright lights had made
27:58
Speaker 1: her eyes so sore that she needed to wear dark
28:00
Speaker 1: glasses for some weeks afterwards. Her jaw ached from when
28:04
Speaker 1: she'd stood frozen with her mouth wide open in that
28:07
Speaker 1: shocked expression. She also had a general feeling of unwellness,
28:11
Speaker 1: and she needed to take two weeks off work to recover.
28:15
Speaker 1: She began to get extreme headaches, and a red mark
28:18
Speaker 1: appeared on her forehead where the creatures had hit her
28:20
Speaker 1: with the beam of light. After some months, a mole
28:23
Speaker 1: appeared in the centre of this mark. She developed a
28:27
Speaker 1: sensitivity to electrical devices, and she seemed to become able
28:31
Speaker 1: to read people's thoughts. A number of times when talking
28:34
Speaker 1: to people, she was able to receive a sort of
28:37
Speaker 1: psychic impression and tell them information that they hadn't provided
28:40
Speaker 1: her before. this happened to the UFO investigation team, she
28:44
Speaker 1: was able to tell them details about another case that
28:46
Speaker 1: they were investigating, even though she had no prior knowledge
28:49
Speaker 1: of it. Some other strange events happened in the days
28:55
Speaker 1: following the incident. A few days afterwards, Jean and Cyril's
29:00
Speaker 1: Christmas tree disappeared from their front room. It later appeared
29:05
Speaker 1: in pieces in their back garden, but it was missing
29:08
Speaker 1: all of the decorations. Over the following weeks, these decorations
29:12
Speaker 1: would appear lying on the ground just outside the garden.
29:16
Speaker 1: Jean also noticed that the gold of her wedding ring
29:18
Speaker 1: had turned white on the outside. Hobo the dog seemed
29:24
Speaker 1: to be extra sleepy for several days after the encounter,
29:27
Speaker 1: but then he recovered and was mostly fine. Although Jean's
29:31
Speaker 1: husband did notice that whenever they spoke about these creatures,
29:35
Speaker 1: the dog seemed to go into a sort of hypnotic
29:38
Speaker 1: trance-like state. Jean Hingley was interviewed by police, newspaper reporters
29:47
Speaker 1: and numerous paranormal research groups. Everybody who met her got
29:51
Speaker 1: the impression that she was being entirely sincere in her
29:53
Speaker 1: description of what happened. Her story was covered in a
29:57
Speaker 1: few tabloid newspaper articles. It was here that the story
30:00
Speaker 1: was dubbed The Case of the Mincepie Martians. Jean received
30:05
Speaker 1: some letters of support from people who had read about
30:08
Speaker 1: her encounter and believed her tale, but mostly she seemed
30:11
Speaker 1: to get ridiculed. She received mockery from neighbours and work colleagues.
30:16
Speaker 1: According to Albert Budden's book Psychic Close Encounters, this resulted
30:20
Speaker 1: in her having a nervous breakdown and having to quit
30:23
Speaker 1: her factory job. I think things like this lend a
30:26
Speaker 1: bit of credence to these stories. Why would someone make
30:29
Speaker 1: up a tale that would inevitably lead to this sort
30:31
Speaker 1: of ridicule? And if you were going to make up
30:33
Speaker 1: a story about aliens or some creatures, why would you
30:37
Speaker 1: add so many silly details? Them having fairy wings and
30:40
Speaker 1: jumping on a sofa, that sort of thing. It should
30:43
Speaker 1: also be pointed out that Jean wasn't the sort of
30:45
Speaker 1: person who had any interest in UFOs and aliens. She
30:49
Speaker 1: was a deeply religious woman, described as being down-to-earth and
30:53
Speaker 1: entirely earnest. So, assuming she wasn't just making the entire
30:57
Speaker 1: thing up, I wonder what could have happened. Some have
31:01
Speaker 1: speculated that the encounter could have been a hallucination of
31:04
Speaker 1: some sort. There is a condition called penduncular hallucinosis, and
31:08
Speaker 1: this can be caused by strokes, brain tumours and infections,
31:12
Speaker 1: and it can cause vivid and colourful hallucinations. One case
31:16
Speaker 1: study I found describes a woman with penduncular hallucinosis who
31:20
Speaker 1: saw visions of animals and people, that ranged from shadows
31:24
Speaker 1: to bright colours. It also included Lilliputian hallucinations, hallucinations of
31:29
Speaker 1: people and objects of reduced size. Although this report also
31:34
Speaker 1: mentions that she was aware that these visions weren't real,
31:37
Speaker 1: which does seem to be the case with most people
31:39
Speaker 1: who have this condition. Some kind of seizure is another possibility,
31:44
Speaker 1: as posited in this post on the Fractal Planet blog.
31:48
Speaker 1: They say, My own experience with someone suffering a seizure
31:51
Speaker 1: is of their jaw being very sore in the days
31:54
Speaker 1: that followed, as a result of it having clamped so
31:57
Speaker 1: tightly shut during the event. An aching jaw was part
32:01
Speaker 1: of Hingley's aftereffects. The hallucination theory is plausible, but it
32:07
Speaker 1: doesn't account for the physical evidence, the mark left in
32:10
Speaker 1: the snow, the malfunctioning devices and tape cassettes, the circular
32:14
Speaker 1: scratch on the door and the vanishing, reappearing Christmas tree.
32:19
Speaker 1: One theory put forward by Albert Budden in his books
32:21
Speaker 1: Psychic Close Encounters and Electric UFOs is that these events
32:26
Speaker 1: are caused by an electromagnetic phenomena that can produce physical
32:30
Speaker 1: phenomena like balls of light and malfunctioning electronics, but it
32:33
Speaker 1: can also induce strange hallucinations. Earth lights, as he calls them,
32:38
Speaker 1: are a luminous energetic phenomena generated by fault lines and
32:42
Speaker 1: tectonic strain in the Earth's crust, especially in areas that
32:46
Speaker 1: are naturally rich in certain minerals. These energies, he says,
32:50
Speaker 1: can be amplified or triggered by man-made structures such as
32:53
Speaker 1: radio and television masts. It just so happens that right
32:57
Speaker 1: behind Gene Hingley's house is the Hailstone Quarry. This is
33:01
Speaker 1: a massive area of mineral-rich rock, and right next to
33:04
Speaker 1: this is a large radio mast. Budden suggests that a
33:09
Speaker 1: large amount of electromagnetic energy could be generated from the quarry,
33:13
Speaker 1: and then this could be amplified and directed by the
33:16
Speaker 1: radio mast. eventually coalescing itself into a large ball of
33:20
Speaker 1: orange light that lands over Jean Hingley's back garden. This
33:23
Speaker 1: ball of energy could then have emitted three smaller balls
33:27
Speaker 1: of light that floated into her house. The shock of
33:30
Speaker 1: this sighting and the effects of the electromagnetic interference on
33:33
Speaker 1: her brain caused her to have a vivid hallucination of
33:37
Speaker 1: three small creatures. This could explain why a hallucination would
33:41
Speaker 1: leave physical evidence. Budden has written two books on this subject,
33:45
Speaker 1: and I'm sure me condensing his ideas into a couple
33:48
Speaker 1: of sentences doesn't really do it justice. I would suggest
33:51
Speaker 1: reading the books if you want to get a better
33:53
Speaker 1: feel for what he has to say. But I don't
33:55
Speaker 1: know about this idea. It's interesting, but I'm not sure
33:58
Speaker 1: I'm entirely convinced. It just requires such a specific series
34:02
Speaker 1: of events to happen in sequence. A ball of light
34:04
Speaker 1: generated in the quarry gets somehow blasted by a radio
34:08
Speaker 1: mast into Jean's back garden just as she happens to
34:10
Speaker 1: be standing there. I don't know, it seems a bit
34:13
Speaker 1: improbable to me. Others have speculated that these beings could
34:18
Speaker 1: be exactly what they looked like, fairies, or at least
34:21
Speaker 1: some sort of elemental creature, maybe some kind of trickster spirit.
34:26
Speaker 1: There is a certain level of silliness to this encounter,
34:28
Speaker 1: and I don't mean that in a dismissive way. It's
34:30
Speaker 1: almost as if the creatures were saying, go ahead and
34:33
Speaker 1: tell people what you saw. Tell them you saw multicoloured
34:36
Speaker 1: winged people come into your house and jump around on
34:39
Speaker 1: your sofa and then steal your mince pies. Who's going
34:42
Speaker 1: to believe you? It's something you hear again in these
34:44
Speaker 1: stories about elemental beings. This trickster element. Mischievous creatures using
34:50
Speaker 1: illusions and speaking in riddles to confound humans. People are
34:54
Speaker 1: still puzzling over this story 45 years later, so I
34:57
Speaker 1: guess if they were trickster spirits, it was mission accomplished. Sadly,
35:05
Speaker 1: three years after the encounter, on the 23rd of July 1982,
35:07
Speaker 1: Gene Hingley died. According to this article, she was a
35:13
Speaker 1: very active member of her local community right up until
35:16
Speaker 1: her death. She was head of the Portway Hill Tenants Association,
35:21
Speaker 1: which it says she ran virtually single-handed after giving up
35:24
Speaker 1: work two years ago. So although the reports of her
35:28
Speaker 1: having to quit work after her encounter might be true,
35:31
Speaker 1: she didn't become some shrinking recluse, but rather she devoted
35:34
Speaker 1: her remaining days to the betterment of her neighbourhood. There
35:38
Speaker 1: are multiple articles about her work with the Tenants Association. Interestingly,
35:43
Speaker 1: a lot of it concerns the quarry near her house,
35:46
Speaker 1: the same place that Albert Budden thought to be the
35:48
Speaker 1: catalyst for her strange experience. This clipping tells of how
35:53
Speaker 1: she threatened to organise a sit-down protest in front of
35:56
Speaker 1: bulldozers that were building on a housing estate near her home.
35:59
Speaker 1: She wanted them to build a play area for the
36:01
Speaker 1: local children, and she was concerned that the council had
36:04
Speaker 1: broken the promise to turn the quarry into a wooded
36:06
Speaker 1: greenbelt area. This story is from the 15th of July,
36:10
Speaker 1: barely a week before she passed away. Turning the quarry
36:14
Speaker 1: into a greenbelt would have meant that any future building
36:17
Speaker 1: developments on the site were severely restricted. It would preserve
36:20
Speaker 1: the area as a natural space. The Fae folk are
36:24
Speaker 1: often described as protectors of nature, guarding green spaces from harm.
36:29
Speaker 1: So it's intriguing to consider how, after her weird encounter,
36:32
Speaker 1: Jean became so deeply involved in protecting this land herself.
36:37
Speaker 1: Perhaps Jean Hingley's experience, whether it was fairies, or aliens,
36:41
Speaker 1: or just a seizure-induced hallucination, subconsciously implanted the idea in
36:46
Speaker 1: her mind that she should protect the natural world around her.
36:49
Speaker 1: Just an idea I had. Maybe a bit tenuous, but
36:52
Speaker 1: there you go. So, that's the tale of Jean Hingley
36:55
Speaker 1: and the Mince Pie Martians. I'm not sure why I'm
36:57
Speaker 1: dropping a Christmas-themed story at Halloween, but I hope you
37:00
Speaker 1: enjoyed the video anyway. Big thanks to everyone on Patreon
37:04
Speaker 1: who is supporting my work. Thank you for letting me
37:07
Speaker 1: make weird stuff like this. It's highly appreciated. I hope
37:10
Speaker 1: you liked it. If you're in the mood for more,
37:12
Speaker 1: check out that Paratalk episode I recorded with Reeves. I
37:15
Speaker 1: think we're also doing one for Halloween, so be on
37:17
Speaker 1: the lookout for that. The link to his channel should
37:20
Speaker 1: be on screen now. Alright, thank you for watching. Until
37:23
Speaker 1: next time, goodbye.