It was cold Cold. That was the name. He was cold? What's
going on up there? Could be the most important event in history? Now
I am become the destroy our worlds, I said. I hope this is
close to him? Is all every again? Hello and welcome to the Tales
from the Dark Podcast. I'm your host, Bob. Here's my co host,
Brittany. Hey, guys, what's up Brittany? How you doing doing
good? How are you? Oh? I'm doing well. I'm very excited
for this interview today. Well, I don't want to waste any time.
I want to jump right into it. But before we do, I have
to let everyone know United Strangeness of America's coming back. Shout out to Terrence.
Every single Patreon episode. We put up almost a two hour episode today
on Patreon for our slash TOPA been working on this for months, and every
single episode Terrence comments where United Strangeness? Or when I'm sorry? When United
Strangeness? Question mark? I know it's a fan favorite. With a little
bit of a break because we wanted to kind of recharge the batteries that will
be coming back this month for sure, potentially in the next week or two.
So with that being said, Miss Brittany, you're ready to give mister
Matthew Burder call, I am all right, Let's do it, all right,
miss Brittany. So we are going to be joined Matthew Bird today.
Matthew Bird is a historian, the original paranormal Papa. This is the guy
that that when I when I'm not sure about how to approach something in the
paranormal, the euthological space, what have you? I run up by Matthew
first, and that he has a special place in our hearts. He's been
here since pretty much day one. Right, that's true. So Matthew,
thank you for joining us. How are you doing? Good, sir,
Good evening, my children, good evening. I was going to actually come
on and be like the the angry guy on the radio. I'm mad as
hell and I'm not going to take it anymore and talk about everything that ticks
me out. But it's it's past my bedtime, so now I'm just I'm
just gentle, gentle, gentle Matthew. Yeah, you're mellowed out. So,
Matthew, you recently moved from Scott County a little bit further north.
How has that move been treating you? When it comes to the world of
weird with Matthew. So it's like from one weird place to another. I
mean, it's not really that much different, to be honest. It's I'm
living in Franklin, Kentucky now, And for those who are in the paranormal
circles, there's a couple of weird things that they attached to Franklin, including
Octagon Hall and the Captain mantell Ufo crash landing and a couple other little weird
places. But it's when you look at this whole area, Bob, it's
just it's just it's just another side of the coin. That is, you
know, Somerset, the state of scott where I was, and Kentucky is
just a weird place anyway. No, absolutely, So I like to brought
up Octagon Hall. Are you familiar with a TikTok controversy that was surrounding Octagon
Hall? I am not, okay, so I don't know all the details.
I wish Austin was here. There was a gentleman dude to live Stremith.
I believe he was staying there for a full week or maybe it was
three nights. He was staying there for more than one night, and that
he basically got the equivalent of like TikTok squatted where people were calling the police
on him at Octagon Hall. So I didn't know if you knew anything about
that, because I was really worried because I saw that location. It looked
really cool. We want to go investigate down there. But when stuff like
that happens, it's usually like one bad incident, especially in a historically significant
place, ruins it for everybody. No, I haven't heard anything about it,
I mean even on the local news portion of it, so I really
can't comment on it. But Arctagon Hall is I've been a couple of times
now. Usually when someone comes to visit there, that's on the bucket list
around here, especially you know, in our circles. It's a from And
I could be wrong on the dates, but my understanding is that it just
became a museum around two thousand and one. It was formerly a residence,
and since two thousand and one, I mean it's it's built this reputation as
one of the most haunted places in the South. I've got I've I've got
thoughts on it. I've talked to the tour guides there a number of times
regards to their thoughts on it. When it comes to and this is a
big thing that I've been thinking about, is that if you visit somewhere,
especially with expectations, and in this case, to give you an idea about
Octagon Hall is you go in and you talk to the tour guide. There's
a there's a big room. He tells you about the history of the place.
He tells you about, you know, the tragic events of people who
lived in the house. You get an idea of the people, the events,
the rooms that the things happened in, and that's in your mind.
Now. It's built a a foundation of your visit when you're free to walk
around the rooms and get impressions and such. And I have to wonder in
these kinds of places where you know, the paranormal has been introduced to the
historical on whether or not we're setting up a narrative before we even walk in
or walk into the building. That's one thing that we talk about a lot
when, especially when it came to Phantom Farm, was that the associations with
belief before you even go in, you're going to automatically associate that with the
black figure that comes out of the third hallway. Corridor, yeah, or
in Phantom Farmer specifically with Nathan getting scratched, Like we kind of went in
with the expectation, like, okay, we went in with zero expectations just
because we've been doing this for so long. But when I told us to
other people that, everybody said the same thing. Oh, it's a demon.
It's a demon in that basement. That's what that is. It's a
demon. And even the tour guide kind of leaned in a little bit to
that, with Hey, there's the ghost of Ida in the basement. And
then there's also this this entity specter thing that follows people around and attaches to
people, so on and so forth. And it's like, man, you're
tainting the historical significance with this place, something so beautiful, and you're also
planning the fear and any would be investigator's mind because there's you know, there's
there's you have to break it down to classifications. When you have paranormal investigators.
Some people go because Brittany drug them there, they're not really interested in
the paranormal. Then you have people who go because they want to be scared.
Then you have people who want to go because of the historical significance of
the building, like a Prospect Place is a great example. We I love
Prospect Place because not only does it have all these insane paranormal stories attached to
it, but the historical significance of that building and what it meant to the
underground railroad in the state of Ohio and the abolishing of slavery. That's where
I get excited, because I'm in a place that you in fifty years,
this place might not be here anymore. And then I can tell, you
know, the next door neighbor kids, how as a crazy old man,
I was ghost hunting looking for you know, this guy who was abolishing slavery
or something crazy. But I agree that it's very dangerous in my opinion,
to set these pre these narratives ahead of time, but it does sell.
Yeah, And that's what I want to talk to you about, Matthew,
because you and I are we're a fan of the history. The claims are
amazing. Don't get me wrong. We love the paranormal aspect, but we'll
go to a place with zero paranormal stories if it has historical significance and it's
it's something that Brittany gives me ship for all the time. I'm gonna let
you guys on a little secret on I am in this group on Facebook with
a bunch of other middle aged men where all we do is go to the
Ohio historical Do you guys have historical markers in Kentucky? Oh? Absolutely absolutely.
I am always looking around here, Like the church we go to.
Right outside, there's a historical marker talking about the fact that Johnny Cash and
June Carter got married in the chapel of our church. See this, this
is what I'm talking about. And whenever I see one, I'm like,
read me that sign. What does that say? Yeah, Well, that's
all this group is that I'm in. It's a bunch of a bunch of
us guys, and we just we we go to these historical markers and we
take pictures. We take pictures and then we comment on each other's historical markers
and we paint the history of Ohio. Well, Brittany gives me shit.
I don't give you shit. Every time every time you see oh you you
need to pull over and get a picture for your old man I'm not I
don't say old man group, but I always offer to let you stop and
take picture because I want to support you and whatever you do. Yeah,
one of my biggest regrets was telling her that's that's because I don't I don't
have many secrets in this relationship, but I didn't tell her for years.
I was in this group and I had no choice because we were we were
at the Bruckner Nature Preserve and you caught me taking pictures. You're like,
what are you doing. I'm like, I gotta get a picture of the
sign from my group? What group? And I tell her about it.
She's like, oh, okay, and I can tell that. I was
like, oh, this is her first ich moment with me. It's not
you're making it up. But but and for anyone that might be like,
oh, you know, you guys aren't letting your guests talk. Matthew is
a longtime friend of the show. This is just how how it works with
us. He's mediating right now, he's letting the children. He's probably not
off at this point, but no, but I wanted. I'm like,
I'm like Grandpa Simpsons, but I wanted to talk to you about this because
I do see this and this is gonna be controversial, and I know that
I might get some flaque for this, but there's a rising trend in people
buying up historical locations all across not just Ohio. I see it here in
Ohio because there's certain places I've passed that I know the history of the building,
that are now purchased by a foundation or an individual that's now renting them
off for some sort of a paranormal attraction, and all of a sudden,
this place has either a violent, bloody history that must have happened when I
wasn't paying attention, which you know, tells me it's it's bullshit, and
then they pass it off as this experience, it's an extravagance that have come
into an axe murder house, for example, and it's like, well,
first off, there's no proof that that ever happened. This is all hearsay.
Second off, you're being extremely disrespectful to these historical significance of this building.
And we're seeing this all over the country. These new paranormal locations.
Yeah, yeah, we called paranormal pop ups are happening where it's for what
it makes the city look bad that it takes place in, and it's an
insult to the memory of the building. So I firmly believe that memories hold
our buildings hold memories the same way that people do. It might not be
as easy to recognize, but it's there because, like you just said,
when you can go into these rooms in the Octagon Hall and in your mind
you can see will you know, will Brittany walk through here in eighteen thirty
two and this is where she did laundry, you can start to envision that.
And when you're tainting that memory, that positive history with an alleged X
murder that never occurred to me, you're doing a disservice not only the location
but also the craft of paranormale investigation. And I wanted to kind of get
your opinion on that as well. Well, there was there's a location I
think it's in Indiana. I could be wrong on that called Willows Wheep that
sound yes, yep. So basically in that it's there, it's it's ghost
ploytation at its finest. You're taking the the story of what happened in this
house and you're basically putting, Okay, this is what happened here, and
this is the bloody history of this. And when it comes to the folks
that remained the family of these folks and this I kind of sort want to
circle back around to Fanom Farm when they were talking about Ida and they were
talking about was she the one with the dolls? No, that was Doris.
So you have this staging of you know, these folks that have not
even been gone that long, and you're you're basically selling the story to get
these folks to come in and pay, you know, four hundred dollars,
nine hundred dollars, fifteen hundred dollars for overnight visits. And I think sometimes
that you have two types of folks that are into paranormal investigations and Type A,
like you said, are going to be excited that there's this new hunted
place to investigate. They rush to get in and find whatever spooky content that
they can get for their brand, not to vince words. Type B,
you know, it's going to step back, look at the evidence being presented,
do some actual research on the location, learn the history, and you
know, substantiate or debunk what's being reported. I understand the appeal of being
the type A investigator. You know, you're on the chase. It's going
to be a fun time, like you said, But like I said,
what we forget is if these ghosts are here. They were people. The
voices that you may hear on your equipment were once there in that place.
Whether the alleged haunting is their wandering spirit or simply residual energy or in some
cases aggergre was caused by a group of people who have you know, built
up this intent to interact with them in a specific place, and that makes
it basically a haunting by association rather than a destination. No, that's I
mean, pretty pretty spot on it. That's something we tried to do with
Phantom Farms specifically, was and it's something I wish we had recorded more of
it. I think Brittany even kind of touched on this. Tyler went through
every if there was a team that went to Randolph County, Tyler watched the
investigation he wanted he had all the information, all the details. In our
first what would you say, Britney hour or two, there was trying to
replicate everyone else's findings. Yeah, I would say so. But we did.
I mean, we did have a control. Our control was Austin and
I didn't really know all of the history and you didn't either, but we
knew some of the types of investigations that were done there. One thing I
did want to add though, on this conversation of historical places and selling,
you know, the paranormal haunt and the paranormal experience is I think one of
the main reasons why that I found that people do this where they invest into
these historical locations and they sell the paranormal, is that's the easiest way to
get the cash up to maintain this historical place. Yea Prospect Place being a
huge one because the I can't remember her name, the lady that we've interacted
with a few times when we go there, she is absolutely in love with
the history of the place, doesn't really care for paranormal She's had a couple
of weird experiences, but she doesn't really care for it, but she will.
She basically tolerates it as long as the people who come in are respectful.
And two it helps pay for the restoration and preservation of these older buildings
well. And then Prospect has a unique rule that I really really wish other
locations would adopt, which is there is no recording to be done without prior
approval and they have to watch it first and at first, like, that's
kind of bullshit, because I'm paying for the location and then then I got
to think heah, And we spoke with the guy who like the head of
the foundation board. Yeah, and he said, he explained. He said,
what we had happened was people came in. It misrepresented the history,
major network television shows misrepresented the history to make it more spooky, and it
was such a disrespect to the location, to the things that happened in this
location, that we had to put a stop to it. And he said,
look, you send us your pitch. You send it to us,
We watch it first, we say yes, it's all good to go.
That's there only that, And I think that that's something that's sorely missing because
there's so many different investigators out there, and there's one and you're not kinda
spoke off airs. We're not going to say which one, but there was
a slightly viral clip going on where the first thing I said when I saw
it to Tyler was they just happened to have a camera pointed at that exact
hallway for no fucking reason. It's fake. I can tell you how it's
faked, because I could take it myself. There's no question about it.
And that to me taints the history because the investigator's panic. They say,
oh, this is so and so that was stabbed to death here by the
other two inmates. That's what happened. And you're like, well, how
did you get all that from something falling off the wall. That's a bit
of a jump, And now we're applying them malevolent spirit for zero reason realistically,
apart from the fact that it gets clicks and it's a very it's a
lucrative game with paranormal I can say that firsthand that you can make a lot
of money in this field if you are dishonest. And unfortunately there's not a
whole lot of people like yourself or I don't want to say, I don't
want to pount ourselves in the back, that we'll call out people for their
nonsense. And that's why I'm not a whole lot of fun at events,
because I don't like the first thing. If I see someone with an app,
I have to tell you that it doesn't work. I can't stop myself.
The inner asshole comes out and I gotta say, like, hey,
that is designed to give you what you're looking for now, Brandon, there
is an argument to be made that all paranormal devices are designed to give you,
but some are more rooted in science than others. As crazy as that
sounds, you know, we're trying to apply science to the afterlife, which
for millions of years has never worked. I don't know why we sudden they
think we figured it out in twenty twenty three, but there we are.
That's a different conversation altogether. Well, you know, one thing you got
to remember, and this is just me speaking as an old man. You
know, back in I guess it was two thousand and four when ghost Hunters
debuted. Before that, all we had was like unsolved mysteries, sightings,
and before that in search of I mean, there was there was nothing on
television about the paranormal. And I think ghost Hunters, if I was put
a you know, that was the first big success, and I think everything
spawned from that. And then when you got to a point where you could
go to your YouTube's and your TikTok's and Joe Average can find an audience,
what you run into is now you've you've gone from Okay, are we going
to this place that the homeowners think it may be haunted? We're going to
investigate it too. We're going to go wherever we can to live stream so
we can have some content for our brand, and you have I hate that
you're right. I don't mean to jump in, but I hate that you're
right because there's another group nearby that every video this is the most haunted.
I got scratched parentheses, graphic parentheses, warning parenthesies, super duper haunted parentheses.
I pinky swear that this is a demon and in the in the description
only their Facebook, TikTok or YouTube. And I you're right, because you
have these folks who can the Internet's beautiful, beautiful thing, but it's also
a horrible thing. Also a horrible thing because for every like person that you
that you think shouldn't be driving a car because they cannot, you know,
they don't know, they're seeing red and green and they just they can't drive,
that same person can then go and start their own audience for paranormal content.
And that to me is it's it's a it's a good thing, but
it's also a horrible thing. There is a there's a downside, a dark
side. You into this, Like you were talking about the place that was
using the paranormal chores to you know, do repairs and such. I've talked
a lot through my different programs like Caretaker for example about red Ash, which
is in Campbell County, Tennessee. And it started literally in twenty ten where
this group of paranormal investigators went to the cemetery and they posted what you know,
what they found. And from the time of the last decade it evolved
to which graves, vampires, satanic cults, hellhounds, a goatman. And
they started doing tours of the cemetery so that you could see try to see
the goatman. And what it led to was people going up to this out
of the way cemetery spray painting trees, destroying stones, just the rampant vandalism
of this place and it really has no one to protect it. And that's
what my concern is when it comes to historic places, cemeteries, burial sites.
You have to resist the low hanging fruit of Oh I can just walk
around the cemetery and live stream and use my little app and it's going to
the the grave is going to glow and speak to me. I mean that's
because you're going to have you may have the scruples of you know, not
meaning harm, but the folks that watch that may come and not have the
same scruples and want to just be there to destroy. And no, you're
absolutely right. And one thing I want to add in speaking of cemeteries is
I want to know who like your like Bob's, Tyler's and Austin's Mama was
because I can't even really walk on top of a grave without feeling like guilty.
Well, I don't walk on top of graves either. No, like
while even walking through oh like, I won't. I don't like walking through
graveyards in general. List it's a pay pathway and if I have to walk
over a grave, I walk above the headstone right right at the end.
Well, I do the same thing. But I also think graveyards are beautiful.
I think it's a beautiful resting place. I think it's a place of
serenity. I've never once viewed a single graveyard as like a malevolent place.
But I do want to talk about the kind of the bright side of para
television because because Brittany, you can speak on this as well. Post Hellier,
we went down to the what is the get the town, the gas
secause it's not Hellier, but the gas station I don't remember. Look look
out, yeah, lookout yea, the Lookout gas Station. So everyone who
watch Tell Your season one knows that gas station. It's like, ran down
mom and pop little gas station, and we fell in love with the people
down there. They were incredibly nice. We told the story million times over.
But the most recent time we went down there, we got a shock
because the whole inside was redone in is like updated, all modern stuff,
and it's really crazy. And the one thing I said was, you can
hate Hellier. You can hate with the new Kirks, what the goblins,
you can hate it all. But the one positive is that gas station is
really fucking nice now. And I think that it's because of all the attention
the talent in the business that the Hellier ran through it. So there is
a positive that has to be noted. But I also think that a lot
of times there's more bad than good, especially in this industry. Well,
that leads us to another discussion point, Bob, and that is the fact
that in a post Hillier world, where you have folks who are traveling to
Somerset, for example, wanting to see things that they saw, and failure
there seems to be in these cities that have had attention previously and I'm going
to add Hopkinsville, Kentucky in there. I recently visited there, and it's
almost like they're going out of their way to capitalize, to exclude the weirdness,
to sweep it under the rug. Nope, nothing weird going on here.
See I thought it would have been the opposite, but we haven't been
Hopkinsville in years. Lately. There's there's a really great group on Facebook called
Keep Hopkinsville Weird and I was just reading tonight where they were talking about,
you know, why would we not have something like point pleasant abs with the
Mathmat Festival when you know, one weekend a year they bring in so many
thousands of people. When I went to Hopkinsville, there was there was one
museum, the Piney Royal Museum, that that gave lip service to the goblins.
They had fun with the whole thing, but like going to the welcome
center, there's one small section that mentions it, and they're really hitting home
the visit Hottown the batter capital of the world. They don't want anything to
do with the goblins. Well, Loveland, Ohio is the exact same way.
Yeah, you're right. We went to Loveland shortly after this was years
ago that we covered the frog Win. I went deep into the Frogman.
I'm like, hey, we're like an hour five from Loveland, let's go.
You would They really pushed the downtown scene, the upscale restaurants that are
downtown. I mean it's a pretty little downtown. Yeah, they really pushed
that. But I didn't see a single thing about the Loveland Frogman and lady
Yeah, and creepy gas station lady, the weird church bells that was all
fucking creepy, but like there was nothing there about it. And then the
indescribable Octoman of Cincinnati. Same deal. I've never First off, I don't
hear anyone ever talk about the Octoman except for us. But it's one of
those things like, yeah, some towns heavily lean into it, and then
some don't. Like we were in Mount Shasta, there wasn't anything about the
lue Marian's and all the weird stuff. But they did talk about it,
Yeah, but they were open to talking about it. But then you go
to a place like Area fifty one, for example, the Little Alien.
Then you have the giant welcome sent or that's like what twenty minutes outside of
Avery fifty one Giver take Yeah, we bought like alien Head Tequila's setting up
there. Yeah, and they had like a bunch of cool you could buy
books there, t shirts like you name it. You could buy it.
And then well, that was out of necessity because it was a military operation
that got undercovered, yeah or uncovered, excuse me. So I think if
they didn't set up shops somewhere out there, it would have been swept under
the rug. Yeah. But you also have the reverse problem of that is
there are those among us who think that Point Pleasant as a town was dying
because river trade didn't really exist in the sixties anymore. The coal industry was.
While it was booming, Point Pleasant really didn't benefit as much from the
coal industry being on the Ohio River Valley coast. Some people say they made
the whole thing up so I could see a town. I don't agree with
it, but I could see them running with the We don't want to be
called liars. And that's why we're not going to talk about the Hopkinsville incident
because you know what's it's one of my favorite negative apple reviews we have.
As someone says, these are the types to believe in aliens, but not
that giants exist, and in the post is like, this group believes that
Rednecks fought aliens the middle of the night, but they don't believe that giants
roam the earth one star and I kept it there and I love reading it
because I'm like, you don't know the show. You listen to one episode
and you drew an opinion. But there are those who will skip a town
if they think that they're leaning into a gimmick. Point Pleasant really can't be
one, because I mean, you've been to Point Pleasant. Some of our
listeners haven't. It's a small town, so you can't not see Mothman's juicy
ass when you drive into Pleasant. But Hopkinsville another small town. I could
see why they would lean away from the weird if they thought it would hurt
their small town reputation, because that is something we do have to keep in
mind a lot of these uh, the big weirds happen in small towns.
Love and being another small town, they would really lean away with it.
And then I could we can forgive Cincinnati because you know we have we have
the stadium there, well, we have right next to the Bengal stadiums,
the Reds where they play there's a lot of stuff happening in Cincinnati. I
could see them leaning it, leaning away from it, but the rest of
it not so much. Summer set in general has a weird fucking vibe,
you know. And I love that Kyle's Museums like stayed alive as long as
it did. I know recently it's had some problem, that's the problem.
But I was shocked at stayed alive as long as it did, given what
we received as the mentality of the town of Somerset towards the other world,
otherworldly and the things that Penny Royal brought to light. Absolutely, there is
a lot of behind the scene things that if you follow the dots it makes
a lot more since. But you know, just a couple of things with
Somerset. I for example, the k kind of pyramid that was featured in
Hilier it's gone. It like disappeared one night. And that was like sixty
tons of white marble. So that's not one of those things they can just
disappear, but it was. It was there one day, next day it
was gone. Some of the things that are listed, like Souls Chapel,
you can't get to anymore. I know, the caves that were mentioned on
Hillier. They've got them barricaded where you can't park there anymore. It's it's
like they're taking the steps to to keep the tourists away from that kind of
stuff out. They know what's happening, and they don't want anyone else to
know. And now we can feed the conspiracy even deeper down to look.
I have told the story time and time again. Tyler and I went to
one of the caves that in Hellier where Tyler Stram went to. It's weird
TI going to see that. I took a Tyler there as well. We
heard the rumbling, we heard the weirdness that they that they described in Hellier,
and we thought we heard whispering. That's all I'm saying there is Matthew
also summoned to bear there. Yeah, Matthew summoned to bear there that almost
got us eating Which did we tell this story in the podcast? Matthew,
do you remember? I don't remember it. I don't think we were going
to get eaten by the bear. Okay, Bob was convinced. He was
yelling at Bob. Bob was like time to time to go, and then
I wasn't leaving without Bob, and he's like, don't you me right now?
Okay, well, okay for the new listeners. A few years ago,
Matthew had his son come to us home and he's like, hey,
if you guys have time to come down and hang out, that'd be great.
And I was like, yeah, we'll meet you in Somerset. There's
a tornado comings we have to leave right now. I'm not even I'm not
even gonna let you finish that story, Bob. He's telling it wrong.
Okay, Okay. I simply said I'm taking my kid back tomorrow. I
wish I could have done more. And Bob's like, we're on our way.
Okay, Well, I didn't want to seem like we were trying to
save the day here. Oh you were though you you were driving through like
you said a tornado I might and he's like, negative, ghost Rider,
I'm on my way. Well we what's crazy is we gotta our neighbor texting.
He's like, hey, the tornado warning. I hope you guys are
okay. I'm like, I'm on my way to Kentucky. Don't die.
Uh No. So we get to this cave and and there's a lot to
this story. We get to a cave, and because there was one that's
like underneath a bridge and it's not super safe to walk into. Yeah,
there's a lot of dangers with it. So we went to this other cave
and I had this thought while we were driving. I think your son even
asked about like bears or something at some point, and I was like,
there's no fucking bears over here, Harlan. Yes, if we're in.
If we're over there, I'm calling Tony. We're getting the Rhino Rifer.
We're gonna get these bears out of here, no questions asked. And we
go into this cave and I'm like, well, I'll take point because in
my mind, I'm I guess, you know, let's say a tenth of
these sumrset stories are true, and there are some crazy, you know,
UFO types back here that are crazier than us, which is hard to imagine.
I would like to be the one that gets attacked first, just you
know, chances are higher. Whatever. And I come around the bend and
I see this black mass and I remember my thought process of like, man,
that's a big fucking dog, and then my brain, my common sense
got to my brain. I'm like I don't think dogs get that big.
And then I'm like, oh, that's a fucking bear. And so I'm
like trying to get you guys to go. Brittany takes our advice. She
grabs your son and they're they're gone, and I look up and you're like
just like you're like casually walking with me, and like, Matthew fucking go
Like I'm fine, Like I'm not gonna leave. You're like fucking go,
Like I'm big enough that it'll be it'll be distracted for a while. And
I was I've never been that close to a full grown bear. Because we
saw a cub when we saw Kiss performing in Harlan, Kentucky. That's a
weird conversation, or don't we back? We saw a cub and I've never
seen that big, like a giant bear in person. And then you know,
the whole drive back, I felt like your son just wanted like Dad,
I told you so, I told you in the cave. Well,
and when you go into the cave, I mean it was muddy, yeah
in that cave and there was like no tracks, no footprints, none of
that mud. I think, I don't know, it's we saw big fucking
dogs that night. We saw nettle dogs that night. I mean, there
was a lot of weirdness to happen and it and what's magical about it?
And I'm going to tell the listeners this. They drove all that way,
they were only there for like three hours, and we found this dog on
the side of the road and they took it home with them. We did.
I mean, that was that and that's and that's what. That's the
kind of people My kids are so well. I have a soft spot for
animals. I always have. Like Brittany's got a dog with it. I'm
I'm pretty sure it's got some problems. It's got an underbite that would rival
any old dinosaur. And then my cat's got a pair of brain cells and
he rubs together on a good day. You know. I have a soft
spot for animals, And for some reason, I find more wild dogs than
anyone I've ever met my entire life. Oh my god. When we lived
at the farmhouse, I mean we've talked about on the podcast before, but
we literally had to keep a third crate. Yeah, because you can't bringing
home dogs. There were wild dogs everywhere. Yeah, I can't not bring
animals home. I have a soft spot for me, I don't like people
very much, but I fucking love animals. And I don't know if it's
just I grew up raising hounds or whatever, but I've always had a soft
spot for for dogs and animals and whatnot. And then for in that case,
I wasn't going to miss a chance to meet your son like that was
a huge The fact that you would even think to include us in that was
was awesome. This is very special. See it's it's just a it's just
a love fest. I like it, all right, But so anyway,
fuck them kids, No, sheez, just kidding, Matthew. It almost
got to be a nice podcast out the window, didn't you. Bread No,
we gotta don't worry. I don't worry about it, Matthew. So
he's circling back. Let's let's talk about Octagon Hall. Just just to to
bookmark this, I wanted to bring up. You guys are probably familiar with
it. In nineteen seventy two, there was this experiment carried out by the
Toronto Society for Physical Research and was conducted by doctor A. Rg Owen of
the University of Toronto. In this thought exercise, a fictional character was given
an extensive backstory with a tragic end, and the test, as it was,
was to manifest this entity under intent and then and then they would then
perform a seance to speak with the spirit. Each week they would reinforce the
process until Philip became somewhat of a sensation. Now this was actually duplicated to
varying success, the most prominent being the Skippy Experiment in Australia. With six
participants, the group created the ghost of a fourteen year old girl named Skippy
Carmichael and according to the group, Skippy communicated mainly through raps and scratching sounds.
If we are able as a people through intent to create these tulpas,
these eggergres, what are we taking into these places? I come from more
of a spiritual side of ghosts and such as in spirits, in nature spirits,
you know, human spirits, so have you. But for those those
who are not spiritually or magically inclined, that are just going to these places
and just going in there with this intent to investigate with what are they bringing
into these places? What I was going to say about Octagon Hall was in
two thousand and one it was made into a museum. The the gentleman who
started the museum, no relation that I know of. Maybe a cousin was
David Bird, and he had a vast collection of Civil War memorabilia. I
mean, the Ocgon Hall is full of it, of the stuff that he
brought into the place. You know what was attached to those items From what
I gathered from the gentleman that does the tours, there was never any mention
of paranormal activity until the last renters, which would have brought it into like
the nineteen nineties, and now it's become you know, one of the most
haunted places in the South. Is that a product of a dormant place where
bad things happen? Maybe? Is it something where you bring all this stuff
in from various sources, then you reinforce it with people who are coming in
with the intent to speak to these specific spirits that have been manifested through intent
and narration. Who knows well, if I had to lean towards one,
I'd lean towards the second one because I had some mistvalidity for me, at
least as of right now. If we're going to talk belief, that would
be the belief how would go with just because not only the intent that the
people are bringing into but the attachments that could be to the Civil War memorabilia
that's being brought into the place. It may not have even been haunted before.
It might be these objects that left an imprint in the house itself.
Well. And you also have to think about about people in general, because
we all know and for those this actually can help explain a lot of things
to our non paranormal believers out there. Everyone knows someone that when they walk
in the room, it suck the life. Yeah, and for my what
we do in the shadows fans out there, the energy vampire, that's a
real thing. For people, there are people that when they walk in even
strangers, we've all seen them where you just look at them and you're like,
man, something's not right, or this just it's like all the wind
came out of this place, or this person may be uncomfortable by their presence.
What does that say if you go into a location then you're looking for
something supernatural? Does that potentially tap into some latent psychic abilities that some people
may have unknowingly? And there was entire we talked about this in the Alan
Greenfield interview. There's entire government experiments and government funded projects for exactly that,
diving into these like latent abilities. Yeah, and also the synchronicity is real
about the tupas. We just did an almost two hour Patreon episode, but
don't talk to me about topas diving into topas. And one of the stories,
the last one we ended on was was a Tolpa gaining sentience and killing
it's six other Tupa siblings and then and then taking over the host of the
host body, and and there's a bunch of weird stuff with Tulpa's in general.
But that's a whole different conversation. But before we we go, Matthew,
I want to talk our other favorite topic. I want to talk aliens
for a second, because first off, I want to know and and if
you're willing to discuss it, what are your view you points and aliens and
gin? Were they are they coming from here? The interdimensional? Are they
coming from outer space? Are they on Mars? All of the Bob,
where do you fall in the UFO debacle? I take a very open minded
view of beats the hell to me, Bob. It's it's one of those
things of could it be us from the future, could it be interdimensional?
Could it be maybe who knows, not. I it's it's really I think
it's better to have an open mind of what it could be than to have
a definite belief into what it is. I think it's ever changing. I
think perception, I mean, what we even knew of UFOs over the last
one hundred years has been influenced by you know, popular media and literature,
and what the UFOs supposedly looks like, you know, one hundred years ago,
it's not what they look like now. Yeah. So I mean I
think that. And I don't have the article in front of me, I
know, I send it to you. It was like a summary of Jeremy
Corbellan and nap On Rogan. But we're talking about like the aliens. Bob
Blizar was talking about the aliens referring to us as soul containers, and I'm
like, yeah, I can, I can jibe with that. Sure.
I love that answer, because with such an open ended topic, you have
to you have to have an open ended belief when it comes to this kind
of stuff. Yeah, beliefs at all. Uncle Allan says that too,
that you know, it's everything's connected, And I don't think that you can
look at you can be just a UFO guy anymore, or a ghost guy
anymore, or a big foot guy anymore. If you're going to look into
the phenomenon, you have to look at everything. And the more that everybody
is looking at the big picture, I think we're going to make more connections.
No, I would agree with that completely, and I because we've come
to that realization that you really can't have one without the other. And there
was a point in the and this wasn't recorded, but during Phantom Farm,
during one of the that I we recorded, we got to the point where
we abandoned paranormal completely in an allegedly haunted location, and we find ourselves discussing
the dowel and discussing you follow Geen, injured, cold and all these things
like that doesn't just come out of nowhere. There's a reason that that you're
you're drawn to various forms of high strangeness no matter which field you're in.
And I do agree. I think it's detrimental as a researcher to not see
the overlap. And now, granted I could see if you if you are
an old school ghost hunter and you weren't part of the fringe, circles discussing
the occult connection with high strangeness. I could see how you could overlook it.
But I want to talk to you about the the the Congressional hearing,
because we talked a little bit off air. We all agree that Commander Faver,
he's telling the truth. That dude's the real deal. I don't see
a single hole in his story that doesn't make sense, especially considering he went
on a debunking like tour of working with flour looking while working with the thermal
engineering design of the camera that caught the tic TAC and he cannot disprove this,
and no one, no one really can. But then we had the
Congressional Hearing, which was kind of out of nowhere. And I say that
because we had I think two UAP reports come out. Both were smoking mirrors
and nonsense. For every half a sentence that had something that could be interesting,
the rest was either redacted or just was clearly put in there to make
you look elsewhere. But then the Congressional Hearing comes along. I never in
my lifetime thought I would see something that mainstream when it came to the UFO
UAP topic whatever term we're using this week. And I still now our patrons
know this because we dove deep into the News Nation and interview with with Grush.
I'm still struggling a lot with what Grush is saying. And that could
solely be because every time he was asked a question, it was always I
will tell you in the right set or setting, if you have the right
clearance. I understand the concern because and it's it's kind of hard to you
because you can say it's the pot calling the kettle black when it comes to
we openly believe Bob Lazar. We think he was telling the truth, but
he has no real proof. Grush is kind of the same deal. But
Grush's attitude and just his attitude throughout the entire News interview and from what I
saw of him in the conference, very nonchalant for a very serious and life
changing topic like you could see with Commander Favor and everything including the congressional hearing
and everything he does and talks about. It's a very serious topic, and
for me, Rush was not taking it seriously at all. Yeah, and
I could I could say that you could say that he's being serious by like
watching what he's saying. I understand that that thought process, but there is
still just something about the guy that doesn't sit right with me. So I
wanted your opinion both on the hearing and Grush specifically. I'm actually going to
pivot and Grush can when they give him the clearance to say whatever he needs
to say. The problem is, and this is where I was going to
pivot. Watch timber Chet. He's he's a state representative of Tennessee, and
that's that's who I watch in all this because as a fellow Tennessee boy,
I mean, he he doesn't have a lot of room for nonsense. And
he's been trying to get you know, them to allow the clearance like they
were supposed to be able to see this stuff, and they were like,
no, you can't do that. Now we've changed our mind. And when
you're telling Congress people this, that's that's where I think the important part of
this. Let's take this closure completely off the table because you're going to get
that from Foyer, requests from you know, the Black Vault, from outside
sources, from the government. That's that's what we've depended on for however long
the Department of Defense was talking about they were going to release this new site.
It should be ready by the fall, or they're going to release everything
that's been declassified. Okay, well maybe there's something in there, so maybe
there won't be. What's important about these hearings, it's not even is their
UFOs, it's there's something there. It is a threat to national security.
And as a side effect of that, you had in these hearings them admitting
that corporations were overcharging the American taxpayer so that they on these products, so
that they could then take that for money, black budget projects, for black
budget projects. That is that is what is important. As my grandfather used
to say, follow the money, follow the money always, and if you
can start talking about where money's going, then that's going to put pressure to
maybe get some of this other stuff done. But if nothing else, that
was the big takeaway I got is that, oh my god, just admitted
that we're getting goosed on our bill of good Yeah. It is the other
thing that I found very interesting about that hearing, And this is one thing
that you can say about any any of our current political climate. There's a
level of ego attached to most politicians. And to watch the frustration when they
said when people said you don't have the clearance and some of these politicians responses
where I should be running this fucking project. What do you mean I can't
know about this? I'm I'm the guy who should know. I think if
we're going to get disclosure in any any meaningful way when it comes to strictly
craft, crafts and personnel, it's gonna be through these politicians. I have
the ego. Yeah, it's oh, you don't think I should know what?
Watch this? Watch me show you what I'm allowed to know. I
think what happened. You know, even Jimmy Carter back in the seventies had
made inquiries into the UFO phenomenon and stuff, and he was flat out shut
out. They wouldn't tell him anything. He was the president. Yeah,
and there's so many stories out there like that. So my last question before
we go, and I'm trying to ask this of every guest every walk of
life to get their opinion. Do you believe the Satanic Panic is back,
We're having a resurgence, it never went away, or it's more of a
social media hoop law as a distraction. And I asked this to you specifically
because you were you were growing up during the original Satanic Panic. I remember
it briefly growing up in smalltown, Ohio late nineties, early two thousands,
I saw the remnants of it. But with you being from Tennessee, the
west Men fifth three is huge, Damien Echols, that whole I was going
to stay with westminsfis three. That was I was those kids. I mean,
black T shirt reading Stephen King long hair, I mean it, I
was those kids. And that's what was so frightening to me when that happened.
Here's the thing. Earlier in the hour, I touched on red Ash,
which is again in Kevil County. I was trying to find information on
exactly who was maintaining the cemetery, get some information on who was allowing these
groups to do tours there. I called the county government. And the first
things out of the or the first thing the lady says to me in the
office is, you know they do Satanic rituals there, right, And what
you have to understand is the culture of Tennessee, Kentucky and the Bible Belt
in general, is that they do believe in demons. They do believe that,
you know, and it even goes back to I can remember I don't
remember the year, it was probably early nineties, my small Baptist church was
all in an upper war because there were the Saint worshippers coming to the Big
South Fork and they were looking for the blonde haired, blue eyed children to
sacrifice that you needed to watch your kids, and it turned out to be
the Rainbow Children. And it was like just this tippy group that came through
to do one of their festivals. And the worst thing that happened is a
daughter of a country singer got picked up at the Pigli Wiggly for stealing bologney.
That's and as you said before about you know, it's it's demons ghost
when you have people who will perpetrate this idea of demons demonology. Being a
demonologist that you know you're going to enforce this idea of things that are heavy
metal is bad. The wigi boards are the devil's keyboard. And this is
that's something that my oldest son said. He saw my wigi board one day
and he was like, he says, you're you're laughing now, but when
you are tickling the devil's keyboard, we'll see who has the last laugh.
That's I mean, I'm in your son, I'm I'm in the same boat
as your son. I'm telling you, yeah, and you know not to
get off on the buigie boards. But we we've talked about this before,
Bob. You know, Norman Rockwell did a cover for the Saturday Evening Post
with a couple using a wuigie board. It was a parlor game, yere
boards and that was yeah, up until the Exorcist. Again. You know,
satanic panic, it will never really go away as long as and this
is something that Anton LaVey was talking about in his Church of Satan that you
know, the devil is the best friend the church ever had because it's what
keeps them in business. Ye. And when you have the folks that are
being told every Sunday by the hell Fire and Brimstone preachers that this is this
is satanic, this is satanic, this is the Devil's work, I can
tell you I graduated in ninety one and they're in my autoshop class. I
was talking to my teacher, who was a Baptist preacher outside of school,
and he looked me up one up and down one day and he says,
are you one of those Devil's disciples? And I looked right back at him.
I said, you're not allowed to ask me that, and that's to
be honest, That's one of the reasons that I left Tennessee for a long
time because I didn't feel like someone like me belong there. And I'll tell
you to your answer about the Satanic panic, I think things are better.
I think things are more open. I think that you can have esoteric shops
in little towns in Tennessee now, and I think there's a lot more of
an open mind. But and this is something that I can't stress enough is
talking from the great state of Tennessee, you have the greg Lock of the
world who want to burn the witches. And if those spokes on those extreme
right views are allowed to have a voice, then that's a very dangerous thing.
I completely agree, Matthew. So with that being said, we are
at the end of our our time here. But before you go, where
can people find more Matthew Bird, Because we you're in the Facebook group Tales
from the Dark group all the time, But more content you've done. Do
you have an archive maybe or a list of the shows you've been on or
where that's that's kind of that's kind of where we're at at this point.
I'm gonna tell you Bob. The last year, I've I've kind of gotten
away from the social media portion of it and just you know, visited places
and soaked up the history of places and just not done a lot of with
it. But I do have an archi I've there's the on Facebook. You
can find it in the groups as House of Weird w y r D.
Also you have House of Weird dot WordPress dot com. Also we do the
Caretaker Respect for the Dead Project, where we believe that only by cooperation and
changing the current culture of ghost hunting and internet paranormal groups can we debunk the
urban legends and other incorrect information attributed to these areas that are negatively affecting our
burial places in the Appalachian Mountains, including cemeteries, graveyards, mounds, and
other sacred locations. And you can find out more about that on Facebook dot
com, slash Caretaker Project or Caretaker Project dot WordPress dot com. Well,
that's amazing and I love everything you're involved in, Matthew. You're always welcome
on the show, and I definitely appreciate you taking the time. I know
it's past all of our bedtimes, and I'm just glad to have you here
on the show one more time. Absolutely, I love you guys, We
love you Matthew. We love you too. Thank you all right, Miss
Brittany. So that was Matthew Bird. It's always a pleasure to sit down
with someone that's equally as passionate and the paranormal. And eventually we're gonna get
him to have his own podcast. We've been trying for years now. Yeah.
So with that being said, the only thing I want to add really
fast is we're gonna have some really exciting announcements. Is we're coming closer to
the Hans and Legends Expo with Halloween coming up, some new potential merch designs,
a bunch of you know, exciting and fun stuff. And then Miss
Brittany over the next two to three weeks is gonna have another very exciting announcement
and OG fans probably know what it is, but I'm gonna We're gonna wait
for that, and you actual said stay tuned. So with that being said,
unless there's anything else that you'd like to add, I do not,
And I think we're gonna have to add this episode to our never ending but
are always growing Heels from the Dark