Speaker 1: Then there's the screaming man, so not the screaming implucky.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's going on in pluckly Man.
Speaker 1: And this is a documented accident that happened the brickworks
in Pluckley, which was so when they were excavating clay
manually as they did, and this was eighteen ninety nine
where Richard Brichland, unfortunately was a laborer who was crushed
and killed by a collapsing bank of clay.
Speaker 3: Infinite complete. People went to and broad the earth about
their little affairs, serene and the assurance of their dominion
over this more binning fragment of solar dripwood which by
chance or design man has inherited out of the dark
mystery of the time and repeat.
Speaker 2: On this episode of Into the Fray. I welcome Luke
Phillips back on with me finally, and we are going
to be talking about, of course, like we usually do,
the Phantom and you can't see me, but I'm doing
air quotes right now for anyone on YouTube they can
see us and on Patreon, but Phantom, black cats or
big cats, and we will talk big floods and hauntings
this time, because let's face it, Luke is across the pond,
and you have some very haunted locations over there, which
you have mentioned to me. You are actually live very
near a couple of these. So his other visits to
itf are ninety two and four thirty one, and I
titled those the title of his fictional books that are
of course based on actual events like people seeing big
cats and events like people seeing bigfoot Daughters of the Darkness,
and then four thirty one was Rogue, ninety two was
Daughters of the Darkness. So can you talk a little
bit about before we dive in your books and where
your love of such things came from enough to write
fictional works about such subjects.
Speaker 1: So I think I've always been slightly fascinated by the weird,
wonderful side of or the dark side of Nature's actually
just a crowbar or style Wars references. But so, I mean,
we went my mum Isish and when we were kids,
we spent a lot of time up in Scotland, particularly
in and around Lockness, which of course has this, you know,
alluring monster mystery attached to it, and almost everybody you
speak to you up there, they've all got a monster
citing story. You can't move you know, for nessy sort
of plushies and you know those sort of things.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: So I was kind of immersed in it from a
very early age, you know that, you know, monsters were
kind of there when I was growing up. I think
when I started really taking it seriously was when I
was at university. I went to Liverpool John Moores University, which,
as the name implies, is in Liverpool, which is in
the northeast of England, sorry northwest, and it was I
think it was my first lecture where they were talking
about sort of myths, legends and those kinds of things,
and of course, the famous Sir Peter Scott acronym for
you know, nessis rob bot Trix. You know, the scientific
name for the monster came up, as well as other
things like the Surrey puma and things like that. Now,
I'm know anyone who's interested in these things will know that,
you know, Peter Scott's sort of you know, Latin name
actually is an acronym for you know, for monster hoax
by Sir Peter s. So yeah, yeah, I think he
was having a bit of fun with us, but unfortunately
it did plant that seed that perhaps you know, scientists,
you know, were taking these things really seriously, so I
really had you know a sort of from then on
in we started looking into the sort of the the
the history the sightings around us. I was also really
lucky in that one of my professors was one of
the prominent sort of leading authorities in big cat evolution,
so I was really lucky to sort of study under him,
get his books, you know, and sort of really sort
of then, uh, you know, sort of looking to the
subject at such a level that we're you know, really
really you know, proper rabbit hole stuff, you know, so
that I could get really into it. But I think,
you know, I've always been a bit of a horror
fan as well. You know, I grew I think I
was exposed to the sanity, shlock, horror, snow beast to
far too early and watched that, you know, I think
I saw either Knight of the Demon or Creature from
back Lake, like again, probably far too young, and was
just hooked, just thought it was the best thing ever.
And then you know, I've luckily been lucky enough to
travel being too the States, and yeah, I had an experience,
shall we say, a campground that you know, sort of
really did propel me into sort of the big foot
side as well. So it's been a long winded and
sort of like you know, sort of you know, multi
faceted adventure so far. But yeah, it's it's it's it's yeah.
So far, so good and absolutely no signs of stopping.
Speaker 2: So did they talk about university? I mean, you were
in Liverpool. Did they talk about the time slips?
Speaker 4: Then?
Speaker 1: No, so we didn't. We didn't then. But again I'm wondering,
I'll you, I'm so, I was at university in the
in the nineties, so I don't know how much of
it would have been spoken about. The Internet was still
read if you knew, you know, so, so I don't
know how much access we actually had to those to
that kind of information. Now. I imagine if you go to
Liverpool now and I haven't been for a long time,
but I wonder. I imagine it's probably much more spoken about.
More knows does this. They'll almost certainly be in one
of the museums. There'll be something about it, you know,
that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: So yeah, I wonder if they do time slip tours
and things like that there, because some places embrace it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, absolutely is. I would have thought they did I
mean if it's anything speA Key TV THEND you Yeah, yeah,
there'll be there'll be a tour.
Speaker 2: So yeah, oh I love stuff like that. Well, how
wonderful that I'm sure that you brought that up before
that at university you studied under that gentleman that I
knew so much about big cats. But it's been a
while since we've actually covered your background and things, so
I I forgot about that.
Speaker 1: I've got to book. I'll send you the details because
I'm struggling from member his name right now. Yeah, they're awesome,
The Joy of Age. But I'll send you some links
to the book he wrote, which is about the evolution
of the big cats, which is excellent, and that includes,
you know, things like the saber teefs, you know, so
in new case European sabertys like Homotherian obviously, the three
different species of Smilodn who dominated the Americas. You know,
cats known as the Dirktieve cats. Yeah, all of those
sort of things which are much more ancient versions of
cats and they're not really closely related to modern cats.
But but yeah, there is that linkage there and it's
really really fascinating reading. So I'll send that to you afterwards.
Speaker 2: So what was his opinion then on things like the
Beast of Bodman more and all of these big cat
sightings that have been going on for decades. What was
his opinion then?
Speaker 1: So he was actually really open to well, he was
open to some of it. Yeah, he was sort of
to a certain extent, he was. So, Yeah, there were
sightings and things like that. So one of the things
that was really clear of one of the news stories
that was big in the nineties when I was there
was helicopter police helicopter footage of a lynx walking along
a motorway and they were showing frmal footage of it,
and it was very clear what it was. How it
got there, whether it was an escapee or you know,
somebody had released it or something like that remains unknown.
But the fact that they're actually here it was almost
undisputed because people were seeing them and those sort of things.
The Sorry Puma was one of these well known cats,
along with the Beast above Men say, the Beast of
Bobbing is probably the most famous of the British big cats.
You know, it gets l able to the Beast of
bod Men. But and you know, and it's you know,
turned up you know, in the sort of early I
just think of the Beast of bod was I think
it was sort of the nineties, yeah, and I think
it's ninety three onwards. But that was a really famous
case because the army were brought in, you know, farmers
were complaining. The local MP, who's now a lord in
the House of Lords, got involved. Yeah, so this was
big national news and I think actually it ended up
being international news, you know, that there was this beast
of and it very quickly got romanticized into being this
black you know, black panther type you know, probably a
melanistic leopard, you know, a black panther type cot and
things like that. But actually there were multiple sightings across
sort of you know, the corn wall, and the description
varied massively. So and there were two clear camps. One
was very much a beat a black you know, leopard
type cat, and the other was very much a town
colored cat. And they were describing a long tail and
sort of you know, you know, sort of a grayish
belly and things like that. So they're clearly talking about
a mountain ion or a puma type cat, you know,
and that those are the two you know, rough camps
we have here in the UK, we tend to have
the puma or the black leopards sort of those. You know,
That's what the majority of the descriptions fit. And obviously
we were still at the university. We were still only
you know, twenty years after nineteen seventy six, which is
when the Dangerous World Animals Act was introduced, which is
when you had to have a license, you know, to
have and house these animals. Before that, you could literally,
you know, very famously go to Harod's and order your
lion cub or your black panther or you know that
would suit you, I mean a lot. And the thing
is they weren't just animals purchased by the rich and famous.
They were animals purchased by scrap metal merchants. You know.
They were used as guard animals. You know, there's a
very famously I think the Beast of x Moore. You know,
there was a butcher who had a black cat and
a tan cat and kept them in the butcher's shop.
You know, has a bit of a spectacle and so on.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: And what's interesting about that story is that when he
got into potential trouble with the law. It's said that
he released them onto xmore and then what happen and
was she started getting reported sightings of a black cat
and attorney care and I think there was a researcher
there who actually confirmed he was finding footprints of both,
you know, you know, of these cats potentially traveling together.
So it was, yeah, there was there's all of this
sort of you know, evidence happening in the background that
was you know, was put it propelling this into the
public view. So I think it was much more. It
was still quite fash and new then, and people were
accepting it a lot more. But like I said, the
sorry puma had been reported from the seventies onwards, you know,
and you know, feliciting puma was caught in nineteen eighty
up in Canic you know where my first book Shadow
Beast is based. In fact, it's based there for that reason,
you know, and forlicity is mentioned in the book. But yeah,
so we've got this sort of scattered history of them,
so I think for him it was clear that we're here.
I think for him it was very much a case
of these are animals that have been released. There's not
a breeding population, and you know they'll die off soon.
But you know, here we are. You know, we're now
fifty years down the line from the Dangerous Wild Animals Act,
and you know, I've just this morning released a blog
showing sort of some of the more recent sightings in
the UK. And you know there are sightings still happening today,
you know, regularly of different cats of different sizes, different shapes,
you know, different descriptions, different color variations. Species vary from
everything from you know, jungle golden cats and jungle cats
right up to as I say, the melanistic letterards and
the mountain lion.
Speaker 2: So I'm sure this wasn't the case, but maybe it
was the Butcher's cats. Were they two males, two females.
Could it be possible they ended up being a breeding pair?
Speaker 1: No, So I've tried to look into it, and it
does and there is no actual, definitive record of the
animals he had. We know the town, but yeah, and
we know that it was Devon, uh and so, but
actually the actual there was obviously no licenses or anything
like that. There's nothing to track it back to what
he had. So yeah, I would suspect that they weren't
I would have, I would suspect that they weren't a
breeding pair, but also that they were probably both the
same sex. And I think what would And this is
pure conjecture, but I think for the most part in
the UK, people were buying female animals because they were smaller,
and the idea is that smaller animals were more manageable,
which I imagine most people found out that was not
the case.
Speaker 2: I know, they might be a little smaller, but it
doesn't make them manageable. My goodness. That's the wildest thing
about that. Yeah, and I had I sent you this
on Instagram, but you would of course already seen this
because you keep track of this stuff. But this is
just last month and Dartmouth is a big black cat
video that a couple had captured on a golf course
and they said that, oh, we were in our dressing gown,
so we couldn't jump off the porch of this hotel
whatever resort and go check it out closer. Probably good
that they didn't, by the way, and that was fifty
So it's fifty miles from where the Beast of Bottom
and more was visually doing its business.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, it's literally the next county I mean,
I would really like to and I have tried to
sort of track in that I would really like to
talk to them sort of personally. Because the videover is
saken eating is of such poor quality. It's really hard
to see. I will go in, you know, I will
say the movement of the cat, and the head movement
in particular, looks very domestic cat to me. But the
other thing to remember is that in a lot of
the rural areas we are, we have some we do
have populations of feral cats. So there's big and a
lot of the barn and farmyard cats, you know, they
live wild and things like that, and they can get
really big. Yeah, they can get a lot bigger than
a normal domestic But the way that that cat walks,
lifts its head up and drops it down, that's not
really characteristic of a big cat. It's it's much more
characteristic of domestic It seems that it doesn't. The years
are a little bit too low and the tower isn't
quite as long. But again, that video is such the
one that's being circulated, and these is such core quality.
I'd like to see the original just to get an idea.
Speaker 2: So that's the bummer is that. And even I can
say this for my own videos. We can see each
other perfectly well, it's perfectly clear. And then by the
time you export and then you upload and you upload
again and things just get potato quality. It just looks really,
really bad because of compression issues. And I have to
say that it would be incredible for you to get
in touch with those folks also to find out exactly
where that thing was spotted, because you can't you can't
really tell how big it is compared to that Who
knows how big that bush was next to it or
in any of these other things right for scale, it's
hard to tell.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because there are there are some white blobs in
the background, I suspect those as sheep. And if they
are sheep, then they don't seem to be bothered at
all by that, you know, its presence, if they are
aware it's there, which again would suggest it's probably a
domestic So but yeah, but that said, they were obviously
very excited. They thought they were seeing something unusual. You know,
they're from the UK, They're probably familiar with what a
domestic cat looks like. So yeah, I'm not going to
do that thing that a lot of people do and
just dismiss the witness because.
Speaker 2: Right, yeah, yeah, you can't do that. But I mean
I saw in the article. It was a coast to
coast am email that came through as a Timberaal article.
It's been covered on local news there too, I found.
But once you start to get the at least they
took the video though, because a lot of people go,
why didn't you take a video? Well they did, and
granted it's not the greatest video, but she tried her best.
But she did say that she thought that it was
something strange and that she was quite They were quite
familiar with, as you say, the local wildlife and what's
supposed to be out there, and it looks like whoever
wrote the local article talk to a couple of different people,
including some kind of wildlife expert, and the wildlife expert said,
much like you, it kind of tends to lean more
towards a large domestic cat versus something that the UK
says isn't out there walking around.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, I think I think there is a
good chance in it being a feral because the Pheraulhs
are big and they what they can. You know, big
feral tom can be quite large, probably not far off
you know, a bobcat size for you guys, you know,
soyah and yeah, so that they can be big. And
there are so many fancy cat breeds now, particularly main
coons and yeah, and savannah cats you know, they can
be really quite large and leggy, you know, so you know,
you don't know what's cross breeding and you know, things
like that. And that's the other thing as well, is
there are plenty of other cats other than big cats
escaping and being released. You know, as I said, there
are recorded incidents of jungle cats fishing cats. Somebody even
reported to jag Urundi, you know, not too long ago.
So yeah, and you know we know they're around because
a wildlife rescue near me recently took in a jag
Urundi recovered from the illegal wildlife trade. So people, so
they are coming in, people are you know, there is
even for a redife rare cat like that, there are
people are trying to get hold of them. So none
of it should really be dismissed, you know.
Speaker 2: So what kinds of things? And where is your blog?
Where can people find that blog you mentioned?
Speaker 1: Yes, so it's on Beast Blackbeastsomoogiemen dot com perfect.
Speaker 2: Okay, So what are some of the other sightings that
you've come across lately that's gone on there?
Speaker 1: I mean there's a few. So there was so probably
the one that's really famous because it happened in a
couple of months ago and it was big in a
you know, because it revolved around a celebrity was again,
a black panther was seen in red from close proximity
to Ed Shearing's estate in Surrey. So Ed Sheeran, the
pop star, you know, so but yeah, he a black
panther was reported crossing a very popular local footpath onto farmland,
you know, which sort of neighbored Ed Sheerans. You know,
thirty I think it's thirty seven million pound in his house,
so yeah.
Speaker 2: What a shack huh yeah yeah, so yeah, yeah, well
London prices.
Speaker 1: I think that's a two bedroom flat. That's true, that's true.
Speaker 2: You're like, actually it might be, but.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's yes, So that was that got the news
Bradford recently. But again a lot of these sightings are
just these glimpses that people get. So again there was
North Wales. There's been quite a few sightings in North
Wales recently. Again all sort of meeting the black leopard
kind of template. There was exciting of what they called
a dark colored cap, and but they particularly described the
long tail, which obviously leopards do have, but the way
they described it did make me think humor, and that
came out of cornwall. So yeah, there's been that they are.
I think the thing that's frustrating about them is that
they do kind of all meet that sort of you know,
cryptozoological sort of you know, crossing the road glimpse sort
of style. You know, citing, there's there's there's you know,
these amazing bits of drama and you know, but actually
the facts are pretty thin, you know, which you would expect.
But I am hoping that with the rise of dash
cans and things like that, you know, sooner or later
we'll get you know, really good quality proof. And it's
worth pointing out that we're not talking about animals that
are just pure myth and legend anymore. You know. There
has been a scientific study by the Rural College of Agriculture,
you know, testing DNA taken from carcasses actually cuxons in
Cumbria which is the Lake districtive but also recording toothpit
analysis against you know, carcasses and kills. And they've shown
that they're you know, it was released last year. They've
got DNA evidence of leopards, you know. You know, so
there isn't there is no argument whether they're here or not.
You know, this isn't a mystery. You know, this isn't
a myth anymore. They are definitely here. There is absolutely
a question about how they got here, how many they
might be, whether there's a breeding population. There's so many
things we don't know, but we do know they're here.
Speaker 2: Okay, you know I had to go here. What about
any big foot sightings?
Speaker 1: Yes, so there are. And I know you had pool
best of on not too long ago and you and
I was grumbling at my into my earphones when he
said he didn't think there was any bigfoot here, because
I'm not so sure. So I'm going to pay Devil's
advert to Paul and say I do think there is
enough habitat here in the UK, like there are a
huge Obviously we're not on parer with Alaska or you know,
British Columbia or anything like that, but there are still
huge aspects of Scotland, you know, the highlands, the Southwest,
you know that are really quite dense, very very forested.
You've also got to remember that very little land in
the UK is publicly accessible, you know, so much of it.
I think it's something like six percent of our land
is public accessible. The rest of it is private, you know,
so there's private game estates, private estates that go on
from you know, the Church, the State, you know, the royalty,
they you know, lords and ladies. They all own significant
chunks of land which recimply do not get the chance
to go on to or or access in any way.
Speaker 2: Is that because of hunting, so that they can go
hunting on the land.
Speaker 1: I mean, it certainly used to be the case. I
think now a lot of it is just you know,
it's been passed down through time. But yeah, the hunting
estates are still very prominent, particularly in the highlands. You know,
if you want to go deer stalking, it's still quite
an elite you know. It's not like in the States
where you can go to the woods and you can
go hunting with your buddies and things like that. It's
still here. It's very elite. It's very expensive. You've got
to have the right clothing.
Speaker 2: And you know, you can't have.
Speaker 1: Last year's double rifle, you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's sort of thing is a bit like that unfortunately. Yeah,
I mean there's plenty of there's plenty of farmers who
are armed and you know, guns are you know, aren't
as completely you know, absent here as you might think.
But it's mainly sort of you know, pest control farmers,
that kind of thing, you know. But the hunt in
itself is still very much a pastime of the elite unfortunately,
you know. So yeah, but as I said, one of
the things to think about is red deer huge okay,
so closely related to help if you get in in
the sense now there's over a million red deer in Scotland, okay,
so you know, and again you have to go and
find them. You have. It's not like you're you're sort
of you know, you know, you know, sort of trying
to get through herds of them, you know, as they
cross the road and things like that. They you know,
they spend a lot of their times high on the ridges.
They come down at night. You know. So if there's
a million very large animals you know that you don't
see every day in the highlands, you know, and it's
up to a million. I know that the figures are
a bit you know it sort of you're wild and free.
But but if there is a very small population of
you know, whether it's remnant you know, wood woes or
you know, you know, sort of something like that, or
a flesh and blood animal like a you know, that
we would we would say it was akin to a bigfoot.
I don't think it's outrageous to suggest that there is
some habitat for them, and they could. I mean, I
know people who have reported them in Scotland. They've they've
they've you know, when you look at some of the
witness testimonies, these people get very very upset. Now they
are a gift. They are either gifted actors or they've
experienced genuine trauma, you know. And again I find it
really hard to dismiss you know, that they those people
have seen something, because they've clearly experienced something and they've
you know, some people have never gone outside into the
woods again, you know, into their adult life. You know,
I find that, you know, I'd be very wary of
saying no to anything at this point, because you know,
these people are clearly having some kind of experience and
as I say, there's we know, there's a population of
wild bar in the UK and the Forest of Dean
in Gloucestershire, there's a you know, which has been purely
fueled by escapees or animals that were released deliberately. Yeah,
and that population has popped up across Kent the southeast
where I am. There's that. As I say, they are
very very well established in the Forest of Dean, but
across the southwest as well, Devonshire, Cornwall. You know, the
beast of Bobbin's definitely got you know, pork is on
the menu for the beast involvement for sure, you know. Yeah,
So these are pretty large animals and you don't see
them often. So if there was a really tiny and
I don't think you know, it's not we're housing hundreds
or thousands of big cats. And in the same way
we're not. I can't imagine we're housing hundreds or thousands
of bigfoot. But we do have some protected areas, we
do have some national parks, we do have some you know,
pretty big expanses of forests and from woodlands where they
could potentially be I mean again, similarly, in the US,
we have a lot of military veterans who just decide
they're going to go and live in the woods, you know,
and you never see those people, but we know they're around,
you know. So yeah, I think there are big foot
sizings that do get reported, you know, and as I said,
Scotland is a real real place for them at the moment.
There's definitely stuff coming from from from Scotland. Again, somebody
I know were a report I looked at was a
pair of hikers who retreated from land In not far
from Lockness, so in Vernesshi. Because they and again they
it's all the things that we hear, they felt they
were being watched. They had this sudden, you know, experience
of the feeling of dread uh and they had this
real urge to get out of the you know, to
get out there. Basically they heard you know, twig crunches
and tree cracks and things like that. They never actually
saw anything, but they were very unnerved. And again there
they're hikers. They know what deer moving. You know, most
of us, if we see a deer, it's like oh great,
you know, oh wow deer, you know sort of it's
a joyful experience, you know. I do think it takes something.
You know, our DNA is. You know, there is that
biological instinctiveness which goes, this is something unusual, abnormal. You
need to respond to this. You know that you know flight,
flight or freeze, you know that that sort of aspect.
And I think when that kicks in the lightly year
it is it's a predator or it's certainly something that
you don't encounter on a day to day. That's your
biology saying something's not right.
Speaker 2: All right, So before we move off of the cryptids,
and I realize that you can't really call the cats
a cryptid, not really of course, because they are being right,
you know what I mean. But you know, once you
start going into dog Man and Bigfoot, then there's a
little difference there. But okay, so before we go off there,
and I will put cats in here as well, out
of all the cryptids, would you rather see and I'll
just go off of the UK. I could put moth
Man all these other things in there, but you don't
have that there. But this is where you are, So
let's go off of cats. You can go Puttingness in
there from Scotland and Bigfoot out of I mean, or
out another one in that I haven't covered which one
would you like to see close enough and to where
you know it was in a long enough sighting you
know what you saw.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean I would really like I mean again,
I would if I could get It's really hard to
say because my default setting is always dog man and
I was like, I really want to see a dog
and just I want to know what on earth it is. Yeah, yeah,
but I think I had my an encounter with a
big cat crossing the road when in seven as you know,
many years ago.
Speaker 2: Yeah, would you want to see one? I mean really
close though, you know, and I know because I do
recall you had that sighting. But I'm like, I wonder
if you, like, if you were that couple you're like, oh,
I'm going to film that. Hey there's a big old
count of there and you you could jump off and go.
Not that I think that's smart. Again, not a good idea,
good thing they didn't, but you can go chase after
something and have that close encounter, you know, maybe, So Yeah,
would it be a cat again, then maybe a close encounter?
Speaker 1: I think I I think it probably would, just because
I would. I did at the time when I saw mine,
you know, I did I just sat there and watched it.
I mean it only took seconds, you know, but to
have had a phone up or a camera or something
like that would be it would have been great, I suppose,
But I would really I think I'm just open to
anything really as the honest again, I just want to
know because of that question that always comes up about
is it fashion, bud or is it something else. I
just want something that at least helps me go in
one direction or the other. That's what I'd like, you know.
So you know, so obviously cats leave footprints and things
like that, and I think there's enough physical evidence to
say that they're here. And when it comes to Bigfoot
than Doug Man so for instance, you know, if it
come this you know dog Man Encounters podcast, he's just
had two lots of people from the UK in North
Wales give very detailed encounters with dog Maun. I would
I would very happily go and spend some time on
that farm and try and and try and document it.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 1: But after once you start going down that road and
this is where I, this is where U because I
am I do have some skepticism. Is when people start saying,
oh no, no, they wouldn't come out, you know, or
you know, we don't want to disturb them, or we
don't want to document them. You know. That's when my
sort of you know, bullshit meters kind of goes off
a little bit, you know. But but I would again,
I would love I would love to see something like
that because it's something completely unexplained, you know, I would
love to try and get some understanding of how it
works biologically. You know, there's there's no biological precedent for
a dog, maund what you know, big Foot at least
we've got fossilized, you know, a family tree that suggests
what they are or what they could be, and there
is a biological precedent for them. We know there are
great apes, and we know that you know, some of
them are capable of walking up right, and we know,
you know, previous hominids you know, existed up to you know,
I think with now you know, twenty five to thirty
different you know hominids we now know of, so you know,
there's that biological precedent for them when it comes to
the truly mysterious, you know, when it comes to that,
you know, Yeah, and I actually recently attended a lecture
on the history and mythology of were wolves, you know,
and we started talking about dog men at the end
because you know, I was interested in how but you
know that, Yeah, being able to see something that you
know isn't you know that it just doesn't have that
doesn't fit into the normal world. I think that that's true.
That would be truly. I mean, I imagine I would
be terrified. I'm not gonna lie, you know, but it'd
be I think it would be great to see, just
so that I could take that question out of my mind.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there's not a lot of positive interactions with the
dog man creature. So are you saying that on this
farmland that the folks are they have all these firsthand
encounters with them, they're seeing them, but they feel protective
over them. They don't want to get them on film.
That that's easy to do anyway, but they don't want
people to come out to investigate because they're protected something.
Speaker 1: I just think there's Yeah. I'm a dedicated to wildlife
naturalist and wildlife watcher. You know, I deliberately go out,
you know, most weekends as often as I can, I
go out and I spend time looking for wildlife documenting
it and things like that, I have to try quite
hard to find species that we know exist and are around. Yeah.
So you know, like I went out on Sunday looking
for bar nows and it took me a lot of
time in an area that I know they are, a
lot of walking you know, cross marshal, yeah, to find them,
you know, and I live in an area where where
we know they are, and things like that, I think
once people start saying I've had more than your encounter,
you know. So like there is somebody in Cumbria who
literally seems sounds like she can't walk out of her
front door about tripping over a big cat, but she's
got no evidence, you know. And that's where my frustration
kicks in, is like, well, I'm sorry if this is
happening as often as you say it is. Invest in
the trail camera, you know, you know, you have you know,
a phone set up, you be ready for it kind
of thing. But and again I think when you know that,
like you know two different people but they're both friends
you know from North Wales who they've been documenting or
you know, uh, gone onto a podcast to discuss this,
these dogma encounters, if they're having them in encountering them
readily regularly. Again my my slight challenge, and I don't
really apologize for it would be great and great to
document it.
Speaker 2: You know, well, yes, but what are they what are
they saying? Why haven't did Vic ask them that, like, oh,
well we have people that we can send out to
you to investigate and they can put on trill camps.
Speaker 1: He didn't offer that. I mean I think he did
say what did What would you say to someone who says,
you know, you should have got your camera out and
things like that. Yeah, And I do understand, I mean
in that in that moment, you don't always think no,
you do not. I think yeah. I mean but if
it's plenty of sorry, plenty of encounters were gone, yeah yeah,
oh just enjoyed it, you know.
Speaker 2: But if it's ongoing, though, that's when the questions come in,
you know, and you could at least try And we
do know that a lot of times, whether it's big
for or dog man or anything, sometimes you put up
the cameras and then the activity either wanes or it
stops altogether. But at least you can say, well, I
did put that.
Speaker 1: And I think that was the case as well, is
that I think some of their obviously some of their
experiences were a little time apart. I'm not saying it
was happening time, but one of them, one of the
witnesses and their encounters, this was something they were encountering
quite regularly that you know, it was walking around their building,
they were seeing it through windows, they were you know
to the point where you know, her and her daughter
were experiencing it. You know, there were and I was
just like, it sounds horrifying, and I totally get what
you're scared and all of that. You know, who wouldn't be,
But surely after the third or fourth time, you would go, Okay,
I'm going to you know, people are going to laugh
at me. I'm going to I'm going to prove these
things there, you know, yeah sort of.
Speaker 2: Thing that's true. Even after just maybe they told their
friends or their family members and they were getting maybe
laughed at, you go, you know what, screw you. I'm
that's pissing me off because I am actually seeing this thing,
you know, and it would be horrifying.
Speaker 1: By the way, Yeah, no, I totally look as I say.
I mean, you know, I grew up watching werewolf movies.
And certainly, like everybody, I watched Bad Mood and was like,
that's probably the most horrifying werewolf I've ever seen. Thanks,
you know, so you know, you have to be a
certain age being traumatized by some of those movies. But
but yeah, yeah, you know, nobody, I'm not I'm going
to the first say that. I'm sure if I saw
it the first time, you know, it would be you know,
as Deadpool puts it, a brown underwear moment.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and you wouldn't be thinking, oh, let me get
this for the GRAM. No, you're not going to be
thinking that. You're going I just saw a freaking monster
and I shot myself.
Speaker 1: Absolutely. But I think when some of these people you
know who have come on and they again they sound
very genuine, but I just question that aspect of they're
getting repeated encounters and that you know, and they are.
If you look at the comments that some of these
encounters get and things like that, they're obviously getting questions
and you know, derided to a certain point. I would
That's where I would say, you know, throw it open.
I'll come up and try and document them, or you
know something, we're going to get all sorts of invites after.
Speaker 2: This and now and care for what do you wish for?
Speaker 1: Maybe I don't really want to.
Speaker 4: Yes, you do.
Speaker 2: I'm with you. I'm right there with you. I'm like,
even if I did need to change my pants, sometimes
I want to see these.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So yeah, that's where when it comes to it,
As I said, I'm really I don't ever want to
dismiss it with unless it's really obvious they're dying or
and again the other thing that obviously comes into his
mental health problems. But you know, but at the same time,
I don't want to dismiss anyone's accounts. But do you ask,
you know, for perhaps they open it up and not,
as I say, you know, try and document these thingness
because you don't want people to be derided. Do we want,
you know, particularly yourself and others in the situation you are,
You want the subject to be taken seriously. And there's
so much nonsense that goes on in the community that
actually it's really easy for this to be poo pooed
and you know, dismissed. So you know, stuff like this
is happening. Let's get our act together, you know, And
it is twenty twenty six, and even though I can't
get my internet to work most of the time. You know,
it would be great if, you know, if we could
get our phones out for some of these things. But
I do know, I do understand what would you what
it's like in the moment and things like that.
Speaker 2: But okay, so then let's let's put this out out there,
Luke for you, because since you are in that area,
you I would assume you're in driving distance to a
lot of interesting areas.
Speaker 1: I think that's the enjoy of the UK. I've normally
in driving distances most places, and certainly within a day.
Speaker 2: So yeah, well, what did you want to put out
a way? Do you have a way to contact you
in your blog or something if somebody did have a
way to fite you out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so any of the socials, black Beast Books or yeah,
the email is Luke at Blackbeastbooks dot co dot uk.
But if you go on the blog or anything like
that or any of my socials, the emails on their
message me on the platforms again, so again if you
look at Black Beast Books on socials.
Speaker 2: I mean we may as well put that out there
right as well, invite Luke out to your area. He
does research this stuff. He doesn't just write about it.
He writes about it because he researches this stuff. So
get in touch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, but yeah, that is the vicious Yeah yeah,
like I said, like I said, you know, one of
the things in my current work in progress predatory nature. Again,
I think one of the reasons we see a lot
of black cats in the UK is because there was
this predilection in you know, to get black leopards from
the Malaysian the Malaysian Peninsula, which happens to have this
huge density of melanistic leopards, you know, you know, very uncharacteristically,
something like ninety center of the population of the Malaybor
Ninsula are melanistic, particularly south of the specific region. But yeah, there, yeah,
so that we got a lot of our you know,
our initial stock from there when they were being brought
through here at Harrod's and things like that. So and
also again they tended to be as a subspecies, they
are a little bit smaller than you know, your typical
African leopards and things. So I mean, I think I
sent you pictures of the leopards I've seen in Africa,
which are quite quite chunky, you know, whereas the Malaysian
leopards are a lot smaller, a little bit more sleeker,
you know, so again that made them popular because people
thought they were more manageable.
Speaker 2: So, Luke, is that is that Book four Thomas Walker.
Book four is Predatory Nature?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, Thomas Walker book for us is currently in progress.
Speaker 2: Yay, are right? And it was what is called Predator
for our nature? You've settled on that it is?
Speaker 1: Yeah, that's what It's cool.
Speaker 2: Oh I love it, Mike Drop, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: This is a is a go big, go home novel?
Speaker 2: Is it really?
Speaker 1: We do turn it up? I do turn it up
to eleven.
Speaker 5: So this is.
Speaker 2: That is so odd. I'm excited.
Speaker 1: I'm enjoying writing it.
Speaker 2: So oh how wonderful? Yeah, because I wanted to say,
I mean, since we're still talking about the big cats
and everything. Book one was Shadow Beast, Book two, Daughters
of the Darkness, Book three Phantom Beast, and now Predatory Nature,
and that of course follows Thomas Walker. He was a
previously he's a former hunter and then a biologist or
a wildlife specialist or something, right.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly right, so yeah, yeah, yeah, former game guide
and hunter turned conservationist, you know, after a tragedy in
his life, retired to Scotland where he grew up and
then encountered the big Hat phenomenon, you know, in the UK. Obviously,
you know, I used fiction to make it something entirely monstrous,
but in pregnatory Nature you do get the full story
of where they've come from, what they are and so forth.
Speaker 2: So yeah, that is amazing. And of course I can't
talk to you without bringing up the Tsavo Lions, because
that's a that's a shared love of both of ours,
is the story of those incredibly vicious lions in Africa.
Speaker 1: And of course with you recently been having gone to
the Film Museum. So now I'm massively jealous.
Speaker 2: I know, and I actually tagged you in that post,
not to rub it in your face, but just because
you're the I mean, you're the first one I thought
of when I was like, Luke is going to love
this that I'm standing here with these these giants.
Speaker 1: I know, I really did my eyes and I've downloaded
the press pack and yeah, yeah, I've done the whole Yeah,
I mean they are, I really have. I will I
will go to Chicago. I will I will go there.
But obviously again they've been in the news recently because
of the new discoveries that the Chicago Film Museum have
potentially found. So, you know, we now know that they
were brothers. They both came from the same mother. They're
not sure about father, but they definitely know that they
came from the same mother. They were. They do know
that they had bad dentician. We kind of knew that already,
but that they knew that they had that bad dentician.
One of them in particular had basically a hollow canine tooth.
But again that's you know, they've they've been able to
take samples from that tooth, and they found this plug
of human hair which had been massively compacted. You know,
I think there was Josh Gates found this on Expedition Unknown.
I think it was a recent episode of that that
they had it on. I haven't reached out to the
Chicago Field Museum and if there's anything else they can
release about it, but they haven't got back to me.
They have in the past, so I'm sure they will,
but yeah, they haven't got back to me yet. But yeah,
so and again they've been able to identify this plug
of human hair, so verifying potentially how many human victims
they have, which has always been a bone of contention,
no pun intended, Yeah, because you know, people have always
dismissed it and said, oh, it was around thirty five.
Whereas you know Colonel Patterson, you know, he he in
his book, you know, The Man Eaters a Sava, he
says it was around one hundred and thirty five. And
I think two male lions over the course of ten months.
One hundred and thirty five sounds right, you know, yeah.
Speaker 2: It really does, Yeah, it does.
Speaker 1: That's roughly it's roughly one and a half to two
people each, yeah, per week, which a lion would need
to know easily need to sustain itself.
Speaker 2: You know, that sounds about right. And yeah, it was
so humbling to be standing there in front of them
after I've been waiting to see them. And I had
been in Chicago prior to this years ago and didn't
go to the Field Museum, and I always regretted it,
and I mean, I know, is there. Of course a
wonderful trip filming for on the trill Ufo season two,
but finally seeing the Tsavo lions was one of the
ultimate highlights, not just that trip but just it always
a bucket list item for me, So it made me
very happy to see them. Very dark story, of course,
it's not for great reasons that they are behind the
glass and they have the very famous movie attached to
them with Val Kilmer Michael Douglas. But yeah, I love
to see them. Okay, So let's shift gears and go
a little ghosty time now. So you this is a
place that you say you walk all the time, and
it's called blue Bell Hill. So what's going on at
blue Bell Hill? Yeah?
Speaker 1: So, I mean I lived about two and a half
miles from Bluebell Hill. It is literally a straight shot
straight up the road onto the North Downs for me.
So yeah, blue Bell Hill. Again, it's one of those
places where it's just steeped in this legend of particular hauntings.
In particular, it is a woman in white story. So
it's linked to the story of in the nineteen sixties,
a bride on her way to our wedding, well, you know,
in her in the white dress, you know, the whole
hulker bodle, you know, was involved unfortunately in a tragic
you know, fatal accident. Uh. And the story goes that
regularly people see a bride in a bridal gown, flagging
people down, you know, asking for a lift to her wedding. Uh,
and you know, they get stories go as far as
her getting in the car and then you know, and
then when people get down to you know, the bottom
of the hill to Maidstone, and they turn around and
the woman has fully disappeared, So she's not appearing to
them as a misty, translucent figure. They they're seeing it
as a you know, fully corporeal sort of figure. You
know that they can't tell us ghostly until to our words.
But yeah, so it's nineteen six just yeah, sorry, fascinating
for anyone actually watching a video. But a man now
reading from a notebook.
Speaker 2: But I have my notes too, don't you worry about that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was nineteen sixty five, twenty third of November
nineteen sixty to Maidstone Gazette. Girls die in wedding eve smash.
But that newspaper is fake, oh so so yeah, so
it's widely distributed across the you know, across the internet,
and it's the story for everybody quotes. But that newspaper
never exists. It did exist, but it existed in did
you do basically late eighteen hundreds.
Speaker 2: So you're saying, it's a tulpa. Is what you're saying.
Let's just we're going to explain it away with another mystery.
It's a tulpa.
Speaker 1: Know, I'm open to anything because people's Yeah. Absolutely one
of my favorite xyle episodes. Yeah yeah, but yeah, so yeah,
multiple reports of a woman running out in front of
the cars and locking eyes before she's hit and then vanished.
Speaker 2: Yeah, jerk, I mean, talk about traumatizing people. And you
have phantom hitchhiker and lady in white rolled into one.
Speaker 6: You know, that's really yeah yeah, yeah, So the probably
the most so the alleged accident happened in nineteen sixty five,
but as I say, that report seems to be false.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but sightings pretty much began in Earnest in nineteen
sixty seven when people were reporting, particularly this figure that
ran out from the curb side and you know, got hit,
you know, or vanished before as just as the car approached.
Probably the most famous one is Maurice Goodenborough from nineteen
seventy four. He says he hit a girl with a
hell of a bang. So his car was going down
the hill, you know, he was going to he you know,
he hit. This girl was really worried. Stop the car
got out, she said she was there. He covered her
in a blanket. But then this is where it's a
bit odd. He didn't take her. He left her. He
went to Rochester Police and said, I think I've hit somebody.
I need help. We of course, when they got back,
nobody was there. I find it very odd for he
hit somebody and just then abandoned them and went to
get to the police from a town which is, you know,
four miles away, you know. So but that that that again,
that that one actually did make a real newspaper.
Speaker 2: Maybe he had just cleaned the car luke, you know,
he just vacuumed and the seeds are clean. He didn't
want to get any blood on the seats, so that's why.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And then there's Paul Toder, who was a member
of the ambulance of an ambulance crew and he says
that in nineteen seventy four he was driving up Bluebell Hill,
so sounds like he was going towards Rochester and stopped
to give a lift to a woman in a wedding dress.
And when he stopped to let her out, she wasn't there.
But yeah, I mean, I've heard multiple you know sort
of accounts from Bluebell and again it's one of these
just cownormal hotspots in the it gets, it has these
ghostly apparitions. I've heard a friend of mine. It's always
a friend of a friend, isn't it. But a friend
of mine has friends who are very well to do,
very normal, you know, they don't go into this sort
of sort of stuff normally. But they reported having a
carriage and horses go across Bluebell Hill, you know, and
they having to stop and slam the brakes on. There's
reports of a phantom train or being able to hear
the whistle of a phantom train, a steam train. That
one I'm always a bit a bit sort of you know,
skeptical of because there are lots of steam trains in
this area.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you're like, there are running trains.
Speaker 1: Running seam trains. Yeah. Yeah, so one goes along the
back of where he lives. So it wouldn't be outrageous
to hear a steam whistle. No, so yeah that would.
But also again there is a beast of Bluebell Hill there.
You know, it's there's, there's and it's not it's and
you've got all of these beasts you know, uh, you know,
alphabetically inclined, you know, and so yeah, there was always
there's always the bees.
Speaker 2: It really is, it really is, and more and Bluebell exactly.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it's it's one of these places where stories
just seem to gather really, you know, and folklore and
you know sort of kinds of clues. And I do
wonder if that is something sort of again in our
sort of collective history, you know, because it's one of
the highest points in the areas. We know that there
are stone age and you know, early encampments there, there
are burial mounds and burial grounds there.
Speaker 2: Now this beast, Bluebell is a cat, it's a big cats.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So yeah, but again meets the black sort of
the black panther types.
Speaker 2: Yeah, oh that's cool. Well that's an active area.
Speaker 1: Yeah. But again there's a country park at the top
of the Bluebell Hill. There's woodland, there's ruins, you know,
there's an ruins of an abbey and you know, so
so again there's there's these large hugely you know, the
North Downs Way goes for fifty miles you know sort
of you know, from the coast, you know, through into Surrey,
and Sussex, you know, so there's a lot of countryside
up there too, you know, for these potential things to
spend time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, go see the dog man in the in the
ruined abbey right.
Speaker 1: Very quickly, because I whilst we were talking about big
cats still just going because one of the things that
sometimes people say is that there's no you know if
because obviously there isn't a country in the world that
has big cats that hasn't had and human predation, you know,
so sooner or later, unfortunately, these things, you know, you know,
will we'll have a shot at taking a human, whether
it's a kid or something like that. And I just
wanted to say that there was a report not too
long ago, and they never released the woman's name, so
it's really difficult to track her down. But there was
a fifty five year old woman whose vehicle had broken
down near Monkton in Ayrshire, so again back in Scotland,
and she phoned you know, the breakdown service she reported
that she was she had broken down. Her body was
found almost a mile away from the car and it
looked that she had basically left the car in this
layby and had gone into local sort of woodland and scrubland.
There were some reports that she was running that she
I don't know how much of that is exaggerated, you know. Again,
there's so few details of this, but what is detailed,
and it is reported clearly in the Corners report, is
that she had been fed on by wildlife, so she
had been partially consumed. And again, what's really interesting about
that is that they've put it down to foxes and badgers,
and I find that very difficult to believe. Yeah, I work,
I've worked directly with red foxes, you know. I was
a volunteer with her Wildlife Rescue Service, which specialized in foxes,
and to just get near the things, even when they're
wounded or injured. You know, they're very skittish around us,
you know. And I think for any of our local
wildlife which has this inert fear of humans, she would
have had to be there a very long time. And
she wasn't there a very long time, you know, because
I think, you know, for a human body to be
there and animals to investigate, I think she would have
had to be there a very long time before they
felt that, you know, okay enough to sort of to approach.
But yeah, that's a long one. And I do know
that Jonathan McGowan, who does a lot of big cat
research down in the Southwest, he there's a historical case
of a woman who allegedly committed suicide which he thinks
may have been a big cat attack that they covered up.
So I don't know if he's changed his mind. It's
been a little while, you know, it's been a couple
of years since I've been able to speak to Jonathan.
But again a Big Cat in Britain conference, he did
talk about this.
Speaker 2: Wow that so she that she got attacked and killed
by a cat, but they made it look like she
committed suicide.
Speaker 1: That was that was what the story was being suggested
at the time. And as I said, I've never heard
anything more on that, but it was it was something
that Jonathan brought up at the time, which would have
probably been twenty twelve, I think.
Speaker 2: So the thought would be that she decided to just
go on a walk about and dive from the elements
and then that was the suicide part. But then actually
they then they're saying the cat after.
Speaker 1: From why I gather and what I remember, the reason
why the suicide was questioned is because there was no note,
There was no history of you know, mental upset. You know,
it couldn't be clearly put down. Why why there would
be why she would have done this, you know, And
again there's easier ways than just leaving yourself, you know,
open to the elements. So yeah, there was there was that.
But I also seem to remember and I must actually
try and clarify it. Actually, I'll try and reach out
to Jonathan and see if he remembers anything. But I
seem to recall that they didn't let the family have
like a see the body or something like that. There
was there was reasons why he thought it was suspicious,
but I can't remember exactly. But as I say, the
one that was recent was in Scotland and that definitely
had signs of consumption and that and that was a
really interesting because that's that never happens in the UK.
You know, people just aren't found with signs of predation.
You know, we don't have any natural predators here, yeah,
big enough to and again our wildlife foxes and badgers
are so skittish. I just have a hard time imagining them,
you know, you know, just going up to a human,
even a deceased human, and chowing down.
Speaker 2: So yeah, it wouldn't be a nice way to go
as long as I'm already gone, and you can have
a snack after that, you know that, please after I
am gone.
Speaker 1: Yeah all right, so yeah, sorry, As I said, the Southeast,
you know, it is a bit of a hotspot for
all of these kinds of things, you know. You know,
going back to hauntings, the most haunted village in the
UK isn't too far from me, you know. So Plucky
which is in the Guinness Book of Records as being
England's most haunted village, is about ten miles away.
Speaker 2: So yeah, well yeah, tell us what's going on in
Pluckly So.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so it's the most haunted village in England. It's
appeared on things like toup Gear and the Grand Tour
because they spent a night in the Screaming Woods of Daring,
you know, quite famously.
Speaker 2: So.
Speaker 1: But the Screaming Woods, which is again it's a place
I go wildlife watching all the time. It's a really
good bird reserve, you know. Yeah, so I go there
all the time. But it just happens to have, you know,
this this paralormal reputation as well. But in Daring Woods,
which is just outside of Pluckley. It's known as the
Screaming Woods because people report hearing whispers, unearthly voices, and
horrifying screams. You know. You know that really sort of
put the chills down down the steins again as a
wildlife is used. I tend to whenever I hear people
in woods or near buildings and they hear unearthly screams,
my my, my, my, my, my, My gut instinct is
bar now they've heard a barn out, because if you've
ever heard of bar now, it is not you know.
We've got towny ours here, which are the typical twits
to you know. They make the lovely call that we
will know or associate with ours, which has actually a
male and a female calling to each other. So the
quick or the twit is the female and is the male,
you know, so so yeah, but barn ours, unfortunately, are
not gifted with that beautiful call. They are gifted with
this godly scream which sounds if.
Speaker 2: You're sorry, no go ahead, Yeah.
Speaker 1: It's horrible. It does sound like a woman died. It's horrible,
you know, I don't I think. Yeah, barn ows in
the US don't they.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've never seen one, but yeah.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah so that yeah, but they make horrific noes.
But so I tend to think barn ows when people
say they're in the woods and they here with horrible noises.
But again, Pluckley, has I think it's thirteen or it's
between thirteen and seventeen official ghosts?
Speaker 7: Good nis Okay, so yes, okay, So without before we
go to some of those ghosts, going back to the screaming,
So if we take the.
Speaker 2: Probably legit explanation out of the owls, what what then
is the legend or the lore with the screaming that
people here? Are they saying that that is? You know,
is there a story attached to that of a woman
being murdered or something of that nature.
Speaker 1: Yes, So this isn't my area of expertise. If there
are any sort of UK ghost sort of expertsy, if
I get any of this wrong, this is your opportunity
to get in touch with shadow and and and say
do what I did with Paul and say no that's
not right. Yeah, yeah, yeah, just say just to say.
But so, from as far as I'm aware, Darren Woods
itself doesn't have any specific legends other than the attached
legend from the church, which is Lady Darren is walking
the woods looking for her lost child, but that that
legend is actually attached to the Syncholas's Church in Pluckley.
So I'm just going to turn the light on and
no problem.
Speaker 2: It's always so many tragic stories, you know. It's a
woman that her husband or her fiance was killed the
day of the wedding, or the woman looking for her
last child. These you know, heart wrenching.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, Lady Dering, who was also known as the
Red Lady, she was buried in several leadlined coffins, clutching
a red rose, and she is apparently searching for her
non baptized baby who who couldn't be buried in the
in the daring vault in Saint Nicholas's Church. Yeah so,
but yeah, so she was apparently buried in these lead
lined several lead lined coffins, which suggests the body was
split up to try and keep the spirit contained. But yes, so,
and she walks the graveyard and also allegedly daring woods
and apparently she could be seen as a light flickering
in the chapel, or an orb or as a full apparition.
So yeah, and again the church itself has some really
interesting sort of that sort of weird experience, almost fun
you know experiences. So like a bunch of ghost sort
of hunters camped out at the church and just to
see if I've got it here. I don't think I did, no,
but they camped out of the church and they were
speaking to the local reverence the next morning and they said, now,
we didn't really find anything.
Speaker 3: But.
Speaker 1: You know, we were a bit annoyed that you let
your dog out, and it was it was wonking in
and you know, walking in and out of the church
all night, which the brethren said, I don't have a dog, Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And what's funny is that one of the lanes of
Pluckley is haunted by footsteps and the sound of a
dog meant to be a Springer Spaniel walking along with
his master, And you can be walking along the lane
and it feels like they're coming right up behind you
and people turn around expecting to see someone, and of
course nobody is there. So it's funny that there is
a dog ghost sort of associated with Pluckley. And they
reported seeing a ghost, but again they would have probably
known the history. So but yeah, then there's not to
be outdone. There is also the White Lady of Daring
who again is seen in the graveyard. Oh so, going
back to the screaming woods of Plucky Dringwood, the devil
himself is said to jump out of a bush in Dringwood.
So yeah, you might be surprised by the devil on
a jaunt to daring Wood. So and then what's interesting
is how folklore can kind of merge with real life events.
So one of the stories is about Dickie Laurel's Road,
which is about sometimes on certain nights the ghost of
a schoolmaster could be seen hanging from the trees because
he hung himself. But actually this goes back to a
suicide that was actually a real suicide that happened in Smarden,
which is a nearby village, and he wasn't a schoolmaster,
but there was a schoolmaster who committed suicide. He didn't
hang himself. So it's interesting about how these sort of
these stories kind of you merge and become one and
then you get these sort of legends. Then we've got
the legend of Grace and rose Court. So Great Stones
has a legend of which these are both buildings, impluctly,
and they're private buildings, I should say, So it's not
like you can just rock up and knock on the
door and say, you know, I'd like to see your
ghost please. But Great Stones has a phantom monk, and
then rose Court has the ghost of a young lady
called Mary Anne Bennett, and it's thought that the two
were involved in some kind of love affair and because
it was not allowed or forbidden, they were kind of
the Romeo and Juliet of their time. And you know,
she actually overdosed on opium in eighteen sixty two, and
we don't know how the monk potentially died, but it's
thought that they're linked and they're both basically looking for
each other, but a sort of unfortunately restricted to their
their their two properties which are along the same road,
but for whatever reason they're landlocked as.
Speaker 2: Such, so they can never find each other for eternity exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, And again this is where that story of the
lap dog comes in, because she had a dog. So yeah,
so this, Yeah, then there's the screaming Man, so not
the screaming in plucky.
Speaker 2: Yeah, what's going on in pluckly Man?
Speaker 1: And this is a documented accident that happened the brickworks
in Pluckley, which was so when they were excavating clay
manually as they did, and this was eighteen ninety nine
where Richard Brichland unfortunately was a laborer who was crushed
and killed by a collapsing bank of clay. So yeah,
so he's Uh. Then we've got probably my favorite location
in Pluckley, which is Fright Corner, you know, which which
has the screaming man, so uh, has a phantom coaching horses,
and but it also has a highwayman who hid in
the oak tree and you can go. The oak tree
still there, so you can go and see it. Uh.
And uh, it's said that his execution has re enacted,
you know, at night, you know. So I don't know
if people, you know, if you if you're a stone taped,
fiery person or you know, the sort of but you know,
his execution, his discovery and execution is played out on
particularly nights of the full moon and when it's clear
and around about midnight. I believe we don't have the
water crested Woman at the same place, who was a
woman called Sarah Sharp who would sell watercress, you know,
by the roadside and she fell asleep with a lit
pipe in her mouth and burned to death. And again
this is a real documented case. We know it happened,
but she said to haunt on the same area. And
then we have got the black ghost of the Miller,
who is associated very strongly in the area with thunderstorms.
And again, like others in Pluckley, he seems love lorm.
He's looking for a lost love. Yeah, and yeah, there
is a park Wood which is there is a certain
park footpath where all the locals refuse to go. And
again this is the actual site of the person who
did hang himself, which was a colonel. And again he
can he can be seen to step out from the
path or could be seen hanging. You know. To the point,
as I say, we're local, this is the one of
all the others. They're kind of romanticized and they don't
mind you're talking about. This is the one where even
the locals go, you know, it's a big nope for them,
and they don't. Actually, if you go to the path,
it's really quite overgrown. But I mean I've had my
own experiences. Again in Pluckly, I'd say there's a pub
called the Black Horse, and I went down there for
basically a ghost watch. Yeah, and I went completely as
a skeptic, if you know, if I'm being being honest, Yeah,
I think i'd probably recently seen red light or you know,
and I was determined to be be Shagauni Weaver and
prove that it was all nonsense and you know, and
then came away sort of terrified. So but yeah, it
was a that we basically went down there and two
things of note happened. So one of the things we
were doing was we were sat at a table and
we were using it wasn't a weigy board, but we
were using you know, a yes no kind of you know,
uh indicator, And we got into a conversation with a
spirit and it was me another guy and these are
all members of the public. Yeah, it's been hosted to
my by by hosts, but we were all general members
of the public and got into this conversation with this
alleged spirit who was a known murderer of women. He
didn't like women, you know, and there was we were
talking to him, and suddenly that the you know, the
people who were facilitating it, they got very serious and
came over to the table because they realized who they
thought we were talking to, and they said, this, the
spirit you're talking to is very dangerous. We want to
be here, you know, sober. And I'm going, okay, and
I'm looking under the table for magnets, and you know,
because there was quite violent movement, you know, of the silas.
And I was asking you questions like, you know, are
you annoyed? You know, are you speaking to me because
you know I'm skeptical and you want to prove something,
And it came back with this really emphatic yes, you know,
you know, And then I can't quite remember anything else
I was asking it. But when what happened was there
was a woman in the party who just took an
interest in the conversation and she was within a couple
of minutes she was violently sick and was thrown up
against the wall. Yeah. Now again, I'm not dismissing for
a second that this could have all been organized with
actors and it was a show that they put on
for us and we didn't know any better. And I'm
absolutely open to that possibility, you know, but it didn't
seem so if actually, you know, and we were in
a pub, she definitely had had something to drink. I
don't think she'd had enough to drink to be ill,
you know, And she seemed generally terrified about what had happened.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 1: And then the other aspect that we did is that
we went up into the attic, which is famous because
the attic is famous for polticast activity, and there was
lots of people who well what a woman screamed because
she thought her hair had been pulled. I definitely felt
something pushed me in the back and there was nobody
behind me, you know. So it was one of those
things that was just a lot of unexplained things happened.
And again they took it really seriously about before we
left saging us making sure that we were protected and
that we didn't take anything home with us, which I
know is one of those things that a lot of
them do. And I'm not, as I say, I'm still
open to the fact that it could have all just
been a play and a very enjoyable entertainment. But if
it was, it was exceptionally well done, you know. And
as I say, they did, they all seemed like genuine members.
They just weren't good enough to be actors. Really. They
were just normal members of the public, so if we
were called, they'd look good on them. They did well.
Speaker 2: Now I realized this is a pub, so you go
there to spend money, but it then do you have
to pay extra to be able to use, you know,
any kind of ghost implements.
Speaker 1: So this took place after hours, so it took place
after the public closed and it was all night, so
I think this was happening around about three o'clock in
the morning, you know. But yes, it was a paid
you know, you paid as a guest to go to
go along as such. So again it was it was
hosted by a group, a ghost watching group. And but they,
as I say, they seemed very genuine.
Speaker 2: Well, and that said, so many things have to go right,
especially if you have an actual you have a person
that gets sick and then thrown into a wall. I
don't know aho lot of people that can pull off
throwing themselves into walls where you kind of buy that.
Speaker 1: I mean I just remember looking and seeing her gun.
Speaker 8: Wow.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and she went backwards, you know, so there was
a door to her left as well, so there could
have been something that was attached to her and they
get her back of things like that, but again she
just wasn't in her right mind. She had had a drink.
There was food, you know, they put on food for
us and things like that. So that's why you paid
to a certain extent, because you were you know you were,
but and again she just wasn't she was an actor.
She wasn't very good for the rest of the night
as such. You know.
Speaker 2: Well, and you can really if they were doing those
kinds of things and were that committed to hoaxing, you
could really hurt somebody. So it sounds like that was
not what was going on.
Speaker 1: No, that's what and that's what I mean. And also
it is the UK, and I don't mean that nasty,
but it's kind of a hocky little village in Kent.
The likelihood of us getting Hollywood level effects and you know,
for a couple of quid entry seems Yeah, it seems
really unlikely.
Speaker 2: So then you went in as a skeptic. Did you
come out going, oh, well, maybe maybe maybe this place
is handed, maybe these are the places are And I.
Speaker 1: Think since then, like so, one of the things that's
weird about the pub is that it's never successful. It's
it's on its third ownership since I've lived in the area,
and like the last people who had it, they turned
it into a beautiful gastrop hub. They allegedly had it cleansed,
you know, had it, you know, exercised as such, and
they had two Rottwilers, you know. They weren't mucking around,
you know, you know, and it was we ate there.
It was really nice, you know, they were they weren't
interested in the spooky side at all. And they left
because they said they couldn't hack it.
Speaker 2: So that's interesting. So that's called the Black Horse Pub.
Go there, go visit them, make them successful. But so
they turned it into a gastropub, which means that they
probably or maybe every owner did this. But obviously they
did some remodeling. It sounds like they maybe updated and
modernized it. So maybe whatever's there going, Hey the hell
are you doing in my pub?
Speaker 1: I think that's the case. And again it's relatively new
being taken over, and I've seen on Facebook the new
owner is saying, I'm hearing weird things. I've seen something,
you know, And again I don't know if she's dialing
it out to eleven, because you know she's yeah, but
she's an experienced landlord. She's been a landlord of the
pub many times. Yeah, And lots of pubs in the
area old you know, we're all sort of sixteenth centray pubs,
so they've all got these kind of legends. But the
black Horse does seem to have a particular concentration.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: What a cool name to the black Horse pub That
is very UK style. Yeah, if she wanted to come on,
I would love to start her.
Speaker 1: It's not quite the Slaughtered Land.
Speaker 2: But yeah, close enough, though probably it probably doesn't beware
the moors.
Speaker 4: You know, the.
Speaker 2: Patrons are telling you where the woods beware the moors.
You like all of us over here, like, what the
hell is the more?
Speaker 6: Let me google that anymore?
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, I.
Speaker 2: Don't know what the Moore is, but I'm going to
google the hell out of it.
Speaker 1: Absolutely Yeah.
Speaker 2: Well, uh luke, before I allege you go once again,
let everybody know where to find you the blog, all
your socials, and of course where to find your books.
And because they have some time to get caught up
on Thomas Walker's journey before Predatory Nature turns up.
Speaker 1: Absolutely so yeah, well let's start there. That's very kind.
So all of my books are on Amazon So if
you go to Amazon and look for me Luke Phillips,
Shadow Beast, Daughters of the Darkness, Fantom Beast are all
on there. They're all about big cats. As I said,
So Shadow Beast takes place in Scotland and it's very
much based you know, looks at the you know, in
a way looks at the big cat phenomenon in the UK.
But as I say, it is to a certain extent
of Assac Park but with big cats. So you know,
the Daughter of the Darkness really does look at the
historical legacy of you know, the Ghost and the dark
still like Man Eatersusavo, and so we really look you know,
we really look at that. And again I've neither actually
been to Kenya. I've been to Zimbabwe and Zambia and
Bartswana and Namibia, but I've never been to Kenya and
I must go. But we really look at the I
do look at the historical account. I'm you know, I
throw aspersions on Colonel Patterson and how he did things,
and you know, you know, I questioned that you know,
some of the DNA results and things like that. So
that's all part of the fiction. But it's about the
potential modern day legacy of the lions in that area.
And then Phantom Beast goes back to the sort of
the Jurassic Park but cats kind of thing, and but
that takes place in the USA and Wyoming, so that
might might be a good one to look at. And
then of course there is Rogue, which is the Bigfoot novel,
which is very much my love letter to Bigfoot horror,
you know. So there's there's lots of Easter eggs in there,
you know, from the dates of the passing given in
film to you know, the horror movies. You know, there's
a nod of the head to Knighted the Demon and
a few other you know, sort of horror films of
the time. And but again it's written, all of these
are written with a basis of animal behavior, so that
you'll always see the animal's point of view, and there's
real life zoology at their core, you know, why they
can do these things. There's always a real world sort
of scenario or bridge to the behavior as such. So yeah, uh,
And as I say, Prejudatory Nature will hopefully be out
later this year, which is book four in the Beast series.
But I'm on Instagram and Facebook as at Black Beast Books.
I'm on YouTube. YouTube is releively new to me, but
I'm on YouTube as Beasts and Boogi Beasts and Boogeymen
and and the blog is Black Beasts and Boogymen dot com.
So yeah, that's everything excellent.
Speaker 2: Well, I always love catching up with you, Luke, And
once Predatory Nature comes out, I'm sure by then there'll
be other videos and strange cat sightings or and what
we know are legit cat sightings now of course, but
the UK doesn't like to say that, but there'll be
more cat sightings, we can talk about more haunted locations,
I'm sure by then. So you are welcome back once
Predatory Nature comes out, because I love catching up with you, no,
I was.
Speaker 1: Saying, And as you know, I'm going down a real
rabbit hole at the moment with these unexplained predatory killings
in the US and elsewhere, so you know, yeah, we
can talk about those next time. You know, some of
these i'm unresolved mysteries when it comes to sort of
mysterious predators that have killed you unfortunately kids and things
like that, you know, so yeah, yeah, that's the same.
That's a real new rabbit hole for me. In but yeah,
it's one of those things. Once she's unturned some stones
and what you start discovering, it's it's yeah, it's a
bit grim really so.
Speaker 2: Yeah, then it's like Alice tumbling down the rabbit hole
that she did not intend to stumble down. And yeah, yeah,
that stuff gets real dark. But yeah, Luke, thank you
so much. It was so great to catch up with
you again.
Speaker 1: You too, thank.
Speaker 3: Well.
Speaker 1: I'm so so. I was given the snap by my
parents business. I out of college. I've done these things
in my profession.
Speaker 9: I produce a little bag.
Speaker 1: But it forgetting that's someone her story. That's all gone,
that's all past.
Speaker 4: See them million who are now?
Speaker 6: Nobody knows what their.
Speaker 1: Because we don't know except for listening to worry.
Speaker 4: And so they are memos.
Speaker 1: But that's a really and then again leads us fascinating
to this question.
Speaker 4: Who are you that is?
Speaker 9: I mean, we shall see how they play with.
Speaker 1: The success will buy the cops to get you to
come out of your show.
Speaker 4: And find out it be really old stutsps.
Speaker 8: Puss Puss.
Speaker 1: For example, are quite divided on us.
Speaker 9: They will say, no, we don't believe literally in reincarnation
that after your funeral grow, you will sadly become suddenly different,
there being somewhere else.
Speaker 1: They will say.
Speaker 9: Reincarnation means this that if you sitting here now are
really convinced.
Speaker 1: That you're the same.
Speaker 5: Person the funding at the door half an hour ago,
you'll be incarnated if you are liberating the.
Speaker 4: Fans now that you're none.
Speaker 1: The past hasn't been.
Speaker 4: Test, the future hasn't existence.
Speaker 1: There is only the present.
Speaker 5: That's the only amenia.
Speaker 1: That is the zen master. Don't get apace.
Speaker 4: The strings.
Speaker 1: Because there is some ans.
Speaker 5: Mass pss pss pss pss.
Speaker 9: Same point is where he says, when you settle down
in the train and to read your newspaper, and.
Speaker 4: So you're not the same person.
Speaker 1: At a while ago and living the plan.
Speaker 9: If you think you are, you are linking your movements
up in the change. And this is what binds is
we both there when you know that every moment which
you are is the only moment. This concins there. And
the last will say to.
Speaker 1: Somebody, I can I have a book across the room
and it can.
Speaker 9: Be back, And he says, where are your foot?
Speaker 1: They've gone? So where are you?
Speaker 4: Who are you?
Speaker 1: When we are asked who we are, we usually give
a kind of recipation of an instrum stress