Transcript
A (0:00)
A six year old boy vanishes in the Smoky Mountains without a trace. And what followed was one of the largest and strangest search operations in American history. But that's just the beginning. A blood draining creature that terrorizes a North Carolina town. And finally, the Bell witch. America's most famous ghost story that might actually be a hoax. This episode is just going to be fun. We are blending legend, science and real mystery. And trust me, by the end, you will never look at the dark Appalachian woods the same. I even posed my own theory about what I think could be happening in this stretch of planet earth to cause such strange and unexplainable events. So without further ado, sit back, relax and welcome to camp.
B (0:52)
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A (1:16)
Try now@windows.com copilot what's up, people and welcome back to camp. My name is Mark Gaganon and thank you for joining me at my tent where every single week we explore the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from around the world, from all time, forever. Yes, this is my attempt to understand everything that's ever happened. Everything from history, science, math, electrophysics, philosophy, and sometimes just straight up, just fun ghost stories. All right, we did well. We did a ghost story episode last year for Halloween and I had a nice time. Skinwalkers. Skinwalkers. A lot of people like that one. A lot of people liked. A lot of people in the comments telling. See, Christos, I need you just to pipe down really fast because I completely forgot to shut you up. And the fans are gonna be mad because they've been telling me to just put a cap in it for a while. Guys, I need you to know something. I didn't sleep at all last night. My baby was up. There's baby vomit on my shirt. I had to switch my pants because there's actual fecal matter on my right thigh. And this is the only thing that gives me any life anymore. You know what? Just sitting in this freaking tent, going to camp and just being here with you guys now. That loud, obnoxious laugh is not a skinwalker. It's not some type of ghost. It is my good Friend, David Sanchez. Que pasa? Que pasa, loco? Okay. And also. Christos. How are you, pal? What's going on? So look, guys, today we're talking about one of my favorite topics. This is just going to be a good old fashioned ghost story episode, all right? I don't want you to be too stressed. I know you're like, oh, mark, the world's ending. New York is Sharia law. It's a, it's a communist. Everything's falling apart. You're Muslim now. Look, none of that matters today, okay? Because this is not the place where you're going to get political hot takes. We're not going to get the up to date facts on every little thing. There's. This is just a place for me just to. Just to, you know, just to light up, drop in, get your shit pushed in, chill out with your boys and just look at some fun stories, all right? Or maybe. I don't even know if we should make jokes like that because I had a woman reach out and say, hey, I love watching all your videos. Me and my kids listen to them in the car. So my bad. But you know what? That's the problem for a later day. We'll just cross that bridge when we get there. Guys, we're talking about Appalachia or Appalachia or however you really pronounce. I'm not even really quite positive, to be honest with you. I've heard different pronunciations. I'll probably oscillate back and forth, but we're going to be going through all of the crazy stuff that's ever happened in Appalachia. If you don't know, this is a. This is a very strange mountain range. And I'll explain to you why it's strange and what some of the most bizarre things that have ever happened in this mountain range are and what some of the explanations are. All right, we're going to get into all of that. So where do we begin? One of the stranger things, no pun intended, that has happened happened back in 1969, June 14th. There was a six year old boy named Dennis Martin who went missing. And he was playing hide and seek with one of his relatives in the Great Smoky Mountains. And before the sun goes down that evening, he's gone. And this leads to one of the biggest rescue missions the National Park Service has ever organized. Even to this day, there's never been a wider search for another child than this one. Sorry, my voice cracked. So what happened to Dennis Martin? Well, this whole thing gets pretty bizarre. The weekend was meant to Celebrate Father's Day. And the Martin family, spanning three different age groups, had trekked up to like a big grassy area called Spence Field. And this covers roughly, like, I don't know, 150, 200 acres. And it's basically where like Tennessee meets North Carolina. So Dennis goes up there with his dad William, his older brother Douglas, who's like 9 at the time, and then his grandpa Clyde. The previous day, they had walked 10 miles, starting from Cade's Cove, and they set up camp for the night in Russell Field and then completed their journey to Spence Field. When the morning came, once they actually reached the grassy clearing, they discovered another group was already there. Dr. Carter Martin and his family, who was traveling from Alabama. Now, the Martins weren't relatives to the Tennessee Martins. They just randomly and coincidentally have the same name. So around like 4 o', clock, the children are, you know, basically trying to find stuff to do and they have an idea to basically, you know, quietly, you know, creep around and try to like, scare the grown ups, okay? And the strategy is pretty straightforward. Douglas and the rest of the kids would come from one way, while Dennis would go around the opposite side and then suddenly appear and frighten them all right? However, there's an issue with the plan. Dennis has a bright red shirt that's going to show his location. So because of this, the bigger kids instruct him to take a different route by himself, going around the distant edge, the clearing where the dense sort of like plants would conceal his shirt. So William Martin kept his eyes on his son as the boy headed towards, you know, sort of like where the woods sort of open up. And his red shirt makes it pretty easy to see all of his movements. And in case you're unfamiliar with, like, the plants in this region, there's a couple. There's these laurel, these like mountain laurels, and these rhododendron plants. And they're basically like these giant, like bushy, dense pieces of vegetation. And they're pretty to look at, you know, but they're pretty difficult to get through. So roughly five minutes later, Douglas and the other carry out their roles. They, you know, bust out, they catch the adults by, by surprise, they freak out, everyone laughs. And that, you know, it's pretty successful little, little gag. Now this is where things go wrong because Dennis didn't come back and his dad, William, was staring at the same spot where he'd last spotted his son's red shirt. And he shouted his name and no one responded. He yelled even more loudly and then still no response. And so now they're getting worried and he continues to shout and. And there's still silence. The problem was that Dennis was, you know, he's a well behaved child. He always responds when his parents call him. He wasn't the kind of kid who would just like, wander away and stay hidden and try to, you know, like, scare his parents, like, you know, by making them terrified that he's gone. Like he would come back if his name's called. So William starts going to the direction of the forest, and his father, the grandfather of Dennis Clyde, starts looking in the other direction. The two Martin families are scattered through the clearing shouting Dennis's name, trying to locate him. And by 6 o' clock that evening, as the sun begins to disappear and. And the air is growing cold, everyone realizes that something is seriously wrong. Now, this is where the story kind of takes a weird turn. I'm sure, you know, some of you watching at least have probably heard about this specific missing child cage from. Or this missing child case from Appalachia, right? This is, you know, one of the most well known disappearances ever recorded, right? There's a young boy hanging with his friends and family, and the next minute he's gone. So about seven miles to the southwest area of Spence Field is an area known as Sea Branch. And there's a guy named Harold Key who is just enjoying, like, an outdoor meal with his relatives. Sometime during the period from six o' clock to like, roughly seven, you know, two hours following when Dennis actually vanished, he heard a noise that would disturb him for the rest of his life. And it was a shriek that he heard that he later described as sickening and fundamentally wrong. Those are his actual words. Now, this wasn't the sound of like a creature or like a bobcat or something or, you know, something that he had encountered in his many years of living in these mountains. This wasn't someone crying out for help. It was something different. And the cry made Harold and his family members raise their heads from eating and they look towards the forest actually begins. And just a few minutes after hearing the shriek, they witnessed something. A person came out of the trees, rushing quickly through the plants and the bushes. But this wasn't just like a regular hiker. This person's movement suggested that he was either in danger of something or chasing after something. And his looks were unsettling to the Key family. And his appearance was messy and wild. His hair hung down beyond his shoulders. His clothing was ripped up and filthy. He seemed like someone who had been surviving in the wilderness for, you know, many months and draped Across a stranger's shoulder. Harold and his family members claimed that they could see what appeared to be fabric or garments this instant. You know, this bizarre sort of man that they noticed. The Key family was watching him. And as they're watching him, he's switching directions and then rushes back into the wood and then vanishes from sight. Now, Harold Key made sure to remember the exact time. Somewhere between 6 and 7 on the evening of June 14th. Now keep in mind, this happens in 1969. And when we look at the sequence of events, Dennis Martin went missing at half past four from Spence Field. Then two hours after that event, seven miles away, Harold Key hears this terrifying scream and then observes this wild looking man carrying what seemed to be some type of fabric. Is it possible for a six year old boy to go seven miles through wild terrain by himself? Probably not. However, it is possible that someone or something maybe transported him that distance. This is what theorists will propose, but again, that's also pretty uncertain. So when the night actually arrives, Dennis's grandpa Clyde walked nine miles downhill to notify the authorities that the boy was gone. A huge storm is starting to roll in. And as he made his way down and he's, you know, this is, you have to remember this is a time before like mobile phones or Internet, so people had to actually travel to go inform the right people in organizations about, you know, an emergency. I mean, just imagine like, you know, finding missing people today is hard enough, but finding missing people in the 60s, 70s, 80s, before the Internet or before camera systems or phone pinging, anything like that, it made it insanely difficult. So when Clyde finally arrives at the ranger office, the intense rainfall had already started. Two and a half inches fell within three hours, which would basically erase any or signs that Dennis could have left behind. And what followed this event was a rescue effort unlike anything seen before. 1400 people offered to help their search through 56 square miles of these Smoky mountains to locate Dennis. Now this went on for over two weeks. Federal investigators from the FBI started to actually build cases and put files together to actually build the case. Special forces soldiers who had just returned from Vietnam came to assist the search. The rescue mission grew so enormous that it actually began damaging potential clues. Just from all of the foot traffic in the region, an overwhelming number of people were attempting to find Dennis. Now, three days after Dennis's disappearance, the search team discovered something that seemed significant. They came across small footprints in wet soil near Eagle Creek, which was multiple miles away from Spence Field. Now the footprints revealed a detail that is even stranger. One print showed a barefoot while the other displayed the design of a boy's oxford shoe in size two and a half the exact type and size that Dennis would have been wearing. Now, the trailer prints headed toward a body of water before just abruptly ending. Now, park authorities, you know, quickly rejected this clue for unclear reasons. Their explanation was that, you know, the prince had to belong to a boy scout who was a part of the search team. Since they appeared too distant from where Dennis was last spotted and, and you know, it. It seemed to be made by someone beyond 6 years old, which didn't really make much sense. And looking back now, it seems ridiculous that this would ever be ruled out. But that was what was done at the time. Now, a foreign park ranger named Dwight McCarter examined those same footprints for many years afterwards. And his conclusion was that the prints didn't match any group movement pattern. They headed away from where the searchers were actually looking at the time. Additionally, they revealed intentional movement with clear destination. Unlike, you know, the aimless walking of a confused child. They went in one singular direction. Plus, none of the young people that were helping with the search had been walking around without one shoe. Now, this creates a major inconsistency in the reasoning. Now, the authorized search operation carried on for an additional two weeks before it concluded without success. Dennis Martin was never located. Not a single piece of his clothing was ever found. And his body was never recovered. He essentially vanished from existence at, you know, half past four on June 14, 1969. What's up guys? We're gonna take a break really quick because you need help pitching your tents. Yes. And that's what we do over here at camp. Maybe you're, I don't know, in line waiting for a concert somewhere and you just need something to lean on. Who knows, Maybe you just need help pleasing the special man or woman in your life. And that's why I want to talk to you guys about Bluechew. Bluechew is the ultimate service to get you discreet supplements rate to your home. And what do these supplements do? They give you that leg, that third leg, the important one. And Bluechew is going to help you lay it down, okay? It's an amazing service that's coming straight to your door. And for the listeners of this very program, they are going to get their first month of Bluechew for free. All you need to use is the promo code Gagnon G A G N O N. And you'll have them gagging. You know, I'm talking about, you know, I'm seeing what I'm saying, my boy. So go to bluechew.com and try the promo code Gagnon. G A G, N O N. And you're going to get your first month free. All you got to do is pay $5 for shipping. That's like a coffee. Okay, so to skip your morning cold brew and instead get that hard brew for an entire month. Yes, that is. @bluechew.com use the promo code Gagnon and start laying it down like they deserve. Let's get back to the show.
