CONSPIRACY THEORY: China's Bigfoot featuring Maci and Nadoly from GHOSTEAS

Summary

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Conspiracy Theories, Cults, & Crimes: "China’s Bigfoot — The Yeren"

Featuring Macy and Natalie from GHOSTEAS
Date: June 22, 2026
Host: Vanessa Richardson

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the Chinese cryptid known as the Yeren, often called "China’s Bigfoot," tracing the creature’s legends from ancient folklore to the modern era and exploring eyewitness accounts, government investigations, and the search for evidence. Macy and Natalie from the paranormal podcast GHOSTEAS join host Vanessa Richardson for a spirited discussion reflecting on the boundaries between folklore, misidentification, and belief.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Origins and Evolution of the Yeren Legend (05:40 – 12:42)

• Ancient Mentions:

  • Yeren first appears in a poem by Chu Yuan, described as a "mountain ghost" with man-like features and long white hair.
  • Ancient text Shan Hai Ching (The Classic of Mountains and Seas) refers to a race of "hairy people" in the mountains, not merely a singular monster.
  • The earliest descriptions were based on second-hand legends, not firsthand encounters.

• Transformations Through the Ages:

  • The creature’s image shifts over centuries—from man-eating monstrous "Fei Fei" (The Area dictionary, 3rd century BCE) to sword-wielding, semi-human forms (Han Dynasty), and finally to ape-like supernatural beings in the Tang Dynasty.
  • Tang text claims magical properties: Yeren blood could, allegedly, help see ghosts or serve as dye; their hair was said to be good for wigs.

• Notable Historical Sightings:

  • Tang dynasty report of “hairy men” assaulting a city, hurling stones and screeching loudly (ca. 650 CE).
  • 16th-century Fangxiang newspaper details cave-dwelling hairy monsters raiding villages for livestock, solidifying the term "Yeren".

2. Modern Sightings and the Scientific Response (12:42 – 25:13)

• 20th–Century Encounters:

  • Hubei Province became the hotspot for Yeren sightings in the 1930s. Witnesses repeatedly describe a tall, white-haired creature; livestock disappearances and large, human-like footprints are frequently reported.
  • Stories gained enough traction that scientists proposed expeditions to investigate—until government intervention shut them down.

• Suppression under Mao (1949–1976):

  • Mao Zedong’s modernization campaign outlawed superstitions, including public discussion of the Yeren, effectively silencing initial scientific interest.

• Resumption and “Yeren Fever”:

  • After Mao’s death (1976), public and scientific discussion resumed.
  • Notable incidents:
    • Yin Hongfa Encounter (1974): Yin allegedly fights off a Yeren with a sickle, collecting hair as proof (00:55, 15:00).
    • Government Sighting (1976): Five forestry officials report nearly striking a Yeren with their vehicle—unique due to official documentation.
  • Chinese Academy of Sciences launched the 1977 Great Expedition, led by Zhou Guoxing—one of the world’s first government-funded cryptid hunts.

3. The 1977 Great Expedition (21:00 – 25:13)

• Prof. Guoxing’s team includes over 100 experts—biologists, zoologists, soldiers. They gather hair, footprints, and scat, interviewing numerous witnesses.

• Scientists describe the Yeren as 6–6.5 feet tall, solitary, and nocturnal.

• Outcome: No direct encounters; the expedition is criticized for potentially scaring away any real creatures. Nonetheless, wave of sightings shifts to Yunnan and Guangxi provinces.

• Memorable Quote:
  “This small army of paranormal investigators entered the wilderness of Hubei Province and spent months combing the forests and mountains for evidence of the Yeren.” —Vanessa Richardson (21:50)

4. High–Profile Encounters and Their Unraveling (25:13 – 27:50)

• Jia Jixian’s Kidnapping Claim (1992):

  • Claims Yeren abducted him, gave him an "invisibility hat" to steal food, and offered him a job in their society. Investigation reveals his wife’s contradictory report: he had simply left town for a few days.

• Earlier Encounters Debunked:

  • Yin Hongfa admits he invented his story to scare kids into coming home at night.
  • Laboratory analysis reveals purported Yeren hair belonged to the serow (a goat-like animal) and preserved “paws” were merely those of a macaque monkey.
  • Other “evidence” turns out to be black bear hair, wild boar remains, or even a forest fungus mistaken for hair.

• Memorable Quote:
  “Hong Fa only told his story about fighting a monster...because he wanted to scare the village kids into coming home on time. You gotta give him some grace for that, right?” —Vanessa Richardson (27:15)

5. Anthropological Theories and the Roots of the Myth (27:50 – 34:12)

• Many stories stem from misidentification of local wildlife, mass panic, or deliberate hoaxes.

• Anthropologists suggest some original Yeren descriptions may derive from early Greek travelers in China around 329 BCE (Alexander the Great’s "Great Ionians")—unfamiliar, hairy, bearded foreigners who would have seemed monstrous.

• Conclusion: Most Yeren "evidence" is explainable, but the legend persists as a reflection of human propensity for mythmaking and misunderstanding the unfamiliar.

• Memorable Quote:
  “In the end, the legend of the Yeren is a uniquely human story...a tale of humans meeting different humans, being curious, and spending the next 2000 years making up stories to explain the experience.” —Vanessa Richardson (32:43)

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Guest Discussion: Macy & Natalie from GHOSTEAS (34:12 – 48:55)

Personal Encounters with the Paranormal (34:58 – 37:48)

• Natalie:
  Recounts seeing a “big, misty, black, shadowy thing” as a child after feeling a sense of dread in a school bathroom (35:30).
• Macy:
  Shares the chilling experience of hearing distinct knocking noises under her bed late at night, believing at first it was her boyfriend, only to confirm he wasn’t home.
  “It was three distinct, like, boom, boom, boom. Knocks from beneath me...And then I heard it again.” —Macy (37:10)

How Experiences Shape Skepticism & Belief (38:08 – 42:55)

• Skepticism vs. Open-Mindedness:

  • Macy: More reluctant to dismiss stories after personal experience, even if there's no logical explanation.
  • Natalie: Remains naturally skeptical, but is swayed by the conviction and sincerity of others’ accounts.

  “I think having our own experiences ... I’m less likely to dismiss some of the more outlandish things, because I know what I heard.” —Macy (38:16)
  “Some people ... are ridiculed, especially today online ... and if they stick by what they saw ... that kind of gives more credibility in my mind.” —Macy (41:52)

• Similarity of encounters worldwide (e.g., Bigfoot vs. Yeren) makes outright dismissal harder.

• Lack of tangible proof can be frustrating, but the sincerity and perseverance of experiencers is sometimes more persuasive than physical evidence.

Cryptid Hunting & The Value of Mystery (43:34 – 46:54)

• Dream Cryptid Expeditions:
  • Macy would search for Bigfoot in the Pacific Northwest, seeing value just in the adventure.
  • Natalie chooses Mothman, partly due to the weirdness surrounding its legend—"Why is there a statue of Mothman? There has to be some validity ... or just some real weird people up there." (45:13)
• Permanent Mystery?
  • Macy:
    “If there is something out there, we’ll find it eventually...But the mystery is part of the whimsy. It’s the fun part, too...I’d be a little bit disappointed if we did find, oh, it’s just this evolution of the Gigantopithecus or something.” (45:53)
  • Natalie:
    “As much as I say, like, oh, I want to find a Bigfoot...I don’t want us to find it. I don’t want humans to mess with it.” (46:32)

Preference for Ghostly Phenomena (47:26 – 48:55)

• Macy: Heart lies more in ghost stories than cryptids, drawn to the “other realm” aspects.

• Natalie: Loves that ghosts “can’t be caught,” contrasts with cryptids, which could theoretically be found and explained away.

• Macy expresses hope for more scientific/academic pursuit of the paranormal ("school of Bigfoot, cryptozoology"), drawing a parallel to university programs researching near-death experiences.

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “Stick around, you won’t want to miss it.” —Vanessa Richardson (03:39)
• “Are you my dad now?” —Humorous aside, Macy & Natalie voiceover (11:01)
• “The most interesting part was the creature’s magical properties... the blood of a Yeren would gain the ability to see ghosts.” —Vanessa Richardson (08:30)
• “After 1977, there weren’t many other Yeren sightings in the area. But the creatures weren’t gone. They’d just found new hunting grounds.” —Vanessa Richardson (22:55)
• “In his expert opinion, the Yeren did not exist.” —On Prof. Guoxing’s conclusion (31:56)
• “You gotta give him some grace for that, right?” —Vanessa Richardson, on fabricating scary stories to protect children (27:15)
• “Let the legend be...Let it be fun. If it is real, which I believe Bigfoot is real, I feel like humans just need to leave it alone.” —Natalie (46:48)
• “Even if there is...something we can prove, like maybe it is a large macaque of some kind...I always just...what if. Like, I just like to keep it fun, you know, why not?” —Natalie (42:47)

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Episode Flow & Structure

• Ancient legend → Early sightings → Modern reports
• Government suppression and resurgence → Scientific scrutiny
• Debunking of physical “evidence”
• Folkloric origins (Greek Ionians theory) → Broader reflection on mythmaking
• Ghosties guest segment: personal perspectives on belief, evidence, and the value of leaving mysteries unresolved

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Takeaways

• The Yeren myth likely arose from both repeated misidentification of native wildlife and cross-cultural encounters; claimed physical evidence has proven unreliable or hoaxed.
• The persistence of cryptid stories is rooted in both human imagination and a need to explain the unexplainable. Sincerity and conviction in witness accounts give legends longevity even after science offers explanations.
• The episode ends with a playful but thoughtful appreciation for keeping certain mysteries alive, both for cultural richness and for the sheer joy of the chase.

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For further exploration:
Check out Macy and Natalie’s two-part Bigfoot series on the "GHOSTEAS" podcast for more cryptid mysteries and community encounters.

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Transcript

[Vanessa Richardson]

Hi listeners. Exciting news Crime House plus and Murder True Crime Stories are celebrating America's 250th by dropping a four part limited series on the crimes that built America. These are the crimes and cases that gave us Miranda rights, sparked criminal profiling, and a murder that built America's missing children movement. Follow Murder True Crime Stories for a new episode every Monday leading up to July 4th or or you can listen to all of them right now with Crime House Plus. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com or if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, tap Try free at the top of this show's page.

[Tyler Redick]

This is crime house.

[Macy]

On May 1, 1974, a Chinese communal worker named Yin Hong Fa had a life changing and life threatening encounter that morning. He was on a holiday in Qing Long Village, about an hour or two from Beijing, and went into the forest to harvest some kudzu. He was hacking away at the thick vines with a sickle when he heard footsteps behind him, so he asked who was there. When he didn't hear a response, Yank turned around and saw something horrifying.

[Natalie]

A humanoid creature about 4 or 5ft tall and covered in shaggy white hair was was rushing towards him. It was walking on two legs with its head lowered and he could see its round red mouth. By the time Yin spotted it, the thing was nearly on top of him. Yin scrambled backwards as the creature reached out for him. He didn't have a chance of getting away, so he tried to fight.

[Macy]

Instead, Yin started chopping at the monster with his sickle, slicing at its arm. Yin managed to get a few clumps of the thing's hair, which seemed to frighten it. Finally, Yin's attacker screeched in pain and broke away, running up the hill into the woods. Yin went sprinting back to his village, but he made sure to take the creature's hair with him to prove that he wasn't making up his story when he got home.

[Natalie]

Nobody had ever heard of the monster he described except for one very old man. When he showed him the clump of white hair and asked if he knew what animal it came from, the man nodded and said one yearin.

[Macy]

In English, that translates to wild man, and according to local legend, it terrorized the Chinese countryside for more than 2,000 years.

[Vanessa Richardson]

From UFO cults and mass suicides to secret CIA experiments, presidential assassinations, and murderous doctors, these aren't just theories, they're real stories that blur the line between fact and fiction. Every Monday, Wednesday and Friday, I'll explore the real people at the center of

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

the world's most shocking events events and nefarious organizations.

[Vanessa Richardson]

These cases are wild and I want

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

to hear what you think at the

[Vanessa Richardson]

end of each episode. Please leave a comment wherever you listen. Be sure to rate, review and follow so we can continue building this community together. And for ad free access to all three episodes, subscribe to Crime House plus on Apple Podcasts.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Today I'm joined by two very special

[Vanessa Richardson]

guests, Macy and Natalie, who host ghosties every episode. They literally drink tea while spilling the tea on all things paranormal. They cover everything from hauntings to exorcisms to creepy asylums and demons.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Basically, they're the perfect people to help tell today's episode.

[Vanessa Richardson]

They'll introduce the topic, then come back for a short discussion once we're done.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

I can't wait to get their take on the case.

[Vanessa Richardson]

Stick around, you won't want to miss it.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Thank you so much, Macy and Natalie

[Vanessa Richardson]

for being here today.

[Macy]

Oh, thank you so much for the warm welcome. We're really, really excited to talk about today's topic. I'm actually really interested in this briefly or I briefly looked into it when we covered our own Bigfoot episode. So this is really exciting for me.

[Natalie]

Yeah, Bigfoot like those. I'm not big on the cryptids. That's more of like Macy and our listeners. They are big on the cryptidy things. It takes a lot of convincing for me, but Bigfoot and Bigfoot esque things, I'm kind of all in randomly, so I'm so excited. And today we're talking about a cryptid that's known as China's Bigfoot. The Yeren. This legendary creature has appeared in Chinese folklore for thousands of years. But throughout the 20th century, many people in rural China reported their own encounters with the fearsome creature, which eventually led to one of the world's first government funded cryptid hunting expeditions.

[Macy]

But without any photos or other definitive proof, we're left wondering, is the Yeren a real monster that's haunted the Chinese wilderness since ancient times? Or is it a glorified ghost story that took on a life of its own? All that and more after this.

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[Vanessa Richardson]

the story of the Yeren begins in the 4th century BCE, a time when rival dynasties were fighting for control of what is now called China. In the middle of this chaotic period of political and social change, Yeren made its first appearance in a poem by Chu Yuan, a poet and aristocrat in the ancient Chinese state of Chu. In Yuan's poem, the Yeren is referred to as a Shan Gui or mountain ghost, presumably in reference to its long white hair. Yuan describes the creature as man like in size and shape and wearing fig leaves as clothing. Around this same time, a publication called Shan Hai Ching or Classic of Mountains and Seas and also mentions the Yeren. This ancient text contains descriptions of many mythical beasts and supernatural entities like man eating demons and most importantly, it suggests that the Yeren isn't a singular monster, but part of a whole race of quote, hairy people who lived in the mountains. These early accounts were based on ancient legends passed down from generation to generation, not firsthand experience, so they don't really mention the Yeren's behavior or attitude. But just a hundred years later, in the third century bce, the first ever Chinese dictionary known as the Area made it clear that these creatures were not to be messed with. The Area talks about a beast that looks similar to a man, but with long hair that hangs down its back. These creatures, which the book refers to as Fei Fei, were said to be extremely fast on their feet and fond of devouring any unlucky humans that got in their way. But by 139 BCE the Yeren had changed again. A political text from the Han dynasty described a hairy creature called Xingxing, which has the face of a man but quote the body of a beast. And by then the Yeren had adopted some more advanced tactics. Artwork from the period shows the monster using a sword that seemed to suggest the creature was only half monster and half man. But hundreds of years later, the Yeren would lose more and more of its human characteristics. During the Tang Dynasty, which lasted from the year 618 to the year 907 CE, a book of natural phenomena called Miscellaneous Morsels from Yuong provided a new detailed description of the Yeren. The author described the Yeren, still referred to as Fei Fei, as hairy ape like creatures. The Yeren were capable of human speech, but reportedly, everything they said sounded like bird calls, and their anatomy was bizarre. Miscellaneous morsels claims the Yeren had no knees and heels that faced backwards, and they were incredibly strong, reportedly capable of lifting more than half a ton. But the most interesting part was the creature's magical properties. According to the book, the Yeren were able to predict the future and knew when people would die. The book also hinted that some of those magical properties could be passed on to people who consumed parts of the Yeren's body. The author claimed that anyone who drank the blood of a Yeren would gain the ability to see ghosts. And even if you didn't want to drink the blood, it had other uses. It could be used as a dye to turn things purple, a very difficult color to create with the ingredients available at the time. The author also said the hair of the Yeren was excellent for making wigs. This description was more detailed than ever before, and that might have been because around this time, ordinary people first started reporting their own encounters with the creatures. Around the year 650 CE, a government official in the Tang dynasty reported that a group of people, quote, hairy men, had assaulted an unnamed Chinese city. According to the official, these hairy men climbed over a city wall and wreaked havoc on the streets, screeching loudly and throwing heavy stones at defenders. Other details of this attack, like the specific location or if there were any casualties, have been lost to time. But the Yeren were still up to their old tricks nearly a thousand Years later, in 1555, when they showed up in a report by a local newspaper in the Fangxiang region in Eastern. According to the paper, a gang of hairy monsters lived in a cave system in the nearby hills and would periodically raid the town to eat chickens and dogs. These newspapers suggested that people in the Fangxiang region lived in fear of these hairy, destructive monsters. And they also gave the creatures a name that stuck for the next 500 years. Yeren. For much of their history, the Yeren pop in and out of the historical record, disappearing for hundreds of years at a time. But by the 20th century, sightings of the Yeren began to skyrocket, and it wasn't long before locals started fighting back against these mysterious monsters. Why have we asked our contractor we found on Angie.com to be our kid's legal guardian? Because he took such good care when

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[Natalie]

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[Vanessa Richardson]

for over a thousand years, Chinese folklore described a race of tall humanoid beasts covered in long, shaggy white hair. These creatures, eventually known as the Yeren, allegedly had magical powers, super strength, and bad attitudes. On more than one occasion, groups of Yeren reportedly attacked settlements. But these accounts were all legends written by authors who'd heard the stories secondhand. Chinese culture and history were full of stories about strange monsters and beasts hiding in the wilderness. As China entered the modern era, most of these mythical creatures were seen more as fiction than fact. But the Yeren still seemed very real. And in the early 20th century, even more Chinese citizens started reporting encounters with these hairy cryptids. Central China's Hubei Province is home to huge mountain ranges, dense forests, and lots of isolated communities, the perfect environment for the Yeren to thrive. In the 1930s, multiple villages in Hubei Province had run ins with the Yeren. According to local newspapers, provincial government reports, and personal diaries from the time, farmers and woodcutters in the region frequently spotted the tall, hairy Yeren moving through the trees. These Yeren weren't as aggressive as the ones who attacked villages centuries earlier. Most witnesses said the creatures would quietly observe them from a distance, then run away into the trees whenever a human approached. Local animals were weren't as lucky though. Yeren sightings were often connected to the disappearance of livestock from village pastures, these animals carcasses were never found. But searchers sometimes encountered unusual footprints in the mud nearby. These footprints were vaguely human shaped, but much larger, with very long stride lengths. People from various villages across the region, which had little to no contact with one another, all reported similar accounts. At that point, there was no denying it. The Yeren were targeting Hubei Province. After more than a decade of these sightings, scientists and researchers across China grew increasingly interested in the Yeren. Finally, there was growing momentum for a scientific response to this phenomenon. Experts started preparing to make an expedition to interview witnesses and comb the jungles for the first ever proof of the Yeren's existence. But then the government got involved. In 1949, dictator Mao Zedong came to power as China's new ruler. And he had big plans. He wanted to modernize the country using industry, technology and careful government planning to usher in a golden era. For Mao, a big part of that modernization was closing the book on superstitions, legends and traditional beliefs. Mao and his advisors worried that believing in these myths would make workers less productive. If farmers were too scared of the Yeren to work the fields, they would never achieve everything Mao wanted. So Mao's government made it illegal to even talk about supernatural beings like the Yeren. This put an end to any attempt by the scientific community to investigate the strange sightings in Hubei Province. But Mao's rules and regulations couldn't stop the Yeren from terrorizing the countryside. In 1957, the Yeren turned up in Sunyang county, hundreds of miles away from Hubei Province. And this encounter was much more violent than the sightings from the 1930s. On May 23, a 12 year old girl named Wang Cong Mae was tending to her family's cows when she spotted something strange on the outskirts of her village. It was a human like animal, covered in thick black hair, drinking from a stream. Song Mae had never seen anything like it before. And when the creature began walking away, the girl followed it. That wasn't a good idea. Song Mae followed the Erin for a little bit before it spotted her and it freaked out. The creature charged at her and Song Mae went sprinting back up the to her family's pasture, screaming for help. This caught the attention of her mother and several other villagers who came running. The Yeren got bogged down in the muddy farmland and Song Mei was able to escape. But before it could get loose from the mud, Song Mei's mother and the other villagers attacked the creature, beating it to death. Once the monster was dead, the villagers realized they'd killed a yeren. Possibly inspired by the legendary reports of the creature's magical properties, or just because they needed a meal, the villagers ate the yeren's body, but they saved the beast's paws, which they sent to the county government as proof of what had happened. We don't know if these villagers were punished by Mao. Local newspapers referred to the creature they'd killed as a man bear, not a yeren. But Song Mei's encounter would be one of the most publicized for the next 17 years. In 1976, Mao Zedong died, bringing an end to the government's ban on discussion of the yeren. At last, scientists, anthropologists and ordinary people could speak freely about seeing these mysterious creatures. At the same time, China began opening up more to the western world. Now Chinese people were able to read translated reports about international cryptids like Bigfoot, which shares many similarities with the Yeren. This led to a period of increased interest in that's now known as Yeren fever. Not long after Mao's death, Yin Hong fa, who'd been attacked by a yeren while harvesting kudzu vines, came forward with his story and he provided the clumps of white hair he'd cut off the creature to prove what he'd seen. But the most influential sighting came just a few months later. In May of 1976, five members of a government forestry committee in Hubei province were driving on a back road when they nearly ran over a hairy six foot tall creature walking on two legs. In their report, the officials claimed the beast had reddish brown hair all over its body except its palms. And they claimed it had a flat face with a mix of human and ape like features. Previously, most Yeren sightings had been reported by ordinary people like farmers and herders. But this was different. These were government employees on the clock reporting that they'd seen the yeren up close. And with Chairman Mao out of the picture, the government could get serious about their response. So the following year, China launched one of the world's first and only government funded cryptid investigations. In 1977, the Chinese Academy of Sciences organized the 1977 Great Expedition, which was dedicated to getting to the the bottom of Hubei Province's Yeren sightings once and for all. The expedition was led by Zhou Guo Xing, a professor of Cultural anthropology, who'd been studying the yeren since the 1950s. During the MA era, Guoxing had to keep his research under wraps. But now he was finally able to give the legendary Yeren the attention they deserved. Guoxing assembled a team of over 100 zoologists, biologists and photographers, as well as a bevy of soldiers just in case the Yeren got too feisty. This small army of paranormal investigators entered the wilderness of Hubei Province and spent months combing the forests and mountains for evidence of the Yeren. Guoxing's team took plaster casts of mysterious footprints in the mud. They bagged up samples of white hair found on bushes and the forest floor. They even took scat specimens they believed had been left behind by the Yeren. And they conducted extensive interviews with residents all over the province about their Yeren experiences. Using this combination of witness interviews and biological evidence, Professor Guoxing established an official profile of what the Yeren were. Scientists determined that the creatures were approximately six to six and a half feet tall, with human shaped feet that were 30 to 40 centimeters long. Culturally, the creatures were solitary animals that often traveled alone at night. The expedition gathered a lot of valuable knowledge, but it didn't produce any first hand encounters with the Yeren. Some researchers believe the whole expedition was flawed from the start. The Yeren usually went out of their way to avoid human contact. But the great expedition had sent hundreds of humans into the woods. It was possible that the people looking for the Yeren had made such a fuss that they actually scared them all away from Hubei province, because after 1977, there weren't many other Yeren sightings in the area. But the creatures weren't gone. They'd just found new hunting grounds. In the 1980s, residents of Yunnan Province in southwestern China began reporting encounters with Yeren type creatures. At least one of the Yeren were killed, and witnesses preserved one of its paws as well as its skull to show researchers. In 1992, the Yeren surfaced again in Guangxi Province, a few hours away from Yunnan. One morning in late October, a villager named Jia Jixian was cutting grass for his cows when he was surprised by two Yeren, a big one and a small one, which may have been a child. This was important because it meant there were female Yeren. Jia Jishi Jiien made a run for it, but the Yeren quickly caught up to him. The big one grabbed him, picked him up and began carrying him away from the village, with the smaller Yeren following along behind. According to Jixian, the Yerin carried him through forests and over hilltops for an entire day and night before finally reaching a clearing that appeared to be the creature's home. When they arrived, the larger Yerin put Jish Xian down and wandered off while the smaller one kept an eye on him. Ji Xian wasn't sure what these creatures wanted from him, but he suspected they were looking for their next meal. Luckily, the smaller Yaron eventually got distracted. While he was unattended, Ji Xian took off running into the woods. Even though he was exhausted and hungry, he managed to find his way back to his village, where he told his story to his wife and family family as well as a government investigator. When he heard about Jia Jishian's harrowing encounter, Zhou Guoxing, the professor who led the great expedition in 1977, knew he had to learn more, so he traveled to Guangxi Province to personally interview him about his experiences. And when they sat down face to face, Professor Guoxing gained an entirely new perspective Perspective on the Yeren and its victims.

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[Vanessa Richardson]

After over a thousand years as a piece of Chinese folklore, the Yeren became the subject of a real scientific study. In the early 20th century, villagers in Hubei Province reported multiple encounters with this race of tall white haired ape men. But firsthand proof of the Yeren was harder to come by. In 1977, university professor Joe Guoxing led a government funded expedition in search of the creatures, but didn't find anything. Fifteen years later, in 1992, Professor Guoxing learned that a villager named Jia Jixian had been kidnapped by a pair of Yeren and barely escaped with his life. In search of some hard data about this up close encounter, Guo Xing traveled to Ji Xian's village to interview him directly. This story proved to be a turning point in Guoxing's long time study of the Yeren. When Guoxing sat down to talk to Jixian, he learned a lot of new details that hadn't been in the initial reports. Port Jian explained that when the Yerin took him away, they were speaking to each other in a language he couldn't understand. He also said the creatures took him to a hidden road which eventually led them to the outskirts of a village. Jian said that one of the Yeren gave him a hat that allowed him to turn invisible. Since they were pretty hungry by then, the creatures had him use his new invisibility hat to steal pork and rice from a nearby market. After that, they continued on and eventually made their way into the Jowan Mountains where they encountered many other Yeren. Ji Xian said these Yeren were actually pretty friendly and some of them spoke a language he could understand. According to Ji Xian, they asked him to come and live with them and even offered him a job in their government. Jixian refused. He said he just wanted to go home. At first, the Yerin didn't want to take no for an answer, but finally they let him leave. Although they took away the special invisibility hat before he left. By the time Ji finished his story, Professor Guoxing knew that this guy wasn't a reliable narrator. But just to be sure, he went and talked to Ji's wife too. According to her, Ji didn't get kidnapped by Yiren at all. He just left town for a couple days to go visit relatives and dreamed up the story after he got back. When Ji Xian heard her telling him this, the two got into a massive argument. At that point, Guo Xing figured it was time for him to head home. Guo Xing had always approached his Yeren research with a healthy dose of skepticism. But after seeing how quickly Jixian's fake story took off in a rural community, he started to reconsider many of the other stories he'd heard about the Yerin. In the early 1960s, a rural source school teacher named Mr. Xie reported that while hunting at night, he heard a crying sound. He went to investigate and found a mother Yeren nursing a baby yeren. Mr. Xie's account was very detailed and it gave a valuable window into the way the Yeren cared for their children. But when Guoxing investigated more closely, it turned out there was more to the story. In later interviews, she confirmed that he had seen a fearsome animal in the forest forest that day. But it was a black bear and its cub, not a Yaron. He just juiced up his story to make it more interesting and get his name in the paper. The same was true of Yin Hong fa, the man who claimed he'd fought off a Yaron with a sickle in 1974, hacking off a bunch of its white hair in the process. Hong Fa's exciting story was a major part of Yeren lore. It was even one of the motivations for Guoxing's 1977 Great Expedition. But like all the other stories, some more digging proved that it wasn't what it seemed. When experts tested the white hairs, Hong FA claimed he cut off the Yeren, they realized the hair actually belonged to a goat like animal called a sero, which is fairly common throughout eastern China. When he was asked about this, Hong FA admitted that he'd made the entire story up. But in his defense, he never intended for his story to draw so much attention. At the time, local children in the village had been wandering off to play in the wilderness after dark. Hong FA had only told his story about fighting a monster in the forest because he wanted to scare the village kids into coming home on time. You gotta give him some grace for that, right? So if so many of the stories about the Yeren were made up, what about all the fish? Physical evidence since the 1970s, villagers and even members of Guoxing's own great expedition had come forward with body parts and hair samples they claimed were taken from the Yeren. Fortunately, by the late 90s and early 2000s, Guoxing had access to new advanced technology to test these body parts and see what they really were. One of the samples in Guoxing's archives was the preserved paws of a spirit supposed Yeren who had chased a little girl in Sunyang county back in 1957. Locals had killed the creature after it got stuck in the mud. Now Guoxing wanted to learn what they'd really killed. After running a radiographic analysis on the paws, Guoxing discovered that the fearsome beast had actually been an unusually large macaque. Macaques are a type of monkey that lives in the jungles of Asia and the Pacific. Specific, they have human like faces and their thick fur, which can range in color from dark brown to gray or even white. Had the hundreds of people who'd reported seeing the Yeren actually been having run ins with wild animals? It definitely seemed that way. As Guoxing analyzed more bone and hair samples from Yeren encounters across China, they usually turned out to be the remains of one of a few animals animals, macaques, black bears, or wild boars. In one case, a very long strand of silky black hair found in the forest actually turned out to be a rare type of fungus native to the area. Guoxing also reviewed the plaster casts his researchers had made of large footprints during their 1977 expedition. After consulting with other biologists, Guoxing realized that the giant footprints they'd seen weren't from a spirit single animal. They were the product of multiple overlapping bear tracks, which had created an unusually long impression in the mud. In 2012, after more than half a century of studying the Yeren, Goshwing decided it was time to face the facts. He announced that in his expert opinion, the Yeren did not exist. Almost everything we learned about the Yeren in the 20th century either came from the made up stories or people spotting wild animals and assuming they were legendary beasts from ancient folklore. But that doesn't explain where the folklore originated. Were ancient Chinese writers making the same mistake as countless villagers misidentifying bears and monkeys? Anthropologists dug deeper into the earliest reported sightings of the Yeren and realized they might have been the result of a different type of mistaken identity. Some of the earliest references to the Yeren showed up in writings from around 300 BCE. Historians have noted that another major cultural event happened in China around this time. This was when Greek explorers first arrived in the country. In the year 329 BCE, the Greek conqueror Alexander the Great established a walled city called Alexandria Eshkate in what is now Tajikistan on China's western part border. The people living there were ethnically Greek, and the city maintained its Greek culture for hundreds of years. Ancient Chinese texts from the period mention this walled city occupied by people they referred to as Great Ionians. These Ionians didn't look like anybody the Chinese had seen before. They had light colored skin, blue eyes, lots of body hair, and most notably, long, bushy beards. Anthropologists now believe that the ancient legends of the Yeren were rooted in cultural memories of encounters like these. These wild, hairy creatures with unfamiliar habits who sometimes spoke a strange language and occasionally used swords. They were just Greeks. And as the stories about these initial encounters with them were passed down from generation to generation, they became wilder, hairier, and more. More frightening with each new retelling. In the end, the legend of the Yeren is a uniquely human story. It's a tale of humans meeting different humans, being curious, and spending the next 2000 years making up stories to explain the experience. It's a useful reminder that sometimes you've got a lot more in common with the thing that goes bump in the night than you might expect.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

And now I'm joined by Macy and Natalie from Ghosties to dig into this case a little deeper. So if you haven't listened to Ghosties, it's one of the best shows out

[Vanessa Richardson]

there on all things spooky and paranormal.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

You've got to check it out. These two are amazing. Macy and Natalie, thank you so much for being here.

[Macy]

Thank you so much for having us. We're very excited.

[Vanessa Richardson]

Yeah.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Oh, my gosh. Yes. I.

[Vanessa Richardson]

So I'm dying to ask.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Have you guys ever seen something you couldn't explain? You. You. Okay, you live in this world. Every week on Ghosties, you've covered everything from shadow figures to possessions to, as you said before in the intro, Bigfoot. You read listener encounters constantly, which I love because there's a lot of community, a lot of, you know, interaction with. With listeners, people writing in with things they saw, things they heard, things that followed them home. So I want to know about you guys.

[Vanessa Richardson]

Have either of you ever had a

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

moment, like, out in nature, in the woods, in a house, anywhere, where you saw or heard something and genuinely couldn't

[Vanessa Richardson]

just not explain it?

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

And did that moment change how approach all this?

[Natalie]

So, because yours is scarier than mine, I'll go first. So we. We are famously anti. Outside. We. We don't go into the woods or outside in general. So nothing. Nothing in the woods like a Bigfoot or cryptid thing. At least that I know of.

[Macy]

Yes. But we did grow up in the woods. We just stayed indoors.

[Natalie]

We were just inside. I love that. But the only thing I ever experienced was a shadow figure thing, I guess, if you want to call it. I was probably about 7 or 8, and we, us, me, Macy and our other sister Kayla, were in this basketball camp at this high school when we were in elementary, and I had went to the bathroom just by myself. Down the hallway, away from the gym. And I got this, like, sinking feeling while I was in there. And I was like, something's not right. I'm suddenly not alone anymore and I feel unsafe. And I couldn't identify it at the time. Like, as a younger kid, I was just like, I'm scared. I need to go. So I like, bolt out of the bathroom and I'm like, running for my life for no reason. And then I turned around and I saw like this just big, misty, black, shadowy thing following me. And I was like. And I was horrified. And I ran into the gym. And I remember this part specifically because I was even more horrified because I went into the boys gym instead of where all the girls were. And it was. They were doing, like, shirts and skins. And so I was just like, triple terrified of everything. And that's the only like, like, scary paranormal thing I've ever seen. But Macy's is much more horrifying.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Wow, that's.

[Natalie]

Macy's is ten times more.

[Macy]

I've never actually seen anything. And I go looking at most of my encounters, I guess if you could call them that. It's kind of like what Natalie said. It's more of a feeling. You just. It's like this. These instincts almost there. Your hackles are up, and you just feel something is wrong, you know? The only thing that really ever truly scared me, scared me was late one night, I was falling asleep, just. Just drifting off into sleep. And I heard knocking coming from under my bed.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Oh.

[Macy]

And I sat up and I thought maybe I was dreaming or maybe it was my boyfriend who lived there at the time. But I just laid back down and tried to ignore it. And then I heard it again. It was three distinct, like, boom, boom, boom. Knocks from beneath me. And so I sat up and I told my boyfriend. I was like, jake, cut it out. I'm trying to go to sleep. Stop trying to prank me. It was very weird. But it happened several more times. And finally I got up and I was upset and I looked under the bed to try and prove that it was him, but I couldn't see anything. So I called him on the phone and he was outside.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

And I was like, oh, no.

[Macy]

And it just. That sinking feeling crept in. Oh, horrifying.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

That is terrifying. And both of your stories are terrifying. And the thing that gets me is that feeling, like you said, when the hair on your neck stands up. And it's just that gut feeling that something is wrong, something is off. That's so crazy. So how is has hosting ghosties and Hearing hundreds of listener stories shifted what

[Vanessa Richardson]

you're willing to accept as possible.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Like, has it.

[Vanessa Richardson]

Has it made you more aware?

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Are you more willing to accept it like, that it's real? How do you feel about that?

[Macy]

I think having our own experiences and reading, like you said, so many other people's experiences, I'm less likely to dismiss some of the more outlandish things, because when I think back to my experience, I'm like, well, that sounds weird. Like, no one was under my bed. How could there be knocking? But I know what I heard. And so whether it was maybe like a hypnagogic hallucination or if it was something we don't understand yet, it makes me not immediately go skeptical. I think. Yeah, yeah.

[Natalie]

Especially for me, because I'm. Even now, even after the pot, I'm still skeptical sometimes. But hearing from our listeners and hearing the way they're like, oh, my gosh, like, listening to this and hearing y' all talk about it makes me feel less crazy. And I kind of have, like, resonated with that. And like, Macy was saying, like, the more outlandish things, I'm like, you know, baby, like, it could be now, because before I'd be like, be for real. Like, that's not real, but it's kind of. It's kind of sunk in a little bit for me.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Definitely.

[Natalie]

Yeah.

[Macy]

And even hearing some. Some people will have very similar experiences from totally different walks of life, totally different areas in the world, and seeing that they're having something very similar. Kind of like with the year in the Bigfoot thing, all these people from all over are having very similar encounters. It's harder, in my opinion, to refute sometimes.

[Vanessa Richardson]

Absolutely.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

That. That actually is really fascinating because you've studied all the different types of cryptids like the Bigfoot and Yaron and the.

[Vanessa Richardson]

You know, it's so wild that the evidence.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

This is where we come back to, like, you know, you get that gut feeling. But then you also looked for evidence, right? Like, Natalie, you were looking for this figure.

[Tyler Redick]

What?

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

What is it? And. And Macy, you looked under the bed to see what was it? Was it my boyfriend? Was it? So what, the hair samples, okay, for this particular story, footprint casts, preserved paws, the. The. The expeditions backed by the government.

[Vanessa Richardson]

But then piece by piece, it all falls apart.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

So, like, they figured out the hair belongs to Acero, and the footprints are overlapping bear tracks. Like, there's an explanation for everything. I feel like we're also kind of like. I think about, like, UFOs and stuff, too. Like, they're always. There's always like an explanation. Right. The pause and from a macaque. And some of the most famous eyewitnesses made their stories up. So you guys, again, you hear all these accounts constantly. Your listeners send you their encounters. So you. I feel like you've probably developed an instinct for this. So when they tell. Someone tells you they saw something, what. What is it that makes you lean toward believing them? And specifically for this story, like after hearing how the urine evidence unraveled, but also knowing that so many different, you know, the Bigfoot things, things in different areas.

[Vanessa Richardson]

What.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

How does this. Do you think you're more skeptical of cryptid sightings in general, or does it kind of not change how you feel knowing this? It's kind of a tricky question because there's so much evidence. Like, it's so.

[Natalie]

Yes. So I don't know. For me, like, I am always going to be skeptical first, which we've talked about this before. Like on the pod, whenever we hear a noise in the house, I'm like, oh, my God, it's the killer. And then Macy's like, okay, so I'm always gonna think, like, skeptical or, like, logical. But for me, what makes something like this credible is one, like the conviction that the person has while telling you the story. Like how, like, if they truly are believing it and. Or like, probably more so when someone sees this or experiences this and is like trying to disprove it and they're like, no, I didn't see that. That's crazy. No, that that didn't happen. Or, oh, it could be this. But there's not. They don't find an explanation. I'm like, maybe that's real. And I think.

[Macy]

I think insistence too. I know some of these stories were made up, which is unfortunate when people are truly actually trying to get to the bottom of something.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Macy]

But the insistence. And I mean, some of these people are ridiculed, especially today online by their experiences. And if they stick by what they saw, they're. They're not getting anything out of it. And I think that kind of gives more credibility in my mind. Anyway, the evidence part, it again makes me so sad when we find that. Which just overlapping bear prints, you know, very frustrating.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Definitely.

[Macy]

Go ahead. Sorry.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

No, I was gonna say very, very frustrating, for sure. And like. But I feel like a buzzkill also, like saying, well, that was made up. This was what that was. But also, like, when you. I love that you said that. Like, when people have conviction and they stick to their story and they're like, no, this is what I saw, and they have nothing to gain out of it. That's. That's a huge yes. Yeah, that's a big. For me too. I feel the same way, you guys.

[Macy]

Yeah. And even if there is. If it is, like, something that we can prove, like, maybe it is a large macaque of some kind. Right. Or something.

[Natalie]

I always just. Am. I. What if.

[Advertisement Voice]

Right.

[Natalie]

Like, I just like to keep it fun, you know, why not?

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Vanessa Richardson]

Keep an open door.

[Natalie]

Bigfoot.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Exactly. Exactly.

[Macy]

I also believe that they believe they saw something.

[Vanessa Richardson]

Yes.

[Macy]

Whether. Whether we can prove that it is a yarn or a Bigfoot or a spirit of some kind. They believe that they experience something. And I. I think, yeah, there's something there anyway.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah. I love that. It's so true. And it's. It's also. I don't know, there's something about a campfire. Like that feeling of telling stories around the campfire. Like, I just love it. That's what your. Your show is. What I think of when I. When I listen to you guys is that spooky stories. I love it.

[Macy]

That's what we wanted. The vibe we wanted.

[Natalie]

I love that. Oh, yeah.

[Macy]

Feels good that others are sharing that with us.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Totally nailed it.

[Macy]

Yes.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Now, I'm curious now, knowing that you guys are not outdoorsy now. I learned this today, hearing about. After hearing. Talking about the Yeren, the remote mountains, the bamboo forest, the Chinese villagers who swear they saw something. Okay, let's say someone hands you an unlimited budget and just says, okay, pick one cryptid anywhere in the world and go find it. Where are you guys heading?

[Vanessa Richardson]

Hubei province.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

You gonna go Pacific Northwest looking for Bigfoot? Where do you guys find a yeti in the hill?

[Macy]

I would probably. I would probably go Bigfoot, Pacific Northwest. I don't know that I believe in Bigfoot.

[Natalie]

And when we did, I do. Like, what's crazy is there have been things that Macy's brought to me, and all the listeners are like, oh, my God, it's so rare. And I'm like, no, but with Bigfoot, I'm like, I'm all in. And Macy's like, we're never on the same belief for cryptid things.

[Macy]

I feel like you, Vanessa, is that buzzkill moment where I'm going through and I'm explaining, I'm building Natalie up. She's like, oh, yeah, definitely. And then I'm like, but no, but it's this. Yeah.

[Natalie]

Yes, I love that.

[Macy]

Exactly.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

But I love. I love that about you guys because it makes it more interesting because I Think everybody has that, those dual sides. Like, you're skeptical, but you believe, want to believe, and you're, you know, that's so interesting.

[Advertisement Voice]

Yes.

[Macy]

And with Bigfoot, I want to believe. I think it would be just the experience of looking for Bigfoot would be just a joy with other people, like hunting through the woods, you know, get down this big trek over here. I think that would be a blast. So whether we found something or not, I think that's. That's where I would go.

[Natalie]

For me, like, have you ever heard of Mothman?

[Vanessa Richardson]

Yes, of course.

[Macy]

I just listened to their episode.

[Natalie]

I think Mothman would be mine. I think, as weird as it is, I. Okay. And the strangest little tidbit that really makes me say, like, okay, I'd go Mothman is why do we have a statue over there? Like, why is there a cool statue of Mothman? Like, there has to be some kind of validity or just some real weird people up there. And I want to go, right.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Oh, I'd be hard pressed to know which one of you I'd go with, because I want to go do both of those things. So that's really cool. Oh, my gosh. That is wild. And. And do you think either of you think that definitive proof will ever be found for any of these creatures, or is it just going to be a mystery forever and the stories live on?

[Macy]

I would like to think if. If there is something out there, we'll find it eventually. I. I don't think things can stay mystery forever. I think eventually we will come up with some kind of scientific way to prove, disprove, or disprove that of the existence. But I think the mystery is part of the whimsy. It's the fun part, too. So, honestly, I was thinking about this, and I think I'd be a little bit disappointed if we did find. Oh, it's just this, like, you know, evolution of the Gigantopithecus or something. Like, I'd be like, aw, but what if he's, like, some kind of interdimensional being? Like, that's more fun to, you know, bounce around any brain.

[Natalie]

I also just as much as I say, like, oh, I want to find a Bigfoot, I want to find Mothman. I don't. I don't want us to find it. I don't want humans. I don't want us to mess with it. Like, let the legend be. Let it be fun. And because. Because if it is real, which I believe Bigfoot is real.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Natalie]

I feel like humans just need to leave it alone. We'll just let it be. And so I, I think we just showed it.

[Vanessa Richardson]

I love that.

[Natalie]

But we can keep looking.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yes, keep looking.

[Vanessa Richardson]

Keep that mystery alive. And it's so true. Because, you know, humans just kind of

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

tend to mess things up like with anything. I think the same thing. That's a really good point actually. I've never actually thought about, about it like that. It's true. The mystery is so good. Let them live. Live and let Bigfoot live and Yaron and all of them.

[Macy]

I need that on a sticker.

[Natalie]

Yeah, we need a sticker for the.

[Advertisement Voice]

Right.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

I love that so much. Anything else you guys want to, you know, share about, about Cryptids or any of these incredible beautiful stories before we sign off?

[Natalie]

I'm.

[Macy]

I love a good Cryptid story, I love a good mystery, but I think where my heart really lies is in the ghostly aspect of the paranormal. Is all of the like strange other realm type things.

[Natalie]

Same for me I think, because it does go back to like what you're saying. Like humans will just mess it up. So like the Cryptids, I like to keep them at an arm's length. I like to say like, yes, they are, but let's leave them alone. But like the ghostly and the demon and the paranormal end is scary. I think that's what really draws me in. And so like after we've done a few episodes of Cryptids and like Macy likes to do like fairies, like all the like the fun whimsy. I'm like, okay, but let's get scared. Let's get into something that there's no tangible, like we're not gonna see and be able to touch a ghost, you know, or we'll see it, but we can't touch it. Like if like Bigfoot's a thing, a ghost is like, what is it? We don't know.

[Macy]

So I would love to see. I know at UVA they have the DOTS program which is the, I think it's the division of, oh, perceptual something where they basically they were using science and the scientific method to look into some of the more like parapsychology type things like, oh, what's the word? It just escaped me like in, in near death experiences and like out of body experiences. They're looking into that. And I think I would love to see in a, in a college and university, an academic setting.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Yes.

[Macy]

A like school of Bigfoot where we go like cryptozoology. I think that would be so fun.

[Vanessa Richardson]

That is incredible.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

What an amazing thought, like for science and you know, culture and all of. Yeah, Cryptozoology. That's so interesting. Again, that's never, I've never thought of that. You know, I'm sure there's a college out there that has that as a, as a class, but that's so fascinating, right? Oh, I love that so much. You guys are so fun to watch and so interesting and so if today's conversation has you listener wanting more, you need to check out Ghosties. Every Monday and Thursday, Macy and Natalie dive into everything paranormal, ghosts, cryptids. Listener encounters the unexplained and all while drinking a cup of tea. I love that they recently did an incredible two part series on Bigfoot which we just kind of touched on that pairs perfectly with today's episode. You might want to go check that out and find them wherever you listen to podcasts and on YouTube. Thank you so much Macy and Natalie for being here today. It was so much fun talking to you.

[Macy]

Yes, it was so much fun.

[Natalie]

Yes, thank you so much.

[Macy]

Thanks for having us. And I, I love your podcast so it was a joy for fans to see it live.

[Advertisement Voice]

Same.

[Podcast Host/Interviewer]

Thank you so much.

[Vanessa Richardson]

Thanks so much for listening. I'm Vanessa Richardson and this is Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes. Come back next time. We'll hear another story about the real people at the center of the world's most notorious cults, conspiracies and criminal acts. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. Here at Crime House, we want to thank each and every one of you for your support. If you like what you heard today, reach out on social media, Rimehouse on TikTok and Instagram. Don't forget to rate, review and follow Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback trust truly makes a difference. And to enhance your Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes listening experience, subscribe to Crime House plus, you'll get every episode of this show and the rest of the Crime House lineup ad free and early, plus at least two bonus episodes every month. To join, go to crimehouseplus.com or if you listen on Apple Podcasts tap, try free at the top of the Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes show page. Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes is hosted by me, Vanessa Richardson and is a Crime House original powered by Pave Studios. This episode was brought to life by the Conspiracy Theories, Cults and Crimes team. Max Cutler, Ron Shapiro, Alex Benedon, Natalie Pertzofsky, Lori Marinelli, Alyssa Fox, Truman Capps, Sheila Patterson, Kaylee Pine and Michael Langsner. Thank you for listening.

[Tyler Redick]

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