The Watcher - S5:E1

Summary

Haunted Cosmos: The Watcher - Season 5, Episode 1

Release Date: June 25, 2025
Hosts: Ben Garrett & Brian Sauvé
Description: Investigating a world that isn't just stuff.

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1. Introduction to "The Watcher"

In the inaugural episode of Season 5, Ben Garrett and Brian Sauvé delve into one of the most chilling urban legends: The Watcher. This narrative explores the sinister experiences of the Lachance family and the mysterious figure haunting their new residence at 657 Boulevard, Westfield, New Jersey.

2. The Lachance Family's Ordeal

Ben Garrett begins by recounting the harrowing story of Steve Lachance and his three children who relocate to a seemingly perfect home only to encounter inexplicable supernatural events.

• Relocation and Initial Peace:
  The Lachance family moves to 809 N. Christina Ave., Union, Missouri, seeking a fresh start after the sudden departure of Steve's wife. The house, with its charming two-story facade and lush green yard, initially symbolizes hope and stability.

• First Encounter:
  On their first evening, a mysterious car abruptly stops in front of their house. A man in the passenger seat yells, "Hope you all get along well with them," before speeding away at high speed (00:37). This unsettling greeting foreshadows the horrors to come.

• Supernatural Phenomena:
  Within days, the Lachance home becomes the epicenter of bizarre occurrences:

  • Unexplained Sounds: Doors slamming shut without force and eerie growling noises permeate the house (00:25, 00:37).
  • Fear for Children: The children grow increasingly fearful, restricting themselves to be together and avoiding isolation in any room.

  Steve Garrett attempts to reassure his children, attributing the noises to mere airflows, but the family's anxiety escalates as the haunting intensifies.

• Climactic Night:
  On the 13th day, the family faces the peak of terror:

  • Earthquake-like Shaking: The house trembles violently, knocking furniture and pictures off walls.
  • Terrifying Screams: A horrifying shriek fills every corner of the home, revealing a malevolent presence searching for something within (00:37).

  Steve and his children barely escape the nightmare, leaving behind a house that never fully released its grip on them.

3. Thematic Exploration: Unwanted Attention

Transitioning from the Lachance family's story, Ben and Brian delve into the broader theme of unwanted attention, questioning why individuals fear being watched without consent.

• Historical Parallel - Moses:
  Ben draws parallels to Moses, highlighting his reluctance despite being chosen by God, suggesting that even divine attention can be overwhelming:

  "Moses knew he was wanted, knew he was watched, and he couldn't bear it." (10:00)

• Modern Implications:
  The hosts discuss contemporary fears surrounding surveillance and stalking, emphasizing the psychological impact of being observed without agency:

  "Why does man, a creature who so often craves attention from things both good and bad, just as often shrink back in terror at that same attention?" (20:00)

4. Introducing a Comparative Case: The Broaddus Family

Shifting focus, Brian Sauvé narrates the parallel story of Derek and Maria Broaddus who purchase 657 Boulevard, only to become entangled in a similar nightmare.

• Initial Joy and Foreboding Signs:
  Three days post-purchase, Derek discovers a cryptic letter sent by "The Watcher," foreshadowing the family's entanglement with dark forces (20:46).

• Escalating Threats:
  The Broaddus family experiences escalating paranormal activities, leading to legal battles and financial strain as they attempt to sell the haunted property.

• Final Confrontation:
  Despite attempts to move on, the Watcher's vengeance persists, culminating in renewed threats that drive the Broaddus family to sell the property after enduring years of terror (43:14).

5. Analyzing Theories and Suspects

In the discussion segment, Ben and Brian explore potential explanations and suspects behind the Watcher's sinister activities.

• Michael Langford as a Prime Suspect:
  Brian posits Michael Langford, a reclusive neighbor with a history of mental illness, as a possible perpetrator. Despite handwriting and DNA analyses pointing to a female, inconsistencies suggest a more complex scenario (72:19).

• Alternate Reality Games (ARGs) Gone Wrong:
  They consider the possibility that the Watcher's actions stem from an ARG-inspired obsession, where blurred lines between reality and gaming lead to genuine harm (86:19).

• Community's Erosion of Trust:
  Reflecting on historical events like the John List case, the hosts emphasize how prior tragedies can predispose communities to heightened fear and paranoia, facilitating the Watcher's impact (47:35).

6. The Intersection of Human and Supernatural Evil

Brian elaborates on the philosophical underpinnings of evil as depicted in the stories, distinguishing between purely human malevolence and supernatural influences.

"The evil of this act is not like the evil of the crime of murder, but it is analogous to it." (45:36)

They discuss how profound sin and corruption within individuals can mirror or even be influenced by spiritual or supernatural forces, exacerbating the community's downfall.

7. Conclusion: The Unresolved Mystery of The Watcher

The episode concludes without a definitive resolution, leaving listeners contemplating the nature of evil and the fragility of community trust. Ben muses on the insatiable human drive to seek answers, juxtaposing it with spiritual fulfillment:

"Perhaps Christ alone is the bright labyrinth, the divine puzzle whose every clue is both perfectly satisfying and perfectly motivating to continue on." (87:12)

Notable Quotes

• "Moses knew he was wanted, knew he was watched, and he couldn't bear it."
  Ben Garrett (10:00)

• "Why does man, a creature who so often craves attention from things both good and bad, just as often shrink back in terror at that same attention?"
  Ben Garrett (20:00)

• "The evil of this act is not like the evil of the crime of murder, but it is analogous to it."
  Brian Sauve (45:36)

• "Perhaps Christ alone is the bright labyrinth, the divine puzzle whose every clue is both perfectly satisfying and perfectly motivating to continue on."
  Ben Garrett (87:12)

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8. Final Thoughts

"The Watcher" serves as a compelling exploration of how unseen forces—whether human, supernatural, or a blend of both—can disrupt lives and erode the very fabric of community trust. Ben Garrett and Brian Sauvé invite listeners to ponder the depths of fear, the complexities of belief, and the resilience required to confront the unknown.

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Note: This summary excludes advertisement segments and non-content sections to focus solely on the narrative and thematic elements presented in the episode.

Transcript

[Ben Garrett]

This episode of Haunted Cosmos is brought to you by Indigo Sundries Soap Co. Armored Republic, New Dominion Design Co. Grey Toad Tallow, Stonecrop Wealth Advisors, and Mount Athos, as well as our supporters on Patreon and Supercast. The world is not just stuff.

[Brian Sauve]

Minus 111.9.

[Ben Garrett]

The widely publicized mystery of the flying saucers may soon be solved. Steve sat slowly up from his bed and kicked his legs off the side. It was still dark out, but he couldn't sleep. The year was weighing on him too much for rest, and it was only April. He sat on the side of the bed, head bowed low and elbows resting on his knees, thinking. In the adjacent room slept his two sons, soundly and without any understanding of the darkness they were poised to enter. Across the narrow hall of the little house, Steve's daughter lay in her own room. She, though she was not yet old enough to pinpoint why, also could not sleep. She just lay there staring at the ceiling, counting all the faces she could force herself to see in the popcorn. Finally, Steve stood up and walked quietly to the kitchen. It was the day after they'd moved into their new home. Despite the sorrows still being so fresh, he really did believe that the move was already helping. Somehow that would soon change. Stephen Lachance and his three kids, just the week prior to, suffered the confusing and terrible blow of watching the love of all their respective lives, Steve's wife and the children's mom, just leave them on a whim. She left and she was never coming back. She gave no reason. Steve wondered if in some way this was better than if she had, but she also left no doubt as to her resolve. Hence the move to somewhere with less memory for he and the children specifically, their new home was 809 N. Christina Ave. In Union, Missouri. It was a quaint but charming two story home with white wooden siding, a wrapping front porch, and a lush green front yard facing a road whose other side gave way to a rolling field of some crop. Steve could not discern right away. Though he was just renting the place, it was still a major upgrade. He had ironically, been excelling at his job before his wife left him and so was eager to give his precious children what he hoped to be a forever home they could grow up in. Eventually all the children were awake and running like cartoons around the house while Steve continued unpacking their things and organizing the rooms. The day was spent by dad trying to hold a good attitude together and doing a fine job of it, while the energized siblings somehow laughed without Stopping after dinner, the family of four enjoyed the peaceful sound of cicadas ringing while they watched the sunset on the front porch. Suddenly, though, a speeding car screeched to a halt on the road right in front of their house. The sound of the braking was so loud and sudden that everyone jumped in their seats before looking right at the car. All the windows were down, and it was filled with young students in the front and back rows. The man in the front passenger seat leaned out the window toward the family and yelled in what sounded like a very sincere tone, hope you all get along well with them. With that, the man sat back into the window and the car sped off. Steve did not then know what to make of it, but he didn't have to wait long to find out exactly what the man had meant. Night fell, and the family went inside to watch a movie together before bed. None of the kids had asked about mom that day, the first time that happened since she left, and Steve wanted to distract them enough to keep it that way. They all watched, cuddled on the couch together. Steve even genuinely laughed at one point. It was a good night, but as the screen went black to roll credits at the end of the movie, Steve jumped up from his seat and turned towards the front porch window. Bright lights like flashlights were shining through the curtains and moving around erratically, as if held by someone desperately looking for something inside. Steve shouted at the presumed peepers to get lost before loudly opening the front door and running onto the porch and yelling. But there was nothing there. No people and no lights and no cover close enough for them to have run to. Before he exited the home. Steve, confused, shuffled back inside to the image of his three most beloved people. Nervous and silent on the couch, he could not let them see, but some seed of fear deep inside of him began to sprout. Steve, too, was very nervous about something. The following days saw more strangeness fall upon the suffering and broken family. Children will be playing in their respective rooms when their doors would slam shut suddenly, and without any pushing from siblings or dad, they would run and open the doors back up right away. But the force of their closure always frightened them. Steve comforted the kids by telling them that it was just airflow through the house from the front door being opened and shut. But he could hardly force himself to believe this to be true. The kids knew he was lying. Over a quick period of time, it got so unsettling for the children that they refused to be in any of the rooms of the house alone. They traveled as a pack, and if it was ever only two of them. They all made sure that the third was with dad. Steve's daughter began sleeping in her brother's room each night to stay safe from the growing darkness they all perceived but couldn't name yet. Finally, the screaming began. Early in the morning, at the end of their first week in the home, Steve was woken by the sound of deep growling from somewhere inside. He shot like a bullet from his bed and started pacing up and down the halls and rooms of the upper floor before descending the stairs to do the same thing below. Everywhere he went, he heard the growling. It never got any louder or any quieter. It was just everywhere. Not in any one spot of the house. It was as though the house was itself a growling mouth belonging to some hellish beast. The children somehow were not woken up by it. Steve walked back upstairs defeated, desperate to reason himself into believing that it was nothing and that he needed to just get some sleep. But then the growl turned on a moment into a deafening shriek, like the sound of someone in terrible place. The children ran from their rooms just as Steve was sprinting up the stairs to them from fright. He embraced them and picked them up in a single heap to go into his room. He shut the door behind him and listened to the shrieking scream move past his door as if it was making its way down the hall. After a few minutes of the terrible sound, everything faded back to quiet. The family stayed in Steve's room for the rest of the night. Eventually, the children somehow fell back asleep. Things continued like this for another week, growing more and more sinister each day, until Steve reached his breaking point on their 13th day of living there. It was one of the few evenings that the children were not all together in the same room or with their dad. The boys played in their bunk beds and the girl was putting clothes away in her own room when the entire house began to shake. Now, though they were not all together, their doors were both open and their rooms were right across the hall from one another. But this was not enough. Steve was downstairs when it all began. The shaking grew violent until it began knocking pictures off the wall and tipping furniture over. It was akin to an earthquake. But what followed told them that it was not such a simple explanation. The screaming started up once more. It was the loudest it had ever been and it seemed to emanate from every single wall of the house. It was a violently angry scream, like the desperate tear filled anger of one on the verge of achieving a vengeance he'd been waiting so long for. Steve yelled upstairs to the kids, but he couldn't even hear himself. He fumbled against the banister and wall as he struggled to make his way to the upper floor. At the landing, he saw the doors of both both rooms still open and heard the faint whine of his kids underneath the shrieking house. He ran to the boy's room and looked in to see both of them covering their ears in the fetal position. But when he turned back to find his daughter, he saw that her door had slammed shut. He reached for the knob, but it would not turn. He threw his weight into his shoulder and pushed with all he could against the door. His sons joined him in the pushing, but still it wouldn't give. He began kicking wildly at the handle and running to jump into the door at full speed, thinking his bulk could break through the wood. Inside, he could hear the screaming grow worse and louder and more maniacal. He could hear the faint cries of his daughter, too, beneath all of it. In an exasperated and desperate cry, he spread his arms out and lifted his voice to heaven, screaming, God help me. In the instant of him saying it, the bedroom door gently swung open. The shaking continued and the screaming grew, yet somehow more terrible. But he could see his daughter. She sat with her back against the wall and ears covered. She was screaming and staring with wide eyes at her closet. Steve looked only long enough to see that the door was thumping as if it was being pushed by something from the inside. He grabbed his girl and he yanked his boys up in his other arm and went. One quick motion. He sprinted down the stairs and he kicked down the front door. He threw his kids into the car before climbing in himself and locking it behind him, starting it up and pulling away from the house just before speeding off down the small state route towards town. Steve glanced up into the lit windows of the second floor and saw some kind of humanoid shadow rushing from room to room at inhuman speed. It was looking for something. Neither Steven nor the Lachance children ever returned to that cursed home. They had suffered something there which was, to them, both real and indescribably terrible. Even what we've told you hardly scratches the surface of the full horror they endured for those 13 days they considered themselves blessed to make it out alive and apart from lifelong nightmares, unscathed. But why did we share this story with you? For the simple reason that it introduces a theme I think we're all simultaneously drawn to, and yet afraid of that. Of unwanted attention. Perhaps that sounds too simple a thing to describe this as. But that is what it was. The Lachance family were the subjects of some dark things. Attention. Whether that thing was somehow bound to the house or or only descended upon it to wreak more havoc on an already sorrowful people can never be known. What is known, though, is that without a doubt they would have wished that the evil entity had never, ever taken any notice of them. But you might be thinking, what about when the unwanted attention is for something good? Well, still man will recoil at it. Consider Moses, a man chosen by God to be his ambassador for one of the greatest, most mythical things to ever happen on the earth, the Exodus. But Moses, especially at first, tried to run from it. He saw the glorious and merciful attention God showed him and his people in the burning bush and sought to turn the other cheek. Perhaps he knew better than moderns often do, that a high calling is also a perilous calling, one that stretches the wires of man to their breaking points only to then actually break them. Moses knew he was wanted, knew he was watched, and he couldn't bear it. Why is this, we wonder? Why does man, a creature who so often craves attention from things both good and bad, just as often shrink back in terror at that same attention? Maybe, as was the case with James and John, sitting next to Christ in glory, we don't know the nature of what we ask for. The wrinkles goes further down, though, because you see, it's not just unseen or supernatural attention that we shrink from. It's also the normal attention of men. And that is maybe our story for today. What is the fear that sends us reeling when we receive attention we didn't ask for and cannot control? Why is it such an existential dread to be under the watchful gaze of a power man or otherwise, that we don't set the terms of? Why is stalking such a ubiquitously heinous thing? The ever watching spy is the stuff of romance, yes, but for the one spied upon, he is the embodiment of all mankind's greatest fears. Why is this? And what lengths will a man go to to run from that fear?

[Brian Sauve]

Derek and Maria Broaddus, with their three children in tow, stepped onto the green grass of their new home's front yard with a surreal sense of joy. The children, amazed at just how big their new house was, started laughing and running all through the yard, climbing the evergreen on its side, jumping into the plush bushes that lined the walkway and arguing about which of the chimneys Santa would use used to bring them presents that coming Christmas, aren't children the best? For parents, Derek and Maria, though, the satisfaction was more grown up, more mature for them to be in Westfield, New Jersey, looking at the front porch of 657 Boulevard, whose keys they now held in their hand, was a genuine dream come true and born out of years of hard work. Maria had been raised in Westview Field in a neighborhood not far from their new home. Ever since she had moved away, she had longed to return to this idyllic place. Its peaceful streets filled with the sounds of other children riding their bikes with no cares to consider its friendly people, its bright blue skies painted above the well kept lawns, its lingering smell of burgers and hot dogs on back porch grills that seemed never to go away, the jingle of the ice cream truck slowing down to sell to a laughing horde of people on summer days. All of it was the epitome of the best nostalgia for her. Memories of childhood bliss that she wanted her own kids to enjoy for as long as they could. And she had patiently waited for it to be hers once more as she stood there with her husband, tears of gratitude like those of convalescents with welled up in her eyes. Derek, though not returning to his home city, was nonetheless equally excited. He knew his wife well and he had known this to be her domestic dream since before they were ever married. And after years of working diligently to prove himself in Manhattan, he had finally made it. He finally had the salary he had worked so long for. The salary that finally allowed him to close on this gorgeous house for fully $1.3 million. It was tight, but it worked. Besides, how could Derek feel anything but happiness at seeing his wife and children so delighted to be there? Unfortunately, they weren't able to totally move in right away. The Broadduses had a laundry list of minor renovations they wanted to make before furniture was sent in and the new way of life could begin in the home. They therefore walked through the house. Each kid fought over what they felt was the biggest, best one of the six bedrooms. Maria drew up plans for the kitchen and living rooms. Derek walked the backyard and took mental notes of landscaping work that he wanted to do. Everyone took stock of what they wanted to get done right away from the place, but they mostly just laughed together as they toured it. It was finally theirs. It wasn't going away, and soon enough it really would be home to them. They locked the doors and climbed back into the floor family car. With one last look back and smile, Maria squeezed her husband's hand as they drove away. Three days later, the day darkened on 657 Boulevard as Derek did some painting inside. It was just him that evening. The contractors they hired for the renovations had already left for the day, and Derek enjoyed a little bit more time alone in his new castle as he brightened it with freshly colored rooms. The kitchen was steadily turning from a slightly outdated and eggshell white sterile to a modern farmhouse dining hall with tasteful light blue walls. Chip and Joanna Gaines would be proud. Before he left, he did one final sweep of turning lights off. In just three days, the contractors had proven themselves bad about leaving lights on. He wrapped his paint roller in a grocery bag and left it in the tray for further use. The next day. The final light to go off was the kitchen light, and from there he locked the front door and stepped down the almost antebellum porch to check the mail slot hanging near its bottom. They had only just closed on the home just a few days prior. Most of the mail was therefore addressed to the previous owners, the woods family, or it was junk mail from department stores and credit bureaus. He flipped through the envelopes separating the woods pile from the junk pile until he reached the final letter. It was different from all the others. The envelope was small and mostly bleached white, only exceptions being oily smudges on the backside from what seemed like dirty hands. He turned it over. No return address, but what was written sent a nearly imperceptible chill down Derek's spine. Written in blocky, clunky, and sloppy handwriting, as if with a fountain pen, was the phrase to the new owner. Derek opened it. Perhaps he shouldn't have, but how could he have known what was to follow? What he read then began a series of events that he would live to regret for years to come. Stressful years laced with fear and dread were all contained in that one note, that Pandora's box that Derek began to read. If only he could have put it all back. Dearest new neighbor at 657 Boulevard, allow me to welcome you to the neighborhood. How did you end up here? Did 657 call you with its force within? 657 Boulevard has been the subject of my family for decades now, and as it approaches its 110th birthday, I've been put in charge of watching and waiting for its second coming. My grandfather watched the house in the 1920s. My father watched it in the 1920s, 1960s. It is now my time. Do you know the history of the house? Do you know what lies within the walls of 657 Boulevard? Why are you here? I will find out. I see already that you have flooded 657 Boulevard with contractors so that you can destroy the house as it was supposed to be. Tsk, tsk, tsk. Bad move. You don't want to make 657 Boulevard unhappy. You have children? I have seen them so far. I think there are three that I have counted. Are there more on the way? I asked the woods to bring me young blood, and it looks like they listened. Do you need to fill the house with the young blood I requested? Better for me. Was your old house too small for the growing family? Or was it greed that brought you to me? Once I know their names, I will call to them and draw them to me. Who am I? There are hundreds and hundreds of cars that drive by 657 Boulevard each day. Maybe I'm in one. Look at all the windows you can see from 657 Boulevard. Maybe I am in one. Look out any of the many windows in 657 Boulevard at all the people who stroll by each day. Maybe I am one of them. The boulevard used to be the street to live on. You made it if you lived on the Boulevard. Welcome, my friend. Friends, welcome. Let the party begin. The Watcher. Join us in this episode of Haunted Cosmos as we explore the strange and dark tale of the watcher of 657 Boulevard.

[Ben Garrett]

Brian, I got bad news the other day. I was using one of the big box soap products to wash myself, and I got this weird urge to go buy a Stanley cup and fill it with iced coffee. And it started to feel a little cold in the house. I just wanted to wrap myself up in, like, a heavy wool blanket. And then also I started googling ticket prices to Taylor Swift concerts.

[Brian Sauve]

Ben, what are you doing? Don't you know that these big box soap companies just jam all their soaps full of hormone disrupting chemicals? They're probably turning you into a girl.

[Ben Garrett]

Well, I know that now, but what am I supposed to do about it then?

[Brian Sauve]

You ignorant Normie? All you've needed to do is go to indigosundrysoap.com and support a great Christian family business that's making all sorts of soaps that are completely free of hormone disrupting chemicals and other nasties.

[Ben Garrett]

Okay, I am literally going to indigosundrysoap.com right now. Tell me what to buy.

[Brian Sauve]

Ben, what I would recommend doing is clicking on bundles and then selecting the best one for you. You could get the men's six pack. You could get my favorite, the. The clay bundle.

[Ben Garrett]

Ooh, I like the pipe and jug bundle. That seems cool. Or a men's six pack, because that'll make me Feel like I have something that I actually don't.

[Brian Sauve]

So true, King. And you know what else I heard? Because they're such good friends of the show, Indigo Sundry Soap Company is offering 10% off your order if you just use all caps. Discount code Haunted Cosmos, no spaces.

[Ben Garrett]

Wait, Brian, you're going way too fast. I didn't get all that. Is that information in the show description?

[Brian Sauve]

Ben, you ignorant normie. It's always in the show description.

[Ben Garrett]

Okay, so I'm going to go to indigosundrysoap.com I'm going to pick the men's six pack bundle and I'm going to use code Haunted Cosmos at checkout. All caps, no spaces. And if I forgot all that, it's in the description of the show.

[Brian Sauve]

Of course, Ben. And if you just do that, then you will stop wanting to do all of those girly things and maybe you'll, I don't know, maybe want to buy a classic car to restore or something dignified.

[Ben Garrett]

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[Brian Sauve]

Man, Ben, I knew we were handsome, but I didn't know we were that handsome until I saw our recent Haunted Cosmos thumbnails.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah. Yeah. Your skin looks so velvety smooth.

[Brian Sauve]

I mean, it's unbelievable. Chris at New Dominion Design Company did an absolutely fantastic job not only on those thumbnails, but on our recent book cover as well.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah, exactly. And if you need some design work from Chris, you should go to newdominondesignco.com get started there. And he'll serve you right, man.

[Brian Sauve]

He will make you look 50% as handsome as Ben, guaranteed.

[Ben Garrett]

Well, hello everybody. Welcome to season five episode uno of Haunted Cosmos. I'm your host, Ben Garrett, joined as always by my good friend and co host Brian Sauve.

[Brian Sauve]

Are you not entertained? What a freaking crazy, spooky story.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah, that, like, if you're not terrified right now, then, I don't know, I think it gets worse. Hey, definitely single moms. Or just moms. Listen to this. At night, alone, when your husband's working late.

[Brian Sauve]

Do what Ben just said.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah, don't do that.

[Brian Sauve]

Okay, the young bloods part. So anyway, I started blasting, like it indiscriminately. I mean, just around myself.

[Ben Garrett]

You actually just mag dump into the note?

[Brian Sauve]

I just mag dump. I turn in a circle. I close my eyes. I start mag dumping.

[Ben Garrett]

Mag dump in the.

[Brian Sauve]

I trust that the Lord will guide the bullet to the. To the creepy person who needs to be unalive.

[Ben Garrett]

Yes, that's what I'm saying. I think that this was one of the. So, by the way, if you want to hear a version of the story that's really well done, you can check out an episode of Unexplained. I believe it's season four, episode three. It's by the host, Richard McClane Smith.

[Brian Sauve]

Smith. I'm Richard McClane Smith Smith.

[Ben Garrett]

And this. Anyway, he takes an insanely long pause between his middle and last name. It's really funny. But he did a great episode on it.

[Brian Sauve]

It's how both of us first heard it.

[Ben Garrett]

It's how we first heard it.

[Brian Sauve]

And it.

[Ben Garrett]

Seriously? Yeah. When I heard that first note, I was like, this is real. I thought it was fake.

[Brian Sauve]

No, I thought it was fake. Lexi, my wife, asked me last night, what are you guys recording tomorrow for Haunted Cosmos? And I said, it's 657 Boulevard. And she was like, that rings a bell. What is that? And I said, it's the watcher. It's the story of the letters. And she was like, that messed with me. Yes, I think I heard it. And then I was like, babe, you have to listen to this. Terrible decision as a husband.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah. Don't let your wife.

[Brian Sauve]

Terrible decision.

[Ben Garrett]

Listen. Let your wife listen to this episode because, like, it's different, dude.

[Brian Sauve]

When we. We vibe, okay? We're all Richard McClain. Me, Smith. He'll scare you. We would never do that to you.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah, it's also, you know, there's some comedic relief. I like to think of ourselves as some of the best comedians in the world right now.

[Brian Sauve]

Probably, like, top one.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah. As a duo. So, you know, it's not like Richard McClain Smith's is like. It's just. It's go. You're going. The only break is ads.

[Brian Sauve]

He's got that. Perfect. Like, if you've ever watched Parks and Rec, they have the fake NPR radio show.

[Ben Garrett]

Oh, yeah.

[Brian Sauve]

Where the guys are like, I'm Larry Goebbels filling in for Mr. Hamster, who is out in the Arctic documenting ice core sample taking.

[Ben Garrett]

Please enjoy our next segment. Jazz plus jazz equals jazz.

[Brian Sauve]

And then he says it's horrible. And he's like, but they are lesbians.

[Ben Garrett]

Well, they are.

[Brian Sauve]

Richard McClain Smith has the. Has that perfect, like, NPR voice.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah.

[Brian Sauve]

Like, ETHNICALLY indistinct accent. Is it British?

[Ben Garrett]

Very similar to Martina McBride.

[Brian Sauve]

Is it a theater kid that grew up in Europe who wanted to be British?

[Ben Garrett]

Here's the thing. No one knows if he's faking that accent. Someone get this man a Grammy or. He is not a Grammy.

[Brian Sauve]

No, it's a Grammy because it's like music.

[Ben Garrett]

They should do. They do podcast awards at the Grammys. They should do that.

[Brian Sauve]

No, clearly they don't because we haven't been contacted. So. No, I think it's the answer. Okay. We're five seasons in now. We would have heard.

[Ben Garrett]

We have a very accurate, I would say meek view of ourselves.

[Brian Sauve]

Very accurate self assessment.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah, we're both extraordinarily humble. Like, no one is more humble.

[Brian Sauve]

Anyway, this story is one of those that. The aspects of it that at first seem dark and creepy, they only get worse.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah, that's the thing, as you know. Okay, so I'll go ahead right out the gate. We're not gonna give too much away because we wanna get back into the story quickly.

[Brian Sauve]

We're gonna weave the story in.

[Ben Garrett]

But I'll say just right out the gate, just so you know, there's a lot of disagreement in the kind of high strangeness community, if you will, community, about whether or not this is a, you know, a person or if this is actually a supernatural entity.

[Brian Sauve]

Yeah.

[Ben Garrett]

Either way, it's, like, equally terrifying.

[Brian Sauve]

I mean, because even in that first letter that we've heard so far, the Watcher makes the house almost seem like an entity. Like it's sentient.

[Ben Garrett]

Exactly.

[Brian Sauve]

It is calling them like it is manipulating the Watcher.

[Ben Garrett]

By the way, there's going to be a huge discontinuity in this episode between how Brian read that first letter and how I'm going to read letters because I have to do it in Richard McLean Smith's voice.

[Brian Sauve]

Don't do it.

[Ben Garrett]

No, I won't.

[Brian Sauve]

I won't. Nah. Hey, welcome to season five, episode one.

[Ben Garrett]

I already said that.

[Brian Sauve]

So a little bit of housekeeping.

[Ben Garrett]

Martin, cut that out.

[Brian Sauve]

No, don't do it, Martin. Keep it cut. Actually, just put up Ben right now. Go to Ben, the solo camera. I'm here now. I just want you to put a black bar over his whole body. He is now censored from the X over his face. He's Done. X' ed out. All right, Continuing season five, episode one. We're actually returning to our roots a little bit with this season in one of the structural changes. It's not really change, but we did this with season one where Ben and I actually, like, we had the idea for the show. We worked on it for almost a year.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah, it was a long before we.

[Brian Sauve]

Released the first episode. And when we released, we had already done like five episodes. Completely finished. Eight. Eight episodes completely finished. And so for our patrons, we released basically on demand. Like the whole thing.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah.

[Brian Sauve]

Or like very far ahead. So what we're going to be doing this season is releasing as of today. This is episode one.

[Ben Garrett]

We're currently just. We're currently recording this on March. I'm sorry, February. It's not March. February 27, 2025. And the patrons got access to this episode fully produced like a while ago, the top two tiers of patronage.

[Brian Sauve]

So there's going to be all. This season will be a seven episode season and it will release. You can stream it on demand right now. So if you sign up for either of our upper two tiers of [e-mail] not only are you gonna get the Dusty Tome, which is our weekly story driven supporter exclusive show in the style.

[Ben Garrett]

Of Richard McLean Smith.

[Brian Sauve]

Yeah, Aaron, I'm Baron Spanky and this.

[Ben Garrett]

Is Richard McLean Smith is chore.

[Brian Sauve]

So you're gonna get access to the Dusty Tome. There's well over 100 of those episodes at this point. But you're also going to get this whole season that you can stream on demand. You can watch the video version or you can watch or you can listen to the podcast version ad free as well. So always our supporters get our show ad free and then the upper two tiers get it early and significantly early, especially now.

[Ben Garrett]

Very, very much early. So if you listen to this episode and maybe you're new here, maybe you've never listened to an episode of Haunted Cosmos, in which case, let me cordially apologize for how confusing it may have been when the cold open ended and then immediately we went into telling stupid jokes. But that's the way we do things.

[Brian Sauve]

Entertaining, I think. Fine line, sure.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah. I mean, comedy's all about taking risks, right? So if you like the show and you're new here, or if you've never considered supporting us at Supercast before, well, if you want to get the access to episodes two through seven of season five, you can do it today. You can do it today ad free.

[Brian Sauve]

And that's how we make all this possible. We have multiple full time employees that make this show possible. The writing, the research, the editing, the sound design, all of these various aspects that come into every episode is really, can I say, a tour de force, a triumph of the human spirit. Every episode has a lot of hands.

[Ben Garrett]

Every episode is, I think, in the modern world, the most palpable example of the immortal Western ethos.

[Brian Sauve]

Every episode is, I would say, our Magnus opus. Except places you shouldn't go.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah.

[Brian Sauve]

Which some people are now defending.

[Ben Garrett]

But in a way, it's still the greatest.

[Brian Sauve]

All right. Hey, let's, let's. Any more housekeeping before we continue?

[Ben Garrett]

No, not that I know. Apart from, I guess, you know, we have a book.

[Brian Sauve]

It's spinning around.

[Ben Garrett]

Spinning around. This episode is brought to you by Tucker Carlson's Alp Pouches. I just keep those.

[Brian Sauve]

Did you put those there?

[Ben Garrett]

I put those there so that I can just use them when I want them.

[Brian Sauve]

Right in front of the post war consensus.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah, of course. Oh, my goodness. So, RFK Jr. You know, Maha, get some nicotine. Ward off Alzheimer's. That is official medical advice from Hana Cosmos.

[Brian Sauve]

You know what they say, Nicotine plus caffeine equals protein.

[Ben Garrett]

That's right. Did Theo Vaughn say that? It sounds like something.

[Brian Sauve]

I think like some golfer said it.

[Ben Garrett]

Okay.

[Brian Sauve]

But I can't remember.

[Ben Garrett]

All right, cool. Yeah, I think with that.

[Brian Sauve]

With that said, it's time for us to continue taking you along the dark and twisting road of the watcher of 657 Boulevard in Westfield, New Jersey.

[Ben Garrett]

Upon completing the stalking letter, Derek ran back up the porch steps and into the house. He locked the door behind him and leaned against the door, breathless. His heart raced. He looked carefully around at all the windows. He could see from the foyer the Watcher's poison was already cutting to the quick and making him question the intention of every single shadow and shade. Derek took quick steps into the kitchen, looking over his shoulder as he did so, and picked up the landline that was already connected. He dialed 911. Unfortunately, nothing really came of the police's visit that night. What could the officer do? He told Derek to inform them if any other letters were found and persuaded him to move any construction equipment left in the yard indoors, lest someone try to throw something through a window in order to trespass in the night. Derek complied and then made the uneasy drive back to his family, where he informed informed Maria of everything. The couple weighed things over in their minds and externally processed all the data until they both rested, assured that it was really nothing to Worry about a prank or some disgruntled potential buyer made more sense than any of the darker explanations they thought of, but didn't say to one another. Nonetheless, they thought it best to reach out to the sellers, the woods family mentioned by the watcher, to see if they could shed any light on the situation. Andrea woods replied to the Broaddus email the following morning, informing them that they only ever received one letter from the so called watcher about a week before the sale of the home. In it, the watcher exposed that he knew the home was selling soon. But he also made clear that he viewed himself as the true owner and master of 657 Boulevard. Given that letters admittedly strange, but albeit more harmless nature, the woods just threw it away and thought nothing of it. This, of course, frustrated the Broaddus family, who could now confirm that it was anything but harmless. The woods, of course, were sympathetic. They willingly offered to accompany Maria to the police station now that knowledge of a previous letter had surfaced. In the detective's office, Maria was introduced to an investigator named Leonard Lugo. With sincerity, he apologized for not being able to do more, much more, at the moment, he warned Maria to consider all of their new neighbors as suspects, a piece of advice that only left her more shaken. Lugo ordered the Broadduses not to tell anyone else about the letters, but to only contact him directly should anything develop. In the following days, the Broadduses spent more and more time in their new home and getting to know their new neighbors. The renovations weren't yet complete, but they couldn't keep away from the charm that so often trumped the the underlying dread Derek and Maria now felt. Besides, their children knew nothing of the letters and they wanted to play in their new yard and neighborhood. The parents felt constrained to oblige. Even still, the children must have noticed something off about their mom and dad. Anytime they drifted to the edge of their property, Maria would shout at them with an urgent tone that they often mistook for anger. And they could see how different their dad behaved when he shook hands with a new neighbor coming over to introduce himself. But of course they knew nothing of the full truth, and they did not care enough to be bothered by these, what seemed to them minor inconsistencies. About a week after the closing date, the Broadduses found themselves nervous but desperately trying to appear normal at a barbecue in one of the adjacent backyards. On the street, the invitation had been last minute, but they were eager to attend and try to put their worries to rest as they actually got to know the real people. Benevolent people that they were going to be surrounded by. Unfortunately, despite trying so hard to just enjoy the time getting to know everyone, they found themselves unable to turn off the investigative sense. After all, the letter had mentioned the children. For Derek especially, finding the Watchers was a matter of personal vengeance. Now the barbecue served only to discourage. Maria especially could not bear the disappointment of feeling like an outsider in the dream setting where she had actually grown up. But for all of its discouragement and awkwardness, the cookout wasn't a total waste of time. Or so Derek thought. He spent the majority of the time speaking with a neighbor two doors down from six five who was named John Schmidt. Schmidt asked Derek if he had yet met the residents of the house that sat between them, the Langford house. He said that they were a little bit of an odd bunch, led by the 90 year old matriarch of the family whose name was Peggy. The other folks in the house were all of her children who were all in their 60s. Schmidt said that one of the senior children was a particularly reclusive and at times even standoffish character. After hearing this from Schmidt, Derek called Detective Lugo and told him about the Langfords. Lugo responded promptly by bringing the reclusive son, whose name was Michael, in for questioning at the station. Of course he had nothing whereby he could detain or arrest Michael, and for his part, Michael denied all knowledge of the letters. But Lugo put the screws to him as best he could anyways. By the end of the interrogation.

[Brian Sauve]

Luggage.

[Ben Garrett]

Lugo was so confident that he had solved the problem that he called Derek and told him he should not have to worry about receiving any more letters. Of course, the detectives said no more. But Derek and Maria started to feel a sense of calm for the first time in their new neighborhood. After those days passed, the Broadduses started to flirt with letting their guard down. Maybe it had been a simple prank after all. Maybe it was all over. Maybe Michael Langford was just a strange bird who couldn't be taken too seriously in his old age. But as they thought this new things happened. First, a heavy sign that the contracting company had hammered deep in the front yard was torn out of the ground one Monday morning. Derek, on being told about it, couldn't help but remember the Watchers expressed hatred of the renovations that company was doing next, while giving a cautious and therefore very awkward tour of the renovations to some next door neighbors he had just met. Derek stopped cold and began to panic when the wife turned to him and casually said, it'll be nice to have some young blood in the neighborhood. And then finally another letter arrived. This time it was Maria that found it. She drove by the house a full two weeks after closing to look at paint samples that Derek had put onto the walls of the children's rooms. It was a quick stop, but before she left she decided to check the mail. And even after two weeks of silence, she hesitated slightly before lifting the lid of the mail slot and digging through. She recognized the snow white envelope right away and felt her stomach drop when she turned it over to find the stodgy black letters written with a shaking hand. She pushed her pointer finger's nail through the open corner of the envelope and pushed back up to make hole. She slid her finger across the envelope's top, trying to be careful not to tear the paper inside, and pulled out the note. She didn't want to read it, but she had to read it. She had to know if it really was another Watcher letter before calling the police. Thus she took in a deep breath, opened her eyes to the print, and read the note that the exact wording has never been fully released to the public. What you will hear is a composite of authentic sentences and paraphrase fillers. Mr. And Mrs. Broadus, welcome again to your new home at 657 Boulevard. The workers have been busy and I have been watching you unload carfuls of your personal belongings. The dumpster is a nice touch. Have they found what is in the walls yet? In time they will. I'm pleased to know your names now and the names of the young blood you've brought to me. You certainly say they their names often. The author then accurately states the names and nicknames of each broadest child. And then the author relates how one day he watched as the broadest daughter painted a picture using an easel inside the enclosed back porch. He goes on to ask, is she the artist in the family? It has been years and years since the young blood ruled the hallways of the house. Have you seen? Have you found all of the secrets it holds yet? Will the young blood play in the basement or are they too afraid to go down there alone? I would be very afraid if I were them. It is far away from the rest of the house. If you were upstairs, you would never hear them scream. Will they sleep in the attic or will you all sleep on the second floor? Who has the bedrooms facing the street? I'll know as soon as you move in. It will help me to know who is in which bedroom. Then I can plan better. All of the windows and doors in 657 Boulevard allow me to watch you and track you as you move through the house. Who am I? I'm the watcher and I have been in control of 657 Boulevard for the better part of two decades now. The woods family turned it over to you. It was their time to move on and kindly sold it when I asked them to. I passed by me many times a day. 657 Boulevard is my job, my life, my obsession. And now you are too. Broadest family. Welcome to the product of your greed. Greed is what brought the past three families to 657 Boulevard and now it has brought you to me. Have a happy moving in day. You know I will be watching. Derek and Maria immediately stopped bringing their kids to the house. They spiraled into a panic of wondering how they could get out of this terrible situation that they worked themselves into. At the height of the stress, a third letter arrived. It read simply, where have you gone to? 657 Boulevard is missing you.

[Brian Sauve]

Hey Ben, I just read that our great grandparents probably experimented with butter on their dry skin as a moisturizer. Is that why you look so radiant?

[Ben Garrett]

Maybe it's Grandma's Butter Recipe. Or maybe it's Gray Toe Tallow.

[Brian Sauve]

Their tallow products are 100 organic and naturally contain the good stuff your skin craves. No mystery there.

[Ben Garrett]

So say sayonara Sammy to kitchen experiments and say hello to healthier skin. Gray Toad Tallow Trusted by Skin Envied by Great Grandma's Butter Recipe.

[Brian Sauve]

For more information and to get a sample pack, check out gray toad tallow.com don't forget to use the code COSMOS15. That's all caps COSMOS15 for 15% off your order.

[Ben Garrett]

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[Brian Sauve]

One layer to this whole story that I think is important for us to talk about is just why this sort of thing is particularly evil.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah.

[Brian Sauve]

Even though if you think about it, there are way more evil things overtly that we could tell that we could. You know, true crime podcasts constantly bring up, I can't listen to them or watch them. They're just too. Especially like there's, you know, children and all this stuff. They're horrible. But. And those are obviously worse crimes.

[Ben Garrett]

Right.

[Brian Sauve]

Because you're literally stealing someone's life. But this kind of crime and sin is like you're stealing someone's life in another way.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah.

[Brian Sauve]

It just like it's the theft of trust from a whole community.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah. You're exercising a kind of tyranny through fear over this family and even though the kids don't know it, over the children as well. Like, you know, we try to be really sensitive on the show and so, you know, the kids aren't harmed. I'll spoil that for you. But they're scared and frankly like that's enough to be just so wicked and damnable. And so yeah, it erodes like they don't trust their neighbors. No.

[Brian Sauve]

They worked really hard, bought this really nice house, like this dream fulfilled of returning to this neighborhood, childhood neighborhood, you know, give their kids an upbringing that they had, has aspects of what they loved about their childhood. And then you know, as a parent, if you think about like what would you do? Well, you can't now just say, yeah, kids play outside, no big deal. We're not gonna let fear win.

[Ben Garrett]

Right.

[Brian Sauve]

Well, but what if there's a deranged, psychopathic, mentally ill, demon possessed, evil person who might eat them?

[Ben Garrett]

Right.

[Brian Sauve]

Well, then you have to be wise.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah. Like God entrusted them to you and he will require, you know, an account for them from you. But it's also like, this wasn't the first thing that began eroding trust in this community. And I think that's worth bringing up.

[Brian Sauve]

Yeah. Why don't you just explain what you mean? Because there's another event that is, like, shockingly close to 657 Boulevard and in time and space that has parallels of creepiness and just mystery surrounding it.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah. That are really messed up. And so the Broadduses buy this house, they start renovating, start trying to get comfortable. Of course, the letters start right away, so they're not really comfortable. But there's the underlying threat of, well, now their neighbors have gone from neighbors and people that they want to be neighborly with to potential threats to their family and everything that they love. Like, that's no way to live. Already. Trust is the first step to commodious living. Like some level of basic trust, and that's gone. You can now not live peaceably. But it's worth saying that that wasn't the first thing to erode trust in the community at large. So before, like, the 1970s, Westfield, New Jersey, which is where 657 Boulevard is, and the kind of surrounding neighborhoods as well, was seriously such an idyllic place. It was too expensive and too far away from the big cities for young couples with no kids to live there. And so it was all like single family homeowners, usually with large families, larger families with kids. And it was like what the suburb was supposed to be. They all knew each other. They had cul de sac cookouts where everyone would just come and throw up a grill and they'd all hang out. Then in the 1970s, a few years before Maria Broadus was born, actually, there was this event with a fellow named John List, who was an accountant at a bank in Manhattan. He did very well for himself, but he had made some financial blunders. And he was. You could speculate about motivation all day, but basically something tripped. And he for months systematically planned what he was going to do as an exit strategy to get out of this shame and this trouble. And one morning, and, you know, I want to be delicate with this, one morning he woke up and he just brutally murdered his whole family. And he had a wife and kids. His mother was living with him, all of them. He brutally murdered them. And then he just got ready for work like it was no big deal and went into work. No one noticed anything wrong with him. And then after work, he fled. He had planned all this out. He fled, never went back to his house. And it took the cause it was interstate, so the FBI got involved. It took multiple months to catch him. He's still in jail today, actually. But that happened a few blocks away from 657 Boulevard. And it was such a big deal at the time. Like, that was the first murder in Westfield's history. And it was such a big deal that when Maria Broadus was born, by the time she was like, you know, a girl, five, six, seven, she wants to go ride her bikes with friends in the neighborhood, it was still something that she was frequently told by her parents. You may never be alone. You can never walk the streets. Like even close to dark in the evening, if you see anything weird that you think is weird, you have to run home or to a friend's house that's close by that you trust. So you already see the erosion of this kind of really like closed community. And then this thing happens with the Watcher. And I think people had just kind of reached a breaking point.

[Brian Sauve]

Yeah, it's. Did he. Wasn't there some kind of note or something?

[Ben Garrett]

Oh, that's right. So he left a very cryptic note, akin to the Watcher, actually. But it just. It hasn't all been released to the public, but it said some things and then it gave a reason for why he did it. And the reason that he gave and this straight laced accountant never did anything really crazy in his life was to, quote, save their souls. So his justification for taking the life of his whole family was so that he could save their soul. The speculation is that he wanted to save them from the shame of having a failed head and patriarch.

[Brian Sauve]

It's so odd. You start to look at some of these events and just where the human evil begins and spiritual oppression or influence begins as well, like where they meet, where the human evil ends in the spiritual oppression begins, is what I meant to say. Sometimes we have to keep in mind that people are capable of great evil. We know this, that you can't just scapegoat demons for everything that human beings do. But there are some things that are so inexplicably wicked that they make you immediately think, what was whispering in that guy's ear? Like even some of the. And I'll tease this a little bit. We'll talk about it more after the next installment in the 657 story. But even like the mental illness and acts of evil and spiritual oppression equation I think is worth looking at, because even in the Old Testament, not the Old Testament, in the ministry of Christ, we see people acting in ways that today we would look at and say, oh, that's just straightforward mental illness. It's just a problem in the brain or now the gut microbiome in the brain or there's this some kind of just purely physical, we're just stuff problem. And so people become crazy. But in scripture, Jesus heals people of overt demonic possession. And along with that overt demonic possession came real strange physical things that we would probably look at today and say mental illness.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah, we would, but we know they were spiritual. Oh, that's epilepsy or that's schizophrenia or something like that. And it was a manifestation of some spiritual issue that was plaguing the person.

[Brian Sauve]

Yeah, we have to remember that. Like, think about that story. What are the levers that are being pulled on the human psyche that leaves someone to that whether it's the flesh and human evil or spiritual evil, plus the flesh, it's the levers of shame, of failure, it's hiding, it's the whisper.

[Ben Garrett]

That if you bring the truth to the light, it will only ever get worse. There's no hope.

[Brian Sauve]

Instead of the gospel, which is you can literally, you can just confess your sin, be known for being a failure, for falling short of the glory of God, for even failing spectacularly and still be known by God, received by God, loved by God, like forgiven, cleansed, restored, all of these things. There's a lie in there that whether it's the flesh or the enemy, that was clearly whispered in this man's ear and he believed that the solution to his problems wasn't just coming into the light.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah, it reminds me a little bit about, I don't remember what the verse is in Proverbs, but a man who lacks self control is like a city without gates or a city without walls. Without walls, yeah. One of the things that Thomas Brooks talks about in his precious remedies against Satan's devices is how it's very rarely a big temptation to do some extremely heinous sin. It's very rarely like you wake up one morning and have this uncontrollable urge to murder someone. But it's the anger, it's the bitterness, it's the fear of shame, it's the self centeredness. It's these, he calls them, like single soldiers that come in through sidewalls that are left open. And eventually if enough of those single soldiers or two by two soldiers come in, you have a small army inside of the city walls. It's because you weren't vigilant. And now the temptation that really did, in accordance with James 1, start as twisted desires in your own heart, believing the wrong thing, believing lies, become, I'll call it, with the aid of dark forces, something that is no longer merely like a human corrupted evil, but is like a demonic railing against nature, railing against what God made and what God said was good. And it actually reminds me a little bit of the fall of Constantinople. It started with the Turks being able to come in through the sidewalk that was left open one by one, two by two. Next thing you know, Constantinople falls and the west begins to fall with it. But at a communal level. You know, when you start to extrapolate that from an individual to a community, you have these sins of, you know, maybe greed. Even the Watcher does mention greed. You know, it was an affluent community. And then you have this thing with John List. Like that is letting something into the collective psyche. Not to sound too Jungian, but the collective sense of security, the collective trust that if it's not properly dealt with, will continue to bear bad fruit. And if the community is already apostatizing or is not walking in faith diligently, then it's not being properly dealt with. And so it will continue to bear fruit such as this.

[Brian Sauve]

Yeah. So the evil of this act is not like the evil of the crime of murder, but it is analogous to it.

[Ben Garrett]

It's on the same line because it's.

[Brian Sauve]

The destruction of the community. Think about how this affects the property value of this house and then its neighboring houses. People are now scared, which then erodes a community and makes it from a high trust community to a low trust community to ultimately all the things that come with poor communities. Like all of the other problems now people are trying to flee them and escape them. This one little thing.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah.

[Brian Sauve]

Not dealt with or it's just such a wicked thing. I try to think of what I would have done. Yeah, it's hard to say, like, what would you do as a father?

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah.

[Brian Sauve]

Because you don't want to just hide it and sell it to someone else. That's actually. That's wicked.

[Ben Garrett]

That's participating in the wickedness.

[Brian Sauve]

You almost like have to take the hit yourself. But then you even think, like, well, what if I. What if I demolish the house? Or what if I move and then this person's infuriated and they just keep following me. Because you can't really escape somebody from being able to send you a letter and make vague threats against you.

[Ben Garrett]

Unless it is this weird fixation with the house and it's not a front for the family. Like, what if whoever's sending this Whether it's this terrible prank, quote, unquote prank, or an actual threat. What if the object of it is the house and not the family? That's always a possibility. And I mean, we'll get into this more as we continue in the story. But it is worth noting, I think, how Derek Broadus, because of this situation, was actually put in a similar place to John List. His reaction was very different. Yeah, thanks be to God. But, like, the level of financial stress can't be ignored.

[Brian Sauve]

It was huge.

[Ben Garrett]

He bought this house and he could afford it, but it was like. It was an ambitious thing. He was like, wow, we can finally do this. Let's do it. Let's go for it, you know, and then it immediately loses value. You can't sell a house within two years without getting nailed. By taxes that. I mean capital gains tax. That will just like wreck you. And then also he is like, I can't not tell people. Like, I can't not let someone know that this is going on. And so there's all these different ideas that he goes through to try to figure it out. He's losing money month by month in taxes and mortgage payments, staying somewhere else. Staying somewhere else because he has to keep his kids safe. And so, yeah, I mean, the level of stress that he was under, I would think would be far more than a guy like John List. And again, I mean, but that goes back to, like, this corruption that was introduced into the community, this corruption of the human soul. Whoever is behind these letters, an extremely degenerate person, but they recreated the circumstances that led to the first big tragedy in this community. And now this one ended differently. And we'll get into that. But all the parts were there for another powder keg.

[Brian Sauve]

Well, let's take the. Add the next layer to the story and then after this one we'll give you some speculation about what we think maybe was going on, who might have been behind it, some of the theories. But I think it's time.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah.

[Brian Sauve]

Maria sat on the covered back porch reading. The air outside was painted with warm sunshine and the choir of birds chirping from the trees all around. The sky was deep blue and painted with magnificent pillowy clouds. In the yard below, the children played and laughed together. Her book was. Well, she doesn't remember what the book was, to be honest, but it held her attention firmly in its grip and fascinated her. She was wrapped up in the book to the exclusion of all else for those few minutes. The droning cars on the other side of the. Of the house, the birds, the Buzzing bees in the garden. Even the laughter of children all melted away as she turned page after page, until, as if snapping out of a stupor, she realized that the children's laughing was actually completely gone. She rose from her chair in a panic and opened the porch door to yell for them to come back. None came. None of their voices answered. The sky had darkened by then and the birds were replaced with crickets. The air was still and quiet and Maria could hear her heart thumping and pounding against her chest. She stepped down the stairs steadily. Her legs felt weak and she breathed with an open mouth. The world began to tilt ever so slightly from her fear. She kept calling. Still no answer. She tore around the house from one side to the other and nearly tripped on the block of concrete that was stacked up on the edge of the driveway with the construction. The setting sun cast the world in a haze of red, like blood, still calling to no avail. When she reached the road, she turned back to look at the house, its white window frames glowing pink in the escaping light. No sign of the children anywhere. She turned and looked down the road and saw the face of her doom approaching. The world was darker at the end of a street, like a tunnel leading into an endless night. Her vision focused on on the figures of her three children playing just outside the thresholds of the darkness. Why were they in the middle of the road? She screamed to them, but they could not hear. She ran to them, but she could not run. From the shadows there came the figure of a man, old and weathered and bloodied. He held a dirty and rusty pitchfork in his hand and he wore a menacing, leering smile on his face. She watched as he walked slowly to to the children. Why didn't they run? Why couldn't they hear her? Why couldn't she move? Maria woke up in a cold sweat, gasping for air. She leapt from the bed and tore down the hallway of her parents basement to swing open her children's bedroom door. There in the moonlight she could see them all sleeping soundly. She leaned against the door jamb and put the back of her hand to her face. Perhaps she said a prayer then. Who can say? It was another one of the same nightmares they had afflicted her more and more frequently as the trouble with 657 Boulevard continued. Her poor children were confused. She and Derek were terrified. Her mother's heart could barely bear the tearing it suffered, the longing for domestic beauty in that wonderful home shoved aside by fearful eagerness to protect her children. She could not go on like this much longer. But what more could they do? They had already sold their previous home, and given the speed of rumor and suburban affluence, any attempt that they made to sell 657 Boulevard came up with no offers and no interested parties. The Broadduses intended to inform any potential buyers of the trouble they'd had, but they never even got the opportunity in the in 2015, a full year after buying the property, the family filed a legal complaint against the former owners, the woods family, for failing to disclose the odd letter they had received a week prior to closing. They didn't know what else to do. Their complaint was rejected and the Broadduses were once again stuck in the quagmire they walked into blindfolded. In a last ditch effort to sell, Derek reached out to a home developer and offered him the property for for a discounted price, he could split the property into two and build new, smaller units. Unfortunately, while the developer was keen on the idea, the HOA and City Planning Office both were not. The motion was halted and Derek's request was officially denied. In all of this trouble, the wickedness of rumor started to twist hard against the young family's favor. People started to whisper, wondering if the letters may not have been written by the Broadduses themselves in an attempt to back out of a foolish financial decision, but under the guise of a potential threat to their children to win them sympathy. Of course, this theory never gained much traction, but it did feed the gossips at the time and for a brief period of time at least, ruined Derek and Maria's credibility in the neighborhood. What's more, during this period, no other letters came from the Watcher. While this once again tempted the Broadduses to wonder whether their ordeal might be over or not, it made the nasty rumor of their manufacturing the whole thing seem to some more credible. Finally, in the spring of 2017, after three years of owning and not living in the home, the Broadduses decided to offer the house up for rent. They disclosed the issue of the letters on the listing and hoped that, far from minding curious tenants would actually be drawn to the property for the sake of its dark mystery. To each his own. Soon applications started to roll in. Within a month, tenants were moved into 657 Boulevard and the media attention surrounding the whole ordeal started to quiet down. With that attention being drawn to other things, the boulevard itself started to resemble its old charm. The bitterness infused into the street by the watcher subsided, or at least went dormant. By October of That same year, 657 Boulevard had transformed from a property of grave concern and terror, a full on urban legend to maybe more of a mere haunted house that children ran past or snuck up to on Halloween night. It had cost the Broadduses hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes and renovations and legal fees that they still had not reaped the fruit of. They never left lived in the house for a single day, but to both Derek and Maria, they were glad that it was at least now cash flowing with tenants. They still wanted to sell the property, but they were willing to wait for the world to more completely forget the property's time in the dark limelight. Unfortunately, though, the Watcher was not prepared to let them off so easy. One Saturday morning in 2017, Derek arrived at 657 Boulevard to deal with a squirrel problem the tenants had informed him of. He exited his car and walked toward the front porch only to see his tenant standing there waiting for him. The tenant was standing beside the mail slot. He held a white envelope in his hands and Derek's heart sank as he turned it around and showed him the familiar black lettering. Derek's spirit sank as it opened and the letter began to be read, but as he read, the sinking feeling turned to rekindled anger and fear. Though the full contents of the letter have never been released to the public, snippets of the message are known and they read as follows. The letter begins with the enigmatic and hateful greeting violent winds and bitter cold to the vile and spiteful Derek and his wife, wench of a wife, Maria. You wonder who the Watcher is. Turn around, idiots. Maybe you even spoke to me, one of the so called neighbors who has no idea who the Watcher could be. Or maybe you do know and you are too scared to tell anyone. Good move, the letter read with far less elegance than previous ones. It was laced through and through with great expressions of anger to the couple. The author informed them of having seen all the media coverage. I walked by the news trucks when they took over my neighborhood and mocked me. The author made fun of Derek's attempted stakeouts. I watched as you watched from the dark house in an attempt to find me. Telescopes and binoculars are wonderful inventions. The Watcher was even well aware of their lesser known idea to tear the house down and sell the lot to the developer. 657 Boulevard survived your attempted assault and stood strong within its army of supporters barricading its gates. My soldiers of the Boulevard followed my orders to a tee. They carried out their mission and saved the soul of 657 Boulevard with my orders. All hail the Watcher. The new tenants were mentioned, but only briefly. And the letter ended with threats of revenge on the Broadduses and the tenants. Maybe a car accident, maybe a fire. Maybe something as simple as a mild illness that never seems to go away but makes you feel sick day after day after day after day. Maybe the mysterious death of a pet. Loved ones suddenly die. Planes and cars and bicycles crash. Bones break. End quote. The rest of the story is one of cutting losses. The police still had very little to go on, even with the new letter, and the Broadduses were ready to do whatever it took to be rid of them of this tether to fear. The tenants were willing to stay, provided Derek put in more security cameras and alarms on the windows. But during their tenure there, the Broadduses had the home listed for sale. Month after month, they dropped the asking price lower and lower. They knew they would suffer a loss on the home, but they didn't reckon with just how great a loss the world was going to hand to them. It cost them Christmases, Christmases with little children for whom Christmas magic quickly wanes. It cost them comfortable living elsewhere. They were not destitute, but they were going to have to restart from square one when the chips were done falling. Finally, in 2019, the house sold for $959,000. Derek and Maria were free from the Watcher's grip after five years of turmoil and terror. The Watcher was never found, and no other letters have since arrived at the home from his or her hand. Earlier in the saga of the Watcher, a man named Shambliss sat in his car a ways down the street from 657 Boulevard. He was a veteran detective of the Westfield Police Department and was also one of the private investigators the Broaddus has hired to help them. And he was holding a night's long stakeout to see if he could catch the vermin in the actual as he sat and watched. But who watches the watcher? A car pulled by the front of the house and stopped. It was 11pm the car, black and idling, sat there, presumably studying the house for long enough for Chambliss to get suspicious. After it eventually drove away without any other action, he caught the license plate and traced the car back to its owner, a young woman in an adjacent town who boyfriend lived on the same block as 657, just a handful of houses down from the house. In fact, Chambliss went to the girl's residence and questioned her about why she stopped in front of the broadest home. She said she didn't know. Her boyfriend just wanted to see it. She had heard the headlines and figured him to be curious. But she also remembered something else. She told Shambliss that her boyfriend had begun playing video games that she didn't particularly like. Very dark games with dark ends and dark means. In one of the games, the player is forced to act as a kind of threatening stalker to ordinary people. The name of the character in that game, the Watcher. Shambliss sought out the boyfriend, who had since moved to a different part of the town. He agreed to come in for questioning on two separate occasions, but he did not show up either time. In the dearth of hard evidence, Chambliss was forced to drop the lead entirely.

[Ben Garrett]

Okay, so I think at this point it's good to get into theories and suspects. What do we think happened? And I want to right off the bat, bring back a guy that was mentioned and I believe the very first part of the story, which is Michael Langford. Or maybe he was in the second part. You.

[Brian Sauve]

You so and so, Michael.

[Ben Garrett]

Oh, Big Mike, you old so and so. If it was you, you should be.

[Brian Sauve]

Ashamed to say hell is hot.

[Ben Garrett]

You know, first of all, repent. First of all, I'm not gonna call you an old so and so because that's too friendly.

[Brian Sauve]

You old so and so.

[Ben Garrett]

But it might not be you. We'll get into that in a moment.

[Brian Sauve]

Anyway, what's that? What's the case?

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah. So once again, Michael Langford was one of the 60 year old sons of Peggy Langford who was in her 90s. What the heck, by the way.

[Brian Sauve]

First of all, what the heck?

[Ben Garrett]

Living in the house directly adjacent to 657 Boulevard. 659 Boulevard 659. Yep. Now here's some of the case against Langford. One, he's a 60 year old living with his 90 year old first.

[Brian Sauve]

He's a 60 year old living with His 90 year old mom.

[Ben Garrett]

But here's the problem.

[Brian Sauve]

On purpose.

[Ben Garrett]

He had other siblings that were also in their 60s who were also living.

[Brian Sauve]

That just means you're all bad.

[Ben Garrett]

It's like that dude. It's like that episode of X Files called Ken. If you know, you know, it's super messed up anyway.

[Brian Sauve]

And no, it's like literally every Criminal Minds episode when they finally find the unsub.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah.

[Brian Sauve]

And they get there and frickin Matthew Gray Gubler gets with his little pistol revolver and he's like dude, I'm gonna go in and. And then he goes. Gets kidnapped. But it's like by one of the creepy, like, flesh eating siblings. And then the matriarch is, like, all creepy. And she looks like Dwight's aunt who before she gets the shower in that one episode. And then she's like, I don't know what happened to your pretty little boy?

[Ben Garrett]

That's just like this episode of X Files. It's all.

[Brian Sauve]

They're all the same show. They just have different arrangements.

[Ben Garrett]

Those are two good ones, though. Yeah, dude, real quick. Yeah. Who's the guy that. Not Gideon, but who's the guy that plays the younger behavioral scientist agent in Criminal Minds? Who's, like, dark hair, he's got a mole, he's like, very handsome guy.

[Brian Sauve]

Is that Goobler, Matthew? Great. Gubler's the really handsome one. And there's a particular episode of Criminal Minds. It's called Zugzhuang. It is the most terrifyingly sad episode of all time.

[Ben Garrett]

If you know what Zugzhuang does in chess without looking it up, I'll know.

[Brian Sauve]

Comment at the same time. On three, we're gonna say what Zugzwang means.

[Ben Garrett]

Okay, wait, hold on, dude. Let me make sure I got it.

[Brian Sauve]

Okay, you ready, dude?

[Ben Garrett]

Wait, wait.

[Brian Sauve]

Okay, you ready? 1, 2, 3.

[Ben Garrett]

When you only have battles, you have to make a move. Yes.

[Brian Sauve]

Okay, it's your turn in chess, but you can only have moves that lead to devastating loss of material or loss of the game.

[Ben Garrett]

All right, anyways, let me go back to the first anyways that I was bringing up, and then we'll go back to the story.

[Brian Sauve]

My mind is very important.

[Ben Garrett]

Goobler.

[Brian Sauve]

Yeah. Matthew Gray Gubler.

[Ben Garrett]

Matthew Gray Gubler. Dude, there's this scene with him. He's, like, taking his son out for Halloween trick or treating. You know this.

[Brian Sauve]

Let me hear more.

[Ben Garrett]

And he's like, all right, buddy, you know, come on down. Let me see your costume or whatever. And he walks down just like, normal clothes like this. And he's like, what the heck, man? Like, why aren't you wearing your superhero cape or whatever? And he goes, oh, no, Dad, I want to go for Halloween as you because you're my hero. And, dude, I saw that on Instagram the other day, and I was like, oh, man. Wow. I'm glad I'm alone.

[Brian Sauve]

Anyway, it hit you right in the feels. I haven't watched an episode of Criminal Minds in, like, eight years.

[Ben Garrett]

He's a stiffer actor than Keanu Reeves. But that scene hit, dude, Matthew Gray.

[Brian Sauve]

Gubler is the best part of that show.

[Ben Garrett]

No, the. The guy who is, like, super skinny.

[Brian Sauve]

That's Matthew Gray Gubler. He's super skinny.

[Ben Garrett]

Okay. All right. I'm talking about the handsome guy.

[Brian Sauve]

He's handsome, too.

[Ben Garrett]

Well, sure, but not early on. He looks like a meth addict. Early on. He's got. He's got black bags under his eye.

[Brian Sauve]

Maybe we're thinking different.

[Ben Garrett]

He looks like he just got two shiners right before they said action.

[Brian Sauve]

What we can agree, though, is that if you had put. Whatever his name is, Reed, if you.

[Ben Garrett]

Had put Gideon on the case, if.

[Brian Sauve]

You put Gideon and Reed on the.

[Ben Garrett]

Case, it would have been solved.

[Brian Sauve]

They would have found 657 Watcher Boulevard guy.

[Ben Garrett]

And they may have.

[Brian Sauve]

And they might have been late.

[Ben Garrett]

And they may have zeroed in on Michael Langford. And here's why.

[Brian Sauve]

It might have been the initial red herring in the episode, though, that they ended up clearing. He fit the. But he looked like the part, dude.

[Ben Garrett]

You'Re getting ahead, getting ahead of it. Like, he might be too easy. Here's why he's so easy, though.

[Brian Sauve]

Yeah. Because he's flipping creepy. And he's 60 year old with his mom.

[Ben Garrett]

Here's some other reasons. Some of the windows in the Langford house had clear sight lines to the back porch that was covered, that had the easel. And the daughter was painting on the easel. And the watcher mentioned that in the letter. It would have been impossible for anyone to see that from the street side from other angles. So it had to be someone who had somehow had access to view the back of the house. Yeah, okay. That's worth knowing. The other thing is that if he had any of the windows open that had those sight lines, and remember Maria, because she was so scared, anytime the kids would even get close to, like, the bushes on the edge of the yard, she'd be, like, snapping at him to come back. And he could have heard her maybe yell their names. The thing about it that I don't think fits is that maybe not like, maybe she wouldn't have yelled nicknames. I don't know. I guess sometimes when I'm, like, trying to tell one of my sons to come back from the road, I'll use a nickname. But anyway. And then the other one that's really big is that Michael Langford part of why he still lived with his mom at 60 years old and his mom was 90 years old, and I can't emphasize enough how creepy that is, is because when he was really young, and this is kind of sad, actually, now I feel bad. He was diagnosed with schizophrenia and he had some episodes. It wasn't that bad, but he had some episodes of very erratic, very strange behavior. Some obsessive stuff. But it was all like, decades before. By the time he was 60, the schizophrenia was more just debilitating him and making him senile. Not so much whispering to him to do terrible things. At least according to the Langford family.

[Brian Sauve]

So the police that interviewed him, they were convinced immediately that it was him.

[Ben Garrett]

Oh, Lugo was like, this is the guy.

[Brian Sauve]

Because, I mean, it just seems like the guy who would do this. You find a creepy guy who can look at the house right next door. He's been there for. For a long time. So he could have this weird, strange mental illness attachment to this house. And then he starts. So of course they did that, but here's a few. These aren't, like, defeaters. We don't know who it was.

[Ben Garrett]

We don't know who did it.

[Brian Sauve]

But there had been an early handwriting analysis done by an FBI. What was that?

[Ben Garrett]

What's that? That reel where the guy's like, mana.

[Brian Sauve]

Exactly. Haunted house. Okay. So they had. They had hired, like, an FBI person to do a handwriting analysis that inconclusively said it was likelier to be a woman than a man. Yeah, they didn't give, like, oh, this is a. Definitely a woman. But then secondly, they'd had DNA analysis done on the envelope and the letters, and it returned female DNA only.

[Ben Garrett]

No male DNA, only female DNA.

[Brian Sauve]

So either the person who sent it had maintained CSI level, like, they're not gonna have any of their own DNA get on it. And then it was contaminated by, like, Maria opening it, or maybe someone else. And, you know, in this case, Michael Langford, maybe he.

[Ben Garrett]

Maybe he gave to his mom's mom.

[Brian Sauve]

Or, you know, someone else like that. But that's a little bit of a weird kind of like. Yeah, that's a weird kind of sophisticated thing. If he, like, planted female DNA on it or, like, somehow kept, never touched it, and, like, avoided.

[Ben Garrett]

But it may have been. It may have been more sophisticated than you'd initially think, because the FBI analysis of the letters came back with a profile that said that the person was a voracious reader who was probably highly intelligent and who seemed to be operating under premeditation until the last letter. The last letter was more like flying off the handle, just angry. It wasn't as well written. It didn't have turns of phrases that were normal for the watcher. So that's something to keep in mind. It may very well be that this person was actually far more forward thinking than we'd give him credit for. Sophisticated now, there's some other candidates. Not so much candidates, but some weird stuff that happened at the house that neighbored the backyard of the Langfords.

[Brian Sauve]

That's right.

[Ben Garrett]

So if you walk across the backyard, their fence line was shared with an older couple who had lived at the house back there. It was like a beautiful brick home for, I mean, decades. They had lived there for their kids grew up there. And one day, the contractor noticed something weird. He noticed how the owner of the home and his name escapes me right now. Sorry. But, like, Bobby or something, he brought his lawn chair through the backyard, set it up really close to the fence, and then turned it to where it's facing the fence. Normally, if you do that, you turn back and look at your house, and, you know, you're so weird. Yeah. And it was when the kids were playing in the backyard. And so when the contractor starts hearing this from the Broadduses, he's like, well, wait a minute. That guy. I thought it was, like, kind of a weird place to sit, but now it almost seems malicious, where he was trying to get really close to hear what was happening at the Broaddus home. But the other wrinkle with that house is that the daughter of that man ended up marrying a man who grew up at 657 Boulevard.

[Brian Sauve]

Really?

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah. You didn't know that?

[Brian Sauve]

Was this in Richard McClain?

[Ben Garrett]

I got him. No, dude, Richard McClain. You got to go deep to get that.

[Brian Sauve]

Smith, was it in his. Smith, was it in his. I also said that wasn't in his.

[Ben Garrett]

No, no, no, no, no. Did you have to go to a website to get.

[Brian Sauve]

Go deep. Wow. Okay, so that might be a connection that makes sense of some of the historic relationships.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah. Like my father before me and his father before him.

[Brian Sauve]

He oversaw the house. He protected it.

[Ben Garrett]

The walls contain its secrets.

[Brian Sauve]

Dude, that's creepy.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah.

[Brian Sauve]

So it might be Langford. It might be creepy back neighbor who inexplicably, like, sets up a lawn chair and just stares at his neighbors.

[Ben Garrett]

Dude, that's kind of weird. That's creepy. But it could.

[Brian Sauve]

Could just be boomer behavior.

[Ben Garrett]

Imagine. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Boomers are so, like, they have such a low EQ sometimes that they're insanely bold.

[Brian Sauve]

Maybe they just did that. He's like, I remember before this house was built, well, it was 100.

[Ben Garrett]

This is my favorite bush to look at. And so I'm going to look at. He probably has a Jersey accent. He's like, oh, he's my favorite bush to look at. I'm going to see Sylvester Stallone, the Gaba ghoul.

[Brian Sauve]

So. All right, okay, here's. Here's the one, though that is, to me, very creepy and weird. And it's the video game dude.

[Ben Garrett]

The video game dude.

[Brian Sauve]

Okay, so this girlfriend, the boyfriend's like, I want to go look at that house. Drive me there. It's 11pm okay, if you are dating a man who says, drive me to this strange house, I want to look at it.

[Ben Garrett]

Okay, wait, let me. Let me just play devil's advocate for this guy. I don't know why I would do this.

[Brian Sauve]

Like, if you'd heard the story at.

[Ben Garrett]

The time, the story was public. So they.

[Brian Sauve]

That's worse.

[Ben Garrett]

No, well, hold on. They had gone public. They weren't going out of their way to drive by it. When. When they drove by it, she was still living right down the street from 657.

[Brian Sauve]

Okay.

[Ben Garrett]

Now it's still weird to be like, oh, hold on, babe, let me stare at this house.

[Brian Sauve]

We know they're looking for creepy people who are keeping an eye on this house.

[Ben Garrett]

And he's just staring like, look at it. Look at that front porch. That's my front porch in the basement. No one can hear you scream. And she's like, kay.

[Brian Sauve]

She's like, kay, can we go home? All right, but then the layers. The other layers first.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah.

[Brian Sauve]

You know, he's been getting into some dark Vidi games.

[Ben Garrett]

Oh, what kind?

[Brian Sauve]

Oh, like stalker vidji games where the guy calls himself the Watcher.

[Ben Garrett]

Oh, interesting. Interesting.

[Brian Sauve]

Okay. Hey, can we talk to you, sir? Yes, I'll be there at noon tomorrow.

[Ben Garrett]

Okay, great. Looking forward to it.

[Brian Sauve]

Doesn't show up.

[Ben Garrett]

Hey, can we talk to you again?

[Brian Sauve]

Yeah, I'll be there at noon the next day.

[Ben Garrett]

Looking forward to it.

[Brian Sauve]

But I'm not gonna be there.

[Ben Garrett]

Doesn't show up again.

[Brian Sauve]

And they can't do anything because he hasn't committed a crime.

[Ben Garrett]

And it would be. Actually, this kind of gets into the closer story. Maybe this is a good segue.

[Brian Sauve]

It's a good segue.

[Ben Garrett]

This would be. And I don't mean for this to sound so light hearted, because it's terrible and horrifying. Yeah, but like, what a zoomer thing to do to be like, dude, I'm playing this game. I gotta stalk people. Sick. Turns out I love stalking people.

[Brian Sauve]

I love stalking.

[Ben Garrett]

So what I'm gonna do is just the game irl.

[Brian Sauve]

You just don't even change the name I'm gonna get.

[Ben Garrett]

It's gonna be cryptic. It's gonna be crazy. Dude, I'm gonna be a sensation.

[Brian Sauve]

That man's name, Barack Obama. I'm just kidding. That's not true. I made that up. But how crazy would that be?

[Ben Garrett]

That be would be crazy.

[Brian Sauve]

That'd make a lot of sense, man.

[Ben Garrett]

That would have been nuts. Yeah. So that could be, like, a typical thing to do as we go into this hyper Internet age where everyone's on chat forums.

[Brian Sauve]

Did we ask chatgpt some funny things this week just to see if it would help us plot various.

[Ben Garrett]

Well, one of the biggest Internet things to do is an arg, an alternate reality game. Google did this to recruit people to work at Google, where they had a billboard up and it said, like, the first five consecutive prime numbers in decimals of e dot com. And whoever found it first and went to dot com, like they got recruited by Google for an interview or whatever. That's kind of an arg. And one of the things that's become more popular in the 2000s is ARGs that not all the contestants know they're in the ARG. It's, like, punked. Yeah. But usually terrifying and way worse dark. And so, you know, this case ended, was closed, it went cold in 2017. Like, that was not long ago.

[Brian Sauve]

They sold it in 2019, lost $340,000. Plus all the other stuff they'd spent.

[Ben Garrett]

Yeah. Plus hundreds of thousands of dollars in taxes and legal fees, stuff like that. And so it really could be a case of, like, an ARG gone wrong where someone is just so drawn into this kind of cryptic, like, let's tell this cryptic story that's very dark and very disturbing, but they don't consider the fact that the people who are receiving the brunt of it aren't in on it, and it actually just completely ruins their life.

[Brian Sauve]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, on that note, let's talk. Let's end the show with a look at one of the, like, most interesting cryptic examples of some of what Ben just described. Not.

[Ben Garrett]

Sorry.

[Brian Sauve]

Well, I do. I want to hear what everyone thinks, though. Go, go look into the 657 Boulevard. Come up with a theory some Internet autist is going to solve it.

[Ben Garrett]

Yep. And I'm looking forward to that.

[Brian Sauve]

Put it in the comments. Tell us who it was.

[Ben Garrett]

This last story. Not creepy, just kind of interesting. I figured we'd end on a more light note because this has been a horrifying story. So thank you all for listening and joining us for this first episode of season five. Again, if you want all of the episodes already done ad free. Go to hanacosmos.supercast.com and sign up for one of the top two tiers of patronage.

[Brian Sauve]

See you next time.

[Ben Garrett]

The year was 2012. It was the fourth day in the month of January. On the random bored forum of the popular site known as 4chan, an anonymous account posted a cryptic letter in the form of a JPEG image file. When opened, the image read, hello, we are looking for high level intelligent individuals. To find them, we have devised a test. There is a message hidden in this image. Find it and it will lead you on the road to finding us. We look forward to meeting the few that will make it all the way through. Good luck. Signed 3301. Immediately the message was met with the expected replies. Who are you? Who is we? Why are you looking for people? And what does 3301 mean? But once more, users began to examine the image more closely. The replies took a thoughtful turn. Who could have known then the intricate and twisting labyrinth they were entering by opening that image? Of course, none. But enter they did, and the story will go down as one of the wildest in Internet history. One user opened the file in a text editor instead of in an application that supported images. When he did so, he discovered a string of text appended to the bulk of the code that read Tiberius Claudius Caesar says and then a bunch of characters. The final stretch of characters in this string was a cipher. Once deciphered, it revealed a link to another image. The user plugged that link into his browser and found that he had fallen for a diversion, a decoy that was hidden in the code. It wasn't going to be as easy as that. Instead, using an application called Outguess, users were able to perform perform deep analysis on the original image that decoded hidden information within the file. When Outguess was complete, it yielded a link to a subreddit with a corresponding text file that outlined the key to a text cipher. The Reddit link redirected to a review of the book entitled the Mabinogion, translated by Lady Charlotte Guest and illustrated by the famous Alan Lee. When users read the book with the text cipher that they received from Outguess, they put together a message that prompted them to dial a given phone number when called. The other line played the following pre recorded response. Very good. You have done well. There are three prime numbers associated with the original final.jpg image. 3301 is one of them. You will have to find the other two. Multiply all three of these these numbers together and add a.com at the end to find the next step. Good luck. Goodbye. The following days saw the original image being shared all over the web. The hunt had transcended the ethereal laws of 4chan, and now people were starting to talk. As armchair sleuths tried to figure out the other two prime numbers, less interested parties speculated on what this puzzle could actually mean and who it was from in. Some confidently asserted that it was an Internet troll trying to waste people's time. Others retorted by saying that the already high level of complexity involved made that theory a little incredible. Some wondered if it could be an unofficial test of recruits by a secret society of dark web writers or a secret government agency. But at the end of all the debates, everyone had to admit that they had no idea. They had to simply wait for someone who cared enough to figure out the rest of the puzzle so that they could find out. And fortunately for the audience, they didn't have to wait very long. The two other prime numbers were found to be the original dimensions of the image, 509 pixels and 503. When these were multiplied with 3301 and turned into a web address via adding the.com, it yielded a white web page populated with a photocopied image of a cicada whose outspread wings were above a countdown. Once users waited for the countdown to reach zero, a string of geographic coordinates populated the page. Users were directed to go to the coordinates closest to them, where they lived, and look for a cicada image in the real world that matched the one on the screen. There were 14 different locations across the globe, and. And a cicada image was found at each and every one with a QR code beneath it. The QR code led to another image, which led to another cipher, which led to another book, which led to yet another website. But then things took a turn. Where before, there had been no time restraint on who figured the puzzle out first, now the website was only letting a select group of its first visitors in to see the final leg of the puzzle. This, people surmised, was to ensure that the only ones who actually figured everything out would be able to continue on. And this suspicion was confirmed when users tried visiting the site the following day, but were only met with text that read, we want the best, not the followers. Allegedly, users that were let in were warned not to collaborate whatsoever for the remainder of the puzzle. They were also warned not to share any details about what remained. And despite someone leaking this verbiage, users apparently complied, at least for the most part, since the details of the end of the puzzle remain a bit of a mystery. A few weeks later, a post appeared on the original subreddit that the first image had linked to, which read the. Hello. We have now found the individuals we sought. Thus our month long journey ends for now. Thank you for your dedication. If you were unable to complete the test or did not receive an email, do not despair. There will be more opportunities like this one. Thank you all. Signed 3301. At the bottom of this new image, a string of seemingly random characters were found. Vested parties did not know how to react. So many questions remained unanswered. For starters, they had no idea what had come of the few that had been let into the final leg of the puzzle. No news had come from any of them, at least not yet. And while some were willing to continue in their stubborn belief that it was all a trolling effort, the lack of news from the select few made others feel confirmed in the contrary. But they would not have to wait too long to realize that the whole thing had actually been just the beginning of a much larger riddle. You see, the anonymous user behind 3301's signature had been stamping his clues with something called a PGP signature, an online signature unique to whatever user owns a specific account or computer. In the months following the initial puzzle, many imposter accounts had tried to begin new hunts by posing as the real 3301. But none of the PGP signatures matched, which confirmed to everyone that they were actually a hoax. But a year and a day after the initial image had been posted to 4chan, another image dropped whose PGP matched the real 3301 and it read the following. Hello again. Our search for intelligent individuals now continues. The first clue is hidden within this message. Find it and it will lead you on the road to finding us. We look forward to meeting the few that will make it all the way through. Good luck. 3301. Unfortunately, what followed seemed to be more of the same as the first puzzle. The picture led to a thread and a text cipher that led to a book. The book led to a URL, the URL to a phone number, and on and on and on it went, with little variation from the first puzzle. That was until the very end. At the end of this one veiled references to a secret Twitter account, and a perplexing book called Liber primus, Latin for first book, came to light. And that, well, that's a puzzle that still hasn't been solved to this day. Of course, more could be said about Cicada 3301, but I believe as a close to this episode, and in the spirit of what can be lawful curiosity, I've already said enough. Perhaps the story for my part can end here. All that is then left is for you to find the thread, pick it up, and follow it to the end. Only, as is the case with all mystery, guard yourself against disappointment in what you find. If God has placed eternity in man's heart, and he has, then it seems Proverbs would tell us he has also set investigation there as well. Our investigative spirit, had we not fallen, would would have spent endless years examining with perfect curiosity all that God made, maybe redeemed. Eternity will be like that too. But what created thing could satisfy such a strong drive to find the unknown? What man can be truly content with answers he finds in this twisted world? Maybe Christ, fulfillment of so many other things is the fulfillment of Proverbs 29:2 too as well. He is the king who seeks, but he is also the glorious thing lesser kings are meant to seek out. Perhaps Christ alone is the bright labyrinth, the divine puzzle whose every clue is both perfectly satisfying and perfectly motivating to continue on. Anyways, happy hunting.