Episode 644: The Battersea Poltergeist Part II - Ghost Writer

Summary

---

Last Podcast On The Left

Episode 644: The Battersea Poltergeist Part II – Ghost Writer

Release Date: November 28, 2025
Host(s): Marcus Parks, Henry Zebrowski, Ed Larson

---

Main Theme / Purpose

This episode concludes the saga of the Battersea Poltergeist—one of Britain’s most bizarre and prolonged paranormal incidents from the 1950s. The hosts take listeners through the escalation, investigation, and aftermath of the Hitchings family's haunting in Battersea, London, focusing on the poltergeist’s shifting identities, theories about its true nature, the toll on the family, and the futile efforts of investigator Harold Chibbett. The tone is as always: irreverent, speculative, and darkly comedic.

---

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Previously on Battersea: Violent Escalation

• Recap: The Hitchings’ family haunting intensified, with the poltergeist “Donald” now violently targeting 15-year-old Shirley, including alleged arson (Shirley’s bedsheets spontaneously catching fire).
  • Marcus: “I don’t think that it’s likely that a 15-year-old girl in 1956 had the arson skills necessary to stump a hardened London fire investigator.” – (05:09)

2. Nature of the Haunting – Paranormal or Psychological?

• The hosts debate whether the phenomena were a prank, poltergeist, psychic event, or a Tulpa (psychic manifestation fueled by belief and attention).
  • Henry: “I actually think it’s…the more middle way conversation is the fact that we’re seeing an actual contained psychic event mixed with a creation of a Tulpa completely accidentally by a family in London.” (05:44)
  • Discussion of “tapping” communication and the endless, painstaking process of ghost messages—one letter at a time.
  • Henry reads a poltergeist message: “Silly old cow. Do as I say. Pan. Monkey chops. Windbag. Bum fluff. You shit.” (13:26–13:58)

3. Donald’s Shape-Shifting Identities

• Donald’s identity morphs continually:
  • A wronged actor from the 1700s,
  • A French prince (Louis XVII, “the lost dauphin”),
  • An eight-foot alien with space secrets,
  • A violent pyromaniac and, at one point, pop culture figures like James Dean.
• Marcus: “This is the first time I’ve heard of a poltergeist bringing aliens into it!” (07:45)
• The "French Prince" theory fuels a years-long obsession for investigator Harold Chibbett.

4. The Chibbett Angle: True Believer or Duped Investigator?

• Chibbett is an ardent, almost naïve believer, compared to “wildlife photographers” not “Warrens-style” aggressive ghost hunters.
  • Chibbett spends years hunting for “proof,” obsessing over French history, and seeking confirmation of Donald as Prince Louis XVII.
  • Sunk cost fallacy: the longer he invests, the more desperate he is to prove it’s real.
  • Henry: “That is the spookiest story of all: Harry Jibbet reading about Prince Louis for no reason for years.” (36:07)

5. Incidents & Escalations

• The “communication” with Donald goes beyond messages:
  • Furniture moves, kitchen objects fly, recurring arson threats, hidden work clothes, and even direct violence (friend pushed on tracks, slop bucket dumped into Shirley’s underwear) – all leading to Shirley’s difficulties working outside the home.
• The activity increasingly centers around Shirley’s frustrations and desires—i.e., Donald wants her to have new clothes, beauty products, and (notably) to meet handsome young actors.
• Shirley is persistently at the center, with “Donald” possibly functioning as an extension of her psyche and adolescent anxieties.

6. Celebrity Obsession & Predictions

• Donald requests visits from celebrities featured in popular culture at the time, like Marius Goring (“The Scarlet Pimpernel”) and actors Jeremy and David Spencer.
• Claims of supernatural prediction: Donald allegedly predicts Jeremy Spencer’s car accident and another celebrity’s death, which seem to align (though the hosts are skeptical of Chibbett’s motives).
  • Marcus: “But he had been saying for weeks beforehand that the car accident was coming...” (49:19)
  • Henry mocks possible manipulation by Chibbett: “How do I cut these brakes?” (49:04)

7. Poltergeist as Shirley’s Psychological Phenomenon

• The hosts lean towards an interpretation where Shirley, perhaps subconsciously, generates the phenomenon via telekinesis—consistent with some poltergeist theory linking events to adolescent girls.
  • Henry: “I think that there were knocks coming from literally the bones in her feet that she was subconsciously doing...she had this weird untapped ability, tap-ability.” (65:27)

8. Grandma Ethel: The Human Toll

• Grandma Ethel is both a main target and the most superstitious family member. After sustained poltergeist torment—including escalating violence, threats, objects flying (supposedly), and a final, massive fight—she suffers a stroke and dies.
  • Henry: “That is one of those facts about this case that prove something was happening inside of the house, that it literally drove her to have a stroke.” (67:38)

9. The Haunting’s End & Aftermath

• After Ethel’s death and though the phenomenon continues in the household, Shirley eventually finds steady work (not as an actress) and the activity slowly subsides as she grows up, marries, and leaves home.
• Donald “fades away” without exorcism—just as part of Shirley moving on with life. Occasional “goodbye” note, and alleged sightings (decades later) from a supposed medium.
• Chibbett, after years of fruitless writing, never gets his manuscript published and dies in relative obscurity.

10. Reflections: What “Really” Happened?

• The hosts admit there’s likely a hybrid of rational explanations (adolescent psychological disturbance, family repression, maybe some minor trickery, wild suggestibility, or psychic phenomena) and unprovable supernatural.
• A parade of failed explanations and the inability to ever “really” know:
  • Marcus: “It’s the volume...There was something strange happening inside the house.” (38:03)
  • Henry: “UFOs are more real than this. Yeah, say that, but I believe at the center of this is the psychic activity, which is why it’s interesting.” (80:21)

---

Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Donald’s insults (to Grandma Ethel) (13:26–13:58):
  • Henry (as Poltergeist): “Silly, silly old bugger. She is old Battle X. Fat slag nose. Overgrown beetroot. Silly old cow. Do as I say. Pan. Monkey chops. Windbag. Bum fluff. You shit.”
• On Chibbett’s single-minded obsession (36:07):
  • Henry: “I think that...the spookiest story of all is Harry Jibbet reading about Prince Louis for no reason for years.”
• On adolescent telekinesis theory (65:27):
  • Henry: “I think there were knocks coming from literally the bones in her feet that she was subconsciously doing. I think there were exterior noises she somehow created, and I do believe that the objects flying around came because she had this untapped ability, tap-ability.”
• On poltergeist shifting to James Dean (55:09):
  • Henry (as James Dean/Poltergeist): “Now I don’t know who you good folks are, but I’m still waiting for help. Please hurry. I’m grateful to you ma’am for keeping me here, but I’m lost. I want to get back to my country. Look mister, I’m James Dean. I didn’t ask to come here but I just guess I got here. So help me please I belong in California.”
• On the unresolved mystery (77:44):
  • Marcus: “But Donald the Poltergeist never returned. And whatever he may have been still remains to this day. A total and complete mystery.”

---

Timestamps for Important Segments

• [05:06–06:15]: Fire incident recap; debates about paranormal vs. hoax/tulpa.
• [13:26]: Donald’s insult to Ethel, comedic reading.
• [17:11–19:58]: Donald’s French prince claim, and tie-in to 1950s pop culture.
• [27:24–36:55]: Deep-dive into Chibbett’s obsession, historic background of Prince Louis, the eventual DNA testing of the heart.
• [37:01–41:56]: Ongoing physical phenomena in the house; poltergeist interfering with Shirley’s life and work.
• [49:19–51:31]: Donald accurately predicts car accident involving actor Jeremy Spencer; “weeping photo” incident.
• [65:07]: Discussing Andrew Green’s outside opinion: Shirley has psychokinetic abilities, not a ghost.
• [67:02–68:19]: The death of Grandma Ethel after extreme phenomena; hosts debate trustworthiness of witness memory and lack of photos.
• [71:04–72:07]: Shirley finds an ordinary job, the “haunting” begins to wane.
• [72:28–72:49]: Chibbett’s book gets an unmarketable title, never published.
• [74:12–79:35]: Shirley’s later life, marriage, and accounts; her own ambiguous belief in Donald’s reality.
• [80:21]: Hosts' final verdict: “UFOs are more real than this...at the center of this is the psychic activity.”
• [81:51]: Reflections on success, comedy, and podcasting.

---

Conclusion

The episode explores the Battersea Poltergeist’s many twists, questioning traditional ghost narratives and the line between belief and wishful thinking. Ultimately, they frame the haunting as a product of post-war anxieties, adolescent unrest, and perhaps a family’s subconscious drama—peppered with all the absurdity of mid-century paranormal media.

Final Thought:
At the center of it, the Battersea haunting defies categorization—unfolding as a theatrical mélange of family dysfunction, tabloid culture, psychic claims, and one aging ghost hunter’s professional self-destruction. The only certainty: It’s a story that, true or not, continues to haunt British ghostlore.

---

Transcript

[Marcus Parks]

With stays under $250 a night. VRBO makes it easy to celebrate. Sweater weather. Book a cabin with leaf views or a home with a fire pit for nights with friends with stays under $250 a night. Find a home for your exact needs book [e-mail] hey, Ryan Reynolds here wishing you a very happy half off holiday because right now Mint Mobile is offering you the gift of 50% off unlimited. To be clear, that's half price, not half the service. Mint is still premium unlimited wireless for a great. That means a half day.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Give it a [e-mail] Switch upfront payment.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Of $45 for three month plan equivalent.

[Marcus Parks]

To 15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only. Speed slow 135 gigabytes of network busy.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Taxes and fees extra.

[Marcus Parks]

See mint mobile.com there's no place to escape to. This is the lost on the left.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's when the cannibalism started.

[Ed Larson]

What was that?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh shit. Hi. Up on the shore. That can't be Irish.

[Ed Larson]

You're Irish again.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Ah, fuck it. But it's kind of like an Irish. I was listening to Shirley talk this morning.

[Marcus Parks]

The. The lady, the British, like the Battersea of the London accent, man.

[Henry Zebrowski]

When I. There was an interview with her, with Shirley about the new podcast because I didn't know that there was a big extensive podcast.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. About three years ago.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And I looked at it and it, you know, really there doesn't really come to any specific conclusions except for the fact in the end like Shirley was like, it goes will real all along. You know what I mean? But when they cut to her talking on this is like from I guess three years ago.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

On this morning television show. She's the ghost now. Currently, yes. British people turn into ghosts while they're alive.

[Ed Larson]

Oh yeah. At age like 44, I believe something.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Happens where they all. One day she was a young girl and then she was a woman and then all of a sudden what. When do you turn into the.

[Marcus Parks]

I knew that ghost was coming.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I knew.

[Marcus Parks]

You have a specific fear of old people though. You and Jackie both.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I mean it's fear. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's a fear.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. You have a true. You were both truly afraid of old people. You're disturbed by them.

[Ed Larson]

They're easy to fight.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's the weird.

[Ed Larson]

You know what it is?

[Marcus Parks]

They pose you no threat.

[Henry Zebrowski]

There's something about them. I don't like them.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I don't like them. They ski me out.

[Marcus Parks]

They make you uneasy.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They do.

[Ed Larson]

And I Think take a pad of paper from an old person, it'll ruin their month.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I know is that there's so many of them on hair triggers.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, hair triggers.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But.

[Marcus Parks]

But the thing, once the trigger is pulled, what happens? Nothing.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Sometimes they take a plane down.

[Ed Larson]

I don't know, man. It's just like you could take their socks and they'll die.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Welcome. Last podcast on the left. Ladies and gentlemen, my name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with the elder phobic Henry Zabrowski.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I will say that there's nothing that quite keeps me more together elementally as a female, as my compression socks. Because without him, I would explode.

[Marcus Parks]

And we also have the man who has a million ways to kill grandma. It's Ed Larson.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, yeah. You know one thing. Slap her to death. You know, just put a pillow over her face.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Honestly, if you just shake a really old woman long enough.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Just ruin the air conditioning. That's only. That's a summer kill.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Put it in on the winter. That's a winter kill.

[Marcus Parks]

I could see some like, new merch. Like a thousand and one ways to get rid of grandma with Ed Larson.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Slice him, dice him, drown them, gas him.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, like one of those, like really big rectangle horizontal books.

[Marcus Parks]

I know you've always wanted to write a joke book.

[Ed Larson]

I really.

[Marcus Parks]

And I think this might be your joke book.

[Ed Larson]

1001 uses for a dead woman. Yeah, Dead old woman.

[Marcus Parks]

I'm sorry.

[Ed Larson]

Please.

[Henry Zebrowski]

We want someone to live the full life.

[Marcus Parks]

Actually, let's be real disrespectful.

[Henry Zebrowski]

None of.

[Ed Larson]

None of the. None of the ways. Uses are no.

[Marcus Parks]

None of them.

[Ed Larson]

None of them are no.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No pencil sharpener in her ass. That's.

[Ed Larson]

That's number 98, which is debatable as.

[Marcus Parks]

To how sexual it is today. We are on the Battersea Poltergeist Part 2. The conclusion. So when we last left the Battersea Poltergeist, the spirit had taken the name of Donald and had engaged in his first violent act against the girl. He detached himself. 15 year old Shirley Hitchings of London. This was after the Hitchings family had ignored Donald's repeated requests to have specific reporters that Donald had called out by name drop by the house to talk to him. And after the reporters didn't show up, Donald the poltergeist had allegedly lit Shirley's bed sheets on fire in the middle of the night. And while it has been speculated that Shirley lit the fire herself, investigators came up with nothing when they tried to determine the fire's actual cause. To me this implies that there could have been something paranormal behind the fire. Something we don't understand.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But literally. Of the term paranormal.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes. Of the term paranormal, yes. Something we don't understand. I'm not saying that it is a ghost named Donald who lit the fire. More just like the investigators couldn't figure out like any conventional reason why the bed sheet set on fire. And you know, that's the thing. I don't think that it's likely that a 15 year old girl in 1956 had the arson skills necessary to stump a hardened London fire investigator.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Because it's such a burnable city.

[Marcus Parks]

It's very much a burnable city. Yeah. They've just gone all the time. They just gone through the blitz. You know, there's a lot of ways for London to burn down also.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I think that this is a story, I talked about it last week. But even further into this side of the story you begin to see. It's obviously all around Shirley. It follows her everywhere she goes. And I think it's very easy to say that it's a hoax. I actually think it's the, the more middle way conversation is the fact that we're seeing an actual contained psychic event mixed with a creation of a tulpa completely accidentally by a family in London.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Something closer to some between. Yeah. Carrie and Jeff. The talking mongoose.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

Now it seems like after the fire, Donald resigned himself to the possibility that no more reporters were coming. So he had no choice but to begin start blowing them himself.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You're allowed.

[Marcus Parks]

So he had no choice but to begin communicating with the portly paranormal investigator. That was Harold Chibit, who if you'll remember, Harold Chibit was the guy who named Donald the poltergeist who writes fat name.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, it is, it is. He's like the guide who sits. No, no.

[Marcus Parks]

Interestingly though, Donald seemed to know his audience when he and Chibbet began communicating. See, in addition to being the founder of a paranormal group called the Probe, Harold Chibbett was also a science fiction author. He was very interested in aliens. So while communicating, Donald sent a message that he would, quote, do harm to anyone who don't believe in flying saucers.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's cool. Who don't believe in flying saucers.

[Marcus Parks]

I do harm to anyone who don't believe in foreign saucers. I guess that.

[Ed Larson]

Let me think about this. I don't. I believe.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That'S how they get you with that Michael Caine British ghost logic.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, Donald also claimed that he had knowledge of space travel. Knowledge that was unknown to any Human. That's. This is the first time I've ever heard of a poltergeist bringing aliens into it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Go north.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

And he also had knowledge of eight foot tall beings who were living on no less than five other planets in our solar system.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, poor Chibbage is going. Oh, sorry, I just made a little mess. My britches. This the most fabulous conflagration topics I've ever heard.

[Ed Larson]

Is this turning into space jam?

[Henry Zebrowski]

I think it's space jelly.

[Marcus Parks]

It's more space marmalade.

[Ed Larson]

Put it on my crumpets.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Angry.

[Marcus Parks]

But just as quickly as Donald had gotten friendly with Chibot, he switched back to threats of arson. He claimed that he was going to set fire to Nan's bed, referring to Shirley's grandmother Ethel, and that everyone should get ready for fire. And as it happened, on the evening of that threat, the family stove repeatedly turned itself on. And the stove kicking on by itself, soon became a fairly regular occurrence in the Hitchings home. It wasn't a gas stove, it was an electric stove, but still it could cause fires.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's almost number one in poltergeist activity in terms of operating with fire and operating a stove.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Which I find interesting. I just dealt with this with the ghost in the box in my home where I was told like, obviously when we received the ghost, Jason, we knew that it would have an issue with flame and fire and that it would move things. That's what they said. And I spoke with Jason. True. I gave him a little gift to. Gave him a joint and gave him some alcohol because I knew he liked that in life. And then when I went. I was grilling and I was talking with Jason and I had put hamburgers out on the grill with it fully going. And then when I came back out, the grill was turned off.

[Ed Larson]

Really?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes.

[Ed Larson]

We just run out of gas?

[Henry Zebrowski]

No, the dials were completely turned.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, maybe he was a cook and he was mad you were burning the food.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I wasn't. I had a timer.

[Ed Larson]

Sounds like you were burning it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I don't do that anymore. Also, it's very difficult to cook hamburgers to temperature on a grill. We all know this. You're asking for a medium rare temperature burger at a fucking backyard barbecue. Leaf.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, no, you definitely should. I'm trying to wrap my head around this right now. So Harold Chibbett. This is what it looks like to me.

[Marcus Parks]

Okay.

[Ed Larson]

All right. Harold Chibbett is a fraud, but there's a real ghost in the house.

[Marcus Parks]

I don't believe that Harold Chibbet is a fraud. Harold Chibbett is a true believer. He's not actually. I would put Harold Chibbett in the category of, you know, like the guys who were at the infield poltergeist house.

[Ed Larson]

Okay.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But the. The. What's it. The rectory. The Borley Rectory. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Harold Tribbett is a true believer. In fact, he is such a believer that he's going to spend years of his life trying to find a way to tell the world that this is real. Yeah, He. He's. He is a true believer to a fault.

[Ed Larson]

Okay.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And it's also a specific type of ghost investigation in America. We made it very aggro. Right. The idea of that. It's some battle between these forces of.

[Ed Larson]

Good, like tactical vests on.

[Marcus Parks]

And it started with the war. Like, the Warren started this, like, antagonist. Antagonistic style of ghost hunting.

[Henry Zebrowski]

These guys really were more like. I'd put, like, wildlife photographers.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Like, he wanted to just be there and witness because he believed that if we just categorize all of this information, one day there will be a piece of proof. So he really is kind of just in the house. But that might instigate behavior from a little girl who's looking for attention or potentially a little girl who has untapped psychic abilities.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. And also she likes boys. And Harold Chip. It's Harold Chip.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He's a man. And she don't got that taste yet. For a big, thick British man. You gotta, like, vest, fluff, cigar ash. Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

The standards have not yet gone away, and she has not yet accepted that she can't have both. Now, after threatening to burn Grandma Ethel alive, Donald began hurling insults directly at Shirley's nan.

[Ed Larson]

Whoa.

[Marcus Parks]

See, Ethel and Shirley had somewhat of a strained relationship, although the strain was very normal, very middle class, and very British. Apparently, Ethel refused to teach Shirley how to make lace because Shirley was too impatient to master the craft properly.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Shut up.

[Marcus Parks]

And Shirley was very meth.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, you're mad about not making lace. Shut up.

[Marcus Parks]

I want to make lace. You can't. You're too impatient.

[Henry Zebrowski]

We fought the Holocaust. What did you do, Shirley?

[Ed Larson]

Maybe that's what happened with the bed sheets. She was just trying to get a quick way to make lace and burn little holes in it.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes, too quick. But even though this seemed to be the worst of Shirley and Ethel's conflicts, Donald began focusing his ire on ethel in late March 1956 by communicating insults through messages using the tedious one letter at a time system the Hitchings family had developed, tapping out each letter one by one. And I Just find it so funny. Funny because, like, think about this. When right before Henry reads. Like, as Henry's reading this, think about this, is that these people are writing out this entire message one letter at a time.

[Ed Larson]

So it's like.

[Marcus Parks]

It's C. Well, it's. What it is is they're moving their finger. They have a piece. They have a piece of paper.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's like a Ouija board.

[Marcus Parks]

It's like a Ouija board. They have a piece of paper with the entire Alphabet written on it. And then when they get to a certain letter, when they get to, like, D, they'll hear, like. And then, like, they write down D and they get to E and then write that down.

[Ed Larson]

Now, is it in order? Is it the QWERTY system?

[Marcus Parks]

It's in order.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's in order.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Yeah, it's in order.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But this is the message that took probably half an hour, 45 minutes to decipher. Silly, silly old bugger. She is old Battle X. Fast like nose. Overgrown beetroot. Silly old cow. Do as I say. Pan. Monkey chops. Windbag. Bum fluff. You shit.

[Marcus Parks]

You. You. You. You. You. A shit. Shit.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You shit.

[Ed Larson]

Started losing it at the end.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, he. I mean, and that's.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You shit.

[Marcus Parks]

You.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You shit. And then.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, that's.

[Ed Larson]

Use your words.

[Marcus Parks]

That's the weird thing about it, is it does sometimes these. Even though they're tapping out the letter, tapping out the words one at a time, the messages do at times become more frenzied as they go on.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Ah, yes. S. Oh, interesting. Yes. H. Ah. Maybe she. She.

[Marcus Parks]

I.

[Henry Zebrowski]

T. Fine. You. You. Me.

[Ed Larson]

You.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I'm. I'm the one who shit.

[Marcus Parks]

Wind bag. I see. Oh, bum fluff.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Bum fluff.

[Marcus Parks]

Interesting.

[Ed Larson]

Now, not to keep being an. But how's this little French boy speak English?

[Marcus Parks]

Well, he also speaks French.

[Ed Larson]

Years old. He doesn't know you.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I.

[Marcus Parks]

Everything.

[Ed Larson]

I was 15. I thought the little boy died at 8.

[Henry Zebrowski]

No.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, the little boy died at 8.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But that grew up in Heavon.

[Ed Larson]

Am I getting ahead of myself?

[Marcus Parks]

You're getting ahead of yourself. Sorry about that. No, it's fine, it's fine, it's fine.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I grew up in Heavon. Everybody thought he in heaven, sex is illegal for me in heaven.

[Marcus Parks]

That message was communicated to Harold Chibbett, but Chibbett was unmoved. After Chip it set aside what seemed to be an almost uncontrollable amount of anger towards Grandma Ethel, he began deducing Donald's identity. Donald, however, tried on a lot of hats before he finally Settled on a.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Winner who would say, shit, you shit bum.

[Marcus Parks]

At first, Donald gave information that implied that he'd been an actor at a famous London theater who died in 1753 at the age of 100.

[Ed Larson]

Wow.

[Marcus Parks]

As proof, Donald gave a bunch of names that supposedly belonged to his fellow 18th century actors.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's easy. I can do that all day. Daniel, Punch, Chew, Reginald, Act, Most, Gwendolyn, Act. Least I can do a lot of different. There's so many names you make up. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

And most of these names, they were kind of close to the actor rosters that Harold Chipot found in the archives. Because Donald did name the theater. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

How many British names are there?

[Marcus Parks]

Quite a few.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Like Tenderson, Robert Man. His name is Ribbit, Wonder, Gunt, Pritchard, Fairchild. Yeah, these are all names.

[Marcus Parks]

But there was at least one name that Donald absolutely nailed. The spirit claimed to have known an actor and playwright with the incredible name of Richard Steele. Now, Chibbett was floored when he found the name Richard Steele in the history books. Because how would a 15 year old know the name of an actor who'd been dead for 200 years? Especially a name as odd as Dick Steele? But even if it was a coincidence, Dick Steele was still enough to keep Harold Chibbett going. Now, after Donald spent weeks cycling through identities, he said he was an actor, then he said he was an alien. Then he'd settle every once in a while into being a pyromaniac with a hatred for old ladies.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Which is understandable, it's relatable.

[Marcus Parks]

But he finally began to settle on a permanent identity. By the end of March, he was claiming that he was a 15 year old French prince who had almost been murdered during the French Revolution. Unlike his unluckier relatives who had met their ends with the guillotine, Donald claimed that he had escaped the revolution but had tragically drowned in the English Channel not too long after that. He had been imprisoned at 8, but had drowned at 15. Now this is a big claim. So to prove it, Donald began leaving messages for Chibbett that described late 18th century France in great detail.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Many a street, all France, restaurants, France, many ways for which they. For you to visit France in the 18th century.

[Marcus Parks]

I will say this, he was far better at describing 18th century France than the Kentucky vampire.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

When he described 18th century France, he was way. It really was a. There's like stones on the crazy roads and like people are eating, like.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, yeah, they were, yeah, they were, they were.

[Marcus Parks]

No, this was. He was getting into pretty good detail, you know, like describing, you know, like court rituals and you know, what, what the grounds looked like. It was fairly accurate, not perfect, but still pretty close. And this would have been absolutely incredible if not for the fact that a British TV series called the Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel set 18th century France and involving French royalty. It was airing at the same time that these claims began. Now, Shirley Hitchings claimed that she never watched a single episode of the Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel. It had an 18 episode run. It was actually one of Christopher Lee's first roles. He had an uncredited role as an executioner.

[Ed Larson]

Started off well, he was actually an executioner and then he got hired to do the role.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I love him. The story of him describing killing a man in real life to Peter Jackson.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

And while not a single episode. Episode of the Adventures of the Scarlet Pimpernel involved the drowned French prince, the emergence of the French royalty personality in Donald emerged right after this show finished airing. It must also be said that the airing of the show coincided with Donald's first celebrity request. In what would be a recurring theme, Donald left a message demanding that the Scarlet Pimpernel himself, a handsome young actor named Marius Goring, come visit the Hitching home. Just to say hi.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's hard to get him.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, it's hard to get anybody. Like how do you get a celebrity to a young celebrity? Like, hey, there's a ghost out in Battersea that wants to see you.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, if you also offer to sell him your daughter.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I think a lot of the weird guys will come out of the woodwork.

[Ed Larson]

That's what Shirley was banking on here.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, yeah, maybe. Yeah, hopefully.

[Ed Larson]

It seems like it's just like a little girl who wants to meet her crush.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I mean this is. It's true, right? Yeah. But it's interesting in the way that the message was delivered versus what the message is. That's kind of what I keep coming around is they keep talking about how the messages were found and they were both highly strange, like written in weird like papers and doing the kind of stuff. But also in this knocking, like weird way they do it in the long form knocking communication that they did that. It's just, it's, it's just interesting.

[Ed Larson]

I feel like the ghost would ask to see normal people as well as.

[Marcus Parks]

Celebrities, but he has to see reporters. He did.

[Ed Larson]

But that's not a normal person. To me, those people who are like out in the world with their names and papers and stuff like that, I'm agree with you.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It is it is one of those things of why it's very easy to say the story is not true.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. But it does also. But the thing is, to use that as the only debunking method is to ignore everything else that happened.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It just keeps getting thicker.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Also, you remember when we were younger.

[Ed Larson]

Just like the grandma.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. We're gonn. Do you not feel like when you were younger, there was a lot more Scarlet Pimpernel in pop culture?

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, it was. It was huge in the 50s. And then it had, like another revamp.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And then another revamp. And then I remember being a musical.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And it just kind of went away. I think it just became too hokey and we stopped caring about aristocrats and saving aristocrats.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. But also then technically, like, Batman came from that. The Batman's better.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

After the French bitched out and left the Vietnam War and we had to take over.

[Marcus Parks]

Losers.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I like to hear, finally a real goddamn man's opinion.

[Marcus Parks]

I'm not gonna comment on that because that was a big can of worms you just opened there.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

I'm just gonna move right past the bomb me sandwich. And I love that.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Thank God for Vietnam. The one thing the Vietnam conflict brought me was summer roll.

[Marcus Parks]

And I will still argue that the scene with the French colonists in Apocalypse now should have been left in the movie.

[Ed Larson]

It was awesome. I love the scene, but it was long and boring.

[Marcus Parks]

It's very well debatable.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's long and fascinating and boring.

[Ed Larson]

Yes. Context.

[Henry Zebrowski]

This is an ad by BetterHelp. You know, I really lost contact with my ascended masters recently. It's been so hard to psychically reach them because so much aluminum has built up in my pituitary gland. I guess it's because I've been using all this fancy Dancy natural deodorant that apparently has extra aluminum in it. But honestly, I just wish I could reach out sometimes. You know, it's just nice to make somebody's day. My ascended masters always tell me I'm right and that I'm not too fat for life. Some people don't have ascended masters to talk to. Some people wish they could reach out to somebody. And this season, Better Help encourages you to reach out, check in on friends. Just like, it takes a little courage to send that text or grab coffee with someone or ask one of your ascended masters what's the proper way to destroy communism. Reaching out for therapy can also feel difficult, but it can be worth it. It. So I say you get out there and just like, I want to give a call using the powers of Votan. For those of you that don't have Voton, enjoy betterhelp this month. Don't wait to reach out. Whether you're checking in on a friend or reaching out to a therapist, better help makes it easier to take that first step. Our listeners get 10% off their first [e-mail] LastPod that's better. H E L p.com LastPod this podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Squarespace is the all in one website platform designed to help your business stand out and succeed online. Every dream needs a domain, which is why I finally solidified the borders of my own animalsurl register.com you will bend to my will thanks to the power of Squarespace, I have been quantifyingly organizing every single available animal based creative business URL that is around and I'm coining them for myself. Wonderful things such as buffalo sauce sauce.com such as as kangaroo hats.com such as many different chickens shoes.com and it's all held behind the giant iron powerful Squarespace fueled gates of animalsurlregister.com and any one of you that dares defy me or the unilateral power power of Squarespace with their blueprint AI Squarespace AI Enhanced Design Partner which sounds like the Hand in hand we will march across the graves of URLs that people have been trying to steal from under me using the cannons of animalsurl register.com me AI my old buddy Jeff Bezos. We're coming for you. All right. Squarespace is gonna help me. Squarespace is my bullets. Squarespace is my canvas. Squarespace is my God. We like Squarespace here. Head to squarespace.com left for a free trial. When you're ready to launch, use offer code left to save 10 off your first purchase of a website or domain. If you've ever felt overwhelmed by the idea of learning a new language, you're not alone. Studies show that 70 to 90% of people trying to learn a new language give up. Fortunately, Babel's built so that it's really easy to get started. Learning a language with Babel is all about small steps, big wins and progress. You can actually track and feel their bite sized lessons fit easily into your daily routine and are also easy to remember. It's easy to use Babel. It's easy for you to learn different words stuff like if you're in Germany and you need to be like hey, where can I get some see through Lederhosen you can learn that if you go to Mexico City and you want to learn how to say, do you have any see through lederhosen in Mexico City? You can learn how to do that. I believe the Spanish word for lederhosen is lederhosen, and I learned that from Babel. Here's a special limited time deal for our listeners right now. Get up to 55% off your Babel subscription at babel.comforward/left. Get up to 55% off at babel.comforward/Left, spelled B A B-B-E-L.comforward/Left. Rules and restrictions may apply now.

[Marcus Parks]

After Donald's request for a celebrity visit was denied, he made a statement that would send Harold Chibet down an obsessive investigative rabbit hole that would go on for years on end. After weeks of false starts when it came to Donald's identity, the poltergeist finally stuck to one and communicated that his real name was Louis. He was indeed a crown prince of France. Oh, yeah. And he had indeed been killed as a result of the revolution. Now, Chibbett took this statement and ran with it because this message heavily implied that Donald was actually the spirit of Prince Louis, AKA Louis xvii, son of King Louis xvi. King Louis, of course, had been executed during the French Revolution in 1793, and according to historical record, Prince Louis died not too long after. Now, this would have been a massive discovery for Harold Chibet because throughout the 19th century, it was popular amongst scammers and crazy people to make claims that they were actually Prince Louis, the long lost son of King Louis xvi. Usually, scammers would have some sort of harrowing tale to tell as far as how they had escaped the French Revolution. And they would sometimes even have documentation to back it up. Prince Louis fate was therefore the subject of no less than 500 books. That's just in the coming centuries.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's so amazing. I didn't even. I had no idea about this stupid conspiracy theory. And it was that big.

[Marcus Parks]

No clue. Well, it's not a conspiracy. It's just one guy.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, it's kind of like what's his name? What was the. The daughter from the.

[Marcus Parks]

I'll get to that family. Yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean, that's really what it's. I mean, as far as the cottage industry goes, it's think of it like the JFK conspiracy. You know, there's just a whole industry around it. There was a whole industry around the Prince Louis story. And the scam was the antecedent to the Princess Anastasia claims that were made throughout the 20th century in which women came forward to say that they were the last surviving member of the Romanov dynasty and had somehow survived the mass basement execution that came as a result of the Russian revolution. It's this interesting thing in which, you know, the people have revolution, they kill a bun of royal children, and then somebody comes forth to say, like, no, I survived and I am that royal.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah. Because they'll either. They hope that they'll get money.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, no, no, it is about. It's about money, fame, getting into the, you know, aristocracy by actually doing nothing.

[Ed Larson]

I feel like it has to have worked at least once.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I mean, honestly, aristocracies, the arist aristocrats, get in there doing nothing anyway. What's different if you lie to get in there.

[Ed Larson]

Amen, brother.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, as far as Prince Louis went, the real story is indeed heroin. King Louis XVI was guillotined in January of 1793. Yeah. But his wife, Marie Antoinette, and his son, Prince Louis were separated and imprisoned by revolutionaries until their fates were decided. And we're in real history.

[Henry Zebrowski]

This is real Prince Louis. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, Prince Louis was just 8 years old when all this happened, but he was nevertheless locked in a dark, damp cell where he was fed infrequently and his jailers physically abused him.

[Ed Larson]

Hey, it's hard for a kid that age to get his own room.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's truly. And also, how much fun would it be to beat up a little prince?

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, that's the problem.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's too much fun.

[Marcus Parks]

Eventually, the terrible treatment enabled the revolutionaries to convince Prince Louis that his mother and sister had sexually molested him prior to his imprisonment. This is more proof of the decadent royals. This false accusation of sexual abuse was used as evidence in Marie Antoinette's show trial, the one that the revolutionaries set up for in order to basically give them license to cut off her head. Course, the trial ended in a death sentence, and Marie Antoinette was executed by guillotine in October of 1793.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Interesting. I had no idea any of that.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, yeah, no, no, The. The sexual abuse thing, that was a really big part of, like, this woman needs to die. Like, look at. Look at how decadent she was. Look at how awful she was. You know, it's because they needed some personal extra.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They need some extra.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. They needed to show that, like, it wasn't enough to just show that, you know, we're starving while, you know, they're in their palace in Versailles. You also need. They also needed to show, like, they.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Got to be evil.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. They have to be evil too.

[Henry Zebrowski]

To.

[Marcus Parks]

They can't just be out of touch.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They can't just be on the wrong side of history.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, but the crazy part of this story is that the revolutionaries simply left young Prince Louis to rot in jail. Over the course of about a year and a half, the prince became unrecognizable. He was covered in sores and he eventually died from tuberculosis in prison at the age of 10. As was medieval European tradition, a physician cut out Prince Louis heart and secretly smuggled it out of prison. Preserved in wine. Very French. The rest of the body was reportedly dumped in one of the many mass graves that have been dug to bury the thousands of people who were executed during the French Revolution. It's estimated that about 17,000 people were guillotine during the French Revolution.

[Ed Larson]

That's awesome. That's a lot of blood.

[Marcus Parks]

It's so much blood. Oh my God, the head rooms.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I can't wait till we do this.

[Ed Larson]

They must have got sick.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But no one liked it.

[Marcus Parks]

Actually, it was a problem. It was a mat. All the massive amount of bodies. It was a huge problem health wise. But the position held on to the heart of Prince Louis until 1815. That was the year the French monarchy was restored. Napoleon and all that. The physician attempted to give the heart to Prince Louis uncle, King Louis xviii. But the new king declined to accept the ghoulish gift.

[Ed Larson]

I'm gonna keep it.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, you know what?

[Henry Zebrowski]

You've already had it. You've already close to it. You know, I don't want to get in there. I don't want to change its schedule.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, instead, the heart passed through the hands of various European royals until it was finally laid to rest in a necropolis reserved for French royalty.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, I thought it was Dick Cheney's chest.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, baby, unfortunately. Did you hear the news?

[Marcus Parks]

What?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Dick Cheney's got a big old hog.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, of course he does. He's a piece of.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah. He's got that amount of confidence. That's a beds. That's big Dick confidence.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Big old hog. Yeah, they found that on the autopsy.

[Ed Larson]

It's like I. I can't even get to his chest. This giant cock. Someone get the hell out of the way.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Honestly, can we pin this back behind him? Can we shove this up his ass? Fortunately, my cock shrunk three inches those few years I had the heart of that little French boy. Don't worry, we'll tug the rest of it out.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, the heart stayed in the necropolis until 1999 when it was removed in DNA testing. Tested at long last, the test proved that the heart did indeed belong to Prince Louis.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Wow.

[Marcus Parks]

And it was eventually laid to rest with the bodies of his parents, Marie Antoinette and King Louis xvi.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, good for him.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Now part of the reason why the heart had been DNA tested was because even back when Prince Louis died in 1795, rumors began immediately circulating that he had escaped prison and that the dead body of another child had been used in his place. As a result, dozens of imposters showed up at various European noble households over the following decades. One, a German clockmaker, even wrote memoirs that were so convincing that his death certificate and gravestone identified him as Louis XVII when He died in 1845. That clockmaker, however, was just one of dozens of men who claimed to be the so called lost daughter. Often men who hope to ascend the ranks of European royalty. But that's all to say that if Donald the poltergeist was indeed Prince Louis, the long lost child king of France, then Harold Chibbett was on to a very big story indeed.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And it would not be I. The only problem is, is this is Harry Chips main issue is the fact that this is now where we really see the antiquity of his knowledge, where he has this idea now that it's a very specific ghost that does very things and it's very easily categorical like category like you can put it all together, it's easy. Now I need to figure out the history of this ghost and we'll tell its story and it'll be a whole thing and it's going to show, it's actually going to prove that in its trickster like presentation of the phenomena. It's going to embarrass him.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Looking for this information and essentially going to, I might even say waste most of the years of his life that he spent trying to connect Prince Louis to this ghost.

[Ed Larson]

That's a true haunting.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I think that that is, that is the spookiest story of all is Harry Jibbet reading about Prince Louis for no reason for years.

[Marcus Parks]

For years, for years. Well, I think the reason why he focused on this so much is because he wanted proof.

[Ed Larson]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

And he thought that, that if, if the ghost could somehow say something that Shirley had no way of knowing and if he could connect that then he could say look, look, here's the proof that this is a poltergeist, you know, so because they, he has no way of knowing how to prove this phenomena. I mean he's, he is collecting all of the information that he can through the Fortian Method. But he is also looking to make his mark. Mark in the world of the paranormal. And he's trying as hard as he possibly can.

[Ed Larson]

Could be several ghosts.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, very much. That's another. It's another weird explanation of this whole thing.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, even though Donald was supposedly communicating directly with Harold Tribbett as Prince Louis, it must be repeated that the house at number 63 Wycliffe was still extremely haunted. And Donald's antics were by no means limited to messages. It said that furniture upended itself every night. Objects from the kitchen would go missing or they'd fly through the air. And the taps and the knocks became so routine that each family member was greeted with a specific noise each morning.

[Ed Larson]

Can mine be a fart?

[Marcus Parks]

Sure.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's my noise. That's my noise. Come on.

[Marcus Parks]

There were so many incidents that occurred in even just the first few months, never mind the following 12 years, that it would take us hours upon hours to cover them all. So I would very much recommend the book the Poltergeist Prince of London if you want this full story. It's fat. It is fascinating, but fuck, there's so many incidents.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's really. To me, it's the volume that speaks to the weirdness of the situation. That's why, like, if you read the book and allow yourself to be kind of enveloped in the amount of incidents that happens, you might start to why See why? We're like, there was something strange happening inside of the house.

[Ed Larson]

That's what happens. It's so long when you let the ghost, right? It's got nothing but time.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I mean, tell me about it. You got to cut these guys off.

[Ed Larson]

Get the ghost, that editor, the ghost.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That edits the ghost, needs a ghost writer that actually knows how to, you know, kind of. Because everybody knows. Every script passes through, like, night.

[Ed Larson]

Oh, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

But when you look at Donald the Poltergeist's overall goals, it seems like one of his biggest focuses was keeping Shirley from holding a job. He wanted Shirley at home. Or quite possibly the other explanation is that Shirley wanted to be at home. See, after Shirley lost a second job to Donald's tapping, because if you'll remember, that tapping followed her everywhere. Donald threw a tantrum the night before. Shirley was about to start a third job job. Reportedly, Donald hid Shirley's new work clothes the night before she was to start a new job at a bank. Then he tipped a slop bucket full of garbage. This is very weird. Directly into Shirley's underwear.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

The spirit then drew black crosses on the wall using lead, because you Know, lead was around, around at that point. I think they used it to clean their stove or something.

[Ed Larson]

Brush your teeth.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It seasons the soup. Really nice.

[Ed Larson]

Cover my dildos in it.

[Marcus Parks]

That's an old ingredient to English breakfast. It used to come with a side of lead. Yeah, yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You just gnaw on that until you get dizzy.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. And then Donald turned on the stove and caught a towel on fire. Donald then left a message saying that he had, quote, seen those Chinese fishermen with atomic ash fell on them, all burnt up and swollen. Which I assume is a reference to the same incident that inspired the creation of Godzilla.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The atomic bombings of. Of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

[Marcus Parks]

No, this is 1950, you know, is when all those fisherme burned and killed in the, the, I think the Bikini Atoll test. One of the, one of the nuclear tests. But yeah, all those fishermen were burned and killed and inspired the story of Godzilla. Donald then added that he was quite capable of doing the same thing to the Hitching family. Now he's threatening nuclear holocaust.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, dude. No one spared.

[Ed Larson]

I think the worst part is Donald doesn't know the difference between Chinese and Japanese.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And I.

[Ed Larson]

That's a little upsetting.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Donald, I do believe he was, he was adding bit of his own British point of view there.

[Marcus Parks]

Determined to get the job, though, Shirley still tried going to work the next day, even after Donald threw a tea kettle at her head during breakfast. She even had a friend go with her to the train station. But after the friend was allegedly pushed onto the tracks by an invisible force at something the friend said, Shirley gave up on the job and returned home to focus on Donald.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But isn't that weird? Weird? I know that it's, it's, it's really strange that it went with her so thickly that the phenomena everywhere she went and they all talk about it. That's the stuff that's really interesting is the fact that the noises were so loud you could hear him on the street. The fact that everywhere she went they could hear this, this series of noise. And there's only so often she can fake it. I wonder if there's just this mixture of all of this stuff flying around.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, I mean I, I think it is a mixture because I bet she didn't want to work and I bet she's like, I got this ghost at home, I got a friend, I got a reason not to work as well.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Go back home, I'm feeding this topa. We're calling it a name, we're giving it a job, we're telling it what it does. And the more and more. We're all sitting here paying attention to it.

[Ed Larson]

The.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It seems to just be feeding it all up.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, we're. And they're now at this point like giving it a history, which is exactly.

[Henry Zebrowski]

How you make a tulpa, you know.

[Ed Larson]

And he could have just been trying to give her tea. He's just a bad waiter.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, that's again, yeah. Hyper aggressive. Europe is not known for its customer service.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, Harold Tribbett somewhat ignored all of the intense paranormal activity that was constantly going on at the Hitchings house. But I mean, it might be fair to say that the activity had become tedious and routine to everyone involved. Harold Chibet included it as such. Chip. It began to pedantically obsess over the Prince Louis angle, constantly trying to catch Donald out with factual errors. Now, Shirley steadfastly denied that she knew anything about French history. Although a second paranormal researcher who popped into the house, he claimed that he did see French history books in Shirley's room.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It also did not sound like that obscure of a story.

[Marcus Parks]

No.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. Also, if there's a French ghost in your house.

[Henry Zebrowski]

House.

[Ed Larson]

I'd buy a book of French history to learn a little more about it.

[Marcus Parks]

Just a bit.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Interestingly, Donald the poltergeist could communicate impassable French. And he was quite fond of drawing fleur de lis designs often used to signify French royalty around the hitching home. After taking all this into account, Harold Chipot declared in July of 1956 that there was no way that Shirley could have faked all this activity for six months. Straight.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Straight.

[Marcus Parks]

And he therefore decided that there were genuine supernatural agents at work, even if the facts weren't always straight.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And that dude was embedded. He was there every day. And I do think that on. He would have said that it was fake if he could have caught it.

[Ed Larson]

That's the worst part about having a poltergeist is eventually some fat dude has to come live with you.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Film everything. Are you talking about my wife's. Natalie's life?

[Marcus Parks]

With Harold Chipot, though, there's also an argument. Argument to be made for sunk cost. Oh, very much like that.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, he's got to do it.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. He's just. He's put in so much time that he just needs to put in a little bit more. And then at just around the corner is the answer. Now, after spending a few months getting hammered on all things 18th century French, Donald the poltergeist briefly reverted to making threats against the family after Shirley's father Wally refused to buy Donald a Typewriter.

[Ed Larson]

I mean, we do need to speed up this process, honestly.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Just. Can't we just try? Can he just get flash cards, Taps?

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, get him a typewriter.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, but just think about how loud a typewriter is. And it's not. It's never going to end.

[Ed Larson]

The ghost is like, we could just speed this up so much if you just get me a typewriter.

[Marcus Parks]

Now. For a brief period here, after the request for the typewriter was refused, Donald referred to himself as Shaggy Roots.

[Ed Larson]

Shaggy.

[Marcus Parks]

Shaggy Roots. He took a new name.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, I love this. You big. No. Shaggy Root. Shaggy Roots is getting angry. Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

And eaten. Shaggy Roots threatened to burn everyone in their beds with matches. But the focus of the aggression was once again on Grandma Ethel. So even though Grandma Ethel was the witchiest member of the family outside of Shirley, remember she had said that she had seen souls leave the bodies of people at the hospital where she worked.

[Henry Zebrowski]

She loved it.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. She had still frequently. Bye, Bye. See in hell. She had still frequently expressed her displeasure about living with a poltergeist in her twilight, twilight years. And so, acting as Shaggy Roots, Donald reportedly soaked Ethel's sheets in alcohol, then left a message saying that Ethel was going to be dead by dawn. Dead by dawn. Donald then cryptically added. Oh, help. He got the rat poison.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He got the rot poison.

[Marcus Parks]

I.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Help. It's me, Shaggy room. I'm trying to tell you all what's happening here.

[Ed Larson]

You got the rappers in the. It wasn't me.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You copy sleeping in the cob.

[Ed Larson]

Those aren't taps. They're Boom Bostics.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Come on, leave them alone. It's not me, man. It's not me. Shaggy. Oh, you trust your brother. You trust your brother, man.

[Marcus Parks]

Shaggy, the poltergeist then spent the night throwing objects around the house. Actually, if it was in the shag, like, oh, help.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You got the rat poison. That's a really good Shaggy.

[Marcus Parks]

Thank you.

[Ed Larson]

I actually, I've heard about the rouse.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I didn't realize that's how you do the Shaggy. You do it with the meat.

[Marcus Parks]

The Shaggy voice actually ain't that hard to do.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It wasn't me. Yeah. Oh, wow. I didn't know I could do that.

[Marcus Parks]

It's really easy. Try to. I do it around the house all the time. Oh, yeah, I'm working on this. It's one of my talking to myself, making myself laugh voices.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, a lot of my voices I can't repeat anymore.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, but they're for you.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, for my family.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Well, the poltergeist then spent the night throwing Objects around the the house while all the members of the Hitchings family huddled together in the bedroom to wait out Donald's tantrum. Just as quickly as Donald had turned violent, he changed tack yet again and began communicating with Shirley about matters that sound more like they're coming from a fellow teenage girl as opposed to the vengeful spirit of a drowned child king. Using taps, Donald asked Shirley if she liked a 19 year old British child actor named Jeremy Spring Spencer, who at the time was filming the Prince and the Showgirl with Marilyn Monroe and Sir Lawrence Olivier.

[Ed Larson]

19 years old. That's a man baby.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, he was a former child. He'd been acting since he was like 12 or 13. So he was a well known child actor in British Post, in the British post war cultural history.

[Ed Larson]

Now was he the prince or the showgirl?

[Marcus Parks]

He was the prince. Not surely. Obviously, like Jeremy Spencer, she had an autograph photo. Photo of Jeremy Spencer hanging above her bed. Don't ask Shirley about Jeremy Spencer. But after Shirley confirmed that she did indeed like Jeremy Spencer, Donald started asking Harold Chibbett if he could contact Jeremy Spencer. Because Donald was sure that Jeremy Spencer was about to get into a car accident.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And Harold Chip, it is exactly who Jeremy Spencer wants to talk to. That man's gonna arrive and he can't wait to go to that little girl's house with Harry Chipet. He says, like, I want you all to come with me and experience the most wonderful occult phenomena. Get the away from me.

[Marcus Parks]

Please leave now. No one contacted Jeremy Spencer at this point, but Donald was adamant. He even tried proving his pedigree by saying that he had known James Dean was going to die in a car crash in 1955. But he had not been strong enough back then to communicate the warning to other people. But in a moment that is only amazing if you believe Harold Chibet. Donald warned the family once more that Jeremy was going to have an accident on November 25. The next day, the British newspaper reported that child actor Jeremy Spencer had indeed been in a car accident, but was ultimately unharmed.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Interesting. Unless it's Harry Chibbet trying to make a little bit of news for himself to figure out how to cut these brakes. How do I cut these brakes?

[Ed Larson]

Or you know, news traveled slow. He could have heard about it. And then they told.

[Henry Zebrowski]

In the 1860s, buddy, there's radio and television. Yeah, they don't got to wait for the boat to come across the pond for this.

[Ed Larson]

You got to wait for the early paper, then the late paper, then there's an evening paper.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You're right, you're actually.

[Marcus Parks]

But he had been saying for weeks beforehand that the car accident was coming and then finally, you know, car accident's coming tomorrow. And then the car accident came. And Chip. It also claimed that Donald made another correct prediction on December 9th when Donald.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Wrote, quote, they have accepted President Paola.

[Marcus Parks]

Allegedly that same evening.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, it turned into like a little Peruvian woman.

[Marcus Parks]

Paula. Not Paula. Paula is a Brazilian.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I just go immediately now. Sorry, it's Melania. Donald, you buy me from big bad man. Thank you.

[Marcus Parks]

Allegedly that same evening the News reported that 28 year old Paula Marshall, the wife of a famous, famous British magician, had been killed in a car accident.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Honestly, that's a really good way to release her from that fate.

[Marcus Parks]

Being married to a British, British magician. Yeah, yeah. Well, perhaps encouraged by two correct predictions in a row, Donald began telling Shirley that Jeremy Spencer had a message for her. And Donald knew so because he could read Jeremy's thoughts through accidental mind transference.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Awesome.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. I mean, and those are Donald's words. Donald wrote out accidental mind transference.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's a lot of taps. Yeah, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Now at this point I don't know if there was actually something going on or if Harold Chibbett was totally losing his mind because he documented that Shirley's autographed photo of Jeremy Spencer. Just after this car accident, that autographed photo actually began weeping like fucking stigmata. And the wetness on the photo was indeed salty. Like real tears.

[Henry Zebrowski]

She tasted it. Stop licking every ghost juice.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Harry, stop it.

[Ed Larson]

So it's wet over here. I will lick that.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That is urine. Ah yes, that is definitely urine.

[Ed Larson]

That's grandma. She hasn't been wet in a long time.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It looks like I just accidentally added some wetness of my own.

[Marcus Parks]

She, he, I mean he documented this. He said he swore that this thing started crying, this photo started crying.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That he is an exact. Another wild full on poltergeist commonality.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, right.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Also with every single religious visitation they experience things. Weeping. It's a very, very common psychic phenomena.

[Ed Larson]

But he's not dead.

[Marcus Parks]

No, no.

[Ed Larson]

Jeremy Spencer's alive. Spencer's photos start weeping.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Picture sad.

[Ed Larson]

But the picture is of him.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Picture misses him.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, it's Donald, whatever Donald is making the photo cried.

[Ed Larson]

Fuck Donald. Sorry, go ahead.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, Chipot even gave in at one point and actually reached out to Jeremy Spencer's agent. And while I don't know exactly what Harold Chipet said to him, Spencer's agent declined to respond.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Thank you for the opportunity. No, thank you.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, as 1956 became 1957, Donald remained a fixture in the Hitchings household, although Harold Chibbett seemed to be totally lost in the song. Frustrated by his lack of progress with Donald, Chibbett wrote and mailed a letter to the Hitchings addressed to Donald the poltergeist. In the letter, which was meant to be read aloud so Donald could hear it, Chibbett demanded that Donald once and for all give some proof that he was indeed Prince Louis, the lost child king of France. But what's strange about this is that while Donald's response was indignant, it was also. Also far more articulate than Donald's previous messages. Whereas before, his messages were rambly and disjointed. You know, you know, wind fluff, shit. Yeah, yeah. He now wrote, quote, that letter is preposterous.

[Henry Zebrowski]

How dare he ask me that. Chip is. Made me very angry.

[Marcus Parks]

And he calls him Chip, by the way.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You make me very angry. I dismiss him now. I will not talk to him. Cheap thinks of me as a machine. But he must understand I am a spirit of the past, far more articulate. Fuck you. Cheap.

[Ed Larson]

Cheap.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You go fuck.

[Ed Larson]

Now, did he ever say his name was Louis or did he say that he was the son of King Louis because King Louis could have multiple sons.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, okay, the thing is, with that, I. I simplified it because there was so many. There's a lot of Louis around. Technically, Prince Louis name was Louis Charles, and he was. But he was also known as like Louis the 17th. So just to simplify it for the listeners so they wouldn't become confused, yes, his name was. His name was technically Louis Charles. And really, like, Donald didn't really like. He didn't always call himself Donald. He just responded to Donald.

[Ed Larson]

Okay, gotcha.

[Marcus Parks]

Donald then claimed that he was going to produce an old handkerchief if Chipot needed evidence so badly.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He does. He's asking for it. Just do it now.

[Marcus Parks]

The handkerchief never materialized. Nor did Chipot reception respond. A few days later, though, Donald wrote that he was glad that Chib had apologized, even though Chibbet had never apologized.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And I never will. I didn't apologize to the French.

[Marcus Parks]

Actually. Both of them seem to willfully forget the whole standoff.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's better for. Just move on.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Because by February of 1957, they'd continued communicating with each other as if they'd never had the whole tiff.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Look at Musk.

[Marcus Parks]

You just.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Right back in.

[Marcus Parks]

You just move right along.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Right back in.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, despite Harold Chibbets continued push towards the Prince Louis angle, Donald the poltergeist had by 1957 become focused mainly upon young, handsome male celebrities. By February, Donald was claiming to be the spirit of James Dean. And in another interesting twist, Donald's handwriting and grammar were much improved when he was playing James Dean. As James Dean, he wrote in what is by far my favorite message quote.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now I don't know who you good folks are, but I'm still waiting for help. Please hurry. I'm grateful to you ma' am for keeping me here but I'm lost. I want to get back to my country. Look mister, I'm James Dean. I didn't ask to come here but I just guess I got here. So help me please I belong in California.

[Marcus Parks]

It gives me the same vibes as oh mom I'm stuck in the orb mom, mom I'm in the orb.

[Henry Zebrowski]

This happen I'm in the orb get me out of this orb.

[Marcus Parks]

Look mister, I'm James Dean. I didn't come here. Help me please I belong in California.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Bring me back to California Sign James Actor Dean Acorns Little eggs Acorns tree eggs so many people are focused on where their money is today. Me too. Mine's in a bucket or covered with my filth. Acorns is the financial wellness app that cares about where your money is going tomorrow. Thanks Acorns. And with the Acorns potential screen you can find out what your money is capable of. It's incapable of being president. Acorns is a smart way to give your money a chance to grow. Sign up now and Acorns will boost your new account with a five dollar bonus. Advisor Investment join the over 14 million all time customers who have already saved invested over 27 billion dollars with Acorns. Head to acorns.com left or download the Acorns app to get started. Paid non client endorsement compensation provides incentive to positively promote Acorns tier 2 compensation provided potential subject to various factors such as customers accounts age. Investment settings does not include Acorns fees. Results do not predict or represent the performance of any Acorns portfolio. Investment results will vary. Investing involves risk Acorns Advisors LLC and SEC registered investment advisory advisor view important [e-mail] left.

[Marcus Parks]

What if thousands of deals were waiting for you? Black Friday is here at Best Buy where you can find huge deals on the coolest tech get deals on smart TVs, the latest in gaming, sleek headphones and more that are perfect for everyone on your gift list. Plus find new door busters for even more savings. But hurry. Black Friday deals and Saturday, November 29th shop now@best buy.com best buy. Imagine that. Hey, Ryan Reynolds here wishing you a very happy half off holiday because right now Mint Mobile is offering you the gift of 50% off unlimited. To be clear, that's half price, not half the service. Mint is still premium unlimited wireless for a great price. So that means half day.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, give it a try.

[Marcus Parks]

@Mintmobile.Com Switch upfront payment of $45 for.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Three month plan equivalent to $15 per month required new customer offer for first three months only.

[Marcus Parks]

Speed slow. 135 gigabytes of network's busy.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Taxes and fees extra.

[Marcus Parks]

See mintmobile.com at this point, Donald seemed to become confused even with himself. When Shirley started swooning over James Dean, Donald seemed to get jealous of the James Dean Persona that he himself had created.

[Ed Larson]

Jesus.

[Marcus Parks]

He told Shirley that he wasn't going to help James De Dean and he was gonna cut off James Dean from sending messages entirely. You're not gonna talk to James Dean anymore. If you love James Dean so much and you're gonna talk to him.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I just gotta say, honestly, I don't care what you're fighting about, but if you could get me back to California because I hate it here.

[Ed Larson]

It's cold, it's rainy, there's no motorcycles.

[Henry Zebrowski]

There'S no men for me to dally with.

[Marcus Parks]

I mean, actually, if you look at the message, it did kind of get like James Dean's pouty personality. Like, I didn't ask to come here. My guests are. I just got here.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Just got here. He was a great actor. He really was.

[Marcus Parks]

He was incredible. You ever seen Giant?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, it's great.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Love Giant, east of Eden. Incredible.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Now Chibet, he wasn't there though. Yeah, he wasn't in the uk, no.

[Marcus Parks]

But Chibet, meanwhile, dutifully documented the messages that spelled out the fights between Donald and James Dean. And again, it must be said that this very well could have just been the ramblings of a high strung, if imaginative teenager girl talking to herself.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Very much so, of course. Very much so. But what if it's all done with a. An uncontrollable childlike psychic ability? Like what if all of that's true?

[Ed Larson]

Okay.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And it's projected from her changing body? She, she's grow, she's growing older. They always talk about this. It's connected to young women. She happens to have this latent telekinetic ability and it's doing the will. Will of a 15 year old girl.

[Ed Larson]

I believe that over anything else.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's what I think is kind of Happening here. I think that that's way more real than any poltergeist will ever be.

[Ed Larson]

Because eventually a ghost would show up. That's not like some hot teen boy.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Sometimes you.

[Ed Larson]

Who knows, you know, like, that's.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The teen boys die.

[Ed Larson]

Why is it all hot teen boys?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Because hot teen boys die with fucking unfinished business all the time. Every time.

[Marcus Parks]

It's not just hot tea. I mean, Shaggy Root. Shaggy showed up and he was just a insane pyromaniac.

[Ed Larson]

Don't talk about Shaggy like that. I don't think Shaggy has a problem.

[Marcus Parks]

Say you want about Shaggy. He's not a heartthrob, all right? He's not. He's not a super handsome man.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I'm just not good at coaching, being cooked.

[Ed Larson]

I gotta work on this.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I gotta work on this. Now that I know that I could do that.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Not.

[Marcus Parks]

It was. Yeah, but. But if you look at the way this James Dean Donald fight works, it sounds like you're in the mind of a teenage girl who is in the throes of, like, just kind of a fantasy. Yeah. It's like I've got my. This French boy king. And then James Dean comes in and then. But then the French boy king, he. Prince Louis, he gets jealous about James Dean. He's not gonna let me talk to James Dean anymore. And he gets mad. You know, it's. She's imagining that two boys are fighting over her. But at the time, she's also communicating this fight through psychic taps. It's insane.

[Ed Larson]

I'm starting to feel bad for Chibet.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Chibet loves every minute of this. Never feel bad for Chip. It. He loves ghosts.

[Ed Larson]

He.

[Marcus Parks]

At this point, he is getting very frustrated. It is. It is getting. It's starting to get tedious now. If it tells you anything, it's around the time that Donald was fighting with James Dean that the poltergeist began working very hard to get Shirley accepted into the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art so Shirley could become an actor. Actor. At the same time, Donald began writing letters, which I suppose Shirley stamped and mailed to David Spencer, Jeremy Spencer's brother. See, David was also an actor, but he was also a producer, a writer and a director. So in these letters, Donald begged David to give Shirley an acting job. Failing David. Failing David. Maybe Jeremy could give Shirley an acting job.

[Henry Zebrowski]

This is not a bad idea.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, if you want to get an act, you want to be an actor on the stage. She can't be having taps following her everywhere.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But the idea is he got a problem.

[Ed Larson]

She was. Did anything go. She could do tap.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh, or. Or she would.

[Ed Larson]

She would look so much better. Well, they didn't have stomp back. No.

[Henry Zebrowski]

You could throw the candles back and forth.

[Marcus Parks]

That's the thing is you can't control the tapping, so it's going to throw all the rhythm off. She'd actually be the worst person to be in stomper tap.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I wish a poltergeist would inhabit a black person.

[Marcus Parks]

It happens. Well, these letters were apparently enough of a nuisance to the Spencer team that an actual representative of David Spencer's showed up to number 63. Wycliffe to personal. Tell the Hitching family, you got to stop sending David letters from the ghosts. It's not working. It's a nuisance. Cuz, you know, she's sending out like three, four a day and it's filling up their inbox. Tellingly, the same night that the Spencer representative dropped by, Shirley was reportedly thrown from her bed eight times. And Vaseline was smeared across all of Shirley's closet doors and walls. The knocking also became so loud that it sounded like someone was stomping down the stairs. And Wally reported their piano began playing on its own. Now, again, this all only holds water if you believe the family. But remember, Wally Hitchings was a very average Englishman who never made a dime off of this story. He gained nothing.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Specifically, Wally did not do anything to make money off of this.

[Marcus Parks]

Nothing. But on the other hand, I started thinking about like, well, if that's not the case, if that's not the motivation, what is another possibility? Wally may have been so repressed and straight laced that it could have been easier for him to believe that his daughter was haunted by a poltergeist. Because the other possibility is that his daughter was a force five pain in the ass who talked a lot about burning Wally's mother alive in her bed.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I completely agree. I think that there's a little bit of that too, of the he's so stiff upper lip that it's much easier. Easier to believe a ghost is causing all these problems instead of his daughter.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

So now I'm on. She is the ghost. She has telekinesis.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That. That is me. That is my theory.

[Ed Larson]

Okay.

[Marcus Parks]

All right, all right. Yeah, I'm. I'm willing to. To fall on that as well. Yes, there is something that she's. She's tapped into something. There is. No.

[Ed Larson]

No pun intended.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, ghost don't look like pun intended.

[Marcus Parks]

Yes, she's tapped into something.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Thank you. No, she had to say it right?

[Marcus Parks]

Now, it's my personal opinion that I guess that we're all there. It's kind of both, but I'm not the first person to come to that conclusion. Ghost hunter Andrew Green, who had become one of the UK's most famous ghost hunters. He visited number 63 Wycliffe and surmised that while he thought Shirley was mentally unwell, she had nevertheless summoned Donald the poltergeist with psychokinesis during a mental break.

[Ed Larson]

Yes.

[Marcus Parks]

And by the way, every, everyone in the house hated Andrew Green.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes. He did not like it because the again, the idea of a physical ghost is so. It is easier.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's easier than being like, it's her fault.

[Marcus Parks]

Your head around either.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Then whether or not she knew she was doing it or not, I don't think she even knew she was doing it.

[Marcus Parks]

I don't think so.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I think that there were knocks coming from literally the bones in her feet that she was subconsciously doing. I think that there were exterior noises that she somehow created. And I do believe that the objects flying around came because of she had this weird untapped ability, tap ability.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, if Shirley was indeed behind the whole thing, one way or another, she got very angry. In May of 1957, Donald began writing a barrage of letters that Shirley sent to Harold Chibbett. So many letters that Harold simply began ignoring them. And similarly, several of the hitchings neighbors began receiving horrible abusive letters in the supposedly sent from Donald. They called them poison pen letters. Donald also began threatening murder and arson more often, which unfortunately brings us to the death of Grandma Ethel. See, In July of 1957, Donald asked Wally and Kitty if they would buy Shirley some new makeup. But the request was again ignored. And if you'll notice, this is a recurring theme. Donald asks for something for surely the family says no. Donald throws a fit. Right after the request for makeup was made, 5 shillings went missing from Grandma Ethel's purse. That sent Grandma Ethel into an uncontrollable rage. She tried hitting Shirley with her cane.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Wow.

[Marcus Parks]

Which led to a huge fight and a massive poltergeist event which allegedly sent everything in Ethel's room airborne. Like imagine the end of Poltergeist movie where everything's flying around the room. You know, it's supposedly like that. And the next day, a butcher knife was thrown with such force by invisible hands that it supposedly stuck in the kitchen door. And after that, Ethel's room was in such a state of constant paranormal turmoil that it eventually gave her a stroke. She was placed in a nursing home and died soon after.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That is one of those facts about this case that prove something was happening inside of the house, that it literally drove her to have a stroke.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

She was so afraid and upset by what was happening inside of the house that it really. Like that. I find that that's the most interesting of all.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah. That there was something that was so awful like that. Yeah, she had a stroke, but it's.

[Ed Larson]

Just happening all the time. They didn't get any footage. Footage.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I mean, picture. They didn't have. They didn't have the proper. I mean.

[Ed Larson]

I know, I know.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I don't know. Again, it's a problem.

[Marcus Parks]

Honestly, dude, it's a very valid question.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, it's a huge problem. I'm not sold on this at all.

[Marcus Parks]

You know, but, yeah, it's a very valid question. And you know, there. And you know, there is arguments to be made in these sorts of things that, you know, people not necessarily make things up, but they fill in the gaps and. And they end up saying that stuff flies through the air and there was nobody, but maybe there was somebody there, you know, or they exaggerate things when they retell it or, you know, their. The memory. Memory is fallible, of course.

[Ed Larson]

Let's get a shot of the knife in the door.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I mean. Yeah, but they just, you know, that's one of those.

[Marcus Parks]

Now, after Donald killed Ethel, he went away for a few days, then left a note that he was not allowed to speak for at least a week because he had taken a vow of silence. That vow, of course, was broken the next day when he left a note suggesting that it might be nice if Wally paid for Shirley to get a new hairdo. Like, maybe it's Europe.

[Ed Larson]

Maybe it would be nice if you.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Want to give her, like a spa day or something.

[Ed Larson]

I mean, she's looking a little rough.

[Henry Zebrowski]

My host is ugly.

[Marcus Parks]

Donald returned in full force within just a few days, continuing to torment the Hitchings family with near constant paranormal activity. The Hitchings, meanwhile, very much put on a stiff British upper lip and attempted to continue with their lives. They accepted Donald to such a degree that they began leaving presents under the tree for him every Christmas.

[Henry Zebrowski]

This is making them solid as hell, they are.

[Marcus Parks]

Chibbett, on the other hand, continued down the fruitless path towards trying to prove that Donald was the spirit of Prince Louis. For the next year, Chibot chased down any detail that Donald put forth. And of course, he would go to his colleagues and try to get them to help him out with it. That, of course, shredded any credibility he had with associates who kept telling Chiba that there was no there There with Donald and the French finally stop. Like, well, they just stop it. They just eventually. But that's the thing. It kept going on for years. They were like, harold, you're ruining your life. You've got to stop. There's nothing. There's nothing here. Like, there's something. Like, I, I agree that there's. There's something going on, but this is not Prince Louis. You need to stop.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He was just desperate because I do believe there was a sunken cost fallacy. And it did seem like, oh, this is my big get. I get to be the guy from Borley Rectory. I get to like, be the guy that's embedded.

[Ed Larson]

He's put so much time in at this point.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I get it.

[Ed Larson]

He like, if it's not Prince Louie, his life's a failure.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And it was.

[Marcus Parks]

Shirley, meanwhile, finally found a job that was acceptable to Donald. But it's not like Donald was holding out for something fun. In September of 1958, Shirley took a job as a clerical assistant at a stationary firm in West London. It sounds like the most boring job. It sound like she got a job at the candy factory.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Notes.

[Ed Larson]

He needs lots of papers.

[Marcus Parks]

He did. That's interesting. That's very interesting. I actually really like that. And, you know, Shirley ended up keeping that job for many years. Donald's communication also began slowing down considerably after Shirley got this job. And while it seems like the noises stopped following Shirley outside of the house, the poltergeist activity within the house nevertheless continued on a fairly constant basis. As such, Harold Chibbett continued working on the Battersea poltergeist story for years afterwards. This went on for years and years and years. Finally, in 1963, seven years after Harold Chibbett met the Hitchings, he finally decided that while Donald was certainly a spirit, it was unlikely that he was the spirit of Prince Louis. It took him six years to come to that conclusion. Seven years to come to that conclusion. Excuse, I suppose.

[Ed Larson]

A doctor. What?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, he literally real doctor in that time period.

[Marcus Parks]

I suppose because he came to this conclusion, Harold Chibbet declined to make the French angle nor the celebrity angle the focus when he finally finished his manuscript about the case. Instead, he gave his book a title that was utterly unmarketable in every way, calling it the Poltergeist that Can. Right.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And this is why sometimes you need an American. Yeah, every once in a while you need them in there.

[Marcus Parks]

Because sometimes when your publisher tells you it needs a little zaz. They're right.

[Henry Zebrowski]

They're right.

[Ed Larson]

Also, you. You hit it earlier. Ghost Rider is Better term title.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes, that's immediately a better term.

[Marcus Parks]

Ghost Rider's incredible that that's a movie. You know, like it's.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I literally sometimes they say this titles are the difference between hits and not hits. Harry Chip destroyed his life.

[Ed Larson]

It's like calling Jaws the shark that bites.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, my Steven shark movie. You know, like.

[Marcus Parks]

And you know I actually, I actually I agree with that because I think that if Super Troopers had a better name it would be respected on the level of Ghostbusters.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Seriously, it's just a bad name. It's. But it's a classic comic, phenomenal film.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah. One of my favorites. But yeah, terrible name. Now by the time Harold Chibbett finished his book in 1963, Shirley was 22 years old and had fallen in love with a man named Derek. The Hitching family, however, neglected to mention anything about Donald to Derek for several months. And they shouldn't because whatever was going on with Shirley was still happening seven years later. And that's what's interesting about this is that it's seven years later, Harold Chibit's gone. There's no reporters, there's no nothing. But something is still happening to the point where the family has to sit down and talk to this suitor. They have to talk to Derek and say like hey, so there's this thing named Donald and you're going to have to deal with it if you want to be with Shirley.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's very interesting.

[Marcus Parks]

And Derek decided that if staying with Shirley meant that he had to accept Donald as well, then bring on the boogeyman.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Oh yeah, dude, he got it, man. Because I guess that poltergeist knew what we all didn't know. That G had a G had that coochir that wouldn't quit and she was wife material.

[Marcus Parks]

The poltergeist knew that. Yeah, that she had.

[Ed Larson]

Derek knew that.

[Marcus Parks]

That she had a coochie that just wouldn't quit.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, she knew from the inside. Uhhuh.

[Marcus Parks]

He. The, the.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The poltergeist knew was.

[Ed Larson]

Surely is a woman at this point.

[Marcus Parks]

Okay. Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

So surely is a woman.

[Marcus Parks]

Now you said from the beginning. So now you're, you're speaking on a 15 year old girl.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I'm saying he had an idea.

[Ed Larson]

I mean the ghost is 15.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I'm just saying the ghost is a little boy. Ghost is immature.

[Ed Larson]

Wow. Does statutory.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Save it. Save it.

[Marcus Parks]

It's, it really is. It's the, it's the Twilight argument. He's technically a teenager, but he's also hundreds of years old. She's a Teenage girl. Does it apply When I had to.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Explain to Natalie when I was playing Persona 5. Explain to how. How. Yes, I am playing a 15 year old boy. Yes, I am seducing my teacher who I found out was a hidden sex worker. And then I'm using that information against her. Yes, but it's a video game.

[Marcus Parks]

And how did you explain that to.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Her in that way? And she said don't talk about it anymore.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah, cool. There's plenty of video games. Yeah, you don't have to play that. I did eventually stop. I did stop.

[Marcus Parks]

There's so many. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I did stop. I did stop. I did feel weird. Yeah, they did feel strange.

[Marcus Parks]

Well, Shirley and Derek were married in 1965. And after Donald spent a few years just changing the channel on the TV every once in a while he. He did hang around. After they were married the activity went down. You know, like he ever. They would say they would be sitting there watching tv. They even moved out of London and they said everyone's. While the. The TV would change channels on its own. They might hear something weird every once in a while. But by 1968, Donald had fully disappeared. Whatever. No exorcism, you know, no nothing. He just went away. Whatever was happening just stopped. As for Harold Chibbett, the manuscript for the Poltergeist that Can Write was sent to and rejected by so many publishers that it eventually got lost in the mail. He made so many copies, he accident sent the. I think what happened is that he accidentally sent the original copy to a publisher and then it just disappeared. So Chibbett gave up and instead self distributed a paranormal newsletter until his death by heart attack ends 1978 to paranormal investigators die of anything besides heart attacks.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Heartbroken. Because that's what that is is you're.

[Ed Larson]

Their wives try to kill them.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I think his heart got bored. Yeah. And left. Much like they all do.

[Marcus Parks]

This is what we keep beating for.

[Ed Larson]

It's not attack as much as it just passed out.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, his heart quit.

[Marcus Parks]

Shirley and Derek however are still alive and happily married to this day as far as we can tell. But Donald the Poltergeist never returned. And whatever he may have been still remains to to this day. A total and complete mystery.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's very interesting. And Shirley, she would come out later on, she had a little cap later on because she said that they had activity on and off for several years. And Shirley said that she'd been dealing with for a while. And so two stories came out. One story.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, she said more.

[Henry Zebrowski]

She's got two new Stories. So one story was that when he finally went away, they found a letter, a bit like a piece of paper that said goodbye.

[Marcus Parks]

Right.

[Henry Zebrowski]

There was like, one story that she said, which I don't know about that. The second one was she said that within the year of the interview that she had done, she was doing some cover, was class, and she was there with a lady that was a light lady. No, it's, it's important. She came forward and told it. The thing being like, I'm a medium. If you ever dealt with. Have you ever lost somebody? You ever lost anybody? And she's like, no. And she's like, you ever lost a little, little brother? And she says no. And she's like, well, I just, I, I just have to say something because, like, I don't do this unless I have to. It's like you're being followed by something. And she's like, what am I being followed by? She's like, you're follow. You're being followed by a little boy with red hair, like, long red hair in silk clothes, like silk, princely clothes. And she had never, she didn't know who she was. So it's interesting.

[Ed Larson]

Again, famous story, though.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yes.

[Ed Larson]

And she's immediate.

[Henry Zebrowski]

But this was years after. This is all years after that. It's just, it's one of those where I don't know how I feel about it, but Shirley holds on to it. And Shirley has come to believe that it's a ghost. But I, I, I do think that Shirley was, is also a very strange woman. Woman.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Ed Larson]

And now she's talking to Michael Landon. Hey, hot boy who's died.

[Henry Zebrowski]

He's dead. You remember Michael Landon? That was my mom's hall pass.

[Ed Larson]

My mom loved Michael.

[Henry Zebrowski]

My mom loved Michael.

[Marcus Parks]

Michael Landon was like in his 30s when he died.

[Ed Larson]

That's young.

[Marcus Parks]

If she's going for anyone, it's going to be River Phoenix or Jonathan Brandis.

[Ed Larson]

Quiver.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, no, now that Shirley's like 85 years old and British, it's like Benedict Cumberbatch or something. You know who I see her for?

[Marcus Parks]

He's not dead.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Is it weird? Described it, but I feel like she's an Emmanuel Macron woman.

[Marcus Parks]

Interesting. Yeah, I could see that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, That's a good one.

[Henry Zebrowski]

See, this is why we, like, we try to do ghost stories, and this is as close as we got.

[Marcus Parks]

This is how, I mean, but that's the thing. This is every ghost story.

[Henry Zebrowski]

This is close as we got on this one.

[Marcus Parks]

Sorry, just the conjuring doesn't exist.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It's just hard.

[Marcus Parks]

It just didn't. It just doesn't happen.

[Henry Zebrowski]

UFOs are more real than this. Yeah, say that, but I believe at the center of this is the psychic activity, which is why it's interesting. But no one's like besides everybody now as we're all as Monday morning quarterbacks.

[Marcus Parks]

Sure.

[Henry Zebrowski]

We can see it.

[Ed Larson]

Aliens are ghosts that play tricks on us. How about that?

[Henry Zebrowski]

Love that.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Love it. Yeah. It's. At the end of the day, it's like all we can say is it's we, we, we, we. Yeah, that's it. Thank you so much for listening, everybody. Patreon.com lastpodcast on the left is where you can go to watch us actually do these podcasts. You can get video episodes of every podcast on Patreon and you can check us out Every Tuesday at 6pm PST for last stream on left. We play some and we have a good time. We do. That's how you get to see it unedited. You get to see the full version and you also get to interact with us on the chat.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I would also behest upon you to go to LPN TV on YouTube and watch our new series, LPN RPG presents Bloodbath. This is one of the first times we have received almost unanimous enjoyment.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Of a thing that we've done.

[Ed Larson]

And so let's go give us some hate.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

Because that's it.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Out in that way, if we could bump up the numbers so that that hate could come in, that would actually really help us. We know that the hate really only comes once you hit a certain lip. So please help us get to the numbers in which we can finally be insulted on the one thing that we're truly most proud about.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah. Actually that I will say that is the. That is. Has been in the past. The metric for success is that let's. We gotta get to the point where people start hating you.

[Henry Zebrowski]

That's the idea. That's how you know you're doing.

[Marcus Parks]

Where some people say.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah.

[Marcus Parks]

The. Enough people get to it. Where the. The. The. The who hate everything once it gets to them. You know you made it. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Because it means that you're part of the zeitgeist.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

And they hate everything in the zeitgeist. Yep.

[Marcus Parks]

So let's get to that point. LPN Bloodbath. I'm. I play a character on it. Eddie, you played a character.

[Henry Zebrowski]

The entire network and some people outside of the network are guesting on LPN TV's new LPN RPG bloodbath. So come and check it out.

[Ed Larson]

Yeah. And we're gonna be on tour tomorrow. We are in Akan, Ohio, at the Goode Theater. That's gonna be November 29th and then after that, Portland for two nights. December 12th and 13th. Get your tickets for that. If you haven't, it's about to sell out. January 31, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. February 28, Austin, Texas. March 13, Indianapolis, Indiana. April 25, Cincinnati, Ohio. I like that place. May 29, Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. June 27, Grand Rapids, Michigan. July 17, Tulsa, Oklahoma. July 18, Oklahoma City. And then on the 12th of December, come check out Henry and I at Wise Guys Comedy. I think it's at the town center one. This is what? Pass the Luxor, past the airport. We're coming. That's right. Las Vegas, Nevada. December 7th. Come see Henry and I. And of course, on January 4th, I will be at the Oxnard Levity live with a bunch of other people that you know and love. Julia Johns, Holden McNeely, James Jake Young and Carolina Hidalgo. It's gonna be a lot of fun. I love you guys.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I love you.

[Ed Larson]

This is very nice. Yes.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Very good and spooky. We're coming back to some grizzly ass true crime next couple of weeks. So we'll see you there, won't we? Hail Satan.

[Marcus Parks]

Oh, you know, I'm gonna say Magusta Lations.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Thank you.

[Marcus Parks]

Been a long time.

[Ed Larson]

Good, I like that.

[Henry Zebrowski]

It feels good.

[Ed Larson]

Hail James Dean.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Hail James Dean.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Wow. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Ed Larson]

Why not?

[Marcus Parks]

And here's. And here's a tip. If you go to James Dean's hometown, there are two James Dean museums. One of them is run by the town. The other one is allegedly run by a convicted sex offender. So make sure to do your research.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Which is the better one?

[Marcus Parks]

Honestly, the one that was run by the town was closed for the season, so we only had to go to the other. We had to go to the other one, but we did not find out until after, afterwards that the man who ran it was a convicted sex offender.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Was it a good museum?

[Marcus Parks]

Underwhelming. Because it was stuff like. It's like. This is a jacket that was worn by a guy who was two grades above James Dean.

[Ed Larson]

This is some underwear that I imagine James Dean might have wore.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Yeah, he'd like this. He like this.

[Marcus Parks]

This is a motorcycle that looked kind of like James Dean.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Well, I can't wait. I gotta buy a plane ticket to get wherever that is.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah, you know, James Dean, Jim Davis, the creator, Garfield and Jim Jones are all from the same like 50 mile radius.

[Ed Larson]

Wow. Lots of gyms.

[Marcus Parks]

Yeah.

[Henry Zebrowski]

What's in the water? Lasagna. Hail Satan. Everyone, it's time to save the Firestone Black Friday and Cyber Monday sale is on. Get 15% off all tires tires and $40 off a lifetime will alignment when you buy two or more eligible tires. Visit firestonecompleteautocare.com for details and more deals.

[Marcus Parks]

As a contractor, I don't pay for materials I don't use, so why would I pay for stuff I don't need in my mobile plan? That's why my biz plan from Verizon Business is so perfect. Now I can choose exactly what I want and I only pay for what.

[Henry Zebrowski]

I need right now with my biz plan. Get our best price as low as $25 a line.

[Marcus Parks]

Visit veronica verizon.com business to get started today.

[Henry Zebrowski]

New lines only. Price per month with 5 plus lines. Includes auto pay and paper free billing.

[Marcus Parks]

And promotional discount, taxes, fees, economic adjustment charge applicable.

[Henry Zebrowski]

Add ons prices and terms apply. Guarantee applies to base monthly rate and stated discounts only. Add on prices. Additional offers in January 5, 2026.