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New from Cursed Media — The Spectral Voyager II: Timeslip Radio, Chapter One: The Vertical Plane
01:23:06
Cursed Media is proud to present “The Spectral Vo…
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- [00:04]
A
Dearest listener, Jake and Brad here we are proud to present to you the first episode of season two of the Spectral Voyager, Time Slip Radio.
- [00:13]
B
This is a six part miniseries about messages that showed up on old technology from people in places that don't track with our current understanding of time.
- [00:22]
A
We talked to scientists, paranormal investigators, and eventually I will be lowered into a time cave.
- [00:30]
B
Hear the rest on cursed media.
- [00:32]
A
That's cursed media dot net. See you on the other side. This is the first thing I have understood. Time is the echo of an axe within a wood.
- [01:28]
B
You are now listening to the Spectral Voyager.
- [01:42]
A
Chapter one, the Vertical Plane.
- [01:51]
B
We heard you clamoring for a counterweight to the daily hellscape for an hour long respite to let your mind break from its confines. A means to push past the melt and the slop. For the Spectral Voyager Season 2, we wanted to try something different this time around. Instead of a new story or topic every episode, we're going to deep dive into one specific phenomena and the strange, inexplicable stories surrounding it. Jake, have you ever seen the Lake House from 2006?
- [02:20]
A
I have, and it was bad.
- [02:23]
B
Yes, it is truly terrible. But beneath the softly lit, schmaltzy mainstream romance is an esoteric paranormal tale. You see, the plot involves Keanu Reeves and Sandra Bullock communicating with each other across different times. Separated by two years and this time crossed. Romance blossoms via trans temporal letters passed through a mailbox. While the film never gets into the how of it, it's an unlikely example of the subject of our new series, Instrumental Trans Communication. Hey, I'm Brad Abrahams.
- [02:55]
A
And I'm Jake Rockatansky. And this is the Spectral Voyager Season 2 time slip radio. What if what we think of as contact from the dead, from ghosts and spirits were really living people or consciousnesses reaching out across time? That's the question at the center of the ITC paradox. What if ghosts were really time travelers?
- [03:21]
B
It's a phenomenon where people receive messages, mostly through electronic devices from people that should not exist in the present time. The devices can be old computers, tape recorders, radios, televisions tuned to dead channels, or telephones that aren't plugged in. The senders claim to be from another decade or century or from the future, or from somewhere they can't quite describe. Some say they're dead. Others insist they aren't. One entity in particular called itself the technician and said it had never been human at all. Something avid listeners know from the previous season is that I'm not a ghost guy. Unlike Jake, whose entire personality is Ghostbusters out of everything paranormal, supposed hauntings have just never captured my imagination. That's why ITC interests us both so much. It's got time slips and time loops, retrocausation, non local consciousness and obsolete technology. And there may even be some sort of scientific mechanism behind it. I'll also admit that the question of whether the people who've passed are still out there, whether they might be reachable, has felt a lot less academic to me lately after losing someone near and dear to me. The nature of the evidence here is also different from almost anything else in the world of psy. We're talking typed messages on floppy disks, recorded voices on tape that audio engineers can't totally account for, and phone calls that the phone company confirmed never occurred. And in a cottage in the English countryside, a schoolteacher borrowed a BBC microcomputer from his school, left it running in his kitchen, and came back to find messages from someone claiming to live in that same house but from a far different time. It's with this story where we begin today. But before we get into it, we're going to ask something of you all. Our listeners are a skeptical lot with finely honed critical thinking skills and fortified defenses against the fringe. This is almost always a good thing, but for this series, we want you to loosen the grip a little. Let yourself stew in something strange and wondrous for an hour each week without reaching for comforting explanations. If even that is asking too much, then just think of it as good storytelling, which is how we're approaching this whole season. We will, however, make this one the only person mentioning anything quantum will be an eminently credentialed quantum engineer.
- [05:31]
A
The Vertical Plane in northwest England, in the county of Cheshire, you'll find the city of Chester, one of the last English cities to be conquered by the Normans during their crusade in the 1100s. It is also the town that houses a tiny cottage where a high school economics teacher made contact with a series of people from another time. At least according to him and about a dozen other witnesses. The Vertical Plane, first published by ken Webster in 1989, begins like a ghost story, except Ken would assure you that a poltergeist was the least of their problems. Our tale begins at Meadow Cottage in Doddleston, near Chester. Ken and his girlfriend Debbie have been living at the cottage together, slowly grinding through some serious renovations, both physical and emotional.
- [06:16]
B
And the way Ken talks about these renovations, it's like he's going to war. Yes, I've like never, never heard someone so. So put upon by some Cottage renovations.
- [06:26]
A
Yeah. He is in a constant power struggle with the house itself in so many ways. Ways that are like very obvious in this dimension and ways that are obviously not. Ken opens the story somewhat anxious and depressed. It seems as if his relationship has hit that bizarre plateau period where neither person is ready to break up nor get hitched. And so you end up skating around at all by encouraging each other's hobbies. A friend, Nicola Baguli, or Nick as she's called, arrives for a stay at the cottage. She'll help them decorate. The atmosphere in the cabin seems chill enough. There's a room where some instruments are set up so that Ken and his friends have a creative space to work on their electronic music.
- [07:05]
B
If only we were able to find.
- [07:07]
A
I know tunes.
- [07:08]
B
I searched far and wide.
- [07:10]
A
This reminded me exactly like my senior year of college.
- [07:13]
B
Including the relationship plateau.
- [07:15]
A
Um, no, that was different. I was haunted by a different kind of ghost. For that. Another story for another time. The first strange thing to happen was footprints appearing on the walls in late August or September of 1984. They were sideways on the wall, traipsing between the kitchen and the bathroom like someone following some unseen MC Escher staircase. The cabin's inhabitants immediately suspect a rowdy guitar player friend who has access to the cottage via the backroom music studio. But the shoe size seems too small. A size 5, they estimate. They figure it's a prank and since they're painting over the walls anyways, no harm no foul. It's when the footprints reappear the next day in a slightly different position that Ken, Debbie and Nick get a little freaked out. Ken claims the footprints were six toed and consisted entirely of dust from the creaky wooden floor. A couple of days later, after a grocery haul had been left to sort in the morning, the group awoke to find all of the cat food tins stacked neatly in a pyramid on the countertop. Once again, the guitar player John is blamed, as someone in the group points out that he has a weird sense of humor.
- [08:23]
B
Is John the Julian of the group?
- [08:25]
A
Yeah, he's like, they call him like the lazy guitar player. But I mean if it is John that is, you know, if he's behind this hoax, it's not lazy at all. In fact he, he probably, he probably worked as much as, as any undergrad, you know, studying, you know. The stacking continues the next day, this time piling together a much more chaotic assortment of perishables and non two bottles of lemonade, a bag of dried cat food and a dinner roll. Something about the preciseness of the stacking and the randomness of objects made a feeling of general unease begin to creep through the house. Everyone was jumpy at night now, with both Ken and Deb swearing they'd been awoken by shadows lingering in a corner, only to turn on the lights and find that, no, nobody was there. As autumn turned to winter, a feeling of restlessness permeated the quaint cottage. It did not have a lot of square footage, and so having three people living there simultaneously wasn't without its cons. Nick was going stir crazy. She had quit her teaching job towards the end of the summer in the hopes of being an actor and was always keen to pitch or brainstorm her latest sketch idea. Ken admits it is for this reason. He rented one of the eight BBC microcomputers from his school library so Nick could have a place to save her sketches and scripts and Ken could remain low energy, unbothered.
- [09:39]
B
These microcomputers looked so cool. Like, I think they were some of the first PCs that you could have at home.
- [09:44]
A
Yeah, I watched a couple commercials for them. And Ken's plan worked. Once he showed Nick how to boot up Edward and save her files to a floppy disk, if you remember those. She was off to the races. She began going down the Alphabet, saving her sketches to corresponding letters, and so on and so forth. One night In December of 84, the group comes back from spending a weekend with their good friends Dave Lovell and his wife. Ken notices that the BBC microcomputer has been left on. As he scrolls through the floppy index, he sees a bunch of Nick's single letter files, a colleague's timetabling outlines. It was a borrowed floppy and a new file named, strangely kdn. Ken opened it.
- [10:23]
C
Ken. Deb. Nick. True are the nightmares of a person that fears. Safe are the bodies of the silent world. Turn, pretty flower, turn towards the sun for you shall grow and sow but the flower reaches too high and withers in the burning light. Get out your bricks, pussycat, Pussycat went to London to seek fame and fortune. Faith must not be lost, for this shall be your redeemer.
- [10:57]
B
So this poem, it's like, kind of creepy, but also just like a bad poem. And I'm not sure in which direction I weighed it more in, but it's like when I. If I got this, like, if this showed up on my computer, I would definitely be creeped out. But it also seems like, you know, it's like a high schooler's like, first attempt at poetry, right?
- [11:17]
A
The pussycat Pussycat went to London, I'd be like, okay, which of you bozos is up to this? In chapter two of his book, Ken records his initial feelings after reading the message.
- [11:27]
D
A shiver ran down me spine that threatened to shake my feet. I caught the first two lines and read and re read them. The rest I didn't seem to see in those first seconds.
- [11:37]
E
It was obviously, to us, it was appalling.
- [11:41]
D
I felt bad.
- [11:43]
A
It's not until a couple months later, in February of 1985, that Ken brings home another computer from his school's library. Nick is back from holiday and wants to continue her sketch writing. She's on the precipice of creating an alternate cabaret show. Additionally, Ken is interested in drawing up a contract with a couple of the other musicians he's been jamming with. They're going to go out to market with a couple of tunes and he didn't want to fight over ownership after the fact.
- [12:07]
B
Yeah, he's that one friend in the band that, like, draws up a contract for every decision.
- [12:12]
A
Gentlemen, the Time has Come.
- [12:16]
B
Tells you a lot about him.
- [12:17]
A
Debbie was looking to play some computer games to pass the time, and I've included a couple screenshots for you, Brad.
- [12:24]
B
Wow.
- [12:25]
A
At the time. No, 1984. I mean, this was. This is. We've got a screenshot of Gremlins, the adventure.
- [12:32]
B
I love the pixel art.
- [12:33]
A
Yeah. And there's. And it seems kind of like a sort of text adventure with images. I've included a scene. The text basically says, I'm in a living room, Things I see, Christmas tree, sword on wall, open door, Peltzer Remote Control, Gremlin kitchen. What now? Hit Gremlin. So it's like one of those, like, text games. I mean. I mean, this is. I would have been all over this.
- [12:59]
B
Oh, yeah. Oh, there's one for Alien, too.
- [13:01]
A
Yeah, there's one for Alien. So there were. When I read this in the book, I was like, what games are they playing on this thing? And then I looked it up and there were quite a few, Quite a few licensed IPs, you know, available to tinker around with again. One Sunday afternoon, the computer was left on while the group was out puttering around town. And when they returned, a new file appeared in the index, titled Reate. R E A T E. Ken quickly realized that whoever had made the file didn't quite understand how the software worked. One need only type the letter C from Edward's menu before a clean file name would appear. This person continued to type create as it appeared on the menu. Thus naming the file as such.
- [13:44]
B
That's such an interesting detail. Yeah, it's odd.
- [13:47]
D
Uh huh.
- [13:48]
A
This new message was way different than the original cryptic poem. The spelling looked like Old English, or rather Newer English before it was bastardized by Canadians and Americans like me and Brad. We're talking circa the mid-1500s. The message is as it has not been altered for the sake of this
- [14:07]
F
podcast, I write on behalf of many what strange words you speak.
- [14:14]
E
Although I must confess that I too have been badly educated. Sometimes it seems changes are somewhat obstructive. For many a time they disturb me sleeping in my bed. You are a worthy man who has a fanciful woman and you live in my house. I have no wish to alarm you, for it is only since the half witted fool ripped apart my confines have I been tormented at nights. I have seen many changes. Lastly, the schoolhouse and your home. It is a fitting place with lights which the devil makes, and costly things which only my friend Edmund Grey can afford for the king himself. It was a great crime to have stolen my house, lw.
- [14:57]
A
Well shit. I mean, that's pretty interesting.
- [15:01]
B
Yeah, the description of lights being made by the devil too makes a lot of sense, I think for someone from the 1500s.
- [15:08]
A
We can discuss it more further on. But the biggest I think hurdle for me as I made my way through this story is imagining what this entity was experiencing from their time period. Or what this person, I guess, yeah. Ken enlists the assistance of Peter Trinders, an English teacher at his school, who he said most of the other teachers at one point quote from profoundly disagreed with. He pored over Ken's notes excitedly in the school lunchroom one afternoon. Charge house raised, bar full. He was almost certain these were period authentic words. After reading and rereading the original note from lw, Peter's final take. If it is a hoax, it's a romp.
- [15:54]
B
Yeah, wild romp.
- [15:55]
A
See, to me this sounds like a fun activity. I can't believe nobody's made this into a movie. By the way, all the beats are here. It's the biggest indication of a hoax to me is that it's too well written. A reply is drafted up by the three of them and I believe they typed the response into the same file where LW's message first appears in the
- [16:15]
C
reign of Queen Elizabeth II. Dear LW, thank you for your message. We are sorry for disturbing you. What would you like us to do? Did you live on a house on this land in about 1620? Do you want us to tell you more about Our time. Why write a poem? Who is Edward Grey? Is he related to the Egerton family? Do you have a family? Is the King James or Charles Stuart? What is the charge house? Was this village called Doddleston in your life and how many families lived here? Thank you, thank you very much for your messages. Thank you for not making us afraid. Ken, Debbie and John.
- [16:57]
A
The next day there was a reply. The king, of course, he said, was Henry VIII, who was 46 years old. The timing didn't really match up. LW also signed his message with a year marked 1521, question mark, parentheses. Now this was not a well known medieval idiom. Ken was a little relieved. It was looking like a hoax after all. Although I got to say, to be fair to LW, in like the 1500s, I believe that not everyone would know what year it was. And I also think that not everybody would know how old the King is.
- [17:29]
B
Sure, yeah, sure.
- [17:31]
A
Like if you ask me how old Donald Trump is, I don't know, 400, I would say like 83. What year is it? I don't know, 20, 23. February 16, 1985. Ken has purchased himself a Jaguar XJ6 coupe shortly before Christmas.
- [17:49]
B
Yeah, I gotta say, like about 30% of this book is about his car.
- [17:54]
A
Uh huh, yeah.
- [17:55]
B
And about the drives he takes. Every like little mechanical working of this thing, how it makes him feel, makes him angry sometimes he loves it, other times it's a major character in this book.
- [18:06]
A
It's his second, potentially first love. He's in town at a local mechanic shop and the damn thing won't start. They run a heater on the engine for over an hour before getting it running and back out onto the road. Ken describes his spirits rising as he drives back towards the cottage. The car is feeling good and if he was lucky, a new message from LW would be waiting. Ken walked into the kitchen to see the BBC monitor stacked with blocks of text. Let's fucking go. This was something. LW's next message was R rich with Tudor lore, something for everyone in the gang to sink their teeth into. Peter had begun comparing words contained in the letters with the Oxford English Dictionary, a misspelling here and there, but this was looking pretty damn accurate.
- [18:47]
F
My goodly friend, I must needs say, how is it that there are many things of which I have no knowledge?
- [18:55]
E
It seems to me that if you cannot say why you are in my house, then I can no more help you than if my wits had gone. I have no kinsfolk. I can tell you about my wife Was taken with the pestilence. And the Lord did take her soul and her unborn son in 1517. My farm, it is humble, but it has a pretty parcel of land. It has red stone footings and clean rushes on the beaten floor. This season I have much to do. I have to sow my barley early for my ale. It is this that is my craft and which I am best at, I fancy. Also, I have to go to Nantwich to my known friend Richard Whishell, whose farm is so great as to allow him a four year rotation of fallow. I do so envy him. He has much there, but nothing that delights me more than his cheese. It cannot be equalled by any other for pleasantness of taste and wholesomeness of digestion.
- [19:52]
B
My favorite detail here is, is the cheese.
- [19:55]
A
Yes, I loved this.
- [19:56]
B
It's the best cheese that he's ever tasted.
- [19:58]
A
This passage goes on, by the way, for quite some time. I mean, if you're even mildly interested in this already, I would suggest reading the book because I've included maybe, I don't know, 35% of it. There's so much that happens. Yeah, I'm trying to give you guys the main beat so that we sort of can have a baseline from which to sort of jump off.
- [20:20]
B
I do like that even, like 400 years ago, people are worried about their tummies when they're eating cheese.
- [20:27]
A
They're like, it be well known to me this delicious food cause much disturbance.
- [20:33]
B
But we know that this man's cheese is wholesome on the digestion.
- [20:39]
A
I mean, you would seek out that kind. What else is there?
- [20:42]
B
It's like, exactly.
- [20:42]
A
You know, there was a lot less treats back then. And so something like finding a cheese that didn't give you tummy troubles, I think is probably just crab apples.
- [20:50]
B
I think that's their only treat.
- [20:51]
A
Yeah. And now this time in this letter, he signs his first name, Lucas. Ken sat down at the small kitchen table where the computer happened to be set up and took in the message. In the background, he could hear Debbie screaming with excitement. Contact. Whatever had been haunting their house had decided to strike up a conversation by somehow interfacing with this library computer. Ken makes a point to mention throughout the book, throughout this entire experiment, that they were not using the same computer. They there were eight computers at the school containing the Edward chipset, and Ken said he rarely was given the same machine. Nonetheless, messages were coming through. So here's the big how could Lucas somehow see Ken's computer through a kind of bizarre rip in Time they wanted to know. Among other questions, Ken writes that if Lucas is In the 16th century, how was he able to send messages on the computer? According to Lucas, it is Ken and his friends that make the quote. Writing machine learning.
- [21:50]
F
Light up mine goodly friend. Mayst thou tell thee for what reason art thou axing many questions for which I can nae attain.
- [22:00]
E
I am confused. The writing machine is a wonderful thing. Somewhat unnatural, I fancy. Unknown to myself. It may be. But I have seen you make lights on the box and am cunning. Yes, I know of Bristol. My kinfolk did come from Bridgewater and Taunton by the River Tone until they died to make merry. I like to be at the ale. Yes. Sometimes I use the Bridget Altford. Your merry making pleases me, but is rather noisy at times. Will you tell your woman to play more of the flute thing? Tis a pleasant sound, I think. How do you travel to your school in Harden? I must hurry as my dogs are loose and being troublesome to my fowl. Lucas Waynman.
- [22:44]
B
Yeah. So it's still. It's still kind of unclear what Lucas is seeing at this point. It's like he's seeing a box and he's seeing that it lights up. But that's about all the info that we're given.
- [22:54]
A
Yeah. As far as we know, he's not typing. It seems that he can talk to this thing and it records his speech. It's enough to get Debbie to urge Ken to go to the Chester Library and see if there are any names Luke has produced that could be matched with hard history. Ken is having a tough time. Debbie is way more into this than he is. If they found something in the library, it only meant that whoever the prankster was had probably. Probably sifted through the same material. There were some names, half connections, easily ruled out as coincidence. In February, one of Ken's friends, a guy by the name of John Cummins, picks up the book Poltergeist, A Study in Destructive Hauntings by Colin Wilson. Apart from the bizarre interactions with Lucas, the stacking of food and misplaced items have continued into the year. No one is sure whether the two are even related. John and Debbie come up with a theory that the cottage might be constructed on crisscrossing ley lines leading to a heavy electromagnetic disturbance, ultimately fueling the haunting.
- [23:52]
B
Pretty solid theory.
- [23:53]
E
Yeah.
- [23:54]
A
Ken begins to discuss the matter with his students and has them spend a reasonable amount of time and effort drawing maps to search for patterns.
- [24:01]
B
The economics professor at the high school is pilling all his students.
- [24:05]
A
I'm telling you, this is a movie. This is a movie. In fact, a lot of people at the school, both students and teachers, were pretty aware of what was said to be happening at the cottage, and many offered to help in any way they could. It was a community effort.
- [24:19]
B
It's also like, yeah, town, like rural ish England. Not much to do, I imagine.
- [24:25]
A
February 27, 1985. Ken has been helping Debbie move into her own house in East Green. The poltergeist activity was really ramping up. Chalk marks had appeared on one of the old wooden columns, and a lot of it seemed to center around Debbie, who was only 19 years old at the time. They hadn't even had a computer in the house. It was tucked safely away somewhere deep within the school library. Exhausted from the move, Ken returns home that evening to find the meadow cottage in moderate disarray. Pots knocked off, hooks a scarf flung about, a tie pushed up against the door, pieces of the newspaper scattered on the cottage floor. In the center of it all was the floppy disk Ken had labeled Lucas W, where all of the pair's communications had been saved. It had been knocked off of the shelf and out of its sleeve. Ken sees this as a clear sign that whatever is occupying the same temporal space wants to keep talking. Again, Ken rents the computer, this time with the specific intention of contacting Lucas. At this point, they had it down to an almost science.
- [25:29]
D
The computer sat on the table by the refrigerator in the kitchen. A short greeting or message from us would be put on the screen. Now, normally this was all there would be on the particular file we were using. The computer would be left alone. The door to the kitchen would be closed. If Deb was staying in the cottage, she'd sit in front of the fire very quietly. Perhaps she'd fall asleep. Anything from half an hour to a couple of hours later, she'd open the door and check beneath the message by scrolling the screen with the cursor keys. If the computer then made an infuriating beep, the file was not open beyond the particular page and line indicated. The next stage was to look for any new file names which might indicate a new communication. Lastly, the existing files would have to be checked for additions. Lucas had been known to use existing files and tag something on further down, or indeed, wherever.
- [26:18]
A
It seemed like Debbie being in the house increased the chances for a message to be received. More so if Debbie were alone. When Ken and friends weren't killing time at the Red lion, their local pub, waiting for a message to come through, Ken would engage in an activity they referred to as Ghostbusting, Ken would typically go out to his car, shut the door and play some music while Debbie lounged in the living room. More often than not, a bleep from the computer and a whirring of the drive would indicate a new message had been written. Over time, the group decides this is not the spirit of a dead person, but rather someone alive and well, living in the same house 400 years in the past. Lucas says he enjoys listening to Debbie's saxophone playing and on more than one occasion writes a message regarding something said in the kitchen or living room, as if their voices were somehow the ghosts of Lucas's reality. Lucas admits that his servant thinks he's out of his fucking mind.
- [27:11]
B
Yeah, I just. I just love. This is one of the sort of images or ideas that really made me want to do this series is this idea that, you know, what we think of being haunted and experiencing a haunting is to the other entity or the other person in another time, we're the person haunting him or them. It's just. It's such a fascinating kind of mindfuck.
- [27:33]
A
Folks, we're doing Interstellar and Ghostbusters. Welcome to the Spectral Voyager, Season two. Let's fucking go. Exactly what I wanted. Got my wish, mein goodly fool.
- [27:45]
F
Mein Linkman, thinketh that thou art be all in main Pan thinks that you
- [27:49]
E
are all in my head. He says I act like a seer, but I know you live now. Now he also says that my blood is poisoned and that it is my weak hinged imagination. But I am not mad, I think and told him so. I also said it is like fairy gold that he should keep it secret until I write a book.
- [28:11]
A
In time, Lukas begins to open up about his life. He moved to the area known for its excellent pasture, and at the time he didn't have to pay any tax on it, which, you know, he mentions. However, there's a sheriff that Lucas doesn't like very much who's been coming around recently trying to collect in his free time. He says he likes to catch salmon in the D as well as a place called Fluker's Brook. Lucas likes fishing a lot. He's also fairly well educated, claiming to have attended Jesus College at Oxford. Lucas and Peter become fast friends as Peter tries his own hand at deciphering medieval English Oxford chaps. Ken is jealous of their correspondence. On one unexplainable occasion, Lucas comments on a photograph of Ken's jaguar. No one is sure how he's able to see such things. I have to imagine that it's in dreams.
- [28:55]
B
It's dreams. Or, yeah, maybe it's just, like, murky imagery in the shadows. Yeah. Mind's eye. Perhaps. It's never really fully articulated.
- [29:05]
F
Mine goodly friend, I have found thy cart.
- [29:09]
E
My good friend, I have found your picture of the cart. But it is a crude thing, for without the horse, it won't go far. Tell me, what unknown wood is this? It is like silk. I cannot describe it better.
- [29:23]
A
Ken is stoked, to say the least, that his interdimensional cross RIP roommate has asked about his car. As we've mentioned before, Ken is a huge car guy and specifically a Jaguar enthusiast. He takes the opportunity to write to Lucas about life in Modern Times. 1985.
- [29:42]
D
In your time, you use the strength of horses to till the fields, Power of the wind to move the sails of ships and the moving water to turn the mill wheel. We have many new powers, none of them made by the devil. All are made by man. The lights are wondrous, but the power is not a flame, but something called electricity. If you see strange strands joined to the SCRIT device, these carry the electricity. The electricity is made many miles away and brought by strands or wires carefully wrapped to keep the power safe, for it can kill if interfered with by fools.
- [30:17]
A
Can you fucking imagine the guy writing to you through a giant glowing orb from the other side of the chimney is telling you to keep an eye out for strands of magic that will kill you?
- [30:27]
B
I felt like this was such a great breakdown of what electricity is for someone who would have no idea whatsoever. Like, it's. It's really kind of a. Kind of masterfully thought out, I feel.
- [30:36]
A
Right. Well, he is a teacher, after all. Which is true. Which is, like, what's kind of funny about this whole situation.
- [30:41]
B
Mm.
- [30:42]
A
I think in so many ways, like, Ken's story plays on the anxiety of, like, what it is to be in academics and what it is to be a teacher and, you know, certain student. You know, your favorite students, like another teacher better or, you know, you feel. So there's a lot of. There's a lot of, like, humanity that's woven throughout this story. And I'm appreciative to Ken for really capturing, I think, the emotional moment almost as well as the details, like, of this phenomenon.
- [31:10]
C
Yeah.
- [31:10]
B
It really is what sets it apart from most paranormal books or stories about the phenomenon, which are just about the phenomena. We get a good chunk of just what life is like in this small town and in this guy's life. It makes for very compelling reading.
- [31:25]
A
Yeah. It's very honest. And very self deprecating. He sort of fluctuates between kind of hoping that it's a hoax to being absolutely certain that it's real, to not caring whether it's real or a hoax because he's sick of it regardless.
- [31:40]
B
Yeah.
- [31:41]
A
And so after Ken tries to sort of, you know, kind of give Lucas a picture of what the future looks like for the first time, Lucas, his tone shifts and he seems kind of terrified of Ken.
- [31:56]
F
Mine goodly friend. Pray, what strange demon are you?
- [32:02]
E
I am so confused. You are goodly, I feel, but your lies frighten me much. You said you are alive, but this is not so. I have no wish to accuse you, but you also said that you are an educated man and that you know of my friend Erasmus. But you do not mention my misspelled words. If you were alive, you would say you do not know of Jesus College. You also spoke of a power of which I have no knowledge. Where does this power come from? And what did you study in your place of learning? Where is it? Because if you do not explain this to me, then I must make an end to my words with you. This would cause me much despair. It is not I that make you afraid. It is you that makes me afraid.
- [32:52]
B
Lukas, what strange demon are you?
- [32:55]
A
And it makes sense. I mean, it totally makes sense if I'm trying to put myself in. I mean, I would have, you know, the moment that the glowing box started speaking to me, I probably would have been like this be the work of devils. So Ken, Debbie and Peter discuss that were this to be real and not the best hoax ever to be known in Cheshire county, they would have to keep in mind that demons, magic and unknown powers were very real to the average person. Lucas writes to them further that he's consulted a learned man of the time who has advised him on keeping the leams, which is what he calls the light box. Leams, boyest, and all inside of it a secret.
- [33:36]
F
Go meet at sea, mine learned friend about your time.
- [33:41]
E
I saw my learned friend concerning your time. He had many a word to say. Although he thinks that I am sick, he advised me well. He said that I must not tell a soul about this unknown world and about your people. Else it is nothing less than a capital offence according to the ground. I immediately swore that you are honest, but that it sometimes makes some people fearful, such as my servant. Also, he asks me not to write again until he comes and sees the computer. So I shall speak with you five days from now. Your good friend, Lukas.
- [34:18]
B
I mean, this is probably a really good idea when they're, you know, burning people at the stake for just about anything.
- [34:23]
A
His friend's like, let me. I will come to see the glowing box and make sure it. I can. Yeah, like, let me take a look. We'll make sure it's not. Not demons in there and instead people from the future. The difference also unclear. Claiming to have seen a ghost, or worse, communicated with one, was also an offense punishable by death. If this was somehow actually happening, the consequences were extreme. This wasn't a computer game. This was a person's real life. After convincing Lucas that they meant him no harm, the messages resumed. But to Ken's dismay, many of them were directed towards Peter Trinders, who becomes somewhat of the Dan Aykroyd character in this configuration. Very eager, pretty confident. His research was pointing to it being authentic and wanting to push the experiment as far as it would go. Ken is depressed.
- [35:14]
B
It's like he doesn't want to be the center of attention, but when he isn't, he throws a little tantrum.
- [35:20]
A
It's so human. It's so human. He's not afraid to look like such a whiny bitch in this. I love it. It's me I can relate to. To make matters worse, Lucas had seemed to take quite a liking to Ken's girlfriend, Debbie. Everyone was in love with Debbie. I think he talks about everybody wanting to come by to hang out with Debbie. And like, the guys in the band and all this stuff, they all wanted to hang around Debbie.
- [35:45]
B
I was surprised that the term tomboy has been in use for at least like 500 years or 600 years.
- [35:51]
A
Is that true? I was thinking about that. It was the one word that I was like. Surely that can't be like a. A word that was around back then.
- [35:58]
B
Well, if Peter Trinder says it was
- [36:02]
F
mine. Goodly woman. You art well schooled, methinks, for a she, but somewhat a tomboy in some way.
- [36:11]
E
I do not wish to be offensive to yourself, for you are a most perfect partner that would satisfy any man. But you must know your place and serve my friend well. Next you will say you have a cart tiger or can travel on some unnatural bird. Please ask your man if I can have words with the man you call Peter, for I may speak with him in my own language. It is difficult to read the words that you write.
- [36:36]
B
Cart tiger.
- [36:37]
A
Oh, so cart tiger is what he calls Ken's jag. And this is a real slap in the face for Ken. Lucas is going after his lady and is like, get me the Other guy who can actually type. And it kind of sends Ken into a little bit of a downward spiral.
- [36:53]
D
Lucas probably saw me as uneducated, despite my earlier claims to come from a college background. Ironically, it had been Peter's suggestion nearly a month ago that I write quite straightforwardly, I.e. avoiding pseudo medieval construction. The only outcome was that Lucas couldn't read my words. I was therefore cast as the ignorant peasant. Henceforth I tried to adjust my messages to suit the circumstances. I felt rather deflated. He was answering a question left weeks and weeks ago. It was a suggestion of Peter's to probe his understanding of some particular words. Jake's was one such word. He meant lavatory. Peter told me to write, is this the toilet in the yard? No wonder Lucas thought me a peasant at times.
- [37:35]
B
Jake, how do you feel that the word for toilet is your name?
- [37:39]
A
Well, now we know what they used to call me. The outhouse. And it's a medieval outhouse too, which, can you imagine the size of the bugs in there? The kind of webs pooping directly into a spider's jaws. Probably right into a spider's nest. I'm never leaving the outhouse. You open it up, I'm cocooned in there. I once went, I went to go to sleepover camp when I was like a adolescent and there was an outhouse that was, that you had to go in cause it was sort of a tent based camp like you really like you lived outside of cabins like out in the wilderness. But there was an outhouse and it had the hugest spiders in it. Every time going in there was like a medieval torture device for me. Cause like I'm already weird about pooping and like going in there and just seeing them kind of like eating bugs like just a foot above my head. Giant spiders. I'm talking like the size of my hand. It was awful. Awful. I'm so glad that I was born in the early 1980s, right around when Ken and his friends were communicating with Lucas. Ken's resentment for Peter grows and it makes sense. Peter's at home with his wife, enjoying the magnificent mystery from afar that just so happens to validate his skill set in his favorite hobby. Meanwhile, Ken was living this shit. The house was in a constant state of disrepair. Between the never ending construction and the not infrequent poltergeist disturbances, Ken's patience was wearing thin. To add insult to injury, Peter was pushing to get the Society for Psychical Research to come and investigate the cottage. Lucas had correctly identified a Latin inscription as well as its location. At Oxford University. Peter also believed the messages were too authentic for a hoaxer to generate this quickly. Ken reaches out to John Stiles at the spr. But he's so shy he puts his parents address instead of his own. The correspondence with Lucas was creeping out into the real world. Ken writes in his diary that he kind of wishes he was just having a normal summer.
- [39:36]
D
It's this Lucas business and the plans for the next building work. I can't concentrate. Maybe I'm bored with music. The new Musical Express still arrives at the shop every week, but I only skip through it. My life feels that it's. Of course I should be whacking round in the country in a van with a band playing at village halls and the pubs, not messing around with houses and cars, a mortgage and some poltergeist.
- [40:01]
A
The activity increases, items continue to stack. And then a breakthrough. Debbie experiences an incredibly visceral dream starring Lucas. But they're not off having adventures together in some far off dreamland. They're still trapped in Meadow Cottage in the vertical plane. Debbie goes into great detail about this first extracelestial interaction with their friend in the computer.
- [40:29]
C
I blinked and blinked again. There was something different. Very different. Yes, I saw the room was unusual, but that posed no problem at all. As I was obviously dreaming, I felt myself frowning. How very odd. Why was I standing in an overspread fireplace? Another intrusive idea squeezed itself into my confusion and took possession of my thoughts. A picture of Alice in Wonderland trying very hard to reach the bottle from a giant table way above her head. As I took a step forwards out of the fireplace, a movement to the right of me caught my attention. It was a man. A poorly dressed man whose presence was unpredicted. How odd, this dream. I reproached myself for not being able to think of any words to describe my feelings other than odd.
- [41:16]
E
Strange indeed. Maid.
- [41:18]
C
The man spoke with a thick accent and a look of complete surprise in his eyes. He placed some kind of hammer down on the large primitive table, then stood up in obvious bewilderment. Had he heard me think or did I speak? Why had I never had this problem? In dreams before, I usually get a choice as to whether I'm heard or
- [41:41]
E
so.
- [41:41]
A
I thought that this was interesting because this starts to kick off a number of dreams where Debbie and Lucas begin to interact. And we'll talk about one a little bit later. But it's weird. It's less dreamlike and more like she is appearing like a ghost in his
- [41:59]
B
room in his time.
- [42:00]
A
Yeah, yeah.
- [42:01]
B
And then the subsequent messages seem to reference these dreams and what's happened in these dreams.
- [42:07]
A
Very interesting. What if ghosts. What if ghosts were just two timelines kissing? Peter Trinders heads to Oxford to do some more snooping around, hoping to match Lucas words with historical consistency. Unfortunately for Peter, he arrives on the campus on April 1
- [42:27]
B
and he has
- [42:27]
A
a very hard time getting anyone to take him seriously. The Brasenose college librarian, Robin Pedle has mercy on Peter and displays a genuine interest in tracking down Lucas. Lucas's records. It's mostly a bust. There are some names Lucas has given that appear in the school's record, but Lucas himself is nowhere to be found, at least in the pages of history. Back at the cottage, it felt like they were making real progress. Lucas's friend, the learned man, had come to investigate the Leams himself. At the same time, in 1985, John Bucknell and Dave Welch from the Society for Psychical Research arrived in Chester to investigate Meadow Cottage. Ken and Lucas's story was branching out into their own respective real worlds and each with its own set of grave consequences. The SPR researchers do not make Ken feel any better about the situation. They show up looking to debunk the phenomenon instead of observing it.
- [43:19]
B
Yeah, this was kind of, you know, I don't know, I've heard about the spr, but I was surprised just how sort of hard nosed they were about it all too. Like they, they didn't want to believe at all. And I think that's a good way if they are going to be investigating psychical phenomenon. That's a really good way to approach it. It's just like 99.9% of the time this is a hoax and this is how we're going to, yeah, we're going to come into the situation.
- [43:41]
A
Right. And you know, they're pretty quick to point out that access to the kitchen from the upstairs music studio would make hoaxing really easy, which somehow is something that none of them have thought of. I remember there's this moment in the book where the guy's like, well actually you could just kind of climb down from there, couldn't you? And they're all like, oh yeah. Like basically any time the, the researchers show, like any time, like the real Ghostbusters show up, they basically like, nothing happens and it's a total bust.
- [44:08]
B
Yeah. Which is very, it's like frustrating for the reader because obviously you start, you know, you're on their side, you're on Ken and Dead and the gang side and you like, you desperately want someone else to see this phenomenon. But of course, like any. Anything, you know, paranormal, it's never going to happen on command. Yeah, or when you want it to happen.
- [44:25]
A
Ken is depressed. The researchers leave without a single message being recorded. Later that night, in one of the most frightening moments in the book, Debbie has a second dream about Lucas. But this one is much darker and more violent. In the dream, it's almost as if Debbie is the ghost in Lucas's home. He's shouting at his young page, Catherine, around 14 years old, forcing her to stand inches away from Debbie, demanding to know if she can see her or not.
- [44:51]
C
Catherine was working on the small kneeling stool. She was oblivious to my presence entirely. Lucas strode into the room, speaking words I could not understand. They were for Catherine's benefit. He stopped and saw me and greeted me. Catherine stood up. She looked very worried. Lukas turned to her and told her not to be afraid and that I was harmless. But she just looked blankly at him. Then Lukas stiffened and his mood changed. I saw he was angry. He shouted something at Catherine and she ran to him. She seemed to be very frightened of him. I asked Lukas what he was saying, but he cut me short. He pushed me into the center of the room and asked me to pick up a knife from the table. To Lukas and my own astonishment, my hand went straight through the whole table. Other than a prickly feeling in my right arm, I felt nothing. Lukas seemed to think it was a conspiracy and started losing his temper some more. He pushed Catherine into the center of the room to face me. She was very upset and confused. He seemed to be repeatedly shouting at her to look at me. She started to cry. She was very young. Lucas, what are you trying to do? Please don't shout at Catherine, I pleaded. There is nothing more uncomfortable than seeing someone cry.
- [46:04]
E
Be still. Why do you not show?
- [46:07]
C
Lukas asked me crossly. By this time I was getting upset. Lucas shouted at Catherine once more and she ran out. I think I felt nothing but hatred. This ruined my image of Lucas as a kind and gentle man. He was a real bully. In my upset and temper. I said something that I can't remember what. Perhaps I was too upset to hear myself. But it really upset Lucas. He turned away to face the shelves. His arms were crossed. He gave out a little whine and just closed his eyes. I couldn't tell whether he was crying. I went to move closer, but without looking at me, he pointed to the chimney. He wanted me to go. I was so mixed up and so confused. But I still hated him. I walked to the chimney and found myself once again back half asleep near the cottage fire, waiting for messages or a distant sound of thunder.
- [46:57]
A
I thought this was like really scary. This reminded me kind of like a Mike Flanagan style horror scene. You know what I mean?
- [47:03]
B
Yeah. And also just like up until this point, Lucas has seemed like a pretty benevolent figure. And then this kind of paints him as having some sort of explosive temper and then just the whole, you know, I don't know much about this era, but the idea that you have like a 14 year old girl as like your live in Paige or something.
- [47:23]
A
Lucas's wife has died. Right. She died like of the plague or something.
- [47:28]
B
The pestilence. Yeah. And now he has this 14 year old girl. But apparently this was very normal at the time because there were so many orphans and he educated us about this. A lot of live in children.
- [47:39]
A
Yeah, yeah. If you weren't family, you felt some kind of duty to like, you know, mop the floors and you know, sort of leaven the bread to sort of pave your way for, you know, this stranger allowing you to live in their cottage.
- [47:52]
B
Yeah, exactly.
- [47:53]
A
With ghosts. And it goes horribly for Catherine.
- [47:57]
B
Oh God, yes.
- [47:59]
A
Much like the temperament of the dream, the poltergeist activity in the actual cottage begins to intensify and reach a fe pitch. Lucas no longer needs the computer to communicate with the cottage inhabitants. By the way, after Debbie leaves out a piece of charcoal and paper, messages begin appearing on it whenever the kitchen is empty. And I've included a little sample that you can see.
- [48:21]
B
Yeah, this, this script is so.
- [48:23]
A
Yeah, it is really cool.
- [48:24]
B
It's kind of beautiful.
- [48:26]
A
Gosh, whoever, you know, if it's, if it's not real, I usually find. I usually find myself kind of saying the other way around if it is real. But if it's not real, whoever perpetrated this, I mean, put a lot of effort into it.
- [48:39]
B
Sure.
- [48:40]
A
And if that isn't creepy enough, Debbie arrives home one day to find all of the furniture stacked in the center of the cottage.
- [48:47]
B
Did you, did you see. So at the, at the end of the ebook that we had, they had photos like documenting all of this.
- [48:54]
A
Did you see those? I did see those. Yeah.
- [48:55]
B
Yeah. Like the stacked furniture, like it was actually like. Oh fuck. Like that's, that would not be easy to do.
- [49:00]
A
Yeah, no, it's legit. A legit stacking.
- [49:04]
C
I dropped Ken off at school after spending the night at East Green, then drove over to the cottage to feed the cats. It was 9am it was not until I walked up the path to the front door that I sensed something was very wrong. Perhaps it was the cats sitting on the garden wall watching me rather than circling my feet as they usually do, which prompted this unease. I turned the key in the lock and pushed the door open. In the living room, I came face to face with a six foot high pile of furniture. It appeared to me in that instant to have been tossed by the little finger of a giant. Instantly, I took a step back and out of the door and slammed it shut. The cat still watched me in silence from the wall. I didn't know quite what to do.
- [49:49]
A
By the end of April 1985, something has changed in Lucas tone. He's fearful, not of the People in 1985, but from his own time. Word has spread of the Leams boys and there are whispers around town that Lucas and his Paige Catherine have been consorting with devils. As his messages grow more desperate, Ken, Peter and Debbie try as best they can to come up with some kind of historical detail, something that can prove to the sheriff that they are real and not some type of witchcraft. The baking begins. They knock on peter's door at 11pm that night, hoping the three of them can come up with a way to save Lucas. Peter interprets the verse left for Lucas is to mean that the three of them, Ken, Deb and Peter must find a way to communicate with the king, potentially via the Sheriff. If they could sift through the region's history and warn the king of a future plot, something of value, potentially, Lucas could be let go.
- [50:40]
B
This is so movie brained.
- [50:42]
A
I know. It's so movie brained. I love it. On the way home that night around 2am, Debbie bursts out laughing. She says we're trying to save a man from the 16th century. Can I tell my friends, you know, when they ask what I've been doing? Oh, just try trying to save a lovely chap who's been dead for four centuries from this thicko. Sheriff. We were up all night finding out how to do it too. What'll they say? Deep in his research, Peter digs up dirt on a guy named Henry Mann, a political rival of the Sheriff, and claims he's found evidence that he once wrote to Elizabeth Barton professing his allegiance to her as she'd end up being executed in 1534 for treason. Peter thinks it might be of some value to the King. They admit to Lucas it's not much, but it's the best they've got. Lucas says it's too late. He goes before the court tomorrow and even if the sheriff could Benefit he has no sway. Once the matter goes to court, Lucas asks for a final message of his to be published in Ken's book about their communications.
- [51:38]
F
My goodly friend to all people concerning good friends, Ken, Peter and Debbie, although
- [51:46]
E
I am long dead in your time, I would like you to believe that my friends are not furies nor devils, but great men and a good woman who write this book not for themselves, but for your better understanding. Although many foolish people will turn away from this unknown thing, those that can learn will find great knowledge if you do not turn away from what is true. The people of my time cannot learn, for we are thrown in prison for thinking and reasoning on what is not explained. So we learn only what the crown will teach and not what there is to be learned. I am a man of God's book, but I will die for this very reason. I pray you understand me. For life is too short to go to God with nothing learnt. Farewell, my good, honest friends. May your God receive you. And long live Oxford Lucas.
- [52:43]
A
So pretty. Pretty intense.
- [52:45]
B
Yeah. I mean, it's. It's the one. It's. It's a death of someone who has become their friend. But also they are, I guess, responsible for it in a way.
- [52:55]
A
Definitely. I mean, had Ken never brought the computer home, I mean, this guy would still be, you know, eating the best cheese in the region.
- [53:04]
B
Exactly. With wholesome digestion.
- [53:06]
A
Yeah. He'd still be feeling good. And he's gone. A new person begins to message them from within the leams. A man calling himself John, a friend. The same learned friend Lucas had brought to see the box. Unclear. He tells the group that Lucas has been arrested by the sheriff. He also informs them that the sheriff would very much like to speak with Ken, Debbie and Peter. However, when anyone from their time attempts to move the leams, it fades and disappears. So I thought that that was like kind of interesting that depending on who's around especially, Lucas says if people who don't believe like skeptics when they come around and even the SPR field officers. Lucas says that like when that guy's in the house because he can kind of sense what's going on in their time. He says the box, the light fades.
- [53:54]
B
So like a Richard Dawkins sort of person would not be able to to see the leams.
- [53:59]
A
A Travis view, a Travis view would not be able to see the leems.
- [54:03]
B
I guess Travis and his ilk kind of dim the light of the world is what they're saying.
- [54:10]
A
To their surprise, after a couple weeks, Lucas reappears. He's been released from the dungeon. It seems like the sheriff, John Foulshirst, has put Lucas on some kind of home arrest so that the leams may continue to shine bright. He's not out of the woods yet, but he's been spared the executioner's block for now.
- [54:28]
F
Mein three crew friends, I do weep
- [54:31]
E
so that I am again free to be with my friends again, at least for a short time. It is wrong that I cannot hold you close, but am only to show such love for my friends on the leams. I know you as well as my own family, since your time was open to me. Before that, I never knew friendship so true, though it is over many years of change and we are so often confused. But I need your words so that I may take comfort from them. I must rest so that I may speak with you tomorrow, or else I will make no sense of my words to my good friends. I need time to weep. Lukas.
- [55:14]
B
I felt like palpable relief when Lukas returned. I was really sad. This idea that he'd been, like, hung for using a computer.
- [55:23]
A
Yeah, I know. Oh, my God.
- [55:24]
B
And Lucas is sort of. He's the most kind of sympathetic, well rounded character in the book.
- [55:29]
A
Yes, yes. And in the coming days and weeks, the cottage crew would have loving communications with their dear medieval friend. Lucas would once more write Debbie a love poem.
- [55:39]
F
Deb, mein sweetest O all the creatures.
- [55:44]
E
Please do not be so upset, for it overwhelms me with sorrow that you think I do not wish to speak with you. From the time I first saw you, I was choked by my own breath. For although your fashion is unknown, I must say I was full of melancholy. I think it would be quite wise not to think of such conversation with you and ignore my feelings of love. Ken is a good man who I also love. Do not show this to Ken and say no more on this matter. My foolish love to you, maid Lucas.
- [56:22]
A
And then towards the end of the book, we get the kind of, I would say, like M. Night sort of reveal, where Ken and the gang learn more from Lucas about how the Lightbox initially came to him.
- [56:36]
F
Mein brother Ken me dost thank you for yourden ben huff giffen main serum's goodly stead.
- [56:45]
E
I thank you for your words. They have given me base upon which to understand the leams. I now tell you about what you might call an antic. Catherine was sleeping in the chimney seat, so I went over to pick her up and carry her to her bed when I saw a green light shining from the walls of my chimney. And from this light light stepped what I thought was the devil himself. I never feared for my soul so much in my life. But so afraid was I that I couldn't move away from this strange messenger. He said, fear not, good Thomas. You are starred to be a great man. If you do not have fear, but keep your faith strong. Then after other words, which I do confess were not like devil talk, he was gone, leaving the leams which appeared to be the same as your computer. I immediately woke Catherine, but she didn't see the leams nor hear me speak with the metaphysical person. But she said, you, silly Thomas, were in your dreams. Now don't frighten me with your disturbed thoughts. So to mope I did, for there shone the leams, but Catherine saw it not. I was so worried for my sanity that I spoke the Lord's prayer all night, but it would not go, but sat with glee unseen by all but myself. Then two days afterwards, Catherine was singing in the chimney by the fire and leams and I saw that her words appeared on it. So when Catherine went walking, I tried verses myself in other words and gained knowledge about the leams. Do you want more about the leams?
- [58:31]
A
Yeah. This is really interesting. And then did you catch the detail, Brad, that he said the guy who brought it to him was glowing green?
- [58:38]
B
Yeah. Yeah. Like whoever it was might not be like human as we know them to be. Also the detail finally, like learning that where Lucas sees the leams boist is at the chimney. So not where Ken has the computer, but instead everything seems to be kind of coming out of this weird chimney portal.
- [58:58]
A
Yeah. It's as if, like things have slightly shifted over 400 years. And like where things sit in Ken's reality are slightly different. Which I also thought maybe that could explain the footprints on the wall.
- [59:12]
B
Right. Interesting. Yeah.
- [59:14]
A
Going all the way back to the very beginning of this. So in a further exchange with Peter Trinders, Lucas asks if he and his friends live in the same year as the man who brought him the light box. Peter tells them that they live in 1985. And Lucas is like, no, that's not where the other guy's from. They said they're from the year 2109.
- [59:36]
E
What?
- [59:37]
A
And so it's a big kind of like record scratch moment where you find out like there's somebody else that's communicating through the computer. And you go back and look at the very first message, that sort of like weird poem. It's basically, they realize that it can be attributed to this entity that they jokingly kind of call 2109. In fact, the way that Ken first starts communicating with it is he's like so pissed, he's like at the end of his rope he thinks that he's being hoaxed and he sits down on the computer and he's like hello 2109. Basically kind of trying to bait them. And they get this response.
- [60:17]
C
Ken, Deb, Peter, we are sorry that we can give you only two choices. One, that either you have your predicament explained in such a non rhyme way that you may have instant understanding but cause what should not be to happen. Or two, try to understand that you three have a purpose that shall in your lifetime change the face of history. We 2109 must not affect your thoughts directly, but give you some sort of guidance that will allow room for your own destiny. All we can say is that we are all part of the same God. Whatever he it is.
- [60:55]
A
2109's tone is a lot different than the others who have spoken or attempted to speak through the leams. Their tone is smug, almost taunting and chock full of pseudoscientific explanations as well as riddles of frequencies and signals.
- [61:10]
B
And they also seem to misspell every other word inexplicably.
- [61:14]
A
Their spelling is horrible. And Ken, when, when, when 2109 starts speaking through the computer, Ken is basically like, okay, like this is defin a hoax because like the spelling is so bad.
- [61:27]
B
Yeah. Or non corporeal entities just don't care about spelling.
- [61:30]
A
Yeah, maybe like once you've passed over, you know, that just becomes, you know, inconsequential. 2109 repeatedly positions themselves as intermediaries who can see or manage the link between Ken's present and Lucas's past. But they're not very helpful. Ken often sees them as noisy meddlers as opposed to someone enriching the communications between him and Lucas. There's even one point where Lucas suggests moving the physical BBC microcomputer to a different part of the kitchen, believing that the slight shift in positioning might keep their comms secret from 2109. Sadly, this does not work and eventually 2109 returns, telling them that they should contact a brilliant researcher and ufologist, Gary M. Rowe. He is further along than they are, studying the phenomenon, it says, and may be of some assistance, but only if Peter Trinders reaches out to him.
- [62:24]
B
I mean this story, I was like kind of all in from the start. But as soon as UFOLOGIST entered the fray, it's like, wow, it's ticking every single Box now.
- [62:33]
A
And the alien, the future people in the box, are telling them to. I mean, I guess it's no different than the 1985 future people in the box telling Lucas to contact the sheriff. Exactly. I guess it's just. It's just one, you know, a couple generations removed.
- [62:46]
B
Yeah.
- [62:47]
A
So Peter does contact Gary Rowe and he shows up at the cottage with all sorts of professional looking equipment, claiming he'll be able to monitor the cottage and try to get a better understanding of the messages. Then, inexplicably, 2109 begins dealing with Gary in a bizarrely exclusive way, forcing Ken to use sealed envelopes titled For Gary's Eyes Only. They warn against Debbie and Ken being pushy or rude to Gary, implying he serves some greater purpose in the whole thing.
- [63:16]
B
It's a great way to trigger Ken too, because this is exactly what rubs him the wrong way as being left out of something.
- [63:22]
A
Yes, and Webster, of course, doesn't trust Gary, who seems to be on his own side. Quest 2109 later tells Ken after Gary leaves that Gary will still fail despite his superior knowledge. Ken's basically left not knowing what to believe. There's somewhat of a eureka moment where 2109 shares celestial coordinates to draw attention to a solar event they believe to be visible in Ken's time. The SPR researchers are quick to point out that the coordinates are backward. But a friend of Ken's, Frank Davies, realizes that from a galactic perspective, that is someone looking at our planet from outside of it. The coordinates make sense. Ken has maintained that a hoaxer would not think of this detail.
- [64:02]
B
Yeah, maybe that doesn't really make that much sense to me, but what do I know?
- [64:09]
A
What do any of us know? Lucas is eventually freed for good from the clutches of the Sheriff. Apparently Peter's tip about Bishop man is something of value. And Lucas returns free to live in the cabin for a short time because the land is about to be turned over to the Guzzanever.
- [64:30]
B
Guvzner.
- [64:31]
A
Guvzner.
- [64:31]
B
The Gruv. Grovesner. Gruvzner.
- [64:33]
A
And when Ken and his friends ask like what became of Catherine because there had been. Lucas had said earlier that there had been rumors going around that she had been and bird to the stake is a witch. Lucas does tell them that that is true, that Catherine has been murdered.
- [64:49]
B
A really dark turn.
- [64:51]
A
Yeah.
- [64:52]
F
Fellow Ken. Ye may have returned.
- [64:55]
C
What?
- [64:56]
F
Catherine, Be friends.
- [64:58]
E
Friend Ken. Yes, I have returned, but Catherine is burnt. You said there were no burnings in Chester, but it is otherwise, for there are many for so called uncleansed souls that have been taken this way by the people of my time. The king's men only shrug at this practice and looked the other way. Catherine was a good maid and I brought this on her. She was perfect and did not know the corruptness of man and such that could harm her. For I did all I could to keep her from these wretched people. My sweetest, sweet Catherine, you will never leave my thoughts.
- [65:40]
D
I was so unhappy to hear this. I remember the sorrow and pain we'd felt when Lucas himself had been taken. I remembered it had been my responsibility to say whether these communications should continue. Because they had continued, I had helped destroy his Catherine. She was only 14.
- [66:01]
B
The short sad life of Catherine the orphan. Yeah, dead at 14. For talking about a computer.
- [66:08]
A
Burned at the stake. Yeah, for talking to. They had just brought it home for a couple of computer games.
- [66:15]
B
It is an odd like that's another if hoax. There's a lot of odd details but the whole Catherine saga is a real weird one to have in there.
- [66:23]
A
Well, and this sort of the way it kind of ends up is that basically Lucas, you know, it gets down to like these fin final days where Lucas is basically moving away and it seems pretty clear that he doesn't think that they're going to be able to communicate. He can't move the leams or anything like that.
- [66:42]
B
Yeah.
- [66:42]
A
And it's funny because Ken is like he's still kind of bitter about the whole thing because everybody else is taking their time asking their questions to Lucas and you know, Lucas is talking to Peter, wants to know a couple things and Ken feels like his precious time is kind of like slipping away. And you know, it's very interesting to me. This story is like everybody is kind of in love with Lucas throughout this whole thing.
- [67:03]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And soon after the, you know, Catherine being burnt at the stake, Lucas finally feels like he can really truly trust Ken and the gang and reveals his real name. So it's not Lucas Waynam and it's never been Lucas Wayman. It's Thomas Hardin Harwarden.
- [67:20]
A
Harwarden, yeah. Which is also the town that Peter lives in, is named after, you know, is named after. Yeah, Lucas was the name of like
- [67:28]
B
his mentor, a learned man.
- [67:30]
A
A learned man who he was very fond of and he took his name. And then of course, once they have the real name they go back to Robin Piedel who if you remember is the librarian, the curious librarian at Brasenose College. And he does end up finding a record of Thomas Hardin and it says this Hardin, Thomas Brassnose, college fellow in 1530. Still in college, 1538. Charged with expunging the name of the Pope. I quodam manuali, December 1538.
- [68:06]
B
And I think that means he crossed the Pope's name out.
- [68:10]
A
Yeah.
- [68:11]
B
Which, wow, bold. Yeah.
- [68:13]
A
He was like a little bit of a troublemaker who was probably like, in college a little too long. A little bit of a Van Wilder type.
- [68:18]
B
Yeah. And in the next section, I'm going to bring that point to a little finer tip.
- [68:24]
A
Perfect. In the final days, as the messages wind down, Ken and his friends do get one final message from Thomas, signed with his real name. It is the last communication that the group will have.
- [68:38]
B
The last communication with Thomas.
- [68:40]
F
That is mine true fellows and sweet maid may well mine book about mine brothers and maid.
- [68:51]
E
My true fellows and sweet maid. I will write my book about my brothers and maid and of the end of Lucas and their little puppy and of our love for each other. One day you will all sit down at my table for wine and meat by the river in Oxford, where we shall read each other's books and laugh. And we shall speak of truth and good men watching Oxford change together forevermore in your time. My book is old, but I shall not go to my God until it is written. Then we will all be truly embraced. My love to you all. I shall await you in Oxford, Thomas Hardin.
- [69:36]
B
There's one final message from 2109, and it seems to be a sort of explanation, a line by line breakdown of that original poem. It's fascinating.
- [69:46]
C
Ken. Deb. Peter. True are the nightmares of those that fear. What you fear will be your reality if you let it. Believe in yourselves. Safe are the bodies of the silent world. As long as your kind cannot penetrate our world, we are safe. Turn, pretty flower, turn towards the sun for you shall grow and sow. But the flower reaches too high and withers in the burning light. Knowledge will be your progress, but your kind are coming close to getting their fingers burnt. Indirectly, you may prevent this. Get out your bricks. Get ready to build. Write the book. Pussycat. Pussycat went to London to seek fame and fortune. The cat went to visit the Queen, but instead frightened a little mouse under the chair. Ultimately, London will be a significant place. Stick to your main aims. It doesn't matter how hard they seem to get. Do not be distracted by that tiny mouse that has a deceiving charm. Faith must not be lost. You all rely on each other's faith. There is another person to come. They will be the help we need. You will know them when they come. Thomas did eventually write his book and soon died shortly after he placed it in a secure place. It shouldn't take too many years to find it, though. He wrote it in Latin with the help of a friend that he met in Oxford. The inscription reads me writes this in the hope that mine fellows may one day find this book and may Oerlands be not so distant. We will finish now. You have a lot of work to do. There is no need for you to write back as we will have gone. Thank you for your cooperation. 2109.
- [71:35]
A
What if it's us? What if we're the third piece of the puzzle, Brad? What if the Spectral Voyager Season 2 is the catalyst needed to find the missing link of the Doddleston puzzle? I'm beginning to fuss.
- [71:49]
B
So, rationally speaking, the simplest explanation here is that can Debbie and Peter made the whole thing up. The story's too bizarre, it's too neatly structured. It's just too good. Like Jake mentioned, it's like a movie. So here's what points to it being a hoax. And there are legion points here. So, as mentioned, the narrative escalates almost too neatly. There's an arrest, there's a death threat, there's a love triangle, there's a tearful farewell. Another point is that Ken, Debbie or someone in the village always had physical access to the computer and no message ever appeared while anyone was watching the screen. Yeah, the early messages contain modern punctuation, though 2109 later claimed responsibility for adding it after the fact.
- [72:30]
A
Oh, right. That's right. Yeah. They claimed that they were manipulating Lucas messages to make it easier for them to read. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- [72:39]
B
Also, there were a bunch of historical errors in the first batch. Like Jake mentioned, he got Henry VIII's age wrong. He placed himself at Kinnerton hall, which. Which didn't exist yet. There were references to an Edmund Gray, which seemed to be from the wrong century. So not looking good. But that seemed to just be at the start. Then there were the Society for Psychical Research, investigators who concluded that human agencies were at play, though they never filed an official report. And weirdly, when Ken followed up, the SPR told him that one of the investigators left the Society and the other two had never been members in the first place.
- [73:15]
A
Yes,
- [73:17]
B
another point in the hoax column is the original floppy disks have been lost, so all primary evidence can no longer be examined. And then, perhaps most damning was a linguist named Wright appeared on a TV program at the time and analyzed the frequency of adjectives placed before nouns in Lucas's message and found that it matched Ken's prose in the vertical plane almost exactly. It was about 26% of the time. So other adjective before noun placement in the Tudor period came in at around 32%. So that's like a 6% disparity, which I don't know if that's a lot or not.
- [73:53]
A
Yeah, I don't know either, but still.
- [73:54]
B
So this tips the scales slightly towards a single author. It's potentially damning, like I said. But she only analyzed like a section of writing from both Ken and Lucas and it was just a single metric given in a TV segment and was not a published study by any means. And it could also be that Ken tried to adapt Lucas's style to help with comprehension, something he said they were all trying to do so that Lucas could better understand them. Yeah, so that's most of the points for it being a hoax. And you know, none of that sounds great.
- [74:22]
A
Yeah.
- [74:23]
B
For the veracity of the tale. But for the other side, if this is a hoax, it's really one of the most inexplicable ones we've ever read about. The first being that after like an initial interview or two after the book came out, Ken never gave a single interview afterwards. He never did a press tour. He never sought out fame or attention from the story besides that initial publication. And so I think like if you are perpetrating a hoax, at least in modern times, usually want something out of it. And Ken really got nothing. It in fact was a net negative for him. Second, Peter Trinder, he checked almost 3,000 words from the messages against the Oxford English Dictionary and the overwhelming majority were period accurate to the specific region and era that Lucas claimed to be from. And just remember that Trinder, he had a background in English and said that he could not have produced anything of that quality, although we are taking his word for it. It linguists noted that dialect forms pointed to a specific region and generational profile in the southwest of a middle aged man that isn't achievable by working backwards through a dictionary. So you'd have to know how people in that place and time spoke, not just the words they used, which like that, that to me is very fascinating. As we mentioned, you know, Lucas's real identity turned out to be Thomas Hardin from Brasenose College. And in that, as Jake said, he was expelled in 1538 for supposedly crossing out the Pope's name. But Thomas said that was wrong and that he'd actually been expelled for refusing to cross out the Pope's name. And Robin Petell at Brasinos checked the original source documents and found that Thomas was right. The published story had it backwards.
- [75:57]
A
I mean, that's pretty.
- [75:59]
B
I mean, yeah, a hoaxer would have had to locate and read an unpublished primary source that contradicted a standard reference to plant a correction that no one would ever think to check. Like that. That is very bizarre. And it's. It's like. Or it's like a sort of pathological hoaxer at play here.
- [76:17]
A
Yeah. I mean, I have never run into anything that is so 50% bullshit and 50% believable. I am so on the fence and I think that that's why we chose this particular story as kind of a jumping off place for yours and my investigation into this idea that we've got ghosts miscategorized.
- [76:43]
B
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And then lastly, in 40 years, that's how long this has been or more, no one has come forward to claim credit, confess involvement or been identified as a hoaxer. Like that. That's wild. Like, as we're seeing now, even the Patterson Gimlin film is like, is starting to be revealed as a hoax. Yeah. So no collaborator has broken ranks. There's not been a deathbed confession and sadly, Peter Trinder has died. And as one researcher put it, who
- [77:09]
A
would be arsed and why?
- [77:14]
B
So after the book came out, Ken and Debbie did some limited press and television and the television networks did thoroughly vet they were who they said they were before publishing anything. The response was immediate ridicule and accusations of fraud. It damaged Ken's career as an academic and economist and he disappeared completely. To this day, Peter Trinder, who authenticated the language, like I said, sadly, died in 2019. And the SPR now says they have no record of the investigation ever taking
- [77:41]
A
place, which is weird. There's weird stuff with the spr because there's also a weird. A weird kind of like footnote in the book that one of the investigators just disappears one day and a new guy is replaced. And 2109 is very interested about the new guy. His name is Nick. I think they're like. To find out what you can about that guy. Who's that guy? Who's that new guy that's here? Very suspicious of all this stuff. So there's a whole. A whole lot. And it really gets into the weeds, I mean.
- [78:10]
B
Yeah, yeah. And so basically, nearly every sort of thread that you could verify to be able to either debunk or prove this story is gone. It's just like gone and gone dark. But Debbie did surface on a forum years later in a Facebook group and
- [78:26]
C
wrote, ken nor myself have had any experiences before or since the Doddleston phenomena which would be regarded as paranormal. Both Ken and I are now living fairly normal lives and feel very privileged to have had such an experience. To this day, we really are no closer to any answers on the whole thing, and believe me, we have continued to search.
- [78:48]
B
So that's the final word on the vertical plane story.
- [78:52]
A
Well, there's actually one more thing, Brad. In 1987, the same year the Dodleston messages ended, a couple in Luxembourg named Maggie and Jules Harsch Fischbach received a message through their own equipment. They were ITC researchers, completely independent from anything happening in Cheshire. The message was marked 2105 and it told them to contact someone called Keane Webster. They'd never heard of him. This is the first thread connecting Doddleston to the wider world of itc, and it's where our series goes next.
- [79:29]
B
So this was just one fantastical case, but the story of ITC goes a lot further than Dodleston. Here's what's coming in the rest of Timeslip Radio.
- [79:38]
A
A Swedish filmmaker records birdsong and hears his dead mother's voice on the playback. He spends the next 28 years making recordings. A couple in Luxembourg build a receiving station in their home and start getting phone calls, faxes and television images from a group of entities from beyond. A man in rural Germany gets over over 300 messages on a Commodore 64 plugged into nothing but a wall outlet. A researcher catalogs phone calls from the dead and ends up a cold case murder himself. And in Italy, a man conducts live sessions with a broken radio for decades in front of hundreds of witnesses. Researchers pull the vacuum tubes out, but the voices keep coming.
- [80:20]
B
These cases are about one part of the season. We sit down with neuroscientists, quantum engineers, and veteran paranormal investigators to hypothesize about what the hell is going on. And by the end of the series, Jake and I are going to peel ourselves off of our well worn podcasting chairs and find ourselves somewhere we really shouldn't be.
- [80:38]
A
In the next episode of the Spectral Voyager Season 2, we start trying to understand this as both an engineering and a consciousness problem. Until then, listeners see you on the other side.
- [81:07]
E
Without knowledge, you have fear.
- [81:09]
A
With fear, you create your own nightmares.
- [81:12]
D
Dead to one.
- [81:13]
A
Oh man. We are not in control of Holterhouse activity.
- [81:28]
C
We are not here to play games. We are attacking.
- [81:31]
E
We watch and react accordingly.
- [81:33]
D
In the vertical plane.
- [81:39]
A
Thanks for listening to this first episode of the Spectral Voyager Season 2. We really wanted to go all out for this series and LOL you guys guys into a creepy cozy nook where you can escape from our modern hellscape. For a short while at least Jake
- [81:53]
B
got the opportunity to ask a credentialed quantum scientist about anything in the world and asked him how real the ghost scenes in Interstellar were.
- [82:01]
A
Look Brad, as Popeye once said, I am what I am. But seriously, if you enjoyed what you heard today, I promise you the series is only going to get more interesting from here. And I am genuinely scared for what Brad and I have planned. So if you did enjoy this, please head over to cursemedia.net, check out the first three episodes with a new one releasing each week after for three weeks because it's only a six episode miniseries, but who knows? I'd love to keep doing this forever. So yeah, six EPs. High quality, big production.
- [82:33]
B
In stereo.
- [82:34]
A
Yeah, in stereo. I think it's the first QAA could be wrong about this, but I do believe it's the first QAA product presented in stereo. Theoretically we could burn this on vinyl, but it would have to be like a three disc set or something like that. I don't think you get like a ton of space on vinyl. But anyways, like trust me, we're not even done recording and I'm already thinking about the vinyl press. So we're in a great place. Sign up. We're having a ton of fun and it's good. Me and Brad have been cooking.
- [83:04]
B
Thanks again and see you on the other side.