A Midnight Phone Call. A Missing Movie. Decades of Questions.

Summary

Podcast Summary: Reveal

Episode: "A Midnight Phone Call. A Missing Movie. Decades of Questions."

Original Air Date: October 25, 2025
Host: Al Letson
Produced by: Center for Investigative Reporting and PRX

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Episode Overview

This special episode of Reveal departs from its usual focus on systemic injustice and instead channels investigative rigor into distinctly personal mysteries, whimsically dubbed "Inconsequential Investigations." Through deeply human storytelling, host Al Letson and reporter Ashley Kleek explore the power of memory, the poignancy of lost creative artifacts, the unsettling feeling of meeting one's doppelganger, and the enduring allure of myths we tell ourselves. Though these investigations may start small, they unearth big emotional truths.

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Key Segments & Discussion Points

1. The Case of the Missing Movie: "Midnight Snack"

Reporter: Ashley Kleek, with Garrison Hayes and Melissa Lewis
[01:00 – 17:50]

Story Outline

• Personal Mystery: Garrison Hayes, a journalist and filmmaker, lost his first short film—Midnight Snack—which he shot in his teens and uploaded to Google Video around 2005.
• Emotional Stakes: Garrison yearns to recover "more than just a video"—it's a memory of his family, creativity, and adolescence fading with time:
  • “The tyranny of time is that I feel like I’m losing the memory. I really want to see the video one more time.” — Garrison Hayes [04:47]
• Early Investigative Steps: Initial searches in his old MySpace yield broken links—a digital “paw print in wet concrete.”
• Archive Team’s Heroics: Ashley contacts Jason Scott of the Archive Team, “anarchist archivists,” who rescued 18 TB of videos from Google Video before it disappeared, preserving digital history for the Internet Archive.
  • “We are just like literally firemen carrying piles of things out as fast as possible.” — Jason Scott [11:22]
  • “With binary files… if somebody… just decides to remove something from the web, it’s gone. It’s super gone.” — Jason Scott [11:44]
• Technical Rescue: Reveal’s data reporter Melissa Lewis writes a Python script to parse a four-and-a-half gigabyte text file and uncovers the original Midnight Snack.
  • “What a treasure. I’m just really glad you have this video.” — Melissa Lewis [16:15]
• Emotional Resolution: Garrison views the film, is flooded with memories—his family, a temporary home, the emotional context unseen within the film and almost forgotten.
  • “This is giving me the feels.” — Garrison Hayes [15:20]
  • “There’s something very human about all of this.” — Garrison Hayes [16:51]

Memorable Moment

• The group reflects on the importance of personal artifacts, the sadness when lost, and the serendipity of digital saviors—an unexpectedly moving moment for all involved.

Takeaway

• Digital memories, seemingly ephemeral or trivial, are deeply meaningful—and worth the serious effort to salvage.

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2. Me Versus My Doppelganger

Vendor: Yowei Shaw (Proxy Podcast), with Lizzie Peabody and Nicole Hill
[21:21 – 33:22]

Story Outline

• Setup: Producer Yowei Shaw is told by a friend, Nicole, that she shares an uncanny energy and manner with another podcaster, Lizzie Peabody—her “doppelganger.” Despite different appearances (Lizzie is a white blonde woman; Yowei is Asian), the comparison persists.
• Emotional Landscape: The thought of meeting one’s doppelganger is unsettling, raising questions about self-perception and the gap between our inner and outer selves.
  • “There’s always been a part of me… that really wanted to believe that there’s no one quite like me.” — Lizzie Peabody [23:02]
• The ‘Yes Doppelganger, No Doppelganger’ Game: Yowei and Lizzie humorously and candidly compare idiosyncrasies and habits, finding intriguing similarities (preparation, social vigilance) and key differences (conflict style, need for alone time).
  • “I always feel like I’m kind of, like, hosting my life.” — Lizzie Peabody [26:27]
• Nicole’s Voice Memo: Nicole’s outside-in view is that both are “tour guides” carefully curating the experience for others—a comment the pair find uncomfortably close to a shared insecurity about being “too careful.”
  • “You’re intentionally managing us towards [an experience]… it makes me really curious about what’s behind the ropes.” — Nicole Hill [29:27]
• Emotional Epiphany: It’s not the surface similarities that matter, but the relief of learning you’d like your own “mirror,” and the shared vulnerability in fearing you might not.
  • “You meet that person and you’re like, oh, they’re cool. I like them. Phew. Yeah. What a relief.” — Yowei Shaw [32:34]

Takeaway

• The exercise is less about uncovering hidden sameness and more about confronting and sometimes dispelling the fears we have about how others perceive us.

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3. The Mystery Caller: Was That Really Jeff Mangum?

Reporter: Ashley Kleek, with Lloyd Kleek, Martha Todd, Chris Baio
[34:15 – 50:45]

Story Outline

• The Incident: In 2007, during her college radio show, Ashley received a call from someone claiming to be Jeff Mangum of Neutral Milk Hotel fame, who then emailed her an unreleased track to broadcast.
• Legacy of a Myth: Over the years, this midnight call evolved into a cherished personal story for Ashley and her brother Lloyd, both ardent Neutral Milk Hotel fans.
  • “…You want to believe in, like, the magic of everything.” — Lloyd [40:37]
• Investigation: Ashley digs through old emails, suspects friends of crafting an elaborate prank, and cross-references with former music director (and now Vampire Weekend bassist) Chris Baio. Chris listens to the song and suspects a prank: “It’s a solid impression of him, but it’s hard to… yeah, I’m team Prank at the end of the day.” [46:54]
• Definitive Answer: After contacting the managers of Jeff Mangum, Ashley receives confirmation: it was not him.
  • “That’s not him. That’s not his email. That’s not him on the song. It’s clever, but it’s not him.” — Christina, Jeff Mangum's manager [47:50]
• Emotional Aftermath: The disappointment is real, yet the experience underscores how myths endure because they kindle hope, nostalgia, and wonder—even in the face of mundane reality.
  • “It’s just the better story… we both never want to give up on a myth or a story that makes us feel alive.” — Lloyd [49:47]

Takeaway

• Sometimes, the longing for magic or meaning in an ordinary world keeps a myth alive, and even when reality intrudes, the story loses little of its value.

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Notable Quotes & Timestamps

• “I really want to see the video one more time, to, like, refresh and, of course, to have it, you know.”
  — Garrison Hayes [04:47]
• “We are just like literally firemen carrying piles of things out as fast as possible.”
  — Jason Scott, Archive Team [11:22]
• “There is something very human about all of this…”
  — Garrison Hayes [16:51]
• “There’s always been a part of me since I was, like, really little… that really wanted to believe that there’s no one quite like me.”
  — Lizzie Peabody [23:02]
• “I always feel like I’m kind of, like, hosting my life.”
  — Lizzie Peabody [26:27]
• “You all have a way that you would like people to experience you, and you’re intentionally managing us towards that.”
  — Nicole Hill [29:27]
• “It’s just the better story… we both never want to give up on a myth or a story that makes us feel alive.”
  — Lloyd [49:47]
• “I think that world has a magic in it. But even the world where it was just a young guy playing music with his friends and sending it as a lark… I don’t hate that world either.”
  — Ashley Kleek [50:16]

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Conclusion & Reflection

Through “inconsequential” cases, Reveal captures the profound meaning embedded in personal mysteries—the ache for lost memories, the anxiety and grace of being seen, the deep comfort of family bonds, and the ways we cling to hope in legends, big and small. Each segment reveals that what seems trivial in scope is often poignant and universal on a human scale. As host Al Letson closes, the show promises to return to its big investigations but lingers, for a moment, with an appreciation for life's quieter, no-less-important stories.

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Additional Resources

• How to Find Your Lost Internet Videos: Ashley Kleek shares tips and resources at revealnews.org/learn (as referenced in episode).
• Proxy Podcast: Hosted by Yowei Shaw; emotional journalism on life’s unseen dramas (search in your podcast app).
• Archive.org: Explore the rescued Google Video archive and more.

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For feedback or to suggest your own "inconsequential investigation," email: [e-mail]

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Transcript

[A]

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[B]

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[C]

From the center for Investigative Reporting in PRX, this is Reveal. I'm Al Letsin. At Reveal, we're in the business of big stories. We report on government corruption, violations of human rights, matters of national, sometimes even global importance. But this week, we are turning our attention from the macro down to the micro, if you will. We're going to use our investigative skills for stories that hit more of a personal note. The idea for this hour came from my colleague and good friend, reporter Ashley Kleek.

[A]

Hey, Al.

[C]

Ashley. What you got for me?

[A]

Um, I'm calling it Inconsequential Investigations. Basically, the idea was to take the same intensity that we bring to all of our reporting and apply it to people's memories or questions that they've had about something that happened to them, questions that they've never really been able to answer, and questions that we actually have the skills to investigate. And the stories that I found, they're not inconsequential at all. At the heart of them are these deep truths about how we relate to the world and the stories that we tell about ourselves.

[C]

Now, that very much sounds like a reveal episode. I like it. I like it. So what investigations have you gone on?

[A]

All right, I have three stories for you today.

[C]

Okay.

[A]

One is a quest into the early Internet. The Internet of the early 2000s.

[C]

Oh, that's. That's where I live. Like, I still hear the AOL dial up in my head when I connect to the Internet.

[A]

The next one is about what it means to meet your doppelganger.

[C]

Oh, that could be a horror story. That. Okay.

[A]

And finally, we have a mystery into a famous reclusive rock star.

[D]

Mm.

[C]

I like all of these. All right, let's go. Let's do it.

[A]

So when I asked around our newsroom to see if anyone has something inconsequential they need investigated, my colleague Garrison Hayes messages. I do.

[D]

What's up, Cleek? Good to see you, my friend.

[A]

Oh, my God. So good to see you. Garrison's a video correspondent at Mother Jones. He makes these deeply researched short films about black life, politics, and history. His videos are poignant and clever, and they look effortless, which makes sense when I learned that Garrison started making movies when he was 15. All on a little handheld camera.

[D]

It's a Quasar Palm Quarter VHSC camcorder with, like, a little flip out.

[A]

It was like 2004, 2005, and Garrison took that Quasar Palm Quarter everywhere.

[D]

So that was like, my early teen years was spent, like, kind of being the video guy who would just, like, kind of capture stuff all the time and make little films.

[A]

So what do you. What do you remember?

[D]

Filming one is a video, like a little short film that I made called Midnight Snack.

[A]

Midnight Snack. This is the first movie Garrison made.

[D]

And it's just about this kid, my little brother, who wanted to go get a midnight snack. But his mom, my mom, played by actress Carla Hayes, she of course doesn't want him to go get a midnight snack. Shouldn't be eating so late at night. And he's, like, sneaking through the house and. And she's also afraid that maybe it's a burglar. And so she pulls a ax out from under her pillow. It's just. It's insane.

[A]

You don't forget your first movie. Garrison can remember the basic plot, but he wants to see it again. To see his mom and his little brother and how they looked like 20 years ago.

[D]

And I can't. Like, I have these flashes. Like, the. The unfortunate thing, the tyranny of time, is that, like, I feel like I'm losing the memory. I really want to see the video one more time, to, like, refresh and, of course, to have it, you know.

[A]

Midnight Snack became a trilogy. Midnight Snack 1, Midnight Snack 2, and Midday Snack. Garrison also made a buddy comedy about two kids digging for gold in their backyard. He was in a creative flow. And to share his videos with the outside world, Garrison uploaded everything he filmed to Google Video. It was new and free.

[D]

I could send them out in emails to friends or on Yahoo messenger to the girls that I had crushes on.

[A]

When teenage Garrison uploaded all these films, he just assumed that they would stay on Google Video forever. But a few years later, when he went to look for them specifically for the first One midnight snack, he couldn't find it. It was gone. That's where I come in.

[D]

I need these things to be real. You know, I know it happened, and. And I can't find any proof.

[A]

Well, we're gonna find it.

[D]

Okay. Okay. I believe in you.

[A]

In 2011, Google announced that it was shutting down Google Video. The company had bought YouTube, didn't need Google Video anymore. So Google sent out an email warning users that it would be deleting everything people had uploaded. Garrison was in college at this point. If he got an email, he doesn't remember reading it. What have you done to find it?

[D]

So, okay, so I googled Google Video archives, and I didn't get much on our call.

[A]

Garrison remembers that he also put his videos on his MySpace page.

[D]

Here, I'm sending you the link. I'm on my old MySpace and it's like a lot of. A lot of this stuff is broken. A lot of broken links.

[A]

Garrison's MySpace page is gray and empty. There are no pictures, no icons, no color. Oh, but it's there. Midnight Snack is there.

[D]

Oh, shoot. Oh, shoot. Doug and Rob. That's the buddy comedy Fool's Gold. Midnight Snack is right there. You see it? 4 minutes and 40 seconds.

[A]

Look how many views it was. 39 views.

[D]

39 views. Midnight snack, a comedy about a boy, food and a crazy mom.

[A]

The video doesn't play. It's just a trace, like a paw print and wet concrete.

[D]

You know, it's. This feels actually like a development, Ashley, because I didn't even know that it would show up on the. On the page like that.

[A]

Little cracks, my friend. Little cracks. I start investigating immediately. I messaged someone connected to MySpace, which still exists, by the way. No answer. I email Google's press office, just nonchalantly asking about a service they discontinued more than a decade ago. I hear nothing back. It starts to feel like I am just launching paper planes into an empty sky. Months go by. Garrison is suspiciously silent. Like whatever faith I'd earned with our MySpace development has been spent. One night I put my son to sleep and I have this rush of energy. I sit on my couch, cat in lap, and open my laptop. I decide that this time I'm going to find these videos. I read through dozens of old Reddit threads, and the first thing that becomes very clear is that Garrison's quest is universal. There are so many threads of people looking for the stuff they stored on Google Video. And some people are saying that there is a way to find these lost videos. Somebody saved them. I find instructions from A Reddit user on how to get the videos back. I download this massive text file, but to my eyes, it's all just gobbledygook. Random words, random URLs. But I control F for midnight snack. And embedded in lines of data that I cannot understand, I see it. Midnight snack. It still exists, but I have no clue how to actually get it. And then I find someone who does. I like your setup.

[D]

Yeah, no, it's a good setup.

[A]

Wait, you are like a collector. Look at all those tubs.

[D]

Oh, you mean these? Yeah, things like Commodore 64 discs. I need to digitize. I see that. Loose floppy disks.

[A]

Wait, loose floppy disks.

[D]

Floppy disks. So it's just floppy disks that need to be handled. But then here's VHS tapes and so on. No, I'm a thing.

[A]

Jason Scott is a thing. A pretty remarkable thing. Jason's been online since the early Internet. He remembers watching the first webcam. It livestreamed a coffee pot, just brewing.

[D]

Coffee, whose entire purpose was so that they didn't have to walk down the hall to see if there was any coffee left in the pot. But people were looking at it from all over the world.

[A]

Jason lives on the Internet even now, during this interview.

[D]

And, you know, I'm livestreaming, but they can't hear what I'm saying. And they're very used to me being on the phone in some way and gesticulating wildly. There's 28 of them anyway.

[A]

Wait, so there's 28 people watching you right now? Talk to me, but you're muted.

[D]

Yeah, I'm on Twitch.

[A]

Cool. Jason and I talk for an hour about the Internet of the 1990s and 2000s. Before we remember that, I emailed him with an actual question.

[D]

This is way too much. I really apologize. You're friendly, and so when you're friendly.

[A]

I'm like, no, let's see if we.

[D]

Can kill her with too much words.

[A]

Yeah, no, I'm gonna ask you questions now. I really appreciate. Jason is part of a collective of archivists, anarchist archivists, really, who are dedicated to saving the stuff we've all left behind on the Internet. So I tell Jason about Garrison's films, and he put them all up on Google Video. And then when he went to go look for them later, they were gone.

[D]

Right? Totally gone.

[A]

Starting in 2009, Jason and the archivists, they call themselves Archive Team, realized that websites were disappearing. Companies that had once stored people's data for free started going out of business. Just didn't want to keep paying storage Fees and a lot of the stuff people had uploaded was vanishing. So Archive team decided to become the first responders of the Internet.

[D]

And we are just like literally firemen carrying piles of things out as fast as possible. And we've broken every window outside and just pulled as much as we can out of every hole in the building to stop it from disappearing.

[A]

Arxiv team saved a bunch of sites, GeoCities, Google Reader, the original AOL.

[D]

Because once a digital object is deleted to its last copy, it's gone. Gone. If you take a bunch of books out and you put them out in the rain, you can probably still open the pages and you can still kind of read what was there. But with binary files, it's literally one or zero. So if somebody in the name of economics or politics or just space, just decides to remove something from the web, it's gone. It's super gone.

[A]

So when they got that announcement in 2011 that Google Video was shutting down, they went full speed archive. There was a lot of trial and error, but eventually they cracked the code and they accessed the raw files. They programmed computers to download the videos for them, and they grabbed 18 terabytes of data, 1 million videos, and they uploaded everything to Internet Archive, where it all still is today.

[D]

I've kind of settled into a kind of a generalized Zen philosophy of like, look, entropy is the house and the house always wins. Like, we're naturally destroying so much and some of it is like really beautiful and wonderful and, you know, kind of like realizing that that's the situation. Then maybe you get a little happy when you save stuff.

[A]

When they saved the videos, they also grabbed the title and the description. So that's how I was able to find Night Snack. Jason says, from here it's just a matter of simple programming, which, simple or not, I don't know how to do. So I call my colleague, Melissa Lewis.

[B]

I mean, it is thanks to the improbable efforts of people saving what, 18 terabytes of Google video data to archive.org? that's bananas.

[A]

Melissa is the resident data powerhouse at Reveal and an Internet aficionado. She edits Wikipedia for fun. Sometimes I send her the text file just to.

[B]

Just to give you a sense of magnitude. So this is a 4 1/2 gig text file. Like, it happens that our estimates of.

[A]

Like the King James version of the Bible would be the equivalent of like.

[B]

Four and a half megabytes. And this is a thousand times bigger than that.

[A]

When Melissa looks at this massive text file instead of gobbledygook, she Sees something she can work with. She can tell there's a bunch of pathways. She just needs to parse them out, which she does using a coding language called Python that gives her a few real URLs that she can paste into a browser. And one of them leads her to the archived version of Midnight Snack. I message Garrison immediately.

[D]

There we go. There you are. There I am.

[A]

I tell Garrison everything. The dead ends, the late night, Googling the big old Bible text file. But I could see Midnight Snack.

[D]

No way.

[A]

If I controlled F. If I search.

[D]

No freaking way. No. You're kidding me.

[A]

I tell him about Melissa's Python coding magic, and she. She got it back.

[D]

No way.

[C]

No way.

[D]

This is. That's a genuine reaction, by the way. I was not expecting this. I'm in. I'm locked in now.

[A]

I just emailed it to you.

[D]

You.

[C]

You don't.

[D]

You emailed it to me.

[A]

He starts watching immediately.

[D]

This mess, man.

[C]

Oh.

[D]

Wow, Ashley. This is so crazy. I don't even. Like, I remember this bedspread. Oh, I kind of forgotten it. But, like, this is giving me the feels.

[A]

Midnight Snack is honestly way more produced than I'd given teenage Garrison credit for. There's an aerial shot of his little brother in bed. There's real tension when his mom creeps down the hall, discovers the Midnight Snacker, and swings an axe over her head.

[D]

Mom. Mom, it's me, Chris.

[A]

Huh? Don't worry, the mom does not axe the Midnight Snacker. It's a comedy, y', all, and the.

[D]

Acting could use some work.

[A]

And then Melissa joins the chat. You're watching your debut.

[D]

I'm watching it, and I'm like, I'm losing it a little bit over here, and so. Thank you.

[B]

Yeah, definitely. What a treasure. I'm just really glad you have this video. Yeah, I.

[D]

There's.

[B]

I'm adopted. And there's a single video from the day I was adopted that my parents had on, like, a. My adoptive parents had on, like, a physical tape, but it was a strange format. And anyway, they just threw the tape away because they didn't know that it could be adapted. And. Yeah, I just really feel you on how. How precious something like this is and how wonderful it is that people endeavored to save it.

[D]

Yeah, I'm glad you told that story because there is something very human about all of this. I mean, I'm. I recorded this in a house where my parents had split up for, like, six or eight months, like, one year, and, like, they kind of, like, gone their separate ways, and we moved to this house. This house. And I kind of, to be honest with you, I forgot that I recorded this. There, there was a moment where I was watching it just now and I was like, yo, like, what is, where, where is this? Where are we? Oh, yeah, that's right. This was the house over in, in Stone Mountain that I totally forgot. We lived in for a few months and my dad would come over and like, visit us and you know, like, and that's when I got, I was getting into film, like, really heavily at this time. I think partly as an escape. In hindsight, this is very meaningful. This is very, very meaningful. And I really appreciate you all. It's weird. It's a weird feeling that I'm having toward the Internet.

[C]

So maybe you're having a similar feeling, like you're thinking about the videos that you left somewhere on the Internet. Well, we want to help. On our website, Ashley has gathered the links she used to find Midnight Snack to share with you. Good luck and let us know if you find anything. Up next, one friend tells another, hey, you remind me of someone.

[B]

I was like, will I be disgusted? Will you be a gremlin?

[C]

The dreaded doppelganger. That's up next on Reveal. Don't go anywhere.

[B]

Hi, y'.

[A]

All.

[B]

My name is Nadia Hamdan and I'm a producer here at Reveal.

[A]

Reveal is a non profit news organization and we depend on support from our listeners.

[B]

Donate [e-mail] donate and thanks.

[C]

From the center for Investigative Reporting and PRX. This is Reveal. I'm Al Edson. Today we're bringing you stories that aren't exactly typical for us. Now normally we do these big investigations that expose wrongs and hold the powerful to account. Today we're having some fun and using the same investigative skills to explore some more power personal stories. We're calling it Inconsequential Investigations. Reveal reporter Ashley Kleek has been leading us this hour. Kleek, what's next?

[A]

This next story is about a woman who keeps being told that she is just like someone else. Al, have you ever been told you have a doppelganger?

[C]

Yeah, I have. It was such a weird experience many years ago in another life when I was in my 20s, I used to be a flight attendant and I was working in Chicago at o' Hare Airport. And people would say, how come you didn't come last night? Or just. They would have conversations with me and I'd just be like, I don't know what you're talking about. And then someone put it together that There were two of us, and one day I was, like, in the plane, and this guy's like, I finally found you. And I was like, okay.

[D]

He's like, I'll be right back.

[C]

And he came back, and he brought this guy onto the plane, and when I looked over at him, like I was looking at. At a mirror, but, I mean, he looked just like me but better. And it freaked me out, and it freaked him out. And we never spoke again.

[A]

Oh, my gosh. But you didn't really get to, like, talk to him. You didn't get to, like. You didn't get to get into it with him.

[C]

How would you feel if you realized you were the basement bargain version of yourself? Like, no, I don't want to talk to him. Get away, get away, get away. So, no, I hope he's doing well somewhere in the world. And. Yeah, but I don't want to talk to him.

[A]

Oh, man.

[D]

Al.

[A]

I mean, I think it really speaks to kind of, like, the danger that we associate with our doppelgangers of, like, what does it mean?

[C]

Yes.

[A]

So the next story is from Yowei Sha. She's the host of the show Proxy, and she does these kind of emotional investigations, and she tries to help people understand the situations that they're in from a new angle. And in this story, she tries to look into the case of her own doppelganger and what it means when you start to see how other people see you.

[C]

All right, let's go.

[A]

Okay, here's Yowei.

[B]

A few years ago, I gave a keynote speech at this podcast conference. It was my first keynote, and I was terrified. I holed up in my hotel room for the entire conference to prep, and when I finally walked out on stage, I held a heavy stack of PowerPoint printouts to my chest, like a security blanket. Thankfully, I got through the talk, didn't need my notes, went straight to the bar after. And that's where it happened. Another podcaster, Nicole Hill, walked up and told me what she thought about my presentation.

[D]

I was watching you up on stage presenting, and I was like, oh, my God, this is the strangest thing I've ever seen. She is moving her hands and her body and her face exactly like this other person I know named Lizzie.

[B]

So similar that Nicole's friend, who'd also seen me give the presentation and was also friends with Lizzie, saw it too.

[D]

We were like, I'm not even kidding. Walked up to each other, and we said, oh, my God, she looks exactly like. And I was like, yes, I know. I see it. We did not even say Lizzie's name for maybe a couple minutes. We just instantly knew it was the wildest thing.

[B]

Since then, Nicole and I have become friends. And Nicole has not backed down that Lizzie and I are doppelgangers, not in how we look. Lizzie's blonde and white. I'm Asian. But in her energy, our essence.

[D]

There's like a cadence to the way that you talk, and then there is the. Just the kind of way that you. How could I describe it? You two are careful. You're just a little careful.

[B]

People have told me that I look like I'm thinking before I'm speaking.

[D]

Yes, that's it. That's a good way to frame it.

[B]

For two years, I left it at that. A running joke between me and Nicole and an open case. Because if I'm being honest, I was nervous to meet Lizzie. In stories about doppelgangers, when your double pops up, they often serve as an unwelcome mirror. And in this case, Lizzie was the concrete manifestation of something I'd been working to let go of for years, worrying about how I came off to other people. What if I met Lizzie and discovered yet another thing to dislike about myself? What if I found Lizzie boring, annoying, not fun? But what if I met Lizzie and saw something that helped me get over these hang ups I couldn't resist? After all, it's not often you get to catch a glimpse of how someone else sees you. Okay, test, test, testing. That was Lizzie just now testing her recording levels. And the first thing I notice when she joins me on the video call is that in certain moments, she sounds exactly like me. I'm going to assume. Oops. I'm going to assume that yoi wants me to be recording when I log on, because abr always be recording. So Lizzie is Lizzie Peabody. She lives in D.C. she's also a journalist and podcast host like me. And she was also nervous about meeting her alleged doppelganger. I've never had anyone tell me before, oh, this person is just like you. And I think a little part of me had a little rebellious reaction. Like, there's always been a part of me since I was, like, really little, I think, that really wanted to believe that there's no one quite like me. To break the ice, I suggest we do an extremely scientific exercise I made up called, yes, doppelganger. No, doppelganger. The game is just a series of questions. Some short, some long, no personality tests, just rapid first impressions. Do you care about astrology? Yes, I do not care about astrology. How Many glasses do you have by your bed currently? Oh, like seven. Oh, okay, so that's a similarity. Yes. In the no column, I avoid conflict. Lizzie tackles it head on. I need a lot of alone time because I'm constantly talking to people, while for Lizzie, interviewing people for her job isn't enough connection. Wow, that is a big difference. I have to supplement it with, like, teaching or volunteering. That's really interesting. Lizzie's only missed one flight, and it wasn't her fault. I've missed many, and they were all because of me. I like to lay while Lizzie likes to run. You just grimaced when I said run. No, I'm running. In the S column. Lizzie and I are both preparers. We both still pull all nighters for work and talk to ourselves when we're writing and annoy the people around us. We both have a habit of asking questions that throw gasoline on a conversation or smother it. Like, I was at a friend's party the other day and I was just like, so, Zach, how do you see time? Yes, yes. And a big, big yes to both of us being hyper aware of how other people in the room are experiencing a moment instead of just living in the moment. I kind of dislike that part of myself. I think I'm so oriented toward other people's experiences. The word that I usually use is just like, being hyper vigilant of the room, of other people's feelings, of the vibes. How can I make it okay? Let me think about how other people are seeing me. Yes, that's sort of the. The consummate host role in some ways. I'm. I always feel like I'm kind of, like, hosting my life. I mean, my mom says that when I was in preschool, she'd come to pick me up and I'd be there on the playground, like, handing out Cheerios and asking people if they had, like, enjoyed their time on the slide. Like, she was like, you. They called you, like, the pearl mesta of the playground, which I then had to go look up. And she was apparently some, like, socialite who, like, hosted a lot of parties or something.

[A]

Cheerio for you. Cheerio for you.

[B]

Yeah, exactly. Would you like some snacks? Would you like to return to the swings? Over the course of seven hours, spread out over two days, Lizzie and I poke and prod, comparing notes like we're standing in front of a bathroom mirror, peering at each other's images to see. Do we really do the same thing with our hands? It's so hard to tell, Yowei, because we're not in the same place. And that's true. I. I feel like I have an exceptionally bad idea of how I move my body. Finally, we count up the yeses and nos, and we end up with just as many similarities as differences. So then what do you think it is? Like, do you think we're similar? I don't think we're that similar in terms of our rhythms and general preferences in terms of, like, the action of our lives. But I sense a similarity in that I feel a sense of ease with you and, like, I feel like we're meeting each other in a similar place kind of energetically and in terms of, like, our interest in communicating and understanding. And so it's hard to put my finger on it, but there's definitely something here that's, like, connecting. It may just be ineffable. We decide to go straight to the source and demand for Nicole to explain herself, Especially her comment about us both being careful. Whoa, that's loud. Sorry. But Nicole doesn't answer conveniently. She's traveling. We demand a voice. We leave her a message, and then we get a ping. Oh, she left us a message. Should we listen? I'll play it.

[D]

Hi.

[A]

Hello.

[D]

Okay, so for your questions around, like, my perception, and again, this is really just my opinion. The way that you move is very similar, but also, I think you both have. I think it's unapologetic. I don't actually know, but you're both managing your brand with, like, lots of intentionality. You all have a way that you would like people to experience you, and you're intentionally managing us towards that. The picture I have in my head is being, like, two really dope tour guides through, like, an art museum of you. And it's like an amazing experience, but also it makes me really curious about what's behind the ropes.

[B]

I'm not flattered by that message at all.

[A]

No, me neither.

[B]

I don't like that message. I don't like it at all. Yeah, I think what Nicole named is, like, a thing that I have been trying to get beyond and, like, not actually show the world same. We both see it. We both hate it, though, to us, what Nicole is clocking is not strategic brand management. Well, it's interesting because we are very other oriented. Yeah. But I kind of feel like she's misinterpreting that quality about us. For me, it's really about, do they like me? Do they think I'm stupid? And I think for you, it's around hosting and making sure people are having a nice time. But she's interpreting that other orientedness and as you being careful or maybe not authentic. Yeah, I don't actually feel that that is so accurate. I mean, this is the danger with knowing how people see you. Right. Like, this is exactly the danger when you don't agree or it's something that you don't like. This is a sad note to end on. There's a kind of mirror called a true mirror where a standard mirror shows you a reversed image of your face. A true mirror shows you exactly as you appear to other people. Apparently. It's horrifying, a shock to the system, and thanks to Nicole. We love you, Nicole. Lizzie and I got to look into our own version of this mirror. And we were horrified, horrified to see a shared insecurity, which is probably why we reacted so defensively. But there was one fear we were most concerned with that didn't come true. I think my only fear, I guess, was that I really didn't like you. Because that would mean I really don't like the person that I come across as. Oh, my gosh. That was absolutely one of my fears. I was like, will I be disgusted?

[A]

Will she be a gremlin?

[B]

I mean, there are people you meet that you just don't like. Yeah. And I can definitively say that I do like you. You also don't have to like me. It's okay if it's not reciprocated. I can definitively say not disgusted. But there's just something very comforting about somebody says you're exactly like someone else. You meet that person and you're like, oh, they're cool. I like them. Phew. Yeah. What a relief. Can I have your number? Is that weird? Like, can we text and be friends? Wow. I could talk to you forever. No, I just need to come. I'll show up at your house. We'll have a big slumber party. It'll be great. I think this is the beginning of how does Casablanca end? This is the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Isn't that the last scene?

[D]

I don't know.

[C]

That was Yowei Shaw, host and creator of the podcast Proxy, which uses journalism to investigate bio big emotional questions. Hear her episodes about family, estrangement, band drama, and what the heck is up with your inner narrator by looking for Proxy in your favorite podcast app. Up next, an indie rock star calls into a college radio station, sparking a decades long mystery that only he can answer.

[A]

Would you call him?

[D]

Me personally? Absolutely not.

[C]

You're listening to REVEAL from the center for Investigative Reporting and prx. This is Reveal. I'm Al Letson, and I am back with my colleague and buddy, Ashley Kleek. Kleek.

[A]

Hey, Al.

[C]

Okay, so you've been leading us through this hour that we're calling inconsequential investigations. You are using your reporting skills to work out more personal questions, conundrums, mysteries, if you will. And, Ashley, we have finally come to your investigation.

[A]

I know, finally. The short version is that the lead singer of a band that I really, really loved called into my college radio station and asked me for a favor. And I've been telling this story for, like, 20 years. And for better or worse, I just want to know if it was actually true. Like, was it. Was it really him?

[C]

Oh, Ashley, just. You just got to go with the myth, man. Reality is bleak. But okay, let's break it open.

[A]

Back in 2007, I was a senior in college, and I had a show on my university's alternative radio station, wbar. Welcome back. You're listening to WBAR radio. My show was during a prime slot, midnight to 2am on Mondays, I played blues music. I only got a couple songs left. I'm gonna start off with Aberdeen Mississippi Blues by Bucka White. And it felt like it was really just for me. Like, I'm pretty sure no one listened. It was April, middle of the night. I remember being surprised by the phone ringing, which, you know, it's the middle of the night. People weren't really calling into my show. So I answer, and the guy on the line said something like, hey, this is jeff mangum240.

[D]

All floating in glass.

[A]

Jeff Mangum was a lead singer and guitarist of a famous indie band called Neutral Milk Hotel. Back in the late 90s and early 2000s, they were the band for angsty, artsy college kids. Neutral Milk Hotel came up in a world of mixtapes and music collectives. And their songs are so beloved that they've been covered by everyone from Phoebe Bridgers and Phishing to Death Cab for Cutie and the Avett Brothers and a whole bunch of other people. The band only released two studio albums, and the second was just monumentally popular and critically acclaimed. They toured all over the US And Europe, and then they just disappeared off the scene. And Jeff Mangum, the lead singer, stepped away. He barely gave interviews. He didn't play any gigs, and he didn't release any new music. And then almost a decade later, someone claiming to be him called into my radio show. There's no recording of the call. WBAR archive was down that year, but I remember the voice Saying, hey, this is Jeff Mangum. And I remember answering with a laugh like, yeah, right. No, really, this is Jeff Mangum. And I have a song I'm working on and I'm wondering if you can play it on the show. My show was almost over. I had one, maybe two songs left. So I said, sure, send it. Thinking to myself, what a liar. The person emailed me the song. I intro'd it, said it was from Jeff Mangum, and put it on the air. And then I closed up. It was 2am and as I walk back to my dorm room in a total Blur, I'm almost 100% sure I called my oldest brother Lloyd.

[D]

Hey, Ashley.

[A]

Lloyd is eight years older than me, and in the way of way older brothers, he's had an influence on my life that's impossible to untangle. The books I read, they came recommended by him. So many of my favorite bands came from CDs I took from him. And Neutral Milk Hotel was one of the main ones, specifically their second and final album from 1998, in the Airplane over the Sea.

[D]

And yeah, I probably didn't have that, like, album taken out by Discman for at least a year. It felt very revolutionary to me. It felt like it was going to. I mean, the things that really move you, it feels like it's going to change the world.

[A]

After he finished college, the album, and Lloyd eventually landed back home in Birmingham, Alabama, stuck in the summer of our hometown. We plugged Lloyd's Discman into the car stereo and we drove up and down the pothold roads in our neighborhood listening to it. And when I relisten to, I want to say it's Ghost. I am in the car with you and, like, driving with, like, your one hand, like, smoking a cigarette with the other. And, like, and we're. We're up at the top of Red Mountain and we're, like, just hitting these holes and, like, bottoming out the. So when I told Lloyd my story, that Jeff Mangum had called the radio show, it became our story. A connection to this person who had meant so much to both of us. Neither of us ever stopped to question why Jeff Mangum would be trying to promote himself on my radio show. We wanted it to be true. And so it was.

[D]

You know, at the time, I didn't even think about the possibility of it being, like, somebody else pretending to be him, which I guess is. Is possible. Like, of course it is.

[A]

I love that you thought and you believed from the jump that it was him. And why? Well, because it just says that you're like, like you want to believe in like the magic of all of like of everything. You know what I mean? And that people do things just for like beautiful magical reasons and not to like play a game with someone.

[D]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, totally. I mean like, you know, what's the. What's the better story? What is the life giving story?

[A]

This is what I love about my brother. His insistence on the better, more life giving story where I'm skeptical. Lloyd is intrigued, curious. He'll entertain it. Plus he's very convincing.

[D]

You have not gotten to the end of the mystery. But you, you said like now it seems to you like this was. You come back to believing that this probably was him.

[A]

That's.

[D]

Did you arrive at that logically or did you arrive at that like.

[A]

I think emotionally. I think emotionally.

[D]

Yeah.

[A]

No, I don't have any evidence. One conversation with my brother and I'm a believer, but a believer who once evidence. So I tell Lloyd I'll keep digging, see what I can find and check back with him.

[D]

All right. I love you dear.

[A]

I love you too.

[D]

I'm gonna go drive around my car later. Yes, yes please.

[B]

I wish I was there.

[A]

I call my friend Martha Todd. She was my roommate at the time and a big fan too. I sent her the emails I got back in 2007 from jmangorangeahoo.com I asked her to read them. I want to see what she thinks. All right.

[B]

Hey Ashley, Jeff here. Thanks so much for being so nice.

[A]

Here's a rough track off a new album. Hopefully it isn't finished. It's called Barrel in the thread. I respond to this alleged Jeff Mangum saying basically hahaha, nice try. I'm not fooled. This is not Jeff Mangum. A few minutes later I receive one last reply.

[D]

Sorry if it didn't sound like the old stuff. As I said, I've been gone for a while and I'm kind of going.

[A]

For a new thing. I was with a few buddies and.

[D]

Thought it would be a cool idea.

[A]

But thanks for putting it on the.

[B]

Air for me and being so nice about it.

[A]

Best wishes. Do you think it's him? I don't know.

[D]

I feel like the likelihood that it is him is low.

[A]

The likelihood that it is some other.

[B]

Random like rock and roll person who called a bunch of radio stations is not low.

[A]

Of course I send an email to the email account and it bounces back immediately. But maybe there are more clues. So I searched through my email from that time and let me tell you, digging through emails from 2007 is really a trip in a time machine. Like, in one message, I accuse a friend at the time of being the Jeff Mangum caller and playing a joke on me. Reading it again now, I think, okay, maybe it was him. So I text him to double check, and he writes back quickly, quote, my utter lack of musical capacity should exonerate me alone. I find an email from another friend who did listen to my radio show. Good friend. And had musical connections and was a bit of a prankster. It's been a decade since we've talked, and I call her, but she's never heard of Neutral Mo Kotel. So strike one and two. I'm really grasping for straws now, but I think of one more person who might know something useful. My friend Chris Baio. Chris is the bassist in the rock band Vampire Weekend, but back then, he was the music director at wbar, the radio station. When was the last time you thought about that?

[D]

Wbar. You know, I follow them on Instagram and they pop up from time to time. And I always. I had such a great time. So occasionally not. Let's call it once a month.

[A]

That's way more.

[D]

Than you would have thought. No, it's. It is. It's an important time in my life for me.

[A]

Did you listen to Neutral Milk Hotel? Did you like them? Were they part of, like, your rotation?

[D]

Yes, absolutely.

[A]

Chris tells me that back in 2005, he went to a concert at Bowery Ballroom in New York for another band that was on the same label as Neutral Milk Hotel. And suddenly, he says, Jeff Mangum appeared.

[D]

On stage, which was a big deal at the time. And for that audience, it was like, I don't know, Elvis getting on stage. You know, it was like a special moment.

[A]

So this feels important. Like, Jeff Mangum hadn't totally stopped performing. He's in New York at the same time that I'm in New York. Maybe he was rehearsing, thinking of playing again, and then he heard a radio station late at night and thought, well, it's a pretty safe place to resurface. To me, this is evidence that it could have been him. Chris points out that the person who called in Jeff Mangum, or not, actually had to make a song.

[D]

That's the part that's interesting to me is the song itself. Like, if it was a prank, did somebody record their own song in the style of Jeff Mangum, or did they just send you something that, you know somebody else did?

[A]

Did you ever hear it?

[B]

Did.

[D]

No.

[A]

Okay, let me send it to you. You have the song yeah, of course.

[D]

Oh, my God. Oh, my God. Yeah. Let me send it to you here.

[C]

You were here with cast.

[D]

Wow. What do you think that's funny? It's in the style, but I think it has to be a prank.

[A]

Yeah.

[D]

God, that's crazy. I have no idea. It's definitely in the style of him and, like, it's a solid impression of him, but it's hard to. Yeah, it's funny. I don't know. But yes, I am team Prank at the end of the day.

[A]

Yeah. It's also just so short and it's not very good.

[D]

Yeah. It's not as good as in the Airplane over the Sea, but, you know, it's an early version. It's an early version. We all have our processes, you know, you never know.

[A]

I asked Chris how he would go about solving this. He's like, well, Jeff Mangum surely still has a manager. I tell him that we have these services, you know, like, for our investigations, where we can find people's contact information. And I think I might have found Jeff Mangum's phone number. Would you call him?

[D]

Me personally? Absolutely not.

[A]

I follow Chris's advice. I find two managers, Colette and Christina. I email them both. I even send them a PDF of my senior year emails to the supposed Jeff Mangum and the song he sent me. They're quick to write back, that's not him. That's not his email. That's not him on the song. It's clever, but it's not him. Christina tells me that this happens sometimes. People pretend to be Jeff Mangum. People are so weird. She writes, she's not wrong. After that, I'm going to be honest, I was a little deflated. It wasn't him. I walked around the city, listened to Neutral Milk Hotel. But then the journalist part of me grabbed onto a final thread. There's only one person who really knows. So I call and text the number that I think is Jeff Mangum's. I pace my living room, I leave a voicemail, and I don't expect to hear back. And I don't. I text Lloyd. He's also come to a conclusion, and he wrote me a whole email.

[D]

I email. That's right. I'm in my philosophy class right now and I'm doing symbolic logic. That's really making me, like, get into, like, building logical arguments and, like, taking something down. When I was starting that email, I was kind of like, oh, man, this might be a little bit overkill, but okay.

[A]

His email breaks down logically piece by piece. Why the song I was sent in 2007 is not Jeff Mangum's. The person singing sounds too young. The picking style on the guitar is too simple. The lyrics sound like an impersonation.

[D]

It's not logically sound.

[A]

Yeah, yeah.

[D]

But it's part of me will persist, most likely in remembering the story as it was. Like, it's just the better story. Like, you and I are both. We both neither want to give up on a myth or a story that makes us feel alive. And we also like, have this like, need to like, justifier our true beliefs. You know.

[A]

I've inherited from my brother the desire for a better story. And I would like to live in a world where this beloved artist sent a song to a college radio station in the middle of the night. I think that world has a magic in it. But even the world where it was just a young guy playing music with his friends and sending it as a lark, like, let's just get this song played on the radio. I don't hate that world either.

[C]

That was Reveal reporter Ashley Kleek. We hope you enjoyed today's show. Next week we'll be back to our regularly scheduled programming of the deeply consequential investigations as the world burns around us. But we would definitely like to do this again. So if you have an inconsequential investigation for the Reveal team to use our considerable talent to solve, drop us a [e-mail] our lead producer for this week's show is Ashley Kleek. Additional reporting and production from Yowei Shaw and data crunching by Melissa Lewis. Jenny Costas and Kate Howard edited the show. Special thanks to Julia Lurie and Hannah Leventova for their help on this hour. Nikki Frick is our fact checker. Victoria Baranetsky is our general counsel. Our production manager is the great Zulemikov score and sound design by dynamic duo Jay Breezy, Mr. Jim Briggs and Fernando My Man Yo Arruda. That help from Claire C. Note Mullen. Neutral Milk Hotel songs were licensed thanks to bank Robber Music. Taki Telenides is our deputy executive producer. Our executive producer is Brett Myers. Our theme music is by Camarado Lightning. Support for reveals provided by the Riva and David Logan foundation, the John D. And Catherine T. MacArthur foundation, the Jonathan Logan Family foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson foundation, the park foundation, the Schmidt Family foundation and the Hellman Foundation. Support for Reveal is also provided by you our listeners. We are a co production of the center for Investigative Reporting and prx. I'm Al Letson. And remember, there's always more to the story.

[D]

From prx.