Episodes
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Wiki links:
Caecilian, Minhocao, Giant Gippsland earthworm, Earthworm, Augerino, Worm charming, Mongolian death worm, Roy Chapman Andrews, Gobi Desert, Sandworm (Dune), Titanoboa, Guh, The Legend of Sinkhole Sam
Youtube videos:Earthworm Facts: FACTS about EARTHWORMS | Animal Fact Files
Mammoth Meatball Created With Extinct DNA
Giant goldfish-like fish caught in lake in France
The Sound of Giant Worms
More links:
Inside the skulls of real-life creatures that resemble ‘Dune’ sandworms fun info on worm lizards
Operation Deathworm – Part 1 Story of the expedition to find the mdw
Nature Vol 17 Where minhocao is cited in scientific literature
Why Were Prehistoric Insects Huge?
59-Feet-long Tapeworm Removed from Thai Man's Rectum, Pics Go Viral gross
Meet Australia’s Giant Gippsland Earthworm, The Biggest Worm In The World
Early bird catches more than just the worm
Are Early Birds Really Better Off?
How Do Insects Breathe?
Dr Karl: Could there be life on Saturn's moon Enceladus?
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Sources:
An interrupted Journey
About hypnosis
News Articles:
Betty's Death
UNH Image collection
Interview with Betty ( this is the one where she looks grizzled)
Lam, Crowley, and New Hampshire
More
Hypnosis Audio clips
1
2
Wiki links:
Zeta Reticuli
The betty and Barney Hill incident
Aleister Crowley
Hypnotherapy
images:
Loose transcript:
Quick recap/their trips upThe hills, barney and betty were a middle aged married couple living in portsmouth nh, in the early sixties Betty was at the time of the incident a 42 year old white social worker living and working right here in portsmouthBarney was a 39 year old black postal worker who would commute to boston for work The third hill was delseyThe pair took delsey and drove up to Niagara falls and montreal for a lovely weekend getawayThe trip was mostly without incident until the drive homeThey were driving down route three and interstate 93 to get from canada to portsmouth, mostly a straight shot south through the state until the last 45min-1hrAfter reaching colebrook they saw a mysterious object in the sky, and dismissed it as a plane or satelliteI’m gonna breeze through this a little because all this is a recap, if you’re confused check out last week's episode, and subscribe so you can catch up on all of it, and all the other cool stuff we coverEventually the object comes closer and they get out to look at it, barney goes nuts because there’s figures in the craft, nazi looking irish chinese men depending on how far back in the screen memory hypnosis you go. After this they get back in the car and try to book it home with the UFO flying saucer looking craft following them, sometimes disappearing and sometimes getting very close. When they reach indian head resort the craft gets very close and they hear a repeated beeping noiseThe beeping resumes 2 and a half hours later and like 45 miles south and they both abruptly wake up with no memory of the drive since the first beeping. A little shaken the drove home and went to bed, slept for the afternoon and found some weird stuff with their belongingsShoesDressLuggageRings on carAfter a few days, weeks and months of trying to figure out what happened they eventually reported the sighting to nicap. National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena and the airforce. There’s an airforce base in portsmouth. There was, now it’s a civilian airport since I think 91 So where we left last week they met major swett, yes that’s his name who was Former air forceReading poetry at their churchAmateur hypnotistRecommends them to doctor benjamin simonA psychiatrist operating out of boston comfortable with using hypnotherapy. And we left while they were on the way to their first session with doctor simon Brief aside. Contact with ufologists/air forceSo I wanted to talk about this last session but couldn’t really fit it in and in the end it doesn’t add much to the story but adds a little bit credibility wise. They reported their stories to a ufologist who documented the facts of the case in the nicap database, which would eventually match up with thousands of other reports The air force was cagey about their response but did actually admit that there was no training flight or military craft out that nightNot that they have to I imagine, but it’s another tick for the credibility column They did however find that the air force did pick up some sort of undesignated aircraft that night on radar. How common is that? No idea? Does it mean anything? Maybe but again that’s another little tick inching things forward on the believeometerBut for brevity’s sake I don’t think it’s really necessary to yank too much harder on that particular plot thread. Because it doesn’t go much further than that unless we really expand our scope out to the entire ufo abduction phenomena rather than this particular case. So they arrive in boston, a little bit early to be punctual and have time to grab a bagel on their way in Fuckin dunkin that’s right bud.So then they make it in and are on time for like a consultationSimon proceeds to get the same story as I just told plus the fact that barney has some anxiety about being a shitty dad because his kids from a previous marriage are out in pennsylvania and aren’t being dadded. He also has stress ulcers Betty mentions her recurring dreams slash nightmares but they don’t get much attention until later because it’s decided that barney will be going first.THey spend the next few weeks going to visit doctor simon going into a light hypnotic induction, the short version of that is that BnB have to get comfortable with the idea of hypnosis and practice going under several times and reinforcing cue words, in popular media that’s like they show up and he hits them with “You’re getting very sleepy you’ll fall asleep when I say bigfoot. Bigfoot. When you wake up you’ll have no memory of this. You’ll wake when I say chicken patty. Chicken patty”Doing that few times allows the subject to go under very quickly and much deeper. HypnosisPatients with things locked away possibly by trauma may be able to access those things through hypnosis.Gets into hologram theory where someone can tell you the names and eye color of everyone at their 5th birthday, I probably can’t tell you the eye color of all my best friends, let alone people that attended my fifth birthday, but that fucking B Roll eyeball footage is still in archive which is incredible. Naturally this process lends itself to recall of memories otherwise sealed off, through trauma or even some inserted mental block or screen memory. Essentially the practitioner is lulling you into a state of extreme relaxation, which you kind of have to consciously submit to, it’s not usually like the movies where someone can wave a pocket watch and make you cluck like a chicken, specifically not in a therapeutic context like the one that was in play hereOne thing that is really important when taking this story at face value is that the hypnotic state doesn’t necessarily produce absolute truth. It will generally (going off on the adverbs today oh my) it does generally produce what the subject believes to be the truth.So regardless of whether it happened, and personally I’m inclined to believe it did, the hills suffered very real physical and emotional trauma from their experience. With all that said, you are drifting off to the sound of my voice, on the count of three you will have the urge to share your favorite episode of the show with one or perhaps even several of your friends. 1. 2. 3. Sorry I dozed off for a second there. Benjamin simonLike I said earlier, psychiatrist outta boston comfortable with hypnotherapy, especially with amnesiacs I have no idea if that’s the termSkeptical of UFO phenomena, but openminded to the possibility that there could be something out there Also interestingly enough served in WW2 as an executive officer in the army’s primary psychiatric center in ww2 working on hypnosis and narcosynthesis eg using sodium pentothol (truth serum) and that timeline makes me immediately suspicious of him being wrapped up in MK ULTRA type stuff between WW2 and treating the hills, I don’t have any other evidence to support that but he seems like a prime candidate to be involved. Which is interesting. Or notGoalsOpen up amnesiaTreat their anxiety and weirdness, ufo stuff secondary, may be aliens but it doesn't really matter either way if my patient is or isn’t abducted by aliens, they’re still suffering either way so let's take the time to unpack it one way or the other Descriptions of the sessionsB didn’t feel like opening his hands or eyes, defiant bastardBoth exceptionally receptive to hypnotic induction, something like Thy’d forget all unless directed not too, simon wanted the full story before letting them in on itBarney first after 3 weeks of induction, hear his story in full then betty so they couldn’t influence each other. Descriptions of their encounterNow we get to the meat of what actually went onFor the sake of continuity I’m just gonna go through barney’s point of view, ignoring when hypnosis sessions begin and end except where it’s interesting, because the events themselves recollected under the hypnosis are a much more cohesive and compelling narrative. With that being said, some of the hypnosis itself is truly chilling, hearing this grown ass man sob and cry out in fear, saying shit like he’s pressing his eyes into my eyes, and please don’t let them take me! And things like that. I would include the audio but most of the actual sources of that audio have music over it and not to mention it was recorded 60 years ago so it’s not really winning any grammys for audio production you know?I’ll still put in some links to some clips of it that you can check out on your own. Sometimes it takes an additional session to get to the next scene, or to pull it out of amnesia. And sometimes they get so worked up Dr simon has to calm them down and or pull them out of it and sometimes they just run out of time in a billable session. But unless it comes up, assume that the whole case narrative is over several sessions. Seeing them from afar before the beeping.EyesIrish nazi chineseDescription in early sessionsScreaming running back Duh doh delsey de dotta det doutta dereThey get back in the car and this is what I talked about last session when the craft appeared to be pursuing them.They didn’t really breach anymore new information during the Quote “chase” Skip ahead to the beeping where there memory fades out right around the indian head resort in the middle of NHIt was sometime after this when they came to a roadblock of Some kind. I think I mentioned that last week, but the fact that later on betty had a full on panic attack over coming up to a completely normal roadblock gives this a little more validity Side note, in the end a lot of the skepticism in this story hinges on whether you believe in hypnosis and whether it’s legitimate for reclaiming amnesiac memories. Myself I lean more towards legitimacy, but with the caveat that it’s difficult but not impossible to lie to yourself, maybe we can ask sarah about this but my understanding is that trauma can absolutely obscure, change, or conjure memories that aren’t entirely accurate. So at absolute worst case on the hypnosis angle the hills 100% believed that what came of hypnosis was what had happened to them. Another skeptical aspect of it is the suggestibility of hypnosis. Which I’ll grant that yes there’s an inherent suggestibility in the trance state, but we literally have the transcripts. You can read the entire session and theres even notes to where doctor simon makes efforts to clarify, and avoid suggesting or leading the patients. (encouraging repetition to look for consistencies) (only using things they had already saidHe himself even says that he wasn’t at all invested in the idea of UFOs and was skeptical of the story altogether. What is interesting is they both gave an extremely consistent account between the two of them with all the details matching up before they themselves were consciously aware of the case narrative. It would have taken extreme coordination between the two of them to keep the story that consistentCui bono?They didn’t make money off this, people thought they were crazy, they must have spent a ton of money on the therapy, not to mention gas and time to keep driving up and down route three looking for answersLastly on this tangent about hypnotic veracity that really isn’t the only factor that the case hinges on, there’s physical evidence. The dress, the snapped binocular strap, the spots on the car, the mysterious dick warts, the stopped watches, stuff was picked up on radar. There’s non physical evidence outside of the trance story the panic attacks, the missing time, the fact that the case matches so many in the future. Whether it was aliens, a complete break from reality, a military abduction, who knows what? The fact is that something happened that night, and it haunted them their whole lives.I appreciate a healthy skepticism, truly I do, but dismissing things out of hand without looking at the whole picture and doing the research especially on a case like this isn’t intellectually honest by any stretch. So back to the story. They come across a road block and barney is just like yep better turn off here. They enter the woods, yeah barely even a road and go off the highway for a few minutes. Until they reach a clearing with a fucking huge glowing orange orb in this clearing in the woods.Barney just thinks that’s odd and idles the car. In their original memories, which I believe to be implanted screen memories these guys all were generic hi vis vest blue collar guys holding street signs. There was no such record of road or utility work that day that I could find. As the sessions went on the people controlling the detour became the weird irish chinese nazis And finally the diminutive men with big black eyes, bald heads and grey skin. Who could that possibly be. Again, there’s notes and challenges showing that Dr Simon didn’t push this angle, he may have even pushed back on it. So the final image of these greys walking up to the vehicle while they’re awake and aware but unafraid. Kind of this reality distortion mind control field where they make the hills brains rationalize everything as perfectly normal. They get to the car and pull them out. Pull them out isn’t really the right word, it sounds too aggressive. Barney at this point senses something is kind of off and wrong. (No shit) so the entities grab him by the arms after he gets out and he kind of goes limp and his eyes close. In the early sessions before he can remember and unlock more details he describes a sensation of floatingBetty’s description makes this clearer, where the 5 foot tall men are still holding him but he’s not responsive as she’s being led inside in front of her. At this point betty is breaking the conditioning a little bit and although she doesn’t think it’s completely coocoo for co-co puffs weird that aliens are making her walk onto a space craft, she’s pissed that barney isn’t responding because he’s sleep walking and nobody is telling her what’s happening.I don’t want to talk to you talk to my husband. Barney are you hearing thisBarney will be alright we just want to run some tests. Then there’s this slapstick moment were barney is too heavy to float-carry forward and like slaps the tops of his feet against the ramp onto the craft, oup watch the shoes there sonny They both get up the ramp and then the group of aliens, six in all I believe, at least that had brought them up. Of course it’s a chromed interior. A big circular hallway. There’s a map drawn up later during the sessions of what they remember from the craft. Basically it’s a flying saucer. It’s hard to describe a ship layout without a visual so I’ll put those pictures in the notes. Essentially it is the ramp that comes up from the back, the hallway splits at the ramp and circles the outer wall of the craft with 8 seemingly equal sized rooms, they only saw the interior of two of them. At the front of the craft the hallway opened into the viewport that he had seen through the binoculars. The center between the rooms was unknown. Perhaps a bigfoot cage or engine room or something. This is where the two of them get separated, Barney still in his sleepy state (He later would describe this as very similar to the feeling of hypnosis which is interesting) and Betty in her annoyed but still compliant state. Again, where are you taking him, relax it’s just a few testsBarney on board.Barney is brought into the examination room with a pale blue light. Not coming from anywhere. He’s still in a trance, so they entities undress him and instruct him to lie down on an examination or operating table. He does so and they begin running tests on him. His recollections seem a little hazier than Betty's because of this trance, so for narrative clarity some of the details come from what the entities told betty about barneys tests while she was undergoing an examination of her own. And like this is fucked up while it’s happening and if you’re close to the hills, but as an outside researcher 60 years later some of it is genuinely hilarious comedy. Like the teeth thing, I’ll come back to thatSo they kind of apply pins and needles all over his body on a handheld device connected to what appeared to be a screen giving some kind of readout or feedbackThey had basically scotch tape, some kind of adhesive that they would have wrapped loosely around his arm. While an extremely sharp razor blade like object sheared of the finest possible layer of skin flakes and cells that stuck to the wrapping, presumably for some kind of analysis.And this isn’t in the book, likely because of the somewhat more delicate sensibilities of the time. Keep in mind the interrupted journey was published in 66 But at one part barney is like yes I was told to flip over and a tube of some kind was indeed inserted into my anus about a few inches or so. I understood this to have some sexual purpose. Immediately after the oil dipstick test there was performed a cold cup was placed over his groin. This device would match the mysterious and painful concentric circles of bumps and warts around his dicknballs that would plague him for months after the encounter. The suction cup isn’t really described in great detail but have you ever seen a cow milking machine? It was something pretty damn close to that but with one big nozzle instead of 4. There was a “sample” that was extracted using this device likely for DNA purposes.This isn’t in the scholarly texts but do you think they gave him any material? Like a penthouse with a grey on the cover or something. There’s WAY too many cases of grays showing up with blonde wigs on in order to “Get DNA” for that to not exist. Get over here you little grey minx, yeah bring the pretty one over here to work the machineLike the peter koury story where he bites off the nipple of an alien that’s trying to seduce him. He gets his dick all tangled up in the aliens hair it’s great. Harrowing experience as always, but it sounds a lot better than a lot of other ones. We gotta do an episode on that once I’m a little less burnt out on alien stuff.God damn that’s funny but yeah not what you want. I don’t think he could properly give consent and all that.So yeah he was basically scientifically and sexually viloated by aliens that extracted his cum while Betty was in the next room.Gotta reiterate that that’s not good, and also not funny.What is funny though is his description of the aftermath in the session, he’s like “welp I got off the table and I was feeling extraordinarily happy, I feel relieved, I got big grin on my face and a new spring in my step and that was all they wanted from me. So I popped on my trousers and and closed my eyes and I was guided back down to the car.He’s surprised it’s still running, he doesn’t usually do that, he checks the backseat where delsey is all balled up sleeping. Likely ina trance state herself. He hops in the car and looks back at the craft to see betty also grinning in her afterglow and they get ready to watch the craft leave after she exchanges some words with the captain of the ship. What was her experience like when they parted ways up until now? Was she hooked up to a reverse human milker, hopefully not, but lets find out.Betty’s experience.So once they get aboard the craft before splitting up to their separate rooms betty talks to the taller one, presumably the leader. This is where it was we’re just gonna do some tests and you'll be back on your way home in no time. She asks why they can’t go together. He tells here not enough equipment and space in each room it will take twice as long. Weirdly pragmatic answer right? I don’t think I mentioned their outfits yet, they have like slightly futuristic navy style jackets, kind of like a military biker jacket, but a slick clean black rather than like earth leather. The leaders is a little more ornate, maybe a shoulder pad or something.Makes sense to her so they go into the room and it begins in another sort of comedic way where shes standing around doing the john travolta looking around in pulp fiction meme until an alien she calls the doctor or examiner comes in. So funny that waiting in the exam room for the doctor is a weirdly stressful experience not just on earth but across the fucking galaxy. So doctor comes and pulls her arm aside and looks at it poking the flesh, and turning it over to look at the back and then they do the skin scraping procedure again. They seem confused by this, maybe because she’s white and barney’s black I don’t know. Then they do a similar thing where she’s in like a dentist chair, they stick a cotton swab thing and clean her ear out and put it on more of that tape where a shorter guy wraps it up and takes it away, then they similarly take nail clippings, a few hairs from her head and the fucking physicians assistant gray takes all of those tooNext he yoinks off her shoes and starts rubbing her feet, feeling up her toes the whole nine yards. I didn’t add that okay! It’s in the documents! The foot fetish gray gets shooed away Then they ask her to take off her dress and shes like “ oh theres a zipper” and almost before she can finish the sentence the little guy yoinks the zipper down and she’s just nervously ohh thank youShe’s asked to lie down on the table, and both of them said that the tables were weirdly small, like they were designed for the grays instead. Then they do the same device with all the little non painful needles hooked up to the screen tapping all over her body with that thingBut then the doctor comes back with this big ass like 6 inch long syringe needle and shes like “okay boys the foot massage was nice but I think I best be scootin” They ignore this and inch closer with the giant needle, If you’re scared of needles maybe jump forward a minute. She’s yelling that she doesn’t want them to do anything with it it’ll hurt, it’s just a pregnancy test.She can't move and He slowly inserts the giant needle into her navel. She's screaming it hurts it hurts make it stop, she said it felt like a hot knife going into her. Later on she’s like that’s not how we do pregnancy tests on earthWhile shes still screaming though, the leader comes up and tells her it doesn’t hurt and slowly waves his hand over her eyes like he’s qui gonn jinn. And what do you know she becomes numb and complacent. The pain is gone So now the testing seems to be done and this is a super weird part. The leader kinda dismisses the other doctor and assistant and barney isn’t ready yet. Meanwhile cut to barney just having the most earth shattering orgasm of his life thrashing about and kicking over equipment in the next room. Oh my god that’s probably why they had this time because barney was causing a scene they had to clean up before they could go. That’s cannon nowSo because barney isn’t ready, they have a little time to chat, in her head in english, they either had telepathy or some weird translator tech because they would only mumble and hum with their thin lips.This is so amazingwhat an experience ect, i need proofTakes a book with alien writing and he lets her keep it for the time beingand then the funniest part happensThe examiner that was looking at barney bursts into the room and she cant understand what he’s saying to the others, but it seems like we gotta check it’s teeth. So they doThey start tugging gently on her teeth and ask why they aren’t coming out and thats when she remembers barney has dentures that come out and she doesn’t and this has them gooped, they have no idea what shes talking about or why someone would do thatSo she spends some time talking about how old age works and time works and other earth concepts they can’t quite grasp, a squash for example, or the color yellow meanwhile barney in the next room be like ugugugugug, milker is off the rails and the short grey is trying to catch it all in a bucket. Complete chaos, alarms are going off it looks like the opening scene to a new hope where the aliens ae ducking behind walls and shit Then something really interesting happens with betty and the leader and they take a look at like a star wars style hologram projector map. I’ll throw that in the show notes, he explains this is their home area of the galaxy, these are trade routes, these are expeditions, these are colonies ect. They study it together and talk more about earth, will they comeback (not sure). This map will be another important aspect later.She’s really pleased and tells him there’s no way she’ll forget any of this, no matter what and he laughs it off, but then the doc comes in and mutters something to the leader and he kind of looks back at the doc and frowns with his eyes. Apologies betty you can’t keep the book I’m sorry, I know it’s supposed to be your proof but it’s over my head. I’m paraphrasing there but that’s interesting isn’t it? I mean it stands to reason theres some larger organization calling the shots, but it’s neat that it’s mentioned. So she’s pissed about that but still determined to remember. But now barney is cleaned up, covered in sweat his tie is on his head, and allowed to sleepwalk out so they walk off together like I said, The last thing the leader said to betty is that they could watch them leave.So they stand in front of the car as the whole saucer looking thing starts to power up and begin to almost morph into a big glowing orange ball, another thing you see in close encounters. It whips off soundlessly into the distanceKeep in mind the hazy memory of a moon in the road during the strange detour by the road crew in their initial recollectionThey get back in their car and drive off, and once they’re safely back on the highway the beeping starts up again, and this is when they both kinda jolt back to focus, with their memories wiped driving down towards the concord exit. Do you believe in flying saucers now? Damn it bettyQuestions for sarahBarney’s 1950s anxiety treatmntsTrauma make brain go goo goo gagaHypnosisFoliex a duex AftermathIn sessions Barney was able to draw the figures, and betty was able to draw the star map, both will be in the notes. The map though is really fascinating. Because she’s able to draw it out and keep it. Shes’s reading the ny times a full year later and it talks about a cluster of stars that a new telescope had just discovered that matched her star map almost exactly, so yet another weird bit of supporting evidence. The area of the stars known now as zeta reticuliBut to be fair, you can draw a chunk of dots on a map and it’ll probably match something out there. This map has been deboonked because the stellar distances don’t line up with modern calculations and technology. Which sure it doesn’t math out, but that’s like saying draw a map of your country by hand under hypnosis and if any of the distances are off at all it’s a fake map, its the same shit i was talking about earlier. People will find a minor detail that does not line up and use that to debunk everything without the full context. Betty’s dreamsAlmost verbatim what occurred as they become clearer. Betty and barney stayed married for the rest of their days but sadly barney died just a few years later in 1969, aged only 46. It was a cerebral hemmorhage. Which is a messed up thing to happen just a few years later to a relatively young guy. This whole event might have had something to do with it. Betty died at 85in 2004 of lung cancer, she was a chain smokerBut not before giving talks at ufo conferences, looking into the phenomena and always keeping an eye to the sky The schizo Aleister Crowley takeFamous loser, pervert, and occultist. A story for another time but I’m assuming most people interested in paranormal and weird history podcasts have at least heard of him in some capacity.Has his grubby shit covered fingers in everything paranormal it’s come up before I’ll do a biography show sometime unfortunatelyLived in new hampshire for a summer in 1916 Stayed at the house of an astrologer frenemy evangeline adams They squabbled about books, they were both moronsRelationship turned sourThats why lake pasquaney doesn’t exist.It was the town of hebron nh, which is realIt was here that crowley baptized a toad as jesus and crucified it. In some disgusting ritual. It was here, maybe not this specific disgusting ritual that the entity LAM came to mr crowley.Those of you well versed in occultism may know where this is goingA few short years later he published the image of the otherworldly entity LAM, an image that bore a striking resemblance to the greys. this purported first contact took place in new hampshire within an hour of the indian head resort where the beeping and abduction took place. Is that a coincidence? I don’t know, up to you guys to decide, it’s just another weird crowleyan coincidence among many. Another one is that crowley died in 1947, the same year of another one of the greys greatest hits. A little ditty us in the biz like to call the Roswell incident, heard of it? We’ll get to it eventually. I’m so sick of aliens right now. What a wild ride. Thanks everyone for tagging along! That about wraps it up folks thank you so much for tuning in, I started something new this week where I’m posting a silly picture on the nightmare.now instagram every day and people seem to like it so check that out might be worth a giggle. I’m on there far too much so if you got a topic you want to get a nightmare now episode feel free to hit up my DMs or comments with those ideas. Thanks again for listening, you guys rock, I’d say sweet dreams but we all know it’s only gonna be nightmares now. -
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Notes to be touched up 7/29/23, including relevant images, links and follow up reading.
for now check John out at his website https://www.lamarcaoutfitters.com/
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Sources:
https://archive.is/kV4vT#selection-223.0-241.289
https://archive.org/details/storyofrearcolum00jameuoft/page/290/mode/2up
https://allthatsinteresting.com/james-jameson-cannibal
https://www.irishtimes.com/life-and-style/travel/a-grisly-drop-of-history-1.755086
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jameson_Irish_Whiskey
https://www.bl.uk/collection-items/james-jamesons-account-of-the-emin-pasha-relief-expedition
https://www.bizzarrobazar.com/en/2018/12/16/sei-fazzoletti-per-i-cannibali-il-terribile-jameson-affair/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Morton_Stanley
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emin_Pasha_Relief_Expedition
https://books.google.com/books?id=mCSQCjEuU94C&pg=PA356&lpg=PA356&dq=james+jameson+11+year+old+girl+cannibals&source=bl&ots=3BtOZKtC8X&sig=PZlcNbQ5TcxMsTQKifRWAJft72w&hl=en&ei=M5bOTuvFK6nm0QGmpvE7&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result#v=onepage&q=james%20jameson%2011%20year%20old%20girl%20cannibals&f=false
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Belgian_Congo
https://theconversation.com/retracing-belgiums-dark-past-in-the-congo-and-attempts-to-forge-deeper-ties-184903
Our tale begins in 1780 when a 40 year old fella by the name of john jameson founded an eponymous little distillery, making a blended irish whiskey still sold today. Interestingly he was a freemason. Not going down that path today, but it does seem to come up a lotShould I have saved this for st patrick's day? Maybe. Eventually it was taken over by john jameson jrThen john jameson the thirdThen it gets less fun and we move onto his son robert and so on and so forth, but this isn’t about whiskey really The first john jameson’s grandson, of which he had many I’m sure, the dude had eight kids. A man by the name of James Jameson. James jameson’s middle name was slygo which is kind of silly in itself. I think that’s a town in ireland. Anyway. James had a ton of money to burn, being an heir to the aforementioned whiskey fortune, and the heart of an adventurer. He tagged along with various expeditions to south america, the pacific islands and africa, dude was living a cool ass life compared to other irishmen that sat around on the island.He ended up giving a bunch of his big game trophies to the british museum, which is kinda fun given how much we talked about them last weekIn January of 1887 he joined an expedition led by a henry morton stanley, a welsh american explorer. It was on this expedition that James would face terrible trials. He would have been canceled today for sure. He had to apply against a few other hundred naturalists or africa enthusiasts for the spot on the expedition, tossing a 1000 pound tip in with his application certainly helped. That’s 168,000 pounds in today’s money or about 200,000 dollars. I imagine that helped.This expedition, the emin pasha relief expedition, to provide supplies to a besieged diplomat in the congo,Ordered by leopold II who has a somewhat controversial history in the congo, most of my knowledge of the congo comes from 1 line of we didn’t start the fire, and the terrible slash awesome movie with the evil white gorillas and tim curry, and my wonderful episode on mokele embeme, but even a cursory inspection of that history shows it’s not great. Short version is 10 million people died trying to get rubber out of trees because leo decided the congo was his. This exploitation continued until the 19 50s and 60s when the belgians finally gave up the congo to rule their own stuffBut they still wanted the resources, and so did the US, thought we’d get out of this one? NawThe CIA basically immediately assassinated the first prime minister of the new democratic republic of the congoMaybe we’ll get into it another time. Like I said, not great.So james jameson tagged along on this trip and there’s a lot more to this expedition but the part we’re focused on was in may of 1888 in the small village of riba riba, had to double check it wasn’t that weird lewd metroidvaniaIn riba riba they were having a festival that was said to end in the consumption of human fleshJameson thought they were full of shit and was like can I see my good man?One of the other people on the expedition, reportedly replied “give me a bit of cloth and we’ll see” big jafar vibes like last episode. Jameson calls his bluff and produces 6 handkerchiefs for the tribesman there. Funny that this dude has 6 to SPARE, he probably had a hundred coming out of every pocket This is where it gets gruesome. The wheels of handkerchief cloth trade were already grinding After this exchange, the dancing comes to a halt, and a young slave girl is brought forward, it is explained that she is a captive from another tribe. 6 napkins goes a long way in 1888Now for the squeamish among you, you may want to skip ahead a minute or two. The girl is killed and eaten, if you’re wondering what you’re gonna miss, go ahead, I’ll be here when you get back. This is a direct quote from the 1890 newspaper the london times reporting on the incident“The girl was tied to a tree,” says Farran, “the natives sharpening their knives the while. One of them stabbed her twice in the belly.“She did not scream, but knew what would happen, looking to the right and left for help. When stabbed she fell dead. The natives cut pieces from her body.“Jameson in the meantime made rough sketches of the horrible scenes. Then we all returned to the child’s house. Jameson afterward went to his tent, where he finished his sketches in water colors.“There were six of them, all neatly done. The first sketch was of the girl as she was led to the tree. The second showed her stabbed, with the blood gushing from the wounds. The third showed her dissected. The fourth, fifth, and sixth showed men carrying off the various parts of the bodyFUCK alright if you’re back from your time skip you didn’t miss anything but gruesome details.And that’s when the gossip started, jameson was part of a well to do whiskey magnate family was ripe for being thrown into salacious expose news stories. Couple that with a morbid curiosity of the general public in britain with the “Dark continent” this one had papers flying off the shelves.And the crux of the story? That pretty boy whiskey heir had bought a slave for a pittance just to watch her get eaten That’s where all the fact checking comes in, everyone is like well did he buy a slave girl to watch her get eaten? And there’s some debate on the semantics of that. Which we’ll get to in a minute, BUT there’s no fucking debate about the girl gettin killed and eaten. WHICH SEEMS TO BE THE IMPORTANT PART HERE. That happened with just about 100 percent certainty. I feel like we’re arguing about the wrong thing with the umm ackshullys hereAfter the horrifying event, the group pressed on with their expeditionThey split into two groups with jameson leading the rear group and another officer leading a forward groupThe second officer was killed by natives, and the belgian authorities caught the guy that did it who was executed when jamesons group arrived in the town behind the first groupVery chaotic expeditionMoving on jameson’s section head for the bangala river station down the congo river, They traveled for about a week and a half, through sickly bogs, mires and along the river, through snakes, insect, and possibly giant ancient relic sauropods.Jameson fell ill on that last leg of the river, complications from malaria. That’ll do it back then. On august 17 they made it to bangala station after a series of jungle ordeals and after breathing a sigh of relief that he made it to the next town, James jameson promptly died from his illness. He was only 31 He was buried in an unmarked grave deep in the jungleThat’s a heroes sendoff for sure, wait till my group starts running tomb of annihilation The problem for jameson, that is, ethel jameson, his now widow, was that the dude, being dead Didn’t careHad no way to defend himself or his family from the slanderous pressNewspaperAffadavaitsSo heres were things get muddy. The story got reported by the london times Assad farran affidavit that the story was true, jameson purchased the girl exclusively to watch her get crunched upHe also gives a short description of an orgie that jameson was an interested observer in some accountsLast letter to his wife is just whatever farran says it’s a lie and don’t let it outNot great denial tbhImmediate retractionEmphaticBecause farran had been fired so he’s like lets goo!WATERCOLORS!?LegacyJames jameson lived a wild and crazy short lifeForever tarnished by this cannibalism scandalRelegated to a macabre footnote in history Which is more than most people can sayTHere’s recreations of the drawings which are fucked up I’ll link them with the notes this weekLost like 50 tabs for research on the mummy stuff so I’m going back through my history for thoseWhat a fucked up storyLessons? Don’t eat people, don’t call people’s bluff all the time, sometimes it isn’t a bluff OutroYou guys are the best
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