Ep. 32 - The Hammersmith Ghost Panic

Kathryn (00:10) Hi everyone. Hello. Welcome to I Scream You Scream. My name is Kathryn.

Gina (00:15) I'm Gina.

Kathryn (00:16) This month we are sharing stories about mass hysteria and the flavor of the month is Neapolitan ice cream. Before we jump in, if you are enjoying the show, we would love it if you left us a five star review or just told a friend about it real quick and let them know that you enjoy us so that they can enjoy us too. ⁓ Yeah, besides that, just grab a spoon and let's dig in.

Gina (00:41) Final scoop of Neapolitan.

Kathryn (00:45) Yeah, we need to rate our ice cream this month. I'm gonna jump right in because I have something to say about the ice cream, so I'm just gonna leave the charge. So I did give Phil the green light to dive into the bucket of ice cream. I like to make it through three episodes, engage where we're at before.

Gina (00:47) Mm-hmm. Go for it. Yep.

Kathryn (01:06) But anyway, so because he has helped dig down there's significantly more vanilla now. It was like diagonally in there So I think what I have today is the truest

Gina (01:14) Mmm.

Kathryn (01:21) The apollitan that I've had. I've secretly just been having chocolate strawberry this whole month. ⁓ But I had a really enjoyable experience. It's not a full five, just because this isn't my favorite ice cream, but it's nostalgic. It's good, classic. I didn't have to make it, so I'm going to give it a 4.5.

Gina (01:26) Okay. That's a good review. That's high.

Kathryn (01:42) It's high. It's a good review. It's good. It was a good experience. It was a nice, easy, breezy, easy to find in the store. And we've run into that a couple times with the store brought, the store brought kind. Yeah, it was just a good, enjoyable. I'm content with this month all around. Yeah, it's good. High praise. No! What? I'm so surprised. I thought you were gonna be, why? Tell me.

Gina (01:51) Mm, points for that. Okay, that's nice. Mine is lower. Well, okay, so if it was just Neapolitan, like your standard Neapolitan ice cream, I would give it a three because it's good. It's not bad. It's not phenomenal. There are no bits in it, so that's kind of a limiting factor for me, but it's because we got like the generic ice cream tub.

Kathryn (02:16) Mm-hmm. Okay. Yeah, that's fair. Yep. That matters so much with this type of ice cream. It... yeah.

Gina (02:32) It's the texture of it. You know how like ice cream, when it's the cheap kind, has kind of like, there's bits of ice in it or something? Like it's got a weird little icy crunch to it. That's this.

Kathryn (02:40) Yes. When I was thinking of what I wanted to rate it, that is what I think bumped this so high because it's perfectly creamy. This is like a good, I'm not gonna say the brand because I don't remember the brands, but it's one that, mine is like a Breyers or I think it is Breyers. It's something that people know. Yeah, it's something that like, you know.

Gina (02:50) Mm. Mine is Iceland brand, don't buy it. Pryors is good. You

Kathryn (03:11) People are, it's a popular brand, whatever it is. But yeah, mine's like perfectly creamy and that matters so much for a very basic flavor, especially without bits. I am surprised that mine was so high without bits, but I think mine was also the nostalgia factor, because I just love strawberry ice cream so much and I mostly ate that. So I kind of, it was a little bit rigged, but.

Gina (03:21) Yeah. Mmm.

Kathryn (03:35) That's fine. Oh, I'm sad. Everything and mine is also comparative because I

Gina (03:36) Well, it's hard to rate things objectively when we have such strong opinions about everything.

Kathryn (03:45) It was such a relief to it like so yeah, it was so nice.

Gina (03:48) Yeah, that was nice. Yeah,

Gina (03:52) It's okay. No, it's not bad. It's like average, maybe slightly below average, like maybe a 2.75 if I'm being harsh, but I'm in a generous mood today.

Kathryn (03:52) I'm sorry that yours wasn't, but you didn't think it was like bad bad. It was just average. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Yeah. It's like if an A student got a C. C is not the worst thing in the world, but like you can do better. You're better than that. Yeah.

Gina (04:11) Yeah. That's what my mom told me every day in high school.

Kathryn (04:20) Listen, my parents finally fucking learned that maybe I'm not a straight A student. Sometimes math is just fucking hard and like I got A's and B's in English and those are the ones that we hold on to and remember fondly because the rest of my grades were not great. I did try. I really did.

Gina (04:34) Yup. ⁓ Yeah. Yeah, chemistry and physics will forever be my enemies. ⁓ we should talk about what next month brings.

Kathryn (04:46) I was just gonna say that, but I didn't want to steamroll in case we wanted to talk about fucking science longer. That's another time. I think I announced last time, so do you want to do the honors? Or do you want me to? I don't care anyway. Yeah.

Gina (04:51) I have a lot to say about physics. I could do the honors. Okay, so next month we're talking about creepy kids. All kinds of stories about creepy, just creepy little guys. That's what we're gonna be, and girls, yeah, creepy children. That's what we're gonna be talking about. And we're going with like kind of an abstract ice cream flavor. The prompt is just your favorite childhood ice cream. So are we sharing now what we're gonna be doing? Because I'm really curious about yours.

Kathryn (05:07) Yay! Creepy children. Yeah. Yeah. No, because I am between two. I might have to do a theme. I might not do the same flavor the whole time.

Gina (05:34) I love that, like a medley?

Kathryn (05:36) Maybe depending on your thoughts on that. Because it's it's I've narrowed it down to two. And I'm genuinely I'm gonna have to give an honorable mention to one if I choose just one because they're so close. I'm leaning towards one but it's more work I'm gonna have to do an amount of making it. So we're like deciding how we feel about that over

Gina (05:39) Yeah, why not? Hmm, okay.

Kathryn (05:59) Mine's gonna make a lot of sense once you know what it is though. Like knowing me now you're gonna be like, yeah duh.

Gina (06:04) Is it just Cherry Garcia?

Kathryn (06:07) No, but I thought there is, there was one, there was a cherry related one that was in the running, but I didn't like that one until I was a little older. Yeah.

Gina (06:13) Okay. See, that was my issue. The one that I pick, or the one that I'm going to pick, is not an ice cream that I eat very much anymore, but I loved it when I was a kid.

Kathryn (06:24) Same. Don't, I haven't had it in so many years. So I'm very excited for next month. I'm very, very excited to get recording on that one. I'm also very excited with this for the stories because I'm to be sharing a lot of my own personal stories in our episodes because I have so many creepy kid stories. I've been babysitting since I was in fourth grade and then I worked as a nanny full time throughout my 20s. Like,

Gina (06:29) Me too. Oooooh! God.

Kathryn (06:53) If anyone loves a creepy kid story, I have all of them. Anyway.

Gina (06:56) I'm so fucking excited for next month. But yeah, come back next week if you wanna find out what fucking ice cream we're eating, because we have no idea.

Kathryn (06:59) Yeah, I'm excited. I'm excited. I do. I have to bug you now because you watched a movie that I'm very excited to hear your thoughts on.

Gina (07:09) Cool. I did! I did! Yes.

Kathryn (07:18) Gina watched the Blair Witch project. And she texted me immediately after watching it, which was like a week or two ago, like shortly after we recorded last episode. And she was like, I watched Blair Witch, but I'm not gonna tell you what I thought, because I'm gonna tell you on the podcast. So I'm ready.

Gina (07:35) Despite sending a text that made it sound like I was preparing something to say in this portion, I didn't really. What I did do was as I was watching it, ⁓ I took notes on what I was thinking so I can read you some of the notes. Okay.

Kathryn (07:44) Excellent. Beautiful. This is exactly what I didn't know I wanted.

Gina (07:58) So if you haven't seen Blair Witch, this might not make a whole ton of sense, but I don't know, maybe skip 30 seconds, or maybe it will, I don't know. My first bullet point was, OMG, it looks like they're going to have so much fun. Because it does, it totally does. Yes, it has like the exact energy of like teenagers going away for a weekend, we're gonna work on this project, like we're passionate about it, and we're just gonna like smoke and drink and hang out in the woods, vibes.

Kathryn (08:02) Or maybe it will, I don't know. We'll find out. It does, doesn't it? It does. No, it does. Yes. Mm-hmm. Yes, that's the thing. It fully, yeah, and like it reminds me of like, because I grew up in a very small town and you know, there were like haunted places around or like, even if you just went away to hang out in a cornfield for a little while, it was just like, vibes, you know, like you're gonna go and you're gonna find a ghost and something cool is gonna happen and blah, blah, blah, like.

Gina (08:44) Yes.

Kathryn (08:51) Pristine, yes. It does seem like they're gonna have so much fun.

Gina (08:52) Pristine vibes. Totally pristine vibes. Second bullet point is I love Heather because I fucking do. She was such a badass.

Kathryn (08:59) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yes. No notes. Completely agree.

Gina (09:03) Anyway, and then the next bullet point is, OK, things are creepy now.

Kathryn (09:10) You

Kathryn (09:15) Do you remember what parts of the movie this is all happening in?

Gina (09:15) So yes, ⁓ I decided that I loved Heather when she was being really like, what's the word I'm looking for? She was project managing the documentary in a way that I just fucking vibed with. I liked it. I was like, damn girl, get it. Like you're fucking doing it. You're whipping these boys into shape. Hell yeah, you know?

Kathryn (09:29) I was gonna say project managing. That's my new way of saying anything that has to do with like a boss, a boss bitch. Cause I'm like, that's not the vibe. Sometimes I don't like, I'm like the whole girl boss thing. I'm just like, ⁓ not into it. I'm just like project management. Yeah, that's it. That's the vibe.

Gina (09:44) Hmm. I'm still a tired. Yes. Yeah, so that was dope. And then things started to get creepy when they were in the woods, obviously. And it was like the first night where they heard things outside.

Kathryn (10:00) Yeah. Okay.

Gina (10:09) And then my favorite part, which I wrote down, is when all three of them are still together. I think I got the names right. I kept getting the men's names mixed up, so I might get that part wrong. They go back to the campsite and Josh is like, because somebody had like come and rummaged through their stuff while they were gone. And Josh is like, they spilled my water. And then Mike is like, that's slime. And Josh goes, no, it's not. It's water, man. And then he touches it and he goes, that's slime, man.

Kathryn (10:18) Yeah, I can't really tell them apart. Mm-hmm.

Gina (10:39) That was so funny. Yeah, and then the last note that I took was that part where Josh has gone missing and Heather and Mike are making each other feel better by saying what they would eat if they were home and then multiple sad face emojis, because that's such a human thing to do. So all in all, I thought it was a great movie. Think anyone who doesn't think it's scary, I am terrified of them because I definitely thought it was a scary movie. And when I...

Kathryn (10:46) Cut. Ugh. Seriously. Yup. Okay. I was gonna ask if you thought it was scary because like I can see both sides. Like, yeah, okay, I do too.

Gina (11:19) Think it's scary. I think it's scary. But I think part of it is because I didn't know a whole ton about the plot points of it. Obviously, we did a whole episode on it. So I do know quite a bit about what went into it and what came out of it. But the actual beats of the story were unfamiliar to me. So when I was watching it, I watched it as I was on the treadmill. And I always have my headphones in. And I'm facing away from the door when I'm on the treadmill.

Kathryn (11:30) Mm-hmm. I can't do that. Yeah.

Gina (11:47) And I kept getting so freaked out that I was like not hearing something behind me. And like sometimes when they would hear like sticks cracking in the woods, it would sound like it was coming from behind me or something. And so I kept having to be like, ⁓ my God, I'm safe, you know? So yeah, I thought it was a great movie. It was a scary movie. I was not overly scared. ⁓ And it made me hate the douche bros even more.

Kathryn (11:57) Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓ Yeah.

Gina (12:13) Because Heather gets shit on all through that movie and then they shit on her in real life too and that sucks.

Kathryn (12:18) Yes, I didn't even really talk about her getting shit on in the movie because in my memory I view her as like the boss of the group because she totally is but there is a lot of that. Like they're questioning her the whole time and yeah, yeah. Anyway, well I'm happy you watched it.

Gina (12:29) There's a lot of that, yeah. Yeah. So yeah. Thank you for the recommendation and for the podcast episode. ⁓

Kathryn (12:39) This was a fun... Yeah, you're welcome. Thank you for your feedback. All right, I'm ready for a story. Yes, I am. I'm so excited. I know nothing about this.

Gina (12:48) You want to hear a story? Okay. Ooh, it's a wild one. Okay, so...

Kathryn (12:55) Okay.

Gina (12:56) I'm just going to hop right in. Can't look at you. Probably not. Probably not. Okay, so it's winter, 1803. We're in a quiet village on the outskirts of London called Hammersmith, which is being plagued by a ghost. According to the locals, it's dressed in white, very tall, and it's been attacking people in the dead of night. What happens next would leave one man dead.

Kathryn (13:00) Was gonna say, are ya?

Gina (13:27) Another on trial, and would completely break British law for the next two centuries. Give or take a couple of decades, I rounded up on that. Anyway, today we're talking about the Hammersmith Ghost Panic, which is one of the weirdest and also most important cases in British legal history. Trigger warning, there is some death. I do mention a suicide if you don't want to hear about that stuff, it's totally cool. Skip this one, we'll catch you on the other side. So let's get going.

Kathryn (13:46) Hmm. ⁓

Gina (13:57) Like I said, we're in Hammersmith, which back then was a small village on the outskirts of the city. It's November, 1803. By the way, I'm going to try out speaking in present tense when I'm telling this story, so I might fuck up and accidentally switch to past tense. Just ignore it. Cool. I just want to see how it feels. So the trees have turned. There's a chill in the air. Everyone's.

Kathryn (14:14) Love it. Fully ignored. Cool. Okay.

Gina (14:24) Like eating soup and drinking pumpkin spice lattes and shit because it's fall, it's the perfect time of year for a ghost story. Or at least I say so having like not experienced a mass panic about ghosts. Reports are starting to surface of a ghost seen haunting the area around the local churchyard and villagers say that it appears every night at exactly 1 a.m. Which as a side note is not actually true based on real witness accounts.

Kathryn (14:29) Love it.

Gina (14:53) But this bit is something that comes up all the time in retellings of the story. We'll get a little bit into why later, but it's just like very creepy, very scene setting. So some people just see the ghost. Others say that it attacked them. And as these stories start to spread through the community, encounters with and descriptions of the ghost start to get a little disparate. There's not like one version.

Kathryn (15:04) Okay.

Gina (15:22) Of what this ghost is. Some say that the ghost is covered in a white linen cloth, bedsheets with eye holes kind of thing. Very classic, like children's ghost costume thing. Other people say that it's wearing calf skin and that it has huge horns and huge glass eyes. So like wildly different. Yeah, very, very different. So.

Kathryn (15:31) Like classic ghost costume situation. Okay, interesting.

Gina (15:48) Yeah, accounts of what the ghost looked like are definitely different, but all of the witnesses agree that it was dressed in white and it was terrifying. So naturally, conversation in the village starts to turn to where the ghost came from. And again, we get varying stories. Some think that it's just an omen of doom, like something bad is about to happen.

Gina (16:20) Others think it's the restless spirit of a local man who cut his own throat in 1802. Yeah, rough. And he was buried in consecrated ground, which was a big, big no-no at the time because suicide was a big old sin. And if you bury someone like that in a churchyard, the rumor goes that their spirit will be doomed to wander the earth for all eternity. So creepy, spooky.

Kathryn (16:20) Ooh. Yeah. Do do do do do do do do do.

Gina (16:45) And outside ⁓ all of this like speculation, more and more reports of actual encounters with the ghost are starting to spread fast. So one elderly woman said that she was walking near the churchyard at night when she was grabbed by the ghost. She did manage to get away, but apparently she died of shock a few days later.

Kathryn (17:08) Oof.

Gina (17:10) A pregnant woman reported seeing the ghost rise from behind a gravestone at around 10 o'clock at night, not 1 a.m. She tried to run, but the ghost chased her through the graveyard until she collapsed unconscious. Her neighbors did wind up finding her and carrying her home, but it was too late and she also died of shock just a few days later. One particularly famous report

Gina (17:54) Of a ghost encounter says that there was a wagon full of passengers going through the town when the ghost suddenly appeared in front of the cart. The driver freaked the hell out so he abandoned the wagon and ran away and he left behind eight horses and 16 passengers still in the road. I know, kind of a rude driver. Peace, bye. Maybe he didn't get paid enough. You if I'm on minimum wage, I'm not fucking sticking around.

Kathryn (17:54) What in the hell? Yeah, aren't you supposed to like go down with your ship or something? That's fair. Actually, fuck that. Yeah, I would do the same thing. Like, if you're not following me as I run, that's your problem. That's fair. Okay. Yeah. No. Team driver.

Gina (18:08) Yeah, you'd have to be paying me so much money. Justice for Driver. Then we get to the story of a guy named Thomas Groom. At around 9pm, Thomas is walking through the churchyard with a friend when the ghost rises up from behind a tombstone and grabs him by the throat. He starts- I know you're not a big fan of throat stuff. I always forget that. I'm sorry. Yeah.

Kathryn (18:20) Yeah. I know, you're hitting me with the throat stuff again, it's been a long time, You're just, yeah.

Gina (18:45) I just, it's all pent up energy. Throat! So he starts to struggle and push back against this ghost. And in doing so, his hand kind of comes into contact with the ghost as he's trying to push it away. But instead of touching like whatever ghostly apparel he's expecting to feel, it instead feels like a soft coat, like something anyone might wear.

Gina (19:33) So he had been walking with a friend at the time and his companion, who is a little bit ahead of him, hears the scuffle from behind him, turns around and he sees the ghost running away into the night.

Gina (19:41) And finally, we meet William Girdler a night watchman who spots the ghost on December 29th. It doesn't matter how many times I say the name William Girdler. It's funny every time. So when he sees the ghost, he immediately starts running after it.

Kathryn (19:52) ⁓ Yeah.

Gina (20:10) But before he can catch it, the ghost throws off its shroud or sheet or whatever it's wearing and vanishes into the night. So at this point, it's starting to become clear to at least some people that this ghost is probably just a person who's fucking around with everybody. But that didn't make anyone feel any better. People were still freaking the fuck out. Interestingly, the press don't pick up on this like

Kathryn (20:27) Hmm. Yeah.

Gina (20:39) At all. It might have been because Hammersmith was a little bit away from the city, like it just wasn't front page material type shit. But the lack of press coverage meant that this fear, this panic, didn't spread through headlines. It spread through word of mouth, like your neighbor's sister's brother's cousin saw something type of deal. So it was not a centralized story. It was not a controlled story. And there was no version of events that everyone could agree on.

Kathryn (20:39) Yeah.

Gina (20:39) Which meant that it turned into kind of a shape-shifting, amorphic, very personal fear for people. Which, apart from being the reason that we see conflicting reports about the ghost, like the whole appearing at 1 a.m. thing, it also just kind of makes it scarier, in my opinion. Like, there is no one source that people are going to for information on this. It's all in people's minds and in the relationships with each other. And as we know from our Ghost Watch episode, throwback.

Gina (21:15) Social contagion is a real thing. So people are getting worked up, which means everyone else is getting worked up, and it just spirals from there. It just sounds like a shitty situation.

Kathryn (21:15) Yeah. Well, and there's also that element of like, legend. Is this even real to begin with or not? And that makes things scary too, because it's like, yeah, yeah, that's interesting.

Gina (21:29) Mm-hmm, like what do I believe? Yeah, mm-hmm.

Gina (21:52) Yeah, so Hammersmith residents become increasingly anxious and a lot of them just start avoiding going out at night altogether. So the villagers decide that enough is enough and they form citizen-based armed patrols. Now if you're wondering why the police were not patrolling instead,

Kathryn (21:52) Guys.

Gina (21:55) It's because London actually didn't have an official police force back then.

Kathryn (22:00) Really? Interesting. What year was this?

Gina (22:00) Yes, okay, thank you for that reaction because it was 1803 to 1804.

Kathryn (22:05) Like what? That's weird. ⁓

Gina (22:06) Okay, so there's a reason. I also was like, what, that's weird. So I looked into it. The reason why is because the idea of an armed police force was very controversial back then because it felt very oppressive. The British government and a lot of, yeah, the British government and a lot of the public thought that an armed police force would be way too similar to having like a standing army on everyone's doorstep.

Kathryn (22:11) Okay. You

Gina (22:33) And back then, there was this general belief that maintaining social order was something for local communities to worry about, not something that requires state-sponsored enforcers. ⁓ I feel like I just ate a jalapeño, Anyway.

Kathryn (22:46) Is that getting hot in here? That's weird. Anyway!

Gina (22:56) To be fair, like, they did have kind of some semblance of a police force. It was just nothing like we know today. It was like a combination of part-time unpaid people, old guys with lanterns, and like a handful of quasi-detectives, and that was pretty much it.

Kathryn (23:00) Mm-hmm. Yeah. I love that. Like, if my police force could be a bunch of, like, old guys with lanterns, I feel like the world would be a better place. You're right. I was going to say Jimmy. Grandpa Jam.

Gina (23:14) Bring it back! I would never feel safer. There's Harold. He's like, I'll get you. Grab the jam.

Kathryn (23:33) I'm just imagining a bunch of prospectors, I'm like, which is like a whole different deal. Like, I think what I'm imagining is like a mob, which is the opposite of what I'm trying to go for with my ideal police force. But like, anyway.

Gina (23:35) With their pickaxes? Their overalls? Not quite.

Gina (23:50) Yeah, anyway, that's why people didn't call the cops. They became the cops. It's like a whole thing.

Gina (23:50) So it's January 3rd, 1804. The ghost has been plaguing Hammersmith for months now and it shows because people are freaked. A night watchman named William Girdler, same William Girdler from earlier.

Kathryn (23:56) Mm-hmm.

Kathryn (24:21) I just love how somehow this name rhymes with everything. Like, even though it doesn't, it feels like it does.

Gina (24:21) It was made for a Dr. Seuss book. Girdler? I don't even know her. ⁓

Kathryn (24:24) That, yeah. Yes.

Gina (24:29) You know, like Dr. says. Anyway, so our boy William is doing his rounds as part of the Citizen Patrol when he runs into 29-year-old Francis Smith, who is also doing his rounds with a loaded shotgun. William is like, hey, Francis, sup, dude. You do your route. I'll do my route. We'll link back up at like 11 PM.

Kathryn (24:31) Stop it! You know, according to Dr. Seuss. Anyway.

Gina (24:57) Pip pip cheerio, whatever. And before they part ways, I thought this was so cute, they agree on a little password so that they don't accidentally think that the other one is a ghost. Yeah, so adorable, ominous, all of that, yes.

Kathryn (25:10) Yes. Anyway.

Gina (25:11) Francis and William split up, and a half an hour later, just before 11 p.m., Francis is walking down Black Lion Lane, which is very narrow stretch of road lined with hedges. It's very dark, very spooky. And then he sees something. He sees a figure dressed all in white walking towards him. Francis is immediately like, ⁓ fuck this, and he calls out.

Gina (25:50) Who are you and what are you? Damn you, I'll shoot you. And then he does. He fires at the figure and the shot hits it in its lower jaw before it drops to the ground. William is wrapping up his route nearby and he either hears the gunshots or he sees that there's a commotion or something. So he books it back to find Francis completely freaking the fuck out. Francis is like,

Gina (26:18) My god, I think I just shot the ghost. Holy shit, holy shit. Because Francis is like a pretty gentle guy. Like he's just kind of a guy who wanted to like protect his community and stuff. He's not like a big rah rah, you know, shoot everything that moves despite the fact that he did. Anyway.

Kathryn (26:18) Yeah, I feel like he's reacting the way a normally operating human should act if they've just shot someone in the face. That should be an alarming thing.

Gina (26:24) Yes. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. And at this point, they haven't gone over to look at like, whoever or whatever was shot yet. They're just like freaking out in the street. Meanwhile, a few locals also heard the gunshot from a pub down the street, fucking classic, and they join Francis and William. So now they have like a little group of guys together kind of freaking out wondering what's going on. And they walk over together to the crumpled figure on the ground. But when they get there,

Gina (26:56) They see that it's a man, not a ghost, just some guy, and he's laying there dead in the road. Yeah. So Francis immediately realizes that he's made a horrible fucking mistake, and he says to the group, without anyone prompting him, he's like, I've killed someone, I need to turn myself in. Like, I did this, basically. Were you gonna say something? Or did it, okay.

Kathryn (27:20) No, I'm cannot stress enough how on the edge of my seat I am right now. I'm like, what the fuck happens next?

Gina (27:23) Okay. And then the ghost comes and they all have a macarena party. That's not what happens. You. The rest of the group doesn't want to just like leave the body on the road, because that's disrespectful. So instead, they pick it up and they carry it back to the pub.

Kathryn (27:41) Yeah. I'm sorry, what the fuck? Did you just say?

Gina (27:49) They took it to the pub. And I don't think it was that kind of vibe. I think it was just like, this place is the closest place. And also, it's not like bar culture. It's like kind of pubs are, I would say back then, like homey. Like it's a safe place that you could go to kind of thing.

Kathryn (27:53) Like one last hurrah, sorry we shot you in the jaw. Okay. You. I was gonna say, whenever someone says pub within the confines of where you are, like UK, Ireland area, I'm imagining like an inn, more so than a bar, yeah.

Gina (28:18) Yes, yeah. Yes, that's close, that's, I would say closer. I'm not an expert on pubs in 1804, but that's what I would say. I, Kathryn am.

Kathryn (28:26) I am. It is what it is. As of now, as of my previous sentence, I know everything and this is the fact. You heard it here first, probably.

Gina (28:34) Hehehe! So yes, dead body in the pub. And pretty soon, a constable shows up and Francis goes quietly into custody, completely cooperative. Like he's not fighting, he's not denying anything. He's just like overcome with the enormity of his mistake. It soon comes to light that the man Francis shot was Thomas Millwood, a 22 year old bricklayer.

Kathryn (28:40) You. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Gina (29:08) And this part is, I'll tell you, it's heartbreaking. I'm so sorry in advance. When he was shot, he had been on his way to visit his wife at her job.

Kathryn (29:08) The fuck was he doing? What? ⁓

Gina (29:20) I think she was a laundress or something like that. It was something to do with clothing. Yeah, he was just walking through the road at night after like a long day at work. Just wanted to see his wife. That was it. That was the whole errand.

Gina (29:48) It's sad. And OK, this part's really sad too. The reason Francis thought Thomas was the ghost is because, like I said, he was a bricklayer. And back then, bricklayers wore all white. It's just like part of what they did. They wore white pants, white waistcoats, white aprons, because after they laid the bricks, they usually put like a thin coat of plaster over it. And white clothing keeps the plaster from ruining your outfit.

Kathryn (29:48) No. So he wasn't dressed as a ghost at all. He was just...

Gina (30:02) At all. Was just wearing his work uniform. And apparently, before he went out that night, his sister had warned him to put a coat on over his work clothes, specifically so people wouldn't think he was the ghost.

Kathryn (30:06) What the fuck? Wait, I hate that.

Gina (30:20) I know, it sucks.

Kathryn (30:23) You gotta continue, because I'm so sad. I'm just gonna be sitting here. I have questions, but they're not, they'll come up, you'll answer them, I'm sure. Then I'll ask you later, it's fine. I know where to find you.

Gina (30:25) Okay. What if I don't, what are they? Okay, yeah, good point. Yeah, is linear. Okay, good point.

Kathryn (30:45) Just kidding, bye! And she never saw her again. ⁓ I know. Tell me the rest of the story, I'm dying! What the fuck is going on? I'm so scared!

Gina (30:49) And that concludes I Scream You Scream. Thank you all so much for coming. I would cry. I would hunt you down and also cry.

Gina (31:00) Okay, okay, okay, okay. Okay, okay. So, Francis Smith gets put on trial for murder, where he pleads not guilty on the grounds of mistaken identity. And the trial becomes kind of a circus, not because people believe that he's innocent, like he clearly shot this guy, but it's because no one, not even the judge, knows how to legally process all of this.

Kathryn (31:09) Ugh. Mm-hmm.

Gina (31:28) Like there are no laws for what happens when you try to shoot a ghost and it winds up being a person. That's just not a thing.

Kathryn (31:28) Yeah. I'm still stuck on that. Know, like these are the things that I'm like, these are my questions, like just big question mark on all of it. Cause I'm like... Okay, actually, I will ask a question. Did he think that he was shooting a person dressed as a ghost or did he think he was shooting a ghost? Do you know?

Gina (31:54) That's an excellent question. I can't say what he thought. At the time, it was pretty widely believed that it was a person. But if I had to guess, there's still that fear in everyone's minds that like, what if it is a fucking ghost?

Kathryn (32:00) Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah, okay. Because either way, it's like a person dressed as a ghost isn't necessarily less scary than a ghost. It could, I imagine, depending on what they were doing, it could be even scarier. But I just like... I don't know. ⁓ Anyway, that was one of my questions.

Gina (32:25) And like, whether or not he thought it was a person or an actual ghost, he had heard reports about this thing attacking people. And so he knew that there was, it might be violent regardless of who it was. So that was probably the trigger puller, to be honest. So witnesses testify that Francis is a really good person who wouldn't hurt anyone on purpose. Like I said, he's just this mild-mannered, kind of gentle guy.

Kathryn (32:33) So, and that's right. Right. Yeah.

Gina (32:52) And his behavior at the trial really supports this. He's shaking, he's super pale the whole time, he's unable to speak at points, and when he does have to stand up and talk, he's like physically unable to do it. Like people have to help support him while he's standing because he is so overcome with the weight of what he's done. The judge, on the other hand, is very no-nonsense about it all. He tells the jury, I'm paraphrasing here,

Gina (33:20) But he says, whether or not Francis thought he was shooting the ghost doesn't matter. What matters is whether he intended to kill. That is what makes it murder. And from a legal perspective, the case against Francis is really strong. First, he brought out a loaded gun with him that night, which implies a willingness to fire it. He hadn't shot Thomas by accident, really. Like he had pointed a gun at a human-shaped thing and shot.

Gina (33:45) He hadn't attempted to apprehend Thomas or the ghost or whatever. He hadn't been provoked in any way. And even if he had seen whoever or whatever the real Hammersmith ghost was, which we know at this point, like probably just a person, that person would get at most a misdemeanor, not capital punishment. So it's like, any way you look, this is just kind of like, you really shouldn't have shot anybody, Francis. Anyway, this does not look good for him. Damn it, Francis.

Kathryn (34:08) Mm-hmm. Damn it, Francis!

Gina (34:17) So the jury takes all of this into account and comes back with a verdict of guilty of manslaughter. And the judge is like, absolutely not. He says, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, probably just gentlemen of the jury actually, he basically tells them you have two options. You can find him guilty of murder or you can acquit him. That's all. That's what this trial is for.

Kathryn (34:30) ⁓ Yeah,

Gina (34:45) So the jury is backed into a corner and finds him guilty of murder. The judge passes a sentence of death by hanging, which was the punishment for murder back then. And the judge also says that after Francis is executed, his body will be sent to the medical college for dissection.

Kathryn (34:51) Hmm.

Gina (35:05) I have a reason why. So this is a short snippet of UK history, but it's also fascinating. Back then, there was a big cadaver shortage in the UK, and I think other parts of Europe as well. It coincides with an uptick in grave robbing and ghouls and things like that, which we'll definitely do an episode about at some point. But even as this sentence is being passed down,

Kathryn (35:05) What? Okay, what the fuck? I heard of this. We've talked about this before, like off the podcast. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Interesting.

Gina (35:34) Public opinion is shifting hard in Francis's favor. Newspapers start picking up the story and they describe Francis as remorseful, sympathetic, and maybe not a traditional hero, but definitely heroic in his intentions, like he thought he was doing the right thing. The judge also seems uncomfortable with the verdict. Pretty much as soon as he passes the sentence,

Gina (36:06) He says that he's going to refer the case to the king and ask for leniency. And he did.

Kathryn (36:06) This is so- wasn't he the fucking one that was like, no you gotta-

Gina (36:10) But I think he was trying to obey the letter of the law. Which is that if you're put on trial for murder, you're either guilty of murder or you are not guilty of murder. And if you are guilty, the punishment is death. You know what I mean?

Kathryn (36:15) Snooze. I see what you said, because that was the official. Was that the I mean, why couldn't they just charge him for less than and put him on trial for?

Gina (36:26) I don't know why they did.

Kathryn (36:29) I... Rule followers bore me. Like, there's so many options. Like, life is not just black and white. Like, you made these rules. You are the one upholding them. Like, why are we acting like it's some big... I don't know. Anyway, this judge... I'm not a fan of this judge.

Gina (36:34) Yeah. Wait till you hear the fucking, yeah, it takes forever to get this figured out. So judge asks for leniency. ⁓ And a few weeks later, a royal pardon comes through, which reduces Francis's death sentence to just one year of hard labor, which like still sucks, but it is not as bad as being hung and then dissected.

Kathryn (36:48) Okay. Yeah, feel like even that there's, yeah, there's like a lot of things in between those two things. What? Wild, okay.

Gina (37:06) Yeah. Yeah. And in a way, like this act of mercy became a very big part of the Hammersmith Ghost legacy, because it was a moment where, like we're saying, the law technically worked, but the public recognized that we really needed a more humane outcome here. Even if no one could quite agree on where to draw the line, they all knew that the line had been crossed wherever it was. So.

Gina (37:40) It's time for the Scooby-Doo unmasking of who the actual Hammersmith ghost was.

Kathryn (37:40) ⁓ Yeah, okay, I didn't know if you knew or not. That was one of my questions. Yeah, okay.

Gina (37:42) Mm-hmm. We do know. We do know. So after the trial ⁓ wraps up, like I said, the newspapers had picked this up. So this was like really big story in the press. A man who was riddled with guilt came forward to confess. His name is John Graham, and he's an elderly shoemaker from Hammersmith.

Kathryn (38:01) What? A little shoe guy?

Gina (38:02) Little shoe guy. Little Keebler elf. Do they make shoes? No, they make fudge. Who makes shoes?

Kathryn (38:07) Pheww!

Gina (38:13) Isn't there like a there's a thing with like elves in shoes I thought

Kathryn (38:17) Well, they're the Keebler Elves, which Keebler is very similar to Cobbler, which is what a shoemaker's name is, which is what just happened in your brain. Yes. Yeah. But they are like, their vibe is that of a Cobbler. That's like part of their brand. Are like as a Cobbler would make shoes, the Keebler Elves make fudge. Yeah.

Gina (38:24) Is that what I was thinking of? You know, the cobbler elves. Okay. That's poetry, baby. That's beautiful. Love it. Okay, cool. Yes, John Graham, little old shoe guy, he finds a magistrate and he admits that he's the one who's been dressing up like a ghost and scaring everybody. Magistrate is like, what the fuck? Why? Like, why would you do that? And John says it was to get revenge on his impetuous apprentices.

Kathryn (39:04) Yeah.

Gina (39:10) Apparently his apprentices had been scaring the shit out of John's kids with ghost stories, so he decided to pay them back by waiting until they were walking home and then scaring them while wearing a white sheet.

Kathryn (39:24) ⁓ My god.

Gina (39:25) Mm-hmm. Yeah. The magistrate, again, has no fucking idea how to deal with this because it's like, what the hell? And there are no actual charges for impersonating a ghost and accidentally indirectly causing a death. So as far as my research showed, John also didn't confess to any of the physical attacks. We think that those were copycats kind of riding off of the panic. We I don't think John is associated with like grabbing anyone by the throat or anything.

Kathryn (39:32) Yeah.

Gina (39:55) So John winds up getting released on bail and there are no records of any consequences ever.

Kathryn (39:56) Yeah. Interesting. This is wild. Yeah.

Gina (40:03) Mm-hmm. Right? It's fucking wild. Okay, so it does not end there. Like I said earlier at the top, this case, don't, I probably shouldn't say broke British law because, you know, there was law, but it created a significant challenge in the British legal system for almost 200 years because the question that it raised was if you kill someone because you genuinely believe that you or someone else is in danger,

Gina (40:36) Even if that belief is wrong, can you argue not guilty on the grounds of self-defense? And it wasn't until 1983, 179 years later, that the UK finally made a decision on this.

Gina (40:52) This is when the case of R.V. Williams Gladstone happened. And for a bit of background, in that case, a man saw what he thought was a physical assault happening, like somebody was dragging somebody else down an alleyway and the person being dragged was like asking for help. So he stepped in, injured the guy who he thought was the perpetrator, only to learn that the, quote, perpetrator had actually been apprehending a thief.

Gina (41:19) And it like was not a attacking someone situation. The court ruled that if someone honestly believes they're stopping a crime or defending themselves, they can argue self-defense even if that belief turns out to be false, which basically overturned the ruling from the Hammersmith case. And in 2008, it was finally written into law. So this is a ghost story that literally changed the law, which is very tragic, but also cool.

Kathryn (41:19) Hmm. Hmm. Wow. Hm. Yeah.

Gina (41:47) And you might think that that is also the end of it, but it's not. Ghost sightings continued in Hammersmith for decades after the shooting. And the reports of what this ghost looked like got increasingly insane. Like at one point people were claiming that the ghost could breathe fire. Eventually, I know, just, I don't know. Eventually, public fascination with the Hammersmith ghost gave way to a newer, kind of shinier story. Specifically,

Gina (42:16) The public abandoned the Hammersmith ghost story in favor of a popular British folklore icon named Spring-Heeled Jack, who is a guy in a cape with red eyes who leaps over fences and spits flames and stuff. And we are absolutely doing an episode on him at some point. So fun. But despite the public and the legal system moving on, there's still one piece of this story that lingers to this day.

Kathryn (42:33) ⁓ My gosh, fun. Wow.

Gina (42:44) As I said earlier, after Thomas Millwood was shot, I mentioned that they brought his body to a pub. Specifically, that pub is called the Black Lion. And to this day, people say his spirit never left. Patrons report cold spots, flickering lights, the sounds of footsteps with no source, and some claim to see a man in white walking the halls, silent, confused,

Gina (43:16) As if he's still trying to explain that he's not a ghost.

Kathryn (43:16) Aww. That's so sad.

Gina (43:17) And that's my story. I know, it's so sad.

Kathryn (43:21) That's interesting. I've heard of Black Lion Pub, probably just in the lists of travel destinations I have for us. Interesting. That's wild. I didn't expect any of I think you answered all my questions. It was just...

Kathryn (43:28) The big ones were, did we know did it and basically what the fuck happened and what is the story?

Gina (43:51) I wish they had caught some of the copycats. Couldn't find any records of catching copycats.

Kathryn (43:55) So that was another question of mine. I forgot what my other one was, but that was another one was because on what you said about the guy and the one who died and who he was and what he was doing and his family and all that, like, I don't believe that he would just go randomly be violent. Like a copycat makes sense, especially when there is a panic, that is what happens.

Gina (44:19) Yeah. That's what I, yeah, that's what I think it was.

Kathryn (44:24) But like, I don't know. I imagine it would be difficult, especially way back then, to find a copycat because all they have to do is stop doing it and, you know, that can be difficult to get the right person.

Gina (44:27) Still sucks. And it could be when it's like someone where the only criteria is dressed in all white and comes out at night. That could be anyone. Like it'd be so easy to pick up that mantle.

Kathryn (44:45) Right. Right.

Gina (44:49) Maybe we should stage the return of the Hammersmith Ghost the next time you're on this side of the pond. We can share a sheet.

Kathryn (44:56) Oh my god, can you imagine? I'm literally imagining us just like, well if we're not even in a sheet, we're just like, hello. It's me, the ghost. I'm back, bitches.

Gina (45:01) Hello! We could do the thing... You remember me? We could do the thing where it's like two kids in a trench coat, but it's two grown women in a bed sheet.

Kathryn (45:16) Yeah, it's two women in a bench.

Gina (45:23) Yeah.

Kathryn (45:23) That'd be creepy. Where, okay, another question I had was the, is this a neighborhood in London or a town outside of London?

Gina (45:33) So it's technically it's in London.

Kathryn (45:34) Okay.

Gina (45:35) But it's still, it's kind of like, it's not in the middle of everything. It's still kind of out there.

Kathryn (45:37) That's interesting. Right, well, yeah, you said it was out there and I was like, I don't know if this was like in the countryside or just not, you know. It sounded like it was relatively populated, but I didn't. It's always hard to tell in these old stories because population is so different. Like a bustling city could have a couple thousand people, you know what I mean? So,

Gina (45:47) Yeah, I mean, it's. It's definitely busier today. I know. Yeah, yeah, and it was really small back then. I know now it's busier. Like it's definitely

Gina (46:00) Put it this way. ⁓ It's closer to the center of London than Richmond from Ted Lasso. You know what I mean?

Kathryn (46:11) Okay. I just love the Ted Lasso reference. Listen, I feel like London, I love London ghost stories. I feel like there are so many spooky things that everything is historic there.

Gina (46:29) I have a few more London ghost stories that I'm going to be doing this year. I was just researching one of them earlier or like starting to like see if it could be an episode and I'm already excited to tell you about it. It's so fucking dramatic.

Kathryn (46:32) Mm-hmm. Yeah, this was interesting. I loved this. But like that is a sad story, but it's interesting how it influenced legal shit. There are so many stories like that, but I feel like people just don't know. It happens often. Yeah.

Gina (46:40) Yeah.

Gina (47:01) But yeah, that brings us to the end of Mass Hysteria Month. I enjoyed this month so much. We got some really good ones.

Kathryn (47:01) I did too. I've been really... Yeah, I don't know if it's just because I'm getting more comfortable doing these episodes knowing that people listen to us or if I've been enjoying our topics more, but the last couple months have just been... I don't know. I just have been really enjoying them. This... Yeah. I think part of the reason this one was extra fun is this was a last minute pivot. We weren't... This wasn't originally on...

Gina (47:18) So much fun. Mm, mhm.

Kathryn (47:29) The schedule for this specific month. I feel like we rearranged things, didn't we? Or am I wrong? Am I thinking of... Because I remember you came up with this one.

Gina (47:35) No, you yeah, because we I can't remember what we were going to do this month. We were looking for some I can't remember why we decided to change the topic. But it was like maybe two months ago that we decided to do mass hysteria.

Kathryn (47:45) We rearranged things. Yeah. Well, I remember, I don't remember what else we took away, but can I just tell people what we were gonna do? But we were both too grossed out, so we decided that too. So we were gonna do cannibalism. At a certain point this year, it was cannibalism. And I was strongly against it from the jump, and Gina was like.

Gina (47:55) Yeah, I think it's fair. That's what it. It'll be fine.

Kathryn (48:11) Yeah, like, oh yeah, let's do it. Like, I think you had a story you wanted to talk about or something. And then I was, I feel like I was a good sport. I signed on for it, blah, blah, blah. And then finally, thank all the gods and goddesses, et cetera. Gina comes to me one day and is like, I'm real grossed out. This is not good. I don't want to do this anymore. And I was like, thank goodness, because I just, can't do cannibalism. I just can't. I can't do it.

Gina (48:14) I did. Can't. No, I really, thought that I could, but then I was laying awake one night thinking about talking about cannibalism for at least four episodes, like hours and hours in a month and reading about it and writing about it. Yeah, exactly, same. So it was just like, fuck it. Mass hysteria.

Kathryn (48:46) For hours and hours. Yeah. Oh, I'm getting queasy. Yeah, I'm getting queasy just as we do this right now. So that was the one, as everyone knows, we love when you all send us ghost stories. So this is your reminder that if you have any spooky stories, they don't have to be ghost stories. They could be stories about people in bedsheets. Just, I was gonna say make it appropriate, but then it doesn't have to be appropriate either. Like, it's fine. We're marked as explicit. Who cares?

Gina (49:11) Yeah, we'll read those too. Make it smut.

Kathryn (49:16) Yeah, send us smut. Just kidding. Unless you want to. I don't give a shit. Yeah. For our viewing pleasure only, that's fine. ⁓ But ⁓ what? No, I was just going to say, so we ⁓ our pal Brooke mentioned she was going to try to send us stories each each month And that was the one that we were like, God, I hope she doesn't have one.

Gina (49:26) That reminds me, I have a, I'm so sorry, no you go, you finish your thought. Yeah.

Kathryn (49:43) For that so but we ended up not doing it because researching was just awful. Anyway what were you gonna say?

Gina (49:48) Speaking of listener stories, I have a few.

Kathryn (49:50) Yeah! Wait, are you gonna... Are you gonna read them on this? I totally forgot! I'm so excited!

Gina (49:55) We could, do we, listener's story comes from ⁓ friend of the pod, we were on an episode of his show, Into the Darkness, a while back. He also hosts a show called Red Treehouse. We'll drop a link to the episode we did with him in the show notes. Wonderful guy. And he sent us two stories with some context before them. So I'm going to read them to you now.

Gina (50:11) You haven't read these, right? Are you going in blind? Okay, sweet.

Kathryn (50:20) I haven't read them, I purposely didn't because I'm excited to hear them from you.

Gina (50:24) Sweet. All right. Pre-story context.

Gina (50:26) Every night before bed, I do a quick walkthrough of the house, turning off lights, locking doors, getting the dog situated, et cetera. Growing up in New York City, we always locked everything and checked and double checked to make sure nothing was open or cracked or unlocked. Even now, yeah, smart. Even now, living in a nice, quiet area with only cows and dead people as neighbors.

Kathryn (50:55) No.

Gina (50:55) I check everything. And then he has a subheading, which is dead people as neighbors? Mark. Yes. So this is what he says. Sometime last summer, I put my home address into Google Maps and was surprised to find a cemetery icon about a hundred feet beyond our property line.

Kathryn (51:19) Are we going to get contacts? I hope he lives near a cemetery. Okay.

Gina (51:19) Later that night, me and the kids went out, hopped the fence, and found a series of grave markers in the dirt. Right? It was difficult to make out the names and dates, but at least one of the graves was that of a child who died sometime in the 1850s. The graves are about 20 feet from the fence and no more than 75 feet from the side of our house.

Kathryn (51:26) Love that.

Gina (51:43) We believe our house is haunted by two ghosts, and then little question mark in parentheses. One is a little boy who catches us by surprise. We've seen him standing in corners or peeking around doorways. We call him Henry, and we mostly freak out because we're not expecting to see him. The other ghost, question mark, is much darker. He slash it scares the hell out of us.

Gina (52:06) We've run out of rooms, avoided going into rooms, et cetera, because his slash its presence is scarier. Okay, now that you have that context, here are the stories for real this time. Story one. Sometime back around the holidays, I want to say it was early December, I was doing my normal close up routine before going to bed.

Gina (52:28) Earlier that day, I'd folded a few loads of laundry on the dining room table where they were stacked neatly. Love that for you, Will. I wish I had that willpower. After turning off the laundry room light and turning towards the kitchen, parentheses, I was standing in the entryway between the laundry room and the kitchen, end parentheses. I looked into the dining room, which was nearly pitch black. There, peeking over the stack of folded laundry, I saw the top portion of a child's head.

Gina (53:02) With the eyes looking right at me. In the blink of an eye, it was gone. And the chill, the fear didn't hit me until I walked into the dining room, turned on the light, and no one was there.

Kathryn (53:20) That's so creepy cuz that's like That could go with creepy kid month cuz you never cuz kids are fucking creepy. It could have been just one of his kids, you know Yeah

Gina (53:25) Right? Fucking Henry. Yeah, Okay, you ready for story two?

Kathryn (53:34) Yes, I think.

Gina (53:37) When our family first moved into the house a few years ago, my daughter claimed the downstairs bedroom. I'm always the last one to go to bed at night and the first to wake up in the morning, usually around 5:45 a.m. Again, kudos Will, that's massively impressive. I know, he's the best. One morning, I head downstairs to let the dogs out and make coffee and I'm immediately annoyed that every light is on. I mean, every light.

Kathryn (53:53) My goodness,

Gina (54:05) Overheads, table lamps, floor lamps, television. I remember mumbling something to myself about these damn kids while going room to room turning everything off. Side note, in that moment I realized I'm in danger of becoming an old man. Aren't we all? After turning everything off, I let the dogs out, make my coffee, and sit down for a bit to read and relax before getting the kids up for school.

Kathryn (54:14) You Aren't we all?

Gina (54:34) This was the days before the Red Tree House. Hour or so later, around 7:15 a.m., I start waking the kids up for school. After getting herself ready and before heading down to catch the school bus, my daughter says, Dad, something weird happened last night. I said, yeah, definitely. One of you left every light on down here. In a moment that is lasered into my memory,

Gina (55:01) Her focus sharpened and she said, I don't know what it was, but it wasn't me. She then goes on to tell me the worst, scariest story I've ever heard. Sometime around 2 a.m., she was jolted from sleep by someone knocking on her bedroom door, the one closest to the front door. She told them to come in, but the knocking continued for another couple of seconds before stopping.

Kathryn (55:10) Whoa.

Gina (55:31) A few seconds later, it started again. This time, she walked over and opened the door. There was no one there, and every light was off. Scared, she jumped back into bed and put her AirPods in. A few seconds later, she heard knocking again, this time on the door that exits to the kitchen. Thinking it was one of her brothers, she walked over quickly and opened the door. There was no one there, and every light was on.

Kathryn (56:01) ⁓ I have full body chills.

Gina (56:04) At this point she was too scared to run up the stairs to our bedroom, so she just crawled into bed and tried not to fall asleep. After hearing this, I asked why she didn't call or text us to come downstairs, and she cooked us by saying she didn't want to bother and or we wouldn't have come downstairs, which is only true because we keep our ringers on silent and we wouldn't have heard a message or a call come in. Can relate, yes.

Kathryn (56:30) Yeah, that's fair.

Gina (56:31) The all lights on thing has happened three times since we've lived here. The most recent was back in March, which I shared when we recorded our Into the Darkness episode. I talk a bit about the second story and a few other strange things on the Red Tree House episode six, My Haunted House, but all of it was before we discovered the graves.

Kathryn (56:43) Mm-hmm.

Gina (56:55) Okay, I'm done now. You're both awesome and I hope these stories fascinate and freak you out. Can't wait to listen. We can't wait for you to listen, and I am so freaked out.

Kathryn (57:03) Yay. I'm so happy that he gave context for the light thing because when we were on, he was so blase about it and I was like, we're just gonna move back. Like he told us a little bit. He told us one story on it, so that's fair. But I was like, I feel like there's more to this. Like I have questions, you know? So yeah, that's horrifying.

Gina (57:09) Yeah. Yeah. But I totally empathize with the, I'm just gonna hide in my bed and hope that it doesn't find me. That's 100% what I would do.

Kathryn (57:33) For sure. Yeah. I used to do that all the time when I was a child. I would, I mean, I've mentioned this before. I think during one of our sleep episodes, I would scream for my mom. Like I would call, like yell for her, but I would not get out of bed. No way. So you have to go through the scary part to get like, that's not effective. Yeah, I get that.

Gina (57:46) Mmm. Yeah. No, me neither. Hide under the blanket. No. If I can't see it, it can't see me. That's a physics I do understand.

Kathryn (58:00) Really? Have you seen that thing? It's like a tweet that has been circulating that's like, one time someone told me that like, you're not in danger of getting attacked by a mountain lion if you can see the mountain lion, because if they don't want you to see it, then you're not gonna see it. And then they're like, I've been afraid that I'm being hunted by a mountain lion every day since I heard that.

Gina (58:27) Imagine that.

Kathryn (58:27) Like that's how I feel about ghosts. Like I almost feel a little comforted when I'm like think I see someone or something, because I'm like, okay, you're probably safe then. Right, yeah. Wow, wow, thank you Will for sending those in. That was, I love, I did not know about the cemetery. I love that context. What just happened?

Gina (58:30) You. But yeah, yeah, thank you so much. My light just died. It can't be a ghost. There's no way. No, it's just dead.

Kathryn (58:57) That scared me. Everything's fine. Okay, but we were literally just, we were just talking about how ghosts, if they want to be known, they'll be known. Your light does die quite often though. Is that true? Tell me it's true.

Gina (59:01) Not a ghost, just my lack of care of my electronic devices. If there is a ghost here, you're more than welcome. It's died one other time while we've recorded the podcast.

Kathryn (59:20) I have to go investigate now.

Gina (59:22) I wish the Twats had an international branch. Yeah. Someday when I'm rich and famous, I'm gonna bring the Twats over here.

Kathryn (59:24) We can, I was gonna say we can have the twat, we can have a twat vacation. I, we need, yeah. Yeah, anyway, so thank you all for joining us, thank you Will for sending us a story. Call to action for all of you to send us stories because I know so many of you have them because you tell me that you have them all the time and then you don't send them to me. So please do. I will not be mad, just disappointed if you don't send them. So please just send them. Yeah. Not to guilt you into it, but maybe a little bit. Anyway.

Gina (59:45) You. And we'll be actively happy if you do. You don't have to, we've just worked really hard on this podcast, so it's fine.

Kathryn (1:00:07) It's fine. Right, well, thank you all for joining us. Until next time, little spoons, keep it cool.

Gina (1:00:18) Keep it creepy!