Ep. 53: Stull, Kansas
Kathryn (00:10)
Okay, hello everyone! Welcome to I Scream, You Scream, we are your weekly scoop of the most chilling histories, mysteries, and paranormal perplexities. My name is Kathryn.
Gina (00:22)
I'm Gina.
Kathryn (00:24)
and we have a brand new month. It is now November and for the month of November we are going to be telling stories that have to do with, take place in, etc. small towns and we will be enjoying ice cream from our favorite local spots while we do so. As a reminder, if this once weekly cadence is not enough for you, please join us on Patreon where we have fun little tidbits like behind the scenes, little mini-sodes, you can have a say in the topics we do, all kinds of good stuff. We've got a lot of fun things going on over there, so go ahead and join. We have the link in the show notes and socials, all the places. But until you join us on Patreon, go ahead and grab a spoon and let's dig in.
Gina (01:13)
I'm so excited to try this ice cream.
Kathryn (01:15)
I'm excited for you. I am not eating local ice cream today because I messed up. I'm eating leftover birthday cake ⁓ of my actual birthday, not our podcast birthday. We are recording ahead of time. It is not month old cake.
Gina (01:23)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah
Kathryn (01:34)
And I'm going to be struggling because Cinnamon crawled up in my lap right as we were starting and she is now snuggled in my right arm. So I will be using my left hand to eat my cake, which is going to be a struggle because I am right handed. So we're going to do our best.
Gina (01:45)
Hmm.
It's all going well.
I have to say, this is everything I hoped it would be. This is really good.
Kathryn (01:55)
What are you eating? What kind is it and where is it from?
Gina (01:59)
So it's milk tea ice cream, and I'm fucking obsessed with milk tea. It's like one of my favorite things in the world. So when I saw this, I had to get It's from Yee Kwan which I think, it's not like technically local, like I couldn't just walk there if I wanted to, but in the grand scheme of things.
Kathryn (02:02)
Yum.
Gina (02:16)
when you consider how big the earth is, it's pretty local. I think it's like further north than I am, but still made in the UK. So I think it's local.
Kathryn (02:19)
Yes.
There you go.
That makes sense. It counts as local. My cake is local because I made my kitchen, which is in the same town I live. Mm-hmm.
Gina (02:34)
He he!
Doesn't get more local than that.
Grassroots, baby. I wanna talk about your birthday weekend, please.
Kathryn (02:46)
my god, yes. Sorry I'm struggling because I'm also dodging this microphone, so bear with me. I'm so sorry.
Cinnamon's body just like melted, which means she's not going anywhere anytime soon. So...
We were in Chicago recently for my birthday, and we stayed at the Congress Hotel, which was very, very haunted, and something notable happened, which I have not told you. I'm not told you because I was saving it, and I almost forgot that I wanted to tell you this. So it was the first night we were there. We were in bed. I had already...
Gina (03:12)
You didn't tell me about this. What happened?
Kathryn (03:28)
I'd kind of fallen asleep. I was like, technically asleep, but still mildly conscious. You know, it was kind of that like in-between.
And all of a sudden, I felt, so I was laying on my back, and at the edge of the bed,
my feet were like this in bed. It felt like someone like pressing a hand almost like genuinely based on the weight of it. I thought like a rat or something like hopped up onto the bed between my feet, but it felt like something was pressing on the bed. And then I just felt like a
Gina (03:50)
Huh.
Kathryn (04:09)
Like let's say this is my foot. I just felt like a like a flick. Yeah, like it felt like someone kind of like tapped the inside of my foot. And I first thought was Phil had gotten up and was waking me up. Like it felt like someone was.
Gina (04:13)
Like a yeah.
Kathryn (04:31)
like bopping my foot to wake me up. So I like flail around because I got my earplugs in, I'm all snuggled in bed and I'm like, you know, wake up, shoot up and I look and no one's there and I look down next to me and Phil is like under his covers like looking at me like this. Just like so confused and alarmed because I like shot out of bed thinking there was like an emergency and I look at him and I take my earplugs out and I go.
Was that you? And he just goes, I don't remember what exactly he said, but he said something to the effect of like, it was a ghost, like kind of jokingly, but like he saw me react like he was awake. So he saw me react. And so I could tell he like he didn't see anything, but I could tell that he knew I was like reacting to something. But I also was. Asleep, like basically, so I wasn't like
super conscious, I don't know what happened, but I looked at him and I was like, something just touched my foot and he kind of just looked at me and shrugged like, I don't know what to tell you, it wasn't me. But it definitely wasn't him, because at first I was like, okay, maybe was moving in bed and knocked me or whatever. But where it was, it was on the inside of my foot, so he would have needed to reach around and do it, you know what I mean? I would have felt him.
Gina (05:39)
Yeah. ⁓
And you would have felt the covers move if he did that.
Kathryn (05:59)
move around. Yeah, and nothing was
touching me on that side. was, I mean, it was so the pressure on the bed was so
visceral, I genuinely was nervous. My first thought wasn't even ghost. I literally thought there was like a rat or something that jumped onto the bed because like that's what it felt like. It felt like there was just one little spot of pressure in between my feet and then like a flick. Yeah. And then I was nervous the whole rest of the night. I like could not sleep the rest of the night because I was very surprised. Like I actually genuinely was. Well, maybe this isn't very surprising, but
Gina (06:23)
Interesting.
I wonder what it was.
Kathryn (06:37)
I felt very scared. And the last time we were there, we had some weird things happen and I didn't feel scared, but this time I felt like very uneasy the rest of the night, which like, yeah, I didn't like it at all. It wasn't like a fun feeling. Yeah, I didn't like it.
Gina (06:48)
Okay.
Okay. Because it sounded almost playful when you were describing like somebody was just like, ha, know, just tapping the bed a little bit.
Kathryn (07:00)
Yeah.
It did, yeah,
it didn't feel violent, but it felt not fun. Like I didn't like the way it felt, yeah. And then Phil's just over there like, I don't know, like, I don't know what to tell you. He's just trying to sleep. Yeah, that's my story. That's my Congress hotel story.
Gina (07:08)
Eww.
Man, we need to go there together, because that's the place we went to for drinks that one time,
Kathryn (07:25)
I know we do.
It is. like every time I go there, I'm on the lookout. You know what I mean? But this time, I mean, I had been when we first, almost said moved in, when we first checked in, I was like, okay, keep your eye on the lights because something happened last time. But by the time we got back to the hotel, I really kind of wasn't because
We had been out all day for my birthday and like late in, not super late in the night. We went back earlier than we were anticipating. I'm old now. So we were in bed like at a reasonable hour, but still late. It was still like a long day. So I wasn't really thinking of it. I really genuinely wasn't trying to clock any ghosts, you know, like I was just trying to sleep. So it was kind of surprising because I wasn't.
like open to having an experience or encounter of any kind. I really just wanted to sleep and that's usually I usually am out like a light when I'm just like, no, you know, like I don't usually clock those things when I'm not expecting them.
Gina (08:27)
Yeah.
Maybe whatever it was was like annoyed because it wanted attention. Because annoyance is still like a negative vibe and so it could have projected that.
Kathryn (08:35)
It could have been. It could have been. Yeah.
That's true. Yeah, it could have just been something like that. Because I guess, yeah, it wasn't violent, but it also wasn't good. So that could be like that kind of emotion, kind of the chaotic neutral or whatever. Yeah, that's my story. Well, yeah, yeah.
Gina (08:55)
All right, when I'm in town, we'll get our Ghostbusters onesies on.
Wait, we should actually get Ghostbusters onesies.
Kathryn (09:05)
Honestly, I was gonna say that's
what that pause was for. I was like, wait, can we? That'd be so great. I don't know why we haven't thought of this before. Those definitely exist. All right, we'll make a note to collab on that. Anyway.
Gina (09:09)
That's such a good idea. We definitely should. They have to, yeah.
Great. We can convince
Tom or Phil to be the slime guy. Slimer? Is that his name? He's my favorite.
Kathryn (09:28)
I don't remember. feel like Phil shouldn't
need that much convincing.
Gina (09:33)
I have no ghostly or paranormal experiences to update you on, but I do things I wanna tell you. Okay, so my first one you already know about, because I told you about it, but I did wanna talk about it on the pod, because I enjoyed it so much. I read a great fucking book.
Kathryn (09:38)
Tell me! Yes, I'm excited. I'm very excited about this list of updates.
Yum.
Gina (09:50)
It's called The Killer Question. It's by Janice Hallett, who is one of my favorite authors, and I didn't know that she had a new book coming out. I was just walking by a bookshop one day and saw it in the window and lost my little mind. And so Tom got it for me and I tore through that bitch in two fucking days. It's so If you are a fan of whodunnits and cozy little mysteries,
definitely check it out. I think the word is like epistolary when it's told through like texts and emails and like quote evidence rather. Yeah, it's not like a linear narrative. this one centers around a pub quiz.
Kathryn (10:20)
I didn't know that.
Gina (10:28)
at this little pub in the middle of nowhere. just, it's a perfect autumnal read if you happen to need one, I recommend it. Everyone check it out, I love it. My second update is, ⁓ this is so random, but my boss said something today that I cannot stop thinking about and I wanted to share it with you because I'm obsessed with it. Okay, so my boss, for context, she is so fucking cool. I am very lucky with the boss that I have. She's one of those people that is so,
Kathryn (10:46)
my god, okay, this is fun.
Gina (10:57)
compassionate and good at communicating that like they clearly have gone to therapy. And I'm not saying that in like a, you know what I mean? Like it's like in a, it's a compliment to say someone has clearly gone to therapy. And I mean it as that.
Kathryn (11:04)
I love that. Yeah, I do know what you mean.
When you know that's, yeah,
yes, absolutely. That is the best type of person where you can, they say things and you're like, I know where you learned that. Yes. Yeah, I love it.
Gina (11:19)
You're healthy. Mm-hmm, yeah.
So she said something today. We were in a meeting. It was a group of us, all women. And one of the ladies on the call said something like, ⁓ know, I'm really stressed right now. I keep having this sense of dread that I'm going to drop the ball and everything is going to come crumbling down. And my boss was like, well, you know what? There are two types of balls. There are glass balls and there are rubber balls. Glass balls are things like your family, your friends, ⁓ your passions, like the things that are actually important in life. You don't wanna drop the ball there because then it's really hard to put the pieces back together. Rubber balls are things that you can drop and it'll be fucking fine because it always bounces right back up and work is always a rubber ball. And I was like, God damn, I love that so much. So I wanted to tell you about it.
Kathryn (12:10)
That's such a nice image. oh, I like that. I'm trying to, now I'm thinking of what all my rubber balls are.
Gina (12:13)
I know.
Yeah.
I feel like I probably have so many rubber balls that I've
Kathryn (12:24)
I'm literally
like, I don't know if I have any. I'm sure I do. But I'm just like, everything's a glass ball. Yeah, yeah.
Gina (12:27)
I know. But it's so helpful to think of it that way.
Yeah.
Kathryn (12:35)
Anyway,
dying to hear this story because this is yet another one I don't know anything about and I almost did it.
for a previous flavor, but I chose not to, so when I saw that you added it to the calendar for this one, I'm very excited.
Introduction to Stull, Kansas
Gina (12:49)
Ahem.
Well, as you know, I don't often set foot in the United States, physically, spiritually, or otherwise. But today we're going to Eastern Kansas, where there is a small, unassuming town, kind of like a blink-and-you-miss-it sort of place. It has a few houses, a couple of churches, and allegedly a gateway to hell. According to legend, the devil himself comes to visit twice a year, and when he does, the dead walk again.
Kathryn (13:24)
I love this. I love that you're doing this. This is not really a Gina story.
Gina (13:25)
I know. I'm so excited.
It's complete. And just watch. Like the further I get, the more we're going to be like, wow, this is not a Gina story by any. I think this is way more of a Kathryn story, but I'm excited to be doing it. Yay. my God. Good vibes. Okay. So this week we are heading to Stull, Kansas, which some people swear is one of the most demonic places in America. But according to others, it's just another case of mass hysteria.
Kathryn (13:32)
Yeah.
I love it. I'm excited to be listening, yeah. Take it away.
Gina (13:55)
I will let you be the judge, my darling Kathryn But before I get too deep into the story, quick content warning. I will be mentioning suicide, child death, child abuse and murder. And obviously lots of Satan talk, but I feel like that's kind of par for the course with this podcast by now.
History of Stull
So let's talk about background. Stull is an unincorporated community in Douglas County, Kansas, and it is teeny, teeny, teeny, tiny. It's actually not even included in official census information. Like you can try and look up Stull in the census. Doesn't pop up. So I couldn't get an official population number, but
In 1989, it had around 20 residents, and in 2006, Stull was described as a community with, few houses, a machine shop, two churches, and a volunteer fire department. So it's pretty fucking small.
Kathryn (14:48)
I love that. I love how there's still two churches despite the double digits population. Yeah.
Gina (14:53)
I know. So small town, right?
Stull first appeared on our maps in 1857, around the time that people of German and Pennsylvania Dutch descent settled in the area. Fun fact about Pennsylvania Dutch, I had no idea. ⁓ Not actually Dutch, completely separate thing. Has nothing to do with the Netherlands.
Kathryn (15:15)
what the fuck? Why is it called that? Do you know?
Gina (15:16)
Yeah, I know. ⁓ did, I did, it was some kind of, ⁓ I can't remember exactly what it was off top of my head, but it was basically a misunderstanding. Like how when people used to come through from Ellis Island and they would change your last name to be more, you know, quote American or whatever, kind of similar thing. Like it was originally something else that I think started with a D and people were just like, Dutch, must be Dutch.
Kathryn (15:26)
⁓
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Yeah, that's interesting.
Gina (15:41)
Yeah, it's going to bug me that I'm not going to remember, though. If I'm wrong about that, I will put a correction in the show notes, because I will feel bad.
Kathryn (15:43)
impact.
Gina (15:48)
But yes, so the original settlers were German and Pennsylvania Dutch and allegedly some of them were witches. More on that later. Stull was originally just called the Deer Creek community, referring to like a small creek that ran nearby. But in 1899, the government decided to open a post office there, which meant that they had to give it like an official name. So they named it after its new postmaster,
Sylvester Stull, who wound up being the only postmaster because the post office closed in 1903 and the name just stuck around. Mm-hmm, yeah. That's the official story though. According to some, the real name was actually Skull, but it was later changed to Stull when the population decided to distance itself from its allegedly occult past.
Kathryn (16:24)
⁓ weird.
Evangelical Emmanuel Church
Gina (16:45)
As you've probably picked up by now, this is very much a dueling narrative story. Like there are the pile of things that we know about Stull, which is pretty small, and then there are the pile of rumors about Stull, which in comparison, it's like a fucking mountaintop. So there's gonna be kind of some switching back and forth between what we know to be true and what people say, but that's just the nature of this story. It's one of those, so bear with me. Stull's first business came when one of the residents started running a general store out of his own living room. And about a decade later, another store was built, but it burned to the ground just one year later. However, that did not stop the titans of industry and Stull from capital P progress. And eventually the area also included a blacksmith, a few mills, a cider press, that kind of thing. But one thing it was missing was a church.
And it's not like there was no religion in Stull. People still gathered to worship, like they would take turns doing it at each other's houses or they would use the local schoolhouse to get together and that kind of thing. They just didn't have an actual building. So the decision was made to build one. And that was kind of a big deal because churches still now, but particularly back then, are kind of the center of a community. So it made sense that they wanted to start an official one.
However, according to some people, the decision to build the church was also because the residents felt guilty about the occult activities of the original settlers, which included things like making pacts with the devil, But regardless, in 1867, they built an actual church at the top of a nearby hill, and they called it the Evangelical Emmanuel Church. And right next to it, they established a cemetery that was kind of split into two sections. So at the top of the hill there was the Hildenbrand Family Cemetery and the Hildenbrands were just the ones who donated the land that the church was built on so that was just like their little plot. But the main cemetery was at the bottom of the hill under a twisted gnarled old scotch pine tree which according to some was the largest of its species in the area when it was still around. I think it's gone now, and it was said to have a 12 foot circumference around the trunk.
Kathryn (19:08)
That's pretty big.
Gina (19:09)
It's really fucking big at first when I saw 12 feet. I was like, that's not very high, but no it's around. That's insane. that same tree Was said to have a witch hung from it many years ago again just a rumor.
But it's also near the spot of two real tragedies that we know definitely occurred in the early 20th century, young boy named Oliver wandered into a field that his father was burning and he did not make it out. also a man went mysteriously missing from the area and was gone for a few days before they found him hanging from a tree. I don't know if it was the tree, but it was a tree. Nobody has ever been able to figure out why, when, or how. He was just...gone and then he was suddenly there one day. We don't know if there was foul play involved or if he took his own life. Regardless, the church remained in use throughout the rest of the 1800s, but when the 1900s came around, they decided they needed a different one.
So they raised some money, and they built a new church across the road from the original one in 1922, leaving the old church abandoned, which right away I think is interesting, because the old church was actually only used for about 55 years, which in church years is not an incredibly long time.
Kathryn (20:33)
No.
Gina (20:35)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (20:35)
Yeah, that's pretty... that's a pretty young church. Hmm.
Gina (20:39)
Yep. it wasn't like, because originally I thought, OK, well, maybe it was built out of like shoddy materials that they wanted to have one that had more longevity to it. But I'm pretty sure it was built out of limestone. Like this thing stuck around for a long time. ⁓ And it's not like the other one was far away either. It was right across the street. So I just, I think it's an interesting choice.
Kathryn (20:51)
Hmm.
soon.
Gina (21:00)
and I'm not sure what the justification was for it outside just we need more room so we're gonna build a bigger building instead of just adding an extension on to the one that already existed.
Kathryn (21:09)
Yeah.
Hmm, that's interesting.
Gina (21:13)
Dunno, dunno, no idea. But regardless what they did, over the course of the 20th century, the old church fell into ruin. Decades passed, quiet rumors about the old church and its cemetery kept circulating, but it wasn't until November 1974 that the rumors really took off. So by this point, the old church was completely dilapidated. Like half of the roof was gone.
The front door was gone, there were plants and trees growing inside of it, like very, just old rundown, ruins basically.
How did Stull gain notoriety?
It's at this time that an article in the University of Kansas' student newspaper described the rumors in detail. The article said that Stull was, quote, haunted by legends of diabolical supernatural happenings. And it recounted anecdotes from students who visited the cemetery where some say they were grabbed by unseen forces or they spent multiple hours at the cemetery just to get home and realize that they didn't remember most of it. Like there were gaps in their memories.
But most importantly, the article discussed rumors that the cemetery is one of only two places on earth where the devil himself appears in person twice a year. Once on the spring equinox and once on Halloween, which by the time this comes out will have just passed. Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (22:41)
Yeah. Ooh,
let us know if you saw him. Hey! ⁓
Gina (22:45)
Yeah, tell him we say hi. Hey.
Tom asked me today, if Satan is real, what do I think he looks like? And I just said hot. For sure hot, right? Yeah, yeah, temptation. Yeah.
Kathryn (22:55)
for sure. Yeah, that's like his whole deal. Like, temptation? Yeah. What? Of course.
Gina (23:02)
So he comes twice a year. Supposedly, this has been the case since the 1850s when a stable boy killed Stull's mayor in the cemetery. It's said that he stabbed the mayor to death. And it's also said that this murder is basically what granted demonic forces access to the area. It was like a key was turned, a seal was opened, and now they could get through.
The article goes on to describe these legends as being passed down to students by their parents and grandparents, painting a picture of this kind of multi-generational fear or just like sense of unease about Stull. Like it really made it seem like it was part of, like deeply entrenched in the local lore. thing that's interesting about this article is it was originally meant to be included.
in the newspaper's special Halloween edition as kind of like a spooky fluff piece, but there was a paper shortage, which meant that that article actually wound up coming out a week after Halloween, AKA this week, ⁓ once Halloween had already passed. And there was something about it coming out outside of the context of like the spooky lead up to Halloween that made people pay attention to it in ways that they might not have.
Otherwise, like it really stuck out because there wasn't much there wasn't enough Halloween content anymore. So this was like something people could latch on to easier. So the rumors spread even more. And then we started seeing new rumors crop up. And it wasn't just that the devil would appear twice a year, but that this specific place Stull Cemetery was a gateway to hell where the devil would raise the dead from the grave as long as they had died a violent death.
So like if somebody had been murdered or violently killed, they would come back to life and they would basically have like a devil zombie party across the earth.
Kathryn (24:56)
so this is everywhere. Not just, ⁓ interesting. ⁓ that's spooky. Yeah. ⁓
Gina (24:58)
I think so. It doesn't really specify.
Yeah, I know. kind of like that. It makes me think of, you know, the Halloween music videos with like the dancing skeletons. That's what I'm thinking of. Yeah. I like it a lot.
Kathryn (25:08)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah. Me too.
Gina (25:26)
So these rumors spread and spread and spread, and people started to go to the cemetery on the equinoxes by the time the spring equinox of 1978 rolled around, more than 150 people were gathered into the cemetery to await the devil. And it was really like it was a bunch of college kids, because it was a college newspaper. And so it really was more like a party, or at least like a very social gathering. And where there are students, there is obviously a lot of booze and bad decisions. And that's pretty much what happened here. Like very quickly, the group that would come to this place got a negative reputation in the town.
Meanwhile, the residents were starting to get really annoyed by this shit. ⁓ Like I said, this is a teeny tiny little place, so when it was overrun by a number of college kids that outnumbered the people who lived there, it was not their favorite thing, which I do kind of get. Their other issue is that to them, these rumors are a complete fabrication. According to the locals, they had never heard any of these stories from their parents or grandparents ever.
So they assumed that the college kids were lying about where they got their information from. And they were also quick to point out that the story about the boy who killed the mayor couldn't have been true because the cemetery didn't exist when the story takes place in 1850. And also, Stull had never had a mayor. It was too small.
Kathryn (26:41)
⁓ OK. Yeah, that makes sense. That'd be a very small jurisdiction.
Gina (26:43)
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah.
There's a quote from a recent-ish quote from a local. It was like from the early 2000s. And it says, all these tales make great ghost stories for gullible people, but sound ridiculous to the local inhabitants who have never had such experiences nor heard of them from their ancestors. They are very sick of hearing about this. Yeah. And I do like the boy and the mayor thing. I do think there's a little bit of wiggle room there because
Kathryn (27:10)
Yeah.
Gina (27:16)
Just because the cemetery didn't exist doesn't mean that the land that the cemetery was on didn't exist. And also maybe something got lost in translation and it wasn't a mayor, but it was some kind of other official or leader within the town. Like I think it's not black and white.
Kathryn (27:31)
Yeah,
that's always where my head goes first is when people say, well, it wasn't even there. It's like, do you think there was just a hole in the earth before this structure was built? land is very often haunted. So that's always my rebuttal to that. And it could also have been like, maybe it wasn't the mayor of Stull, but it could have been
Gina (27:50)
Yeah.
Kathryn (27:59)
like a nearby mayor or like you said, know, other of it. It's necessarily just a lawless place, you know, it could have been. Right. Yeah, it could have been passing through or something like that.
Gina (28:03)
Yeah.
as much as I would love them.
Yeah, so I think it's a bit like, I'm almost nervous to say that it could be true because residents really do not believe it at all. But still, I think that when you're playing a generational game of telephone, I think it's natural that things get misinterpreted or lost.
Kathryn (28:23)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
Well, and also even if it's not true, it is worth noting that, like, these things don't necessarily definitively prove why it's not true, you know? Like, they're... yeah.
Gina (28:41)
True, yeah, yeah,
yeah. And the crowds who gathered there seemed to be more on that page because it kind of became like an annual or biannual tradition for people to flock to the cemetery. Mostly annual because it was most popular on Halloween. Like that's the spooky holiday, that's when everyone wanted to go. And eventually it stopped being just students and...suddenly you had paranormal investigators coming, you had reporters, or you had just like people who were interested that wanted to see what all the fuss was about. So the number of people coming grew and grew and grew. And by the 1980s, upwards of 500 people would descend into this tiny little town. This is when there were 20 people living there.
Kathryn (29:25)
Whoa.
That's wild.
Gina (29:29)
And one thing I don't think I mentioned, but I did look up how long it would take to get from the University of Kansas to Stull. It's a 15 minute drive. So it's like down the street, easy excursion for college kids who have no money. I probably would have done the same thing if I were there. Right? Yeah. Yeah.
Kathryn (29:43)
I 100 % would have gone. Absolutely. What? That's not even...
It takes me longer than that to get to work every day.
Gina (29:53)
Yeah, same. Well, not same, because I work from home. But it takes me longer than that to get most places. do have one quote that I'm excited to read to you, I read it, and I just think it's so funny. So it's from a sheriff. It's from a very grumpy sheriff ⁓ who's talking about the crowds that descend on Stull for this every year. And he says, every year the same thing happens. There are normally a number of people that go out and have, what do you call it?
Kathryn (29:57)
Yeah.
Okay. ⁓
Gina (30:20)
A meeting with the devil or whatever.
Kathryn (30:24)
What? my god that's fantastic.
Gina (30:26)
What's that called? yeah, Satan or whatever.
Yeah, so that made me laugh. I enjoyed that very much. I have in my notes a capital LOL next to it.
Vandalism in Stull
But with big crowds, you usually get at least a handful of assholes and idiots and the cemetery started to get vandalized pretty badly very quickly. Headstones were broken or pushed over and as for the ruins of the church itself, people started carving things into the walls like, kill the cross or just the word Satan.
Kathryn (31:02)
Have fun.
Gina (31:03)
Yeah, not really nice shit. But despite all the attention, nobody ever actually saw the devil that we know of. The closest thing we have on record to that happened in 1981 when someone dressed up as a ghost to scare the crowd. And the sheriff, I think it's the same one, he said, quote, he was running up and down the hill flapping his arms.
Kathryn (31:26)
Psst!
Gina (31:26)
Everybody
was running to get away from him. He had a tape recorder up there with some wild noises coming out of it. Just flapping his arms. Which raises the question, if there was no devil, why did people keep coming back? And there are a few reasons why. Like I said, for some it was just an excuse to party and get together. It was just like this big, fun, spooky social event. But also,
Kathryn (31:34)
No way.
I love that.
Historical context: Satanic panic
Gina (31:57)
This was happening right in the middle of the Satanic panic. So if you, callback, haven't listened to our Satanic panic episodes by the illustrious Kathryn, you definitely should because they're bomb. But also for context, the Satanic panic was basically this massive cultural freak out where people genuinely believed that Satanic cults were fucking shit up. ⁓ All the parents were scared for all the kids. All the kids were just doing their thing.
So when stories of this cemetery started circulating, stories about the devil, witches, occult, whatever, people were already primed to be terrified of it or curious. But either way, they were paying attention. They showed up to see what was going on. not that anything truly evil in a satanic sense was happening there. It's just that the country was looking for evil somewhere. And so it just turned into this big whole fucking thing.
Do you have anything to add, Satanic Panic Expert?
Kathryn (32:55)
No, I think you did a great job. I don't have anything to add.
Gina (32:57)
thank you. It was hard. I felt like
I could talk about that bit for a long time, because that's, there's just so much. Anyway, OK, so.
Kathryn (33:02)
Yeah.
Why would the devil come to Stull?
Gina (33:07)
Another question is raised. Okay, so people can't see the devil, fine, whatever, but why would the devil come to Stull specifically? It's like this random little place in the middle of nowhere. Why would the devil pick Stull? And again, there's a lot going on here. Allegedly, rumors about the area's dark history have been circulating for decades, if not centuries. And one of these rumors is that the devil
had had a romantic relationship with one of the witches who lived in Stull. So twice a year, he comes back to visit her grave and the grave of their child who died when he was only a few days old.
Kathryn (33:47)
That's kinda sad.
Gina (33:48)
I know.
Yeah. And like a lot of people do call bullshit on that because there are people who call bullshit on everything. But believers often point to this one specific tombstone in the cemetery with the name Wittich on it, which looks a lot like the word witch.
Kathryn (34:03)
yeah. I was going to ask if there was any reason, like how that story came to be or whatever. Hmm.
Gina (34:12)
Yeah, they usually point to the tombstone.
And paranormal investigators, they've also done ⁓ some EMF readings over that grave. And they've gotten messages like, get off my bones. Yeah. Yeah. And the other one that I found was, watch where you're walking, which I also get that. Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (34:18)
Ooh.
Well, yeah, that's valid, actually.
Okay, yes, yeah.
Gina (34:34)
beyond that, I also think that the devil comes to Stull just because people say that the devil comes to Stull. Like that newspaper article, to be honest, I think could have said anywhere and people would have followed that trail and we would be asking the same questions about a different place. It's like when we were talking about the Annabelle doll and it's like, know, okay, yes, these things happened and it was blamed on her, but could have been anywhere and we would be saying the same thing.
Kathryn (34:52)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (35:01)
And there's another reason I think people say devil comes to Stull. And that's honestly Midwestern boredom. Like I grew up in the Midwest. It has a place in my heart. It is still a home to me in some ways. So I don't mean this to be shitty, but the Midwest can be really fucking boring. So it's not a shock to me that maybe someone just wanted to jazz things up a little bit by throwing the devil in.
Kathryn (35:07)
Yeah.
Yeah, and I also think that, in addition to that, I think because there isn't a whole lot going on, I feel like people are paying attention to things closer. So those small towns, especially in the flyover states, are like, anytime you see anything weird or like not...
Gina (35:38)
Hmm.
Kathryn (35:49)
quite as Christian as you want it to be. Everyone's real fast to cry devil Like it honestly, when you say people are like, why Stull I'm like, why not? That sounds like the exact type of place that people would be afraid of the devil infiltrating. Small Christian town, that's where people pay attention to his presence the most.
Gina (35:53)
Got ya.
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, yeah, like I guess if you were the devil and you were going to pick a place. That seems like a good spot as any. Yeah, you sneak in through the back door. You don't come burst it in through the front. Yeah, good point. yeah, a lot. It's just complicated because truly we don't even know where these stories or rumors began. Like most people say that it's because of that student newspaper article in 1974. Like that's why these rumors exist. That's why this is such a big deal.
Kathryn (36:18)
You'd sneak in through the back door. Yeah.
Where did the stories come from?
Gina (36:42)
But I found a different article that said that these stories have been around since 1964, 10 years before the allegedly inciting article was and also that was years before the satanic panic was in full swing, if I'm not mistaken. So there still would have been fresh generational memories of Stull's original settlement. Like it would be displaced by a generation or two, but the people telling the stories in 1964 would have grown up knowing
Kathryn (36:47)
Mmm.
Mm-hmm.
Gina (37:09)
either the original settlers or the settlers' children and could have gotten the stories from there. So it's just like this shit back gets really messy and really complicated very quickly. So I will let you guys be the judge. But to me, it does make sense. I do believe more in the theory that there was something going on in the early days and that we're seeing the echoes of those rumors now. I think that there was something. I don't think it was just the student newspaper article.
Kathryn (37:37)
Yes, I also, of course, believe the Satan was in Stull That's interesting that the first...
I'm going to say a of instances where it's documented or whatever are... Did you say the one in the 60s was also an article?
Gina (37:54)
So there was an article, so there was the 1974 one, and then an article came out shortly after that one that said that those rumors started 10 years prior.
Kathryn (37:57)
Yeah.
Gotcha,
okay, yes, yes, Interesting.
See, this has me like, I'm in conspiracy mir- conspiracy theory mode right now because I'm like...
Weird shit happens in small towns and the smaller the population, the easier it is to convince people to help you with a cover up. So now I'm like, what actually happened? And there was only five people there at the time that needed to keep their mouths shut. And somehow, I don't know, maybe one of them accidentally told their great grandkid on their deathbed and now we have these alleged rumors. This is fantastic.
Gina (38:26)
Yeah!
It'd be funny if it was just some dude who avoided his taxes for a couple years and on his deathbed, he was like, I made a grave error. It just blew up over the decades.
Kathryn (38:49)
Now this... yeah.
Well, yeah. Probably.
Gina (39:02)
I believe there was something.
Kathryn (39:04)
Yeah.
Other rumors about Stull
Gina (39:29)
But also, the story about Stull basically being like the devil's vacation home, that's not the only spooky thing that people say about Stull. There's a myriad of other smaller legends and lore, so I'm gonna tell you about some of them. ⁓ It is said that rain never fell in that old church, even when the roof caved in. You could stand in there and you'd be completely dry.It's also said that there was a wooden crucifix left hanging on the church wall and it would turn itself upside down every night at midnight.
That one's cool, isn't it?
Kathryn (39:41)
Who's clocking this? What if there's... Gina was there. Gina's always there. that's spooky.
Gina (39:43)
It's just me.
I know, yeah. It's also said that it's impossible to, or it was impossible to break glass on the walls of the church, which I think is an unfortunate rumor, because I have a feeling it led to a lot of college kids breaking beer bottles against the church. That feels particularly dangerous. But one of the most popular rumors about Stull is that Pope John Paul II took measures to avoid flying over Stull while he was en
Kathryn (40:02)
Yeah.
Yeah.
Gina (40:18)
route to an appearance in Colorado.
Kathryn (40:22)
Okay. Listen.
Gina (40:23)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (40:25)
If the pope is scared, we should be scared. If there's... ⁓
Gina (40:29)
And granted, I do have to say,
that specific story, it's often attributed to a Times article that nobody has ever been able to track down.
Kathryn (40:41)
Yeah, because they don't want us to track it down, Gina. Wake up, sheeple! Interesting. I bet that's true.
Gina (40:44)
The Pope is big media!
Yes, yes.
Yeah, I think that would be fun if it was true. I would like that a lot. I think that sounds cool.
Kathryn (41:05)
Yeah.
Gina (41:06)
I'm also picturing, I don't know anything about Pope John Paul II to be honest, but I'm just picturing his little Italian accent like, we cannot fly over Kansas
Kathryn (41:14)
Pope John Paul, which one was, I'm trying to, I don't, was he Italian? Hold on, let me look this up so that, Pope John Paul the second, not to be confused with another Pope John Paul. Someone, ⁓ man, I wish I had started speaking like half a second earlier, because I literally was just gonna say, I don't know, for some reason I think he was Polish.
Gina (41:17)
I don't know. Let's look this up.
he was Polish. He was born in Poland.
my god, okay. Yes, you're psychic.
Kathryn (41:42)
I also have several years of Sunday school under my belt, in which case I would have learned all about this and I should have known right off the top of my head. But yes, I'm also psychic.
Gina (41:52)
And you're psychic.
I also have a few other legends with a bit more narrative behind them, if you'd like to hear them. Which, I don't know why I'm giving you a choice. I'm going to tell you no matter what you want.
Kathryn (42:05)
I would. I was going to say, whole purpose of this podcast is to trap each other
into listening to each other speak. ⁓
Gina (42:14)
Yes. So here are the reasons why I'm great. No, I'm just kidding. I have an actual story. So there was a legend that a very long time ago, a boy was born in Stull who was covered in red hair, like all over his body. And he had two rows of teeth. His parents did not love that. So they decided to keep him outside and chained to a leash by his hand and basically just like raised him as a wild animal.
Kathryn (42:30)
Ugh.
Gina (42:43)
This went on until the boy was 10. Real quick, I'm about to say something very gross, so if you don't want to hear it, cover your ears. When he was 10 years old, he bit off his own hand in order to escape.
Yeah, it's bad, it's gross. When he got free, he apparently murdered everyone he could find until eventually a farmer was able to kill him. And apparently, if you listen to the rumors, during the fall and spring equinoxes, you might see orbs of light in the cemetery hovering over the boy's unmarked grave. Because like, to violent death. Party forever, whatever.
Kathryn (43:10)
Hmm.
you
Gina (43:27)
There's also a more recent-ish story about two young men who heard the rumors about Stull Cemetery and they decided they wanted to go see what all the hype was about, so they decided to try spending the night there.
Kathryn (43:41)
like in the cemetery.
Gina (43:42)
Mm-hmm.
That's what they decided to do. Let's see how it pans out, So they drove to the cemetery together, and they left their car parked on the side of the road and walked up into the cemetery. Because the road, it's right next to it. It's like you can see one from the other. They trekked into the cemetery itself when suddenly an extremely violently strong wind started blowing, like gale force winds. Emergency got to get out of there. So they ran back to their car together.
Kathryn (43:46)
You
Mm-hmm.
Gina (44:11)
But when they got there, they saw that their car wasn't where they had left it. It was on the wrong side of the road, and it had been rotated 180 degrees in the complete opposite direction, as if to point them back the way they had come. Now, we could say the wind did this to the car, but there was no damage in the town. Nothing else had fallen down or gotten broken or anything or moved.
Kathryn (44:27)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
That's like, yeah, that'd be like a tornado strength wind, which I mean, I guess it's Kansas that's possible. But like you said, if there wasn't any other sign.
Gina (44:41)
Mm-hmm.
creeps me out the most is it's not even really a story. It's just like a thing that people say. It's about a staircase. There's a rumor that, again, on the Autumn and Spring equinoxes, a staircase appears inside of the old church that leads directly down into hell. And the rumors say that the people who have gone down it have never come back. And the reason this creeps me out so fucking bad is because it reminds me of the whole staircase in the woods thing.
Kathryn (45:13)
thought that's what you were gonna say. Yeah, those are scary.
Gina (45:15)
Yeah, fucking freaks me the shit out. ⁓
If you haven't heard of the staircase in the wood thing, basically it's this thing where you'll be out in the middle of the woods, like miles away from the nearest anything, and you'll just see a staircase. Like pristine, looks like it just got plucked out of a building and plopped right down into the forest. And there is now this like kind of quasi-famous Reddit story.
that came from a guy that said that he had been on a search and rescue team, or been a search and rescue officer, and that they would see shit like this, like these staircases all the time. And apparently when he was first starting, he asked his coworkers about it, and he was consistently told to never bring it up again. Like, we do not mention this. We're not allowed to talk about it. And that's just always really scared me. It's very nebulous. It's very vague. But a lot of people talk about it and the bad energy that you get from those staircases, and it just fucking freaks me out.
Kathryn (46:01)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (46:07)
So I'll link to the Reddit stories if you guys wanna have a read. I recommend it, but that scares me.
Kathryn (46:08)
Yeah.
I know stumbling upon this is a whole other rabbit hole but stumbling upon anything in the woods is very scary but there's something about a staircase like stairs are kind of you can kind of consider them like a version of like a liminal space
Gina (46:21)
Yeah.
Yeah, it's like an in-between space. Yeah, yeah.
Kathryn (46:35)
Yeah,
and that... I don't fuck around with that.
Gina (46:41)
No, bad vibes. But yes, so that freaks me out, even though it's just like one little staircase to hell, it scares me. ⁓ It's teeny tiny. Yeah. But there's also, in a very, very modern context, there's a story about when Ariana Grande went to visit Stull.
Kathryn (46:46)
Just one little teensy weensy staircase down to the underworld, yeah.
my god, I think I've heard of this.
Gina (47:02)
Yeah, you might have, yeah. So she stopped there during a tour in the early 2010s. She wasn't performing in Stull, but it was like somewhere on the way. So she stopped there. And she said that before she even got out of the car, she felt a quote, overwhelming feeling of negativity and she smelled sulfur. And she also saw, she saw a fly in the car, which is another sign of like a demonic presence. So she apparently refused to get out of the car.
Kathryn (47:10)
Yeah.
Yes.
Mm-hmm.
Gina (47:31)
but she opened the window and she said, quote, we apologize, we didn't mean to disrupt your peace. But before she left, she did snap a quick photo out of the window. And allegedly in this picture, you could see three distinct faces, like ghost faces. Actually, no, I take that back, demonic faces. She said they had like very demonic features. The day after.
Kathryn (47:47)
⁓ my gosh, I didn't know that. Yeah.
interesting.
Gina (47:56)
She tried to send this picture to her manager, but she got an error message that said, this file can't be sent, it's 666 megabytes.
Kathryn (48:07)
I did not know that. I knew about the fly and the sulfur. I didn't realize it was Stull. I just heard that she had been somewhere haunted. Ooh, that's spooky.
Gina (48:08)
Yeah.
I know. Yeah, so she wound up deleting it. So we don't actually have the picture now, but she's done interviews about this. You can go and read about them online. I mean, it's pretty much just what I said, but whatever. The Cemetery also made an appearance in the finale of season five of Supernatural, which we still need to start watching. Me neither. I haven't even started. Have you started it yet? Yeah, me neither.
Kathryn (48:20)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah.
I have not gotten to season five, I'm sorry.
Nope.
Whoops. Sorry, everyone.
Gina (48:42)
But yes, another Supernatural fact related to Stull. So Sam and Dean, the two protagonists, they're from Lawrence, Kansas, which is about 10 miles down the road. It's very close. And the creator of Supernatural said that this was intentional because of its proximity to Stull. So like that's.
Kathryn (48:59)
Well, and isn't that,
yeah, that's where the university is, I think, also, right? Am I thinking that? Okay, yeah.
Gina (49:03)
Yeah. Mm hmm. Yeah. Yeah, but they picked Lawrence because it was so close to Stull. Like it wouldn't have made sense to pick Stull, but they went close by.
Kathryn (49:08)
Yeah.
Right.
Right. OK. That's interesting.
Gina (49:14)
Yeah.
Yes. But if you are considering making the trek to Stull yourself, I might gently caution you to reconsider. The locals have really been through the fucking wringer with all of this That and also the cemetery is locked up and patrolled by police. So it's just not like the most tourist friendly area. Maybe skip this one. But
Kathryn (49:35)
Mm-hmm.
Gina (49:38)
whether Stull is really a gateway to hell or just a small community that got hit with unwanted publicity. It still holds an absolutely massive place in modern folklore and I personally look forward to discussing its rumors for many years to come. And that is my story.
Kathryn (49:56)
And that's all folks. that's interesting. I didn't know anything about Stull. Thank you for sharing. Usually I have strong responses to stories. This one I'm just like, the only one I have is, it's a bummer that I can't go there.
Gina (49:58)
And that's all.
Kathryn (50:16)
We can drive through on our way somewhere notable. I don't know where exactly we'd be driving to in Kansas that we'd. I don't know why we'd be driving to Lawrence, Kansas.
Gina (50:22)
Lawrence, Kansas.
Me neither.
If you are from the Lawrence, Kansas area and you know something cool to do, email us.
Kathryn (50:37)
Or if you've been to the Stull. Or I live in the Stull.
Gina (50:38)
Yeah, yeah.
my gosh, if you live in Stull iscreamyouscreampod@gmail.com please, high priority.
Kathryn (50:45)
There's gotta be someone there that's like, it's true, it's
Gina (50:51)
I don't know. I really don't know. It is... I don't know.
Kathryn (50:55)
I can't comprehend a town of 28 people. Even though I am very familiar with small town life, But like...
Any small town I've ever lived in has had more than 28 people.
Gina (51:10)
Yeah, like I think because I know it's not technically a town. It's most often referred to as a community. And I think I would have read one quote that called it barely even a hamlet.
Kathryn (51:15)
Right.
The fuck's a hamlet? I don't know what that is. OK.
Gina (51:25)
teeny tiny place, I don't know, just small.
Kathryn (51:28)
that's wild.
Gina (51:28)
Yeah.
But yes, I feel like I got the real Kathryn experience going through like 80s shit and digging it. Yeah, it was it was kind of cool.
Kathryn (51:34)
Yeah, that was a very,
that was a very Kathryn story. I appreciate, I appreciated being in the passenger seat for that one.
Gina (51:44)
Yeah, I have a new respect for you, my friend, because I'm used to stories where all the information we have is all the information we have, and it's hard to find new things about it. This was the opposite. There was way too much new suppositions to make.
Kathryn (51:47)
haha
Yeah.
Yeah, back half of would that be, 20th century is surprisingly wild ride. Yeah.
Gina (52:09)
There was too much going on. But
anyway, ⁓ do you have a scary on top for me?
Kathryn (52:15)
I have a scary on top that I'm very excited to share because it is something that you and I have not really discussed. And so I would like to get
your thoughts slash tell you the story because it has to do with aliens. I thought so. Yes. OK. We've never we've literally never discussed anything about aliens before. So before I do the scary on top, let's talk about aliens real quick. Thoughts, feels, belief. Like, where do you stand on like the alien discussion? OK.
Gina (52:29)
Okay.
Aliens, okay. Yes. Yes, we never talk about aliens. Okay. Yes
⁓
They're for sure fucking real. I think it would be
so narcissistic for humans to assume that we are the only quote intelligent life ever. But I also think that the definition of alien is really interesting because are we counting like is a biological organism like a cell, like a single cell, are we counting that as an alien? also that's besides the point. I think big old big actual aliens like the ones you think about.
When aliens are said, I think those exist. Some.
Kathryn (53:21)
Like the full on sci-fi spaceship UFO going to like come down and take over like you are like all on board with that.
Gina (53:24)
Yes.
I don't want to use the word gullible. I'm a believer. Like when people have alien abduction stories, I'm like, yeah, that's fucking true. I believe that that happened.
Kathryn (53:33)
Okay.
Okay, I love this discussion. We're not going to go super deep into it just for listeners. We will talk about aliens
So this is great. I love this the reason I bring this up is because I got an alien story from someone. So Phil and I were out to dinner a few weeks ago at this point with ⁓ his group of friends. They were celebrating a birthday. He has these two twin friends, so they.
you know, it was their birthday. So we were all out to dinner for it. of them were in from out of town. One of them was in from Atlanta. So we don't see him very often. And it was just one of those things where like we were at a steakhouse. was like wine was flowing. Conversation was just like, you know, and somehow some way he starts talking about aliens.
Gina (54:27)
Nice.
Hell yeah.
Kathryn (54:34)
Phil and I are like, all right, let's fucking go. Because one thing about me is I'm so good at asking people about their weird stories, but I'm very, very, very bad. I'm not used to asking for permission to talk about it on the podcast. So I'm always there to encourage the story. And Phil is on board to like swoop in and remind me to ask to share it. So he did this time. So I finally got emphatic permission to share Phil's friend Matt's story. So.
Gina (54:36)
Hahahaha
Aw.
Yay.
Kathryn (55:03)
One night, he and his girlfriend just go to bed like normal. I will say immediately interrupt myself, this is a two-part story. So they go to bed like normal. Nothing strange or weird or anything is happening. He's not particularly stressed about anything like he usually is, or any more than any normal human would be. Everyone's a little stressed all the time, but.
You know, nothing is notable. There is no reason that he would have any type of like particularly distressed sleep, basically. Falls asleep, everything is fine. In the middle of the night, he wakes up suddenly, with a jolt, he was just dead asleep and like all of a sudden he's up and he's uncontrollably sobbing. And it was basically
How did he describe it? It was basically like the most melancholic he's ever felt, just very deeply uncontrollably sad, but his conscious thought was like, what is this? Like, I'm fine. Like, what is this feeling? Like he has no idea where these feelings are coming from. They do not feel like his own.
it was like several minutes that he was just completely not okay. And after a while he kind of calmed down and he realized like, I did have a dream, but.
I don't like recognize what it was. I was in this place and he said it kind of looked like Earth, but he could tell it wasn't. And it was just this vast like wasteland type place. And said that...
he was, was his home that had been destroyed and there was nowhere for him to go because his home was gone. And he didn't understand what he was saying. You know what I mean? Like he was not thinking these words. They were just like kind of coming out of his mouth. So.
He was just kind of incoherent and they just chalked it up to like, okay, you had a weird dream and now you're just kind of babbling. Maybe you're still in the sleep state, whatever. They kind of just let it go. Few days or weeks or whatever later, I don't remember the exact time frame.
is watching some video on like YouTube or something like that. He's an alien guy. So he's watching some like High Strange Conference footage of some sort.
Gina (57:33)
Nice.
Kathryn (57:35)
And there, I'm not gonna go too deep into this because this is a whole conspiracy theory that I, like we will need to do a whole episode on it. Basically there's this comet or meteor or something. This is like actively happening right now as we're recording that's behaving very strangely and people are suspecting it is a UFO. And it's like a whole big government cover up
blah blah blah. I'm not gonna go into that. If anyone has additional information or opinions on this, send it to us. I scream, you scream, pod at gmail.com. I just, it's not part of the scary on top. So anyway, he's watching this discussion about this comet and people are talking about the whole UFO aspect and blah, blah, blah, blah. This woman in the audience of, you know, this conference.
Gina (57:59)
Hell yeah.
Kathryn (58:24)
like raises her hand, she has something to say. And she says that, you know, on the night that they were talking about this comet doing some weird ass shit, she went to bed like normal. Nothing was bothering her. She wasn't particularly stressed, but for some reason she woke up inconsolably crying and she had this like deep emotional feeling.
that her home had been destroyed and there was nowhere for her to go. He checks like whatever the date of whenever this thing was recorded and it happened the same night that he had the same exact experience. Like her experience happened on the same night that his did. And it was like
Gina (58:56)
you
my god.
Okay.
Kathryn (59:16)
this whole, was like whatever she said was exactly what he had been describing.
Gina (59:21)
I am concerned about this. ⁓ There's a little voice in my brain that's like, maybe they saw the aliens like showed them what they were going to do to Earth, which I don't love. I don't love that.
Kathryn (59:25)
Yeah.
Well, OK, that's one theory. Another theory. what I don't remember what he said he thought it was, but I think he is in the camp of like he was seeing the aliens home and now they're trying to find somewhere else. That was like the vibe of what he was saying. Yeah.
Gina (59:50)
I like that one more. I like that more. Yep. Yeah.
It's the earth centric brain. I'm being specious. I am. I should be more inclusive.
Kathryn (1:00:01)
Yes, yes, you are.
It's true, it's true. We all should be. Can you hear that motorcycle? I'm sorry. I'm so sorry.
Gina (1:00:12)
It's so loud.
I know you're not driving it. It'd cool if you were though. Neither did I, because I failed my test.
Kathryn (1:00:16)
Yeah, I never got my license.
At least you have an excuse. I was just lazy. Yeah. Fun fact, everyone. Gina and I took motorcycle riding lessons, and I just did it for the bit and never actually got my license despite the fact that I was legally allowed to. Anyway, so part two. we're like, he tell, I could save it for another time. We're running kind of long. Well, OK. OK. OK. So.
Gina (1:00:25)
It's all right. I have a good story. We both have a good story.
We did.
Anywho. Okay. I forgot this had a second part. No, tell me.
Kathryn (1:00:52)
It's at this point that he's like, his girlfriend has like left the chat. She's onto a different conversation and Phil and I are sitting there like, my God, what happened next? And so he kind of like vibe checks like, are you guys still with me? Like I've been talking about aliens for a long time. He starts talking about pyramids and stuff for a little bit. I'm not going to go into all of everything he was talking about, but so.
Then, like, Phil took the opportunity and is asking follow-up questions. And so this guy's like, all right, cool, they're still with me. I got another story for you. think this was a little while before the story he had previously said. I think that was like a few years ago.
It happened again while he was asleep, as most spooky things tend to do, but unlike the first story, he was sleeping super deeply. Like, it was like a deep, deep, deep, deep sleep, and he woke up on his stomach.
laying like completely straight as a board like face down like straight back arms by his side like flat on his stomach and right away he was like this is weird I've never slept in this position ever
you know, when you wake up in a strange way, you know, your sleep habits and he was right off the bat. Like, this is not it. So
he felt like his body was like, like he had run a marathon and then woke up. Like he was very tired physically, but not emotionally, basically. Later in that day, he noticed that there were five little dots on his lower back in like a perfect
Gina (1:02:13)
Okay.
Kathryn (1:02:33)
going to bring back the pyramid discussion but it was like one two three on the bottom all perfectly spaced and then at the top one two and
You know, he tried to kind of explain it like, okay, maybe they're bed bug bites. You know, they typically do clusters. Like if you get a bed bug bite, they're usually in a line, but they weren't raised. They didn't itch. And they were all like, like if you measured them, they were all like two, a T, like 100 % perfectly aligned. And it never got worse.
didn't look like a rash. looked like something had happened to him. It looked like, gonna describe it like almost like an old acne scar, but it was perfectly round. It was perfectly like there was a perfect circle, but it was that kind of texture where it's not raised. It's just like a kind of a dark red spot, but there was no fading or anything. And it got to the point where he said that like,
Gina (1:03:19)
Mm-hmm.
Kathryn (1:03:36)
A lot of people pointed it out. he said there were several times he was like at the pool or something and people would be like, what the fuck is that? almost looked like, this feels like a weird thing to compare it to, but it almost looked like a brand. Like it was like, it looked like something had like stamped him.
Gina (1:03:51)
Yeah.
Kathryn (1:03:54)
And there's not much to this one. He just made the alien connection real quick because he was like, I was very clearly experimented on. And that was where they went in to my body. But he said it took like months and months and months for the marks to fade.
Gina (1:04:06)
Yep.
And that's very interesting. That's notable placement too, because that would give access to your spinal cord.
Kathryn (1:04:14)
I know.
Yes, it would. And with the way he was laying, he was like, I couldn't have been like laying on top of something because he was like flat on his face.
Gina (1:04:27)
Nobody sleeps like that.
Kathryn (1:04:29)
Yeah.
Gina (1:04:30)
Okay.
Kathryn (1:04:31)
It's
like not a normal you toss and turn and then you just end up perfectly. Usually you're like.
Gina (1:04:36)
I wonder if something similar happened to the other, like the woman who had a similar experience.
Kathryn (1:04:40)
I know,
I know, I thought that too.
I wonder if the people who have alien experiences, if there's something that they physically or emotionally all have in common, you know what I mean? Besides just experiences, I wonder if there's like a thing that makes you more agreeable to experimentation. I don't know.
Gina (1:04:52)
Mm-hmm. Agreed.
don't know, because I guess.
Kathryn (1:05:03)
Because I've never had
anything even remotely alien related. Like I've never even, I saw one weird thing in the sky one time, but I'm pretty sure it was just a meteor.
Gina (1:05:13)
I don't think I've ever had an alien-y experience either.
Kathryn (1:05:15)
Yeah.
Anyway.
Gina (1:05:16)
I don't
know. know there has to be theories about that online though. I guarantee it. Like, people have written shit about this. I'm gonna read up on it.
Kathryn (1:05:23)
Yeah, you should check because it was at this point we were like people were ready to go and we were just still sitting there talking about aliens. So there wasn't really time to like do follow ups and we didn't go to the second location. They were going out after dinner and we went home. So I wasn't able to ask follow ups, but yeah, possible alien abduction.
Gina (1:05:30)
⁓
We gotta go to Atlanta.
I wanna do an alien episode so bad.
Kathryn (1:05:49)
We will, don't worry.
Gina (1:05:50)
Well, if anyone listening to this has an alien story, I feel like yes, please. iscreamyouscreampod@gmail.com please. I would love to read that.
Kathryn (1:05:54)
my God, let us know, please. I'm begging you.
Because we don't get, like, I don't, this was the first time anyone had ever told me, like, a personal experience with it. And I was like, the hell? No. Yeah. Well, so that's your homework. Everyone.
Gina (1:06:03)
No.
I've never heard. I've never gotten like a first-hand alien story before. I would love to receive one.
Kathryn (1:06:19)
find someone with an alien story if you don't have one for yourself and then send it to us. ⁓ In the meantime, feel free to join our Patreon. We will have lots of bonus stuff and the more stories you send us, the more bonuses we will have in Patreon. So anything you can send us, please feel free. Information is always going to be in the show notes. Yeah, until next time, spoons. Keep it cool.
Gina (1:06:47)
Keep it Creepy!
