The Monster Missive: Sn. 21 Ep. 9 & Sn. 21 Ep. 10 (Patreon)

Our weekly newsletter, brought to you by MAU team members, Delainey Bowers and Conor Ryan, every Friday.

-Show Notes Spotlight-

A more in-depth look at some of the research covered in this week's Tuesday and Thursday episodes.

Tuesday’s episode was all about putting the pedal to the metal. Although we mostly travel around using hover boards that Derek whipped up in his spare time, sometimes it’s nice to hear about all of you that still drive cars and trucks. In fact, it’s inspired us so much that here at the HQ we’ve been begging Derek to buy a decommissioned Wienermobile and wrap it with the MAU logo, but so far he’s not going for it. Apparently there’s “overhead” and “expenses” that he has to worry about, but really we think he’s just not seeing the vision. Plus, then we could take fun field trips down some of the most haunted roads in the world! Here are just a few that would be on the top of our list to cruise down, as compiled by Sixt,

Karak Highway, Malaysia 

Karak Highway in Malaysia is considered one of the most haunted highways in the world, with 19,000 searches about its haunting stories and paranormal activity, particularly at night. Legends include sightings of a young schoolboy searching for his mother after an accident and a mysterious yellow Volkswagen Beetle that appears in front of other cars. There are also reports of a woman standing by the roadside.Cuba Road, IllinoisCuba Road in Illinois is infamous for its paranormal activity, especially near White Cemetery. Drivers report seeing ghostly orbs, phantom cars chasing them, and a lantern-carrying woman who vanishes when approached. There are also tales of a burned-down house that appears and disappears at night. The eerie atmosphere and these sightings have made Cuba Road a popular spot for those seeking a spooky drive.

Pluckley Village, United Kingdom

Pluckley Village in the United Kingdom, often called the most haunted village in England, has drawn over 93,000 searches from ghost hunters and curious travelers alike. The village is said to be home to at least twelve restless spirits, including the Watercress Woman who haunts a bridge, the ghostly Highwayman seen lurking near trees, and a schoolmaster who wanders the streets. Locals and visitors have reported eerie footsteps, sudden cold spots, and shadowy figures disappearing into the mist. With its centuries-old buildings and quiet, winding lanes, Pluckley’s charm is matched only by its chilling reputation.?They also put together this handy infographic below for whenever you are planning your next road trip! And if you happen to see an especially creepy looking Wienermobile pass you going 120 MPH in the left lane…it wasn’t us!

On Thursday’s episode, RJ was kind enough to tip us off that if you head on over to Owyhee County, ID in October then you just might be able to see some strange lights in the sky. 

As far as less paranormal explanations go - Mountain Home Air Force Base is located in Elmore County, which is about 100 miles from our caller. According to Wikipedia, “The base's primary mission is to provide combat airpower and support for worldwide contingency operations.” MHAFB is home to the 366th Fighter Wing, which comprises a number of tactical air command fighter squadrons and “remains one of the most significant Air Combat Command units in the United States.”

Additionally, both the Saylor Creek Bombing Range and Juniper Butte Range are located within the same vicinity and “provide a premier environment for the U.S. Air Force and allied forces to conduct realistic combat and live-fire training.”

And in case you’ve never seen visuals of them before, some types of training look pretty strange, especially if you’re watching from a distance with no context for what’s happening. Here is a video from Media Magik Entertainment that provides an on-the-ground look at what a close air support drill looks like. 

However, our caller also mentioned Jordan Valley, which is actually right across the border in Oregon. We were able to dig up a sighting from that area and while it didn’t take place in October, it did mention multiple lights. From NUFORC Sighting 36004,

“I am a farmer from Idaho and was driving a semi-truck north bound on hwy 95 about two miles out of the small town of Jordan Valley, Oregon…I saw what looked like stars appearing far in the distance, about four of them and then it looked like they were flashing on and off. 

All at once the bright white lights shut off and then re-appeared over the town which was about two miles ahead of me. Four to five of the lights flashed off and on and were about 300 to 400 feet off of the ground. Suddenly about fifteen of them appeared in two separate rows with the lower row about 300 feet over the town and the second row about 400 ft. They stopped flashing and they all just lit up at the same time. I got within less than a mile of them and they all shut off at once and disappeared.”

Sounds like totally normal stars to us! 

Marie shared a story on Thursday’s episode about an old clock her grandmother owned that stopped on five separate occasions when a family member died at their time of death. First of all, there is a funerary tradition of manually stopping a clock at the time of a person’s death, so would it not make sense that a loved one might try to communicate their own demise in that way? This article from The National Association of Watch & Clock Collectors has some more info on the practice,

“The practices of stopping a clock at the time of death or of having a clock set to show it are, after all, common enough across cultures. As are the beliefs that clocks can, or do stop at the time of death.

Or, the causal inverse, that a clock stopping is an omen of death. Or that in some spooky, sympathetic way, a clock stopping, or being stopped, can lead to, or even cause, a death. The man stops never to go again when the old clock dies.

The practice of stopping a clock at the time of death (or of setting one to show it) is widespread enough for it to be commonly referred to in standard textbooks on the study of folklore.”

While the clock in our caller’s story was free-standing, one user on the Charles Fort Institute forum offered their conjecture as to why certain wristwatches might be associated with this phenomenon,

“I always suspected that [this bit of folklore] stemmed from self-winding watches, where the spring in the watch was wound via the swinging motion of one’s arm. 

Since the spring would stop being wound upon death, I figured that it would be easy to extrapolate the approximate time of death based on when the watch’s hands stopped moving. It’s easy to see how this could ‘become’ the watch-stopping-on-one’s-death-thing.”

But how long have cartoonish villains been saying things like “Your time’s running out, buster!” while tying someone to a railroad track? Well, this handy article from The Smithsonian partially answers that,

“Instead of a direct, explicit reference to death, such as the skull or skeleton, the clock was used to evoke the mortal condition of mankind and time running out. The stopped clock flower frame was most suitable for men in the prime of life. This design was also based on the ritual of stopping the clocks when a person dies. The clock would then be restarted after the burial. This custom continued well into the twentieth century and is still practiced by some today.”

There are also a few legends surrounding clocks stopping after the passing of someone famous. As is evidenced by the clipping below from Ripley’s Giant Book of Believe It or Not (1987), supposedly King Louis XIV had a clock that stopped at the time of his death - although this hasn’t been confirmed by any historical documents.

There’s also the story of Thomas Edison’s death, as relayed by a different user on the Charles Fort Institute forum,

“...it is true that the Edison anecdote is perhaps the most widely cited historical example of a clock stopping at the time of a person's death. Some accounts claim the ornate wall clock in Edison's personal library / study stopped at the exact time of his death; others claim it was 3 minutes thereafter.

Here's a commemorative print from 1933 showing the clock. It states the clock stopped 3 minutes after Edison's death and the hands were tacked in place to memorialize the event.”

And you see, listeners, that is why we simply don’t keep any clocks at our homes or at our HQ. Sure, sometimes it means we deliver things a little late, but if a clock doesn’t stop near us then clearly we’ll never die!

We heard a terrifying call from Mike on Thursday’s episode about a small, pale entity sneaking up on the caller while he was camping and then unsheathing his camping knife before running away. That story took place in Walnut Canyon, which is about 180 miles from the infamous Stardust Ranch in Rainbow Valley, AZ. Which, according to Motech, is “The Ranch with a Serious Alien Problem.” 

That video provides a solid overview of all the high strangeness that has occurred there over the decades if you’re looking to get acquainted with the ranch. A number of years ago the ranch went up for sale and Realtor.com even wrote an article about it, in which they state,

“...on the property are two portals that Edmonds believes lead to another dimension and through which aliens travel. One is located in the back of the property and the other is in the living room fireplace. He claims to have killed 18 aliens with a samurai sword that he keeps in the living room.”

So maybe Mike’s creature was just another alien trying to seek some revenge for John’s vicious attacks on the invading aliens a few hundred miles away? And while some of us on the team are a little…skeptical about this story, others here realize that it only makes complete sense that there would be a portal to another dimension in the living room fireplace. That is a common feature in any home!

And despite those special amenities, John did not in fact get the $5 million he was asking for the ranch back in 2017. Instead, it eventually went to a foreclosure auction where some non-believers picked it up for a cool $680,000. Apparently the new owners haven’t experienced anything out of the ordinary, so it seems like John might have succeeded in fighting off the aliens after all.

We don’t know about you, callers, but we personally love taking an afternoon stroll over to our local cemetery. That’s exactly what Emily did according to her call on Thursday’s episode, except she somehow lost about six hours of time in the process. While this sometimes happens to Delainey because she gets so immersed into reciting Edgar Allen Poe poems to the gravestones, our caller had no explanation for where that time went. One famous case involving twisting time among tombstones is The Brompton Cemetery Time Machine, as explained by European Cemeteries Route,

“Hannah Courtoy, a wealthy Victorian maid-turned-millionaire, and her two daughters, Elizabeth and Mary-Ann, are interred in a mausoleum in Brompton Cemetery near West London. The mausoleum is the largest structure in the entire cemetery and is covered in ancient Egyptian iconography, namely hieroglyphics. According to legend, there are no records of the mausoleum ever being built and the key that opens the imposing bronze door has never been found. 

The mausoleum, which was completed in 1853,  was designed by two friends of Hannah’s, Joseph Bonomi, a well-known and well-respected Egyptologist, and Samuel Alfred Warner, an “inventor” of naval weapons (but mostly a charlatan). The story goes that Bonomi, in his research of sacred ancient Egyptian texts, discovered the secret to time travel, and with Warner’s engineering expertise, the men constructed a time machine disguised as a mausoleum. Their belief was that the burial site, in an unsuspecting location, would allow them the peace and quiet to travel as freely as possible. “

We personally think that Bonomi and Warner sounded a little too cocky with their plan, so we’ve taken the liberty of supergluing the door to the mausoleum shut. Hope they time travel with an oxy-acetylene torch to cut themselves out!

-Here There Be Headlines-

A round-up of bizarre, curious, head-scratching news stories that leave you saying "huh."

Well, it’s time for us to start training for next year’s cheese rolling competition! It’s the only way we’re going to be able to splurge on cheese around the HQ for a while after we took out that huge business loan for the Wienermobile without Derek knowing. But hey, we all have to make sacrifices! Here are just a few strange stories to keep you satisfied until next week - keep it spooky!

Steven Spielberg: Confirmed believer in 👽👽👽

Bigfoot: Official lighthouse keeper

Cheese-rolling: As gouda as it gets

The Vegetable Lamb of Tartary: An animal sprouted from the earth

Haunted Historical Headline