Heart Starts Pounding: Horrors, Hauntings, and Mysteries - Supernatural Survival: Mysterious Near Death Encounters

Episode Date: May 25, 2023

From explorer Ernest Shackleton crossing the Antarctic, to famed aviator Charles Lindbergh, many famous stories of survival have included a supernatural being come to be known as The Third Man. Who is this presence that gives guidance and encouragement in extreme survival situations? Subscribe on Patreon for more long form content, including exclusive episodes, and to become a member of our Rogue Detecting Society. Follow on Tik Tok and Instagram for a daily dose of horror. Heart Starts Pounding is written and produced by Kaelyn Moore.  Music from Artlist Shownotes: www.heartstartspounding.com/episodes/thirdman

This episode features stories of shootings, 9-11, and near-death experiences. It may be distressing to some listeners. Listener discretion is advised. Los Angeles-based artist, Coltie, was at a New Year's Eve party in Old Town Sacramento years ago when this story starts. He was people watching as the streets and shops filled with bustling crowds underneath twinkling lights. Guests ranged from parents with children to couples looking to get tattoos next door to intoxicated guests lining up for pizza. It felt like the whole community was there.

There was an excited buzz to the air, and according to Coldie, he never suspected anything out of the ordinary was going to happen that night, and that's when the shooting started. At first, he thinks it's a kid hitting a stop sign, but when he sees a mom pick up her child and start running, he knows it's much more serious, and soon other parents follow suit. He spins around looking for something to hide behind as the shots are getting louder, whoever is doing this is getting closer. The only cover he sees is a wooden trash can.

It doesn't offer much protection, but it's at least something, and there's no time to think twice. Just as he crouches down to hide, he hears a voice as clear as day scream, run downstairs now. But the voice doesn't come from anyone near him. It comes from inside of him. It's like someone is in his head screaming orders at him.

He doesn't even take a second to think about it. He just moves. Coldie grabs his roommate who is hiding near him and they run, completely uncovered towards the stairs. The whole time they're worried they're going to get shot, but the voice inside of Coldie is loud and it's telling him to go. They make it downstairs unharmed and see there's other people huddled down there, like a grandmother and her grandchildren.

And together, they all stand there in silence, listening and terror as the gunshots echo on the floor above them. But then, as fast as it started, it was over. The cops arrived and they were eventually safe to leave. But on the way out, he hears a girl crying, telling someone that a man was shot inside the building. The police asked her where this man was.

He was crouching behind a wooden trash can, she says. Coldie's heart drops. She was referring to the same wooden trash can that Col dee had been hiding behind just seconds before. What unfolded that night was there was a shooting at the bar next door and the gunman fled the scene and opened fire into the area that Col dee and his roommate were hiding in. It wasn't targeted, it was completely random, but one of the people killed was standing in the place that the voice had told Col dee to flee from. I heard Col dee tell the story at an art gallery and it sent shivers down my spine. He called the voice his intuition, but many people have another theory

as to what it was. What if I told you that there are many documented accounts of people in life-threatening situations being saved by other people that only they can see in here? I'm not talking about a gut feeling you get when something is wrong. I'm talking about a voice or presence of an invisible person, clear as day, telling you how to survive. This phenomenon is so popular that there's a term dedicated to it. Third-man factor. Today, I want to tell you some of these stories, because they're so out of this world, you have to hear them to believe them. You have to hear them to believe them.

It's that feeling. When the energy and the room shifts, when the air gets sucked out of a moment, and everything starts to feel wrong, it's the instinct between fight or flight. When your brain is trying to make sense of what it's saying, it's when your heart starts pounding. Welcome to Heart Starts Founding, a podcast of horrors, hauntings, and mysteries. I'm your host, Kaelin Moore. This is a community for people who love to follow their dark curiosity wherever it leads them.

You can follow the podcast on Instagram and TikTok at Heart Starts Founding for daily doses of content. If you'd like to get even deeper into the community, I have a Patreon full of archived episodes and bonus content. Thank you to Chris, Amanda M. Justin, Ali, Laura, Kara, Haley, Amanda F. Steve and Britta, Christopher, Alison, Vanessa, Jamie, Vanessa Jamie Aaron Lauren and Corey for already being there. You guys rock. What we're talking about today has long been cited by people as proof of guardian angels. People and extreme, often life threatening situations are sometimes visited by a presence that

helps them survive. So it's no wonder that many believe this is an angel watching over them. Those that are less religious, however, described it as, quote, a transfusion of energy, encouragement, an instinctual wisdom from a seemingly external source. But almost everyone who has experienced this phenomenon agrees that it feels otherworldly, supernatural, if you will. Most of the stories I'm going to share with you today come from John Geiger's book, The Third Man Factor, Surviving the Impossible. Let's dive in. So a few months ago, the following story was posted by Reddit user RocketKT69. They wrote,

I was in a really terrible car accident a few years ago, and I was stuck in the car. They had to cut me out. During it, I came to, and there was a woman who had climbed into the rear seat behind me, and was holding my shoulders, telling me I was going to be okay, and that help was coming. I thought she stayed with me until I blacked out and woke up to a fireman cutting the door off and pulling me out. The fireman, paramedics, and my mother who had gotten there quickly, all said there was

no woman at all. The traffic had gone around me and no one had stopped because the fire department was only a few blocks down the road. I can still hear her voice. I know she was touching me, but no one saw her. Freaks me out still. When I first read this, I thought, okay, in a situation like that, you're running on a adrenaline,

maybe you have some blood loss. Hallucinating seems like something that could reasonably happen. But this comment was flooded with people who had all experienced something eerily similar, like this person, who wrote, quote, I had a very similar experience. Terrible car accident had to be cut out, came to, and a woman was there comforting me. But she didn't sit in the car with me.

She was outside the car, but sat next to me and told me help was coming, and everything would be OK. 20 years later, and her calming presence is still so vivid to me. And then another comment read, quote, holy crap, literally the exact same thing vivid to me. And then another comment read, quote, holy crap, literally the exact same thing happened to me. I was in a terrible car accident, a tree fell on and crushed the car I was driving. And as I was coming to, there was a woman kneeling outside the car, holding my hand and

telling me everything was okay and I was going to be okay. The next thing I knew, a cop was holding up the roof of the car with one hand, holding my arm with the other, and telling me he was going to pull me out on three as someone cut through the side of the car. I don't know who that woman was or where she went, or if she was even there, but I'll never forget her. As you said, quote, calming presence, I totally believed everything would be okay because of her.

What these people are describing is known as the third man factor, or technically in this case, the third woman factor. I was shocked learning about this phenomenon because I had never heard of it before, but the more I looked into it, the more stories I found from people who had been visited by a ghostly presence in a time of crisis. This phenomenon has been documented throughout history and has even impacted some very well-known historical events that you may not even realize. Take Charles Lindbergh, for example. Lindbergh was a famous aviator known for being the first to fly non-stop from New York to Paris. A flight that took, can you believe this, 33 hours in 1927.

It was actually on this very famous flight where Charles reported that he experienced something supernatural. Lindbergh was just 25 years old when he attempted to fly solo to Paris in an aircraft called the Spirit of St. Louis. Spirit of St. Louis was a tiny monoplane that could only go 133 miles per hour and cruise at a maximum of 16,000 feet. It was so tiny that Lindbergh couldn't even stretch his legs out in the plane, yet he wanted to make the two-day one-night journey across the Atlantic in it. The night before the flight, Lindbergh could hardly sleep. He was restless, and it was reported that

he only laid down for a few hours max. He had to be up early anyways. The day of his flight, he took off from New York around 8 a.m., but within a few hours of being in the air, he began to feel extremely tired. He tried to shake it off. Flying was a relatively new invention. It wasn't like there would be airports along the way that he could land in if he needed to rest. Plus, stopping would have ruined the entire point

of the flight, which was to do the whole trip in one go. At one point, in a desperate attempt to beat the exhaustion, Lindbergh descended to about 10 feet above the Atlantic Ocean to break up the monotony of flying over open water with no horizon in sight. He was so close to the waves that he could feel the ocean spray on his face, coming in through the gaps in the side of the plane. But soon clouds rolled in, and Charles was surrounded by a soft gray on all sides, nothing

but the lull of the gentle engine and the rolling waves to keep him company. It was then that Charles knew he was going to fall asleep. But Lindbergh also knew that sleep meant death. He would either A, crash the plane right into the water and sink to the ocean floor, or B be drift off course. Okay, so that doesn't sound as big of a deal, but all things considered, navigation was not Lindbergh's strongest suit. I know, you would think someone who was jet-setting on the most important flight of his time

would have some navigation equipment on him, but he didn't. He hadn't brought any radio equipment to help him navigate because he found it heavy and unreliable, and he wasn't good enough at navigating with the sun and stars to rely on those. So he had to pay immense attention to his location at all times. If he drifted off course, he was not getting back on. On top of all of this, the soft grey clouds bloomed into an ominous, all-encompassing

fog. His wings started icing from being coated in ocean spray. The panic of all of this was not offsetting the exhaustion though. But right when he felt his most exhausted, about 22 hours into the flight. Charles felt the hair on the back of his neck stand up, and he felt as if someone was standing behind him. He said, quote, the fuselage behind me becomes filled with ghostly presences, vaguely outline forms, transparent, moving, writing, weightless with me in the plane. I feel no surprise at their coming, there's no suddenness to their appearance.

Without turning my head, I see them as clearly as though in my normal field division. Ensure this does sound like intense sleep deprivation, which can cause hallucinations, but in this dire moment, the ghostly presences start helping him navigate. He said they were, quote, conversing and advising on my flight, discussing problems of my navigation, reassuring me, giving me messages of importance, unattainable and ordinary life. Charles had assumed that by now he was at least 50 miles off course. Later that day though, he looked down and saw a fishing boat in the water, meaning he was close to land.

In that moment, he said the feeling of tiredness disappeared, and with it, the presence of the phantom co-pilots. Charles made it to land to see that he was barely three miles off course. The advice he had been given was correct, and he safely made it to the city, circling around the Eiffel Tower a few times before landing in front of a cheering crowd of 150,000 people. A book written shortly afterwards about the historic flight had no mention of Lindbergh's experience with the presences. written shortly afterwards about the historic flight had no mention of Lindbergh's experience

with the presences. He actually didn't speak publicly about what he felt on that flight for nearly 30 years. He was nervous he would sound crazy. However, he eventually wrote in the Saturday evening post on June 6, 1953 that quote, I've never believed in operations. But how can I explain the forms I carried with me through so many hours of this day? Transparent forms in human outline, voices that spoke with authority and clearness. Some people will hear that story and still think that it was just sleep deprivation. But let me ask you this. When has sleep deprivation actually helped someone

operate heavy machinery? Lindbergh and his sleep deprived state thought he was much more off track, but the advice from the apparitions put him back on track. So maybe this is some sort of intuition proxy that's only visible when our bodies are pushed to the extreme. Scientists looking into this phenomenon have some theories

that this may be a miswiring in our brain sense of self. Typically, our brain does a good job of knowing where our body is situated at all times. Without looking at your leg, you can tell that it's under your seat touching the floor. But every now and then, your brain can misfire and you can think there is another presence there when it's really your own body that your brain is measuring. An example of this would be a 41 year old man that's referred

to as pH in a study. pH was admitted to a hospital with dizziness, fatigue, and seizures. One night after being admitted, he awoke in the hospital, feeling like his body had been split into three parts. He could feel his left side, which felt normal, his right side, which he said felt bizarrely detached, and then, just beyond his right side, he could feel the presence of another being. This felt like a mirror of pH because anytime he moved, the figure would move in the exact same way, and pH couldn't get a good look at the presence because when he would turn his head, so would the being.

Eventually, doctors were able to figure out what was causing this sensation. pH had a rather aggressive tumor on the left side of his brain that was damaging the posterior insula and the temporal parietal junction. These areas of the brain orient where your body is. If they're damaged, where you are and where your brain thinks you are will be off, hence PH thinking that he was laying next to himself. You probably don't have this. I just have to say that because anytime I hear any medical diagnosis, I assume I have that thing and already the right side of my body is starting to feel weird just reading this story out loud to you, but this

specific thing is pretty rare. This gave doctors great insight into why people feel a presence when no one is there. I'm not suggesting that everyone who experiences the third man factor also happens to have an aggressive brain tumor at the same time that their near-death experience happened, but there might be something happening to this same part of our brain in extreme survival situations. Sure, maybe. But that still leaves us with so many questions. Why doesn't this same mechanism happen to everyone in these situations? And wouldn't each person's experience with their presence be something that only they experienced

because it was their brain making the hallucination? I wanna tell you a story now where three people all experienced the exact same thing. So either their brains all played the exact same trick on them at the exact same time, or they're really was something there. This is the story of Ernest Shackleton, the first wildly reported case that actually led to the naming of the Third Man factor. In 1914, explorer Ernest Shackleton set out to do something that had never been done before.

He wanted to cross the entirety of Antarctica on foot. To do this, he recruited 58 men and two ships and planned to sail them to Antarctica from the British Isle of South Georgia, a small island east of the southernmost tip of South America. Shackleton's plan sounds far-fetched even by today's standards, but this was the golden age of exploration. He had to do something to make a name for himself.

So the plan was he was going to sail two boats down to Antarctica and park one on either side of the continent. Shackleton's boat, the endurance, would drop off half of the men who would start walking on foot across 2,500 miles of freezing icy tundra. The other boat, the Aurora, would park it on the other side of the continent with food and fuel for months, waiting for the first group to make it across. Listen, I respect that everyone is on their own journey, but this sounds terrible. Anyways, trouble struck almost immediately upon the endurance arriving to the coast of Antarctica.

The ship left South Georgia Island on December 5th and by January 19th, 1915, while it was approaching the Antarctic coast, the endurance completely froze in place. But what do you do when your wooden ship freezes in place thousands of miles away from civilization? You wait for the ice to thaw, which in this case didn't happen until September of that year, so they were stuck on the ship in place waiting for 9 months. And finally, when conditions did improve, the pressure that the ice had put on the ship's hull had been released, and in its place, were holes that the newly melted ice could fill with water.

By November, the crew was on a floating piece of ice just northeast of the empty vastness of Antarctica, watching their ship, their vessel home, sink beneath the waves. Ernest ordered his crew into the lifeboats they saved from the endurance. The goal now was just to get back home safely, and their supplies were quickly dwindling. It still took Shackleton and his men a few months to leave the block of ice they were floating on. I know. Ernest, let's see some hustle, my guy.

But he was hoping that the ice would float them as close to Elephant Island, another remote island just off the tip of Antarctica as possible. By the cruise calculations, Elephant Island, a small island of just rock, no people, was now the closest bit of solid ground to them. Finally, just over a year after they departed, Shackleton suspects that they've floated within 30 miles of Elephant Island, so the 28 men load up and set sail. But after the first full day, they recalculate and find that they've been dragged severely off course by the current. It was now going to take another 7 days

to get to Elephant Island, and there wasn't even going to be anything there for them. They already hadn't touched the Earth in over a year, and the journey ahead kept looking longer and longer. But finally, they reached Elephant Island after 497 days from their initial departure. And if you thought it was dire before, oh, you just wait. Shackleton figured they would stay on the island through the winter and wait for a wailing ship in spring to come save them, but when he looks at their supplies he realizes they'll for sure be dead by then. He was going to have to

figure out how to get help fast. He decides that desperate times call for desperate measures, and he gathers all of the men around to declare that he and five other men are going to make the 800-mile journey to South Georgia Island to get help. In just a lifeboat. The other men in the crew were shocked. The ones that had the energy to protest did so. Some even called to just let them die.

They were exhausted and there was no hope. But that wasn't Shackleton's nature. No, to Shackleton, there wasn't any feat that the human spirit couldn't overcome. If a path ahead was reckless, he was determined to find a way home. And now, he was going to save these men. I think it's also a fun time here to just remind everyone that this man got everyone into this mess in the first place, just in case we forgot. The fearless leader and the five men he recruited journeyed for 17 days against the raging sea. By day three, all of them were

exhibiting signs of frostbite, and a keg of fresh water they had brought to drink from had fallen overboard. Ice clung so hard to the sides of the boat that it was constantly at risk of capsizing. At one point, Shackleton called to the men. It's clearing boys. He saw a break in the weather, a small line of white in the distance, contrasted against a sea and sky of dark gray. But horror filled his heart when he realized it was not the sky. The line of white was actually the cresting of a rogue wave barreling towards them. The men somehow managed to stay afloat,

but were completely drenched, by the wave. Finally, almost three weeks on the open sea, they hit land. The men fell to their knees and tried to regain the feeling in their numb dick stromities. They had made it to the island, but the British Whaling Station they had set out to find was on the other side of the island, 24 miles away. Shackleton gave his men time to hydrate from a freshwater stream on the island and feast on albatross chicks, but he couldn't stop thinking about the 22 other men that he had left behind. The ones that were counting on him to see their loved ones again, and if they didn't,

it would be all his fault. On May 19th, 1916, yes, we are in 1916 now, a year and a half after they left South Georgia Island for the first time. But on May 19th, 1916, Shackleton and two of the men, Frank Worsley, who was the captain of the endurance, and Tom Kreen, the second officer, set out to get to the other side of the island on foot. All they had on them for tools was 15 feet of rope and one small axe. But they were off. Across ice ridges and frozen tundra, trekking and freezing conditions throughout the night

and unlimited visibility fog. At one point, the three men got to an ice ridge that they couldn't see the bottom of. It was a long ice luge that went into an abyss, but a dark, enveloping fog was powering towards them, and there was no way for them to get around this ice. So they made the decision to jump, fearless, into the dark nothing. For 30 seconds, it was extreme speed and pitch black. But then, 300 yards later, they reached the end and were out on the other side of the

ridge. The men dusted the snow off of themselves and trekked on. No time to even process how that could have been the end of the entire rescue mission, as well as the lives of all of their men. Shackleton could feel that the three men were on the brink of death. On May 20th, at about 5 in the morning, they stopped to take a quick rest. Worsely and Creene fell asleep within minutes, but their leader stayed awake. He knew to fall asleep was to die.

So he waited five minutes and then woke the two men. They asked how long they had been asleep for. Thirty minutes, he replied. This simple trick made the men feel rested and more energized from their nap. And so, they forged on. It was here, on the brink of death, years into a fruitless mission, that Shackleton started getting the feeling that there was another man on this journey with the three of them. While the men were trekking across the Tundra, there was an unmistakable other presence with

them. He could tell this wasn't the presence of another one of his crew, because there was just something strangely divine about the feeling, almost as if it were an invisible string pulling them in the right direction, helping them. And now in a half after the nap, the men heard the familiar sound of a train whistle. They had made it. Not only had the three of them survived, but all 22 men that were left behind on Elephant Island, as well as the two men on the other side of South Georgia Island were rescued. It wasn't until three weeks later that Worsley approached

Shackleton nervously and asked if he ever felt there was another man with them on their journey. Worsley too had felt the fourth man's divine presence but didn't know what to make of it. And then Creeen came forward to confess the same thing. All three men felt as if they were not alone on the trek. They all had experienced the same exact feeling of the divine presence. The story became so famous that T.S. Eliot referenced it in his poem The Waste Land. The reason this phenomenon went on to be called

the third man is because T.S. Eliot actually forgot that there were three people in Shackleton's group and that it was technically the fourth man that they felt. So the presence was forever memorialized in his poem as the third man. Some scientists believe that the presence is only visible to those with a strong will to live. This is why these presences appear to some people in life or death situations, but not everyone. We know Shackleton had a strong will to live, and perhaps he smartly chose the two other men on his expedition that shared his fortitude.

Maybe if he chose another weaker man for the journey, that person would have not experienced the third man. I do not have this will to live. I'm not going to lie. I love to lie down. As I was reading Shackleton's story, I couldn't help but think that maybe I'm not the person who would be saved by a third man. But before we go today, I want to share with you a final third-man story that I just can't

stop thinking about. It's about a normal guy, going about a normal day. When all of a sudden, he has to do something extraordinary. This story takes place on 9-11. A day when many normal people showed extraordinary strength and resilience, but this can be distressing for some, so just a heads up. It was 8.46 am on the morning of September 11, 2001, when Ron DeFrancisco watched a plane hit the North Tower of the World Trade Center. He was sitting on his desk on the 84th floor of the South Tower when it happened.

Ron looked around at his Eurobroker's colleagues in confusion. Most of his coworkers looked concerned, and a few of them made their way to the elevator to get out of the building. But a voice came over an intercom system reassuring everyone that they were safe. The South Tower was secure, and anyone who started evacuating was welcome to return to their desk. Ron watched Grey smoke pour out of the North Tower as he remained at his desk and continued to work. But shortly after he got a phone call from a friend in Toronto, telling him he had to get out now. Ron made

the split-second decision to grab some of his things and head for the elevators. It was better to be safe than sorry, he thought. Just as he made it to the back of his office, 17 minutes after a plane struck the north tower, United Airlines flight 175 slammed into the south Tower, slicing through floors 77 through 85. Ron was thrown to the back of his office, but he was alive. And he knew he had to make it down the stairwell and fast. But as he opened the door to the one emergency stairwell that was not destroyed by the fire in debris, he saw people running up, not down.

They told him that they had to go up. There was too much smoke and fire below. He would never make it out. So Ron and a small group from his office turned around and went up, hoping to make it to the roof for a helicopter rescue. As Ron is ascending, the stairwell keeps becoming more crowded, and he realizes that the doors to the upper floors are all locked. The locking mechanism had malfunctioned, and now everyone in the stairwell was effectively trapped. In this moment, Ron starts panicking. He thinks of his family, and deep down he knows that if he keeps going up, he'll die. So there, on what he estimated was the 91st floor, Ron starts going down.

The issue of the smoke and fire that kept him from going down in the first place is now much worse, much, much worse, and Ron can't really see down the stairwell. As he starts his descent, he can tell that there are people passed out on the floor around him from the smoke. A few people are still awake, but they're in bad shape. A few floors down, overwhelmed by the thick, clotted air, Ron joins them on the floor. He watches a few of the people around him slip into unconsciousness, and he waits for himself to do the same. When all of a sudden, he hears someone, get up, Ron.

There was someone in front of him, backening him to get up. Hey, you can do this, it's shouted. And then, he felt his body be lifted and guided down the stairs. Ron was with it enough to know that there was no physical person in front of him, yet he had the sense that he was being led by someone, an angel he suggested. The journey became more hazardous the further down he went. He dodged flames and jumped over burning debris, but the encouragement and gentle nudging did not stop.

He was being told where the danger was and where to look out for. And then, around the 76th floor, Ron reached a smoke-free area below the fire of the impact, and he felt the being disappear. He said, quote, I think at that point, it let me go. 56 minutes after the plane hit the South Tower, Ron exited the building. The last thing he remembers before waking up in a hospital was an ungodly roar coming from behind him as the tower collapsed, floor by floor. Only four people, including Ron, made it out from above the 81st floor that day. And Ron was the last person who made it out of that building alive. Ron forever attributes his survival to divine intervention,

a theme that is common among survivors of that horrible day. But Ron wasn't Shackleton. He wasn't an adrenaline-seeking global adventurer. He worked a 9-5. He had a family. He was a normal guy. This is a situation where no matter what the answer is, science or divinity, there's something strange going on.

Either people really are visited by divine beings who guide them and comfort them in dire situations. Or this person is living inside of us at all times. For Coldie, he always attributed this to his intuition, and it inspired him to do an art series called Truster Intuition based on that night. But I don't think calling it our intuition really explains what's happening here. Intuition feels like part of it. Maybe Lindbergh's intuition was telling him how to navigate, but was intuition comforting people in those car wrecks, telling Ron exactly where the fire and smoke was in the building,

pushing Shackleton forward. We may never know. This has been Heart Starts Pounding, written and produced by me, Kalen Moore, music by Art List. Have a heart pounding story you'd like to share or a case request? Check out Heart Starts Pounding dot com. Special thanks to Travis Dunlap, Grace and Jernigan, the whole team at WME and Ben Jaffey. Until next time, stay curious.

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