This Paranormal Life - #069 Wendigo - The Cannibal Beast Of Ancient America

Episode Date: July 10, 2018

When European settlers first came to North America, they expected hardship from man and nature. They didn't expect the paranormal hell that awaited them. Lurking in the woods, lived an unspeakable horror. Not only could it mutilate and kill men, but psychologically manipulate them too. The native peoples were all too familiar, but the settlers had to learn the hard way.Support us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to weekly bonus episodes!Buy Official TPL Merch! - thisparanormallife.com/storeFollow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunityIntro music by www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is an undiscovered planet X on course to destroy the Earth? What happens if you take the red pill and the blue pill at the same damn time? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This Paranormal Life! Welcome back to the podcast. It is Tuesday once again, you are listening to your favorite paranormal investigators in the whole wide world. I'm joined by professional paranormal investigator, Mr. Roryory powers how you doing everyone out there in the paranormal nation and my name is kate greer red pill blue blue pill that was a good uh intro question i don't know how it works well when he took uh the red pill right that's the one that makes everything go mad maybe

morpheus was just like giving him the illusion of a of a choice yeah they're both red pills yeah they're both he just opened them up beforehand emptied out the blue pill filled it up with some of that red pill juice and you're like you know what you're like morpheus i really appreciate the choice i'm sorry man i'm gonna go blue pill and he's like all right listen it's fine you know one in three people take the blue pill there's no shame in that you're like okay have a good night man you know you go home that night go to bed wake up in the morning goo pod like shaved head and morpheus is just over your pod just going welcome to the real world mother you're like god damn it morpheus i wanted to seem like a chill guy but uh we really need you you can't do that that's really unfair and he's like how*** do you think I got here?

I took that blue pill and ran for the hills. But uh-oh, Dorpheus gave me two reds. Dorpheus. This is suddenly very much like someone trying to pass a curse along. Yeah, it is. Totally. Oh, as always, we're just going to dive right into today's story. Kaplush.

It's the 1500s and French settlers have reached North America for the first time. Chill. Claiming va- it wasn't chill. Claiming vast swathes of land. They had let- fine. I guess it is nice for them. Good for them, you know, they get a bunch of free land. It wasn't free, there was a lot of blood

spilled actually a lot of blood paid for that land a lot of wine spilled partying over that free land they just ganked it's independence day right now i'm excited all right they had left the relative safety of europe behind and entered the unknown Not only did they face dangers from both man and nature, but they soon realized they faced paranormal dangers too. In what we would call Minnesota today, the Chippewa people were living in total famine. With no food, they risked certain death if they couldn't make it through winter. Except rather than hide and conserve their energy or forage for anything they could find, they gathered. They gathered on the edge. I thought you were going to say they gathered berries and nuts. No. No. They huddled together. They gathered on the edge

of Lake Windingo. F***, I f***ed it up already. They gathered on the edge of Lake Bigfoot. F***. I wasn't supposed to tell you that goddamn premise. They gathered on the edge of Lake Windigo. Oh, I wonder what this one's about. Silence! Jesus Christ. Lake Windigo, near Star Island. Under the stars, they beat drums and danced backwards. They call this, and I apologize to any First Nations people out there who will critique my pronunciation,

but something along the lines of Windingu Kanzimun. I assume this is their version of some sort of cha-cha slide. How very dare you. That's the dance of my people how dare you sir i mean if you want to be a oaf about it then sure you seem happy with that absolutely it's an oral culture it's a culture of song of dance that is the way that they express themselves they don't have tvs movie cameras you know they're listen to ridleyley Scots of the First Nations people, they were out there making the Alien 2 of dance moves.

Via movement. Yes. That's pretty badass. I can respect that. They performed this dance for their own safety because they knew from generations and generations of living in the wilderness that out there, there was something worse than starvation, worse than death, a paranormal beast. Wow.

The settlers could have thought these people were crazy, but they saw this same ritual across multiple regions of North America with all different tribes. In fact, one of the largest existing tribes of First Nations people, the Cree, also practiced this. Tribes spoke of the largest existing tribes of first nations people the creed also practiced this tribes spoke of the wendigo or the evil spirit that devours mankind right when to go for short so i assume these people you know similar to how some cultures have like a rain dance this is their like battle dance yeah or their defense dance yeah back off

when to go yeah sweet ass moves yeah if you come at me i'll slide to the left slide to the right are you gonna try and get my legs crisscross mother crisscross i like dance and i like combat so the merging of those two activities is a big A plus in my book. It's like Moe Sislak's break dancing for self-defense class in The Simpsons. This is why you are not... If some Wendigo is dissing your fly girl, you got to give him one of those. This is why you're not invited to many dances. Right.

Too intense. You're mostly invited to brunches, lunch lunches things that you can't dance at strictly no nighttime affairs nothing with music i was described on britain's got talent as quote unquote too sexual and if they can't handle that then maybe that's not the type of show i should be on and you say it was britain's got talent but it was actually porn hub uk's got talent so i don't know how it was too sad it was called Casting Couch and I I think I nailed it actually yeah we take Rory out for borderline coffee and if anything with a half decent beat comes on he starts swinging even if they're just using the machines

to a rhythm you know I feel anyone tapping their feet he sees red yeah it's not so much as a dance is like a fury yeah i just you know like any good dance man michael jackson-esque grab the nearest weapon and start flailing it around you ever heard of the rhythm of the night this is the rhythm of the fight this is the rhythm of the fight this is playing the background as two bouncers hold each arm and one bouncer's punching you in the stomach i dropped my katana that's right the wendigo a beast possessing supernatural power as tall as 15 foot part man part beast with horrifying skin stretched barely across its gaunt figure. So bloodthirsty, it has eaten its own lips, just teeth and skin remaining. It stalks its prey.

It can mimic human voices to lead people into the dark. All it wants is human meat, yet its hunger is never satisfied. The more it feeds, the larger it becomes. The older it gets, the more power it accrues. Ancient Wendigo are said to be able to control the weather itself creating darkness during daytime this is like when you're playing a game as a kid and you you're all making up your own superheroes and there's that one kid that gives himself every power and he's like yeah i can control the weather i eat humans and as i get older i grow stronger and it's like david don't be a dickhead like chris can fly i've got

laser eyes pick one power he's like nope and that's mr wendingo to you one of the other kids is like okay i grab you by the lips and uh punch you the face. Oh, no lips. Add them off already. No lips. Add them off already because I'm such a beast and I didn't feel it at all. You know that's the most weakly asthmatic kid as well. Yeah, yeah. I've also got my own freaking lake. That's Wendigo HQ.

I would like to specify, it's actually... They are scared of the Wendigo and they hang out at Windigo Lake right two very separate words unrelated and it doesn't just stalk and kill the Wendigo can Infect the mind of an individual causing them to suffer endless nightmares Until they can no longer sleep and lose their sanity altogether They say that it starts with smells that no one else notices and you guys uh i smell something i smell some cooking and you guys smell

that man no no i don't smell it weird these guys must be stuffed up oh wendigo that's that's disturbing before long you're insane running straight into the woods into the clutches of the wendigo too many powers this thing has too many powers is confusing me that's why man has a hatchet that's not even a power you know and he ran with what god gave him exactly oh you're like oh by the way wendingo two hatchets and nunchucks he actually has a second thumb on each hand so he can handle even more hatchets there's kind of like a swiss army thumb the goat man is very much the batman of the cryptid world he's kind of like has gadgets and the goat man is very rich from robbing and killing hicks the goat man just shows up and he's like i'm gonna stop the enemy with my

go to rang that's a hatchet doesn't so much come back as they die and I retrieve it from their corpse. And we actually have a disturbing written record from as early as the 1600s from a French Jesuit publication describing the possession by Wendigo. In 1661, Jesuit relations reported, What caused us greater concern was the intelligence that met us upon entering the lake, namely, that man deputed by our conductor.

This is written in very 1600s language. Also, this is very rambly. If you show up and you saw the Wendigo, the letter would be very different. It would read a little bit like this. F***ing hell! Beast! Beast! Does anyone smell toast ah also the soundtrack to steph curry sink in another three he is unstoppable it does really sound like his sports coverage could you imagine if there was a basketball player called Wendingo?

You would be so goddamn scared. 15 foot of muscle and no lips. It's going to be a great game today. We're really excited to see all the players on the field. Of course, we have the Wendingo subbing in for LeBron in the second half. Yes, he's just about the oldest player to play professionally in the NBA, but of course, as he grows stronger as he ages, he has the power of three men. That's right, Trent. He kind of bucks the trend for older players typically leaving the game as they age.

As you can see, he's now enjoying a halftime snack, just enjoying some human flesh there, which will really keep those energy levels up for that last quarter. Of course, that's really going to reinvigorate him in the second half uh which he's been playing exceptionally well dunking from about the uh mid-court feats that were only thought possible through the works of the popular film space jam are now brought to life in front of us these men had met their death the previous winter in a very strange manner. These poor men, according to the report given us, were seized with an ailment unknown to us, but not very unusual among the people we were seeking.

They are afflicted with neither lunacy, hypochondria, nor frenzy, but have a combination of all these species of disease which affects their imaginations and causes them a more than canine hunger. It makes them so ravenous for human flesh that they pounce upon women, children, and even upon men like veritable werewolves and devour them voraciously without being able to appease or glut their appetite ever seeking fresh prey and the more greedily the more they eat a lot of words to say that people have gone mad well it got pretty hot and heavy around the middle there i think they mentioned lunacy hypochondria and frenzy, ravenous for human flesh, pouncing upon women, children and men, eating like werewolves, devouring them, completely unable to appease their appetite, ever seeking fresh prey and eating more and more the more they eat.

It's a damn good Friday. So needless to say, the colonization of North America was going swimmingly. Of course. Justice plans. This was a Christian magazine, just to remind you. No, of course. Physical evidence going back to the 1600s is always going to be rare. But we do have this claw.

I have the earliest known NBA records. We have an entire team of Wendigos dunking man woman and child through some very primitive nets like the f***ing monsters whole team of wendigos dude if we do not start selling wendigo jerseys like that is a missed off right there imagine if this was like the untold history of like the celtics they never mentioned that the team had its start as a team of cryptids that would be incredible i would love to see a team of cryptids play basketball wow i mean they'd be insane big foot on defense they're all pretty big yeah they're all very large spring-heeled jack dunking it like he's got flubber on who would be the worst nasty

dies immediately at the first whistle blow 200 feet long dead sea beast onto a hundred foot court i mean it's a distraction tactic, I guess. Yeah. No evidence. However, one researcher on this topic looked at records since records began from Alberta and the surrounding provinces and came across a curious photo from the late 1800s. I'm going to show this photo to you. Okay. Notice anything weird? Uh, no. Is there... I mean mean so we're looking at a picture of two

men here i mean they look weird because it's an old creepy photo anyway it's it's uh one of those photos before smiles were invented right no one you had a smile yet very yeah very grim looking the gentleman on the left is holding some sort is... Is that a chain? It is a chain, actually. Okay. Well, the gentleman that came across this wouldn't have necessarily thought it was that weird either. Except the caption or the information alongside this mentioned the murder and cannibalism of an entire family. Jesus. Which definitely sounds Wendigo-like.

So we wanted to investigate further. It also explains the lack of smiles. Yes. That would be very inappropriate. Which definitely sounds Wendigo-like, so we wanted to investigate further. It also explains the lack of smiles. Yes. That would be very inappropriate. And indeed, as it transpired, the most famous case in the history of Wendigo history is not about a 15-foot beast, but a Native American man named Swift Runner or Kaki Sikuchin. Also perfect for the basketball team. Swift Runner and Spring-Heeled Jack going downtown.

The man in that photo was arrested for the murder and cannibalism of his wife, mother, brother, and six children. Wait, the guy holding the chain? Mm-hmm. He had been one of the Northwest Mounted Police and was respected in the Saskatchewan area. However, once respected, he was also known as basically a drunk. He had a fondness of whiskey and was described as an ugly customer to meet when on a spree. A cannibal spree? Not yet.

Right. Some called him the terror of the whole region but bearing in mind at this point he's still a policeman so it's that's the context here yeah i mean a policeman shouldn't be described as the terror of the whole region granted unless it's like a town of pirates or something eventually he was basically excommunicated from his town and he moved into the woods with his wife, mother, brother and six children. Right. And the police started to hear disturbing tales about him. One of the Cree chiefs, one of the tribes of North America, said that Swift Runner had become cannibal.

And it wasn't long until Swift Runner turned himself into the police. But he told them that his wife had committed suicide and the rest of his family had died of starvation. But having heard these previous stories, the officers noticed that Swift Runner didn't actually look very starved himself. Right. Which is a bit of a giveaway. He was a six foot three guy. If there's a lack of food there, he's going to start showing it.

He's a tall guy. He's going to start going gaunt. He didn't look it. Absolutely. Six three, though, he could probably dunk. No, irrelevant, but just I'm drafting, so. Completely amoral, awful, disgusting to even bring up, but it is draft season.

It is, yeah. You ever heard of the Fantasy League? Well, this is about as f***ing fantasy as it gets. completely amoral awful disgusting to even bring up but it is draft season it is yeah you ever heard of the fantasy league well this is about as fantasy as it gets i'm drafting cryptids we need to start that like a like a fantasy league at where you can choose any man or beast alive or dead fictitious or real that'd be so great it's like on defense i've got lincoln because i trust them offense i've got anthrax the drug and my ref is optimus prime because he's a damn good leader and also he can shoot missiles and shit it's gonna be great police were of course suspicious of of this entire story so they traveled with swift runner to his family's camp in the wilderness outside Saskatchewan. And they, unfortunately, did eventually find the remnants of his family by a campfire.

Piles of bones and remains scattered nearby. Some of the bones were hollowed out, even empty of marrow. So what are we saying? We're saying that this guy is the Wendigo? Basically, he's exhibiting very Wendigo-like behavior. Right. We haven't yet got to the bottom of what happened. Okay. He was sentenced to hanging, and this was actually the first legal hanging in Alberta.

The first hanging in history in Alberta, was of an alleged Wendigo. I mean, fair. That's a good reason to hang someone. In the courts they had white settlers, they had First Nations people that could speak English. And so kind of running the gamut of the old tribal oral traditions and what they understood as Wendigo behavior. Right.

And then the, I guess, like French settlers and English settlers who were just were like, this is just murder. Right, right. And we need to kill this person right away. I mean, they're both on the same page at least. They're kind of on the same page. Yeah. Definitely. Swift Runner was given the option to spend the night before his execution with a priest.

But he said, The white man has ruined me. I don't think their god would amount to much. Plus, I'm not that hungry. Yeah, the priest was probably relieved. Yeah, he's like, thank shit. Good evening, father. Yeah, let's just see where we are tonight.

Oh, nice gentleman down the block here. Swift runner. Oh, he sounds like a nice guy. Athletic. He's healthy. In for multiple cannibalism. Anyway, so you're just third cell on the right. Yeah.

Cannibal. Sorry, just thinking about it. That's like the last person that you'd want to be put in a jail cell with yeah because you know if someone's arrested for stabbing someone or dealing drugs that's one thing but a cannibal their weapon is their mouth yeah they can they can commit their crime again with you in that room and if they're a little cannibal like a little child cannibal you could probably just like you know do that thing like in the movies you put your hand in the forehead keep them like they're they're swinging their little claws at you yeah but you're just keeping them back he could probably keep that up for a few hours but this guy's six foot three and he's a swifty ass runner he's a swift runner

he's got jordan airs on i don't know why they don't know about that but he's a goddamn cops you know he's fast what are you like a chubby little priest you don't stand a chance they just put a little piggy in there basically they lock the door the second that happens he's going at you you managed to jab your bible in between his jaws just to keep that thing from slamming shut on your freaking head and can you chuck in holy water in his eyes trying to imagine the the disappointment whenever you're faced with certain death and then your cross and holy water they don't burn anyone they don't they don't defend as well as they do in the movies yeah because then the whole thing is like you know

then in the mornings they're like oh is everything okay it's like no i had to kill him you're like the cross didn't work the water didn't work it's like that was a test and that's because the power of god is inside of you or the executioner's like all i know is someone in this cell is gonna die today you're coming with me the worst judicial system ever they find the prisoner dead in the morning and they're like, There's been a murder! He's like, you were literally going to kill him! The execution had been ordered to take place at 7.30am on December 20th, 1879. But right before the execution was supposed to take place, it turned out that the hangman forgot to bring straps to bind Swift Runner's arms down.

Okay. As the hangman and the sheriff and everyone rushed and scrambled to get the thing ready, Swift Runner was sat down, apparently joking, snacking, and chatting with a noose hanging around his neck, and he said, I could kill myself with a tomahawk and save the hangman for other trouble. That's a pretty badass thing to say, though, to be fair. Pretty wild. Yeah. I mean, that didn't really have any implication for the story. That's a pretty badass thing to say, though, to be fair. Pretty wild. Yeah.

I mean, that didn't really have any implication for the story. I just thought it was a cool story. It's a pretty cool line, yeah. On that day, he was executed by hanging. Some say Swift Runner developed a taste for cannibalism when he was forced to eat the remains of a starved hunting partner. But others say he was possessed by a wendigo. Oh, so he's not the actual wendigo

yes but it seems to be the the crucial piece of the story is that the wendigo can possess and can cause people to commit these ungodly acts right and so in that sense these brutal cannibal murders do fit into the story of the Wendigo. He was outcast from his community, was living with his family, but he was only, I believe, a handful of miles away from the nearest trading post and places he could get food and those things. Right. So it was not out of necessity whatsoever. Okay. necessity whatsoever okay it's kind of a similar case that we saw with the slender man where a lot of the time he wouldn't actually do anything to people yes but he would take people under his

control and then uh act out his evil deeds through the vessels that he had taken control of a very charles manson approach yeah but for the longest time these tribes were used to handling wendigo problems in their own way and it was only like we see in this case with the arrival of policing. Did these murders actually enter history? I love it that like the police have set up their communities here. It's now a lawful society. A cannibal is running through the streets, eating people. And everyone's like, all right, folks, you know what to do.

They're all putting on their dancing shoes and getting their festival stuff ready. And the cops are like, what the hell are you doing? We're doing the dance, the go away dance. Like, what? We brought guns. We could shoot him. Yeah, you're right. Okay, that sounds good.

Can we still do the dance though? It feels weird if we don't do the dance, if you're going to shoot him. They do a full like 30 minutes of dance ending with that's eating 20 more people in this time as well conga line and he's just picking them off one by one it just bends around into his mouth one og creed chief and his brother were arrested in canada in 1907 for the murder of 14 people. They claimed that they were Wendigo hunters and that the people they'd killed were all either Wendigos or on the verge of becoming Wendigos.

They were genuine native menacing men and were respected for their powers of fighting supernatural evil. Sadly, when they were arrested, one of them committed suicide pretty quickly and the other died in custody. Oh, that's grim. But it gives you the sense of, like you say, what was happening previous to this, that tribes had dedicated Wendigo hunters. That's insane.

Who took care of Wendigos. That's dangerous. Very dangerous. Especially when the criteria for Wendigo is, it's like a minority report style. You don't have to have killed anyone yet you could just be a little quirky yeah yeah it's just like do you guys smell blueberries it's better if we do this early it's kind of scary it's a lot like um we saw with the bloody mary case uh and the like even like the salem wish trials you're looking at these small

very highly religious guarded and isolated communities yeah that getting a bit stir crazy rumors spread legends are told you know stories go get passed around the town and then people take things way too far that's what it sounds like it's happening a lot like these wish trials we're hearing about wendigo trials definitely and i mean that's still kind of the way the world works we kind of people that do really bad things we put them away for a very long time if you do slightly bad things we kind of put you away for a little bit of time just to see that you don't do anything bad again the only difference is the severity of the punishment we don't just instantly kill you the moment you like shoplift a chocolate bar yeah it went from nowadays it's like a little bit of

jail time a lot of jail time olden days it was hanging or tomahawk to the back of the head that was minimal minimal punishment we've decided to let you off on a hanging. And they're like, oh, thank God. Yeah, just don't let it happen again. Being somehow possessed by a Wendigo or being a Wendigo was a type of condition. And this would come out in the form of rage, insanity, and ultimately, if it went unchecked, cannibalism. Whilst it's pretty believable that this was part of kind of a First Nations people's history, maybe the craziest thing is that it entered kind of the lexicon and the lives of people in the modern age as well. There were multiple cannibal scares as a result of this in the 19th and 20th century. Wendigo incidents were reported in newspapers in Canada throughout the 1890s and early 1900s.

For example, in 1897, two women were brought to a missionary for treatment after one of them had a dream of her brother offering her human flesh to eat. Both of them became sick afterwards and were believed to be Wendigos, like undergoing transformation into Wendigodom. In in 1899 two men were arrested and put on trial for murdering a man who had been possessed by a wendigo the afflicted man had apparently asked them to kill him before he killed them and they had done so then they asked them to take his wallet and his freaking car because he knows he won't need them as a wendigo this sounds like if you killed anyone in the late 18th century this was just a viable excuse to kind of get you off the hook you know you go to work one day and you're like

you know what i i don't like dan dan's a bit of an ass he's rude to me in the elevator and uh this is very real because you work very closely with dan you know he's rude to me he always makes fun of me in meetings and stuff okay that's that's not a nice thing to do i'm gonna kill him and say he's a wendigo apparently that's fine yeah in 1899 right and. Right, and now? What would they say now? Bad. Right. Bad, wrong, don't do it. Okay. What if I had already done it, hypothetically? Really?

Yeah. Just a hypothetical. Hypothetically speaking. Okay, your clothes have blood on them. Yep, that's not Dan's. Really? That's Adam's. He was mean to me in the toilet. He pissed on my shoes by accident.

He was the last person to tell me i couldn't kill dad aka not believe in me little wendingo ass i gotta go to court and the judge is just like there's no point in having a trial at all you clearly murdered them there is cctv footage and like under my breath i don't know why there's like a mic plugged in you little wendingo asshole i'm gonna kill you so hard judge we can all hear you super lard of breathy you're a wendingo piece of shit you just wait till i'm out of these cuffs and get a tomahawk absolutely no remorse you're never getting out i'm sorry all right i didn't mean to kill them or i didn't kill them defense lawyer comes over to console you and you try to take a swipe at him y'all assholes better start dancing because you got a wendigo in the courtroom right now

so you're a wendigo i don't know anymore so basically we were left with this confusing situation at the turn of the century where it kind of summed up the culture clash of the old world and the new world. That people were being killed and eaten by Wendigos, but simultaneously people were being prosecuted for murdering those Wendigos who had done crimes. Right, okay. Kind of the old style Wendigo hunters became vigilantes and were prosecuted, I guess. Right. Okay. Kind of the old style Wendigo hunters became vigilantes and were prosecuted, I guess. Another great This Paranormal Life episode involving renegade vigilante hunters.

Which we couldn't support more people. Exactly. There's nothing more badass than that. This more or less brings us to the end of the evidence portion of the Wendigo tales. What do you make of this case so far? I think it's really interesting. Obviously, any case set in this time period is going to be difficult we've tackled uh previous cases around this time and always in the evidence section it's a little light you know little brief little short but does

that mean it is definitely not true of course not there's a grain of truth in everything no smoke without fire you believe it it's real the catchphrase to the commune such a jump um i think this is a tough one because on the one hand we have the creature that you uh introduced at the start which is you know this beast that's been told to be the wendingo yeah 15 foot tall exactly this i can wrap my heads around you know you got these old civilizations these old tribes uh and they have all these stories about creatures that live in the woods and it's almost a method or a way of encapsulating a bad part of humanity right there's a man in the woods he likes to eat people how do you dress that up how do you tell people about it you're gonna tell them hey kevin eats humans are you gonna say

kevin the swift foot uh is a creature known as a wendigo you know it's a more colorful way of telling the story as it's passed down from group to group and i think that's probably what's going on in the case of the beast yeah now people being i don't know taken over possessed possessed almost zombie like that's a whole different story i'm interested to see what you think about that it definitely seems convenient that there are not more sightings of the wendigo it definitely seems convenient that the wendigo largely possesses people rather than carrying out the dirty work himself. Of course. I did try to find more research on sightings of Wendigos,

and there are not many, not from back in the day, although it was an oral tradition, so it's hard to trace. I did find one on Reddit. Title, I saw the Wendigo when I was 12. I'm excited. I was walking home with my parents after a long day at the zoo it was midwinter and there was heavy snow all over the ground i saw large footprints in the snow shaped like those of a large bird the only difference was the left toe was lifted off the ground i pointed this out to my parents but they said it was probably just someone in a dinosaur costume having a prank.

A snowstorm broke out 20 minutes after we set out, and I said to my parents, We should be moving. This could be dangerous. My parents agreed. That's a piss take. No 12-year-old boy would say any of this. We took shelter in a subway. Mother, father, winter is coming. We must seek refuge. No one talks like this.

My dad eventually went out to see if it was safe. We heard a low reptilian growl and the sound of a bone snapping. Papa? Papa? We ran further down the subway, got into the train. This is in

New York City, by the way. New York City in like 2005. God. We jumped out at the next station, which was very near our house. Sorry, they left, Dad. We shut the door, locked it. I went straight to my bedroom. I shut the door.

And just in case, I closed the blinds and barricaded the door. Only something supernaturally strong could push that, right? I was terribly wrong when I thought that. I heard the front door smashing open and my mother screaming. It followed them from the subway? It took the goddamn L train across time? Cramped up little beast. Put his little ticket in the turnstile.

Whatever just attacked my mom pushed my door open with ease. Then I realized I'd made a stupid mistake. I don't use light objects to barricade the door. The creature in front of me had armor on its head resembling a deer skull with a crack on its snout. Its yellow eyes with slit pupils stared at me and I stared back. Its fur was stained with blood. When I saw it holding an arm I recognized as my own father's skull. The creature's gray figure began to move towards me. Without thinking, I grabbed a box and threw it at the creature's gray figure began to move towards me without thinking i grabbed a box

and threw it at the creature it fell backwards i realized i had the upper hand no you don't i i took the curtain rail off the wall and charged at the creature i kicked a box onto its head disorienting it temporarily when it regained full control of its body, I had already thrust the rail into its underbelly. The creature growled in anger, but eventually went into what appeared to be a permanent state of unconsciousness.

I ran downstairs to check my mom. I was relieved when she turned out to be okay. We both went upstairs to check the creature, but it had vanished so that's the story i'm gonna relax now and try to forget that incident i love that it starts off with him just being like like i'm gonna try and recall what i saw that day it's like your dad died like either this dinner it didn't happen you knocked out a beast like you didn't forget this

happens i love how freudian this is about his dad getting killed by this beast but his mom being fine he gets to live forever just him and his mom and actually save my mom and she loves me because i'm the best boy ever i'm actually the man of the house after that because i killed the beast um cool very convincing so that's one sighting of the wendigo but unfortunately after that there's very little sightings of the wendigo it is all possessions all cannibal murders throughout history right as always on this podcast we do have to come to a decision as to whether the tale of the Wendigo is paranormal or not. If you have to make that decision, Rory, what are you thinking?

Well, the story about a beast living in the woods, giant, grows stronger as it ages, and can manipulate people, eat flesh has no lips that is definitely paranormal unfortunately that is the part of the story that i believe is untrue now the other aspect is humans out in the woods eating and murdering each other that's definitely the part that i believe has and continues to happen right but that is the part that i also think is unfortunately not paranormal so i think this week in terms of the wendingo the wendigo lake wendigo and all the wendinga does it is going to be a no for me this week unfortunately

even if we scrap the whole wendigo physical beast there is definitely a bizarre and creepy tale there of people seemingly with no motivation whatsoever going completely insane and the fact that this is journaled in in newspapers and and magazines throughout history for hundreds of years is very disturbing this even entered sort of medical dictionaries for a time wendigo psychosis christ but as you say the definition of wendigo psychosis entered the dictionary the wendigo beast didn't enter the encyclopedia right that was the term used okay and i think from that perspective i agree it's going to be a no on the case of the wendigo damn unfortunately that's a double no we're hitting another bit be a no on the case of the wendigo damn unfortunately that's

a double no we're hitting another bit of a no dry spell or a yes dry spell yeah unfortunately i think i'll have to do something about that which is very uh you know contrary to the you believe it it's real motto of the paranormal cult yeah when push comes to shove we're we're a lot more conservative with that motto yeah commune as well i realize i said the c word earlier oh sorry and it is definitely not a cult yes no couldn't be more clear about that and i'm sorry i didn't flag that up when i heard unless you believe it's a cult no it's real if you have any of your own thoughts on the case of the wendigo you can send those to this paranormal life podcast at

gmail.com absolutely love that story and we've had a bunch of suggestions for doing the wendigo so thank you very much to alexandra m joshua c ben s nicholas j o joseph w shabazz s andy m and there's probably more missing so so I apologize. But thank you very much for everyone flagging up that hyper-important case. As always, guys, remember we have socials you can catch up with us on. We're at twitter.com forward slash thisparalife, facebook.com forward slash thisparanormallife. There's a secret society.

You know, there's a lot of planning going on in there for the commune. There's a secret society. You know, there's a lot of planning going on in there for the commune. We're really, we're at sort of the last stages before launching at this point. Exactly. The doors are almost open. It's like that bit, you know, where, you know, in Willy Wonka, when the chocolate factory is going to be open for the first time in like a billion years.

And Mr. Wonka himself comes out. But you know how he does that like pratfall where he like does the fake roll and then he's totally fine you know like you'll come out with a little walking stick then like do a tumble roll yeah pull out a crossbow shoot bigfoot and bigfoot drops dead and then i take off the mask and it's me. And we're like, welcome to the paranormal cult. Commune, shit. Yeah. Not a cult. I'm going to edit. We've said it so many times, we're going to edit it out.

Just cut it out. I really am. I really am. It's because it's getting my fucking joke at this point. Being really bad. I feel like this is going to come back and bite us in court. The inevitable court date. It's like, yeah, you guys are obviously running a cult.

You've said it a number of times in the podcast. You little wind dingo piece of shit. I'm going you so much we can hear you powers everything is on the record there is a person typing every word that you say over there when dingo type in it's goddamn claws if you want to support the podcast you can do so on patreon that's right we do not run advertisements on the pod. So the best way to support us is at patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life, where from $2 a month, you can get the research notes of every case, including the Wendigo case.

From five bucks, you can get bonus episodes. And above that, we have merchandise, other things. Because you know what, guys? People, you guys make money. We all make money. What are you going to do with that, huh? $5. What is that going to get you?

You save it up. You can buy some clothes. Right. Save it up enough. Deposit on a house, a car. Right, right, right. Maybe show your family a nice time. I guess it's like Mother's Day or something.

You could buy her some flowers. You could do that. Yeah. You know what would show your mom a good goddamn time you slap two earbuds in her ears and hit play on the bonus episode of this paranormal life at full volume give her the gift of woke this christmas obviously why waste your money on material objects when you could get knowledge borderline facts and on that note, as we mentioned in a previous podcast, the t-shirts that we have, the $20, the Praise Rash shirts, are ending their limited time.

We've actually had a cool push of people trying to get shirts before they run out. So this is going to be the final reminder. If you do want a Praise Rash shirt, pick them up now because they're going and almost gone. At the end of every podcast, we like to take the time to thank the people who support us on patreon by shouting them out right here in the podcast it's that time again here we are let's go thank you to lex kratzer lex please don't cast a hex on us here because with the last name like that you sound like you're from another goddamn planet

and probably have some sort of supernatural hexing ability. But we appreciate the support wherever planet you're from. So thank you very much indeed. And I can see you have paid here in some sort of quantum crypto technology. So I appreciate that. Thank you very much to Jorge Palma.

He actually submitted the idea for the Denver International Airport story. That was a great bonus episode, and he's got us in the Palma, his hands. That's right. We are your humble servants, and we accept any crumbs that fall off your kingly table, sir. Are you going to rap this next one? This guy's got a pretty good rap name thank you so much too dr bustos you thought i was gonna be able to drop in as soon as that that info landed. Doctor what? Bustos.

Bustos? Bustos. Bustos. Has he got a medical degree, an MD ship, much in the same way that Dr. Dre has? Is it some sort of rap? Yeah, like a rap title. At the very least, I hope he has a bus pass for transport. Jesus Christ.

Well, either way, sir, we assume that you are a doctor in your own right. Right. And we appreciate your scholarly input into this paranormal life. And we will be asking you to field probably many, many medical questions that are life and death. when the commune gets firing we'll need doctors on hand absolutely for what we've got planned yeah thank you to julia rose wenger julia did you go to schoolia because you are smart enough to know a good podcast when you listen to one that's why you chose this paranormal life and we sure as hell appreciate it here's a rose and we're yeah every every name thank you to noah shreve i know a guy named shreve he's a solid dude i do now thank you noah shreve for your donation and i know a lot of people uh think about donating to this patreon and you actually had the balls to go through with it so i don't just know a lot of people think about donating to this Patreon, and you actually had the balls to go through with it.

So, I don't just know a Shreve, I know a goddamn beast. Thank you to Chris Bolton. Chris, I hope you're planning on joining the Paranormal Commune, because we're going to need someone who's going to be in charge of Bolton. The door's shut. That's right, we let people in, and then we all stay in. Because the Paranormal Commune is so perfect, Shut. That's right. We let people in and then we all stay in because the paranormal cult commune is so perfect. No one's ever going to want to leave. So just don't give them the option,

Chris. Yeah. It's not about not letting people leave. It's just that they won't want to. So why give them the possibility? Exactly. And remember Bolton, we're all in this together yes we are in this cult i don't mean cult i mean commune we're all in this together you and me and those candles and that knife with a dagger cult heads everywhere didn't mean to say the word cult thank you to kyle bailey kyle donated i barely know him that was nice of him it's good thanks man uh kyle i got nothing to say to you you know you know where we stand are the gates of hell together brother that's right the only one brave enough to defect with me in world war ii you thought that shit was done hell no i've been in six more wars ones you haven't even heard of ones that i defected from so fast i didn't even learn

what the name was why join why join the armed forces if you're gonna leave it must be insanely hard to defect escape punishment yeah then join the army again. You think I escaped punishment? Hell to the no. I served my time on the front lines before defecting again. I'd scramble off and they'd just pick me back up and throw me in the field again. The greatest punishment of all was just putting me back in the army thank you to james bolt the name's bolt james bolt nice man that's good also bolt rhymes with cult

which has nothing to do with anything moving on alice smallhymes with commune. Very relevant. Thank you very much, James. And thank you, lastly, but not leastly, to Ryan Burge. Crying Ryan, eh? Finally decides to show his face. I remember seeing the tears streaming down his face as we both defected from the front line. But he felt bad about it, unlike a real man who doesn't feel anything what like me no tears no nothing yeah but you don't feel any emotion at any other point in your life either it's like a medical issue that's right baby that's why i'm perfect for war that's why they kept throwing me back in

i was the secret weapon imagine the army breeding a super soldier over 50 years of genetic research but all he does is defect he's so emotionally cool he just leaves he's like i am above this it's like what we made him too smart he doesn't like war shit do you Do you imagine if just Captain America was obviously like super strong, super fast, lightning reflexes, but a coward? Yeah. Like we couldn't make him brave. We could just make him strong. He's still afraid of guns. We can do the muscles. We can do the goddamn super strength muscles we can do the goddamn super strength we can do the

super speed we can literally give you the heart of a lion yeah but you will not have the heart of the lion no no that's not how that works you'll have the heart of a cub a little baby cub well that just about wraps it up for the shout outs this week if you haven't heard your name yet and you are a patreon supporter, that is because your shout-out is yet to come. We're getting there. Thanks again for tuning in this week, folks.

Hope you enjoyed the tale of the Wendigo. You can catch us next Tuesday for a brand new paranormal tale. And in the meantime, remember to live fast, investigate,

and die young, baby. Boom! You believe it it it's real okay a little john all right a little john