This Paranormal Life - #086 Is This Theme Park Cursed?

Episode Date: November 6, 2018

A haunted chained up tree, ghosts walking around the park grounds, stones being thrown at guests? Something is wrong at Alton Towers... Time for Rory and Kit to #INVESTIGATESupport 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.

What happens when you die in heaven? Do you go to hell? What happens when you die in hell? Do you go to super hell? All of these questions you can find the answer to on this Paranormal Life! Welcome everyone back to the podcast, the Paranormal Podcast,

where every week we investigate a brand new paranormal case and as professional paranormal investigators come to the conclusion as to whether or not it is t or it is f true or false baby i'm your host for this week rory powers joined by my professional paranormal pal kit greer boo baby now last week we had our halloween special where we had a friend of the podcast, Daniel Krupa, on the show. Too right. This week is going to be, you know, you had your treat. This is the trick week.

You had your ice cream. It's back to vegetables. You had your treat. Now here's the trick. The trick is we're f***ing tired. I have a cold. Kit's depressed. What else is new, folks?

We thought Halloween was going to spike the numbers, but it's reverse spiked. I didn't know spike meant down. So unfortunately, I thought when our agent said the show was tanking, from all I know about video games, I thought that was a good thing. So yeah, that's kind of put a little dent in the ego of the paranormal paranormal pals but we're back again regardless let's just dive right in let's do it i got a fun one for us this week to make the spirits okay good luck because i'm pretty darn well it doesn't start on a good note oh our story begins on a cold rainy night in autumn of 1821 okay we're in staffordshire england and a man named charles the earl of shrewsbury was traveling back from london to his home alton towers really now

obviously at this point it's it's what 1821 this when Alton Towers was a beautiful country estate. Yeah. Not a hustling, bustling theme park. So the Earl's heading home from London, back to the estate. The carriage he's riding in is bumping along the path through the rain and wind. He's eager to get home when suddenly an old woman emerged from the side of the road, blocking the path. The horses roared as the carriage pulled to a stop.

Run it down. What are we stopping for? Run the old hag down. They narrowly missed the old woman. The old codger. The carriage is fully stopped. And obviously the Earl is pissed. Obviously.

Because he wants to get home. Oh my God, he wants to get home. London is so tiring that's why we're so tired and the audacity of this woman to just throw herself in front of the carriage so he hops out of the carriage to find out what's going on and approaches the woman who has her face covered in rags which is raining after all that's fine she doesn't want to get wet on her face nothing paranormal about that nothing yet What is the meaning of this? He asked.

Who was this woman? A messenger? A prophet? Some sort of ghostly apparition? Getting pretty ahead of yourself. She's just a woman so far. The old woman spoke from the shadows of her cloak. Got any spare change, sir?

Yeah, accurate. She was a beggar. The Earl is even more pissed the earl produced a revolver one of his guards smacked it on a ghost why would you scare me like that she's asking him for money asking you know oh have you got any spare change he's like he obviously does oh it's like i'm in golden rose my 12 horse carriage just got sidelined he's trying to play it i was like oh not on me mate yeah i paid in card yeah i'm sorry yeah i was back in london they only do cards in london so no i got no change sorry sorry he's oh he's absolutely

ringing with jade you can hear every step he takes gold chains clacking on his necklace as he finishes a full subway sandwich in front of her offering none of it most prestigious sign of wealth imaginable meatball marinara all 12 inches of it the woman was very persistent and refused to move out of the way this is when the ear lost it. He flew into a fit of rage and ordered, Stand aside, woman, or so help me God I will run you down. This is more like it. But the Earl didn't realize that this was no ordinary woman. She began to scream at him, cursing him.

Oh boy. The old woman said, Heed this warning, Earl. Whenever a branch falls off the old oak tree, a member of your family will die. Whoa. Now, the quote-unquote old oak tree was a location that they were right by

when they made this encounter. It's this famous, beautiful, big oak tree just off the side of the road. Interesting so far i wonder what the earl thought of that was he you know maybe it was like he's trying to brush it off but really got a little shivered on his spine he's like i don't i didn't like that i i think he's so cocky rich and cold that he could not give a ratata's a-hole okay Okay. He probably just hopped in his carriage and blat, probably like hitting the biggest puddle he could find on the way out,

like splashing the witch. He's like, f*** off your bag! Yeah. As he like, hightails it back to the prestigious Alton Towers. And I meant to say, because we do have, I mean, not last week, though no one listened last week. No. But we do have some international listeners.

So for context, Alton Towers. I haven't been there. Have you? I have actually, yeah. How would you describe it? It's like... It's strange. It's basically exactly what you would think from the start of this story.

It is a giant theme park built around this huge ancient estate. Okay. where they have this beautiful kind of castle and these grounds that were open to the public to visit but then surrounding it is roller coasters and you know adventure parks or whatever all these buzzwords are but it does have a rich history behind it interesting as we'll soon discover so the earl rides home back to Alton Towers to hide out from the storm. But the weather continues to worsen. Strong winds batter the castle and the surrounding forest. The next morning, the Earl woke up and the storm was over. Last night was just a bad memory. That's when one of his servants burst into the room.

Your Highness, or not that, your earlness right whatever the we call you one of your family has died oh no that's not what you want to hear first thing in the morning of course not the earl couldn't believe it he immediately hopped on his horse and rode back to the forest towards the old oak tree where he saw a loose branch on the road i was so he went straight to the oak tree yeah like so he he backtracked on on thinking that old bag was an old bag after all yeah he was like i knew it oh shit i shouldn't have flipped it off should have been nicer to the woman i'm starting to think that i might have got away with if we hadn't driven through that puddle and actually if i hadn't flipped her off and actually if i hadn't slapped her with my glove you know he's sitting there looking at the

the branch and his servant is just like what did you what did you say to her did you like did you cross the line no i think just in his head it's like a flashback to him being like i would rather my entire family die than you, by your hand, than you get a flake of my gold, you old decrepit goblin woman. And she's like, I'm not even a witch, but this is so offensive. I'm going to find one to curse you. And then Flash forward is like, no, she was just, I think she just took it really personally. I was nice. I was cordial took it really personally. I was nice. I was cordial as an Earl is. I think I didn't hold a door for her or something like that.

Didn't you call her an old goblin woman? I think it was one of the servants did that. We should have him killed. Yeah, we should have him killed for that. So what is the Earl to do? Another storm could easily come around at any second and knock down more branches. I guess. easily come around at any second and knock down more branches. I guess. So he orders his servants to chain the tree up so tightly that no branch could ever fall from it again. It's a real

commitment. And that's how it remained until this very day. What? So we're just skipping forward in time like 200 years? We're gonna be jumping to and from time like marty goddamn mcfly oh you know we're gonna be bam back to the past making out with our moms we're gonna go to the future making out with our dads i hope not we're gonna be all over we have to make out with i never saw the movies but i heard that's what they were about would you like to see pictures of this tree absolutely now here we, here we go. Is this 1821 or is this whatever year we're in? This is 1820 now. This is 3000 and late. You know, that's not how time works.

Check this out. Okay, so this is the tree. All right. That is the tree in its current state. Okay, folks. So we're looking at an absolutely gnarled tree i mean these roots it's one of these trees where the roots are like what even is that like four foot above the ground like minimum yeah so it's all sprawled out in a very kind of uh sleepy hollow

kind of way i mean i mean the chains probably haven't helped its growth over the years. There's a set of stairs going up to this. It's obviously a very visited spot. Very popular. Because we've got some ancient stone steps up to it and yes, most crucially, several chains all strapped around branches leading down to the ground so are they are they bound to rock or something like that like i wonder how this works i think they're just bound around the tree but they've been like that for so long that in the second picture if you look closely the tree has grown so much around it that the chains are growing through the tree branches they sure are they've been totally emerged also it doesn't seem like this

works because there are branches all over the floor hundreds of branches massive ones too i mean obviously i don't know if this is related but clearly the earl is dead everyone who previously was related to him also dead yeah it was kind of a safe bet curse i would say yeah i think in in short term that was a smart thing to do like we will chain up the tree so no more branches can fall and you know there was one dude in the courtroom that was like bro you're gonna kill the tree yeah then the whole tree is gonna fall yeah he maybe he should have instead hired an army of uh tree experts to water that thing and look after it every day not until it's like the goddamn

deku tree it is a forest tall yes it has its own face i know you mean i feel like there's a smarter way of doing this like maybe nails what nail nail the branches on just because you criticized the the chains pretty heavily but then you thought nails was like an awesome idea well it's less fatal you think nails if a tree can't survive a goddamn nailing then it doesn't deserve to live that's my attitude towards what deforestation okay i noticed your bonsai tree out in the kitchen there yeah heck of a lot of nails in the guy he's pretty small too yeah i thought it would take a couple to take him down but uh that little bastard is actually pretty resilient fair play to him you didn't use like little mini ones either these are like four inchers i used a nail gun the first night i fired into the little

guy he remained in place but three of my family died is that related probably yes because i haven't nailed him since and everyone's fine you bought the tree brought him home like they're like yeah just water him every couple days pretty easy to look after it looks after himself really yeah you just brought him home stuck on uh stealer's wheel or like stuck in the middle with you just sort of dancing around the room with a nail gun all right well because this story is so old yes there are obviously a few different versions of it oh of course some say it actually took place around the 1840s a second version is that instead of a storm bringing down a branch the earl's son

was out riding his horse the next day and as he passed the tree the branch just snapped and it fell on him and killed him wow it's a very literal interpretation of the story yeah because then i think at that point you can just keep your family away from the tree very like please don't go near the tree because the branches will fall maybe that's some like adam and eve shit you know it was like stay away from the the forbidden tree yeah you know you can't go near and they And they're like, why? It looks delicious. Eve went up there. A branch just came loose,

conked her on the head. And that was that. The snake came down. He's like, guys, I am starving. Do you have like any apples or something? And Adam is like, f*** off, you little goblin snake. Not only do I have no apples.

Mouth full of apple at this point is your birdie speak normally i don't have any apples but instead of giving them to you i would rather be evicted from the garden of eden and then flash forward to them being evicted and eve is like what did you say to that snake he's like i don't know he must have just taken it really personally i was super cordial i tried to offer him some apples snakes like i don't even know how you know how to be that mean there's only two humans alive a third version of the story even featured the earl bringing the fallen branch back to the towers performing experiments in his vault to try and break the curse so these are very uh sexed up kind of telling to this story oh yeah okay yeah i think that especially that last one is more

kind of dreamed up by the people who now run alton towers but there's even claims the old oak tree has been used in the 1900s for occult purposes oh one. One resident of the Alton Towers said that her grandparents used to often ride down Barbary Gutter towards the lake at the bottom of the valley, a path that would take them right past the old oak tree. One night as they traveled down the path, they noticed the glow of fire in the distance. As they approached the light, they came across a group of druids dressed in hooded brown

coats sacrificing an animal on a small stone altar beneath the chained oak jesus i guess the point being is that even though the origins of this chain tree are unclear what is clear is that it is evil as shit right it's not good it's at least spooky yes to the point where people feel like this is a good place to sacrifice animals yeah that's quite an interesting point i mean those druids so they've got to do their thing somewhere yeah i guess options are limited even if you're part of this cool secret like druid organization i'm sure they have a meeting where they're like banging the gavel and it's like all right next up um the monthly sacrifices uh we got a goat we got a

goat this week we're really excited about that they're hard to pin down can anyone volunteer their garage for the sacrifice and like michael's just like uh my wife will not let us do it again after the pig fiasco we are banned from the garage jane you said that um maybe your grandparents um backyard was a goat i i said that when i thought we were going to be sacrificing a rabbit but anything like a goat oh really i think it's too large if the pig was anything to go by i think that is is too large a sacrifice i understand that because that pig went buck wild it destroyed uh family heirlooms that are irreplaceable and and blood everywhere i just

don't want that to happen in my garage i think we're all in agreement that the knife last time was not anywhere near sharp enough my grandparents said that we could maybe kill the goat there if we instead strangle the goat and don't slit his throat. Is everyone okay with that? They're like, no, we really want to stab. We need blood. You know, they would get to the garage and they'd be like, all right, time for the sacrifice. They're all just standing around while they strangle this goat. And then as soon as it's done, they're like, well, that was savage.

That was horrible. That was really sad. Yeah, I don't think we should have named them before we did this. Poor Charles. As we know, and as we've established, this tree is evil as shit. But what if I told you, Kit, it's not just the tree that's evil. Oh. It's the entirety of Alton Towers.

Oh. Even in its current amusement park form. Really? Overpriced, maybe? Long queues? That's quite evil. That's quite sad. If you go, it's quite demoralizing.

Not paranormal, but I... It's quite scary to ride a roller coaster. Yeah. Yeah? Before it was turned into a bustling amusement park, Alton Towers was home to the Broom family, who I believe at some point became the Bagsaw family. They lived on the massive grounds for 90 years, and paranormal encounters were often.

Ghost-like figures were seen in the halls. Family members would wake up at night screaming, feeling like something or someone was kneeling on top of them some sleep paralysis kind of situation one young girl named annie once woke up choking as if something was grabbing her by the throat when alton towers finally opened up to the public as a small tourist attraction items would go missing from the gift shop now all right look i knew you're gonna laugh at that because it doesn't sound paranormal it's not unheard of granted thieves are timeless it's the oldest profession as they say it's the beautiful game as far as i'm concerned

you know like man's first great creation was the wheel yeah then their second greatest accomplishment was ganking shit yes i believe it started when someone ganked the wheel yeah um and then uh and then humanity really came into its own with the thievery and the murder and the killing and one listen one human invented fire just think of that you know 250 000 years one little hairy ass cave dude one little monkey asshole figured out fire and he fell on his fat hairy ass about it probably a lightning bolt probably a lightning bolt hit a log that dumb mother didn't do jack all you think he was there banging flint together hell to the no he seemed really animated about this guy i just don't want him to get the credit for something he

obviously stumbled across but continue i know what you're but how do you think all the other monkeys got fire ganked it we'll first investigate gank it gank it but these thievery's got so bad they had to recruit the chief of police to spend a night alone in the towers to catch whoever was stealing from the gift shop so little going on if the chief of police could take a night off to go stay in the gift shop i think he probably they were nagging him about it so he was like if it'll make you stop complaining i'll spend the night in your haunted castle and then he does the old mannequin with like a pumpkin on top with a police chief cap back at the office he sneaks out to hit the bar when the day was over at alton towers he locked himself inside turned off all the lights

and waited patiently with his alsatian to catch the thief. By 3am he had gone mad. No he hadn't. Claiming that he had heard banging noises, footsteps all around him, and the dog was going mental, barking like it had lost its damn mind. So, I'm sorry, who lost it? So the dog and the police chief lost their mind both went bananas right

they opened the door they were just going the dogs like running along they both got chucked in the loony bin then these hauntings the dog in a straight jacket gnawing on the pads hey buddy you got a cigarette as they wheel him away poor bastard thinks he's a dog the dumbest joke we've made all day these these hauntings got so bad that they eventually had to call in the experts or the expert a 1970s paranormal investigator a great year for investigators around that time they they discovered the trench coat the mustache the mullet and the pedo glasses it all came together in the 70s granted as you said good time for paranormal investigators not sure is a good time

for this paranormal investigator uh because when it came to uh his claims as to why all of these poltergeists were appearing he said allegedly that they are attracted to young children or queers so i don't think we're necessarily gonna go with his judgment oh but he did say the place was absolutely haunted. So let's take some of what he says. Are paranormal investigators known for being liberal? I don't know. I mean, if you're that scared of things, maybe you're scared of a lot of other real things. I guess so, yeah.

Later in the 1980s, Alton Towers began to make the transition into full-on theme park. We're talking rides. You know, this is when, before it was kind of just like a tourist location. You could come and visit the grounds of the castle. Now they're going full-on Mickey Mouse, roller coasters, water parks, Ferris wheels, thousands and thousands of people visiting every day. Parks, Ferris wheels, thousands and thousands of people visiting every day. But even today, as a full theme park, Alton Towers experiences an incredible amount of paranormal activity. It does? It does.

And many mediums and paranormal investigators believe it is absolutely haunted and or cursed. Wow. And are they wrong, Kit? In the last dozen years, Al alton towers has had a number of accidents people stuck inside carriages a horrible roller coaster crash and visitors have even taken photos of ghosts walking through the grounds okay devil's advocate one of those things is paranormal ghosts walking through the grounds. The others are just kind of the side effects of having thousands of people

crammed into roller coasters every waking moment of every year. I believe I said that Alton Towers is haunted and or cursed. The ghost, the haunting. The curse, the crashes. Okay. I concede. And just to rub it in your face one step further here is a picture of the ghost that was captured at alton towers unbelievably arrogant presentation of this point but let's just see what you have to show me i mean yeah, ladies and gentlemen, this is a photo. It is an unbelievably bad quality photo.

Well, it was dark. It was very dark, obviously. This is like, you know when you take a photo of a pitch black room with the flash on? Alright, alright. You've said enough, sir. And then, in the center, there seems to be some kind of shadowy figure. It's very vague. You could construe that that looks like a dress or something like that. It does look like an old timey dress, maybe a nightgown. Ladies and gentlemen in the audience, let it be known that Kit has mentioned the fact

that there is a dress in the picture before I have even spoken a word of it. Why is this going like a legal proceeding objection bullshit not how you object yeah there is a ghost who said to haunt the castle grounds who wears a white dress i didn't mention that and you've just mentioned it so coincidence don't think so not this time melena well are we supposed to know that you didn't just make that up anyway you're like i see a so it's like a coke can in the background oh so you know about the coke ghost the coke ghost of and alton towers it's nothing to do with coca-cola he was a massive coke fiend that fell off a roller coaster uh yeah other side of that coin that could be a camera artifact that

could be anything so alton towers for the record fully leans into the fact that this place is haunted. I mean, the whole theme of the place is like there's cursed rides. They do ghost tours at night of the old castle-y bits. And this photo was actually taken on a ghost tour. Ah, I see. At night through the castle grounds. That complicates things doesn't it i like the idea of them advertising alton towers as cursed but also safe it's like

bring your kids bring the family every ride's cursed you got your coast roll your cursed roller coaster got the cursed haunted house one in five passengers every ride may die we don't know it's that's the curse. Come to Alton Towers and roll the dice. Come along to all of our rides. The Woody chain. The Woody chain train. Bumper cars.

But there's knives on them. You know, it's just terrible rides. It's a bad idea for a place that offers high thrill, dangerous entertainment to also promote the fact that they're cursed. It'd be funny to be in those meetings where they're just being completely, in the very beginning of Altantars, they're being totally frank. They're just like,

this place is just so cursed. It is just so haunted. We've got people, we've got investigators, priests, working around the clock to keep these ghosts at bay, but it is impossible. Number one guy's like,

what if what if we what if we roll with this what if this becomes our thing we well we just let the demons run wild absolutely we provoke them we go further than anyone has gone before we we like dig up some graves you know bury them in alton tars and start pissing on them day and night really rile them up now obviously we i've given a lot of evidence today from um different sorry from i've seen well one photo two three two of the two of the tree and one of the ghost i've told you stories from the past i've told you stories from the past. I've told you stories from the present. But if all of this isn't enough for you, Kit,

I've saved the best evidence for last. Oh, really? The theme park, Alton Towers, was even featured in an episode of the popular TV show, Most Haunted. Right. In the episode, the presenter was pelted with stones by a ghost who allegedly told her to f*** off.

I don't know if that was a ghost. I have the clip. Can we watch it? We can watch it. I shamefully have watched a decent amount of this show. You never come across the alton towers episode growing up and like living at home with my parents my mom was actually quite a big fan of most haunted uh so i've seen yeah a weird amount of this will you still live at home with your parents

so i assume you're still watching the show yeah you didn't have to i wanted to sound cool you don't have to throw me under the bus like that you wanted to sound cool. You don't have to throw me under the bus like that. You wanted to sound cool by saying how much Most Haunted you've watched? Fine. I live at home. I force my family to watch Most Haunted every week. It's my favorite show. You got what you wanted. So this is the paranormal investigators, mediums, whoever they are,

in Alton Towers at night. Kathy, are you all right? Yeah. Just a bit you all right? Yeah. Just a bit nervous. Listen to me. Listen. Ooh. What?

I don't know if I can repeat the word I just heard. Say it. What? Someone just called me a c**t. I'm sorry, but that's exactly what I had in my ear. C**t. I've never in my life had that before. I've never had that in my life before.

This is from this man. I think it was. It sounded like a male energy. Can you place him in terms of the time period? It's probably late 17th, early 18th century. Oh, right, 1700s. It is a word that would have been used even then. Right. People think it's a recent swear word, but it's not.

If you are here, if this man is here, if you've just sworn at David, let yourself be known. If it was you who threw the stone, can you do it again? Oh! Blimey, that came right close. Did anybody get that on their camera? It's right there.

You got it in your hand? You all right? You all right? Yeah. That was right by me. That was right by me. And that was... It wasn't so bad.

As you can see, they're being berated by stones from ghosts. They're being sworn at, called the C word. I don't know how far that dates back. That was one of the funniest things. Oh my God. The ghost allegedly leaned into the guy's ear and called him a C word. i don't know how far that word dates back yeah they said on the show that it goes back to uh like the 1700s and stuff yeah i'm gonna i'm gonna find out so turns out uh yeah they're right so that was about in that time fair enough okay haven't got us there

well you know what i'll also mention you know they named the time the man was from they said around the late 17 early 1800s which i think he clarifies to mean around 1820 yeah they go on to get a name from the person charles could it be charles the earl of shrewsbury? Chucking stones? Because he's pissed? I mean... Not drunk pissed. Problem with these shows is that is all public record. The fact that you have researched this and the fact that it's a common folk tale and the fact that it's all documented in depth online.

Fair. Like, we first have to trust that this particular medium uh has never heard anything about this story if you consider that even as he's being told where they're going to shoot on location yeah that he's going to be able to just he can literally type the words alton tars ghost and like how many of the top 10 results are going to include charles in the 17 1800s when you can talk to the dead kit you don't need wikipedia you don't need google to help you you show up on the spot and you say what up ghosts on the video secrets yeah also on the video they're getting pelted with stones i mean one of the crew goes do we get that on camera do we get that on camera spoiler they didn't i mean if he can talk to ghosts they don't like him they told him to

f**k off and they all threw rocks at him i think that's the most embarrassing thing a little bit you know i can talk to ghosts check this out oh they told me to f**k off it would be like imagine going on holiday to spain with your with like your friends and and you're like you go to a restaurant it's like i'll leave it to me boys i speak a bit of spanish you go up to the bar and you're just like uh si senor the guy just comes over and just immediately punches you in the face or if you you know your wish was granted and you were finally able to talk to your pet. And you're like, oh my God, Toby, how's it going, man? And Toby's like, you're a piece of shit.

You're like, what? I hate this. I hate you. I hate being yours. He's like, oh, you can hear me today. Okay. You're an absolute dickhead. He starts chucking stones at you.

He starts yelling the C word. Oh, it's weird because you couldn't hear me yesterday when I wanted to go for that walk in the park that's weird isn't it where you can hear me whenever you want to hear me well i want to go no yeah i i get that you know they're making a show you can't go to a location with a full crew for a whole night and not get any footage so there is a chance that the truth was exaggerated in some capacity how do you get to 10 seasons of a ghost show it's not by showing no ghosts i'll tell you that much exactly you get cancelled on season one pilot episode if you don't show a ghost uh so what are your thoughts kit on this whole story let's bundle all of this up yeah the hauntings in the castle the chain tree the curse of alton towers let's bundle all of this up into the question is alton towers haunted great question

so to take the initial story of the chained tree that is a badass story i love that story that's great uh this should be in like some kind of hp lovecraft uh demonic world yeah some kind of bloodborne style video game uh chained up tree that's cursed i would love to know are there any other explanations for why that tree is cursed do we know for sure that that is why it was chained uh no absolutely not okay i mean that's the legend surrounding the tree and as i said there's already a number of variations of that story yes presumably there are variations of how why it's even chained in the first place okay that's at least the popular one fair enough and

it's so goddamn good that no one's looking for another reason i guess my problem with that story is one like stories we've covered recently like which like like last week once you get into the 1700s and 1800s and people start saying well well, it might have happened 40 years later. It might have been his son. It might not have even been him. It gets pretty squirrely. The further back you go, it gets a little witchy, which usually isn't surrounded by the most reliable testimonies. Yeah, it's kind of like you know in a modern movie

you give jj abrams enough cash to make a movie you know he's gonna write a half-assed script and then he's gonna use time travel to try and like complicate it tie up tie up the story in a nice little knot yeah uh people back in the day use witches to tie up knots in their shitty storylines like to fill any plot hole it's like grandpa i don't understand why him being mean to an old woman meant that his family were gonna die did i mention she was a witch oh right okay no okay i guess i guess that makes sense what's a dad? It's when someone's a bitch, but also magic. Yeah, it's got all the trademarks of a story that is just too salacious and delicious to ever be true.

I agree. There's a whole bunch of other versions of the story, so we're not even pinning down one to believe in. So I think we can lay that legend to rest. Right. It is entirely possible that as ironic as it seems that such a joyous, magical, and wondrous place as Altan Tars could be cursed and haunted.

It is possible. It might be that the druids of a couple hundred years ago killed enough goats on that plot of land to curse it for a lifetime yeah to the photographic evidence that we saw of the ghost tour itself was fine limited as a standalone piece of evidence but this raises a red flag this is a ghoster and they have to make money by providing ghosts the same problem we run into all right i don't like where you're going with this you think there's some floating sheet being panned across the the screen in front of people like all i'm saying is that photoshop

exists guys if if i came to you imagine i'm an exec from Alton Towers. Right. Rory, this ghost tour is absolutely, it's just a total flop. It's bollocks. Alton Towers is so beautiful and wondrous, just no one believes that it's haunted at all. You've got to make me an image that convinces everyone this place is haunted and you've got to do it today. Okay. How long would it take you to make an image like that? 15 minutes. Right.

Which doesn't mean that it's not real, but it does mean... I just realized I really nailed my own coffin with that one. I was... I thought you were... I was like bragging. I was like, I could do that shit in a second. And I was like, oh, right. You kind of...

You really caught me with that one. You should have been like, that would take a team of experts several weeks of of investigation but after hyper examining the picture there are no altercations the problem is that this image processing technology is not available to everyone for free and it would take minutes to create this kind of fake in this day and age what about the the chief of police and his lieutenant well you told me he went mad and him and his dog got checked into his lieutenant who came out a dog he went so mad lieutenant alsatian that's such a beautiful plot twist. The other like

ambulance workers at Alta Towers the morning after they see they see the police chief getting wheeled out into the ambulance and then the dog getting wheeled out into like a veterinary car and they're like poor bastards. That's not the worst bit. He wasn't a dog yesterday.

What? Yeah, that's keith jesus christ how does a police chief go mad in one night do we have any evidence at all that he went mad obviously not but we do have evidence kit of stones being thrown at paranormal investigators look i'm you're you're pitching me curveballs here and i'm trying to bat them away as hard as I can. All I'm trying to say is that we've got very flimsy evidence, and everyone involved here has very, very clear financial interest in this place being haunted as shit, which it's kind of not.

But look, I don't mean to shit on the story itself. What do you, as the principal investigator on this case, think? I think it's cool as hell. That's what I think. Okay. I'm in the same boat with you with the original story about the chain tree. I think it's cool, but I also think it's a cool legend. I don't necessarily know the real backstory behind why this tree was chained

and i mean even if an earl did chain it to prevent some sort of curse even that doesn't mean that there was some sort of curse he could have just chained it up because he was mad yes but i think similar to you when it came down to it a lot of these people that were seeing the ghosts or these quote-unquote specialists that said that they knew it was haunted uh were either not professionals or children and i don't trust either of those two people personally which is why this week i believe it is a no from me. There's no curveballs this week, folks. I'm not about to say this is a yes.

This is a double no this week on the case of the Alton Tarr's curse. But hell, cool story. I mean, a haunted theme park. Pretty badass curse, yeah. It's a really cool idea. And I hope you guys enjoyed the journey. Going all the way back to a chain tree. All the way forward to a ghost telling someone to fuck off.

It was a magical journey. But hell, I'd say we've got a bunch of listeners out there in the paranormal nation who've been to Alton Tarr's. Maybe they have their own stories. Absolutely. Hopefully, listenership kind of comes back up for this week. Wouldn't be hard because it was fucking zero. So hopefully that happens and everyone

enjoyed the episode uh so thank you so much for listening if you like this show if you listen to the show on a weekly basis what if i told you there was a way you could get more that is by supporting the this paranormal life patreon i don't know about kit i can't speak for kit because i can't read his mind i love doing this show it is fun it is sexy we love making it hopefully you guys love listening to it if you'd like us to keep making more check out the patreon this paranormal life and if patreon isn't for you there's still another way you can support the podcast which we haven't talked about in a while which is giving us a review on iTunes. Apparently, I think that still helps, right? Like analytics or something, getting decent reviews.

I mean, presumably it will. It's something we didn't anticipate, but you guys, we never really mentioned it that much in the beginning, but you guys were incredibly generous and gave us just glowing reviews, especially in the beginning. And that allowed us to reach even more people because it made us appear in charts on iTunes, which is something we never expected.

And that's amazing. And as we said, numbers are down to zero. Yes. We really need a big pickup here. So if you haven't rated the podcast on iTunes before, feel free to go and do it. It's easy. You can do it straight from your phone.

And as always, if you have supported us on Patreon, we'd like to end the show by giving you a very special thank you. That's right. Thank you very much to John Ioannidis. John, here's a net. Ioannidis to catch Bigfoot himself.

Yeah, it's a pretty massive net. Pretty massive net for a pretty massive foot. So grab some trank darts and hit the trails, brother. Good luck. We ain't coming with you. Hell no. Thank you also to Mark McElwain. No Mark McElwain.

No Mark McElgain. What does that even mean? Without this guy around, every idea, every project is sinking ship. I think that's what we were missing last week with Halloween. So good to have you on board. Hopefully we can get the numbers up this week into double hell. Maybe high double digits this week would be awesome. Yeah.

Thanks, Mark. Thank you also to Mark Acorsi. Mark Acorsi. Mark Acorsi rides a horsey. Is that Mark coming down the road? Mark. Got my thumb out. Give me a lift.

Give me a lift, you stingy bastard. I would rather slit my own horse's throat than let you anywhere near him. Then a tree branch comes off the tree and just takes him off the horse. That's what happens when you don't throw your coins in the bucket of the paranormal pals. You get cursed. But he did. So he's fine.

Or not. Thank you also to Mr. Daniel Hudson. Daniel Hudson, the mud son. That's right. He was a boy that was left in the swamp by his parents, raised by the wilderness. Raised by the mud. And the sun, the hot sun.

Because whenever the hot sun's bearing down, where's cool and moist? Mudtown, baby. Whenever it's too cold out, where's warm and cozy? The mud. Yeah, the mud was his best friend growing up. And now, he's probably his biggest enemy. Because he's got a lot of bad memories of the mud.

He's a cryptid. Hopefully, one day we will catch. Till then, happy mud and daniel huddy thank you to oisin keevers oisin keevers king of the beavers similar to mudson uh he was also abandoned by a river raised by the beavers yeah it's pretty awful to be raised by beavers yet be scared of a river. But luckily, through that process, he's become very good at building dams. Yeah.

Preserving things like water and money, which he funnels gently out one side to the pockets of the paranormal peasants. It's pretty time-consuming to pan for gold. Yeah. But beavers are in there all day long. You know, they come across untold quantities of gold. And that's why Oshin's been just a couple nuggets into the bucket. We appreciate it.

Thank you also to Jana Beck. You da manna, Jana. We appreciate you now. I'll beck you a cake for it. I swear to God. I'll beck you a whole tray of brownies to show my appreciation enough said thank you lastly but not leastly to yovani umavasi yo vanny udamansi that's right i know i just said that janna is the manna but there are actually two men mannas

who are strongly supporting this podcast. That's right. And we appreciate both of them. Hell, you know what? F*** it. I'll back you a cake too. I got the flour. I got the eggs.

Last one's turned out pretty good. That's right. I scalped one off. See how it tasted? I caveman style ganked it from a bakery. I didn't back it myself. Hell no. Remember folks, ganking is the mother of invention.

Exactly. Thank you to everyone we've shouted out today. Everyone we've shouted out previously. And if you haven't heard your shout out just yet in the podcast, that's probably because it's coming up. If you think, if you pledged a long time ago and you think we have missed it, it is possible.

We try our best, but yeah, just fire us a quick email. We'll get it out there next week uh but in the meantime we will see you next week for a brand new paranormal tale bye bye folks ciao