This Paranormal Life - #099 Mystery of the New Orleans Casket Girls

Episode Date: February 6, 2019

In the 1700s, New Orleans was a brand new city. And it needed people, fast! But when the king of France shipped in around 100 women in 1728, rumours and speculation started circulating that the women ...were not who they said they were. Some believed they weren’t even human. Then, the story goes, they disappeared overnight, never to be seen again. This is the story of the Casket Girls.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.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Are humans the product of aliens mating with prehistoric apes? Who would win in a fight? Mike Tyson in his prime or the Chupacabra? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This Paranormal Life! Hey! Welcome back to the podcast. It is Tuesday once again. You are listening to This Paranormal Life. This is the podcast where every week we dissect a different tale, case or claim and get to the bottom of whether it is truly paranormal or not.
Starting point is 00:00:28 That's right. As always, you're listening to your two favorite paranormal investigators in the whole wide world. My name's Kit Greer, Mulvanna. This is Rory Powers. Decorated war hero as well as a paranormal investigator. Decorated war coward. Right. Sorry, I forgot that bit actually.
Starting point is 00:00:44 Yeah. Not a hero, a coward actually card i grabbed a bunch of medals on the tent on the way out so yes my uniform is shinier than rainbow road itself uh but unfortunately i they were all ill-gotten they honestly deserve that for leaving all those medals on that table yeah like people you know you'd question like why did you bring the medals to war this seems like something you should probably do afterwards at home. And I brought that up a number of times at a meeting and they all said, shut up, you rat coward. But stealing all those medals actually made you pretty popular with the kind of like peace-knit hippies back home.
Starting point is 00:01:19 Yeah, they thought it was like this political statement. They were like, oh, you've stolen the one thing that matters to these people yeah you know to really stick a badge and i'm like oh yeah yeah that's what i was trying to do anyway you want to buy it purple heart 50 bucks that's right but we're not here today to talk about um being war heroes or war cowards at that rate we're here to talk about the paranormal and as always we're just going to dive right in and this week's story actually comes as a suggestion from a listener believe it or not they emailed into this paranormal life podcast at gmail.com with the suggestion so thank you so much abby and tyler today we are journeying to the usa that's right the united states but somewhere i'm not sure we've been before as a podcast,
Starting point is 00:02:06 we're heading down to New Orleans, a.k.a. the Big Easy, a.k.a. the birthplace of jazz, a.k.a. the city that care forgot, a.k.a. Crescent City, a.k.a. Nola, a.k.a. Northern Caribbean, a.k.a. Southern Paris,
Starting point is 00:02:24 a.k.a. Northern Caribbean. That's enough! A.K.A. Southern Paris. You must stop! A.K.A. New Orleans. Southern Paris? Who made that one? Rory, have you been to New Orleans before? I've never been to New Orleans before. I've always wanted to go, though. It's on my list.
Starting point is 00:02:37 Yeah. It's considered one of the most unique places in the United States. Yeah, and jazz is the paranormal genre of the United States. Yeah and jazz is the is the paranormal genre of the music world because there's nothing spookier than music that's just structureless. It's improvisation, it's musicians going mad and just letting loose on these instruments. It's the musical equivalent of floating through a solid wall. I mean, if you were to somehow put Sasquatch into note form,
Starting point is 00:03:11 it would be smooth jazz. It would sound like Dave Brubeck's Take Five. Smooth, but deeply original. Which is why I'd love to go to the birthplace, aka the birthplace of jazz i spent a little time there um i spent about a week there and it's incredible it's a melting pot of french european afro-caribbean and new world culture it's the type of place you'll see an incredible jazz band on the
Starting point is 00:03:38 street and everyone's dancing having a good time and you're like oh what's going on is there like some kind of music festival and they're like no actually someone died this is a funeral oh of course if i see one person even even giggling in my funeral i will murder them what if the priest i was like a really funny bit then i my hand will rise from the grave grab his neck and pull him right down with me. Jesus. Yeah. I'll pop out with my little skeleton face and say, hey, I said no f***ing giggles, God boy.
Starting point is 00:04:11 And then drag him down into the coffin with me. You live a rich and long life. And then, you know, on your deathbed, you pass away. And the lawyers are scrambling to find your will. And they find it locked in a little box. And it's a scroll. They take it out. Of of course and then it just says scrawled and pencil just no fucking giggles also i'd like to think that my whole life i was a clown like my podcasting career went down i started being a children's entertainer. It's like, here lies Rory. You mostly know him as Bubbles.
Starting point is 00:04:47 He's requested that we not smile during the duration of his funeral. He wanted to show a highlight of some of his time as a clown. It's me like pies in the face, like honk my nose. Everyone who so much as giggles is asked to leave immediately. This is f***ing Siri. That's why you you laughing at a funeral it's you getting kicked in the nuts by another client show some goddamn respect your widow's like come on it's hilarious gotta kick me out if you're on the way out if the
Starting point is 00:05:17 priests they're giving you the last rites i mean that is your last chance to get into heaven do not mess up that gig i suppose so you gotta be nice it's like a job interview you gotta ace it yeah you gotta give him a firm handshake i listen i am truly a plus heaven material you're not gonna find a better candidate anywhere else to hang with the big guy can you imagine like getting up to heaven and the pearly gates open and god is like walking out being like welcome home kit he like extends his his hand and that's one in a million handshakes that goes weird where like your hands like get mashed in a weird way or like your thumb is kind of locked he was going for the kind of bro like chest bump yeah and you you didn't know what to do so you kind of just you're like he's gone it's pretty official i thought it'd be a regular handshake and he's like
Starting point is 00:06:08 oh and then after world uh you know he's like right so this is um heaven uh there's some space over here your house is actually can we talk about the handshake uh you're gonna be up here for eternity i think we need to just get this out of the way man i i thought i didn't think you noticed it was a bad grip my thumb was locked with your little finger i was nervous your hands are sweaty as shit yeah i'm the creator i created a little bitch handshake like that jesus i created humans with some biceps and some muscles didn't mean to say jesus shake shake my hand like a man all right take two i like make a pass at his crotch by accident. Oh no. The f**k?
Starting point is 00:06:47 The f**k? I think if that happens, like the trap door opens. Like you had two chances. Now you go to hell. Yeah. We're getting besides the point here. We're not here to talk about jazz or booze. Although I do think Lombardi would be popular in New Orleans.
Starting point is 00:07:01 That's a burgeoning market. Of course. We're here to talk about the early days of new orleans 1728 to be exact oh now bear in mind new orleans has just been founded in 1718 exactly 10 years previous to this so if you think new orleans is crazy now i mean jesus christ what did it look like then wow you know america believes a lot in the founding fathers. These men were so virtuous they wrote the Constitution itself and believed in justice and freedom more than anything else in the world. George Washington famously couldn't even tell a lie. But by contrast, on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, you can drink for 24 hours a day. Every morning at like 5 a.m., the city workers literally hosed on the vomit and booze
Starting point is 00:07:44 off of the street to stop it building up for the next day wow the outdoors of these streets actually smell like a dirty bar there are strip clubs everywhere i don't know what that says about the founders of new orleans right um legends that france you know when they founded the city they sent the 1700s version of andrew wk to start a city that's what it sounds like yeah like adults disneyland it sounds great yeah not to mention the city was very popular with pirates so this was an extremely new place just thriving with criminals and murderers thousands of miles from home yeah there's no there's no real good way to turn your city around once the pirates get there you can have the best
Starting point is 00:08:26 intentions in the world the ship has sailed at that point literally you're like oh okay uh it's a little bit of a rough neighborhood granted probably shouldn't have called it bourbon street uh that's giving you some people the wrong ideas a lot of the bars are staying open quite late um is that a pirate is it you're like a shanty from the distance and the jolly roger on the horizon you're like oh god that is like in the 1700s if you're a good christian that is the worst sound in the world to you is a sea shanty no good can come from that i love the idea as well of like the pirates, they've been causing havoc in the town, you know, smashing through people's houses, raiding them, drinking on the street, throwing up everywhere.
Starting point is 00:09:11 Pirate stuff. And the mayor comes on and he's like, enough is enough. You simply have to leave. Ship burnt down. Guess we're staying. Right before I say, all right, all right, we'll leave mayor. But before we do, why don't you just try a little swig of this?
Starting point is 00:09:25 Sounds like a little bottle of whiskey. I guess I suppose I can. Hard cut 24 hours later. I'm never going to die. I will never die. I'm a motherf***ing pirate. Singing seashells. Suck my pirate dick.
Starting point is 00:09:43 Suck my Jolly Roger. His wife's like, Gerald, what's happened? F*** off, Margaret. Suck my pirate dick! Suck my Jolly Roger! His wife's like, Gerald, what's happened? F*** off, Margaret! I'm a pirate now! Why is he like a 12-year-old boy running this town? F*** off!
Starting point is 00:09:55 I'm a pirate! Pirates are notoriously infectious, that lifestyle. So, long story short, New Orleans had a lot of soldiers, pirates, rogues, thieves, and bastards. But it had almost zero women. It sounds like I'm being funny, but it really was a problem. All these French colonists have built cities in Louisiana, but had literally no women to marry and start families with. And if there's one thing you need in a city of pirates and thieves, it's babies. Otherwise, where will the next generation of pirates even come from?
Starting point is 00:10:27 Exactly. And the French were worried because the only women that were around at the time were not white and French. And everyone back then was racist, so you get the idea. They were like, we need some more Europeans in here to start European families with. Right, yeah. You get it. So the Bishop of Quebec requested that French King Louis XV send a whole gang of girls from France to America to marry the settlers there. Oh my gosh.
Starting point is 00:10:52 It's quite extreme. We were weird in the early days. Right. Like humans as people. Yeah. It's like, yeah, can you send a boat of girls to America to get married? I'm not saying that the people in power today wouldn't do that given the opportunity. It's just that we've moved on as a society.
Starting point is 00:11:08 It's frowned upon. This world really has gone to shit ever since the pirates died out. I think they were holding this whole thing together, honestly. And King Louis Obliged, sort of Neo-Yokio style, they handpicked the most eligible bachelorettes who had a flair for adventure,
Starting point is 00:11:23 obviously because they agreed to travel by boat halfway across the world to a new continent. So I think it was around 100 French girls were boarded up onto a ship, bound for Louisiana. Wow. So when the boat arrives in New Orleans, some of the men are waiting in the docks because they're excited. It's women from home, not to mention women that would become the future matriarchs of French Louisiana society. But when the women walked off the boat, as the women walked off the boat, it had become apparent that several months on the sea had turned them to pirates.
Starting point is 00:11:56 Yarr! Even rowdier than the locals. As they approached the harbor, the sails dropped and the jolly Roger rose! But when the women walked off the boat, the men were shocked. Bal, they muttered to themselves. The girls were so pale, it struck the men as odd. They didn't look entirely healthy. Their skin was almost see-through.
Starting point is 00:12:22 The girls were clutching small wooden boxes to their chests as they walked on onto the land. And these peculiar small boxes were what the girls came to be known by. They called them the Fia La Cassette, or casket girls. And perhaps luckily for the girls, they weren't just let loose on the booze and vomit soaked streets of New Orleans, they were immediately placed in the care of the local nuns, hidden away from society until they should marry. And this did keep them safe. But it also added to the air of mystery around them. The men wondered, what did they keep in those little wooden boxes? Why were they so pale? Folks would walk by the convent where the girls lived. It was said that they lived on the third floor, which was visible from the street,
Starting point is 00:13:04 except the wooden blinds on the windows were always shut so no one was able to look in this is creepy even this is like a in terms of this paranormal life episodes like quite a slow descent into the paranormal right i think on this month's bonus episode in the first sentence i said then it rained meat and blood yeah so this is like i appreciate this approach to storytelling a much more structured you gave a shit is what i can tell i'm enjoying it at the first dinner that the king arranged for the women they revealed themselves to be greys oh abducted several locals one sentence away all right i actually was supposed to mention that at the start they had four eyes.
Starting point is 00:13:46 Pale, they said, which meant grey. In French. They were so pale, they were borderline grey. Le alien, they referred to them as. Occasionally, the men would even see the girls around New Orleans during the day. They were easy to spot, after all. Their skin translucent and white compared to everyone else's. But as they got closer, before the girls could slip away, they'd noticed blisters and scars on the girls' faces.
Starting point is 00:14:11 Rumours and chatter spread about this, adding more fuel to the mysterious fire. So immediately, the locals were sceptical about the provenance of these women. You know, these were supposed to be the fairest maidens in the kingdom that volunteered to the king to go to the new world. But people started speculating. Maybe they just said that and they actually just rounded up all the city's prostitutes and orphans to get rid of them. Right.
Starting point is 00:14:35 It's a perfect excuse to clean up the streets. Very sneaky. Hey, you know, send your brightest and best to our new city. And they're like, round up all the crackheads in the city. It's like, this is a fantastic way of getting rid of these folks i mean this would explain why they actually got a boatload of pirates instead of ladies king thank you for sending these maidens but unfortunately they were turned to pirates he's like right turned to pirates oh god really did the wizard do it again
Starting point is 00:14:59 i'm so sorry man i'm looking at a i'm looking at a bunch of them now wow they are just beautiful stunning i'm gonna load them up right away. They're definitely maidens. Okay, definitely maidens. I'm going to send them off right now. What was that? Keep it down. This is one of the girls doing a little chant.
Starting point is 00:15:15 Is that a shanty? No, it's a French song. And it sounds kind of far-fetched, but it was kind of a good point because in reality, what women in their right mind were going to travel all that way to an unknown world? Yeah, it's a kind of a good point because in reality what women in their right mind were going to travel all that way to an unknown world yeah it's a sketchy deal but whilst the women
Starting point is 00:15:30 truly weren't prostitutes the locals might have been right in that the girls weren't exactly who they said they were so the girls did marry into louisiana society but for unknown reasons many of these marriages broke down over time and the women were left independent and sometimes on the streets once again of course this was like an unimaginable embarrassment to the French the nuns and the king so the order was given yeah they must be sent back they cannot be allowed to stay geez yeah harsh a rough deal. So the nuns in the convent receive the order, and they go to break the news to the girls.
Starting point is 00:16:09 They have to go home to France. So they walk up to the third floor where the girls lived. They knock on the door. No answer. But silence. Okay, I guess they're asleep. So they open the door and walk in. But the place is empty.
Starting point is 00:16:31 Tumbleweed. They had disappeared altogether. In fact, all that remained of the girls at all was that each girl's wooden casket lay empty on the ground. Just like strewn about the place. Yeah. What had they been keeping in them and perhaps creepiest of all the third floor windows the windows that had never been seen to be open from the outside had actually been nailed shut from the inside no that's creepy as hell word of this discovery got
Starting point is 00:17:01 out that the girls had run away or escaped. But there were too many questions. Where did they go? How did no one in the city know where they went? What did they keep in these wooden caskets? And why were the windows nailed shut? It didn't take a paranormal investigator to start connecting the dots. We don't know exactly where they came from. They were arguably banished from France to the New World. They were pale and blistered in the sun. Okay. The marriages they came to in New Orleans fell apart for unknown reasons. Alright.
Starting point is 00:17:36 And then they mysteriously lived in a building with windows that were nailed shut from the inside. Okay. Do I just spell it out for you guys where are these girls goddamn vampires the v word i'm glad you dropped the v bomb interesting why would why i mean there's a number of things you mentioned there that i don't know are related to vampires you said like their marriage is falling apart because they were vampires that was like the big issue i don't know their husband found out that they were vampire and he was like this is an absolute deal breaker huh i mean in a way you could say my my ex-wife was a bit of a blood sucker ah she drained the life out of me do like a like a crowd applaud there i'm doing like a stand-up
Starting point is 00:18:23 it would be funny but you look so tired you you do look like is this thing on uh it's absolutely on yeah hey just wasn't that funny uh reminds me my first wife she was a bit like a vampire uh-huh because uh after every conversation i fell hollow yeah i felt it was similar to the first joke actually no i think how many times you've been married you're pretty young uh a couple times now a couple times now each one let's just be clear this is be clear as a couple two or is it more a couple you can take from that what you will okay i'm gonna i'm gonna take two but correct me if i'm wrong okay you're wrong oh why'd you say a couple well technically me and karen are still doing the divorce. It's ongoing.
Starting point is 00:19:06 So that's not technically a divorce. So three then. Five. Including Karen. Including Karen? Yeah. Including Karen. Okay. So it's not any more than that.
Starting point is 00:19:14 No. Not Karen. Fine. That's a lot. Yeah, that's a lot. And that's just the women too. Oh. So there's more?
Starting point is 00:19:20 Twelve with the men. So there's actually more men than women. Thirteen! Actually, if you count the one with Michael. But I don't because it's ongoing. So I think you need to be in jail. It's just not illegal to be married to more than one person at one time. If it is, don't tell Debra because I'm still with her.
Starting point is 00:19:37 And things are going smooth, baby. I think she's the one. So it's more than 12 or 13. Me and Debra are fine. We're not getting divorced. Oh, you're not getting divorced. Although, between you and me she's a bit of a bloodsucker so it's not just the first and second wife that were blood so i can't
Starting point is 00:19:50 stand deborah i'll be honest with you i feel like i can talk about it now on the podcast i feel like divorce divorce number 14 is on the way does deborah not listen to the podcast i forgot she um oh we're gonna have to cut that man you're gonna have to cut that whole segment so just even if michael here's 14 just no more than 14 that's so many i mean even your adult life that's like three a year since you were legally able to get married i had a series of arranged marriages uh from when i was of legal age that does not make sense how can you have a series of arranged marriages it's supposed was of legal age. That does not make sense. How can you have a series of arranged marriages? It's supposed to be one for life once you reach the right age.
Starting point is 00:20:32 Because my parents didn't think any of them were going to work out. So they put on some backup plans to fall back on. That's what happens in marriage. You try the first one out. It doesn't work. You do another one. Why did all these other people agree to get married with such a petty confusing person you know the term like a shotgun wedding right i had one of those i had a couple of those so there was really a shot there was a actual shotgun it's not because shotgun wedding is usually like
Starting point is 00:20:55 that's just like a turn of phrase but there was actually firearms involved with these situations i assume that's what the phrase was yeah like a shotgun against both of our heads now you're saying it doesn't it doesn't usually happen that way these days romance is dead man wow what age are you now currently of course why would i ask that's a very personal question i don't feel comfortable answering interesting okay so let's just park the whole marriage thing for a second cool do you think this is legitimate that these people could be vampires what would they keep in this box what would a vampire keep in a box great question that's that's the creepy thing we don't know what would a vampire keep in it um because we did an episode actually on vampires
Starting point is 00:21:35 yeah uh way way back um and we talked about some of the kind of the basics of vampire law and a bit of their lore for, not being able to enter a house without being invited in first. Right. You know, being damaged by sunlight, direct sunlight. Which, by the way, works pretty well with this story because they were borderline invited to New Orleans. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:21:57 And then invited to live in the convent. And you said they were like pale as ghosts. And when they were outside in the sun, they were all blistery. It's making sense. It is making making sense this is a long time ago but do we have anything um attesting to this story it's sort of more present day well allegedly in 1978 two paranormal investigators wanted to find this convent in new orleans and investigate the possibility of vampires having lived there and it said that they wanted to stay overnight on the third floor of the convent. But the priest and nuns said, absolutely not.
Starting point is 00:22:31 This is a place of God. Of course not. Right. No, there's never been any vampires here. But at night, the two paranormal investigators snuck over the outside wall and set up their monitoring equipment just in the outside of the grounds of the convent. Okay. Well, morning came,
Starting point is 00:22:49 and the priests awoke to find electronic equipment just strewn across the grounds of the convent. And when they followed the trail of debris, they found the investigators dead. Their bodies drained of blood, covered in horrible wounds as if attacked by some kind of animal. No. Is this reported in a newspaper?
Starting point is 00:23:10 Of course not. Local legend, actually. It's a crazy town. It's a crazy place. Police were called, but they took a little detour to Bourbon Street and got a little hammered. Of course, yeah. They forgot to report the whole thing. The police were actually, at this time, a little pirate-y uh even up to the 70s honestly there was well the mayor was actually a blackbeard
Starting point is 00:23:31 a descendant of blackbeard it's nuts that's mad wow so what you're implying is that they went to the location where these vampires these vampire girls lived and in the process of their investigation were attacked themselves by some sort of vampire like beast i suppose this suggests that there is still a vampire not only were the girls that came from france vampires but that they established a vampire presence in new orleans that exists to this day right because the girls just kind of disappeared yeah um and you know vampires outside daylight don't think so they probably didn't go very far. They probably just went into the bushes and like hid under a tree. Totally. And I think that's maybe one of the theories about the casket. Yeah, they were keeping some sort of voodoo material inside these inside these caskets.
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Starting point is 00:24:34 Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Whilst we don't have a lot of evidence dating from the 1700s, we don't have a lot of evidence dating from 1978 when I just mentioned that but as you mentioned we have done an entire episode on vampires before uh this is something i believe we said was true we gave it a yes double yes at the end of the podcast we did yeah we said vampires are real so we've already established that's not up for debate vampires are categorically real i don't go back on my word of course not and if you need to go back and listen to how the we came to that conclusion please go and do it it's a great episode but something that does
Starting point is 00:25:09 attest to the potential truth of this story is that new orleans actually has kind of a rich history of vampirism new orleans has been a suggested location of vampires pretty much ever since its establishment in the 1700s because new New Orleans was established as a young and exciting city during this period of mass immigration to the United States, it attracted lots of kind of interesting, enigmatic, and eccentric characters. Right. So there are people throughout history such as Count Saint-Germain and Jacques Saint-Germain, as well as john and wayne
Starting point is 00:25:46 carter i mean the first two really sound like vampires count but folks like this came to new orleans and were mysteries to the people they lived around they came in with extreme wealth masses of knowledge and kind of beauty beyond their years. Right. And were just extremely enigmatic to the point where people began to wonder, are these people even human at all? Apparently, Count Saint-Germain, he claimed to be the son of a prince of Transylvania. Oh my God.
Starting point is 00:26:18 The philosopher Voltaire even called him the man who knows everything and who never dies. It's pretty black and white, people. What's going on here? The man who never everything and who never dies it's pretty black and white people what's going on here the man who never dies and drinks blood whichever side of the story you're on the skeptic side or the kind of paranormal believing side yeah both accounts would make sense so from a skeptic's perspective you can say look it was just a new city wealth was pouring in entrepreneurs are pouring in to try and buy up property start businesses and live in this exciting new place but by the same token you could say obviously a vampire would be someone who lives for many hundreds of years has to move location yeah to not raise any
Starting point is 00:26:57 suspicion and that by coming to a new city they could start an entirely new life all over again yeah that's it because i mean if you're a vampire, like a young, sexy vampire, that's what you're going to want to do is move to a new city with, you know, a cool vibe like New Orleans. Absolutely. Where, you know, you don't even have to hunt that hard. Every night there's, like, people drunkenly
Starting point is 00:27:18 stumbling on their way home. And you're like, oh, hey, brother, like, here, let me help you home. And he's like thanks bro i actually live down in this way it's like oh it's okay you're you're coming with me you're coming with me just like yeah yeah oh what a beautiful neck you have it's really yeah i moisturize oh you're like oh so much bourbon so much bourbon your blood alcohol content is insane now the vampire's walking home pissed yeah and then the day, the pirate police find this man with two holes in his neck.
Starting point is 00:27:50 It's like, probably got killed by a pirate. The pirate police take his wallet and leave him to die. That's pirate code. And it turns out we don't even have to go that far back in history. Because to this day, there is a new orleans vampire association what there's a community of vampires that kind of like hang on do charity together generally kind of look after each other yeah um and these are the type of vampires that we've covered in the previous episode these are the type of people who whether paranormal or not do hang out and drink blood yeah and that was the question that we came to at the end of that episode is was just are vampires real and um you know under these circumstances
Starting point is 00:28:30 yeah they are if there's like a bunch of people who hang out together drink blood and call themselves vampires technically that means vampires are real they do exist it's true and so i guess the question comes down to here with this story is that like a novel new concept that's come to new orleans in the last you know hundred years whatever or was that non-existent in the u.s until the casket girls arrived en masse they escaped into the night and started a vampire community that lives to this day in the shadows that's the question so it's worth throwing out there just a couple of the theories on both sides about this particular case okay
Starting point is 00:29:10 right off the bat skeptics of these theories have mentioned that one of the pivotal points and most delicious points in this tale the windows nailed shut could actually be nothing to do with keeping sunlight out at all but rather these are a common feature of all new orleans buildings because the south like that is prone to weather storms tropical storms right and that just you needed to have those in windows to stop them getting blown out that does kind of shit all over the idea of them trying to keep the sunlight out yeah it kind of ruins the that was kind of cool cool point in the story but there's actually lots of claims that the windows were bolt shut with nails that were blessed by the pope himself what yeah so they've
Starting point is 00:29:51 got a kind of holy energy that the vampires couldn't you know oh they couldn't undo them oh that's good so it was like the so that kind of changed the story to be like the nuns knew they were vampires and they were keeping them under wraps right yeah you would be pissed if you were a nun and you were like yeah i'll take care of a bunch of girls and it's like okay cool yeah here they are uh they are vampires though is that is that gonna be like an issue with you guys a lot of blood human blood by the way it's like is it gonna be an issue like i'm a nun this is a uh this is like a freaking church they are demons are they there's to be an issue. Are they Christian vampires at least?
Starting point is 00:30:27 No. One of them's Jewish. Does that help? That makes it worse. That makes it worse. So we might have to park the whole windows thing for a minute. Additionally, one problem
Starting point is 00:30:36 for the paranormal theory that these vampire women escaped into the night never to be seen again is that we can actually trace the family trees of some of these women. Lots of them had successful marriages in fact there are even famous people alive today that are descendants of these french immigrants oh wow so not specifically the casket girls but a different shipment of girls right known as the king's girls believe it or not hillary clinton angelina jolie and
Starting point is 00:31:06 madonna are all direct descendants we have the names of these women that came from paris shipped in oh my god the new world so we've got two possibilities on our hands is this not paranormal they didn't ship any vampires and hillary clinton angelina jolie and madonna are just regular folks or is it the case that hillary clinton angelina jolie and madonna are vampires i don't know much about hillary clinton but like madonna and angelina jolie are pretty god damn charismatic and beautiful like they fit the vampire look madonna she's like still performing concerts in like in doing dance routines at 50 years old crazy that's kind of vampiric i don't know so despite lots of ideas on both sides of this argument um one thing we do know for sure is that the convent itself exists you can go see it
Starting point is 00:31:58 anyone who's near new orleans can go hang out i think it's called the ursuline convent and when asked the archivist of the archdiocese of new orleans said that there is nothing on the third floor of the old ursuline convent besides archival records and storage items right but he would say that wouldn't he he would doesn't want to tell anyone about the little vampire hut they've got going on up there we've talked a little bit about the background we've talked a little bit about where the comment stands today the vampire situation stands today what are your thoughts about this potential genesis of vampirism in the united states uh i think it's great i think because new orleans is also one of those um places in the u.s that has like quite a strong link to
Starting point is 00:32:41 the occult yeah i feel like it's a big part of their heritage and their day-to-day life. So I'm not surprised that we're seeing a case of vampirism here in New Orleans. And this case in particular, I've never heard of in my life before. It's incredible. It's so cool and really interesting because obviously it dangles enough in front of you
Starting point is 00:33:02 to kind of put all the pieces together, but they're still not giving you enough to come to a conclusion that easy. It's like little red herrings, like the boxes that they're holding, that kind of never actually lead to anything. Like the fact that we're now so convinced that there's something creepy about these boxes, even though it could just be like, hey, you're going on the boat, we'll give you guys a little box to put uh your prolongings in like anything so it doesn't get any seawater and if it goes overboard it'll float yeah exactly it's like super smart and handy and then they obviously arrive and it's like what is in those little
Starting point is 00:33:37 goddamn curse boxes and and the claims about these boxes have gone from they were just storage containers for their personal items all the way to they were coffin shaped boxes that the girls like slept in. Which is insane. So it's kind of hard to come to a definite conclusion regarding this case specifically. But Hellkit, you investigated it. Are you any closer to a side than I am? I know exactly what you mean about there being lots of leads in this story that kind of become dead ends. All of the popular retellings of the story have a real flavor of hearsay.
Starting point is 00:34:14 You can just imagine being one of these workers in New Orleans, hearing about the girls coming over. That's cool. Seeing them come off the boat, the air of mystery. All the rumors just flying around. Why are they never never seen outside why is the window bolted up yeah um things for which there are probably rational conclusions for rational explanations yeah the women disappeared one day well we already knew they were trying to get rid of them they were gonna ship them back it's true that's a pretty good excuse to do it like oh yeah they were vampires so we sent them all back it's like really because some of them were nice and i'm pretty sure some of them are still here
Starting point is 00:34:47 married it's like no well i guess they were fine yeah they were fine just the annoying ones we just ship those vampires back right so if they don't want to marry the random man they're vampires absolutely that's the case but as always we have to come to a conclusion as to whether this case is truly paranormal or not so with the evidence I've presented with this story, where are you coming down? I just need, all I'm missing is one silver bullet. One like news article, one photo of these paranormal investigators, like one voice clip. I need a tiny bit more evidence in the chamber of this gun before it fires off a big yes from me. So unfortunately, I think this week it's going to be a no.
Starting point is 00:35:34 I think this is probably a story that's gone out of control. I'm right there with you. And it's a fascinating insight into even the minds of the people living there in the 1700s and just what an alien time it felt like to them. Just like people arriving on boats. They were like, I don't know, are these people even human? Who knows? Yeah.
Starting point is 00:35:51 That's kind of cool. But like I say, this to me stinks of hearsay. This just stinks of rumors. So I don't think we have enough to say this is truly paranormal. It's going to be a no today. Okay. Double no.
Starting point is 00:36:02 Damn it. Shreds. I really thought that was gonna be it what a waste of time abby and tyler i take it back i don't appreciate you emailing this in uh no that was fantastic thanks for sending that in guys as always if you have your own thoughts interpretations on this story from new orleans and you think we're idiots for the way we told this story and you truly know that those men died outside the convent that day let us know at this paranormal life podcast at gmail.com you can always hit us up on the socials as well make sure to follow us at on twitter at this para life facebook.com
Starting point is 00:36:36 forward slash this paranormal life and the secret society where people are trading paranormal memes um getting excited about the live show coming up. Yeah. If you're going to the live show, definitely recommend checking in there and like maybe seeing some friendly faces before you go. You can find that on Facebook. It's This Paranormal Life Secret Society. Well, don't just blurt it out because it's not that secret. I just forget the name of it. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:37:04 But it's this hard thing when we're trying to like we want to have people in the society. Yeah, a couple of people. That's why it's called a society. We've got a couple a couple people in there now so we'll get a couple more than a couple we got like a thousand or something yeah well someone's not keeping their goddamn lips peeled that's kind of my fault i've kind of been i actually hired a pr company jesus publicized the whole thing but only put it in like a couple couple newspapers we've got a qr code You can scan a viral campaign ad from f*** Jerry. We're being recalled in the press, the fire festival of Facebook groups, which is frankly slander.
Starting point is 00:37:35 We don't deserve this heat. So if you enjoyed this week's podcast and you enjoyed last week's podcast, maybe every damn podcast we've released, did you know that you are not at the end my friends you don't have to wait seven whole days to get the next episode on tuesday or thereabouts there are actually a goddamn smorgasbord a nugget if you will of bonus episodes which are let's be honest more chaotic chaotic. Oh, yeah. More racy.
Starting point is 00:38:05 The too hot for TV shit. They're over on patreon.com. So as you may have noticed, we don't run ads on the podcast. The only way that we keep this thing going is through the direct support of our listeners, which we really can't thank them enough for. So by going to patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life, by giving as little as two bucks a month you can get access to shout outs bonus episodes merchandise and more sky's the limit the last episode we covered which roy's already mentioned this episode
Starting point is 00:38:35 was the day that it rained meat and blood and to give you a taste here is a clip of that episode right now can you eat roadkill if you're vegan no some people do because the rabbit got like obliterated i think there's some i think i think the idea is there's probably like monks in tibet who like are totally vegetarian but if they uh like came across like a dead animal they're like that's fine because no one harmed this yeah do you think like there's just one monk who goes out and it's like oh dude you never guess i found like seven rabbits today like his range rovers covered in fur and blood he's holding a hammer it's like christopher you every time you go out with the hammer you come back with animals your pure white tibetan robes are stained with all sorts of juice i think that one's still alive oh is it sorry hold on a second
Starting point is 00:39:21 i'm gonna go for another hike oh is that the buddha they all turn around oh i guess it wasn't the buddha anyway who's hungry who wants a rabbit worst monk ever he lasts one day in the monastery wow that actually wasn't as funny as i remember well anyway i hope you guys enjoy it and that you might be interested in checking out the patreon and every week we like to shout out the people who support us in patreon right here on the podcast let's do it thank you to neil hutchings neil before him hutchins is in the house oh boy neil we are so grateful for all of your support on patreon and the the very least we can do is kneel and bow down before you blew out holy god
Starting point is 00:40:07 is it okay if i just lie face down on the floor for you it's a really dirty floor i wouldn't lie down on it oh god it smells like garbage anyway mr hutchins i'm sorry for his his insolence awful it's so sore i will kneel forever for you, Mr. Hutchins. So thank you for your support. Thank you also to Morgan Smart. She's Morgan Smart. She's downright beautiful. Morgan Smart, a goddamn genius.
Starting point is 00:40:35 Bonafide Mensa member. Got the membership card and all to prove it. And, you know, that's the kind of person we could do with over this Paranormal Life HQ. Exactly. but that's the kind of person we could do with over this Paranormal Life HQ. Exactly. Someone who can not only investigate the paranormal, but minority report style,
Starting point is 00:40:53 find out when paranormal shit is going to happen before it even happens. Yeah, because Kit and I, I know obviously we come off as intellectuals, but all we really are are just megaphones in a human body. All we do is just amplify other people's opinions uh there's not a lot going on in the old hq uh so we need as many smart people as we can in the commune so we're so happy to have you on board thank you also to david wiltshire dave from the grave rises up once more to his hand burst from the soil with a gold doubloon to just pop in the bucket of the paranormal peasants. And we're here, Dave. We're at your funeral.
Starting point is 00:41:30 We all loved and respected you. No smiles as well. Don't worry. I'm watching for any smiles or giggles. Yeah, too right. No, not even one happy face. Everyone's in tears. Dave from the grave.
Starting point is 00:41:42 So thank you for your support. Thank you also to George Bunton. You know George of the Jungle? This is George of the City. Really? He is the most city man I've ever met. Bluetooth headset in one ear. Bluetooth headset in
Starting point is 00:41:57 the other ear. Blackberry strapped across his belt like freaking Batman. No one even uses them anymore. It's insane, yeah yeah but it's very city pager on the insides of his jacket pager on the other side of his jacket you know he can keep two bluetooth headphones going on separate conference calls at different times because different call his conversation is the same he calls up they answer the phone he goes no you listen to me we're gonna make this, whether you like it or not.
Starting point is 00:42:27 And it's going to be my conditions, my way or the highway. Sign those forms. I'll have Cassandra pick them up at noon. And then the person always responds, you're a god, sir. And so he can just say on both calls, I know. Yeah, that's the next thing. And then he hangs up the phone. And he's made like a cool meal.
Starting point is 00:42:48 He's made two deals. George of the City. Absolute legend. And some of those deals he's going is helping support our Patreon. Apparently. We're so grateful. Thank you, George. Appreciate that.
Starting point is 00:43:00 Thank you also to The Pitch. Please. It's a weird name to give a baby. Yeah, it's kind of cruel, don't you think? I feel like your father really isn't really feeling that attached to you if he calls you The Pitch, please. George of the City up there. He was taking a conference call as his wife was giving birth.
Starting point is 00:43:19 Exactly. They're like, oh, what should we call our daughter? I don't know. Wikipedia. This is my daughter, Wikipedia. And our son, The Pitch, please. Anyway, The Pitch, please. Thank you so much for your support.
Starting point is 00:43:30 We are immensely grateful. Thank you also to the onion god. I mean, wow. To be in the presence of a god, let alone the god of onions. Incredible. Is it a red onion or a white onion? Or do they all praise the same goddamn god? I don't know. Is he made out of onions incredible is it a red onion or a white onion or do they all praise the same goddamn god i don't know is he made out of onions or is he just like a god of he can just control it like
Starting point is 00:43:50 avatar style oh that would be a weird power but you'd be very good at creating lots of different types of food yeah what i'm just trying to find out is if i cut him will i cry yeah not from emotional attachment but oh because he's an onion no oh right only from emotional attachment only from okay because i love onions i love him okay that's good to know onion god please don't smite us we enjoy onions uh i enjoy cooking with onions i hope that's not illegal in the religion he's like you cook my babies sorry you sick bastard i should i should have kept my mother shouldn't yeah i love onions i uh cut them up i fry them i cook them some of my best friends are onions my son is a goddamn onion many layers and
Starting point is 00:44:32 he died for your sins so thank you onion god thank you thank you also to charles sims do you think charles sims has one of those big green diamonds over his head? Absolutely. He's a f***ing sim. I can see it right here in his profile picture. How did a sim become sentient and get a bank wallet and a Patreon account? Charles, in his spare time, he likes to get boxed into rooms so he can only just walk around into walls and never get out. Like pee all over the floor. Pee over the floor, yeah. Yeah, I thought it was weird. I kind of was tipped off that he was a Sim
Starting point is 00:45:06 when he hadn't showered in two days and there were just like a swarm of flies around him. Yeah, and you're like, if that's ever happened to me, I don't get flies. I don't get flies, yeah. So, well, hope the Sims life is working out for you. Thank you for the support.
Starting point is 00:45:19 Yeah. Oh, shit, it's in Sims dollars. God damn it! And thank you, lastly, but not leastly, to Morgan Abbott. She's Morgana, bot. She's a borderline
Starting point is 00:45:31 human being. Borderline, though. Still pretty bot-like. She failed a lot of the captchas to enter to create a Patreon account. It was like, please click on all the buses. And she's like picking clouds roads everything just going in like numerical order just one two three four five six just picking
Starting point is 00:45:51 them like that yeah no no no besides the point we're pretty sure you're a robot but hell somehow you've managed to get get past the security prove you're not a robot and set up a bank account to support us on patreon and hell we are incredibly thankful so thank you so much so thank you to everyone we've shouted out today and all of our other patrons you make it possible for us to make this podcast and for that we can never thank you enough and we're looking forward to meeting some of you at next week no this week oh god hell i should plan some this week's live show oh jesus good lord do you know what yeah we're looking forward to meeting some of you guys for real um it's just a few days away that's insane that's terrifying that's the scariest thing we've talked about on this podcast
Starting point is 00:46:34 and that just about wraps it up for this week's podcast as always we'll be back next week with a brand new paranormal tale. Bye-bye, folks. Ciao.

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