This Paranormal Life - #227 Stonehenge - Alien Monument Or Giant Xylophone?

Episode Date: August 24, 2021

Stonehenge has long lived in the subconscious of millions of people around the world, perfectly symbolising the ancient and mysterious. However few know that the story of Stonehenge is much darker and stranger than anyone could imagine. Wizards, giants, demons, and kings all feature in Stonehenge's murky history. Time for a long-overdue investigation by Kit and Rory!BUY OFFICIAL TPL MERCHwww.thisparanormallife.com/storePatreonpatreon.com/ThisParanormalLifeYouTubeyoutube.com/thisparanormallifeTwittertwitter.com/ThisParaLifeInstagraminstagram.com/thisparanormallifeSecret Society Facebook Pagewww.facebook.com/groups/thisparanormallife/Edited by Kami Tomanwww.tomanedits.comResearch by Amy GrisdaleIntro music: www.purple-planet.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Is walking through a ghost a bit like flying through a cloud? Is it possible to live on only seawater? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This Paranormal Life! Hey and welcome back to This Paranormal Life! This is the weekly comedy podcast where every Tuesday we investigate a different paranormal case or beast and get to the bottom of whether we think it's truly paranormal or not. The reason we get to decide is because we've dedicated our lives to paranormal investigation. My name's Kit Gurumulvena. This guy across from me is Roy Pars.

How are you doing today, Roy? Doing great. Doing great. Great intro question there. Is it possible to survive drinking seawater? Because I know that there are those devices that, that you know they're like metal straws or something and you can uh put them into the ocean and um they like i don't know they filter the water in some form to make it clean drinking water i think that's the idea i think you can in theory the idea is you could live in the sea right using one of those i would love the reverse i'd love one that turns regular water into sea water yeah yeah because then you could like because i've tried and it's hard you put salt

is what we want really so i've salted it with all different types of salt a crab soy sauce i just tried to drink soy sauce in the past didn't go down well yeah doctor said it almost killed me but i think you could give it a go i just think think I didn't have the, how do you say, cojones to finish the liter tub of soy sauce. There's no way the doctor said that, that you didn't have the cojones. I think he did. That's not how it works. There's a big ringing in my ears, but I'm pretty sure that's what he said. That was why I went blind temporarily.

Anyway, if anyone's done it, please let us know. Let's dive into today's investigation. I want to take you back, Rory, to a great time in British history. It was the summer of 1971, out in the quiet of the Wiltshire countryside. That August, a group of friends that can only be described as hippies had made their way to camp at the world's most famous stone circle and one of the ancient wonders of the world. Stonehenge!

Hey Ed, are we nearly there yet? Yeah, just like I said, we're five minutes away. Cool man, cool. Also, where are we going again? Holy shit man, you smoke too much. Stonehenge, yeah, remember? Oh yeah, Stonehenge. Jesus Christ. After pitching their tents, the gang were kicking back, passing around joints and having the time of their lives.

And when it started getting late, they prepared to turn in for the night. But soon, a wild storm whipped up out of nowhere. Man, I'm tripping balls right now. I can like see lights in the sky and like feel this wet stuff. Mate, we haven't even dropped the acid yet. It's just raining. You can see lightning. Oh yeah. The campers weren't alone at Stonehenge that night. A young couple were also camping out and were awoken by a bolt of lightning. Peering out from the flap of their tent,

they watched the huge and ancient monument being pelted with rain as the sky illuminated over and over again. Suddenly, the earth around them shook as lightning struck one of the stones in the circle. Whoa! The whole area was bathed in a blinding blue light as far as the eye could see. The couple had never seen anything like it.

In fact, it was so bright they had to dive back into their tent and bury their faces in their sleeping bags. Oh my god. But within seconds, the air was filled with pained screams. It sounded as if it was coming from the other camp on the far side of the circle. Oh god, starting to think that wasn't weed we smoked. It was the all spark from Transformers. They're trying to fit a f***ing infinity stone in a bong. I think we smoked a demon's ashes. Oh gosh, Terrence. It sounds like they've been struck by lightning do you think they're okay wait who is this is that a different person

yeah or is that just what it sounds like when you smoke a lot of weed like a high-pitched british like i said they were not alone that night on the other side of the camp was two other campers okay sorry just getting confused it's like yo man can i get ahead of that thanks bloody hell that weed is off the charts why terrence i'm high as f**k right now he's not called ed anymore when you smoke it your name changes to terrence golly me that crack is wild. Not daring to brave the lightning, the pair had no choice but to wait out the worst of the storm. A few hours later, the wind and rain were beginning to subside. So they ventured out to help the hippies, who had been oddly silent for quite some time.

When they arrived at their campsite, they expected to find at least one of them burned, injured or worse. But the sight that met their eyes was even more horrifying than that. There was no trace of a single person. What? Every single tent was empty. There were no footprints leading away from the site. The entire group had completely vanished in the middle of the night, and none of them were ever seen again. This, Roryory is just one of thousands of stories of unexplained paranormal happenings at stonehenge oh my god so so it sounds like there was some sort of lightning storm the lightning struck stonehenge stonehenge and blue light erupted the ground started rumbling screams could be heard oh my god and then you wake up to um it's basically the day after Thanos's click just people are gone at least they turned to ash though these people just disappeared that's true you know it's like

a nuclear bomb went off but only killed people rory what do you know about stonehenge um well i thought i knew a little bit about it i thought it was a fun family tourist destination uh this is this is wild to be fair i really don't know a huge amount about stonehenge i know it is some sort of ancient stone formation. And its origins are questionable, debated. Even though I think there is a general consensus of how it was erected. Questionable is a funny word. It's not like the stones are on the wrong side of the war.

It's like, I don't know. Should they still be up? Should we be tearing these down like the statues? Stonehenge has been cancelled. Regret to inform you. It's no surprise that Stonehenge is a hotbed of the paranormal. It's been standing for 5,000 years and it's so old, nobody knows precisely when, why or how it was built.

We know the enormous slabs that make it up come from the Presley Hills in Wales, over 170 miles away. So that's part of the mystery then. How did they travel to this location? Exactly. You probably want to think about this a little bit like the pyramids of Egypt. This is just their very existence is a bit of a mystery. Right. It's not that far though, is it? The smallest stones weigh five tons. All right. And the biggest stones weigh 50 tons.

Yeah. Which researcher Amy is quick to note is the weight of seven Tyrannosaurus rexes. Okay. What a weird unit of measurement. Not like cars or something that I understand how much it weighs. We've all seen the T-Rexes in Jurassic Park, Rory. That's true. Imagine lifting seven of them.

That's one stone. Okay. And some of these stones are propped on top of other stones, I believe. Yeah. If they had dragged them 100 miles and dumped them in the ocean or something, it would have been less impressive. But it's the fact that they are arranged on top of each other. Since no scientist, historian, or archaeologist can provide a satisfying explanation as to what the hell's going on here,

we have no choice but to do what we do best and dive into some paranormal theories. Now get ready for a Marvel Universe-style TPL mashup here because the most famous stories to do with Stonehenge involve a little wizard called Merlin. Oh. I didn't actually know he was going to be part of this, but it works out pretty nicely because we did an episode on Merlin just a few weeks back

and we mentioned Stonehenge, I think, briefly in passing. So if you do want to dive into, after this, all things Merlin, who's a pretty interesting guy, go back and check that one out. We did a whole episode on him. Great episode. A lot of people believe that Merlin, the most famous wizard in history, moved the

enormous stone slabs using his magic. Which sort of makes sense, right? It's like the pyramids. It's somehow easier to imagine an old man using Wingardium Leviosa on these boulders than people physically lifting them by hand thousands of years ago. But very few people know the story of Stonehenge before Merlin found the stones. The story goes that 1,500 years ago, the king Aurelius Ambrosius,

which I thought was a f***ing pudding, defeated the Anglo-Saxons in an important battle, and that he wanted to build a memorial to the Celtic Britons who were killed in the fighting. Bit of a weird way to commemorate people. By putting one stone on top of two other stones. I mean, it's pretty close to a headstone, isn't it? I guess so.

I was thinking like a statue or something, like carved in rock. So Merlin turned to him and said, I got you, bro bro i know a perfect memorial to remember these fallen soldiers um what do you think about sorry just to stop you stop you there merlin sorry i need to get my king voice ready just to stop you were there merlin we've had a couple other pitches from rich and Dave. Yeah, Richard and Dave. Dave actually... I can't wait to hear what these are. Richard, really known for his great ideas.

Yeah, sure. This is a roundtable, so just wait your second. Richard suggested... I'm sitting beside the king, right hand of the king, because I'm the f***ing wizard. Anyway, go ahead. Yeah, no, David, yeah, I mean, what's he, the f***ing royal cook? Richard suggested live poetry reading in the courtyard to commemorate the deaths of the fallen soldiers.

Pussy. Dave, silence, Merlin. Dave suggested we recreate the battle in a performance using children from the local schools, a form of education and entertainment. You thought it was a good idea to get children to commemorate the fallen through dance or some shit? All right, Merlin. Or the children to do f***ing macaroni art for the fallen soldiers?

F*** this. Everyone has to listen to my plan. There's a ring of stones a mere 300 miles from here. Dave, get the children. Just get them ready. Do not get the children. Do not get the children. We're going to get the stones and we're going to bring them here. What are we saying? All right. I'm going to start first. How does this commemorate anyone in any form? Jesus Christ, you people are the worst. I can't believe I have to spell out these very, very basic visual metaphors because we want the memories

of the people who last forever and the stones will also last forever. Won't the stones last forever in any location? As they are, unmoved. As the wizard here, I really didn't expect this much kickback. I really thought you guys

would just go with my initial idea. Like, what is so wrong about getting some 50 ton stones across the sea 300 miles to put up here in england i don't see what the big deal is here this is like an afternoon's work for a wizard merlin you know magic i asked you to bring these men back to life after the war and you refused you said you were tired yeah now you want to now you want to lug rocks across the fields to erect in their honor i'm gonna need a lot more men to get these rocks, by the way,

because the magic can only lift... Really, I can only help lift the stones. I can't even lift the stones on my own. So you can't lift the stones by yourself. I'm going to need about... Actually, probably about three times the men who died in the war, actually. About 15,000 men. All right, Dave, get the children.

Get the children. Start the performance. Yeah! I lift King Aurelius into the air. I'm so tired I can barely do it. Yes, needless to say, Merlin went overboard on his suggestion for the big memorial. He told Aurelius about the mysterious Giant's Ring in Ireland on Mount Killaros. In that place there is a stone construction which no man of this period could ever erect, unless he combined great skill and artistry. The stones are enormous, and there is no one alive strong enough to move them.

If they are placed in a position around this site, in a way that they are erected over there, they will stand forever. The legend goes that the people of England were well up for stealing Stonehenge as a memorial. And so 15,000 men signed up for the mission to move the monument to Wiltshire, aided by Merlin's magical powers. So in this story, it already existed.

Yeah. They didn't even make it themselves. They just ganked it. Oh, well, that's so embarrassing. Mer merlin what's your idea to commemorate the people who died in the war um do you know the statue of liberty it's like yeah that i think it's a pretty good memorial don't you think yeah to the french franco-us relations no no no to the new thing it's like so you want us to build a giant statue no we're gonna take theirs and just move it here using magic and men yeah by the way you're a bad wizard at that point use your magic to make something uh this this hits upon quite a big

point as well in this story the irish people didn't want them to take it they had to fight the giant irish army with these 15 000 men many more men died trying to get stonehenge from ireland to england you don't want to know what they had to steal to commemorate the men who lost their lives in that war they had to steal mount everest itself if you're a wizard and you're only using your powers to gank other people's landmarks, that's a bad use of your abilities. That's a bad use of power. Imagine that.

Just like the Golden Gate Bridge is missing one day. Those f***ing wizards! You can't leave them alone for five minutes without them stealing a landmark. But now you can get uh hogwarts from diagon alley at breakneck speeds commute is a lot easier so it's really cool that the official story of stonehenge is already pretty damn paranormal wizard theft it involves an ancient stone circle

that no one knows how old it was transported somehow by a wizard over hundreds of miles. I mean, that first story is just a retelling of the British Empire. But the magic was guns, and they just went around and stole everyone's shit. I mean, it's pretty apt that this happened in Britain. Yeah. Yeah, makes sense, doesn't it? Even in medieval times, we were ganking people's shit.

It's really, look, hey, the British Museum is a beautiful place. It's incredible. I really enjoy it. But you cannot look past the amount of stuff which is stolen. And not even small things. There will be huge rooms that are just filled with pillars and walls from temples that were just completely ripped out uh oh yeah very hard to look past that you know ancient egyptian mummy masks that have transcriptions that say if you remove this

i will curse you for eternity just dozens of them stacked up like dinner plates yeah you can buy them in the gift shop uh yeah it's kind of heartbreaking so good to see that this could be the origin of that that lifestyle yeah you know pretty typical these english wizards coming over taking credit for irish creations they tried to do it with bono and we ain't having it not happening he's our's our wizard. He's a f***ing musical wizard. I mean, Joshua Tree, are you kidding me? But the bit that's wild to me that this original story glosses over pretty quickly is that Merlin didn't create the stones.

He only knew where they were and wanted to steal them. Of course. The original stones were built by ancient giants. The story goes that an ancient race of giants called the Nephilim lifted these 50 ton rocks from Africa and brought them to Ireland. What? Where they built

them on top of this mountain. Which to be clear isn't a real mountain. Or at least it's not called that. That's not the part I had a problem with. I have no idea which mountain it is. If it was this mountain, if it was that mountain. It's really hard that. That's not the part I had a problem with, Kit. I have no idea which mountain it is. If it was this mountain, if it was that mountain. It's really hard to say.

The mountain aspect played a very small role in what you just said. You were more interested in the giant giants from Africa. The hyphalumps. Yeah, the giant biblical hyphalumps. Rory, have you ever heard of the Nephilim? We're done with Stonehenge, by the the way we're on to the nephilim so much shit it was supposed to be on stonehenge we've already talked about merlin and giants this is fantastic um i think maybe we covered them in one of our earliest bonus episodes whoa

which was a very funny episode where apparently there were claims that the US military fought against giants in the Middle East. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, I forgot that they came up in that investigation. I feel like they maybe came up because we were talking about giants and

giants from the Bible, things like that. So maybe they did come up a little bit, but I don't know too much about them. Yeah, I don't know much about them. Whatever we did know, I've forgotten. Of course, it was a long time ago. So let's recap for the listeners.

So these things are one of the creepier things in the Bible. This is not what gets discussed at Sunday school. You know, your teacher's like, yeah, so God created Adam and Eve, the stars and the moon. The sky and the sea. Love both of those. All the animals and the ones who have fallen.

Any questions? The last one, the ones who have fallen. Oh yeah, yeah. Just, you know, one of God's many creations. I mean, they have a bunch of different names. You know, the ones who are bound. But you know, one of God's many creations. I mean, they have a bunch of different names. You know, the ones who are bound. Okay. But, you know, it was just, that was like a little, like, afterthought after he made the sky and the sea and the stars and the moon.

Much more important creations. Bound to what? Why bound? Earth. Bound to never leaving the mortal realm by God. Okay. I mean uh geez sounds like he had everything wrapped up

he had those old he did the sky the sun and the moon and the atoms and the eves and all that shit so you know sometimes and then he made the fallen yeah the violent ones sometimes whenever we're in school you know we make a little mistake and that's why there's an eraser on the back of the pencil

so we can we can rub it out and well he couldn't do that actually did he erase he didn't erase didn't know the giants no no the violent ones did i mention that uh no he could not he could not erase them okay do i need to know anything is this going to be it's not going to be on the test so we'll move on there's a test uh there's a lot of disagreement those are all real names by the way for the fallen ones yeah the ones who have fallen the one who is bound the violent ones or just giants wow um there's a lot of disagreement about what the bible actually means by the nephilim some people just say oh don't worry about it they're just fallen angels we've all heard of those like you know wasn't the devil lucifer he tried to have a angel rebellion and they were all cast onto earth

and they are the fallen angels uh it's a huge amount of like leeway there there's a huge amount of space there to be like oh don't worry it's not the devil it's like well i know even if it's not the devil it could still be something quite bad i think he's supposed to be the baddest of the bad. This is a serial killer in the dark. Like, well, I'm not freaking Hitler. Yeah, well, you're not good either. I'm just the damned, the fallen. Yeah, so people do try to kind of pass him off and say they're just fallen angels.

Don't worry about it. But there's a few lines in the Bible that make them seem a lot more worrying than that this is pretty worrying in terms of the creation story apparently they predate the ordering of the cosmos so they came first i don't know i don't know we don't know in the book of enoch which is like a ancient hebrew text they say the nephilim are approximately one mile tall what this is you see everyone thinks that uh you know the story of creation started you know whatever monday we made the heaven and the earth then they don't mention that on uh sunday night god actually had a couple bud lights and made goblins and the fallen ones as a goof.

He thought he'd just f*** about, pit them against each other. But some of them escaped the Thunderdome. Yeah, 4,500 feet tall, approximately. The main reason they're believed to not still be around today is because apparently they drowned in the Great Flood at the time of Noah's Ark. Right. Which is bad enough that God didn't want to save them um well i think the boat was probably a mile long you could only fit one of these nephalumps in in there so you're not going to squeeze two in but even more worryingly because in in islamic legend they say oh they didn't drown during the flood because they were too tall god killed them

himself because they quote ignored too many warnings and after death they were banished to the lowest levels of hell so just to recap they built stonehenge got it yeah thank you for looping back because i think you're getting a little sidetracked here. Why? I guess is my next question. Oh, sorry. No, this is, there's a big story going on here. They built Stonehenge in Ireland.

They moved the rocks from Africa to Ireland. And then you're saying that Merlin stole it from Ireland. And brought it to its current location in England. Got it. Okay. Wow. And I thought the most mythical thing was going to be Merlin in a story.

So did I. That's bizarre. So right off the bat, we have two mad theories for how Stonehenge even came to exist. A wizard or mile-high giants. But I do think the next theory about Stonehenge will appeal a lot more to you specifically, Rory. We've talked many, many times about the idea of aliens coming to Earth to help humanity.

Specifically in building, by the way. They didn't help us cure cancer or invent Nike Jordans. They mostly just wanted to teach us how to build f***ing massive things. That do absolutely nothing. And that's exactly what the book Chariots of the Gods claimed in 1968. That aliens came to Earth a long time ago and built the pyramids,

the Easter Island heads, and potentially Stonehenge all in the same visit. Right, okay. Is there any justification for them building these structures? I know that the pyramids, maybe, because people really focus on that one. They have a lot of theories as to why the aliens would build the pyramids. But Stonehenge? Seems a little weird.

I mean, to be fair, it seems a little weird if the stones do nothing. If they, when hit by lightning, make people disappear, a little weird i mean to be fair it seems a little weird if the stones do nothing if they when hit by lightning make people disappear maybe there is some untapped potential to say the least yeah there's money left on the table here if we could figure out what these things do yeah i mean this is where it gets interesting what if our hippies from the beginning are on zonktar 5 right now. Yeah, they got teleported to another planet. Smoking space weed. Maybe every type of weather does something different.

Lightning zaps you to the Galactic Federation. Hailstorms makes you, I don't know, fart marshmallows. I don't, yeah, okay. I'm just throwing out some crazy theories. It's a lot of effort to go to to create technology that makes you fart marshmallows, to don't yeah okay i'm just throwing out some crazy it's a lot of effort to go to to create technology that makes you fart marshmallows to tell you that much yeah it's it's definitely possible that these were built with some kind of technological purpose in mind you know and i think this is already things like stonehenge are kind of hard-coded into our um kind of sci-fi sensibilities aren't they i want to say that in the last series of The Mandalorian,

there was an episode where they had to get Baby Yoda to this stone circle, and Baby Yoda sat in the middle, and Baby Yoda could communicate with Jedis across the galaxy. Oh. You know, in Stargate, you have these ancient stone Stargates littered throughout the universe that all interlink with each other. We have this concept that there might be ancient technologies that can do cool things. In Nightmare Before Christmas, Jack Skellington finds doorways in the woods that lead to Christmastown.

So tons of things that could be. Am I saying one of these doors? Am I saying that the hippies went to Christmastime? Maybe. They were zapped into Easterland? We'll never know. They fast traveled. And bizarrely, Rory, this whole UFO talk is where we get into the evidence section of this episode.

In an interesting twist, the whole area around Stonehenge is plagued with crop circles. According to the Stonehenge tour operators, Wiltshire, the whole area, has more crop circles than anywhere on Earth, with 30 to 40 crop circles appearing every year. The only problem with crop circles is that they are pretty damn easy to hoax. Britain, like many countries, had a real hot period of crop circles. They were all a rage in like the 90s and 2000s and stuff.

There was movies with crop circles. Think of the X-Files, the intro credits to the X-Files all shows crop circles and things. But unfortunately here in the UK, I know there was a couple of big stories about guys coming out and saying like, yeah, I made 200 of the most famous ones right over the last five years i don't know what it is about crop circles that they just don't do anything for me really yeah we're in the golden age of paranormal evidence really i don't need to be won over by crop circles because i saw a declassified pentagon you saw a video from an

aircraft yeah basically disappearing uh right in front of the radar's eyes so i don't need to think that this bush looks weird for me to think that there's life on another planet i think it it had its time and place didn't it you can kind of get why it's a sexy idea that farmers are just going about their business. Farmers, let's also say, kind of the people who in theory should be least interested in UFOs. Yeah. They're just hardworking men of the earth. And then this kind of amazing irony that they come across these unbelievable psychedelic patterns burned into their fields. It's a cool idea, but I agree. I think we've come a long way. I think back in the

day, it was a lot more convincing. I like, oh, did you hear Freddie up in Wiltshire? He just went out to feed the cows and he saw this strange pattern burned into the crops. Yeah. Whereas now we're just, we're jaded. We're spoiled for evidence. I'll just be like, did you see that tweet where the president of America said an alien knocked on the White House door? Oh yeah. It's true.

And this is the issue. But you know what's not as easy to hoax, Rory? A mass UFO sighting, such as the Warminster Mystery in 1964. This happened in the area surrounding Stonehenge, and it's the UK's largest mass UFO sighting. When on Christmas Day, 1964, a large number of people heard huge blasts in the sky and claimed to see strange objects flying around. Oh my god. Author Arthurthur shuttlewood wrote about the day saying the earth was brazenly filled with a menacing sound sudden vibrations came overhead chilling in

intensity they tore the quiet atmosphere to raucous rags and descended savagely oh my god really flexing his writing muscles there i know noticed in his testimony. You gotta be careful with your paranormal sightings on Christmas Day, because was it a spaceship? Was it a sleigh? That's all I'm saying. You gotta hold off on those missiles. Or did you just drink too much eggnog and you went blind? Reports of other sonic attacks rolled in for weeks afterwards, and flying saucers were reported several times over the following years. Here is just one photo of an object seen flying around the time in Wiltshire.

This was reported in the local paper. Whoa! Okay, you have blown this image up massively. I assume this is an object very far away. Naturally, naturally. I mean, so this was shot on a film camera, obviously, due to the era. You can see the individual grains of this film blown up massively. It looks like we're looking at, it looks like someone spray painted a sandy beach.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Very, very grainy. And also it's so zoomed in that there's no context for what i'm looking at i don't all right i don't know your role sir this is clearly a ufo but where in the sky there's no no trees or landmarks or anything it's just gray all around assume it's a dot in the distance okay okay to be fair if you see a dot in the distance flying around and then you take a picture and later late at night with a whiskey in hand and some creepy music on the radio,

you zoom in, zoom in, zoom in. And you see that when you zoom in that far. That ain't a bird. It's not a plane. That's true. It's not a bug. Okay, well, bear with me here. If you didn't like that zoomed in grainy image,

wait for the next one. I think I just, you described the incident as being, quote unquote, a sonic attack. I did. Where one man said they descended upon the locals in the UK's biggest mass UFO sighting. There's not a lot of those. You showed me a grainy pea on a rock. UK's biggest mass UFO sighting. There's not a lot of those. It's a low barrier of entry.

A grainy pea on a rock. Hey, I'm on your side. It's the grainiest pea I've ever seen, but it is a grainy pea shaped like a UFO. As recently as 2017, a French paranormal investigator, Pierre Bique, who normally travels to Stonehenge every year, reported to the newspaper that he saw a tall, thin figure spotted near Stonehenge. He told the newspaper, There was what we thought was a person standing away in the field.

The figure was still and did not move for 20 minutes. When Pierre panned away briefly with his camera, it disappeared. The field was so big they could not have run away in time without still being seen in the field. Maybe they lay down in a tram line, but that would be strange. Here's what Pierre caught on camera. What the hell is this? Is this what, also, I didn't realize this is what it looked like in the areas around Stonehenge. I think it's just fields, yeah.

Just regular old countryside. But not like grass fields, like crop fields. Sure. Like quite high up. Like you could make a corn maze out of this. Yeah. This is where the crop circles come from. Uh, yeah, there is a weird, I don't know if it even looks like a human. It looks like just an object. Yeah. It's like one of those weird obelisks that kept turning up in the internet. object. Yeah, it's like one of those weird obelisks that kept turning up on the internet. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's just in the middle of this field. Now, I will say, if it did fall over on its side, it

would completely disappear because, as I said, it's in the middle of this quite high cornfield. But pretty suspicious. I'm not saying I don't trust the word of someone who goes to Stonehenge every year. But I'm a little suspicious.

You're saying it would have been better if it was just a guy on a walk. So a businessman. I don't disagree with that. It's like someone saying that they saw an alien running out of Area 51. You're like, that sounds really interesting. Can you tell us a little bit more? And they say, yeah, I go every year on the equinox. And it's like, okay. I was lighting my candle and getting butt naked

to put on my sacrificial robe. I'm done. I'm out. Do you have a photo or something? We'll give it to someone else and tell him that he saw it. No, but I can make this smoke signal. Ow! Quit it.

You think that's smoke? But really, Rory, like you said, one of the biggest questions is why? Why build this thing? Is it a Stargate or is it something else? There is a popular conception that it was maybe built by druids for kind of weird sacrifices. Sadly, not quite true,

or at least not the kind of druids we would come to think of today. Druids really only started hanging out there in the last kind of hundred years after a guy bought the land for 700,000 pounds in 1915. Wow.

And then, very kindly, handed it over to public ownership so people were able to go and, I guess, hang out there. It's not free to go see it anymore, sadly. $21.50 per adult. Really? Yeah, you've got to pay to get that close. But like I say, it's only in recent times

that modern druids have kind of gone to celebrate things there. There's certainly evidence of, they found, let's say, remnants of people bone fragments and things like that nearby meaning some people think it may just be as simple as a burial ground makes sense after all that's what merlin uh wanted it for was to commemorate people pretty intense for a burial ground memorial though i agree lifting these rocks and again it comes back to the pyramids doesn't it it? Because they were technically tombs, but they seem to fulfill other roles too. Yeah, that's a really good point.

Actually, I always forget that. Yeah, they were to commemorate lives and pharaohs. So yeah, maybe it isn't that strange. I mean, it's so tricky, isn't it? Because, you know, we talk about, okay, is the pyramids a literal gateway to another dimension? Okay, maybe it is literally, but clearly it was a metaphorical gateway for those people at the time.

That was why they put people in there. It was like, yeah, we want to get you to the next life. So we're going to put you in the stone spaceship. Right? Yeah. You know, they saw it as a doorway. I mean, at no point in this case have you shown me a picture of Stonehenge. And I kind of can't remember what it looks like.

You look it up. I'm like, no, don't Google it. You look it up. It's like three foot wide. It's so unimpressive. OK, wow. It's it's actually more impressive than I thought. I don't know why in my head it

was like six stones there's a lot of stones all in this circle a bunch piled on top of each other it almost looks like the ruins of something like there used to be more or bigger yeah built some sort of structure that's now kind of falling apart a little bit yeah it is when you see humans standing next to it you really do get a sense of just how big it is wow yeah holy shit this is huge merlin turned up that day i mean you are right that it is um it's a bit like ruins because there for example is i guess a recreation of what it might have looked like oh where the stones go all the way around the circle yeah yeah at least the outer stones yeah because what we're left we left with here at stonehenge could not have been the completed

design yeah it's scattered there's shit all over the floor it's a mess although it is kind of cool it definitely gives you a vibe of like you're trying to find the ancient pattern you know your brain is trying to make sense of it oh yeah why is this one on its side but this one's standing up and this one's a circle it's like a resident evil puzzle but one of the most modern recent and kind of wild theories is that stonehenge is some kind of musical instrument. Okay, this is weird. When you think of early rock music, you probably think of Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones. But researchers now think they have found rock music that predates them by thousands of years.

Stonehenge, yes, the famous monument, may have been used to make actual rock music. Listen to this. What? What is that? Well, it's not the sound you expect of rock on rock, no. Researchers out of London's Royal College of Art say that's the sound some bluestones — one of the rock types found in Stonehenge — make. And they can actually make a range of sounds.

To find this out, researchers spent months tapping more than 1,000 types of rock. The lead researcher said, "...we have had percussionists up here who have been able to actually get proper tunes out of the rocks. This is real rock music." Perhaps this was the reason these rocks were transported 200 miles, when there were local rocks that could have been used to build Stonehenge. More proof the rocks could have been a giant musical instrument.

Large chunks of rock missing from the stones would also suggest they have been hit throughout their lifetime. The new study did make for some entertaining headlines. Was Stonehenge a giant xylophone? Are Stonehenge's boulders actually big bells? Thanks to the study, music can now be added to a long list of possible reasons why Stonehenge was built, including it being used as a calendar, religious area, and even alien landing zone.

For Newsy, I'm Candice Aviles. Is it possible that Stonehenge is a giant xylophone? I mean, I like the idea that there's chunks missing out because people have been battering it for so long. I hate them at this point. I'll take a chunk out of it. That's a weird noise to come out of a rock. Is that... Is that right?

Dong! Dong! And then just a researcher going, it's not the noise you'd expect. That's for sure. Yeah, and apparently the arrangement of the rocks themselves, even the wind blowing through them

can reportedly create a bass note this is wild i don't know man i don't know i don't i can't tell if this is a cool theory or something that people have been looking into this for way too long they're like it actually smells pretty weird too could it be an ancient sentence circle an ancient lynx africa uh yeah it did come from africa apparently yeah there's been a couple of suggestions like this too i know someone went there and like modeled it acoustically so that you can um i think if you really want you, you could get your hands on the kind of reverb response of Stonehenge.

So if you wanted to listen to music as to what it would sound like being played at Stonehenge, because it kind of bounces off the rocks in a certain pattern. Pretty interesting stuff. But you can probably sense, Rory, that if we're getting to the point where I'm asking you if it's a giant xylophone and that's weirder than aliens built it, we've really and truly covered the whole gamut of what Stonehenge could be and how it got there.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. What are you thinking today in terms of maybe let's break it down to do you think either that the way it was created is paranormal or that its uses were paranormal? Good question. Good question. You know, I don't think we need to necessarily break it down to all of the stories today. No, no, no. Because we're throwing a lot of theories out there from giants to wizards to aliens covering a lot of our topics in just one story. Do I think that its creation was paranormal?

Look, the rocks came from a very long distance away, but I think people are just kind of marveling at that fact. I don't think anyone is going out of the way to say that it's impossible that it came from that far away yeah also uh the stories say the rocks came from ireland they didn't they came from wales 170 miles away but uh they think that merlin said that and that it was in the old books because at that time that little portion of Wales would have been considered Irish territory.

Oh. So there's a fun little bit of trivia there. But yeah, they came only 170 miles from Wales. But not across the sea. They did not. Yeah. Okay. Well, that changes things quite a bit.

Yeah. I mean, also, we now know the rocks didn't come from another planet. Yeah. We know that giants didn't take them from Africa. No. So I'm going to go ahead and say their creation probably wasn't paranormal. More than fair.

Was it an incredible achievement of mankind? Yeah, it probably was. Did it require a couple buff dudes to do it? And maybe even a couple buff ladies? I'm sure it did. I don't think it was paranormal. Okay. What was the other question?

Is it a xylophone? Yeah. Does it have any paranormal purpose? Because, say, it could have been built by ancient humans, or wizards for that matter, but used as some kind of interdimensional thing. All right. It seems weird that I would say that it was built by normal humans i put a lot of time into this let me clutch at straws let me clutch

these straws real quick i mean even if it was a xylophone that's not paranormal what about did you not get what about did you not paranormal? That's just a weird rock sound. Yeah. I don't know. I could swing a squirrel against a tree and it would make a pretty weird noise. That's not paranormal, is it? It's just animal cruelty.

You know, I'll say it. I think out of all the nuts explanations for what Stonehenge is and why it is. I think weirdly, my favorite is that it's an instrument. I think it's even cooler that people put this much effort into making some kind of crazy, ancient, advanced musical, cultural technology thousands and thousands of years ago. So far ago, we don't know what happened or who did it.

I think that's a cooler reality than, you know, the aliens. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, also the fact that, you know, I'm sure there has been archaeological work done on the site, intensive archaeological work. So if this was something like a mass grave

or an ancient marketplace or a temple, presumably we would know that by now by finding the remains of everything else that was left behind. So the fact that it is still kind of a mystery, that's pretty cool. You know what's not cool, though? A double no. No. Bloody hell. Waste of time. Yeah.

I think that the sad thing is in this case is when you boil it down to its core. We're talking about rocks in a field and asking if they're magic. Now, if one of those rocks had a plug in it, like the rock that featured in a previous episode, which was objects out of time. Then this would have been a two-parter, my friends. This would have been a big case. Can we X-ray the rocks? What kind of voltage does this thing take? It would have been a lot more interesting.

Is there an aux cord? Can I plug my iPhone into the aux of Stonehenge? No matter what you play, same sound comes out. Wow, well, thank you so much for listening to this episode all about Stonehenge. Thank you to Cammie Toman for editing it. And thank you to Amy Grisdale for researching it. I had a blast learning about these ancient rock and roll sculptures.

Do you think anyone's ever had sex in Stonehenge? Absolutely. Didn't you hear the bit about hippies taking acid? That's true. Yeah, yeah. And that was probably exactly what they were going for. They didn't do anything. The old couple, they were banging like rabbits. At night, all you hear is, oh, gong, oh, gong. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I think the real question is, has anyone had sex on top of the biggest stone there? Right. Yeah, yeah. As the sun rises on the summer equinox. That's it, I'm just trying to think. That's an orgasm, my friends. I was just trying to think what could be like the secret thing that unlocks,

I don't know, the magic of Stonehenge. Right as you're getting off, the blue light erupts from the ground, rumbling lightning comes out of the sky. If your ass gets struck by lightning while you're having sex on top of Stonehenge, it activates. Yeah, well, I'm straight. You know me. If having sex there doesn't work, then I'm out of options. Because I tried it in the king's chamber at the great

pyramid and didn't do jack like i say hope you enjoyed this investigation into stonehenge um maybe we'll do a commune day trip someday if you can't get enough of this paranormal life you just can't wait until next tuesday to get your fix of the paranormal you know where to go patreon.com is where you can get a whole bunch of bonus episodes all full length investigations um 45 of them or so wow do you want to kind of crazy do you want to put some effort into that do you want to do it again and put some effort into that because this is our livelihood you're talking about this is how we pay the bills i don't want to tell you i just did just an hour long episode about rocks and you're saying i don't have enough enthusiasm it was just crazy it's just crazy it's like this is the one time that we actually get to

talk about the thing that makes this profitable it makes any money so have another swing at it champ have another swing at it i'll soft like your attitude so how about i just pass it off i'm good i've said my piece why don't you just say yours you're happy with that you're happy with how you want to plug it i'm happy with you taking a swing at it all right all right well all right everyone sit back and uh relax take your seats the production will begin shortly if you would like some snacks i'm cutting all of of the sides. I'm teeing up the bit. I'm teeing up. If you make it a bit, people remember it better. This isn't a bit. You're just doing a weird movie theater host voice.

Look, if you make it funny, people keep listening. This isn't funny. I know, but it's because you're stressing me out now. Because I'm worried that we're going to start losing money if I don't nail the bit. Ladies and gentlemen, please take your seats the production will begin quite shortly if you're the green toyota parked out front stop saying it's gonna begin shortly it's a 10 second plug for patreon i'm gonna do it they're getting invested in the story and the narrative and then by the time place because you're interrupting. Because you're interrupting me, brother.

You're interrupting me and I'm getting stressed and I don't remember if we're in a cinema or a theater. And we've barely mentioned it. I think I was the only person to get as far as saying there's bonus episodes to listen to. All right. Please take your seats.

Row A31, right this way, my friend. Any snacks before we begin? Popcorn's half price on Tuesdays. The curtains roll. And on the big screen, we see the words. The movie will begin shortly. Advert number one. There's no way.

A sunset rises over a glistening beach. Don't interrupt any further because I'm trying to set a scene here. What's that? Oh, I'm in the wrong seat. Sorry, sir. This must be yours. I will not let you say the word shortly one more time. I'm getting to the Patreon bit.

The production will begin shortly. Don't you... Ah! on bit. The production will begin shortly. Don't you! Rory's unconscious. Hopefully he's out for at least 30 seconds. Let me just plug the f***ing Patreon before he comes to and starts wanting to roleplay his weird f***ing scenario. Head on over to the Patreon.

You can find full length bonus episodes that you can listen to at any time on demand of this paranormal life what happened? nothing don't worry about it

you got to tell your entire story I did we loved it it was hilarious the cinema bit? yeah it was fantastic good job

I really liked it yeah we'll get to listen to it next week you're gonna love it how it turned out what I've done with it. Because I was like worried that some of the material

wasn't going to land, but. No. It landed in the trash is what it did. Head on over to make sure you're following us on social media. We don't plug it often enough,

but we know all you have social media. And you also know that we have social media. Do we plug the patreon yet yeah man yeah you gotta keep up with me you gotta keep up with me i just remember saying like the show will begin i just remember starting you you plugged it i started talking about social media bud i started talking about it sorry sorry i just want to make sure that everyone knew about the Patreon.

Patreon.com. You get all the awards. I plugged it. I don't remember. Sorry. You plugged it. I kept your whole plug and I plugged it. We both plugged it.

Why would you need to plug it again? Just getting confused and stuff. You said you want to make sure I'm letting you know. Yeah, sure. Yeah. It just is. Yeah. Just follow us on social media please socials now

don't say the URL say the URL of any of the socials any of them at twitter.com that's the homepage of twitter forward slash this power of life I That's right.

I think is the account where we do tons of tweets there. I mean, we tweet about the, the Patreon, patreon.com forward slash this. Instagram.com forward slash this paranormal life. Yeah. We're on YouTube.

You can watch clips, video clips of this, of these episodes. I'm done. I'm done. Thanks for that. I'm done. All right.

Do you want to do the the I could maybe do an outro please by all means I'm going to warn you straight up it's kind of a bit so I'd have to tee it up

and do like some some scene setting so just think like interior cinema night I don't feel angry

I don't feel angry I don't feel angry I don't feel angry I don't feel angry I don't hate Rory The show is only beginning as people take their seeds I don't hate Rory Warm popcorn in hand with cold soda I am going to kill you Alright I think we should maybe

Start End this episode for this week I hope we plug the Patreon right. Patreon.com forward slash just paranormal life. Check it out. Thank you, Kit. Everyone, hey, can we get a round of applause for Kit? For doing a Kraken episode

on some rocks, which we all loved. It was great. And with that round of applause, the curtain closes and it is good night from me see it actually kind of worked as like a the bit ended and the show ended so like the curtains closed everyone leaves everyone's like you know shuffling out into the hallway explaining the metaphor mike oh is that you mike okay good night everyone i enjoy okay you're not gonna let me do

the bit.