This Paranormal Life - #324 Third Man Syndrome - The Mysterious Stranger of DEATH

Episode Date: July 18, 2023

When Ernest Shackleton and his crew became shipwrecked on the ice sheets of Antartica in 1915, they were saved by a mysterious figure that seemed to guide the men to safety. But who was this strange phantom? And why has he been turning up all throughout history? Is he a guardian angel... or something more PARANORMAL?LIVE TOUR - www.thisparanormallife.com/tourFollow us on Twitter, Instagram, and YouTubeJoin our Secret Society Facebook CommunitySupport us on Patreon.com/ThisParanormalLife to get access to weekly bonus episodes!Buy Official TPL Merch! - thisparanormallife.com/storeIntro music by www.purple-planet.comResearch by Amy GrisdaleEdited by Philip Shacklady Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If plants eat sunshine, does that make them reverse vampires? If Bigfoot has fur, could we use him to make the most paranormal sweater of all time? Answers to these questions and more on this episode of This Paranormal Life! Hello everyone and welcome to This Paranormal Life, the highlight of the week, the comedy paranormal podcast where every week myself and my co-investigator Kit Greer Mulvena sit down and we corner a paranormal beast. We've been tracking it for months. We've got it in the corners. Just when it thinks it's going to be able to escape through our legs, we grab it by the throat and wrestle it into submission and figure out once and for all whether or not it is

true or it is false i would agree i did have to use the toilet and i might have opened the front door to the studio it might have got out it got out shit we've been tracking that thing for months as well like you said yeah scooby-doo would have been a very different cartoon if i was part of the scooby squad. Because I wouldn't wait. You mean the mystery gang? The mystery gang, whatever the f*** they're called. Because I wouldn't wait to pull the mask off and see what billionaire was underneath it. It would be like, okay, kids, you got me.

The truth is that I'm, and I just grab him by the throat. Yeah, start strangling. Start strangling. Who do you work for? Rory, he was trying to tell us. He was coming clean already. You're just gnawing his leg. Yeah, you know it's bad when Scooby's trying to stop you. When the dog is trying to stop you from biting. Rory is ironically the one word he can say perfectly. Kit, welcome to the podcast. It's an honor to

be with you here once again, diving into the world of the paranormal. How are you feeling this week? Do you feel mentally sharp enough to tackle one of our biggest ever cases? I really do. You know, the last week or so has been a classic, Kit's off on holiday and Rory's holding the fort. So I'm feeling refreshed. I'm feeling moisturized, unbothered and thriving. I don't know if I can say the same for you, Rory. Yeah, you mentioned that the situation was kind of like that meme where the soldier is standing over someone

and he has like a thousand arrows in his back. Yeah, I'm the sleeping child. Yeah, he's protecting. He's suddenly asleep in bed i've taken a lot of damage i've taken a lot of damage over the week but the good thing is you know being a paranormal investigator is a lot like being a super saiyan when you are on the brink of death and insanity that's when your pupils roll back into your head and you open your third eye yeah because when your other two eyes get so tired they don't work anymore,

you have to see via something. Right. You've got to use your third eye to locate food and water and things you need to survive. But your third eye can only see spirits and demons. So it's a little tough, but we're powering through. We're powering through. And as I said, Kit, today's case is a huge one.

And we are going to get right into it just after a few quick words from today's sponsors. And a reminder that you can get every episode of this show ad-free on patreon.com forward slash thisparanormallife. Kit, today our story is an incredible one. It is equal parts paranormal mystery and spiritual anomaly. So hold on to your pazuzu, because we're about to go on a journey through time and investigate a mystery known as the Third Man Syndrome. Rory, I can't wait. The last spiritual anomaly I had was when I was trying to have an awakening at Burning Man and someone shit outside my tent. So I'm here for a new one. Yeah, that put a bit of a downer, I think, on the vibe. But today we're keeping it classy. We're keeping it cool as we dive into the past. Hey, keep it cool. I don't know if you know, Roy, but cool is my middle name.

So it should be pretty well. It's not technically James is actually my middle name. I's wondering don't use that to take my don't tell them your middle name yeah but i am cool though i'm unbothered well then you should have told them the middle name thing man that's kind of f***ing me up actually do you think we could delete that because i'm kind of worried that my bank details are going to be right now is an example of you not being cool i'm cool i'm cool as a cucumber look at me i got an ice drink. Oh f*** I got some on my shorts. You spilled it all over your white jeans. We gotta stop podcasting man, we gotta stop. This isn't cool, this is clumsy and awkward.

Oh yeah, cool as a kid, that's gonna stay in as well. It doesn't matter though, because you're cool. Right, it doesn't. And like a cool guy, cool guys don't care. Cool guys don't care. It's really true. It shouldn't bother me. It doesn't matter what they look like, because the cool just, but just think people are going to see it on camera and they're going to think i'm an idiot they won't it's below the waist we only shoot from the waist up so you're fine

i'm going to stop talking because you're that cool cool guys don't talk that that much they're men a few words they are yeah i've heard cool guys actually listen really well to what other people are saying. Okay, I can give that a try. I can give that a try. Who is the third who walks always beside you? When I count, there are only you and I together. But when I look up ahead at the white road, there is another walking beside you. Gliding, wrapped in a brown mantle, hooded.

I do not know whether a man or a woman, but who is that on the other side of you? The Wasteland, a poem by T.S. Eliot that speaks about a mysterious phantom following two men, like a guardian angel or like a circling vulture. Now this poem was inspired, Kit, by true events, a real instance of something known as third man syndrome. In order to fully understand, we're gonna have to go back to the early 1900s. have to go back to the early 1900s. Ernest Shackleton was an Arctic explorer who was born in southern Ireland but was raised in London. Much like Kit. Ernest Shackleton had joined the Merchant Navy when he was as young as 16 and spent his whole life obsessing over exploration and adventure. This is a cool guy.

The 1900s were still a time where your occupation could be adventurer, explorer, warrior, you know, just something cool and ambiguous like that. They were the rock stars of the day, to be honest. They really were. Yeah. Rory, you don't need to tell me twice. You're telling me we've got a badass, jacked, ripped, tanned, I think you said all these things, adventurer, and he's Irish?

I'm on board. He is. By 1907, he was already leading Arctic explorations, exploring the South Pole, and he ended up being rewarded with a knighthood in the process. But as we know Kit, people like this are always chasing the next big adrenaline rush. If you live a life like this, you can't come back from an arctic exploration into the blizzardy wilderness and turn on your Xbox and order Deliveroo. You need to now go to the moon.

Xbox and order Deliveroo. You need to now go to the moon. You need to now just start, I don't know, eating fireworks, seeing how long you can live. Right. So you're saying that once you're addicted a bit like Hurt Locker, once you're addicted to the adrenaline of the chase of the mission, it's hashtag next mission. What is the next mission? Exactly. You know, like when I went snowboarding for the first time, I was like, that was really fun. Next time I should go snowboarding somewhere a little riskier, somewhere a little more dangerous. I don't know if that's true because you did notoriously break your ass. Well, I didn't want to talk about that on the podcast because that was a serious injury. And much like Shackleton, I should have got a knighthood for surviving that ordeal. A shattered Pazuzu? I deserve an award for that.

You say you don't want to talk about it on the show. That's okay, because you did. You did at length talk about it on the podcast. On the after party, I think it was. Okay. In 1914, chasing after that adrenaline rush, Shackleton decided to attempt what he called, quote,

the last great Arctic challenge. A voyage to cross the Antarctic from one side to the other, from the Weddell Sea to the Ross Sea. Now, I'm not a geographer, but in layman's terms, this was like launching an expedition into shoving a fork into the toaster. Right.

You're most likely gonna die. It is a suicide mission. But that's part of the thrill. It's an impossible feat that no man had done before. He managed to assemble a loyal crew and set sail in August 1914. I guess he was pretty confident that things were gonna go well, because the crew included an artist, a photographer, a professional dog handler on board, and a cat listed under the name Mrs. Chippy. I'm assuming the dog handler was for, you know, Siberian huskies and not his pet chihuahua.

I have no idea. But all I know is I don't think Mrs. Chippy was a work cat. It is a bit unusual because Mrs. Chippy was presumably eating the rations, of which there's not many. That's their mistake for selecting their rations to be 200 boxes of smoked salmon. Right. Now, the ride was always going to be a bumpy one. They knew that.

But in January 1915, things went from a shit storm to a snowstorm. Captain, we're barely pushing through the ice sheets. We've got to turn back. If we stop now, we'll be stuck. We can't slow down. Hold your post! But it was no use. The temperatures had dropped so fast that the boat was barely even in water anymore. It was just pushing its way through huge ice sheets that were sealing around the boat as fast as they were broken. The boat slowed down until... They were dead, stuck in the water.

If I was one of the crew members at this point, I would be livid. I would be absolutely furious. I would be going up to Shackleton and being like, well, there you go, bud. What the f*** do you think was going to happen? You steered us into ice, mother f***er. I hope that cat's going to keep you warm

because in three days, we're eating them. There's no food left. In four days, I'm eating you. Yeah, I would be furious. You know, I've made mistakes on the job before and it can be a bit embarrassing you know in one of my office jobs in the past you know i might have sent an email to a colleague you know and i damn near cc'd the wrong manager you know and they caught a conversation uh that i didn't want them to see you know that's an awkward little lunch break in the

office i'm keeping quiet keep my head down yeah I'm eating my Sainsbury's meal deal in damn near silence. You send an email and you say, I've attached the file. You hit send. Oh, I didn't attach the file. Well, you got to apologize. Sorry. Here's the file. Oh, it's so awkward. That's a bad day at work. But my colleague saying we have to turn back or else we'll be frozen and we'll die in this icy tomb thousands of miles from our loved ones. And then I don't turn back and get us frozen there. It's more than just an awkward lunch break. Yeah. It's actually an awkward nine months until summer. And then the heat of the sun might just be enough to thaw the ice enough for the boat to become unstuck. Yeah. It's going to be an awkward conversation below deck with the men that, that all hands in the evening where it's like,

I just want to clear the air guys. Cause I feel like there's some kind of resentment undeserved towards the captain here. And I want to remind you that while we are on land, we're still technically on the boat, which means I'm still technically the captain. There's someone already just coming up behind him with a rope. I think it's really respectful that you guys are taking this so well and I appreciate you guys standing by me. Grab him.

Yeah. He calls in all hands, complete silence in the room. Mistakes. We all make them. We all make them. You know when Jimmy cooked lunch yesterday and he put sugar in the stew instead of salt. I didn't say anything. I didn't say anything because I know we all make mistakes. This is him rope tied to a cannonball in front of everyone.

It's like, you know, I actually think it would be really big of you guys to change your mind. I think that would show growth and maturity. The cat just walks over and shoves him off. Mrs. Chippy, no! Yeah, this is a problem. But that was something I did not realize, is that back in the day, at this time, that back in the day at this time journeying in a boat through the arctic was much closer to going to space than it was going on a sea voyage yeah they were building their ships basically not knowing if if the journey was going to take weeks or years yeah they if they got stuck in the

ice they didn't know how long they would have to be there. So they had to literally pack rations in case they were stuck in the ice for years. Because if you get stuck, you have to wait until summer. Yeah. You have to wait maybe nine months for it to thaw. For it to potentially thaw, of which it may not ever thaw. So this is an unbelievably serious situation they find themselves in. Yeah. Well, the coolest thing about it is as i said whether it was a smart idea or not they did bring a photographer along with them and even though this was a really long time ago early 1900s we do have as you can see here some incredible pictures of the ship actually stuck in the ice oh boy yeah it's not good they're in a bad situation this is this is also like you're you might be picturing you know an icebreaker some big ship designed to break through the kind of thick ice so this is a pirate ship it's a pirate ship with all the ropes and the

plank to walk and it is very far from home yeah It's not like stuck in just like a frozen lake. It is surrounded by icebergs. Ice mountains. A hundred feet high. If the Titanic, this huge, massive tourist ship, hit a little iceberg and went down, imagine if a f***ing rowboat hit Mount Everest. down, imagine if a f***ing rowboat hit Mount Everest. The men were essentially shipwrecked in the middle of nowhere, with no way to reach civilization. The men were stuck by the boat for nine months. Whoa, we called it. After that, the ice compacted so much that the ship was crushed and it sank into the icy water below.

There's something so sad about being stuck for nine months. And just when things seem perilous, Shackleton, you know, gets up on a crate and he's like, come on, guys. We don't want to give up. Look, summer's just around the corner. The ice is going to thaw and we're going to sail this puppy right back to the mainland. thaw and we're gonna sail this puppy right back to the mainland. The big boat rotates 90 degrees and goes straight down. Things started to look so desperate that Shackleton knew that they couldn't hold out and wait for help. So Shackleton and a few others trekked off into the blizzard to try and reach what they believed was the nearest inhabited island, 800 miles away.

Holy shit. This journey lasted over 15 days of walking. By the final stretch, only two men continued with Shackleton. Captain Frank Worsley and Second Officer Tom Crean. Finally, Shackleton and his team made it back to civilization and were able to order a rescue mission to save the survivors waiting back where the ship had crashed. When the dust had settled, everyone was desperate to hear Shackleton tell the story of his incredible adventure. We were trapped in the ice for nine months and it wasn't melting so I knew we had no choice but to go try and find help. I don't believe it. It must have been treacherous. It was. The search for help felt like it lasted an eternity. It's a miracle all four of us survived. You mean three, right captain?

Three, right, Captain? The captain's mood changed. Yes, of course. Just the three of us. Shackleton basically downed his pint at this point and said, I must go home. I'm feeling slightly tired. I may have taken some creative liberties of how that scene played out. Sure.

But the truth of it remains, Kit. After the events of the Endurance, all three men from the rescue party would say the same thing. There were four of us. What? Shackleton himself wrote, during that long and wracking march of 36 hours over the unnamed mountains and glaciers of South Georgia. It seemed to me often that we were four, not three. When grilled on the topic, Shackleton told a journalist, none of us care to speak about that. There are some things which can never be spoken of. It seems like all these guys are saying that there was a fourth person or they kind of remember a fourth person but when they're grilled about it no one wants to talk about the fourth person uh yeah it is also when you reintroduce to society like this i'm i'm not saying this is what happened

but we're all wondering who killed who someone killed somebody on the ice we didn't spend nine months on the ice and no one killed nobody so So, you know, if they start talking about a fourth guy and only three guys came home, I'm starting to wonder if old Shackleton smashed someone's head in with a pipe one night. Yeah, yeah. It's like he has a few pints one night and he's like, yeah, you know, to be honest, it's a miracle that me, the two captains, and our guide, Jerry, made it home safely. They're like, who's, who's, did you say Jerry? He's like, huh?

Oh, yeah. Oh, Jerry is what I call my pocket map. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was our guide. Old reliable Jerry. If it wasn't for delicious, delicious Jerry, we wouldn't have made it home. Captain Worsley, one of the other men, wrote about it too, saying that

any time the men would think about the journey that they took, they would always think of a fourth and then have to correct themselves. Kit, have you ever heard of third man syndrome? I've personally suffered from third wheel syndrome, where I'm going through a chronic dry spell and I refuse to stop crashing my roommate's first dates. Apparently that's a disease of which I'm incurable, but not third man syndrome. seemingly hopeless situations have all claimed to have either heard a voice or seen a physical person providing some form of comfort or helpful information. Weird. Really weird, isn't it? I mean, I'm a little bit skeptical of third man syndrome being real because, uh, in my last marriage,

which I describe as an expedition into the frozen Arctic. So if my ex is Arctic. No one came to save me from that journey, you know? That was me waiting around in an icy environment for nine months. But this is a real thing that people say they have experienced during traumatic events. Kit, you will not believe how common the phenomenon of the third man is. Soldiers in the trenches of World War II often described a ghostly presence that repeatedly guided soldiers to safety. They called it an angel, but many times it would take on a human form. It's a pretty reaffirming thing to happen if during a war the person helping you is the angels right because

you're gonna think you're right that's for sure if you're getting like fired at and you think you're about to die and you just hear from the other side of the trenches over here brother and you look over and it's a little demon and he's wearing the same uniform you are maybe reevaluate which side you're fighting for i I mean, even if it's on the fence, even if it's Heath Ledger's Joker. Right. Cackling, helping you survive the trenches. You're going to be like,

I don't feel great about it. Yeah. So saying that they resemble an angel or they give off a positive aura, that's a good sign. This is genuinely quite astonishing. I don't think i'd heard of it before and now i'm starting to think i mean think of all those religious images you

know that like old people have in their houses of like you know yeah someone in a time of need and jesus appears next to them and is like offering a helping hand i always thought that shit was metaphor yeah like oh yeah in your time of need, whatever, you pray and I guess he might like in some indirect religious way give you the grace to survive your situation. I didn't think he literally

appeared and lifted you up. Yeah. We're about, it feels like we're about to get into a situation where someone was getting beat up in a car park

and Jesus showed up and roundhouse the guy in the jaw. That's how physical and literal this is. It's not like, oh, in my time of need, he carried me. Jesus gave him a piggyback. Jesus had one of those knapsacks that they put babies in and lifted someone off of Mount Everest. Jesus took the form of an Apache helicopter and took the soldiers out of Saigon. Moses appeared and put my mugger in a reverse arm bar. Even canonically, when he lived in history, he wouldn't know Brazilian jiu-jitsu. It's crazy. But the stories we're talking about are real instances. These aren't metaphors.

These are people saying they saw physical things, physical creatures helping them. Good to clear that up. Another great example. British explorer Frank Smythe almost became the first person to climb Mount Everest in 1933. His party turned back halfway up the mountain, but he carried on alone and made it to within 1,000 feet of the top. Which sounds like

it's still far away, but I think in the context of Mount Everest, it's very close. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure those last 1,000 feet are as hard as the first half of the mountain. Sure. But that's still close. I mean, 1933, my God. He probably, nowadays,

they take up cans of oxygen just to breathe. Yeah, back then you just had cocaine, liquid cocaine, powering you. And a backpack full of balloons. When you got lightheaded, you'd go, and get another breath of fresh air.

Yeah, your hiking party was compiled mostly of party clowns with different balloon animals that would help you on your journey when the altitude got high. I have a thousand feet to go and only three giraffes and an elephant to help. Is it worth making it to the top if I have to deflate my balloon crown to get there? I won't feel like a king.

He eventually came back down and survived. And when he made it back to base camp, he said he would have died up there if it wasn't for the help of another man. I don't know a lot about Mount Everest, but I don't think there's that many dudes just chilling up there helping strangers yeah uh you know there are nepalese sherpas who are they help people traditionally getting up and down the mountain but um i don't think they're just sitting around chilling uh a thousand feet from the summit waiting for people it's more of a you hire them at base camp and they come up with you situation. So this does indicate that whoever helped him that day

did appear out of nowhere. I mean, to give you an indication of who this person was, at one point Frank says that on a snack stop, he opened up a slab of Kendall mint cake and turned to offer a piece to his companion only to realize there was no one there. So there you go. That's a little insight

to who it was. It was Jesus. Again, just picturing an 1800s explorer sitting next to Yugi from Yu-Gi-Oh. I mean, that's kind of a nice thing to happen to you because you're like, oh shit, I don't have to split anything. I get get all the cake maybe i will be able to survive i i do like this a lot

you know i'm starting to think that i might have never experienced this because i've never pushed myself to the kind of limits of survival yeah you know me and you have gone surfing and you know and got f***ing destroyed yeah and got destroyed by some head height waves you know been held under the water um and and felt utterly helpless the only difference is we're in the ocean only so deep that we can still stand so i don't think i don't think the kind of situations i put myself in even like that i think the third man are just like we don't need to help this pussy there's way more there's yeah there's people out there who really need our help uh this guy is choking on a corn on the cob he'll be all right right uh when we're in

trouble the angels come down they're like i know i should help but a lot of the guys upstairs actually want him to die right these guys are so annoying and they're always getting themselves in these situations. They use up so much angel power every week just to keep them alive. Three dudes have died today because I'm saving Kit and Rory once again. Right.

We're like whenever those selfish people would like go paddle boarding 16 miles off the coast of Brighton and need saved by the Coast Guard. Yeah. And they're like, this is really selfish, guys. We're putting everyone's lives at risk. 16 miles off the coast of Brighton and need saved by the coast guard. And they're like, this is really selfish, guys. We're putting everyone's lives at risk.

And we're like, yeah, but we need help. But it's very heartening, like you say, to know that, you know, if I drove a motocross bike off a cliff edge, that kind of like in Mario Kart, a little guy on a cloud

and a fishing rod would just pick me up again. That's not a hypothesis. I think we should test. I think we should go on the BMX bikes right after this and take a long trip off a short pier. I mean, we mentioned it at the start of the podcast, but where was the third man when I fell and shattered my ass snowboarding up a mountain? I wish someone gave me a piggyback back to civilization. What do you think the closest you've come to perishing is? That was pretty far.

If my brother or family hadn't been with me, I would have had to scoot down that entire mountain on a shattered pazuzu, helplessly searching civilization, stopping every now and again to share my monster energy drink with a man that doesn't exist that would have been it for sure i mean do you have an instance that you think a third man should have stepped in you know i'm starting to think that uh yeah skiing and snowboarding might be the problem because i seem to remember whenever i was a kid and I went skiing with my family, we got caught in a blizzard. That was pretty scary.

Yeah. But we managed to just about get out of that. But if I had been on my own, even not as a kid, that could have been a bit sketchy. Well, that's very Shackleton-esque, getting stuck in a blizzard, there being, you know, you and your family walking, following a figure in the distance. And then when you get to civilization, you're like, wait, we're all here. Who the was that? That was leading us that whole time. I mean, this, this is what happens. Sometimes it's a person being very personal and physical. Sometimes it's a voice telling people to keep going. Sometimes it's just a helping hand or a figure in the distance. Another great story from history involves Joshua Slocum,

who was the first solo sailor to circumnavigate the world. Wow. In the late 1800s, long before Shackleton's polar expedition, Joshua had fallen extremely ill during a huge storm that was battering his ship. He was so incapacitated, he couldn't even stand to steer the vessel. But when he looked out to the stern of the boat, he saw a figure at the helm steering the ship to safety. What the hell? Thanks to the help from this stranger, Joshua emerged safe and once again alone on his boat.

Okay, hot take theory, dropping it in here. Let's go. Dropping it like it's hot. We've talked on recent episodes about out of body experiences. Right. At a point near death, specifically near death experiences,

people report floating outside their bodies, being able to see doctors operating on themselves. Yeah. Even being able to physically see things in the room that they maybe shouldn't have being able to see doctors operating on themselves. Yeah. Even being able to physically see things in the room that they maybe shouldn't have been able to see. Is that potentially what's happening here? Or something similar where at the point close to death, they almost are able to step outside of their own bodies.

And is that crazy to say that the third man that's helping apparition is almost watching themselves? Yeah. I only say that because in this case, he's saying someone was steering the ship. So someone was f***ing steering the ship. Yeah, yeah, yeah. If it wasn't him, it was a ghost. So is it possible it was him?

Yeah, especially on a solo expedition around the earth. There is not another man. Yeah. In a million years, there is no one near you at all unless a dolphin jumped on board and was like be not afraid and decided to steer this thing well look that is a great hypothesis and it actually is one of the kind of logical conclusions that people have to explain this phenomenon one of the theories is could we as humans be capable of creating mental projections as coping mechanisms to focus on survival in a near-death experience?

You know, and I don't want to, you know, I'm not saying I want that to be true because I tend to dislike these kind of gray area explanations of like uh well it's more likely this is a mental projection it's like all right mother when have you ever mentally projected yourself into being in the room and and seeing yourself you know walking like he ate half my kit kat how did he do that if he was a dream as as if that as if that is something that happens every day as if we're gonna be like oh yeah i guess i guess that makes tons of sense that you would just astrally project yourself to steering the ship um i don't know whether that actually is that helpful but it's just an interesting comparison with another paranormal phenomenon. Yeah. You know, the, the understanding being,

maybe you're in a situation so stressful or traumatic, you essentially shut down and the survival part of your brain just starts operating. Yeah. So then when you kind of come to, and it's all over with the decisions that were being made in the voices that you heard were almost not yourself. Yes. Um, that is one of the theories is that essentially in traumatic experiences like this your brain resorts to some kind of primal form where it's essentially split in two with one half saying what to do and the other half listening to the orders right giving the feeling afterwards like there were two people working together. You know, which is so fascinating

and it dovetails with, you know, lots of other experiences. You know, we've talked in the show before about, I think it was in the Outer Body one, we even talked about, let's say, psychedelic experiences. People, you know, take ayahuasca and they have these conversations with God or conversations with

Mother Earth. And they're really being told things that, you know, they've never thought before. Ideas that they pretty much couldn't have come up with on their own, which really feels like someone is telling you it. But the leading scientific explanation is that it's just your own brain. You're communicating with yourself somehow, or even in a much more mundane sense. Rory, you're a songwriter. We're musicians. We know that songwriters routinely say that they can't even take credit for the songs that they write because they just go, hey, all I do is I just relax and I pick up the guitar and sit down with a pen. And the way to write a great song is let the music like flow

through you. And I don't know where the melodies come from. I don't know where the words come from, but they come through me. Yeah. I mean, a prime example, you know, as you said, people who have taken psychedelics and had an idea or a theory pop into their head that wasn't their own. Do you remember the time that I smoked all that weed? And then when I came to, I'd drawn a picture of a hat that could keep sandwiches cold. Right. That, that's an idea from another f***ing planet. That's an idea that no human could mentally conceive.

The thought of a sandwich being kept cold by a hat is so f***ing f***ed up. It's so wild and unhinged that it must have been beamed into me. The f***ed up thing is, like, you must have just watched Paddington. Because Paddington Bear is the only person in history, in media, who famously keeps a sandwich in his hat. I haven't seen any of the movies. So it's impossible that I would have seen the movie and come up with it. It's impossible. F***, you're saying f***.

Sorry, I didn't mean to yell, but I just thought that was my own idea that I had come up with. I don't think his marmalade sandwiches kept cold up there. Yeah. You know, so that is a new twist on the idea. You know, I don't think we've ever talked about it on the podcast before, but I've never seen either of the Paddington movies. Oh, f*** off. So this is probably why I'm saying this, but I hate that little bear.

What? Why? I want to beat the shit out of him. Why? He annoys me so much. You haven't seen the movie. How would you know? His little face. His stupid little face. He's a bear. What? Why? I want to beat the shit out of him. Why? He annoys me so much. You haven't seen the movie. How would you know? His little face. His stupid little face.

He's a bear. Oh, he just drives me nuts. You know, he is a little bit of a posh prick, you know. Yeah. But he is pretty lovable when you watch the movies. You know what bear I respect?

Cocaine bear. That's a bear on the edge. Living life, doing what he wants. I don't want a little Tory bear to come lecture me about friendship and sandwiches. All right. The hat was my idea, you little f***er. All right. All right. I'm so furious. You know, Rory, you are a film lover and you probably know that Paddington 1 and 2 at one point were the highest rated movies on Rotten Tomatoes in history. It's true.

I don't know what happens to people who watch that movie. They come out a different person. I've seen the most cynical people watch those movies and come out and be like, oh, no, we should all just be friends. They're like hypnotized. It's kind of unbelievable, yeah. It's wild. But then I'll see like, because I haven't seen the movies,

then I'll see like all the royal family propaganda where Paddington is like with King Charles and I'm just like you little f***er you little piece of s***. Hey he's a Tory that's for sure. Oh god anyway sorry I'm getting sidetracked here. What are we talking about I'm so angry man now it's really going to be hard to come down off this. I really didn't know about this side of you but I think we should can it for the rest of the show. Well, here we go. We've talked a little bit about the scientific explanation. Let's wind it back to what this podcast is all about. The paranormal. Shit hot psychotic ideas like cocaine bear.

This phenomenon goes deep. It goes deep in every direction. Up, down, northwest, back, future, present, now. We're about to find out just how deep it goes. Right after a few words from today's sponsors. Hmm. Is this mother f***er an angel? Is this thing some sort of spiritual creature that steps in to save people's lives when they're in danger?

It's a guardian angel. It's a ghost. It's the Holy Spirit. danger. It's a guardian angel. It's a ghost. It's the Holy Spirit. It is a spirit from one of the Tibetan bardos. It is a patronus. These are all explanations of a similar thing, a guardian spirit. Yeah. Depending on what your beliefs are, it's been written about a ton in every religion, in every culture. You know, the Holy Ghost, the Spirit, the Guardian Angel, the Protector, a being that steps in and helps people in situations when things seem dire or they're lost and seemingly will never be able to find their way through a storm or a blizzard.

And the glowing light, the beacon, the North Star guides them. It's a little more of an ambiguous explanation, but it could be that all of these cultures and religions are just trying to find a way to describe this thing, this phenomenon. And I know, Kit, that some boring old stories from the past aren't going to be enough to convince us today. So I rounded up some stories from the internet of individuals who also claim to have experienced the third man. Wow, so we're talking like Redditors. Almost every one of these stories happened in the last four months. Jesus.

Yeah, this is how frequent this thing is. Our first story today comes from Bobbin for Bears, who said that his dad fell off a sea cliff in Alaska onto a bunch of boulders, shattering his leg and breaking his back in a handful of places. He lay there alone for hours, calling for help with no luck. Then he said a little girl came down the cliff to keep him company. Wow. Wow. Wow. It was near a very small remote Alaskan town and no one in that small community had any idea of a little girl who even remotely matched his description.

Wow, that's trippy as hell. Another story comes from user ProbablyTomHanks who said, I'm not sure if this is the same thing or something completely different, but 11-year-old me was walking home from school one day and I was attacked by a pretty massive dog. I knew in a matter of seconds he was going to rip free and kill me. Like I knew that. And then out of nowhere, this man just appears. He grabs the dog off me and launches him unbelievably far into the woods nearby. He stands me up and mumbled something like,

it's okay. And he drove off in seconds. Alright, well that one's tough because that might have been a real bad one. I don't think that actually is the third, man. I like the way he started being like, I don't know if this is the same thing. It's not the same thing. Yeah. It's a cool story. All these people are connecting being like, huh, this is the same thing. It's not the same thing. Yeah. It's a cool story.

All these people are connecting being like, my father was in a car crash and he says he was helped out by a strange voice. And it's like, yeah, I saw a guy throw a dog into the woods.

He just picked it up and launched it like a missile. It's like, no, that's kind of f***ed up actually. Yeah. I think that might be a different thing,

probably Tom Hanks. And finally, Classic Parsley wrote and said, I remember my late grandfather telling me something like this. It was snowing one night and he lost control of his car. Got into a car crash, nothing too serious, aside from a broken collarbone and maybe a concussion. He swears that he saw a man in a pure white suit come and help him out of his car. He swears that at that moment he wouldn't have had the strength to do it on his own. But

next thing he knows, he's out of the car, sitting down, and the man has disappeared. There were no footprints in the snow or anything. He always believed it was an angel and as a child I did too but it's fascinating to hear so many stories like this. Kit this is a whole reddit dedicated just to talking about third man syndrome and people who have experienced events like this. They are overwhelming. So many of them share the same similarities. Car crashes, accidents, getting lost, where an individual appears out of nowhere and helps them. In some case, throws an angry dog into the woods. I do want to move past that example. I don't think it's helping our case.

It really isn't. But it just shows you that this is something that isn't even a part of the history. It's happening now. It's happening months ago to individuals on the internet. So if we're thinking about this thing as a paranormal event, it's important to note that it's ongoing. I feel really conflicted about this one. I really love it.

I'm really compelled by it. You know, I'm in two minds. On the one hand, you know, the older I get, the more I think that the world is an extremely mysterious place. Not the world, but life itself. This f***ed up, twisted veil of Maya that we find ourselves in, of which we think it consists of paying rent and buying Tesco's groceries. But it's really much more than that. It's some kind of Buddhist cycle of samsara where we're here to figure stuff out before we finally become enlightened and are released from the cycle of birth and death.

Also that hat that I mentioned, the one that keeps sandwiches cold. Specifically marmalade sandwiches. Weird shit like that. Like the world is so f***ed up. You can't even imagine everyone, yeah, what did you say? It's all about like paying rent and stuff and keeping, and putting like sandwiches in a refrigerator and just wearing normal hats.

It shouldn't be a problem for you. How long are you trying to keep this? There's coolers. Get a cooler. The hat is a cooler. You plug it in.

It's got to be heavy. It's got to be heavy. Well, I haven't properly worked out the blueprints yet and the schematics and I'm having a little trouble finding people to wear the hat because the prototype borderline broke a dude's neck.

It's a mini fridge. It was so heavy. With a visor. What I'm trying to say is that the— I duct taped a mini fridge to a football helmet and said it was a hat. I duct taped a mini fridge to a football helmet and said it was a hat. What I'm trying to say is that the older I get, the more open minded I remain about the possibilities of this crazy thing we call life. At the same time, the other place that my brain goes is I would just kill. I would kill to have CCTV footage of one of these situations you know the the moment

where the guy passes out uh at the a thousand feet from the summit of summit of everest i want to know what if someone else is there you know it's like a it's like a it's like a a f***ing haiku if you know if there's no one around to help them and there's no cameras pointed at it is that when the guardian angel steps in or if there was a camera around to help them and there's no cameras pointed at it, is that when the guardian angel steps in? Or if there was a camera pointed at them, what would we see? Would we see the person floating back down to the surface helped by guardian angel? Or would we see, you know, the Holy Spirit enter their body and give them the strength to move on? Is it more metaphorical? I don't know. Yeah. I mean, there's, it's a huge range as well. I mean, as you said, is it still paranormal if let's say a guardian angel enters someone's body and, and convinces them to escape a bad situation on CCTV, it's going to look like the guy just gets

up and saves himself. That's not really evidence. He might say, you won't believe it. And the feelings inside me and I saw this and that, but we're never going to have the evidence of that. I think where it's really interesting is actually our first case where the, the, the term originates from the third man, because a lot of the other cases we talked about were individuals saying that they were guided by another person. But if you remember our first story with Shackleton, these were three men who all individually claim seeing a fourth. That's weird. That's less of a logical explanation. You can't really say that it's a brain manifesting... A fight or flight situation. Yeah. That tricks your brain, releases chemicals, blah, blah, blah.

Unless they literally did kill someone, didn't tell anyone, and accidentally keep bringing up a fourth guy. Yeah, yeah. Toby just didn't make it. He just died right as they sailed off. It's a hard one. It's a hard case, and it's a tough one as well,

because you don't... Coming down on a no, you know, you feel like you are being too critical and close-minded, you know? Who's to say that something like this can happen in the world? But then we also have to treat this case with the scrutiny that we treat every paranormal case, which is without tangible physical evidence that we can bring to definitively prove that this thing is paranormal. We're kind of stuck here. Our hands are tied. Well, I do disagree on that, though. I think, I think, yes, we do have problems sometimes with this traditional problem of physical evidence or not physical evidence. You know, I think we obsess over physical evidence because very often we're dealing with cryptids. We're dealing with UFOs, things that should leave

physical evidence. But I think we should remain open-minded about, you know, the spirit world. You know, that's what make ghosts and these kinds of strange experiences harder to define. You know, we covered this whenever, you know, I obsessed over the aerial school UFO phenomenon. You made the fantastic point, which is there's very limited to no physical evidence of that happening. But I started to posit by the end, along with some of the other witnesses

and experts who weighed in on it, that, bro, we don't know what was going on here. And it might have been experienced. It might still have been paranormal and at the same time been happening telepathically or being experienced mentally and not in the physical realm. But if 50 kids all experience that simultaneously,

that still is paranormal. Yeah. Yeah, it's a really tough one. Is it still, can you consider it to be evidence if it's within someone's mind? Exactly. I think the most kind of unfortunate thing for me is all of these situations by necessity have been during very tragic events. Very like stressful, traumatic, scarring experiences.

And that is enough of a thing to make the human brain do really weird shit it's like when you hear about stories from people who have been stabbed and they're like you want to know the crazy thing you don't even feel it you don't even know you've been stabbed until like 30 minutes later there's so much adrenaline coursing through your body maybe in survival moments like this your brain does do weird things. You do hear voices and come at, you go into like a, all right, it's not,

it's not whether you want to stand up and walk anymore. You are going to do this. You lose control of some of the functions of your brain. There's a great book and documentary called Touching the Void that tells the story of, I don't remember if they were climbing everest but climbing an icy mountain and one of the explorers essentially falls into this crazy deep hole obliterates himself is left for dead everyone thinks he's gone and the journey

is his exploration finding his way back down the mountain completely by himself. And in that story, he mentions as well, seeing and hearing the voice of the third man guiding him home. He also mentions basically going insane, seeing things, visions, phantoms, having songs looping in his head for hours and hours, just keeping his brain alive. So it's kind of like is this genuinely a spiritual phenomenon or is this like the human brain computer being hit with a sledgehammer and random files are opening and programs are playing and mp3 files are duplicating as they're trying to survive is it just chaos rory i am happy to take the lead. I never pretended to be a completely independent adjudicator

of the paranormal, that I'm some kind of scientist coming in with a f***ing notebook and a f***ing thermometer, sticking it up the ass of cryptids and figuring out what's going on. I don't think you do that with a thermometer. I'm human. And I've got my biases and my fallacies.

And that's why on this case, I'm giving it a yes. Whoa! Because like I mentioned before, I've not had the near-death experience. You know, what I have done is done ayahuasca enough times to know what it feels like to die and be talking to some kind of forest god. Okay. And... I wish you'd stop talking.

I wish you'd say double yes this week. I wish you'd have stopped there. Because I really didn't need the forest gods to be... And the forest god, he did say a lot about refrigerated marmalade sandwiches. It was kind of weird. He had your face, actually, the forest god. But a similar experience in the sense of science will tell me,

and I understand that that is supposed to be my brain talking to me. But thousands of years of human experience, everyone who's done that and everyone who's experienced these third man syndrome, everyone believes the same thing, that something more is going on. is going on yeah yeah you know if it was just the stories of individuals that would be one thing but it's the stories from multiple witnesses all claiming to have seen and experienced something you said it kit we're only human to deny the existence of this is to somewhat deny existence of the spiritual world and to turn your body off to uh the possible existence of something like that being real and i'm not ready to do that

today either i'm giving today's case a yes fantastic oh i did not double yes i didn't see that one coming no no no mean, it's quite funny. As you said, we always give a hard time to cases involving spirits and ghosts because they are not physical creatures. They're spiritual creatures. The one time we did give a ghost case a double yes was the electric lady, the white lady of Connecticut, who in the story for a brief period of time did become physical and was hit by a car.

Right. And that was enough, I think, to give it a yes. Maybe one of us said no. I don't remember. But it was a fantastic case, and hopefully today's was too. I thought this one was a blast. I could have done just a whole case into Shackleton's endurance mission into the Arctic. I mean, what a different world. What a crazy time to be alive. Fun fact,

it was actually only just a few years ago. I'm literally talking in the last few years. They found his boat. Wow. They found the endurance underneath the frozen waters. And I think because of where it was frozen and the temperatures of the water, they were like, it's like it was frozen in time. The ship was in immaculate condition. You could like go in and see the living quarters and everything. It was so weird and spooky, but I mean, so incredible and cool that it's taken this long, but they've actually managed

to find the boat. Yeah. I mean, the Titanic has been in the press recently for lots of good reasons that we won't bother getting into.

But I didn't realize that it takes a long time for these wrecks to be found. I mean, I didn't realize it was only like 1985 or something

or 1983 that they found the Titanic. Really? Because me and you have, we were only children at the time, you know, or like we were born after that point. We didn't, it's always been known where it was in our lifetime. But if you're older, you will remember it being discovered. That's crazy. I can't even imagine what it would have been like to just turn on the news

and say, we found the Titanic. Crazy. And like a couple of miles down as well. I should say, I've mentioned it before on the show, but like if you can go see in Oslo, in Norway,

go to the Fram Museum. I'm sure there's other Arctic exploration museums around the world, but I can personally attest to that one. And thanks again, John. Shout out, John, for showing us around. But man, I didn't even go in

giving a shit about this world. But if you go see these boats, and as you say, you walk around the living quarters, hear the stories of survival, you will come away giving a shit. Yeah, it's really, really cool. Really interesting.

Definitely look into the expeditions of Shackleton. If you found any of today's case, interesting. Thank you so much for listening to this week's episode of this paranormal life. We had a blast. I hope you guys did too. And guess what? If you want to experience this paranormal life live, you can do it. Me and Rory are going on our own cursed expedition and suicide mission. Yeah, except we're hoping there's going to be a third man that turns up. Because if there isn't, it's just us up on stage.

Hoping that actually a few thousand people are going to turn up. If you want to see This Paranormal Life live on stage, you can do it. We're going to be doing shows all across America and the UK in October. Full disclosure, we're recording this episode a little bit in advance, so we don't know exactly

what the ticket sales and venues are like, but I think it's safe to assume pretty much everything is sold out. Well, we don't know that yet because they haven't even gone on, at the time of recording this,

they haven't even gone on sale yet. There might be like three left and they're really bad seats. I don't know. I because they haven't even gone on at the time of recording they haven't even gone on sale yet there might be like three left and they're really bad seats I wouldn't even buy them they are bigger venues than we did last time so we're probably

we're probably actually because I don't want people to think that they can't get tickets so we'll probably actually need people to go check out those tickets make sure

that we fill out the venue so and then so let's assume nothing's sold out but there is one way to find out, and that is to head to thisparanormallife.com slash tour.

Yeah, we don't get to go on tour a lot. So if you do want to see the show live, seize the opportunity, head on over, find your nearest show, book some tickets. We can't wait to see you guys there. It's going to be an absolute blast. Of course, the reason we do it is to bring you guys a really fun and exciting live show and live investigation but it should be said also just

a great way to meet other fans of the show and to be honest sometimes that's people's favorite bit is just meeting hundreds and hundreds of other tpl fans who in our experience are the nicest people in the world and have a ton in common it's really really worth it uh we love going on tour and it's going to be an absolute blast so check out tickets along with the show as well prior to the performance there's going to be just a quick pitch about a potential business proposal oh um many of you out there i'm this summer, heat, have struggled with the temperature of your sandwiches. But know how impractical it would be to carry some sort

of fridge or cooler to a park. I just buy my sandwich in the shop where it's cold. A baseball game. A quinceanera. A bar mitzvah. Locations where carrying your own personal fridge would be considered weird. Anywhere outside of the home is strange to have a personal fridge.

But here's an idea. What if your hat... You know what a cooler is, right? A cooler, a Yeti cooler. Yeah, you can't wear it on your head, you idiot. Who said anything about wearing shit on your head? How many times, Kit, have you been out on a sunny day and you can barely eat your sandwich, it's so hot?

Bologna, tuna, BLTs. You're trying to eat your sandwich it's so hot bologna tuna blts you're trying to eat this sandwich all sandwiches that are delicious hot say cucumber sandwich say fruit sandwich these sandwiches are borderline boiling you can barely hold them in your hands they're so hot has your philadelphia cheese steak ever been so hot it's inedible no that sounds delicious look i don't want to tell you too much about the product. I'm sure you'll hear about it at the live shows. But what can I say? It's a hat where you put a sandwich underneath it and put it on your head with an ice cube.

It's a smeg fridge with a snapback on it. You're going to hear all about it if you make it to the live show. So thank you. Go check out thisparan this paranormal life.com forward slash tour and of course we have our incredible patreon where we like to give amazing rewards and bonuses to the people that support us including a little shout out to people on particular tiers and that's what we're going to do right now a few thank you shout outs so a goddamn special thank you to Ty S. Ty S, inventor of kind of a wacky tie that's shaped like an S. Ooh, fun.

So it's kind of like, you know, ties are usually straight, usually just straight down. But he's like, whoa, check out this tie. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. It's shaped like a fucking slinky. That honestly sounds like a billion dollar corporation in the making. Right? I mean, if I could just

move some of these f***ing hats out of the warehouse, this is a way better business idea. Thanks to Remy Bueller. Remy Bueller, it's time to throw away your cooler because you're going to have a little item of clothing

that's going to keep everything you ever need cold. I promise you, Remy, hold on to the cooler. Don't be too hasty to throw it away. Bin it. Bin it right now. I don't care how much it costs. I don't care if it's one of those fridges with the ice dispenser

on the front, if it was thousands, hundreds of thousands. I don't have a fridge, so I don't know, because I have a hat. It keeps my shit cold. So, Remy, just get in touch, bud. I got a product you're going to love. Thanks lastly today to Suzy Rocha. Suzy Rocha, I am broke. I need

you to pick up one of these hats ASAP because capital is low and no one's buying the products. So Susie, if you want to get a little boozy, this hat also keeps drinks cold. It doesn't have to be sandwiches. I should have mentioned that at the start. It's the shape of a sandwich. That's the entire inside of the compartment. It's the shape of a sandwich. That's the entire inside of the compartment is the shape of a sandwich. You could fill a sandwich bag full of margarita, zip it up and put it in a hat.

This is a stretch. And there might be a little bit that kind of leaks down the back of your neck and kind of makes you sticky, but most of it that stays in the bag will remain cold. I hate this. Susie, get in touch. I need to move some product. Thank you to Susie and thank you to everyone who supports us over on Patreon. We couldn't make this show without you.

I hope you guys enjoyed this week's episode of the podcast. And hopefully we'll be seeing many, many, many of you very soon at This Paranormal Life live. We'll see you next week, everyone. Ciao, everyone. Ciao bella.