This Paranormal Life - #352 HAUNTED Painting Sold on eBay - 'The Hands Resist Him'

Episode Date: January 30, 2024

As someone who spent many of their teenage years browsing the weird and wonderful pages of Ebay, I've seen a lot of bizzare objects for sale... but NEVER have I seen an object so dangerous and cursed that it comes with an official legal warning, explaining to potential buyers that if you end up winning this painting you may get more than you bargained for...Follow 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.comEdited by Philip Shacklady Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

What happens if you make a painting out of ectoplasm? Why do squirrels gather nuts? Are they preparing for something we don't know about? All of these questions you can find the answer to on This Paranormal Life! Hello everyone and welcome to This Paranormal Life, the comedy paranormal podcast where every week myself and the paranormal investigator across from me

kit greer malvena investigate a brand new paranormal tale and come to a conclusion at the end as to whether or not it truly is paranormal kit you know every week we have to dive into the mud into the swamp water and root around in the darkness and pull something to the light. Do you feel mentally prepared today to undertake such a task? I do. I mean, that's a task we literally and figuratively do all the time. Mostly, it's a boot. Sure. Yeah, most of the time.

You root around on there. Uh-oh, boot. Yeah. Boot, boot, tire, boot. It can be a painstaking process researching the paranormal. But it is one I've built the mental fortitude up over years, and I'm ready for it today. Yeah, we've been doing this so long,

we've actually opened up a shoe store called Swamp Boots. And you can get the tenderest boots you've ever come across. Yeah, now matching boots, they're hard to come by. You're going to want to go to another store. But if you walk on one foot bigger than the other, or you like rocking two styles at the same time, we've got you covered. Yeah, if you're into your Shrek core,

you're going to want to come down to Swamp Boots or visit SwampBoots.com. SwampBoots.co. Unbelievably, SwampBoots.com was taken. SwampBoots.swamp is our URL. Swamp.boots. Rory at Swamp.boots.swamp is our URL. Swamp.boots. Rory at Swamp.boots. You're going to want to email Rory at Swampbootsmanagement.com

to get a pair of the dampest shoes you'll ever wear. It's like, why does this clearly bad business have such a developed e-commerce side? We've got multiple managers, email addresses. We're on Shopify. We're on Instagram. I spent 10K on TikTok ads this month, and it's just a JPEG of a f***ing wet boot. No context. But that's how you get people talking, you know?

They're scrolling through their Instagram stories one day. They're scrolling through Twitter. And all of a sudden, they see a picture of a wet boot. Yeah. And all of a sudden, people start talking. Hey, did you see the boot? I saw a wet boot on my timeline. Yeah.

Next thing you know, the Kardashians are rocking the wettest boots in town, a.k.a. aka swampboots.com we're currently putting in it's a long shot pitch trying to get Jason Momoa in a wet boot for the Oscars

Aquaman? yeah that'll track you know that f***er's got some wet boots and the great thing is about wetboots.com is it all started it's kind of a

rags to riches tale literally because we started ironically out of a car boot sale, literally selling boots. We sell rags for riches. That's kind of the business model of Swampboots.com. Why did I eat ice halfway through the intro to this podcast? What are you doing?

I don't know. I'm freaking out a little bit. I think we brought up before, Rory is, I mean, he is from Georgia originally. But yeah, you've got to remember that we can drink. You might even be able to secretly eat a piece of a banana or something when the camera isn't on you during a podcast, but you can eat ice. You can eat ice. No, I am unfortunately part of an elite league of ice eaters.

I thought ice eating was kind of uh restricted to weirdos um perverts but it turns out if you go online there's a thriving community of ice eaters out there i think there's even an entire reddit for ice eaters that includes ice eater memes created for the ice eating community. I think you showed me this once. It was just people uploading just like pictures from their iPhone of like a tray of ice with just the caption like,

mmm, yum. Or just a bowl of ice that says dinner is served. Yeah. Or a picture of crushed ice saying, you know, this is the good shit. Little memes like that. I definitely recommend checking it out

if you're an ice eater. But even though ice eaters do sound like a paranormal beast kit, we're not here to investigate them. We have a completely different story that we need to dive into today on the podcast. Now, today's episode doesn't begin with a UFO sighting or a cryptid attack. Instead, it begins with an eBay listing. But what was the item that was listed for auction kit? We're going to talk about it today after a quick word from today's sponsors. And a reminder that you can get every episode of This Paranormal Life ad-free over on patreon.com

forward slash swamp boots. Sorry. So it's forward slash thisparanormallife. I got too many businesses going around in my head. Forward slash swamp boots. In February of the year 2000, a post appeared on the website eBay selling a strange painting. Was eBay going in 2000? Oh, yeah. eBay's been going for a strange painting. Was eBay going in 2000? Oh, yeah.

eBay's been going for a long time. I love eBay so much. Do you f*** with eBay? You know, I used to a lot more when I was younger. I feel like I don't mess around with it ever since I got a Nintendo 3DS that didn't work and then an iPhone 5 that didn't work. And some boots that were bone dry.

Every item was missold to me. Which is why I stopped using eBay. And also started a little business venture of my own. Swampboots.com I don't want the whole episode to be... I don't want this to become like a... A whole thing. Because sometimes...

Sure. On this Paranormal Life, like, an idea will come up. Or we'll be reminded of something. Yeah. At the beginning. like a whole thing. Because sometimes on this paranormal life, like an idea will come up or we'll be reminded of something at the beginning. And then it kind of becomes like pretty dominant, pretty dominant throughout. We've seen it before.

Chompies. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Which is still thriving, by the way. You're talking about moths in your apartment, things like that. Yeah, sure. I just don't want...

Ongoing current affairs. Because Swamp Boot is its own business, right? Which doesn't really overlap with the podcast. Well, it overlaps a little more than you think financially, let's just say.

Okay. I just wouldn't want it to get in the way of a great paranormal investigation. And it won't. And that's why I can tell you right now, Kit, that eBay was created

on the 3rd of September, 1995. Holy shit. Do you want to know how much of an eBay OG I am? Yes. I've been addicted to the Bay for so long. I use it all the time. And to this day,

my account is legally set up in my mom's name because whenever I started cruising the Bay, I was too young to legally hold an account. You're too scared. So I had to steal my mother's identity. So I always get like f***ed up whenever, you know, I'll get like a notification or so. Or someone will send me a message. A buyer will send me a message.

Because I'm bidding. I'm haggling hard in the DMs. Right. And they're like, listen, Joan, we can't come down this price any further. I'm like, oh, shit. You're like, how do you know my mother's name? What have you done with her? I'm putting my mother in harm's way.

This is a little illustration of how nerdy I was as a teenager. I used to use eBay as a child to bid on Matrix action figures. And you were definitely nine years old bidding furiously against 40 to 50 year olds. Oh yeah, using my mother's name, of course, which happened to be Cypher. We were all pretty into the movie. You were sitting at your 1997 Dell 500 meg RAM family computer with Oakley wrapper on shades on and a black coat. A leather trench coat.

I lost the bidding for a Morpheus action figure. with Oakley wrapper on shades on and a black coat. A leather trench coat. I lost the bidding for a Morpheus action figure. And I turned to my mother and said, just unplug me now. I don't want to be in this program anymore. She's like, okay, no more Matrix. No more Matrix action figures. This has gone too far.

Rory at the breakfast table, nine years old, just like stirring the bowl of Coco Pops. Like, you know what the f***ed up thing is, mother? I don't know whether these pops are real. All I know is they taste all the same. They're all ones and zeros. We're getting so distracted here. We need to talk about a specific item that was listed on eBay in February of the year 2000. Right. It was a painting, a strange painting, depicting a child standing next to some kind of doll with hands reaching out from the darkness behind them.

Jesus, what a horrible painting. Pretty intense and pretty eerie by itself. But viewers of the item were surprised to see that along with the description and pictures of the painting, this listing also came with a legal warning. The warning read, Do not bid on this painting if you are susceptible to stress-related disease, faint of heart, or are unfamiliar with supernatural events. By bidding on this painting, you agree to release the owners of all liability in relation to any events happening after the sale

that might be contributed to this painting. This painting may or may not possess supernatural powers that could impact or change your life jesus what was the do we know what the uh the listing name was was this going under supernatural painting or uh description of the image itself i don't know exactly what the listing name was but the painting itself the official name i believe is the hands resist him do we know how much it was being sold for i know how much it was eventually sold for which i will get onto later i believe the original listing probably was quite low right but no reserve 99p kit you've just completely bypassed the possibility that these people could just be trying to do quite a nice thing, which is sell the painting for the appropriate value, but warn the people bidding on it that some pretty bad shit might happen to you if you do purchase it.

Let's just skip a couple of steps ahead in what is clearly about to be a cursed episode. No one said curse. These things belong. No one said that. Like Optimus Prime. These things belong. No one said that. Like Optimus Prime and Bin Laden at the bottom of the sea. This needs to go to landfill. Look, they said at the end of this,

this painting may or may not possess supernatural powers that could impact or change your life. No one said it would impact it badly. No one said it would impact it in a negative way. Okay, well, I look forward to part two, act two, when they win the lottery.

Sure. And move to the Bahamas. The opening, of course, of the warning was, do not purchase it if you're susceptible to stress-related diseases or faint of heart, or you don't like curses. Okay. All right. I just want to, look, I've said my piece.

I just want to kind of foreshadow what i think is the reality what should be happening here but let's hear what actually happened okay so i know you're keen to figure out what was this painting where did it come from why did the owners feel like they had to put this warning in the ebay listing well to find out we're gonna have to deep dive into the mysterious creation of the painting a painting as i as I said, known by the name, The Hands Resist Him. It all began way back in 1972 with an artist known as William Stoneham. Back then, Stoneham was contracted to create two paintings for $200 each. While I don't know what the first one was, the second was the hands resist him.

One of the most haunted paintings, yeah, it's haunted, in the history of the paranormal world. I forgot I wrote that line in there. So,

I didn't know when I revealed the fact that the painting was, yeah, cursed as all hell. Can you just not get so angry whenever I start

making a point? Well, I like to be the one to reveal information because it's my episode. So I don't like you butting in early and saying, this painting's pretty cursed. I'm like, oh, that was going to be kind of a big beat later on in the story. So we may have to cut that.

Literally in the eBay listing said, bad shit will happen if you buy this. According to the artist, the boy in the painting is based on an old photograph of himself. There's a glass door behind him that is supposed to represent the barrier between the real world and the fantasy world. Which is kind of f***ed up because the quote-unquote fantasy world is completely dark and filled with disembodied hands that are trying to grab him. dark and filled with disembodied hands that are trying to grab him right not like gandalf and a unicorn in the background it's a void yeah meant something different to him and to you i think yeah you know that could be an embarrassing thing about being an artist right is you you're kind of burying your soul a bit aren't you kind of showing the world a little bit of your inner world that maybe you've never shared before.

Yeah. A bit embarrassing if you paint what is supposed to be your fantasy world and everyone else thinks it's really f***ed up. Yeah. So as you can see, guys, I painted, this is me as a little boy. And then, you know, this is me just sweetly dreaming at night. And then above my head, you can just see my dreams, which are, yeah, just as you can tell typical

dreams right okay no no i am looking at the painting now and which part is the dream the door or the doll beside you is that is that what the that's like dreaming of companionship i guess that is nice that is nice yeah um he's the night bringer it's actually not a doll it's a night bringer and then the door is uh was was the was the black void so most nights the night bringer would take me to the black void right okay okay you've seen the black void right well as in now slow down here a little second because i'm struggling to to kind of relate to this one the black void is in we go there when we sleep and that is where the beauty of the mind can kind of create substance so that's where we dream of our loved ones what kind of mickey mice disney level dreams are you hey we've all been to the black void right what i'm saying is

maybe the artist is displaying that his interior life his painting and bring into the world is a bit darker than everyone else's you know i always you know, as people who create art and do share it, whether it's comedy, this podcast, music, writing, I always say sharing your art is like showing people a nude of your mind. That's beautiful, actually. I actually believe that is true. It's kind of embarrassing. You don't want too many people to see it.

You're scared of what people will think right you know the iCloud leaks of course yeah exactly your ideas look bigger in person than they do in the picture you're like maybe I'll take a couple more nudes of my mind because you send them to people who aren't expecting it and that is technically harassment right so uh it So it's a delicate process, but that's part of being an artist is expressing yourself. And as we've seen today, sometimes those expressions can be a little creepy. I know I described it in pretty full detail,

but it is kind of hard to imagine. So Kit, I'm just going to send you a picture right now of what this painting looks like. If you're watching this on youtube.com, search this paranormal life, you could probably see this for yourself. Otherwise, no problem. I'll describe it to you.

This is pretty, I feel like the technical level of this painting is pretty good. This is a pretty well-executed painting. Yeah. Little boy, a doll. I was about to say a little girl. No, a doll, but a life-size doll standing at a door. The little boy really looks like a little man. I mean, it's borderline Kevin Costner,

kind of shrunken down to a little boy size. Yeah. And then behind him, unmistakably, unmistakably against the black pane of glass, just multiple tiny hands reaching against the glass as if trying to get out. Very creepy stuff. Horrible.

No one should want this. The only place this belongs is in some kind of museum of freaks or maybe a bar for goth chicks. Yeah, it's very unsettling. I don't know anyone that would want to have this on their walls. In 1974, the painting was completed and put on display at the Fine Garden Gallery in Beverly Hills. But it didn't stay there long. Something about this painting felt off. While in the gallery, it was reviewed by an art critic for the Los Angeles Times, and soon after was purchased by actor John Marley,

who's probably best known for being the guy who woke up next to a horse's head in The Godfather. It's a good reference. But back then, the painting came with no warning, and those who purchased it had already sealed their fate. The story goes that a few years after the painting had sold, the art critic for the Los Angeles Times passed away. Then, the owner of the gallery passed away. Then, of course, John Marley himself died in 1984. Yes, he was having open heart surgery, and doctors claimed that he passed away as part of a complication, but Kit, could the wrath of this painting that he'd purchased just ten years ago have been the real cause?

A mere blink. Ten years. Now, we've been in the cursed objects game for a long time, and we know that a string of mysterious deaths doesn't really mean shit. We saw it with the curse of Tutankhamun. We saw it with the curse of the mummy in the

British Museum. We've seen it a lot of times and we know that just because a lot of people die in connection with an object isn't definitive proof that that object is cursed. Not at all. And I think it's a funny paradox to do with curses. Curses are some of the most famous paranormal phenomenon in the world and in history and they are some of the most famous paranormal phenomenon in the world and in history and they are some of the most fun to explore. Actually,

probably one of the hardest to prove and get a double yes at the end of an episode of TPL for. Oh, really? Yeah. Not that hard though, always.

Like sometimes it just kind of falls on your lap. Have you ever given one a yes? We, well actually, I gave one a yes and it was a curse painting. Okay okay it was the last curse painting

we investigated on this podcast which the woman in the rain yes i did host it yeah and it was a pretty compelling case actually just i think the host kind of knocked it out of the park clear why yeah you might have been invested in that one but point being yeah curses are deeply inbuilt into human nature and psychology the concept of a curse. But proving one can be tricky is something I think we can achieve today. But luckily, or maybe unluckily, this was only the beginning of the journey with this painting.

After this string of deaths, the painting disappeared, probably handed down and passed around to friends and family before eventually being discovered by an art seller who had found it left abandoned behind an old brewery. Jesus, wow. Yeah. For a painting that was worth something to someone at one point. Exactly.

But that's the problem with art, it is subjective. And I'll be quite honest, the commission that you said this was painted for was a lot more than I thought. I think I said this was worth 99p no reserve on eBay. It was originally created for 200 bucks. So I wouldn't be surprised if someone took a look at it and said, what a hunk of junk and threw it out the back of a brewery.

Yeah, I'm a little suspicious about why an art seller would be looking for pieces in the dumpster behind a bar. You know, maybe he has to see this art seller's qualifications. Keep an eye on that guy. It's like, I call this one the messy exit. That's a dirty diaper. You found that in the bin as well. No, no, it's art. It's art.

This one was created by a contemporary artist with a lot of potential. A lot of potential. He's only new to the game at 18 months old. So if you get in now, this work is sure to appreciate. It's like, I call this one bliss. That's a used needle. That is a used needle. Wasn't used when I found it.

Okay. Bliss makes sense now. This next piece is actually a piece of performance art. It's called Gimme Your F***ing Wallet. Performed by me today. I call this piece lunch. It's an old discarded sandwich. It's art?

No, it's my f***ing lunch. Did you hear me? I'm starving over here. Not everything's a piece. Not everything's art? No, it's my f***ing lunch, did you hear me? I'm starving over here. Not everything's a piece. Not everything's art. Sometimes it's food and sustenance. This quote-unquote art seller sold the painting to a young Californian couple who were excited to own such a beautiful and haunting piece of art. But unlike its previous owners, they had no idea of how their lives were going to change.

Over the next few years, this young couple were haunted relentlessly by the painting. And I'm not talking about strange noises and bad vibes. One night, they said the doll in the painting had a gun. What? Strapped up? how could that happen they look in the painting one day little boy's now sitting on the stoop like you know polishing his glock nine millimeters like he's like bro i don't know what to tell you it's like hey you're to blame you took me to east la bro i'm just fitting

in with the furniture all right the are like, garbage paintings are built different. This is sketchy. Now, when I read this, I, same as you, had a little chuckle. Then something weird happened. Kit, take a look at that picture of the painting I sent you. And tell me whether or not the doll in the painting has a gun. Did you put mushrooms in my coffee? Am I about to be taken on a on a strange first glance first

glance imagine you just caught it out of the corner of your eye what do you mean it looks like the doll is holding a gun does it does it it for sure does I mean, there's maybe a shadow. Bro. What? She's holding him at gunpoint. Okay. I see what you're saying. I see what you're saying. Yeah.

Okay. Okay. If you squint. If you squint, she's holding something. It looks like she's holding a miniature clean canteen bottle. But then that intersects. This is impossible to describe. It intersects with the frame of the door behind them,

creating a right angle shape that looks like it's pointed straight at the boy. So, yes, walking through your mid-century East L.A. home at night with the moon, full moon outside, you glance at the painting, it might look like the boy's being held at gunpoint. Yeah. For the record, the doll is holding something. The artist claims it's supposed to be a, for some reason, a cell battery with a tangle of wires. But the couple were adamant that it changed in the night. And this was only one of the bizarre events that started taking place.

One night, their four-year-old daughter burst into their room. She was crying her eyes out, completely inconsolable. Eventually, she calmed down enough that the parents could talk to her. It's okay, sweetheart. We all have bad dreams sometimes, even mommies and daddies. She replied, It wasn't a dream. It was real. What was, my dear the children they keep sneaking into my room the parents blood ran cold their daughter was an only child so they asked her no no no pause the scene pause the scene is there something funny going on here

because i don't appreciate that halfway through my dramatic reenactment of a pretty traumatic event you're taking this shit so lightly I'm about to hold you at gunpoint

you son of a bitch I'm not it's just it's just the idea that they they're like oh shit we don't have any other children

in that moment they realize yeah it's like the children but that's fine we only have one child yeah okay yes you know

obviously I have dramatized this scene slightly I'm not sure if it played out exactly like this but you know it's just to add dramatic effect and to this

to this moment to this pivotal moment yes the parents have realized we only have one kid so they asked her what children are you talking about sweetie the boy and the doll from the painting this little girl claimed that the boy and the doll were leaving the painting at night and wandering around the apartment, yelling and fighting with each other in the dark. Let me start by saying this. This couple deserve everything that happens.

Sure. Don't put this up in your house if you have children. don't put this up in your house if you have children. Like I said earlier, if you're some kind of like cool goth couple in your house, you've got a lot of lit candles and a lot of like walls are painted red and the whole thing's pretty dark and cool. Sure, fine.

You could probably pull this off. If you have children, children shouldn't even be watching The Lion King. That's too traumatizing. Way too traumatizing. Let alone a doll holding a f***ing desert eagle to a little

boy's head with the screams of the innocent behind him reaching out for justice. Yeah, that's way too much. I watched The Lion King when I was a child and it was so impressionable on me that I cried for seven days after Mufasa

died and then went outside and ate a bunch of bugs because I thought that's what I was supposed to do. So you would stop watching halfway through. It seems like, yeah, it's, it's, I guess if you're a kid, you're like Mufasa dies and you're like, this is the most movie I've ever seen. Like not knowing that that was like the emotional high point of the movie, and it's all kind of downhill from there in a good way. But you're just like, I can't have... Whatever's going to happen next, Simba's probably going to be f***ing beaten to death

by the hyenas, for all I know. The credits are going to roll with Simba's skin being used by a hunter to make a rug in front of a fireplace. God, nature really is cruel. And I can't handle that. A warthog showed up and said, Hakuna Matata, and I thought he was casting a spell that would turn Simba to ash. I panicked and turned the TV off so quickly.

To this day, I didn't realize there was a happy ending, and it was all kind of nice. So, yeah, that's why I've never seen the end of the lion king unfortunately whenever i was a little kid i went to um belfast they had like an animatronic dinosaur exhibition hell yeah life-size dinosaurs animatronic and some jurassic park shit very ahead of its time yeah um i screamed and screamed and clawed to get i was taking it as far as i knew i was face to face with a t-rex swinging its tail out into the audience i was like just like you know like just like pulling my mom's hair out like i've gone completely feral like getting out of her arms like trying to run run out of the room. Kids can't handle this level of peril. Yeah.

It's funny because you seeing a quote-unquote dinosaur, your parents could tell you, oh, these existed a million years ago, hundreds of millions of years ago. And you're like, I don't know when that was. I have no concept of time. I remember when granny visited last Christmas. Was that a million years ago i don't know

it's like that could very much still exist in today's world it's like the memes of um how we as children reacted when we heard that uh the solar system was gonna end someday and it's like and it's like we were went into mourning distra. Distraught because someone's like, in 600 million years, the sun's going to explode and burn everything to ashes. What do you mean? We know the end is coming? You're like, what the f*** are we doing? We need to figure this shit out.

Where's the lie, by the way? We were kind of right. Yeah. We kind of just assumed it was all going to go on forever. That it's like kind of naive for parents go on forever. That it's like, kind of naive for parents to just be like, it's like,

calm down, silly. It's not, it's not for ages. Right. The end of all things. It's not for ages. You'll be long dead. What?

I'm going to die. Oh boy. He really knows nothing. It's true. Children can't handle shit. They can't handle scary movies. They can't handle their liquor So you think that a child should be exposed to a painting this scary? Terrible idea. Even if there's children in the painting because one of them has a gun apparently

But believe it or not This was only the beginning of the horrible events that were taking place in this house Now that the painting had arrived and we're gonna hear all about every one of those events right after a quick break. case? Then head on over to SwampBoot.Store! That's right, because of legal complications and court orders, all of the website links that we talk about on this episode are offline. But don't worry, our boots are still available at SwampBoot.Store! All of our boots are locally sourced and come in a variety of styles, from frog green, to toxic blue blue to swamp green a slightly darker version of classic green who am i kidding they're all green so head on over to swampboot.store boots are better when they're wetter swampboot.store

now as i said the little girl claimed the boy in the doll gave the little girl a gun yeah that's right the gun came out of the pit imagine that the little girl a gun. Yeah, that's right. The gun came out of the painting. Imagine that. The little girl goes up to the parents like, yeah, I'm pretty sure the painting's looking at me. The parents are like, don't be silly, sweetie. It's just a painting. It can't harm you.

Now let's get to sleep. It's like, the doll gave me this. Oh, Jesus. The doll says they're my real parents. Now I don't know who to believe. Look, the parents wouldn't have believed their daughter, because we all know this. Kids are liars, criminals, thieves. You can't trust them. But

the parents saw it for themselves. Not long afterwards, they had seen the same thing happening. The parents claimed on multiple occasions they could see the strange hands behind the boy moving and clawing at him, while he edged closer to the limit of the painting as if to try and escape. Face pressed against the canvas like it's a window.

Scratches on the painting. He's trying to break out. One day there's just a fist punching out of the, smashed through the canvas. The wife stated in the eBay listing, I don't believe in UFOs or Elvis being alive, but my husband was alarmed. After seeing the boy seemingly exit the painting under threat, we decided this painting has to go.

Now, of course, a listing this strange, as you predicted Kit, didn't go unnoticed by the paranormal community. It actually ended up going viral and more than 30,000 people ended up visiting the auction page. It's the year 2000, where the f*** did it go viral? Wikipedia? Uh, I don't know. Like, uh, forums, I guess? Okay. That was kind of the OG way of going viral. I can actually, as I say, being an eBay power user, I can actually imagine how paranormal

investigators might have come across this. For one, eBay was a much smaller platform back then, lower amount of items available, but also simple keyword search of a paranormal investigator looking for a supernatural item or a haunted item would have pulled up this as a result. Something we should probably get into as well. Exactly. Now it's all about like buzzwords and funny ways to stand out amongst the ocean of online content. Back then, if you just typed in curse painting, maybe even painting, this would have been one of the first things that came up. Right. Back then, I you just typed in curse painting, maybe even painting, this would have been one of the first things that came up. Right. Back then, I could have sold dry boots.

I wouldn't have had to sell wet boots, swamp boots. Yeah, the dry boot market is completely saturated. It's completely oversaturated. Ironically saturated like these sogging, sogging boots. Most boots by, come dry. So I thought the easiest way to stand out amongst the crowd is to quite literally be a small fish in a big pond and be a wet boot in a big swamp.

Sorry, I know we have a big thing to talk about today, so I don't want to talk too much about swampboots.com. I mean, you you actually i would say restrained yourself pretty well for the first half you didn't you didn't hear the ad break it was there was like a three minute ad for swamp boots it was extensive jeez we didn't sell any ads this week yeah because we lose money if we can't run ads and you're telling me you're running an ad for this side business this side makes money. Because sometimes people left a dollar or two in the boot. Can I just ask you,

if you're going to be completely honest, how many boots have you sold this financial quarter? I never said I was going to be completely honest. To start. Okay. Yeah.

Well, with that in mind, how many boots did you sell this quarter? 2,500. Okay. But if I'm being completely honest? Yeah, please. Zero. Sure.

For sure. Ask me how many returns we've had, though. Well, you couldn't have any returns because you haven't sold any in the first place. Exactly. Not a single dissatisfied customer. Zero returns. Zero returns. Zero complaints.

Zero stars on the App Store. This is a Buddhist e-commerce business. The perfect business. Zero sales, zero returns. We haven't had a single bad review, ever. Or any review. Yeah, sure. Exactly. Cool, so you're not making any money but the hosting costs of the website extortionate sure really expensive i had to buy swampboots.com

from a tech startup in san francisco they're actually created a pretty cool uh kind of intelligent boot that could adapt to traversing swampland so it was going to be huge for like fishermen explorers scientists that sort of thing it was like a high-tech waterproof boot and i bought it and said i'm going to sell wet socks on your website now knowing that 30 000 people ended up visiting this ebay listing kit can you guess how much the painting eventually sold for? Okay, well, you're putting me on the spot as an eBay power user. Of course, I'm more familiar with the market right now in 2024. But if I had to cast my mind back to the conditions in 2000, what do you say? 30,000 views? Yeah. Okay. And for a painting with a reasonably,

potentially well-known provenance and artist, but was also found out back of a dumpster at one point sure yeah i'm gonna go ahead and say maybe we're coming full circle maybe 250 bucks it eventually sold for 1025 dollars wow it's quite a Yeah, it's a surprising amount, isn't it, for a painting like this? I guess word spread and enough people wanted to get their hands on this painting. It did pick up a penny. This is a Y2K meme stock right here.

This is the original NFT. Yeah. As in, no f***ing thanks. I don't want it. And also, it's worth absolutely Jonathan's squat today. The owners woke up one day and their bored ape handed them a gun. The bored apes were coming to life at night, drinking all the orange juice in the fridge.

Look, as I said before on this podcast, this isn't the first time that we've covered cursed paintings. Yeah. We have covered, I think the first one we ever covered was the crying boy painting. One of your cases where I believe a painting of a crying boy essentially burned down every building that it was placed in. Yeah. It became a bit of a tabloid sensation here in Britain. Yeah.

a bit of a tabloid sensation here in Britain. Yeah. Then we quite recently covered the Woman in the Rain painting, which was not a double yes, but a single yes, joined by a no from Kit, unfortunately. A great case involving a curse painting where again, the owners said

that the woman in the painting was moving, coming to life, walking around. Very spooky stuff. But I did a little bit more research and found a few more paintings that allegedly have been cursed throughout history to show you and to prove to you that this isn't a unique thing. Paranormal investigators and experts claim that paintings are one of the easiest objects to become cursed, haunted, or paranormal because of the artist or the creator pouring so much of themselves into the art. Right. I was going to ask why that is the case, but okay, I get that. I always say

the paranormal is kind of a vibes economy. And so the vibes of the artist has gone into the work itself. So the first one that we'll talk about today is known as the Portrait of Bernardo de Galvez. Now, this painting of the Spanish general sits on display on the walls of a hotel in Galveston, Texas. It's said that those that take photographs of this painting will see a skull flash in front of them, destroying their photo of the artwork. That's so specific. That's interesting. Yeah, this one was quite unique. Actually, these examples I have are unique for this very reason. According to local folklore, visitors must politely ask permission from the painting itself to take a photo of it.

from the painting itself to take a photo of it. Paranormal investigators believe that this is because there is some sort of ghost living within the painting that doesn't like being photographed. Okay, interesting. So kind of Robert the Doll style, you kind of have to talk to it and ask permission to take a photo or interact with it. This does seem to line up nicely with the intentions

of the galleries themselves, which are kind of notoriously no photographs. Sure. So it's a pretty good story to be like, if you take a photograph, they'll eat your soul. Right. So don't do it. And if you don't buy something from the gift shop,

misfortune will follow you. Yeah. Yeah. It's a sneaky little way of kind of enforcing their own rules potentially just a thought potentially potentially next up is the famous painting of a lady by the artist juan luna now there's a pretty obvious reason why this painting would be cursed and it's because the painting is a portrait of the artist's wife, who unfortunately he later murdered. According to the legends, the painting is now possessed by the spirit of the lady who enforces

her wrath on whoever is in possession of it. According to online sources, past owners have died in car crashes, been forced into bankruptcy, among other misfortunes. And if that wasn't enough suspicious activity for you, during the opening night of an exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the spotlight bulb that hung over the painting exploded. Wow. Pretty crazy stuff, huh? But one of the most terrifying cursed paintings that I came across in my research is a piece of art called The Anguished Man. You're going to want to brace yourself for this one because I haven't seen a piece of art this f***ing cursed since The Lion King. The legend goes that the painting was created by an artist who mixed his own blood into the paint. by an artist who mixed his own blood into the paint.

The painting came to the interest of paranormal investigators after a man named Sean Robinson inherited it from his grandmother, who had kept it locked in her attic for 25 years. You mean Meemaw was keeping the paranormal goods locked away? Why did she have this? Get rid of the painting. If it's been in the attic, locked in there for 25 years in a treasure chest, what is the point in having it anymore?

This is what I'm saying. I think we've established it's pretty easy to get rid of a painting by just putting it in the dumpster behind a bar. Meemaw was back in 1924, taking it off the wall, and she was like, someday there'll be a website called eBay.

I don't actually know what a website is yet, but it'll be worth something someday. She claimed that the reason she locked it up in the attic was because every time it was hung on the walls, she would start to hear voices and crying, echoing throughout the house, eventually peaking when she spotted a quote-unquote shadow man wandering around her home.

Yeah, that's dreadful. Now, when Sean got the painting, he thought these were all just tall tales, so he put this thing on display at his family home. And believe it or not, he and his family started to experience the exact same phenomenons. Strange voices, crying sounds, and even the Shadow Man.

Things eventually climaxed when his wife felt a ghostly hand stroking her hair and his son was pushed down the stairs. Lead with the second one. Lead with the second one. That was attempted murder it's like i can tell it's like my son's pretty built he can take that but touching my wife is where i draw the line cross the line buddy i like to think this shadow man ghost figure was like was like hey it's me the guy from the painting. Do you guys see me? I'm stroking your wife's hair.

Hey, hey, I'm stroking her hair. Hey, over. All right, you want to do this? Yeah! Pushes the kid down the stairs. Pushed your kid over. Do you see me now, you son of a bitch? Now, of course, these paintings don't have any real relation

to the hands that resist him, the painting that we're talking about today. But I just wanted to include them in the story to provide a catalogue of evidence to prove to you that there's a long history of paintings allegedly containing some sort of paranormal energy. You told me The Anguished Man was the most f***ed up thing you've ever seen and then you didn't show it to me. I said one of. Do you want to see it?

Sure. The painting made with a human's blood why why would you show me everything up to this point and then just stop short of the most up painting you've ever seen i showed you the first one you almost had a heart attack and it's just a picture of a doll and a boy i'm curious now this this one is proper i'm gonna be pretty curious once you tell me the painting pushed a man down a set of stairs pushed a boy okay it pushed a boy down the stairs look if you want to see it you can see it this painting is so f***ed up it's probably it's properly terrifying just remember you asked for this while you're looking at this picture it's a very it's a very low res image also the people displaying the image have propped up

skulls next to it to really add to the flavor of the image it is creepy it's very creepy it looks like a nuclear bomb has gone off and this is a picture of someone who was looking directly at the blast and they are burning on fire and simultaneously their skin has kind of melted into one layer uh it is horrible yeah i feel like horrible see i like i love like uh you know metal music and stuff like that and but you know i've never understood why you know there's so many people like boomers and stuff out there who they're like, I don't understand it. Why would people want to make something so angry? It's just dark and depressing.

And I like to listen to stuff that's uplifting. A thought that's never resonated with me. That's how I feel about this painting. I don't get it. Why would someone want to make this? It just makes me feel sad. Right. They could have painted sunflowers or a rainbow why would they paint this so i understand that i am not the intended audience

for this one um yeah yeah i mean it's a pretty strong art style do you know how i can explain how creepy this painting is i just google searched it uh went to images and google has automatically safe search blurred some of the results and when i unblur them it's just the painting but they're like this is so weird and messed up we have blurred some of this because we think it's illegal and criminal at my house at my house i've been in my house with my wife uh my daughter and i for about two years and i was just bemoaning the other day i was like you know we've been here two years and I was like, it's totally my fault because my wife's put up a couple pieces of art,

a couple posters framed around the house. I've put up nothing, but I was bemoaning it saying like, do you know, this is the one thing we're missing. We've got some cool furniture now. The place is feeling cozy. You've been there, you know what it's like. But the walls are bare.

And I'm not a big visual art guy, but when walls are bare, the walls are bare. i'm not a big visual art guy but when walls are bare the walls are bare you need something up there even if it's a cool like it's even cool when people just put up like cool props like a big like mount a surfboard on the wall yeah put up some posters framed or whatever uh and i was like we need to find some art and art can be expensive but we'll find something that we like it's inexpensive and just makes us feel more homely. Now I'm thinking, f*** that. There's too big of a risk.

This is a kind of occupational hazard. Why would I even risk the possibility, even if I did get a painting of a sunflower and brought it into my home, how do I know that the artist wasn't jacking off using a f***ing upside down cross and talking to Satan while he was making the thing? And suddenly,

uh-oh, my daughter is now possessed. Yeah, you could buy a picture at a cafe of like a little girl holding a dog by the beach side. And then when you get to the checkout,

they're like, oh yeah, it's pretty interesting. So the dog is the little girl's guide to the underworld. You're like, put it back. Put it back then because I don't want a guide to the underworld. You're like, put it back. Put it back then, because I don't want a guide to the underworld. Right. I like the idea that they're scanning some kind of barcode,

and then, you know, the product flashes up, and it's like demon being guided by Hades to the underworld. You're like, is that the same? Is that the right code for that painting? He's like, oh, yeah, that dog's called Hades. Yeah, he's f***ed up, man. Yeah, it's crazy. The artist mixed his jizz in with the paint. All right on the wall why are you selling this yeah that's why we need

character references for the artists that they weren't weirdos they weren't satanists they weren't perverts yeah and that they had good vibes going into the painting unfortunately uh the venn diagram of artists and weirdos is a complete circle yeah it's its entire crossover as two artists ourselves um look we've heard a lot of crazy stories today i get it but at the end of every episode as always we have to come down on a yes or a no whether or not we think there's truth to this whether or not we think this really is paranormal kit what are you thinking today you know like we said earlier a number of hallmarks of classic curse cases um you know the providence we talked about where it came from the the mysterious circumstances now this one didn't have like a tootin cammon level curse no in the beginning it was more just the artist put his trauma into the painting and then it was

passed on to other people now we have a couple people who were badly affected in the early days and then of course as you say climaxing with this couple who had a litany of bad things happen but i think personally we're still hitting that same wall of uhses and the physical evidence. Let's face it, it only really became properly quote-unquote paranormal with the latest couple. Before that, it was probably coincidental deaths. I mean, what was it, two, three people? Yeah, and I found very little evidence to back up whether or not those deaths even took place, being honest with you.

I mean, it was a long time ago as well. It was, Jesus, it was 50 years ago. And, you know, for example, as I said, one of the recent paintings we covered, Woman in the Rain, which I gave a yes to, the origin of that painting started with the artists themselves saying that while they were creating it,

they felt like their body was being possessed and a force was telling them to create this painting. For the record, the hands resist them. the person that won the eBay listing in the end, actually went to the effort of tracking down the original artist, Stoneham. Cool. And when he was informed about its cursed legacy, he was completely surprised. He had no intention of it being cursed. There was no reason why it should have had this kind of legacy

so very different from paintings that we've investigated in the past yeah so this seems like something that had cropped up in the years following the painting rather than the actual creation of itself which i mean that alone would signify that probably this isn't a cursed painting you have the guy who made it doesn't know what the hell you're talking about it's like it has a gun That alone would signify that probably this isn't a cursed painting. You have the guy who made it, doesn't know what the hell you're talking about. He's like, it has a gun? What are you talking about? It's a shadow. Chill. Yeah. So, hey, I'm happy to take the lead today.

It is going to be a no from me this week. It's a double no. Damn. But hey, thank you so much for listening to this week's episode. I had a blast. You know, we've done a few curse paintings now, and they're always a fun one because you never know how cursed the painting's going to be. Does it give people bad luck? Or, like in today's case, does the painting come to life

and the people inside it start wandering around the apartment? It's a very fun kind of little subcategory of cursed objects. Well, let me tell you, Rory, this is incredibly apt because it was your episode this week. Next week means it's my episode of my investigation. And we're going to be taking another look at paintings.

It's going to involve paintings in a, thankfully, don't worry, a completely different way, but another way that is very paranormal. So, you know, keep that gallery membership going. We're going to be hanging out in galleries again but looking for something quite different that's all i'll say hell yeah which is quite exciting because we've been chasing that double yes ever since we started in the new year we had two ufo cases i believe got very close to a

double yes on the 9th which was the Florence UFO case where Kit said yes I needed that little bit more we were very close so almost got a double yes in the first month

of the year you're going to want to tune back in next week to see if we can secure it yeah I don't know if you could say

very close whenever you because you said no so you know in the words of Vin Diesel doesn't matter if you win by an inch or a mile no is a no all right uh yeah that's that's true it you know as soon as one person decides it's a no the whole thing is a no it wasn't a double yes um but hey

i always stay open-minded i'm always ready to be convinced so next week you've got some good evidence well i guess you woke up on the wrong side the bed that day because you weren't open-minded on the 8th or the 9th. I was pretty open-minded. I think I was. I wouldn't say so. I was excited about the spiders, I think. I think, actually, if you watch the video, I think we were scrolling on his phone for half of it,

if we're honest. That's because I was checking the sales figures for swampboot.com. That's right. We couldn't end the episode without one last little plug do you ever just walk around town and think my foot is too damn dry no one's ever felt that sometimes sometimes you're like it's so hot in my shoe if only i had a damp moldy shoe with a frog poking out of the toe wouldn Wouldn't that be cool?

Wouldn't that be a conversation starter? You ever heard of peacocking? Yes. Well, I found some of these shoes in a peacock's nest. Down in Louisiana. Do I need to state the damn obvious, which is swamp? But you know that trench foot is a thing. It's like a disease.

What? That you get from wearing boots that have been in a swamp. Trenchfoot.com. That's a great idea. That definitely exists for people trying to recover from the illness known as trench foot, a disease famously contracted by soldiers in the trenches of the war. Because their feet were so dry that they... Oh, so wet.

So wet. Okay. They didn't have waterproof boots. That's a Oh, so wet. So wet. Okay. They didn't have waterproof boots. That's a bad thing. Yeah. But then, okay, so, but they were, their problem was they were putting their dry boots in wet. Okay.

But if you put your wet boots in wet, then you're fine, right? Because they were already... I think on day one of the war, they put their dry boots in wet. Every day thereafter of World War II was their dry boots in wet every day thereafter of World War II was a wet boot in wet okay so it very much just became a swamp boot almost immediately you could actually make the argument that probably in the trenches at some point

there probably was a guy selling used boots and that was technically the first swampboot.com website so you're saying we've got kind of like a nostalgia factor here. It's vintage. It's vintage. It's old school.

I can tell that nothing I say is going to go into your head. I'm in too deep, buddy. Because you're sunk. The costs are sunk. Oh, the boots are sunk. To the bottom of a f***ing swamp. Bottom of a bog. That's right.

Bogboot.com coming summer 2024. Pre-order now. I think it's going to be a big year. Get my premium Converse Bogstars. They are the best shoots you will find. Hey, thanks for listening to this week's episode. If you like the show and you want to listen to more, head on over to patreon.com forward slash thisparanormallife.

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Hit the street. Hey, how'd you afford... You must be listening on a phone. That's funny. How'd you afford a phone? No, no, no, it's a bad idea. If you're out here claiming you have no money, how'd you get the phone?

They might not be listening on a phone. You can listen on anything. Laptops. You can listen on... Oh, a laptop. Oh, the thing that's even more expensive than a phone. So that's interesting. You hypocritical chump.

Who are you talking to? Directly to the listeners. So you... This is insane to me. It's not... This is crazy to me. Do you have any idea how much an iPhone is? What I was going to say.

And then in the next sentence, they're like pulling out their pockets like a f***ing Looney Tunes character and a little moth flies out and they're like, oh, I don't have like three pounds or whatever it costs. That's crazy. I mean, it's nice just to get reviews. That's like a really, that's almost as valuable as the monetary kind of contribution. So just review us online. That doesn't cost anything. That's really nice. Five stars.

Leave a nice comment. Share with your friends, you know. Yeah, whatever. Yeah, review. That's pretty cool as well. And then if you do have a little bit of change, you want to support the show. Oh, you do have some change now? Oh, so everything's changed again. Pun intended. a little bit of change you want to support the show oh you do have some change now oh oh

so everything's changed again pun intended ignore him ignore him decide what it is do you have change or you don't have change

you refused to tip the waitress at lunch today yeah well she did a bad job she was very kind she refilled your coffee 17 times which was insane because sometimes you hadn't finished it and you just asked for a fresh cup which meant i needed 16 bathroom breaks and then she refused to give me the key to the bathroom

after bathroom break 15 so yeah she wasn't getting a tip it's insane also i asked for my eggs to be over easy and they were easy. So I asked her, so I called for the manager and asked for her to be fired on the spot. You want easy? Here's an easy decision. No tip. I'm going to make this transaction over easily. Zero money. You're like, well, you

owe me money for the breakfast. No, no. There's a mandatory 12.5% tip here's a tip kill yourself I get arrested oh pressed up against the deli glass

uh thank you for listening I don't remember exactly what I was saying but hey check check out uh check out the Patreon

the reviews actually the reviews do help you I was being grumpy. The reviews actually make a very good difference. They do. So, yeah, the reviews are great. Because I think we didn't realize until recently, because for a while,

I think there were only reviews on Apple Podcasts and maybe Google, but I didn't know about Spotify. Spotify can review us too. Yeah, you can. And I think Spotify is even bigger than Apple Podcasts now. So, yeah, if you're sitting, listening on Spotify, wherever you're listening, make sure you hit subscribe, hit follow and smash that five stars. Make sure you do it.

And then, of course, head over to Swampboots.com. You had your plug in the middle by all accounts. Boots are better when they're wetter. Swampboots.com. Bye bye.