This Paranormal Life - #355 The Devil's Footprints - A Real Unsolved Mystery

Episode Date: February 20, 2024

Around this time of year in 1855 residents of a sleepy town in Devon woke to a strange and disturbing phenomenon - completely unrecognisable footprints were covering the town. Only they weren't just on the ground, but in impossible locations: on top of houses, over giant walls, and most alarmingly of all these tracks covered over 100 miles. With no satisfying explanation from the animal kingdom they were left no choice but to accept the truth - Satan himself had visited during the night. It might sound farfetched but it wasn't the first time the dark lord holidayed in their town...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 ShackladyResearch by Ewen Friers Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

You've heard of the upside down. What about the back to front? If whiskey's a spirit, am I possessed? Because that sh**'s inside of me. Answers to these questions and more on this episode of... This Paranormal Life! Ho! Hey! Welcome to This Paranormal Life. It is that time of the week. It is Tuesday. Time for another paranormal investigation from your best buds, Kit and Rory, where every week we get to the bottom of a different paranormal tale,

deciding by the end of the episode whether it's really paranormal or not. How are you doing today, Rory? Doing fantastic, Kit. You know, on this podcast, we like to have a laugh. We like to enjoy ourselves. We do. But we're also here to investigate some real paranormal stories. Paranormal stories that we can only be so comfortable with because you and I have had so many experiences with the paranormal ourselves.

Yeah. Right off the bat, give them one. The time that I ran into that night beast in the tunnel back home. Right. You didn't actually tell me about this one. That sounds insane. Oh, I told you about the tunnel with the night beast. I just meant like some of the stuff we've read about on the internet sorry you ran into a tunnel with a monster well do you mean the first time or the or the second time twice it's happened oh yeah now i will say i did shit myself that night that seems like unnecessary information sorry i'm

jumping ahead i did jumping ahead i did i wish you'd jump i was very scared but the rumor is That seems like unnecessary information to include in the story. I did. Jumping ahead. I did. I wish you'd jump ahead. I was very scared. But the rumors that it was only just a little tabby cat from my neighbor are wildly under-exaggerating what happened. Because this thing was, I heard it hiss. It went, would a tabby cat do this? Yes, that's the sound of cat. Would a cat do this?

Meow. Yeah, that's the sound of cat. Cat do this. Meow. Yeah, did that too. You know, shortly before you arrived, you did tell me, because everyone knows Kit does have a beautiful daughter. And you said before this recording trip, you haven't slept in about 72 hours that you've just been reading her bedtime stories.

I'm starting to think maybe some of the bedtime stories are kind of approaching your real life a little bit. The water's being muddied. Maybe the lines are being blurred. This is ridiculous. I'm not going to be gaslit on my own podcast like this. All right? Because I know what's my life and what's a fairy tale.

Okay. I'm sure. And we're going to move past it. But I just want to say, have you at any point in the last week seen a man called Humpty Dumpty have a great fall oh the giant egg

yeah okay me and him go way back you're like not doing so good this week unfortunately don't know if you heard but all the king's horses and all the king's men couldn't put that son of a bitch back together he's in A&E fighting for his life so treat his name with some f***ing respect that son of a bitch, back together. He's in A&E fighting for his life.

So treat his name with some f***ing respect. I enjoyed when I saw someone point that out online, that they were like, in nowhere does the story say he was an egg, by the way. What? Humpty Dumpty? Wasn't he an egg? It just says Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall, Humpty Dumpty had a great fall.

And then no one could put him back together again. And everyone was like, mm-hmm, mm-hmm. So I can only assume he was a giant egg. Why did we think he was an egg? I don't know. I think it masked the horror of him smashing his head open. Right, of it just being a dude who cracked his head on a wall. They were like, make him an egg.

Make him an egg. him an egg children will understand eggs that is too dark for the start of an episode of this paranormal life did you know the beanstalk Jack was trying to climb was actually his addiction

to fentanyl that's the truth behind the story yeah fentanyl didn't exist back then it barely existed here a few years ago we're getting a little off topic

Jack's fentanyl he was always trying to climb that beanstalk you know James' giant peach Didn't exist back then. It barely existed here a few years ago. We're getting a little off topic. He was always trying to climb that beanstalk. You know, James's giant peach peach was actually what they called Coke back in the 80s. The giant peach was slang for an eight ball. We're getting off topic here. I assume we have a story to talk about on today's podcast. Well, we did until you started mentioning that I couldn't actually tell fairy tales and reality apart. I'm starting to worry I might have just retold Goldilocks and the Three Bears in a paranormal lens.

No, we do. We do have a paranormal tale to get to the bottom of today. Rory, I'm actually excited about today's investigation because we've had some hard-hitting cases recently, but sometimes it's a mile a minute laser guns getting fired before the first ad break type of stuff yeah but today we've got a real paranormal unsolved mystery i like the sound of this mostly because if there's no explanation maybe we don't have to come down on a double no let's keep that hope in our hearts as we journey forward rory you ready to get stuck in? Let's do it. We're going to get right into today's investigation after a couple of words from today's sponsors. And a reminder that every episode of This Paranormal Life is available ad-free right now at patreon.com forward slash thisparanormallife.

It's February 1855. England is in the middle of one of the coldest winters on record. The freezing temperatures have caused mass disruption. Granted, this could just be this winter past, because that's every winter in England. UK is not very good at dealing with kind of icy roads. We're not built for it. I am presuming most of the country died of the cold instantly. I assume everyone was just wearing very thin, dangly materials.

Not a lot of layers to keep you warm. Well, that's exactly why the people of southern England stayed indoors preparing for another bitterly cold night. A blizzard rolled in, covering the landscape. But when the people of Devon woke up at dawn the next morning, it wasn't the snow that shocked them. Huh? What on earth are those?

Is it my line now? Yeah. Okay, sorry. Seeing as I knocked it out of the park. We're from Devon? Yeah. I don't really know what a Devon accent sounds like. Fair warning.

Right. So let me just give you a quick crash course. Obviously, we're experts in performance after doing this podcast for so long. Of course. So I think... Listeners will be familiar with our Australian accents. Always peaks the audio somehow when we do that one, which is weird.

As you know, Rory, people who are experts at accents, often they have a key phrase, a trigger phrase. I can't remember what you call it. I'm searching and I can't remember. But I swear we have them. It's worrying if you can't remember the phrase. No, an anchor. I don't know. Maybe something like that.

For Australian accent, what would be your phrase that you go to uh mate or or water yeah i think my wife said out of the water um a shark in the water it's a shark in the water something like that or i'm not here to spiders mate okay something like that i don't know what they did to warrant that. But I can say for the West Country accent here, in this part of the world, you're only going to need one word, brother, to get you in the zone. Repeat after me.

Cider. Cider? Right. Is that it? As in the alcoholic apple beverage. Got it. That didn't help at all. I'm looking at the line.

You gave me no context for the rest of this. Cider doesn't come up in this sentence, I will say. Not mentioned. I'll give it a swing though. Rory, you went to acting school, didn't you? Not a lot of people know I went to RADA. Yes. For several years before they realized that I hadn't paid any tuition

and I just kept getting in the back door when no one was looking. But you can actually, does that make me the best actor of all? Pretending like I paid to go to the school? That's actually crazy. Yeah. So think about that. Like there's a world where you were like the working class, like highest performing, unbelievable actor,

but you know, and you're like charming, older lecturer, you know, kind of winked and kept it all hush hush because they knew you were such a prodigy that they covered up the fact you couldn't afford the school. In your case, you were both worst in the class. They couldn't explain why you're even in the room. And then one day they looked it up.

They were like, hell, he hasn't actually paid anything. He didn't even go here. And he's too old. I turned up late to a lecture and announced, here's some acting for you. I'm going to pretend like I give a shit. And they said, you have to leave, sir.

We watched you go in. Crickets after he said that. All right. Villager 2. Point is, you've been to Rattie. You should be able to do this. First try. Right.

Villager 2 says, These? Oh, Arthur, just looks Like A few footmarks In the snow to me Snow to me Donkey by the looks of it Cider No it didn't

Looks like a donkey's Had some cider Cool so that was Sounds like the donkey Sitting across from me Has had a couple Ciders I think I know

That was a Great warm up So let's just Thank you I've closed I've closed the script. So we'll have to find it in the edit. Ooh.

Yeah. All right. Might have to cut this whole section then from the podcast. In case you didn't get that, I believe my character, Villager 2, was saying, the footsteps in the snow

look like they belong to a donkey. Donkey, eh? Tell me, doesn't a donkey have four legs? And just look where those tracks lead, George. Down the lane and right over the roof of old Mitchell's farmhouse. Right there on the doorstep, printed in the snow, were footprints. Like animal prints, a bit like a donkey, but different. Each print was about three and a half inches wide and four inches long. And as our friend just mentioned, they are everywhere, including on top of a farmhouse. Okay, so they've

woken up after some kind of blizzard and there are strange footprints in the fresh snow. Footprints that look like they could belong to a donkey, except they climb a roof like Spider-Man. You've perfectly kept up with the story. Well done. Got it. They were all the same size and evenly spaced, but weirdly, the tracks were in a single line, so it had to be a two-legged creature. Right, not a wonky donkey. But it wasn't just the street. In the nearby area, the tracks covered houses, roofs, haystacks, and over a 14-foot vertical wall. Jesus! Someone took this donkey for a joyride! They were doing donuts in the local car park?

This is wild! Disturbingly, Rory, the tracks showed the creature had walked up to several front doors before pausing and turning back. That's really creepy. Do you mind how terrified you'd be if you woke up at 3am to a ring cam notification that someone buzzed your front door and you look on your mobile phone and it's just the fisheye lens ballooned up head of a donkey Peering in your letterbox I mean that would be terrifying But I don't want you to think it's a donkey Right sorry

We were talking about donkey footsteps Donkeys Right Now I've got donkey on the brain You do have a donkey brain I'm donkey brained But Because I don't want to get it confused with

I don't know Say The donkey lady Okay yeah sure Who we covered in a previous episode Right And I think probably didn't turn out to be real I don't want to get it confused with, I don't know, say, the donkey lady. Okay, yeah, sure. Who we covered in a previous episode. Right. And I think probably didn't turn out to be real. In this case, we don't know what it is yet,

but just the footsteps look a little bit like a donkey. Like a donkey. Sure. Arthur, come quick. Them strange tracks are all about the fields and even down the edge of the estuary. Lads are saying they restart on the other side of the river. Apparently they go as far as Tynmouth. The strange trail

had been picked up in towns and villages across the region. In Exmouth, Dawlish, Lidlum, Woodbury, Topsham, Starcross and Torquay. Not Starcross! Man, UK town names are not real places. This donkey beenine everywhere.

Twiddle Bottom. Fiddlesworth. Rumpelstiltskin. Rumpelstiltskin Lane. Hogwarts. Like, these could all be within 10 feet of each other. I don't know. Like, it couldn't be.

Maybe it's not that far. Right. Yeah. That's the other f***ed up thing. It's not just English towns. English houses, because they're all in the middle of the countryside. This is probably just six different houses. Right.

You know. Maybe he hasn't gone that far. Dawlish Manor. Littleham Manor. Woodbury Manor. It traversed a river? It went beyond a river? Reported in over 30 locations, this unbroken track is estimated to have been over 100 miles long.

I'm going to say something you guys aren't ready to hear yet. This donkey can fly. It's not a donkey. It's not a donkey. And it's coming for you. No. I like the sense of urgency you have about this case, even though it happened 170 years ago.

It was the first I'm hearing of it. I'm going to be sleeping every night from now on with a loaded gun by my front door, waiting for an Eeyore. You should have seen Rory the day he heard about the American Civil War in school. He's like, they're doing what in the South? I got to go fight. Against the South if he wasn't clear.

Right. Yeah. Well, you know, we never know what way Rory is swinging on. Which side are we on? This is terrifying. I mean, it's a weird kind of story to be investigating today because usually, as you said, a lot of our stories take place in the heat of the moment.

We're telling the events as they're taking place. This is a case where we're waking up and the events have happened. Exactly right. That's kind of what makes this a little bit, as I say, of a mystery. Something we're just left with some evidence and then scratching our heads. This is like if we started a paranormal story with finding Kit in the forest, goo leaking out of his butthole. The event took place. It's already happened. And now we just have to figure out what happened by looking at his in

his trousers well we know what happened which was a night beast and all right the cat a cat was seen there a cat was seen there sure the night beast was probably hunting the cat if anything so what i was trying to maybe imply that you've been abducted by an alien but it's interesting your head went straight to the cat thing again from the beginning so i just want to be clear i'm not scared of them okay i do think they're unnecessary i think they're violent and i think they're unfriendly and frankly terrifying if i'm honest with you rory do you want to see what these prints look like the prints that drove the country mad i would love to see them because this is you said 1855 i believe because i made great effort to remember that date i wasn't expecting that we would have any kind of uh photographs or prints or anything like that

we don't have photographs i'll be very clear but we do have sketches created by witnesses. Okay. Hmm. That's pretty cool. Okay. This is the first time you've seen them? It's the first time I've seen this particular image. Feast your eyes on what I've just seen for the first time. Oh, Jesus. Okay, this isn't what I was thinking of at all.

I think in my head I was thinking more of like uh like a pig's kind of trotter trotter yeah the little ends of the like that's that type of thing we're not farm boys we don't know what animals have down there whether it's lego feet or whatever but this is uh this is almost more like lobster claws the prince of lobster it's a hoof it's just a hoof yeah sure if you want to get technical farm boy it's just it's just a horseshoe it's well i know i know what you mean because the this particular image is it is a bit they are scratchy looking in some of them yeah yeah they're not it's not like a perfect who you having a go with me for saying it looks like a lobster claw. No, that's a hoof. Mr. De Bourbon's drawings.

Calling out me for saying it looks like a lobster claw. These look like lobster claws. It looks like the tool that you crack a lobster claw with. That's what I thought, yeah. The walnut cracker thing. Yeah, very strange. They're not normal. I think this is pretty cool. This is

from a news source we're going to talk about very soon. But this is from the time, 1855. That is cool. This was witnesses in the town drew these and gave them to the news. It looks surprisingly recent. I know, right? Like the handwriting and stuff doesn't look very old timey. Well, like I've just given away, Rory, this story hit the local press.

The Exeter and Plymouth Gazette said, The return of daylight revealed the ramblings of some most busy and mysterious animal, endowed with the power of ubiquity as its footprints were seen in all sorts of unaccountable places, on the tops of houses, narrow walls, in gardens and courtyards, enclosed by high walls, as well as in the open fields. The townspeople were desperately trying to figure out who owned these footprints, and speculation, as you would expect, was wild. Some thought it was a badger, a rat, a frog, an otter, some kind of bird,

or an escaped animal like a kangaroo or a monkey these are very different animals you should be able to tell if it was a frog it's not a frog it's not a rat they're big prints and they're clearly the shape but fair enough people you know they're trying to they're trying to mid-max the stats of each animal here because they're like well it doesn't look at all like a frog but frogs could get on a house maybe right i said and so on and so forth uh and a kangaroo and a monkey i mean i do like that line of thought that it might have been an escaped animal yeah yeah that would maybe explain why it was able to traverse such a far distance for example and yet there really wasn't a lot on was there in 1855 if the

whole town is trying to figure out what animal made a pair of footprints in the snow right you're saying in kind of the tick-tock age you would be too busy looking down at your timeline to even i stepped in dog shit the other day and i didn't notice for about two miles because i was so deep in an argument with someone about yeah the, the tunnel incident on my Twitter feed. You didn't summon a town meeting to examine the bottom of your shoe to get to the bottom of what creature did the crap. To be like, couldn't be a frog. Might have been a rat.

It's like, doesn't matter. Yeah, don't you guys have jobs? Go to work. But I guess maybe there's enough weird stuff going on here that, hey, look, it's 1855. Maybe this was a time where if there's a wild beast roaming around the town, you need to know about it, or it might eat your children. It might eat your burlap sack.

Which, as we've established, is your entire outfit. They speculated it could have been any of these animals, and yet none of these actually matched the footprints. And unless this hedgehog was named f***ing Sonic, none of these actually matched the footprints. And unless this hedgehog was named f***ing Sonic, none of them can cover 100 miles overnight. And even though kangaroos have more hops than LeBron, all of the animals mentioned would have been unlikely to climb houses. So it wasn't long before the speculation turned dark. The newspaper article I quoted earlier

ended with the sentence, Everyone is wondering, but no one is able to explain the mystery. The poor are full of superstition and consider it little short of a visit from old Satan. Whoa, well that's quite a leap. Another paper, the Western Times, wrote,

The town had been visited in the night by no less a person than his satanic majesty, and the marks of his feet were to be seen imprinted on the snow. Keep an eye on the people who jumped to that conclusion. Yeah, the guy who's calling him, what, my dark lord or something? You didn't need to call him the satanic majesty. Yeah, a lot of people were like, maybe it's a frog. Some people were like, maybe it's a frog some people like maybe it's a rat and one dude with a cloak in the back is like perhaps it is my master like jesus yeah i don't

think so in the back of the newsroom so the tea leaves were correct they're like what was that nothing just that the Dark Lord has returned Wow, okay So they're assuming these footprints are the hooved clatter of Satan himself The Lord of the Underworld Pretty interesting stuff, I suppose The logic being, we've looked at every animal and none of it matches So we're now turning to the paranormal

right i mean there's still a lot of paranormal options out there it could have been the wendigo possibly uh the as you said the donkey lady pretty wild to go straight to the devil but i guess maybe 1855 this could have been a very hyper religious time especially in the UK. Listen, Arthur from the story earlier, he comes from 19 generations of butter makers. Right. He doesn't know about the Wendigo. He's a simple guy and all he knows is one thing's for sure, it wasn't Jesus.

Yeah, they didn't mention who's in the New Testament, but we can't rule it out. This story of it being Satan went nationwide and it explains why this story is still known to this day. Rory, we've covered many paranormal tales like this. Many stories of a paranormal force visiting the townspeople of a sleepy village hundreds of years ago. As a paranormal expert, can you take any guesses

about what happened next in our story uh this is kind of a crazy one usually you know we've investigated a few cases in the past where religion and the paranormal have kind of crossed over in certain ways whether it's people thinking they saw an angel or demons or vampires you know it's all kind of muddied together. This is kind of a tough one because this is beyond just seeing, you know, a demon or something like that. This is supposed to be the big guy, the Lord of Darkness. If he's showing up in your town,

you need to start checking people's browsing history because someone's doing something bad in that village. At least today you can just invade people's privacy and check their browsing history. Back then, you didn't know what was going on. We've seen in recent investigations, I think it was in the Cavern Club in Liverpool, they found out when they dug up the foundations of the building,

some creepy dude had built like a satanic shrine underneath or something in the vaults. Yeah. So, who knows what they're getting up to in this sleepy village.

Can you imagine being a guy like living in this village and just one night, you know, your family's already gone to sleep and you're just chilling at home

and you're like, you know what? I'm going to torrent the new HBO series of True Detective onto my laptop. I'm going to download something the new HBO series of True Detective onto my laptop. I'm going to download something illegally. Don't say True Detective because I think our friends at Now TV are probably listening to this.

It could be anything else. Hey, guys, check out True Detective season whatever. Season four. It's a great show. And then the next day you wake up and your buddies are like, hey, did you hear? The devil was here looking for someone last night. You're like, oh, my God. Did he say who?

Did he say what they did? And you're like, rush home. You're like, he said he was pretty mad, though. Someone's been pretty f***ed up, whatever they did. You're like deleting it from your hard drive, erasing it. You have to tell your family something went wrong with the computer. So you have to throw it in a river. You're Googling, can they undelete

the deleted files? But then you're freaking out because you're like, what if they see that Google search history? It's a slippery slope. Yeah. What if they come around and they say, sir, it looks like you tried to delete the files. All of a sudden you're in the bathroom, your wife's banging on the door and you're just eating the hard drive with tears in your eyes it's a slippery slope you're arthur you're in this little town 1855 you're twitching the curtains yeah and if anyone knocks on the door you're like i'm just making butter just making butter like my daddy did like my daddy's daddy did that's not a sin is it making butter is it watching the new season of making butter sorry i'm making butter that's what i'm

gonna say but knowing that this could also have been a creature and knowing that it's 1855 i'm going to assume a group of men banded together with weapons to try and kill it oh that's right there was a dad squad A dad squad baby Play the theme tune For three seconds Who's that coming Up the hill Yeah Don't be scared

It's a dad squad With no other Explanation On hand Than it was Satan himself A group of fearless And ridiculous Tradesmen

From the town of Dawlish Went into the countryside with quote, guns and bludgeons. So backwards. If it is the devil, aren't you supposed to beat him with love and kindness and faith? I don't think it says that shit anywhere in the Bible,

does it? Beating the devil with love? But that's like, isn't that it? The devil is all about evil and temptation. I know he doesn't say get a Uzi 9mm but like yeah how else are you supposed to beat him

holy water right throw it in his eyes yeah and then you can kind of get him in a headlock grab him by the horns but that

I mean I say that that would have made more sense going out getting some priests going out into the forest yeah that's what I mean holy water you beat him with the word

of the lord right not a stick's what I mean. Holy water. You beat him with the word of the Lord, not a stick. Yeah. Because I think he's pretty powerful. If you're going to bring sticks, at least bring them and you can put them in a cross formation and so on and so forth.

They patrolled and combed the area. But of course, like most dad squads, they probably got too distracted drinking and infighting to actually find anything paranormal. Before long, the story had reached the London papers and was being discussed across the entire country. The biggest piece was in the Illustrated London News.

I believe that's where those images I showed you earlier came from. But it reached further away too, even hitting Australian news. People around the country were sceptical, with some suggesting this was all caused by rats. I don't know why they're so obsessed with rats. It's not rats. That's so weird. But the townspeople held firm in their belief of the supernatural. Have you ever like, because we're not, hunting culture isn't really a thing as much as it is in the US as it is here in the UK. But I remember when I was a kid uh you know we grew up by the beach used to spend a lot of time down in the sand dunes exploring and i always remember

being there in the summer as a kid and there was this type of bug it was like a little scuttle bug that would hang out in the sand but it would scuttle along the sand dunes and leave these like wavy tracks in the sand okay and it was like a fun thing for me as a kid to feel like a hunter from the action movies I used to watch as a kid would be to like find the tracks of the scuttlebug and you'd kind of follow it through the dunes. You feel like you're on a little hunt.

And then eventually, most of the time, you would find the bug. Rory had the bugs. No one says I ate the bugs. You know, you you just admire them you'd watch them and admire their flavor have a nibble occasionally but uh i'd never was a hunter you know i never went this far as to like the beast i was hunting didn't have to be conquered yeah man it's a different ball game if you're not in the uk now if you're in the uk i'm sure i think they hunt deer things like that up in the highlands of

scotland and so on but in america you you could be hunting something that could take you out yeah um you know if you're in uh even japan there are bears there are you know in america there's mountain lions and other countries there are things that are of know in america there's mountain lions and other countries are things that are of a real threat to you which is a very different kind of a hobby it really is i mean for the record hunting scuttlebugs i know i made it sound like these were tiny bugs but bear in mind i was about six years old so in my head i was f***ing timothyalamet in Dune, exploring the sandy wilderness, hunting monsters from another planet. He's placing like those pounding devices in the sand dunes.

Trying to get the scuttlebugs out. I would agree though, in general, that if the vibe is that the devil did it, I would argue trying to hunt him down in a pack is a gross misreading of the bible go to church i i think i understand people think the devil is like maybe could have a physical manifestation somehow yeah i'm not saying he's like the final boss of a video game i'm just saying he's gonna be able to dodge whatever attack you have in mind right i think that's the whole thing i don't think bullets are gonna do he's going to be able to dodge whatever attack you have in mind. Right. I think that's the whole thing.

I don't think bullets are going to do it. He's kind of supernatural. Even if he takes a physical form, I don't think you're just going to like, what's the plan? You punch him in his gut? Yeah. I mean, the fact that he even showed up. You don't think God tried that? You think God didn't try squaring up in a car park?

If that worked, isn't that the whole thing the the the age-old timeless universal battle of good over evil you think god is like oh i just never thought of judo throwing him i don't know if god ever tried slitting his throat i don't think he had it in him but us humans we're kind of like nasty little fighters so we could like kick him in the nuts get him while his back is turned if anything the fact that he showed up means you're doing something wrong like like this is basically the equivalent you know whenever you're a little kid and you get like you know legend of zelda and you know you've got three hearts to your name, you've got the Kokiri sword, but you've got all the confidence of an eight-year-old,

so you just march straight up to Ganon's castle thinking you could take on the big boss. Get stomped, yeah. But if you're not familiar with the lore of Legend of Zelda, you've got to go through a lot more hurdles and gain a lot more abilities to be able to take on the big guy. Yeah, yeah, your odds aren't going to be in your favor. But listen, we're getting off topic. What I'm trying to say is the townspeople have landed on a paranormal possibility for what happened here and maybe it's no surprise that this

town reached this conclusion because it turns out this was far from the strangest thing to ever happen in the area something even more supernatural took place there about 200 years earlier. We're going to hear all about it in the second half of today's case after a couple of words from today's sponsors. That's right, we're back talking about the paranormal events in the West Country. That's right, just over 200 years before the events of 1855 and 1638 in Devon County, there was an incident known as the Great Thunderstorm of Widdicombe, but even its name doesn't do the tale justice. Legend has it that just before Sunday service at the Church of St. Pacris in Widdicombe on the 21st

of October, a strange man stopped at the nearby Tavistock Inn. Supposedly this cloaked figure ordered an ale and nearby customers heard the liquid hiss as it was gulped down. Okay. He didn't say much, but did ask for directions to the church of St. Pancras. And his mug left a scorch mark on the bar as this strange figure turned to leave. And making his way to the door, never going to guess this,

hooved feet were poking out from under this creature's long cloak. Did I mention he paid in souls? Why pay? Why pay? Why pay at all? You are not ready for what is about to happen in the thunderstorm. It hasn't happened yet?

The thunderstorm of Widdicombe does not do this tale justice because we are a third through the story and Satan just downed a Stella Artois. The thunderstorm hasn't even happened yet. Yeah, right. Just moments later, as church services got underway at St. Pancras',

a storm rolled in incredibly quickly. It was a huge thunderstorm, and the church was struck by lightning. Eyewitnesses claimed that a fireball burst through the ceiling and ricocheted around the church. Four were killed! Four were killed! What do you mean? And the minister himself said his wife was badly burned. This is not a joke. Right, stay with me here. There's a book written about the history of this church

by a guy, Robert Dimmond, or Diamond. He said one victim, quote, their skull was smashed into three pieces and their brains thrown upon the ground. Why is this called the thunderstorm of Widdicombe? This should be called the Demon Olympics. This is insane how this story is unraveling. So much more shit is going on than rain and thunder. A guy was hit by a Skyrim fireball.

Like that might have been the rapture. Like the rapture they talked about in the Bible. This is the closest shit I've ever heard. That's insane. But just four people got raptured. A guy's head was popped open like a grape. Now you said there was a written account of this happening. Yeah.

Do you have it? Can I see it? Hell yes, that Google search paid off. I've got it for you right here. 1876, Robert Diamond, Things New and Old Concerning the Parish of Widdicombe. This is the book that documents what happened only 21 years before that book was published. Wow. I mean, that's an old timey looking book, I will say. And it can be ours for only £98

according to rookbooks.com which is pretty good if it's got some real paranormal evidence in it. That shut you up, didn't it? Showing me a JPEG of a closed book. Even if the book was open, I don't think it would have been evidence. Rory's been real silent ever since we

showed him the checks notes things new and old concerning the parish of widicum so i guess the the reason you're including this story is because it looks like this area has not only experienced paranormal events in the past but that might not even be the first time the devil has shown up the story isn't over oh my god and now for the storm that wasn't the storm a thousand arrows came out of the sun if you can believe it the devil it was like in crouching tiger hidden, I swear to God. The devil stuffed a priest in a locker. As well as a destroyed church and several fatalities,

it's said that one man was missing from the congregation afterwards. Jan Reynolds. It's believed Jan, a serial gambler, had struck a deal with the devil. No one knows what Jan got from the devil, but he had agreed that if he ever fell asleep in the church, the devil could claim his soul. And on the very day in question, it said he'd been seen sleeping during the service

with a pack of playing cards in his hand. Wow. The congregation believed they'd seen the devil in the form of a fireball as he tore through the church looking for his winnings. The legend has lived on ever since and might explain why the devil's footprints theory was so popular in this time. Hmm, I see.

So you think possibly the devil showing up was to claim the soul of this guy who gambled against him? Certainly back in the day. And I guess what we're saying is that the devil realized that the Devonshire countryside is a nice place to go on holiday. So he came back 200 years later. Right. For whatever reason, he came back. The devil has been there once and the devil has come back.

Okay. Okay. Pretty interesting stuff. what do you make of that story it's a crazy layer to add on to what's already happened yeah pretty intense i don't know if i necessarily believe these events took place uh but making deals with the devil that is kind of like a very old timey thing that we've seen a lot of in this podcast maybe it's like stories from a kind of bygone era. I feel like that used to be a bigger thing,

people making a deal with the devil. Oh, they made a deal and it went wrong and all these things. Because the devil's sneaky and he tricks you. And it's almost like those stories were to like have a moral to them rather than to actually be stories we believe in. The devil is like the damn Bank of England.

He took a look at the market conditions and he ain't making so many deals right now because the interest rates are not good. You know, it used to be easy to get a mortgage. Now the devil's like, ooh, US economy is looking pretty rocky. I'm not taking on any more souls right now. It's too risky.

I agree. Used to be devil deals getting cut left right and center yeah if you wanted to become good at electric guitar you just had to stand at a crossroads and wait for the devil to show up right um these days i've never heard of anyone getting a deal from the devil yeah because we would take it we're dumb enough what would you what would your deal be would you have like a proposal bigger cock okay for sure what would, not what would you ask for, but what would the condition be? He'd get my soul.

No, but. He always gets your soul. Oh, you're just giving him the soul for the dick. What do you think, what do you think the deal could possibly be other than, he always gets,

he always wants your soul. That's all he ever wants. No, I know that. But usually he doesn't get it unless you do something. Like, oh, you get. I add five inches to my existingly normal size up to five and a half right yeah yak it up all right yeah yak it up yak it up so so like the

person in the story we just talked about, they obviously got something as a reward. But if they fall asleep in the church, then the devil gets their soul. So there has to be like a condition that if you violate something, he gets your soul. You're just trading your soul straight up. I'm not being facetious. I think most trades are just a trade. This one is almost unusual to me because in this story, no one even knows what Jan got. Right. No one knows what he did it for, but there was a condition.

Because in my view, that seems like a, why would the devil give him anything if the devil could just not get something out of it? Like if the devil gave you the, why was the devil so sure he was going to fall asleep in church? Like if the devil was like, here, I'll give you 10 mil yeah tax-free and if you don't fall asleep in church i'll never get your soul but i would take

that all day every day because guess what i ain't going to church but yeah but usually it's like a sneaky condition he where he'll be like okay the devil gives you 10 million but once it's done once it's spent he gets your soul and then you would like spend everything but the last dollar and then you've tricked the devil you know there's a good story yeah there's a condition there and usually there's a loophole you can find but then the devil tricks you you just said straight up i get the dick he gets my soul so it's like there's no conditions or anything i don't't see what the problem is. I don't go to heaven, but... Small price to pay.

Hell yeah. You give me 5.5 right here on earth, I'm living in heaven, baby. Because right now is hell. Right now, hell rocking a three-incher. I'm rocking a damn Coke can. You know when they crush a Coke can? All right. I've said too much.

That would be my heaven on earth. It couldn't get any better up there. Well, you might have guessed what I've just been telling you is the paranormal explanations for what has happened in this town with the footsteps that the devil came along. That's really the leading explanation that it was the devil but there are other non-paranormal potential explanations uh do you have any off the top of your head anything you think could have could have happened here i mean

so the fact they just don't think it's an animal because of the places it went. That's it. Man, laundry list. Doesn't match any of the footprints. The only footprints that it may be that it's anywhere close would be a donkey, which is a four-legged creature as opposed to a two-legged. A donkey cannot get on top of houses or traverse a hundred miles in a night.

But if it's a four-legged creature or a two-legged creature, don't they make similar prints? Nah, mate. Okay, well, okay. There's your response all right i feel like i don't think you're telling me the scuttlebug hunter you're telling me professional scott you're telling me you wouldn't notice if one of those scuttlebugs had two feet i just noticed the difference i'm pretty sure i think i would jump to cryptid before i jumped to the devil.

You know, I would think it's some kind of undiscovered creature we don't know about before I think it's the Dark Lord. Shouldn't his shoe prints burn through the snow and burn the grass below it? Well, I mean, I'm here for this conversation. That's what we're here for, to come back with a modern lens. We know about other cryptids now, not just the devil. Maybe that's what we think today could also be an elaborate prank you know they're just hoof prints people put on hoof prints and climb about 100 miles on top of houses i agree it is possible

of course it's possible but we are talking a kind of david Blaine-esque hundreds of interns with matching hooves going all across the area. I mean, it would take, how long would that take? 100 miles? You know, in many ways, the popularity of the devil's footsteps theory goes to show just how few explanations there are for what happened. Like this could be like a scientific law, couldn't it? The madder the explanation for what happened, Like this could be like a scientific law couldn't it? The madder the explanation for what happened the less scientific evidence because if we're saying the devil is the number one explanation things are bad. Yeah. It wasn't until the 1900s that a kind of popular new answer came along to this mystery suggested by author Geoffrey Household. Ridiculous name. suggested by author Geoffrey Household.

Ridiculous name. He claimed that the truth was well known to the authorities, but had been covered up. You're not going to f***ing believe this. Household's explanation was that an experimental military balloon... Stop. No, stop now. I'd rather it be the devil, to be honest with you.

Had been untethered by the snowstorm, drifting free from the nearby naval dockyard. Now the balloon's ropes dragged behind it, and the ropes had heavy metal shackles on the end, and they imprinted on the snow as they floated along the countryside perfectly bobbing and hitting the snow to look like steps okay so it was the devil is what i'm hearing you say a household says he knew a military major at the devonport naval base whose grandfather had worked at the dockyards. He says that these balloons destroyed a lot of greenhouses in the area

and the countryside, and that the military were embarrassed and just paid people straight up to cover the damages. I can't believe we're being told this is a weather balloon. I can't believe. This is going to be the earliest version. Normally we're safe from weather balloons in cryptid cases.

Right. But even here, even in the 1800s, we're being told it's a f***ing weather balloon. That's insane. What kind of... There was no way that any kind of military at that point was experimenting with strapping guns to balloons and sending them into the sky. Oh, man. That's crazy. It doesn't make a damn bit of sense it's this is the closest thing to this a scientific explanation but how did the balloon travel all that distance without snagging on a tree or a bush you said the footsteps went

up to people's doors turned around turned around the zigzagging nature of the prince doesn't match drifting balloons would of course travel in straight lines or curve around you don't have to justify it to me

bud I'm saying it for the people in the back this is a uniquely unsatisfying case a true paranormal mystery

yeah unfortunately where even the paranormal option really isn't that good. Yeah. A little bit disappointing. We said it before in this podcast, usually when you have a case that takes place a couple hundred years ago, a lot of people do often jump straight to religion because that is the the frame in which they they comprehend their existence and the world and the unexplained so it could be that we are looking at some kind of cryptids footprints but these people don't believe in cryptids they believe in god and the devil and christianity so they're kind of printing their own beliefs on top of this mystery the only other cryptid it could be possibly connected to

was spring heel jack yeah another i think english cryptid right now we did an investigation into spring heel jack in the past check it out if you've not heard it i think it was a long time ago oh yeah but this rings a lot of bells because spring heel Jack notoriously left footprints, footprints additionally on roofs in hard-to-reach areas, hence why he was believed to kind of jump around like a damn kangaroo. I think he turned out to be a diddler or something. He was just a guy. He got cancelled. I don't think he was a cryptid in the end.

In the legends, I think they said he could shoot fire from his mouth. And I think the reality was he was just throwing acid in people's faces. Okay. He was a man. He was a man in the end. But he didn't cover, now he did do pretty amazing jumps, but he didn't cover these kind of, I'm not trying to say, yay. Well, before we cancel him, he does pretty cool jumps. It's like Evel Knievel, isn't it?

I don't think he covered 100 miles in a night. So whilst similar, and whilst also in England, I don't think they necessarily overlap. No, I think it's safe to rule him out. And Rory, yet at the end of an episode, we do have to decide whether a paranormal case is paranormal or not. What are you thinking today about the devil's footsteps? You know, it's an interesting one, but it's a weird case where the entire story is just the evidence.

You know, there's no even, no one even saw this thing or heard this thing. All we have is literally these footprints left behind. I agree. The distance is strange. The height is strange. But I don't think, I mean, we definitely don't have enough here today to say that we know what this is and the devil thing is a big swing you know maybe that would have made more sense 200 years ago but this day and age i don't know i don't think that's an explanation that fits whatever this is and it's a very cool origin story the one of him coming to

church pissing the through the beer evaporating as it goes on sorry it's all drink it it's all why does he drink it if he's so hot the dutch courage to get the courage to go and shit up he didn't have the balls to go to the church first he has to have a couple tequilas before he has a go at the priest. It's a cool story. I agree that the hoax feels impossible here, the sheer distance, but we can't ignore either that footstep hoaxes are an all-time classic hoax. Oh my gosh, yeah. I mean, I'm pretty sure it's written into half a dozen Scooby-Doo episodes of the hotel manager,

he gets out a cryptid footprint stick and he's walking around with his shoes, making fake footprints, to make everyone think there's a monster. It's a classic. So, Roy, why don't I put you out of your misery and come down on my own conclusion. I think today we'll say

that it's a no in the case of The Devil's Footsteps. A double no, unfortunately unfortunately this week rat shit all right well there we go there you have it um i hope that's not a disappointment to anyone sorry to our few listeners in the west country for brutalizing the accent thank you to you and fryers who researched this particular case i mean the good thing is we're either right and it wasn't the devil or it was the devil and we've just pissed him off by saying we didn't think it was him and we don't believe in him drop a pin boom drop a pin even though i just said that you he can't be physically defeated i think i've got the mentality i think he hasn't kind of seen the kind of conor mcgregor

level moves that i'm personally capable of right remember though what we said it's love it's love and it's kindness but I just don't think it actually says that

anywhere in the bible and I still think about it didn't Jesus famously like that was like some WWE shit when he turned over that table in the temple

that had nothing to do with the devil I think he put a guy through the table he didn't I'm pretty sure he did he didn't I think famously you know Jesus you know jesus the only time i remember jesus interacting with the devil is when he's in the desert and the devil's like tempting him with shit and he's like

zen i will not falter i am peaceful i am loving i am kind i am unstirred so if you're gonna fight the devil that's maybe the vibe to go for is like pacifist he lost the devil walked away unfazed from that i'm just saying like even professional fighters even hunters they get too caught up with the with the like the weapon or the like or the takedown i'm just saying go feral and then going will feral on his ass call Call me Colin. I'm going Ferrell. Tackle him. Right. Tackle and just bite and chew and gouge.

Just no rules. Absolutely wild. Because you know what's a hard thing to wrestle? An eel. Yeah. Channel your inner eel. You know how everyone says, like, be the lion. You know what a lion is?

That was a question. What? Do you know what a lion is that was a question what you know what a lion is huh i'm asking you i'm asking you right yeah a lion is yeah no do you know i do okay so you know that they're hard to fight yeah so don't go near those rhet was a rhetorical question it was a rhetorical I needed to know okay so you gotta be more like an eel slippery thin untrustworthy hard to strangle

because you don't know where the neck is or are they very easy to strangle because they're just neck all I'm saying is tonight midnight I'm gonna be covered in Vaseline

in my underwear waiting and then I'm gonna hit be covered in Vaseline in my underwear waiting. And then I'm going to hit download the torrent on season four, you said, of True Detective. And then the devil's going to be on my ass. Kit's going to cover himself head to toe in cooking oil to wriggle out of the devil's grip. And the devil just touches him and Kit sets ablaze. He cooks him immediately. He kind of just nicely,

he turns me into a lovely piece of tempura. Okay. The fight strategy needs work. That's fine. We've talked a lot of shit about the devil over the years and haven't paid for it yet. So keep it coming.

Hope you've enjoyed this investigation into the devil's footsteps. We, of course, back next week with much more but in the meantime rory if you cannot wait until next week for a brand new investigation into the paranormal head over to patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life what's over there rory well let me tell you kit do you like you like podcasts right another rhetorical question no it's just a normal question you like podcasts right yeah and you like this one yeah how much do you like it

on a scale of one to seven yeah really weird number scale seven seven then i have the place for you to be patreon.com over to you buddy yeah you didn't say anything about it so it's a it's the home of this part of my life on the internet where we've been putting up bonus content every week for many years there is so much uh in the way of bonus episodes full-length investigations send it back something else send it back to me yeah all right i'll take it from here we have uploaded so much stuff on this website and if you are a fan of this paranormal life that's the place you want to be patreon.com forward slash this paranormal live over to you buddy after party weekly behind the scenes episodes oh which we call the after party give it back to me

bud stop asking for it and then just repeating what i say give it back to me fine sending it over to rory all right it's the only place to be if you love this show over to you bud patreon.com forward slash this paranormal life check it out and of course we do shout outs if you're on the shout out tier on patreon let's round out with a couple of shout outs what do you say send it to me bud i'll take it from here so all right let's shut you don't know the name i was teeing it up because we're at the end of the episode we're gonna do some shout outs i just said that you have to know it just sometimes it works better if like we're both on the same page and that's the only way people are going to know that we're on the same special thank you to chase scott Chase Scott. You take it from here. I got nothing. Chase Scott.

Looks like we're going back in time, Marty. A pun on Great Scott. Great Scott. Or a reference. That's kind of, that could be like the new, I don't know if they're making any more of those movies. Imagine this guy's first name is Chase. That's a really cool name.

Insane. You're just always on the hunt. If your name was Chase Hunt, that's crazy. That's absolutely crazy. That is nuts. That is nuts. So, you know, you got to love someone with two first names, as they say. Two first names.

So, Chase, hope you're out there living your best ever life. Yeah. We're going to recruit you as well to kind of go after people who have left the commune as well. Chase is just exactly the person we need. Thanks also to Eden Springer. Eden is always eaten. From the moment they wake up in the morning, there is cereal

going into that mouth. Soup going into that mouth. Lunch, more cereal, more soup. So just soup and cereal? Yeah, and when I say soup, it's really just the milk left over from the cereal after the cereal's been eaten.

So just cereal. So Eden has a bit of an addiction to, yes, cereal. Lucky Charms. Fruit Loops. Oh my god. Kellogg's Corn Flakes. Crunchy Nut.

Worried about Eden. Frosties. But I feel like cereal's getting so diverse these days you can live on cereal alone. Not true. There may be some science to back that up. They are fortified with some vitamins, true.

I bet my last four teeth that you can live on cereal, because I've been doing it myself, actually. Thanks also to Brook Norman. I'll take it from here, Kit. Brook Norman is our Dorman. That's right. The Paranormal Commune is a classy place. We do have doormen to welcome you when you arrive.

You know, check your credentials, check your identification, take any valuables off of your person to look after them. For safekeeping. In the vault, in the Commune vault. Make sure you don't leave after curfew. Make sure you don't leave before curfew. Make sure you don't leave before curfew. Just to make sure everyone stays inside. Like a good doorman.

That's what doormen do. That's a normal doorman job description. Yeah. So totally normal doorman. Just keep them in tight. Just don't cross them and you'll be fine. It's kind of like a valve. The doorman is really more of a valve.

They kind of let things in and not out. Right. A one-way valve. Yes. And lastly, a special thank you today to Brandon Engelskerchen Buehler. Brandon Engelskerchen is in the kitchen. They are cooking up left, right, and center. We're talking soups.

We're talking cereals. We're talking back to soups. We're talking... Yeah, not that much variety. Did I mention the soup? Is the milk from the cereal. You best believe it's Froot Loot water. I see.

Eden designed the menu, did they? Brandon is Eden's personal chef. Okay, well, there you go. That makes a lot of sense. Also, you know, there's claims from people saying that it's because we're giving people cereal nonstop because we can't afford any other food or there is no other food in the commune. And you know what I say to them? Everyone knows breakfast is the most important meal of the day.

That's what they say. And now we can have it three, four times a day. That makes you a VIP because everything's important. Yeah, right. A V-I-C, baby. Thanks, Brandon. Thanks to everyone we've shouted out

on today's episode. As I say, we'll be back on Tuesday with a brand new paranormal tale back on Friday on Patreon before Tuesday with the after party

with the f***ed up, frankly, behind the scenes of the show. Crazy stuff. And then Jesus later in the month with a brand new bonus episode all to play for we'll see you next time here on this part of life i'll

take it from here kit okay see you later so that's kind of just wrapping it all up for sure okay