Episode 585: Australian Poltergeists Part I - Polts & Stones
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There's no place to escape to. This is the last podcast. On the left. That's when the cannibalism started. Was it good to be rough? I'm working on it. I'm working on it. We're here. I'm steeped in it. Yeah, I'm on the other side of the world. I'm trying to find it again. Would it have to be rocks?

Is that, what is that? Is that Australian? It's a vibe here. You know what I mean? That's what I'm doing. I'm just trying to capture an essence. But we're not even in Australia yet. We're still in New Zealand. But that's the thing. I'm trying to get more of the New Zealand vibe. New Zealand vibe.

Yes, that actually is better, I think. I'm getting there. All right. I would say that you're getting there, but you're never going to get there. I'm never going to land on the helipad. It's not about that. I feel like no matter if you were great at it or horrible at it, everyone's going to be mad at you no matter what. You're right. And that's the magic.

of radio. Welcome to the last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Marcus Parks. I'm here with... I'm... Oh, man. Oh, man. Am I not jet-lagged? That's for certain. Exhausted Henry Zebrowski and... I just have trails. ...the surprisingly fine Ed Larson. Nice. Are you fine? Yeah. Why?

I don't know. I feel like my body's just built differently. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know what it is. Well, it's because you can go to sleep in an instant. I choose to go to sleep. Yeah. And none of the rest of us have that. Last night, I woke up at like 1.30 and I was like, I should go back to sleep. It's a little early. I went to sleep early. I went to sleep at like 10. And then I woke up again at 4. I was like, I should go back to sleep. And then I woke up again at 7. And I was like, you know what? Back to sleep. One more round. It's incredible that like a fucking, like a giant from a fairy tale, you can just fucking...

For eternity. When I met Ed, he was asleep on a giant cart of melons. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He was asleep on it and chickens were running away from him. Surprisingly comfortable. Yeah. Well...

Since we are on the continent, since we're on the other side of the world, we are going to devote the next two episodes to Australia, but not as we usually devote episodes to Australia. It's true, because a lot of times when we go out of the country, we're largely fascinated with true crime and kind of what, like, the differences of you guys all, like, what are the fun new crimes? That's what I like to see. And we kind of had a little plan. It's like, oh, one of

of the proposed projects that we're going to do Ivan Milat. And we're like, you know, the thing about Ivan Milat is that

Kind of. It's just you go out in the woods and you don't come back. Yeah. You know, like it's a story we we might get to it. But we're like, what's spooky in Australia? You never hear about it. I've never heard anything about it. And then I let my fingers do the walking. And then I found out that there is like a whole world of paranormal activity that's happened on these island nations that are extremely specific. Yes. To this world. Yeah. Not in New Zealand, though.

Everyone's just, you know, I was talking to our wonderful guest producer, Joe, and yeah, everything's just different. Ghosts are like remembering your family. Yeah, they're like, they have a different... And they just kind of give you a hug and they're like, oh, I hope you're doing well. Oh, no. Here in

even over in Australia, the ghosts are surprisingly friendly. They're more connected to it. Yeah. They're friendly. They're not really violent. Like, you know, in America, in the UK, you get people thrown across the room. You know, you get people that, you know, they get covered in flies. Like here, it's, they, they toss things at you almost in a flirty way. Well, or in a truly, I mean,

And really very interesting examples of what they call the trickster phenomena. Yes, it's very trickstery. It's hard to pin it down, and it's in a bunch of different ways, and it's also very confusing. And I think it's also, which is similar to America, which is some of this, especially when it blends more into the high strangest world, it does seem to affect those that are of a certain substrata. Yeah.

of the populace, which is in the Australian terminology, you'd call them bogans. Sure. We call them white trash in America. And you should stop saying that word. Is that bad? Before you get us into a fist fight. Is that going to be, does that get you into white, that's bad? I will not stick up for you. No, I won't either. I absolutely will not stick up for you. I am not going to say like, you know what he really meant was, I'm going to say, go ahead. I'm going to say, I told him not to. I'm a renegade.

So for the next two episodes, we're going to be covering stories of Australian poltergeist that span well over a century from 1887 until 1999. For our source, we used Australian poltergeist, the stone throwing spook of Humpty Doo and many other cases by Tony Healy and Paul Cropper. Healy and Cropper are these. I see that pop.

up in all of the other research I was doing about Australian ghosts. Like, they're there. They must be something along the lines of their warrens. I feel like they're kind of like Maurice Gross and Guy Playfair, where they're a nice team. They work together and they like each other. I hope they like each other. And they embed. Yes, they very much embed, like Playfair and Gross. They sound like Blues Brothers backing band members. Hit me, Haley. Bounce. Bounce. Bounce.

But one thing I want to say right up top is that every story we're going to discuss on these episodes, save for the one involving the sex worker, involves stones and or pebbles. Yeah. And I'm not talking about just a few rocks here. These stories have hundreds, if not thousands of stones, almost as if the stones of Australia are themselves charged with some sort of paranormal energy. Now-

Am I wrong by assuming that a stone is slightly different than a rock? Like when I think of a stone, it's like smooth. Yes, exactly. Same. Same. That's not what I think. I think stones are fancy rocks. Yeah.

Strangely, though, neither we nor our research assistants could find not only no explanation for this, but not even a question as to why stones were such a central part of so many Australian poltergeist encounters. It's as if Australians never even thought to question why so many of their cases centered around stones. It's bizarre. I honestly wonder if it's just a straight up lack of interest.

About some of this, just the content in general, just the idea of the paranormal, where maybe they don't, and inherently don't necessarily believe it all that much to think about it. But it's weird, because every one of the stories involves what they call apports. That's like a term in paranormal work, where it's like the idea of something appearing out of nowhere. Think of it in like a poltergeist, where shit just kind of falls from the ceiling. Okay, yeah. It happens a lot. And I feel like also we talked with Jeff, the talking mongoose that was like that.

I actually feel weirdly in UK stories, there's a lot of app ports. But normally it's all over the place. It's like keys, weird objects, personal things. Why would they care about ghosts if they got to deal with all the fucking spiders? That's the problem. If the birds can kill your family...

Why are you scared of a rock-throwing ghost? However, I must say that the repetition of the chosen poltergeist projectile in these stories does nothing to affect their fascination. Personally, I think they add to the veracity of these stories, especially when we get to the more modern stories where scientific readings can be applied to said projectiles. Projectiles.

And we're only going to be covering like a few stories here. I read probably seven or eight different stories that all involve stones. Yes. I don't, I,

I don't know why. Well, I have a theory that means nothing. Because there is a fairy character called the Cobalt. From where? It is in a German folklore. But it's the only other thing I could find that specifically said it's a wood sprite that sometimes lives in minerally areas and throws rocks around. Well, I mean, I know. And the only thing that I can think of is that in Australia, they have the dream rock.

Like out and... Where the UFOs hang out. Yeah, the big dream rock. You know, it's a big like aboriginal like place of, you know, very... A huge place of importance. So maybe that gigantic rock is making all the little rocks go nuts. They don't want to be big rock. Ooh.

That's what you think? That's our aspirational rock. But if we're going to be talking stones, there's no better place to start than in New South Wales in 1887 with the story of the Large Family. God, great name. I'm so happy about this. This story occurred in the town of

Cuyol, 180 miles northwest of Sydney, at a farm owned by a family with the surname of Large. You know, Bill Large. Hey, don't you call me Mr. Large. That's what my son called me. You call me by my first name, Very.

How'd they get to their house? Beanstalk? Very funny. Indeed, they did live up to their name. For the wife of the Large family, Mrs. Large, gave birth to 15 children over the course of her life. Holy shit. Oh, God. At what point...

I think that if you get to 12 children, that becomes human trafficking. Because then you're just a child factory. Yeah. Well, despite having had 15 births under her belt, reporters... Literally. Yeah. Reporters at the time of The Haunting were always eager to describe Mrs. Large's, quote, classical shape, well-formed body, and beautifully formed head. What?

I don't know. Pretty. No, that means pretty? I don't think it means it's specifically the shape of her head was beautiful. Okay. Like, what did it look like? A parrot tit? Wouldn't that be amazing? It was also noted that she had excellent powers of description and reporters found her to be credible. Therefore, they deemed the poltergeist experiences of the large family to be legitimate.

Now, as most of these stories do, the story of the large family began with a sustained shower of stones, although they did not rain down on the family's roof. Instead, the stones appeared to fall through the roof and land softly on the farmhouse floor.

Nevertheless, reporters called these stones ghostly missiles, even though the projectiles seemed to float through the walls and ceilings, and they did no harm when they bumped into the family. As the large family put it, it felt as if they were being struck by a bag of feathers. What? That is weird. So, like, I'm trying to even...

imagine what that motion is in my head. So they're saying they're sitting in the living room and they're just watching rocks slowly fall to the ground. Yeah. Inside the house. Very slowly. Like it's not necessarily like slowly fall to the ground. It's just, it moves at a pace that is slower than you would expect. Then it's not thought like it's not falling. It's floating. Yeah. It's like floating down, but at a faster, it's faster than a float, but slower than a fall.

Is gravity different down here? It is. Have you not noticed? Now, the arrival of the poltergeist, or the polt, as Australians call them, or at least that's what in the book they use the term polt a lot. They're good with nicknames here. They are. That came when Mr. Large was riding home in February of 1887. He said that his horse got spooked by something and ran off. Maybe it was how big he was. No.

He just lost it inside of himself. Mrs. Large blamed the spooking on the local children, whom she said were miffed because she'd refused to host a dance party at her house. That also seems to be a very big constant in all of these stories. Groups of children holding adults hostage. And I don't know why. In every one of these stories, there's some group of

rap Scallion children and run these small towns. They're all scared of them. Yeah. Why is that? I have no idea. I think it's just the tradition is that like in maybe in Australia, like it's accepted that like when you're a child, you're allowed to be a monster and you just band together with other children against the adult. Yeah. And then when you become an adult, it's understood that children are allowed to be monsters and you let them be monsters. And then

When you're an adult, you deal with it just like adults when you were a child dealt with you. Wow. Getting out of their system. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, because, you know, Australians, not violent at all. No, I mean, hey, they're not excitable. But that same night, stones began to fall through the ceiling, flying in unnatural directions and at odd speeds. Interestingly, from what I can tell, some of the behavior of the stones described by witnesses throughout all these stories closely resembles the movements described during UFO sightings.

And I have no idea what that means, but you know how UFOs, they say that they move in directions, like they'll move straight up and then it'll turn at an angle that doesn't make any sense. That no object could actually turn at that speed. And if it was piloted, the person inside of it would be smashed to pieces. Yeah. And these stones sort of move in that same way, but just slower. It seems, well, they talk a lot. In UFO terms, they use the word display a lot.

Like the idea is that when you see something, they know you're looking at them. All right. And so they do a little dance for you. They show you what's going on. A lot of it's to they say, if you believe the idea of the trickster phenomenon, the idea is to make it so you do sound like an idiot when you describe it. Yeah. Because they want you to see something that doesn't happen.

Yeah, and something that's very difficult to describe. Yes. It almost sounds like they're coming from a portal from another dimension. That's great. It's very interesting. Rather than stones themselves, you know, where are the stones? Do the stones look like the rocks outside? Yeah. Well, yeah. See, that's interesting. But then maybe we can go back through that dimension. We can go where Nelson Mandela died in prison. Don't even get me started. We can get the technology. No.

We get the free energy technology. We let them have their technology. If we deserve the technology, we would have invented it ourselves. We changed it into Berenstain and nothing's been good ever since. I don't know who did it. And I think it was Nelson Mandela. I just think if you crack open the stones, you'll see little male aliens in there. That would be incredible. Now, the mysterious appearance of stones continued for five days, but that wasn't the only presence the largest saw.

They also reported to see a sort of levitating black sphere, which, incredibly, will show up again in one of our stories that occur a hundred years later. It does little, it does spook me a little bit. Like, the idea of, like, they all, like, that's the stuff that always freaks me out. Because all of the other stuff is really makes, like, kind of like you've heard it somewhat before in poltergeist cases, but this idea of, like, a lot of these end up having weird UFO stuff attached to them.

Well, I also read that in Australia there is, you know, in America we do talk about flaps where, you know, UFOs and poltergeist activity. And Bigfoots and cryptids and everything, yeah. Yeah, but here it seems to be like it's specifically like UFOs and poltergeists show up a lot together. Well, the next series I want to do, Australian Base, is talking about...

The secrecy around the U.S. nuclear bases that are on Australian soil that have now been decommissioned. So now all of the people that used to work at those old nuclear bases are all coming forward and saying, oh, you want to hear about UFOs? And some of these stories are fucking nuts. Like weird. Again, you know my different shapes. One of my favorite new shapes I've heard, walking legs. Walking legs is cool. Just legs, like flappy legs. Yeah.

And where's the rest of them? Don't know. Okay. Yeah, it's flappy legs. Now, the authors of Australian Poltergeist speculate that the reason why the polt briefly made its home with the large family was because there were just so many goddamn kids. Yeah, it just was another one in there. Yeah, and since many of them were adolescents, their close grouping created a small psychic storm which attracted a paranormal entity or phenomenon. Quite possibly, it might be that the large family was just too large

for the poltergeist to handle, and that's why it dissipated after only five days. Yeah, and too large was actually his brother's kid. I'm trying to not. You know what I mean? All in my head, I'm like, if I sound distracted, it's because I'm just running various large joke puns that I don't want to do. No, I know. Too large, and he was killed by Pufflar. Yeah.

We're stuck in this shit. We're built like this. Help me God. Why is it like this?

Our next story, however, is far stickier and far more aggressive. This is... Hold on. So what happened? Five days. It went away after five days. That's what I just said. They just left. And that's also another part of Australian poltergeist that I see again and I saw again and again. They just sort of leave. They fuck off. At some point, they just sort of leave.

It's not like in America where they bring in the priests and they start screaming. There are some priests that show up later, but they're very lazy. They all remind me of the guy from Dead Alive. Yeah, they are very much like the guy. I think the guy from Dead Alive. Oh, kick ass for the Lord. Yeah, it's, of course, based here in New Zealand. Yeah, it's very much like that priest. I love that guy. Fly from your grave. This podcast is brought to you by Squarespace. Oh.

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Get more done with Grammarly. Download Grammarly for free at grammarly.com slash podcast. That's grammarly.com slash podcast. Now this story, the next one, is that of the Gyra Ghosts, which occurred in New South Wales in 1921.

Now, the Gyra Ghost is one of Australia's most famous poltergeists, a persistent, wall-bashing, stone-throwing entity that tormented a man named William Bowen, his wife, and their children. Particularly, the poltergeist focused its energies on the Bowen's 12-year-old daughter, Minnie.

Now, many seem to be a bit of a Lydia Dietz, as several journalists described her as strange, odd, dark, sullen, peculiar, introspective, and incredibly observant. Maybe they should look in the fucking mirror.

It's a fucking 12-year-old girl. Yeah, they're really paying attention to 12-year-olds. She was sultry and sweet. And everything you want. Long legs going all the way up to her ribs.

They wrote that she never smiled and had a piercing gaze, but it was also said that many may have had some psychic powers. It was written that she was capable of answering questions before they were asked, and some reporters speculated that because the haunting was so attached to her, no matter how many dozens of people showed up, she possessed an occult power which gave her the ability to, quote, bridge the great gulf between this life and the next.

She sounds very interesting. Very interesting person. But the most incredible claim came from Minnie's half-sister. In 2010, she claimed that Minnie had psychokinetic powers and often moved things with her mind. But this was when Minnie's half-sister was 97 years old. So do with that what you will. She'll say anything for attention. Once you're 97 years old, no one's coming around.

You're not going to the disco anymore. You're not going to the fuck lounge anymore. You got three more years before your special again. Yeah, oh yeah. Because 97, at this point, people are like...

We can't even call the news. How long are we going to deal with you? She's just like, I'll tell you something else. She can use all sorts of mind powers. I'm like, whatever, Grandma. All right. We fit the casket already. We bought the tomb. Yeah, do me a favor. Don't get any bigger.

But back in 1921, Minnie Bowen was the center of one of the most talked about stories in all of Australia. And it all began on what was a seemingly normal April afternoon. It was just a Tuesday. Just a beautiful Tuesday in September.

Many said that she was walking home when a strange man began chasing her, and he pursued her for a quarter mile, hurling a seemingly endless supply of stones. Interesting. Actually, I think these were more rocks than stones. These are rocks. These are rocks. These are round. If they hit you, they're going to cut you. Yeah. If you're going to toss my guy, you can see they're rocks. Yeah.

You know, and then, ooh, man, that's got to be scary. Yeah. The man, however, disappeared when Minnie made it home. Later that night, the family heard stones striking the outside walls of the house, and the family assumed that it was the same strange man from that afternoon. They searched the area, but found no one.

Now having an unhinged Australian man chasing your daughter and throwing rocks at your house all night is enough to make any family nervous. Unless you pull them into the family. Being like, well, you better marry her if you want to hit her with a rock.

You're going to need to marry this little girl. So the Bowen family contacted their local constables and asked them to guard the house the next night. Shortly after the constables arrived, though, a pane of glass was smashed with what appeared to be a bullet from a .22 caliber weapon. But no bullet was found and no one heard a shot.

Mysteriously, the appearance of bullets is another frequent appearance in Australian hauntings. And again, no one knows why or even fucking asks about it. I mean, we covered a story about an older gentleman that we did not know. So people were suffering. I guess this town was something like 12 years of random broken windows,

They didn't know what was going on, and so they finally centered in on this 80-something-year-old man that had a professional slingshot, and he used to sit in his backyard and shoot his slingshot into the sky out of pure rage. Yeah.

of being still alive. - And the moment he had to stop, what happened? - He died. - He died, right? Because he had to cut off the one thing he did, like if he took my father's cigarettes away. - Yeah. - Right? But the problem is that has a high population density. So if you shoot a slingshot up, yeah, you're gonna hit a bunch of people.

This is more isolated. So I don't know if it's just getting sniped by rocks. See, I think all of Australia is haunted and they just don't give a shit. They're just too busy drinking. Yeah, they're like, it doesn't bother me. Now the next night, the local sergeant joined the constables along with four civilians to guard the Bowen home. But despite them covering every angle they could, stones still managed to hit the house without anyone seeing who threw them.

The next night, 10 people came to keep watch, but this seemed to only energize the poltergeist. A window was smashed at 730 p.m. and over the course of half an hour, 20 stones struck the house, including one stone half the size of a brick. Half a brick? That's the biggest stone. That's a big stone.

Now, authorities were pretty sure that there was just one or many clever hooligans at work here. This is the game. They're all just saying this. They're just like, there's so many rampant groups of hooligans that they're all just like, oh, it's got to be the hooligans. It's like 10 guys sitting outside the house, hitting it with rocks, and they're like, ah, we don't see nothing. They all know what we're doing next.

But just like these. What's with it? Why are there cops? I never thought that the call could be coming from inside the house. Oh, yeah. Definitely. Certainly not haunted again.

Go get me some more rock, Troy. On the fifth night, 80 people came out to guard and watched the Bowen house with a battery-powered searchlight that could immediately swing to the direction of a stone's throw. This is all this whole town wanted. This is awesome. It's something to do. This, again, was unsuccessful. Furthermore... Something to do? Is that the name of the town? LAUGHTER

Furthermore, the house began to fall victim to the telltale raps and thumps that accompany almost all poltergeist hauntings. The noises were similar to what they heard when stones hit the house, but sometimes they'd hear the noise and no stones were found. And many of the sounds centered around where else but whatever room Minnie was in at the moment.

These sounds grew progressively louder every day, unabated, to the point where they were shaking the walls, and reporters confirmed that the thumps could be heard from as far away as 300 feet. Now, unfortunately for the men outside guarding the house after dark, most of the nights were overcast and it was sometimes raining, so the volunteers had a hard time seeing where the stones were coming from. Yeah, like, that's the thing. It's like, if they're getting thrown at the house...

At some point, you'd see where they were coming from. We're going to get to a possible explanation in a second. But what's interesting about this is that even though the stone throwing continued in the rain, the stones that were thrown were always dry and always very warm, regardless of the weather. You know when a ghost has handled a rock? When it feels like a freshly laid egg.

If you can touch it, it's got that heat, but it ain't been in the butt. Yeah. Or like a theater seat after a large man sits in it. Or like a toilet after a large man sits in it. Ah, the comforting warmth. Nothing I love better than being at the airport. Honestly. And you sit down and a big hulking, big swinging butted man with a loose belt comes rolling out and you get to sit in a literal hot toilet seat.

It's weird. As I get older, I enjoy a warmer toilet seat. Well, yeah, but I like a purposely warm toilet seat. Yeah, not a pre-warm toilet seat by another man. Yeah, because it's accompanied always with the, Yeah, I'm like, you're going to want to enjoy some of that later on. No, sir, please don't talk to me. Leave me and my family alone.

But despite the mysterious temperature of the stone, some police claimed that the stones were being thrown by a group of local larrikins. This is what I'm saying. Yeah. It's an Australian word for a mischievous yet good-hearted little boy. They have a word for a piece of shit child. But has a good heart. It's like the Inuits with like 56 words for snow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The Australians have 56 words for a little bastard. For so many years.

tiny evil orphans. Honestly, I feel like I was a larrikin. You definitely were a larrikin. I think we were all larrikins. I was a larrikin in thought. Or a larrikin...

Who knows? I think it's a larrikin. Larrikin. Larrikin. Larrikin. The theory was that the kids were way out in the bush with catapults, which meant that they were too far away to be seen at night. It's very, but that's a lot of organization. But I guess if you're a larrikin, what else are you doing? You're not in school. You don't got a job.

You fucking live by the wharf. All you do is fight the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and you and your other rambunctious child criminals. Yeah, in America, they would have made this kid a quarterback. Yeah, yeah, be like, feel it in his shoulder. You got a good arm. You need protein.

Now, one of the other interesting and unique phenomena about Australian poltergeists, as opposed to similar stories from America and the UK, is that the poltergeists tend to move to different houses in the area. They don't just stay at the center of activity. They go and visit other places. It's really strange. That is...

You really rarely see it in one of these stories. They move around. I've never heard about it in any other story. It's almost like the area, something is happening to the ground. It's like happening there. That's why I weirdly think it's something...

almost natural. There's something to this besides just child warriors. I know there's some always been incredibly strange things going on with the Dream Rock. Yeah, something going on in there. When I was a kid, we used to have...

we unexplained shit happened into our house in Boca. And then, uh, we, and then, you know, we didn't really talk about it. Then one day I told my neighbor and he's like, we have weird stuff going on. And they're like, and so does I, uh, and so it is like, and so I think, and then we found out which could be horseshit, but then we found out he was built on a big plantation.

Ah, yeah. You know, it's like each house had their own thing going on, but it wasn't like the house was haunted as much as the land was haunted. Was it the original New Jersey cannoli plantation? Florida. Oh, this is South Florida. Yeah, I thought this was in Jersey and I was like, what would they be growing? Muzadel? It's the garden state, everything. Yeah, but it's like bad fruit.

It's great tomatoes. What are you talking about? Immediately got him angry. Yeah. He's sitting here telling me the Jersey doesn't have good gardens. Well, see, in America or the UK, a poltergeist will mostly move only when the person it attaches itself to moves. Yeah. Although the activity tends to be strongest in one particular location. In Australia, however, a poltergeist will move freely about the region to bother the neighbors as well.

In the case of the Gyra Ghost, it bombarded two nearby houses in the first week that it was active with stone showers. And one of the neighbors, the Hodder family, decided to abandon their home and live with the Bowens because that was the house that was being protected and they had a familial connection. The other family nearby that was affected, however, the McGinnis family, they had all their windows broken but decided, fuck it, whatever.

We're not leaving. And that's also going to be another fucking, that's also going to be another feature to these stories is I ain't leaving. Did anyone talk to the window maker in town? Oh,

We've got a business venture for all of us. Now, at various points, policemen did find boot tracks outside of the Bowen home and outside of the homes of the neighbors who also reported stone throwing. The boot tracks, however, did not lead to a culprit or a catapult, and the boot prints could have very well been left by the 80-some-odd people milling around these homes. See, I remember I read one. There was a good comment.

I was watching one of the cases that we covered. It had a good comment. And I love this. This is from someone out from the Outback. No one needs to fight things in Australia to this extent. We were very well looked after when this happened, especially here. Australians do not grow up in a celebrity-driven culture. It takes each day as it comes. Fame does not dominate us. We have actors that do their own shopping, pay their bills, go for coffee. No one understands Australia, especially Outback Australia, until they actually come here.

You know, I actually didn't understand Australia until I came here until the last time. And like I describe it as more chill America. Oh, very much. It's cooler America. You don't got to worry about as much because not everybody's trying to kill him.

I was walking around last night and I was just like, I don't think anything's going to happen to me. It's always in the back of my head. You're the most dangerous man in this city right now. I said that to Julia. I was like, I feel like they're going to lock me up. If I was one of those police officers, I would send six men to come arrest you. Also, haven't seen one cop. Yeah.

Actually, I haven't seen any cops either. It's incredible. I'm used to seeing six cops. When I leave my house, seeing six cops and then two helicopters. Yeah, I see one in the mirror every morning. Do you know that the NYPD is larger than the entire Australian army? But they're tough fucks, the Australian army. They're very fucking tough. So are the NYPD. Don't fight me. Come and see us at the King's Theater in Brooklyn.

Now, paradoxically, many people suspected that 12-year-old Minnie Bowen was both the focus of the poltergeist activity and the person who was causing all this ruckus in some way or another. It just depends on whether she was having her menage. Mm-hmm. So to test the theory, Minnie was taking a... You know, it's cool. Like, you waited 50 minutes, about 45 minutes to bring up the word menage, and I'm very happy. See? I'm very proud of you for that. I...

I'm in another country. I'm wizened by my travels. Wizened. I've met and learned and grown in many ways. And I don't always need to talk about a 12-year-old's bloody pussy. Jesus. I don't have to. I didn't have to do that. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I don't have, and I... Seems like just a menarche ago, you were a decent person.

I'm sorry, Joe. I said it before. It's just, it's an alternative show. This is alternative comedy. Yeah. So to test the theory that Minnie was behind all this, she was taken from the family home for a night and 70 people surrounded the house. I love the experiment. Yeah, the experiment's like, get her the fuck out of here. Arrest her. We're going to go out there and have an abortion.

of Watch the Rocks. TV must suck in Australia. This is 1921. There's no... Everyone's just doing it. Yeah, this is awesome. They don't even have radio probably. Yeah. No, no, no, no. No stones were thrown and no noises were heard on the night Minnie was gone. But the

But just as soon as Minnie returned the next day, a stone passed through her bedroom window and landed on her bed. That was followed by 30 more stones that showered the house as police frantically swung their searchlight around to spot the larrikin behind it all. That's got to be frightening at this point. You're the police. You can't do anything about these ghost larrikins. You are stuck. You're like, you're just watching. You're like, these children got to be somewhere out there. And it's like, that's...

That's crazy. Why? They're all afraid of the children. Yeah. Well, I don't know if they're afraid of the children. I think they just, they want to catch the children. I think it's a game. It's like a cat and mouse thing. I'm terrified of children personally. Yeah. Because they can just do whatever you want to them and you can't beat them up. Nothing. You can't do anything. And it's a scam, dude. Yeah, it is. And those kids know it. They know that they can do whatever you want. They can kick you in the nuts. They go, oh, he's a pedophile.

Oh, he's a pedophile. And then everybody's going to jail. Five 16-year-olds, there's nothing scarier. No. Nothing in this world scarier. But that's the thing is that we keep talking about how kind of cute Australia. And this is like, we did Snowtown like three months ago. Yeah. That was not cute. That was horrific. That's not cute. Catherine Knight.

Not cute in any way. But to further test the theory, the searchlight was left off one night and it was found that the stones would follow many throughout the house instead of focusing on what was going on outside, they focused on what was going on inside.

When Minnie entered a room, the walls outside of that room would be bombarded with stones. And when she walked to the next, the stones would follow her. See, see, I know it's not that, but I just see, every time I'm talking about the stones falling around, I just see Charlie Watts just fucking smoking a cigarette with a 12-year-old girl in my head. What?

Come on, this isn't the recording of Exile on Main Street. Let's not get fucking crazy here. Now, by week two, a skeptic named Dr. Harris decided that he was going to drive out to Guyra and expose this whole story as a hoax. So he and a group of his friends, fellow skeptics all, surrounded the house all night and at times hung around inside the house and watched the Bowens sleep. Go to sleep. Go to sleep.

I'm going to sleep. I'm going to sleep. I'm so skeptical of you. Sleep now. I can tell your eyeballs aren't moving inside of your little skulls. That's how I know you're dreaming.

Harris kept a close eye on Minnie in particular the whole night. And when no stones were thrown, he declared his mission a success. And he promptly left, saying that he had somehow, quote, chloroformed the spook. Chloroformed the spook is actually my favorite R.E.M. album. Thank you. HenrySkrousey.com.

Again, and another difference between American and Australian hauntings, and this is a bit of a surprise, I've never heard of an American story in which someone bought a gun to protect themselves from a ghost. But that's what happened in Gyra. Because they already had the gun. It was handed down. You didn't need to go out and buy one. It was in your house. Yeah, this is my ghost gun. This is my dog gun. This is my cop gun. This is my wife gun. Yeah.

This is my me gun. You're the last one they'll ever use.

Well, two weeks after Minnie was chased by that mysterious man, a neighbor got herself so worked up that she bought a revolver and kept the loaded weapon on a shelf where her two young children could easily reach it. I think she wanted it to be like an easy reach as well. But, you know, when you're five year old could reach it. Well, it sounds like that was what you wanted. She's like, in case you need the gun, here's the gun.

a gun, you can use it anytime. The bullets are in it. Yeah. Only shoot ghosts. Yeah. It's just like, alright, mommy. Which is like the worst thing the larrikins need is to get armed. Yeah. Because then all of a sudden, he's gonna take the gun, he's gonna give it to the larrikins, and now they got a gun. Nah, he just used it to shoot his sister in the face. Wow. But she lived. Yay!

She's not going to be a model anytime soon, but she lived. Well, as far as the mother went, she became ill soon afterward, which is attributed to a bad case of the nerves.

As far as William Bowen went, he developed a habit of running outside and firing his gun in the air several times whenever the stone throwing or the knocking started, presumably to chase away the larrikins, but it never once worked. Because I feel like if you're shooting guns at a larrikin, they're going to stop with the funs and games. But he's only shooting in the air. And look, there's no tittering. Then the bullets are going to come down on the house and

But you don't think a larrikin at some point wants the credit? Like, they want to be known. I think a larrikin is not going to just do this. I feel like a larrikin does it for the love of the game. Oh, yeah, they take it to the grave. I guess so, but then a larrikin eventually becomes an adult.

Now, at one point, it did seem like someone came up with a solution, even if it was temporary. This is the weirdest part of the story. One day, a small dark man that no one in the area knew suddenly appeared on the Bowen farm and told everyone to gather all the stones that had been thrown in a big pile and burn them. Everyone present excitedly followed the small dark man's instructions. Amen. And while it did work for a bit, the stone throwing resumed a couple of days later.

Can you burn rocks? I think you can make them hot. Yeah, you can put them in a fire. Yeah, but I don't think you can. Nothing happens. Yeah. They get real hot. Yeah, and then you wait, and then a couple days go by, and you grab the stones, and you start throwing them in the house again. See, that's what happens when larrikins grow up. That's what this guy is.

The Gyra ghost certainly attracted skeptics, but it also brought in its fair share of spiritualists. The one who seemed to make some headway was a spiritualist named Ben Davey, who was also a member of Madame Helena Blavatsky's Theosophical Society. Cool. Now, the point of a spiritualist is that they're supposed to have the ability to communicate with the dead. So after a conversation with each member of the Bowen family, Ben Davey thought that Mrs. Bowen had provided the most promising lead.

Davey discovered that Mrs. Bowen's daughter from a previous marriage, 21-year-old May Hodder, had died the previous January from a congenital heart defect, leaving behind an infant son named Clifford, who was now 18 months old. You never hear of an infant named Clifford anymore. You really don't? Yeah, like Cliff. I haven't heard. I haven't seen a Clifford. I haven't seen a Rod.

Rodney in so long. Rodney's are great, but they're all larrikins. All Rodney's are larrikins. A six-year-old Rodney is going to hold you at night. Stay away from my daughter. He's going to carjack you. My name's Rodney and I'm nine.

Clifford, the great Martin Short film. The highly underrated, incredible Martin Short film. Total larrikin. The biggest larrikin in the world. God, you know who were some horrible larrikins was that Dylan Klebold. Eric Harris. Some of the worst larrikin societies ever seen.

Well, the connection here was that the 12 year old mini had been charged with taking care of little Clifford after May Hodder had died, which some believe aggravated her already charged pubescent psychic energy.

Furthermore, if you'll remember, the Hodder family had experienced activity the first week as well, and it moved in with the Bowens. Oh, shit. That's right. Yeah. So they are like it's all just connecting back to each other. Now, looking at the skeptic side here, because I'm not big on spiritualists. No, they're mostly full of shit. Yeah. And the idea of spiritual technology, we did a thing a long time ago on spiritual technology, which is they work on.

But the spirit, I mean, but that's a whole different fucking, it's a whole different thing. I mean, spiritual technology, like, I mean, I did, I guess I did use those rods. The dowsing rods. The dowsing rods, which is a form of. Tarot and Ouija boards. All that shit, sure. But I don't believe in the, is there somebody here who had someone who died whose name starts with a B?

They're always going to ask questions until they find the answer. Those guys are always not there. That's not real. That being said, as a skeptic, a band of skeptics, I don't like them either. No. They're the biggest assholes on earth. Yeah, dude. I'm skeptical of a skeptic that has friends. Yeah. I'm skeptic of a skeptic. I'm skeptic of a skeptic who belongs to a skeptic society. Oh, yeah. Because that sounds like your non-believer church in a way. Yeah. Well, it could.

be that when the Hodders moved in, they introduced the idea that the ghost may be that of May Hodder. And Mrs. Bowen was led to this conclusion by the spiritualist because that's just what spiritualists do. And they create a narrative. They believe that this makes sense. But, you know, when it comes down to it, I actually just read a really interesting article from 1972 called Are Poltergeists Living or Are They Dead? And a lot of their work really just shows it's extremely different from

than a quote-unquote intelligent haunting or a residual haunting. It's something else entirely, which I still think is human-based. Yeah.

Well, that's the thing is that spiritualists tend to create scenarios that are a little too good to be true. Yes. And they give temporary relief at best. Because that's what it is. It's emotional closure is what they're trying to give you. Yeah, they're trying to give it. But it's also you're trying to bypass like processing grief and it don't work. Yeah. Like you feel better. You feel better for like three or four days and then you feel fucking horrible again. Yeah. And they have no life skills and got to make money somehow. Yeah. That's the goal. Once I become a pet psychic. Yeah.

That was what I've always wanted to do. Set up a little pet psychic shop. Be like, this cat is racist. Ma'am, you're going to have to get rid of this cat. You're going to have to euthanize him. He just said, hell, Hitler. I know it sounded like a meow. Europe United is a nonprofit that exists to close the opportunity divide and give young people access to the resources needed to get a job in the field they desire.

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On the night that the spiritualist was supposed to make contact, 50 people were guarding the Bowen house. So there's a big crowd. As the Bowen family gathered indoors, a heavy knock was heard that sounded like it came from the outside. But strangely, the crowd guarding the house said that it sounded as if the heavy knock came from the inside. They're in on it. Yeah. Oh, no. It's inside. It was inside. It was inside.

Goddamn Americans. After the knock, though, the spiritualist told Minnie that if another knock happened, she should call out and ask if it was her half-sister. Ever the cynical goth girl, Minnie flatly said, quote, I can't speak to my sister. She's dead.

Nevertheless, the spiritualist asked again, and when another knock came, Minnie almost sarcastically put her hands up in the air and said, If that's you, Mai, speak to me. Moments later, though, the hard-shelled Minnie began to cry. Oh, whoa. She said that May had spoken directly into her mind with a message for their mother. May wanted Mrs. Bowen to know that she was perfectly happy where she was and that she was watching and guarding them all, and after that, the knocks supposedly disappeared. Temporary relief.

The stones, however, went nowhere, nor did the visitors who were curious as to what was happening in this small town halfway between Brisbane and Sydney.

Such a fucking shitty American thing to do. Ha ha ha!

I'm going to live here now, all right? I know how to do this. I'm going to show you fuckers how to do this shit. I'm going to fucking treat you just like I treat all the people on my plantation. You're not going to like it, but it's going to happen.

Once he arrived, he and his assistants had portions of the Bowen's roof removed so they could keep watch on all the activities within the house from above. Fuck this place. Get rid of the roof. Get rid of the kitchen. I'm shitting in the living room. They also set up an elaborate system of traps to detect hoaxers, but none of our sources outline what those elaborate traps were. I would dig a hole, put a blanket over it.

I would. I'd paint, tie it to the top of the stairs so that I can go down there. You put the hot clamp on the doorknob. Oh, yeah. You know what I think? I would think that larrikins, I think larrikins love apples. What you do is you put an apple out next to a tree, but when the larrikin grabs the apple, there's a crossbow right next to it and it shoots in the head. You'd be a great larrikin killer.

I think I was born to be a larrikin killer. We got to go out there, man. Can we do this? Are there still larrikins? And are there tours that we can join in on? Larrikin killing? Do you have a larrikin that needs culling?

We're on our way. But even though he had everything set up to disprove the haunting, several walnut-sized stones were thrown and landed inside and outside the house that night. I feel like a walnut-sized stone is even hard to find.

That's a good normal size, I think. I got a couple of walnut-sized stones at my house. But you passed those two years ago. Well, the American stayed for four days and declared that after his, quote, ceaseless vigil, there was no other conclusion to be made other than that this was a true paranormal event. Enjoy your new outside inside home. I'll be off. Here's my plantation. Here's a bag of sugar. Enjoy yourself.

You know when they say that umbrellas inside are unlucky? Well, your whole life's unlucky. It's not an umbrella if there's no roof. It's a roof.

Now, eventually, the authorities in Sydney were, for some reason, bothered enough about this story where they sent a constable named Hardy 500 kilometers north to prove that this whole thing was a hoax. This would actually happen quite a bit throughout all of these Australian stories. There's always some cop that gets their bee in their bonnet. It happens a lot. They're like...

We gotta go make it. We gotta go suss this out. It's very fun. It's because I got nothing to do. It's awesome. Well, Constable Hardy was the man Sidney chose to prove that this whole thing was a hoax. And when he took a position outside the Bowen Cottage, he claimed to see many throw several stones at the house. Hardy then confronted her and he claimed that she said that she had been the one throwing stones all

all along. I call bullshit. But she had been careful to not be seen by anyone. In Hardy's world, only an expert cop could have caught Minnie. She's 12! And he spread the story that the mystery was over.

But weirdly, the same constable outright admitted that he had pressured Minnie into confessing, much like the hypnotist had pressured the girls in the Enfield Poltergeist case into supposedly confessing to being behind their haunting. You'd be amazed what a 12-year-old commits their lives to when you bash their head in with a mop.

Hey, you get an adult in the room with a 12-year-old girl and they're just like, a cop at that. Oh yeah, you're working her? Oh yeah, work the body and then you get in the head and you got the buggy playing Slipknot all night? Kids can't sleep? Kids love sleep. They play live in Australia.

Forget it. What Minnie had supposedly admitted to was that her method of creating the knocks was leaning out of her window and knocking on the outside of the house. Wow. But dozens of people heard knocks when Minnie was in their presence and did not have her arm hanging out of a window.

In response to Hardy's admission, the Sydney Morning Herald released an angry statement listing all the things that had been seen by over 80 people, then accused the constable of fabricating a confession in an attempt to put an end to the story to please his superiors. In fact, several of Constable Hardy's men who went to Gyro with him, they reported that they'd heard the knocks and seen the stones themselves and couldn't prove where they came from.

Strangely, though, as the story spread across Australia and all the way to the UK, so-called copycat hauntings began popping up.

The most impressive was focused around an 11-year-old boy named Gordon Parker in Hornsey, England, in which kitchenware flew off the shelves, cheese, quote, walked from its dish to the floor, and bread jumped on its own accord into the coal scuttle. Leave my food alone, ghost! Yeah, it's all food-centric. Yeah, that's weird. It's like Weird Al wrote a possession story. My... Never mind. It's hard.

It's an extremely hard job. I mean, that's the thing. I was going to say my possession, but that's the thing is that that's just a play on my baloney. The word that he already did. He already did. And it's just a fuck me. You don't have a knack for it. Very fucking good. Thank you.

Witnesses in Hornsey also heard bomb-like explosions. They saw a copy of Alice in Wonderland dance in the air across the room, and they witnessed candles and ladders dance as though they were members of a Russian ballet. It's very British. It's very British. With the candles and ladders. Apparently this one was investigated by Charles Ford himself. Oh, shit. Of the Fordian times. Yeah. He thought that this was a legitimate phenomenon. Yeah. Yeah.

But back in Gyra, the haunting was wearing on the Bowen family. So Minnie was sent to stay with her grandmother 40 miles away. And for a few days, all poltergeist activity ceased. From what it seemed, though, the poltergeist just had to take a little time to catch up to Minnie, almost as if it had to walk.

because within a few days, the poltergeist had found her and the stone throwing and the knocks continued at her grandma's house. Some of the knocks shook the walls hard enough that tchotchkes fell from the cupboards. And later, a neighbor slammed his full weight into the wall on the other side of the cupboard, but could not create enough force to even rattle. Oh, Jay, here's what I'll do! I'm running!

Tony, we don't need this. I'm going to try again. No, Tony. Please, for the love of God. Stop it, all right?

*Ghost noises* Tony! You just- you- oh my god Tony! Oh god! I'm hurt! You did it, G-Sam! I'm hurt! I told you to stop! Oh no! Oh no! Alright, one more try! No, Tony! For the love of god, you gotta go back to work! You're a scientist! They need you in the lab! One... *Ghost noises* Unbelievable. It's- again, these are ghost bros! Yeah, they really are! I bet I could do it! *Ghost noises*

But what was most strange about all this is that the activity at Minnie's grandmother's house stopped on May 11th and Minnie was sent home a few days later. Wow. The poltergeist didn't follow Minnie back.

And it was all fucking over. It just ended. Yeah. As far as what happened to Minnie Bowen, she gained a reputation as a strange, dark-eyed, haunted person, much like Janet Hodgson and Phil Poltergeist. She was also shattered by what fucking happened to her. But Minnie Bowen, she lived until 1989 when she was tragically run over and decapitated by a car. Jesus! Damn! Yeah!

I know. Like Jane Mansfield. Yeah, just like Jane Mansfield. Now, as far as how many chihuahuas were in the car? I mean, I don't know. I don't think they got to Australia. I'm blown away by that. Yeah, I love this. So what, was she in her 80s? Yeah. Yeah, dude. Look, she actually was very mysterious. And if you're looking at the, I'm looking at pictures from the newspaper at the time because they have, her father is there with him. Man, he's got a big hat. And he's also posing with his gun. Yeah. Hmm. He's proud.

Now, as far as what actually happened in Guyra, it's often been argued that it was just some sort of local vendetta against the Bowen family. There was larrikins, barons,

But there is no narrative, evidence, or history that would make this plausible. No one had a problem with the Bowens. My only thing with groups of larrikins is that I just feel like they leave traces behind. Yeah. Like candy bar wrappers. Yeah. Skateboard wheels. Fish heads. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's my fish heads. I was going to say fish heads. Why do I think about them with a bunch of weird fish skeletons? I just go to Tom Sawyer Huck Fitt. Yeah.

Well, another possible explanation was that Minnie, a 12-year-old raising her recently dead half-sister's 18-month-old son, she was just angry. And she put on the two-month-long poltergeist show as a way to regain control over her life and have someone else take care of the baby for a while.

But it was just, I mean, this is just way too coordinated and way too insane for one 12-year-old girl to pull off without 80 people noticing. I feel like the same thing with the Enfield poltergeist. It's very similar in that way where it's just too coordinated. It's too sophisticated a scam for a child to do. And every time that the girls tried faking something in Enfield, they were caught immediately. It was just so obvious.

But the problem is, like we'll see with the next episode, too, is how often these people show up to catch what is an essentially uncatchable phenomena. Yeah. And so they are desperate to prove it's real. So they fake it when the experts show up to get them to pay attention to it. And then the whole thing's busted. Yep.

But tellingly, in the weeks, months, and years following the Guy Rago story, quite a few people tried recreating the kind of poltergeist activity that centered around Minnie by throwing stones at people's houses. I do myself. It's the same thing. All you gotta do is run as fast as you can.

Most were caught and fine. One young man in Brisbane got away with it for weeks before he was caught.

But to give you an idea of how much this story caught the imagination of the Australian people, an arsonist in Sydney, 500 kilometers away, set seven fires in one day and several more in the days following. And both the public and police were quick to blame the guy or a ghost. I don't know why. I just think they're just like, yeah.

It wasn't me. Yeah. And a fun coda to this story, though. A crew of filmmakers visited Guyra and made a silent movie about the event in 1921 while the haunting was still very active. No copies of the movie survived. And it's only known to exist because a promotional poster was found in the Australian National Film and Sound Archive.

The film was actually a comedy directed and starring an actor named John Cosgrove, who was described as fat, jolly, and Rubicon. Do you know Rubicon? Rubicon means fat and jolly. No, it means ruddy. Like both of you are quite Rubicon. What are you saying? That we could have starred in this movie. You're both, you have red faces. Pink.

You are more pink. Ed, you're more Rubicon. You're sunburned. Yeah, no. I'm red now. Well, the character that this guy played, it was named Sherlock Doyle. He was based off of the sugar plantation owner.

The American who figured it all out. But it seems like Cosgrove was one of the only actual actors in the movie. The rest of the cast was mostly made up of the actual members of the Bowen family. That's so funny. Including the deeply haunted many, who, along with the locals, all played themselves.

Cosgrove actually asked William Bowen if he could film him throwing a stone, but Minnie's father refused. He rightly believed that if people saw him throwing a stone, they would assume that the whole thing had been a hoax and that was the last thing he wanted.

And that is where we will pick back up next week for more stories of Australian poltergeists, including the story of not a haunted brothel, but a haunted sex worker. And of course, the full story of the haunting at Humpty Doo.

Man, we're going to be spending a lot of time at the do. You are so excited about Humpty Doo. He just likes the name. You've been talking about it for like a month and a half. Humpty Doo is fun, man. Well, because it's funny because we reached out. We'll talk about it. I'm going to talk about this next episode. Yeah, keep it in the Humpty Doo episode. Keep it in the Humpty Doo episode. But I think that there's something sinister afoot in Humpty Doo, and it's not just the larrikin they have for president. Whoa. I agree.

- Clump-de-doo has their own president? - Yes. It's a child with a giant lollipop and a chain, a length of chain that he used to beat people with. But he's won the popular vote nine times since he was four.

You know, I think Australia did have a prime minister once who drowned and like nobody gave a shit. They just like replaced him. Don't they have like one now? There's a guy that he drinks a lot, right? Oh, he's prime minister. I love that. Yeah. Is he friendly? Is there a guy who drinks big beers? I know nothing. You know what I mean? Joe.

Do you know what I mean? The Australian Prime Minister doesn't drink from baby coffee beers. They have an awesome president. Prime Minister. Right? She's great. Is she still in power? No. They have a new larrikin. That's now in charge. It's an 11-year-old. They've got a spike tat.

He's got two roller skates with guns on them. I'm sorry. We're American. We've been very distracted for many years. There's a lot going on. There's a lot going on. Well, thank you, Marcus. Good work. No, thank you, Henry. And Eddie, thank you. What?

Whatever. Go and check out our Patreon. Patreon.com slash last podcast on the left to see video episodes of this. We are filming this as well. So you can see our grimy jet lagged faces. You can go look at it on the Patreon. We got twitch.tv slash LPN TV. We're not there. No. But I will say apparently...

They are organizing something. Yeah, they're doing a little thing. Holden is organizing a thing called, he's calling it LPN Funhouse. It's going to be on August 13th. It's specifically for us not being there. So the daddies are away. Wow. So the larrikins will play. And so they are down there. So there's going to be a show August 13th on the LPN TV Twitch stream that's going to be very unique.

And maybe difficult. All right. Yeah, and I'm excited for it. All right. Well, let's look forward to that. LastPodGuestAndTheLeft.com. Buy tickets. We're in Australia. Right now, we're in New Zealand. By the time this comes out, we will be done with our show in New Zealand. So just know we are in Australia. Come and check us out. Come see us. Perth, there's still tickets. Humpty Doo. Yeah. Sydney and Melbourne and all kinds of places. Really good work. And Brisbane. Yep. And Adelaide.

And Adelaide. I love Adelaide. I do. Adelaide's a great fucking town. Well, hail Satan. We'll see you soon. Hail Gein. Hail Larrikins. Yeah. Fucking every single one of them. I just want to be around them. I guarantee our next fucking show is just going to be a bunch of fucking horrible children throwing rocks at us. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kids in fucking spinny hats and evil freckled grins. Ha ha ha!

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