Episode 586: Australian Poltergeists Part II - That's not a cross...
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Yeah, dude, now we're in the do. We're in the do. We're finally in the do where you've wanted to be for weeks now. Whatever, man. I saw this. It's because I was excited about finding like a good meaty poltergeist story. Sure, this is where it started. Yeah, but it's kind of funny because then we called in. Like I wanted to get a response from the government of Humpty Doo, right? And we did call. So first thing I did offer a Snickers to...

to the child that runs the city. And I offered him the Snickers. He said, what's that then? And then we fought for a while. But then afterwards, he listened to my story. No, we talked to, we tried to talk to the local government of Humpty Doo to find out. I was like, this is this huge- They're not going to acknowledge it. But this is-

They literally came back. We were like, we have no idea what you're talking about. And I was like, this is a cover up. I mean, this is a cover up. To be fair, this happened 30 years ago. It's not, but it's modern times. You should have just started calling random old people. Yeah. I honestly, I try to.

I wish I could. I don't know how the phone numbers work. They're longer than ours. Welcome to the last podcast on the left, ladies and gentlemen. My name's Marcus Parks. I'm here with the confused about telephones Henry Zabowski. I got my coffee. That's nice. And Ed Larson, who presumably knows how to use a phone. That's right. And I'm ready to get stoned and humped to do.

Sounds nice. We're not going to get weed yet, though. No, it's a stone as a reference to all the stones that the ghosts in Australia throw. I guess I'm just hankering. I'm hankering and I need it. Now, before we get to the story of the haunting at Humpty Doo, which is going to involve even more stones than the Gyra Ghost. Holy shit. That's...

No fucking way. Let's visit the Australian city of Canberra for a story that takes place over a five-year period that surprisingly spans the early to mid-90s. This is kind of like, this story technically has Maxine vibes. Yeah, well, yeah, I guess it does. Yeah, sexy ladies. Joe, is it Canberra or Canberra?

Canberra. It's the city of Canberra. That's why I asked. We're learning and growing. Now, I say surprisingly because stories like these tend to happen in the late 19th, early 20th century because of the hauntings various locations. It's true. And I love we're finally getting into the 90s, man. That's what Gen Z likes. See, this is... Big pants, little glasses. They look stupid, just like we did. Yep. Yep.

See, this is not just the story of a haunted brothel, but rather the tale of a haunted sex worker who made her poltergeist a feature in her sexual escapades. Now, not haunted like a normal sex worker. No, no, no, no, no, no. No. She's haunted by outside things. She's haunted by a poltergeist. Yeah, it's not within her. No.

The woman in question was Liz Fleming, who left the sex work game in 1997 to become a social worker. When she was still in the business, she went by the name Caressa and even wrote a book about her experiences called Caressa, from call girl to God's child.

Apparently had a very low print run. We couldn't get a hold of a copy. God's child could still have sex like a fucking tomcat. That's right. Look at me. They want him to, in fact. You know, the Pope was just like, don't have dogs, have kids. Melissa's poltergeist experiences began in Australia's capital city of Canberra. Canberra?

capital city of Canberra in 1992, the same year that brothels were legalized in Australia. Brothels were legalized in Australia? Since 1992. What? Yeah, it's been decriminalized since 1992. You're not supposed to do it on the street. You're supposed to do it in a brothel. But yeah, it's been decriminalized for over 30 years. But my wife's coming. I love it.

Now, the brothel where Liz began her career had experienced a bit of paranormal activity before she arrived. But once she walked through those doors, the poltergeist attached itself and started putting on a show. Objects like pencils, knives, shoes, and candles began disappearing and or flying with great force at Liz's feet or at people. But they never flew hard enough to hurt anyone, just like the stones in the Guy Rago story.

But while the other girls were terrified, Liz found the phenomena entertaining. Now, this is a common theme in all of these Australian stories is they have a more commiserating attitude towards the ghost. Like, this is fun. Like, but in my mind, I do wish it can be like her dancing on the pole to like, oh, so sugar on me as like forks fly around her in a circle. Like, that would be really fun.

She believed that there were several spirits involved, and she claimed to have figured out how to psychically communicate with them in order to encourage them to ramp up their mischievous activity. She found that it was good for business if she was the haunted one. That makes a lot of sense, because that's, I mean, that sounds like a blast. Yeah. I mean, I love ghost tours. You imagine having a ghost tour and then getting your dick sucked? Wow. That's like my favorite things. Yeah. Yeah.

Feel like Busted. Wow, happy Dan Aykroyd. And Ghostbusters. Wow, I want to do this. Busted makes me feel good. Yeah. Now soon after, Liz moved on to another brothel called the Golden Apple, and the poltergeist followed, almost like pets. Liz came to be known as the ghost lady to the other girls. So she was a sex worker at a Chinese restaurant? Yeah.

Oh, man. Fucking asshole and wantons. But the owner of the golden apple wasn't impressed by the ruckus the ghost caused. Because the poltergeists were so disruptive, the owner fired Liz. But when she went to a third brothel, she actually became a draw to clients who wanted something a little extra. That's like the guy told the Beatles that guitar music was going away. Ha ha ha.

That guy was wrong. Obviously, that's fucking awesome. I don't even need it. I'd go hang out with her. I'd pay to hang out and be like, do the ghost thing again. Yeah, and you don't have to do the rest of it. Let's just fucking hang out and do ghost shit. And then I'll start crying.

Telling all my thoughts, all my sad thoughts. We know what you do. Now, do you think that the sex inspired the ghost? I think that, well, from what it said is that the- Like when your dog's in the room? Well, the poltergeist was already there when she arrived, but as we'll talk about here in a bit, it does seem like that sometimes the sex did up the ante a little bit.

Now, because the poltergeists were so just... It was just the term up the ante. I'm sorry, man. I'm fucking fading fast. I haven't slept in a long time. You're doing great. So questions are going to be hard. Well, on

Liz's command, it was said that she could get her poltergeist to move baseball bats and a potted palm tree that she kept in her room. And that's how you know that this is way before the time period of OnlyFans and all that stuff because you know that poltergeist would be delivering butt plugs. This is

It feels like a little bit of a waste because it's nice that she's making him dance, but she's not using it to make herself come. Yeah, that's true. Now, Liz became curious as to why this was all happening to her specifically. So she contacted a woman named Monica Hamers who belonged to a group called the Canberra Skeptics.

And it's weird because it's the Canberra skeptics, but it does not sound like they're skeptical in any way whatsoever. That's another thing. Like, that's why you can't really trust anybody that says it's a skeptic group because sometimes they're so skeptical of being skeptical, they're actually too open-minded. And then if they show up and they say it's a part of a skeptic society, they act—it shows like, oh, no, but we're thinkers, thinkers, thinkers.

Actually, a lot of times, you've skeptic yourself into being a moron. Also, good day to be a skeptic when you got called up to go check out the brothel. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, of course, because then...

Hopefully, you get a couple of tugs. It's work. I gotta go, honey. Monica put Liz under hypnosis, where Liz saw a shepherd of some kind. Monica suggested that Liz leave a tube of lipstick open near her mirror so the shepherd spirit could use it to communicate. And shortly after, I love you, Liz, along with a heart pierced with an arrow...

appeared on the mirror. So a shepherd is going to flirt like a lyrical? Like he's going to flirt like a child in a middle school? Like me, yes or no? That was followed by more messages from spirits named Matt, Roscoe, and Marty. Roscoe! Another name we never see for kids anymore. Don't trust them.

But while the mirror communication was sweet, the poltergeist activity became more violent. Loud raps shook the walls. A vase full of flowers was thrown about. A large mattress hit Liz in the face and knocked her to the floor. And a male sex worker in the brothel was pummeled and thrown against the wall by an invisible attacker. It's punching my dick. Man, they have dudes in there too. Yeah. Yeah. Whoa. I guess dude side, lady side. Wow. Yeah. Yeah.

Again, the poltergeist activity became too much for Liz's brothel to deal with. So Liz left and started working alone out of her home. Yeah, man. Independent contractor. And her clients who enjoyed sexually paranormal experiences followed. Oh, yeah. There's a bunch of Ichabod cranes trying to get in there, man. I'm right there. If you were unwed, this would be perfect for you. Oh, this is all I want.

I would. Yeah. Now, two years after the poltergeist activity began, Liz was put into contact with a paranormal author named Ken Llewellyn, who was also a reserve wing commander of the Royal Australian Air Force. Whoa. Now, Ken found Liz to be very charming. But as she told her story in an almost nonstop monologue, Ken suspected that she might have

Maybe on meth. Maybe. Maybe. She could just, hey, coffee. Yeah. But when he talked to Liz's friends and clients, who had all witnessed the poltergeist activity, Ken became convinced. And they confirmed she was indeed on meth. Those two things don't have to be mutually exclusive. They do not. One friend named Teresa said that all she had to do was be on the phone with Liz to experience paranormal activity. Teresa.

Teresa said that the poltergeist caused her car to stall out, it smashed a vase, and caused the electronics in her house to malfunction.

One of Liz's clients, a man named Ray, who's a fucking John if I ever heard one. Oh, yeah. Name's Ray. Don't look it up. He said that one time he locked his keys in his truck and asked Liz to request help from one of her poltergeists. Liz called upon the spirit named Matt, and Ray said that the keys subsequently dropped onto the bedroom floor from thin air. Interesting.

Another client, David, said that he saw the potted plant move around. And he also saw three potatoes appear from out of nowhere and fly across the room. Because for some reason, potatoes were actually a favorite object of these poltergeists. They love potatoes. Tasty rocks. Yeah.

Now, do you think the guys were coming in the plant? That's the Weinstein's bit. Perhaps the strangest event, however, occurred as three clients were waiting for Liz to finish with customer number four. They said that a baby stroller rolled across the room untouched.

followed by two potatoes and a gold-painted rock that appeared and bounced on the floor. Nothing I like seeing better at my brothel appointment is several baby strollers. Yeah. No one gets me in the mood more than a parasol. No, what I don't want to see at my brothel's appointment is a line of dudes. Yeah.

Stagger. Stagger the time. Give a 15-minute breather in between. We don't need to stack these. I don't want us all to be sitting there being like, I'll bet y'all do it better. No.

I'll give it a go. Because then you just have to. That's sad. Because if the guy rails are real good, the right before you have to go like, oh, now I can go back. Clean up. But it wasn't over. After all that, pieces of rolled up bark fell through the ceiling, which were accompanied by the appearance of a coin and a key.

All of this happened over the course of 25 minutes while these men were waiting around to have sex with Liz. After hearing all these stories, though, Ken Llewellyn himself had an experience. While talking with Liz, he pulled out a cigarette and found that he didn't have a lighter. Almost instantly, a small red lighter appeared and fell on the floor. It worked perfectly, and Ken presumably kept it as a souvenir of his experience.

That's cool. Ghosts are flirting. Yeah. Unfortunately, though, this story does have a sad ending. Liz Fleming died by suicide in 1997 at the age of 42. But hypnotist Monica Hamers said that she communicated with Liz's spirit, who said that she was happy and in a beautiful place with Marty and all her other spirit friends, if that makes you feel any better. I talked to her and she's fine. She's fine. Ha ha ha!

She's fine. You can forget about her. Can you imagine you die by committing suicide. You go to heaven to see your ghost friends. And in my mind, what if it's like the reveal, like the Patty Hearst reveal? Like in your mind, you think, oh, sexy ghost. I'm going to have a good sexy ghost boyfriend or whatever when I'm dead in heaven. No, it's Roscoe. Yeah, it's Roscoe. And then you meet him and it's like...

I knew if we just met each other, you could see through all my physical deformities. You know, and you're like, fuck. God, I should have went with Ken. Yeah, you know what Roscoe looks like? Chicken and waffles. It's unfortunate. Fly from your grave.

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But now that we got you warmed up, let's finally get to the big one. Yeah! The haunting Humpty Doo. Woo! Now this one picks up chronologically right where Liz Fleming's story ends in the year 1998. And 1998 is approximately the year when Australia hit the year 1975. Ha ha!

So it's important to remember that. I think it did actually take, could you Google real quickly how long it took color television to make it to Australia? Because I think if I remember correctly, it's a surprisingly long amount. I think it's like 1976. Oh, wow. Well, did you see in 1975? Wow, Marcus, I'm very impressed with that. I don't know why I knew that. That's very interesting. Yeah. Color television, 1975.

Now, the town of Humpty Doo is in the Northern Territory of Australia, 23 miles from the Northern Territory's only biggish city, Darwin. This is straight up the outback. Yeah, I mean, well, this is kind of the entrance to the outback. Got it. Darwin's about 120,000 people. It's right on the coast.

And it's like surrounded by kind of like bedroom communities, including Humpty Doo. But to give you an idea of the scope, the Northern Territory is 520,000 square miles. I think it's the 11th largest province in the world. And the nearest major city, Adelaide, is a 31 hour drive south to the other end of the continent.

Like, it's, I think Brisbane is like 33 hours, and that's like driving to the east side of the continent. It's shorter to drive to the other end to the south to get to Adelaide. What the fuck? This place is big. Yeah. Yeah. Now, if you think Humpty Doo is a silly name, which it is, it's actually a variation on an even sillier name.

uppity-doo. Uppity-doo is where the sprinkle sounds like it was invented. There's ice cream on the streets. But that's racist. Is it? I don't know.

Uppity-doo is a nearby cattle ranch, but to locals, Humpty-Doo is just called The Doo. You best believe The Doo is through. You can fucking do it, man. Let's do it.

Now, the Dew is mostly an agricultural and commuter town that also makes a fair living off tourist dollars due to its proximity to a national park. It's also home to a 42-foot-tall fiberglass boxing crocodile called the Big

boxing crocodile. Now we got to go. We have to go. That was commissioned by a rich local eccentric in 1987 for $137,000. Wow. In 1987, Australian money. That's what I'm going to do if I ever get rich. Just large crocodile statues all over Los Angeles.

The Dew is also known, actually, you've got to go here. It's known for what's called the jumping crocs. Yes. They lift themselves out of the Adelaide River for pieces of meat lowered on rods by tourists from the sides of boats on river cruises. It doesn't sound super safe. No. No, it's not safe at all, but it sounds like a goddamn blast. Absolutely. But for our purposes, the biggest attraction in Humpty Doo is 90 McMinn's Drive.

where the Humpty Doo poltergeist made its home. Not according to the whatever it is in charge of Humpty Doo, because when I went and talked with them, they pretended like none of this ever happened when it was all over the damn news. And I watched all the news coverage of it. And I'll tell you what, it made me sad. Yeah. Because everybody inside of the story is pretty rough. Yeah. Like the very top. Like Snowtown rough? Yeah.

And so there was a little documentary I saw and it's like you saw the lady character. 31 hours. Oh, yes. It is 31 hours of Snowtown, dude. There's a lady in it. So it's like you could tell because she's got a black eye. She's got a 13 month, I think is smoking a cigarette. Like the child is just there hanging out like there. It's.

It's an intense place. You gotta let him finish or he starts to cry. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And he takes it right down to the filter. One evening in early January 1998, five friends who all lived at 90 McMinn's Drive were watching a lightning storm when strange and unnatural things began to happen.

Small pebbles started falling from out of nowhere and were landing around the five people who lived at the house. The friends were married couple Andrew and Kirstie Agius, unmarried couple Jill Somerville and Dave Clark, no relation to the Dave Clark Five. Well, that makes me glad all over. And their single friend Doug Murphy.

Now, these five roommates thought that the pebbles were a prank pulled by some larrikin, but no one answered when they called out. Child! Child! Did they hear a T?

This is what I'm saying. If it's larrikins, there's going to be a sound of, there's going to be like, you're going to hear games being played and marbles clacking. And also larrikinism, I was reading it in our little break, is like actually was inspired by the intense rules, social rules, British rule put on them during the colonial times. So larrikinism, according to Ned Kelly, all the bushwhacking, ffff.

hero of Australia. He says, oh, that's the key to unlocking the Australian's hardest understanding, the larrikin. Wow. Yeah. Larrikins is how we won the Revolutionary War.

I'm just kidding around. Is that true? Because I don't think we had larrikins. I think larrikins are working quite a bit in the Congo. Well, the residents of 90 McMinn's Drive, slightly annoyed, moved inside. But the pebbles, no larger than the gravel that made up their driveway, followed them. The pebbles fell on their floors, tables, and heads. But again, like the gyro poltergeist, the stones were dry and warm, despite the fact that it was raining outside.

One of the housemates grabbed a ladder to check the attic to see if maybe there was some explanation. But as soon as the ceiling hatch was opened, he was showered with even more pebbles than before. But besides the pebbles, knives, small batteries, wrenches, and shards of broken glass that were dropped from the air or hurled across the room on that first night, no one, again, was injured. Do you have a theory about why they don't get hit? I do.

I have no idea. I mean, because I think it goes back to the trickster phenomenon that you were talking about where I don't think they really want to hurt anyone. Because it seems like, I don't know why, in America and in the UK, poltergeists are fucking angry all the time. They're really trying to hurt you. They're trying to make your life absolutely fucking miserable. But in Australia, it seems like they're just trying to say hi. Well, yeah, it does feel like a...

fae, weirdo scenario way more in the high strangeness realm. I was thinking gnomes. Yeah, it's very similar to that. I talked about the kobolds. Also, you know, they don't travel fast, so they could be getting hit and it's just not affecting them. And they're just getting flecked. Well,

Well, some objects, however, were destroyed. Over the following days, a CD player was broken. Fuck. Several windows and glass. How am I going to lift up my fucking live albums that were delivered to us at this time of year? I alone love you.

The CD player was broken. That's 1997 CD player. That's some big money. Yeah, I know you need it. Yeah, several windows and glass cabinet doors were smashed by flying objects. A lot of broken windows. They do break a lot of windows. I'm telling you, they got to look into the glass guy in town. The glaziers.

One night, the stones even seemed to work in tandem, wrenching appliances from shelves and turning over mattresses. Like, they were sort of like, you remember that video game where there was those balls that all formed like a human and it was a fighting game? Yeah, what the hell was that called? I don't know, but it's like that. Yeah. Yeah. It was as if some intelligence was using the stones to affect the corporeal world.

And all the while, the residents of 90 Men's Drive would hear scraping noises inside the walls throughout the night that terrified them and kept them awake. Rats! It's Australia! They got bigger things than rats! But none of them could leave because they had nowhere else to go. Now, none of the five residents were religious, but they decided that they might as well call a priest just in case it worked.

They reached Father Stephen D'Souza in Darwin, who came out to investigate. I love this man. Yes. Yes, this is a good old-fashioned. They just cut it different. We talked about it last week. It's the same guy from Dead and Alive. It's the fucking, oh, I kick ass for the Lord. He's just like a hard-drinking, hard-smoking priest. The only reason why he doesn't want to fucking be a regular dude is because it's cool that it's evil to have sex with men. Ha!

And he's loving that. He's like, this makes it extra juicy. Also, the idea of a priest from a town named Darwin is just fun to me. Yes. Yeah. Well, as Father D'Souza was observing the kitchen, a knife left on top of the microwave lifted into the air and flew at the priest when no one was in any position to throw it. The knife stopped three feet from Father D'Souza's chest as if it had hit a wall and it fell to the floor.

Father D'Souza, however, was unfazed. Yeah, that happens. Yeah, I've done it. I've seen it. And he said that he had dealt with many restless spirits in the past. You should meet my ex-wife. Why do you think I got this goddamn collar on? Being brutally honest, though, he told the residents that prayer was...

rarely did anything to stop the poltergeist. He's literally just straight up like this shit, you know, I'm the wrong guy honestly. I'm just good at being down. He told them it's going to go away when it's good and ready. He said basically fucking deal with it and then he left. Yeah, awesome. That's the most I want to deal with the priest. Did everyone not tell you I was fake? Do you know that this is a whole scam for wine?

Now, the priest's prayers, he did say a couple of prayers before he left. Go stay, get out of here, go stay. Oh, the dream of the dying, the boy, and the enchanted. Now, that kept the poltergeist away for three days, but then it returned at full strength. And the residents, suspecting that maybe Father D'Souza was just lazy, they called another priest, a guy named Father Tom English. He was the local Humpty Doo priest.

and presumably had more invested in helping out the residents. I don't know if the government of Humpty Doo even cares about Poltergeist. I don't even care. They definitely aren't handling the Lurican problem, and they're not handling any of this, any hell, anything else. What are they doing? We need to change. Yeah.

Father English visited the house four times, and each time he saw flying objects. But this priest, instead of a knife, saw bullets being thrown against the walls, flying out of the rooms no one was in. Again, bullets! Now, Father English tried prayers as well, but when he brought holy water into the mix, the poult, quote-unquote, died.

went ape and the activity got worse. Flabbergasted, Father English said, fuck it, I've done all I can do and he just left. Sorry, God's not that strong. Left behind a crucifix, a bottle of holy water and a Bible just in case he didn't figure it out. This is some of the shit I use.

You can try that, right? This is all my bullshit. You can try some of that. Y'all could. My main thing is get out of here. Throughout that night, the poltergeist smashed windows and continued throwing objects, including the Bible, which is used as a projectile to smash the bottle of holy water into pieces. Fucking Dio.

That's who the fucking ghost was, man. But this activity continued for months. Sometimes shit would fly around for 20 minutes straight, followed by an hour of peace, and then it would start again. Other days, only a few objects would fly around. Other days, nothing would happen at all. As far as what the residents thought about just moving to escape all the hubbub, though, they said, and this is a direct quote from Dave Clark.

It's a nice place. We like it. And we were here first. Yeah. It's the whole, like, why should I change? He's the asshole. Yeah, it's my house. But, you know, the ghost was obviously there first. We don't know. That's the whole thing with ghosts. That's the whole episode.

No, he, did that ghost pay rent? Well, they've been living there for a little while before the ghost came. Yeah, well, it was dormant. We'll talk a little bit about that later. There are, you may have something to, there may be something there.

Now, at one point, the poltergeist began communicating with the residents at 99 McMinn's. It wrote in marker. It spelled out words with scrabble tiles, formed letters with the piles of pebbles. The words, however, were just as terrifying as the method of communication. The most common words were fire, skin, car, and help. Okay. But the name that kept getting spelled out was Troy. The most mysterious name of all.

Oh, it sounds like this ghost was pretty shitty at Scrabble. Four-letter words, tops. Come on, how do you plan on winning? Yeah, and trying to use a proper noun? Fuck you. This doesn't count. See, just before the activity started, a friend of the residents of 90 McMinn's named Troy Radatzt had

had been incinerated in a horrific car accident when the car he was driving, full of paint thinner, had crashed and exploded. Hey, um, Troy, do you think this is a good idea? Yep! Absolutely! Just come, because this is fume!

He's just like high as balls driving the car. You gotta get lids for the paint to look. Now I like seeing the levels. The residents, however, were not so easily fooled by the poltergeist. They loudly told the poltergeist, and this is another direct quote. You're not Troy, you piss wig.

Why don't you just fuck off? After that, the poltergeist stopped spelling out the name Troy. Damn it, hang on. All right, I got it. All right, I understand. Well, this is actually one of those where I think it's interesting of...

If this is indeed real, this is one of those where whatever this energy is using is coming from the people inside of it. Yeah. I really do think that's why they use a name they know. Oh, yeah. We're going to get into that later. Yeah. I'm sure he was like crying about his friend Troy. We're absolutely going to be getting into this later. Yeah. When we put this whole story together.

Because there is a very angry Greek man that still has yet to enter this tale. Oh, well, Humpty, do continue. We'll be right back. That was great. Perfect for a commercial. Fly from your plane. 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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Now that's a cross. That's not a cross. That's a cross. What?

He got it in there. Dave Clark, however, touched the cross. And when he touched the cross, it basically exploded in a shower of pebbles. Not exploded, more like a Skittles commercial. Yeah.

But speaking of crosses, the Poltergeist apparently loved to play with the crucifix that Father English had left behind. The artifact would disappear, reappear, and fly through the air, but it was only one of the Poltergeist's three favorite objects. It also loved playing with the homemade bottle opener that had a spark plug for a handle, and it particularly enjoyed a small silver skull.

The Polt also loved knives, 44 Magnum bullets, and Father English's Bible, which was thrown around so much that it became battered and worn. I love playing throw the Bible. I hate playing catch the Bible. Now, eventually, the Humpty Doo Poltergeist started drawing media attention, and several reporters observed the showers of stones.

As the author of Australian Poltergeist put it, after hearing the story, journalists swooped in, quote, like seagulls onto the proverbial sick prawn. And what proverb is the sick prawn featured? That's what I was wondering. The proverb of the seagull and the prawn? I have not heard of one. It doesn't need to be sick.

No, it doesn't need to be. Actually, I think that hurts the seagull if the prawn is sick. Well, sick prawns are easier to catch. Yeah. I don't think they're even that hard to catch when they're healthy. Isn't that the proverb? Is that sometimes the easier thing to catch is the thing that is not what you need. You think you need it, but it is better to catch the healthy prawn than the sick prawn and to not go for the easy thing because you need the hard thing instead to make you feel good. That's the key to the proverbial sick prawns.

I just made up a proverb. Wow. Yeah, no, it makes sense though because things that are loved taste better. Yeah. Not lambs. We'll find out tonight. On April 4th, a presenter named Greg Quayle from the show. I don't know if this show name is fucking horrible, fine, or really clever. It's called Today Tonight. Yeah, it's fun. It's like last week tonight. Yeah.

They arrived with a four-man camera crew. With them was a journalist named Max Anderson, who had researched the methods of a skeptic from the Chiara College of Metaphysics in Sydney. So he was obviously there to disprove the whole thing. This is very interesting. I watched all of this coverage. And this guy, he really is, first of all, I will say, Australian television really does feature the chest hair of their reporters more than anything.

any other country that I've seen. Each one of the reporters, I saw their nipples. It's a chest hair heavy country. Which makes me feel comfortable. But this man, he's haunted. He's very much like, I came here to destroy this story. We did not

we wanted to debunk this entirely. My crew is now scared. We've been inside of this scenario for the last couple, and it's like, it was really awesome. You really, it felt like I was watching Ghostwatch. Yeah, nice. I love Ghostwatch. But then, you know, there's a little bit.

But while the crew was obviously there to prove the hoax, they were unable to find any evidence of interference. They had seven cameras set up for constant surveillance, and while their footage was scant, they also couldn't catch anything to explain it. It was truly boring in the most paranormal sense of it. Yep, the way it always should be. Apparently, all they could capture was a baby bottle falling off a microwave and a bullet falling and bouncing off the furniture, which is hardly proof of the paranormal. But it is direct proof. Yeah.

But cameraman David Davidson noted that every time he went to change tapes or a battery, that was when the poltergeist threw something that would have been quite impressive if it was caught on film.

To further drive the point home, messages were left for the TV crew. Messages like, no cameras, no TV, and pig camera. Oh, yum. Yeah, camera pig sounds much better. Oh yeah, the camera pig is fun. Today, tonight's visit, however, was actually the first time anyone was actually hurt at 99 McMens. Apparently the poltergeist hated the camera crew.

One of the crew got hit in the head by a flying AA battery, but even though it hurt, it left no mark or bruise. So even when they tried being nasty, it still wasn't that bad. Yeah, it's just a AA. It wasn't like a C or a D. Yeah, D would be bad. They're not the fucking Philadelphia Eagles fans. They're not Santa Claus. Well, today, tonight's host said this upon leaving.

We rolled up Skeptics. We're not leaving Skeptics. We'd only been there for two hours and we'd realised that it was all on. I thought we'd come here and uncover an oaks or even dead an onslaught of flying scissors, stones, knives, broken glass and yes, three live bullets. Not once did any of us see even a suggestion that any of the five residents was trying to pull a Swifty.

That's very good, Marcus. Yeah, it was very good. Your Australian accent's very good. It's not bad. I mean, I should be working on it. By the end of the week, it'll be great. Yeah. We'll do it for the show. Yeah. Save it. I didn't.

It's warm up. Now, freelance journalist Max Anderson invited psychic Stephen Bishop to 90 McMinn's Drive. And when Bishop arrived, he started saying some very Ed and Lorraine Warren-like statements, like his energy was being disturbed and that this was the most extreme case he'd ever seen. The land is dead, he said. It's lost its soul. It's like, all right, it's fine.

Fine. It's Humpty Doo. Bishop then declared the house oppressive. He claimed to have detected that there was a residual gray slime here. And then he left. That was just the appetizer. I'm not into the Cereliac stuff here. It's the only food that I'm not particularly into. It's this like mush. It's like a green mush. That's the only thing I'm not into, but I like everything else I've had. Okay. Yeah. Good. You like food. We know. Okay.

After exhausting their paranormal bench, though, Today Tonight decided to try the scientific approach of bringing in a thermal imaging camera to film the objects the poltergeist had thrown. And this is where things get very interesting. The stones in particular were warm all over, which was a strange reading. See, when someone holds an object, it warms up where it's touched, but the heat will not cover the entire object, even if you hold something in your palm.

The way these objects were warmed all the way through, it was like they'd been put in a microwave. Furthermore, there were no thermal fingerprints on any of the thrown objects, meaning nobody had touched or held them just before the object flew. Unless they had socks on their hands.

But that doesn't explain why the whole object was warm all over. Yeah. They should work at a massage parlor on this coast. Oh, I mean, that would be incredible. Incredible. There's a career opportunity anywhere if you just look for it. I guess maybe you could have socks on your hands. No, but that's, that would require, to be honest, I think there'd be threats. Yeah, I think so.

Well, really, the only part that pointed towards a hoax was when one of the residents, Kirstie, was caught on camera rising up slightly as a white pot lid was thrown across the kitchen. Later, Kirstie did admit to faking that particular toss, just like the kids at Enfield admitted to faking a thing or two as well.

But the argument made in both cases was that they were all extremely bad at faking things because they were all caught immediately. And as far as everything else went, nobody could give a reasonable explanation. It's not that I don't think that people in the Outback are clever, but there's something about the family, if you watch them, that you're like, oh.

Yes, I could see them pulling a Swifty or two, but they are not the most...

It's just, it's sophisticated is the word. To come up with something on that long and that intent for so long and holding up for so long, eventually something's going to fall through. And I think that explains why she got caught doing something because she kept like seeing all this shit happen. And then you're like- She wants it on camera. Yeah, she wants it on camera. It's like, pop that thing, pop that thing.

Big flu. Yeah. Doesn't matter. I mean, that happens. That's the unfortunate thing that happens with paranormal stuff is that people want to be believed so badly and they want people to believe their stories or their theories so badly. They fake things thinking that this will help. It'll help. And they get caught every single fucking time. And.

And it just ends up setting back the entire movement like untold. I mean, it just it just it doesn't help. Don't ever believe. It's why people don't believe at all, which I do understand. But I also like something I completely utter 100 percent believe. I just think that it's a little bit more subtle now than haunted or not haunted. Yeah, it's not. It's not a briefcase full of Bigfoot guts. Yes, not yet.

Now, near the end of the first month, Tony Healy and Paul Cropper, the authors of our main source for this series, arrived at 90 McMinn's Drive hoping to experience some poltergeist activity. And they discovered that stones only flew when the married couple were together, Andrew and Kirstie.

For example, Andrew would take it a construction job where no activity took place. But just as soon as Kirstie showed up to work as a cook on the job site, stone started flying and every coffee mug vanished from the mess hall only to be discovered standing upright on the roof of the surrounding huts or on top of tall posts. That happened several times. That's super weird. Yeah, that's hard to do.

Kiersey and Andrew just laughed it off as a prank because their story was well known by this point, but the activity was taken more seriously when a knife disappeared and was found in a locked cold storage room stabbed into the hanging carcass of a pig. Unless you just wanted fucking pork belly. Yeah. It's

As far as Kirstie went, they said that she was polite, friendly, and quite good looking, but she rarely smiled or laughed. And according to Haley and Cropper, this is common amongst people who attract poltergeists. I think they're just going by this woman and Minnie Bowen. Yeah, I guess gothy people can sort of attract it. It's haunted. They are haunted. Literally haunted. Yeah, haunted people don't often giggle. Yeah.

They're scared. Now, the landlords of 90 McMinn's Drive threatened to throw everyone out because the house had been so trashed after the poltergeist activity escalated in early to mid-April.

The landlords filed for eviction, but the tenants defended themselves by saying they had no control over the poltergeist, so why should they be the ones thrown out? I get it. In the end, the magistrate decided that most of the damage to the house was superficial and could be easily repaired at the expense of the tenants and declared that there would therefore be no eviction.

Eventually, Healy and Cropper finally got their poltergeist show. One night, pebbles began falling from the ceiling, and while Healy and Cropper were overjoyed, Kirstie laughed wearily and said, Here we go again. With this, Healy and Cropper were convinced that this was not a hoax.

Simon Potter of the Northern Territory Skeptics Association, however, declared that it was indeed a hoax. This was his idea for how they pulled it off. He said that they were faking it by putting pebbles and other objects on a ceiling fan.

And when the fan was turned on, the objects gained enough speed, then would fly off and appear to fall from out of nowhere. And not fall that fast. Yes. They would kind of be on the... Oh, yeah, like a log. Yeah, it's possible. But this does not explain the thermal imaging or the fact that the objects were uniformly warm. Unless, of course...

Heated fan. The ceiling fan was heated. Yeah. But that doesn't make any sense. That's not anything. Why even have the fan at all? Exactly. You're just going to blow out air? What's the point of that? Set a fire.

An impartial journalist named Frank Robson, however, writing for the Sydney Herald Good Weekend magazine, declared the poltergeist legitimate in his adorably titled article, Humpty Boo. That's good. He noted that the pebbles fell at unnaturally slow speeds, made unnatural sounds when they landed, and did not bounce or move once they landed. That's the interesting part about it. They just

Boom. Right to the ground. That's weird. I'm looking at now pictures too because you can kind of see the words that were written are very childlike. These words are very interesting on the wall. But this is here, this one, when it just says, car. Car. Yeah. Car, skin, fire, tome. Car.

But that's the thing is that these objects moving very strangely, just falling straight to the ground and just hitting with a thump. This is common markers in poltergeist phenomena. I do remember some of the shit from Enfield. It is very similar. Enfield is the one that this really reminds me of. Both these and the story from last week. Yeah. Furthermore, a woman who worked with Robson recalled that while she was talking on the phone to Kirstie, she received several electric shocks while discussing the poltergeist.

This was fairly close to the thing that was described by the woman who talked to the haunted sex worker over the phone, where she would say, like, hey. Yeah, like weird shit would jump through the phone, which we all now know is the hitchhiker phenomenon. George Knapps talked about it. Many people have talked about how a lot of times if you do encounter something like this, you go home and then weird shit starts happening in your house. They don't know why.

Now, as far as where people landed on the entire event, some say that the residents of 90 men's drive did it for the money, but the only cash they ever made was a $400 appearance fee for today tonight. Yeah, it's,

again, no one ever makes money on this stuff. They don't. They don't. And there was like two guys, right? It was like Whitley Streber made actual legit money. Yeah. And the family from the Amityville house, they started him. They made money, but because they engineered the whole thing and Warren's helped, helped did work with them on that. Uh, but they really don't like it.

And I guess that's what it is. Watch the documentary. Watch the footage of them. Honestly, it's on YouTube. I'm saying to the listener, they're kind of like, okay, yeah, it's...

I don't know. It just feels weird watching them all kind of fool everyone. Like, I don't think they got it in them. Nope. Healy and Cropper, meanwhile, believe that the death of the resident's friend, Troy, was the incident that brought the poltergeist to their home. Oh, because he died screaming on fire, like literally covered in gasoline in his own car? Well, housemate Doug Murphy was very close to Troy.

Healy and Cropper, however, are reticent to declare Tony to be the ghost and instead suggest that it was Doug Murphy's psychic anguish that fueled the poltergeist, which is why the name Troy appeared until the residents told the poltergeist to stop.

The other ingredient in this so-called psychic stew, as Healy and Cropper put it, was the extreme anger of a former resident named Stavros Canarsis, who was evicted from 90 McMinn's Drive in 1993 after his building business failed.

It doesn't make that necessary.

does not necessarily make sense to me. Dude, it's fucking, it's Ghostbusters 2. You know what? You're right. It's bad vibes. It's bad vibes. It's like if you're in this, two people that are in a house that are angry all the time that are just painting the walls with fuck energy. Oh, sure. Not fuck energy, but fucked up energy. Yeah. And then someone, these other people come into the house with this extreme grief and it just sort of fucking, just something just goes pop.

And if you've ever been through, if you go through one of these where you have to kind of, you lose all of your things, I imagine it's very stressful. I like to curse every bank I go in. I mean, that's different. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course. Just walk in there and speak. I curse you. Good. Yes. Now in all, the Humpty Doo Poltergeist hung around for about 14 weeks. And a lot of people saw a lot of really weird shit.

But the strangest of all was seen by one of the residents' friends, a guy named Brett Stiles. See, around the halfway point, the residents would wake up to find a thick covering of pebbles on their cars. They noticed long, shallow troughs in their gravel driveway, as though pebbles had been vacuumed up by an object.

And as it went, their friend saw a small unidentified flying object above the house. Like as was seen with the large family a century earlier, it was spherical and black, but it had a two foot long stream of gravel trailing behind it. Very interesting. So it could very well be that there was not only an intelligence behind the poltergeist at Humpty Doo, but...

but some sort of mysterious technology as well. Or it's just something we don't understand about our connection to our, either like our own brains creating this type of things. Also this stuff appearing throughout all of history in different forms, you know, like idea of seeing a ghost with,

seeing a UFO with gravel behind it is to me the same equivalent as back in the day, seeing like a fairy or something like they've been talking about this. It's all very similar and it's extremely strange. And these, what I find interesting the most is the fact that all of these stories are so similar. And before these guys compiled all these stories, how in the living fuck would all of these people know in these desperate, these disparate parts of the,

country what these how their stories line up with each other i mean it's so interesting i think part of the head the thing that proves your thesis here is that like this story like the humpty doo poltergeist was obvious it was a nationwide story like it was a massive national story in the mid 90s and today the people who run humpty doo don't know anything about it

They're shutting us down. They don't want us to come. Well, they just don't know. I don't think they... I think they just don't know. They're like, please leave us alone. We live all the way in Humpty Doo to be forgotten. Yeah. Well, if you want to... Like, that's the thing. If you want to talk about something, talk about the fucking gigantic crocodile. Yeah, we talk about the crocodile. But listen, guys. If you want people to come to the crocodile, start with the ghost. Yep. Or... I've...

starting to think it's aliens. Well, I think that that's, we're really seeing that with the capital P. They can make things float and shit. Yes, capital P phenomenon does express itself in many different ways. Yeah, maybe the spaceship runs on rocks.

And then the rocks are the poo-poo from the spaceship. Now, you see, I feel like we've entered into an area that it's not as sophisticated. What I'm saying is, so, again, wizened, beyond words, international traveler. Wizened. International lover, Henry Zebrowski. I've really learned a lot. Yeah. And grown. And you have. Matured. As have we all. I still think it's alien poop.

Patreon.com slash last podcast on the left. And eddytoons.com. Yes. Get his merch. Get his merch. He'll UFO poop. He's coming out soon. He's selling UFO poop in little bags. Yeah, that's right. Like they do with the moose poop in Canada. Man, I remember one time I went to Hoover Dam with my mom and right at the register they were selling Hoover Dam rocks, three for ten bucks, and she bought them and then we went out in the parking lot and it was just filled with the rocks. Yeah.

Yeah, I was like when I got my Bigfoot cast. Also, I forgot to bring up, there is an extremely similar story in Tucson, Arizona that I was looking at too with the rocks, but we don't get a lot of that. So it doesn't matter. Is desert life? What? Desert? Desert. Same. Interesting. I don't know. Well, go down to the last podcast.

podcast.com. I think that by this point, we are still in Australia. I think we might have like one or two shows left. I think we might have like a Perth left. At the very least, we got Perth left. I want to see y'all in Perth. Yeah. I want to

party in Perth. Where the fuck do we party in Perth? Yeah, and I wanted to apologize to you in person for how much I've talked about how smelly you are over the years. You have mentioned that people in Perth were specifically smelly on the last tour, but I think, honestly, everybody had been around. I mean, New Zealand's not smelly. No, and it's also not Australia.

I was told that Perth is the Florida of Australia. That makes me very excited to go. Absolutely correct. It feels exactly like Florida. Fuck yes. Yeah, we're going to have fun. I can't wait. We better have fun. Sidestorieslpotl.gmail.com. What bar should we go to in Perth? Because I'd love to know where to hang out. Also, Sidestories, come into Chicago September 13th. Still got some tickets left. Come and check us out. Come check us out. At the Park West Theater. You're going to love it. And for all our shows in London, Reykjavik, fuck,

fucking Chicago. Chicago sold out actually. Yeah. Uh, New York city and Los Angeles. Uh, last podcast on the left.com is where you can buy tickets for all those shows. Uh, and check out all the streams, uh, twitch.tv slash LPN TV and follow us on Instagram and, uh,

TikTok at LP on the left. Bye-bye, everyone. Bye-bye. Goodbye. Hail Satan. Again. Hail rocks. Yeah, hey. It's a rock world. We're just living in it. I love rocks. I know you do. I hope to come home with rocks. We'll get stopped in customs.

I fucking brought human bones through before. Don't say it in the microphone. It's only bad if you bring it into Australia. If you leave with a rock, I think they're fine with it. Yeah, right? They got a lot. I think so. They got a lot of rocks. Always leave a rock. Yeah.

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