Unlicensed S2 E2: "Magnetic Fields"
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Welcome to Night Vale. It's brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever find yourself playing the budgeting game? Well, with the Name Your Price tool from Progressive, you can find options that fit your budget and potentially lower your bills. Try it at Progressive.com. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Not available in all states.

This is a message from sponsor Intuit TurboTax. Taxes was getting frustrated by your forms. Now, Taxes is uploading your forms with a snap and a TurboTax expert will do your taxes for you. One who's backed by the latest tech which cross-checks millions of data points for absolute accuracy, all of which makes it

easy for you to get the most money back guaranteed. Get an expert now on TurboTax.com. Only available with TurboTax Live Full Service. See guarantee details at TurboTax.com slash guarantees. This is the second episode of the second season of our LA Detective Show Unlicensed.

If you would like to hear the whole thing right now, you can do so with a free trial on Audible. And you should, because this season is great. We will only be putting one more episode on the Night Vale feed, and for the other nine episodes, you will have to listen on Audible. Okay, enjoy! People say that my It's Hocus Pocus persona is harsh, that I'm a troll.

But I'm just clear-eyed in a world that prefers to fog up windows before looking through them. Because there are two ways of knowing something. One of them is to examine evidence, make an argument, then come to a conclusion. The other way to know things is to come to a conclusion first, then to find people to agree with you. Can I just quote the Pacific Coast Paranormal Commission website?

Our expeditions are the most classically skeptical, scientifically rigorous paranormal investigations of ghosts, apparitions, and hauntings of anyone currently working today.

That's a pretty low bar, Shelby. If you're in it for the science, Shelby, why is the very next sentence? Remember, you can make a better case by using our reliable member tested spectral cameras, geomagnetometers, multifunctional EMV meters. And Shelby, even for you, this seems cynical.

Our new line for teens, ghost stick light strips specific to poltergeists, starting at $39.95. Look, is any of that stuff going to find Ouija Bird? I don't think so. Unlicensed. Episode 2. Magnetic Fields.

Even after they determine its location, an abandoned farm in Redlands, ghost hunting fans on TikTok who captured the eight seconds of Ouija Bird's last video analyze it on a dedicated Discord channel of the PCPC, the Pacific Coast Paranormal Commission. This is what they can see.

After dusk, Ouija Bird starts her stream, fingertips just leaving the camera. She double checks the lighting and settles into a spot in the middle ground where the composition of the shot is most favorable. What happens next is less clear. Even as people watch it 10, 20, 30 times, there is still much debate.

She clears her throat, and then her head turns, eyes suddenly wide like she's tracking someone or something approaching the camera. And then the livestream stops. The discussion that loops without end is: at that final moment, what emotion is she displaying? The argument for fear is not just persuasive , but exciting enough that it has many adherents.

And when the livestream ends, does the camera also jerk? As if someone other than Ouija Bird has stopped it? And where is she now? The discussions range from kidnappers who might ransom her, to rival ghost hunters looking for attention, to of course, ghosts themselves. This last suggestion, every time it arises, is shot down by its hocus bogus with a quick, "Except ghosts aren't real."

None of the theories so far can take into account what the PCPC found, not Ouija Bird, but the body of George Perez, age 73. An itinerant beekeeper, he had worked with farmers in the Southland and Central Coast for over 40 years. He was lying on his side, shot once in the back of the head, his body apparently roughed up by animals. The angle of the wound would seem to preclude suicide and no weapon was found.

There are reasons the gun might have disappeared, some of them not involving murder. There are multiple sets of footprints in the soil, some of them definitely fresh, but the ghost hunters looking for the missing girl left tracks themselves. During his life, George traveled from farm to farm, following the growing season so his bees could pollinate crops.

A loner, as beekeepers tend to be, but also a misanthrope, he trusted bees over people. And yet, he managed to be the cranky, disappointed friend many people in Redlands grudgingly loved. So his death draws a small crowd. Not just ghost hunters who went looking for a lost woman and instead found the kind of vision that will return to them throughout their lives as they fail to go to sleep, but also local farmers.

Arnie Stubbs, whose family has farmed their few acres of citrus in this area forever, talks quietly to Donna and Gabrielle, who moved here from Echo Park to raise goats. They catch each other up on how George was identified – he had his driver's license on him, turns out – and speculate on how the ghost influencer's disappearance might be connected. Was she a witness to his death?

Two paramedics walk across the field toward the coroner's van with a stretcher between them. All three of the farmers shudder, and then Donna nods toward the corner of the field where a slender man in plaid flannel is standing alone, watching as the paramedics pass by. "Poor Jamie," she says, and the rest of them know what she means.

Molly drives us to the farm in Redlands. I need to watch the PCPC's archived livestream of the crime scene. There's not much that's concrete. Before the police arrived, the ghost hunters walked back and forth in the field taking videos and photos, definitely on the lookout for ghosts.

but also looking for signs of Bertie, and otherwise no doubt screwing up evidence. The chat frantically tries to tie the supernatural in: hauntings, apparitions, suggestions of trigger objects that might be placed near where Bertie was last seen to better capture a ghost's attention. I read aloud to Molly a counterpoint from its hocus-pocus.

It's nothing paranormal. It's never paranormal. This is faked. Ouija Bird is just doing this for attention. Man, what a troll this guy is. Molly asks why I'm looking at the feed.

It's because if there was a murder, maybe the murderer would say something interesting in the chat. Maybe someone from Ghost Talk has a grudge, wants some attention. Also, I'm in a Reddit thread right now that... Ghost hunters. No.

It's for people defending themselves in court. There's a really helpful guy in there who recommended this book called Self-Defense in California Criminal Law. And I'm trying to get it from his website, but it keeps crashing. Lou! Oh, wait. Self-defense is different than defending yourself. Whoops. Don't worry, I'll figure it out.

Molly's not convinced. But anyway, we're at the farm. We park just past the other vehicles, a single TV truck, the paramedics, the coroner van, which is just now pulling away. The cops aren't looking for evidence anymore. Instead, they're deep in conversation with two people, and it takes me a minute to process where I recognize them from.

It's kind of exciting to see them in person. It's Shelby Haneda and Benjamin Dumain from the PCPC. I try to explain to Molly why I think they're so interesting. Shelby, the founder, is an aviation engineer, and she designed the ghost hunting equipment they use. And the shortish guy with the belly is Benjamin, the social media manager. He's smart, but he leans into drama. I tell Molly it's

"Great, the field didn't attract a ghost mob yet." And I explain, "That's what they call spectators who come to a haunted site." But she's not exactly paying attention.

Just at the edge of the field, there's a man in his 30s, dad hat, plaid shirt, Ben Davis pants, and he hasn't looked left or right since we arrived. He's just gripping one of the posts by the road with both hands, staring at the scene. I leave Lou and approach the man. He tells me his name is Jamie.

I ask him if he knows whose body was found. He nods, like it's an effort. He says it was his friend, a man named George Perez. George had been staying with Jamie for about a year, ever since George got sick. A few evenings ago, George left the house in the middle of the night to meet someone.

And now, here we all are. I ask if he means by any chance that George went out four nights ago. He seems to count in his head and nods and asks why. Ouija Bird's strange livestream and disappearance was also four nights ago. This is all very weird. Any chance that this is a coincidence has drifted away like morning vapor.

A little too intense about it, I ask him if he knows who George went to meet. And he's quiet. I realize his chin is shaking because he's holding back tears.

Rural cops turn out to have a lot of time on their hands, so it takes a while for them to finish talking to Shelby and Benjamin. But when those two walk my way, I introduce myself and say they don't even have to say who they are. We've all been on Discord together already, and I'm impressed with their work. I'm careful not to use the word "fan" because that's creepy.

I ask if they have any updates on Ouija Bird. Shelby says, "Birdie. Her real name is Birdie." And the cops told them it's irrelevant. So what if Birdie started a livestream and then turned the livestream off? That's not a crime. They don't see a connection with the body. And they certainly don't look excited to add the extra work of tracking down a potential witness.

I ask why the cops were talking to them, and Benjamin interrupts her to say they weren't talking, they were harassing them. Take it elsewhere, they said, "There's a pause while they're both looking at the field, and I ask if it's okay if I investigate with them." My voice wasn't quite loud enough, but I don't want to ask again.

Finally, Shelby pulls a round canister out of her backpack and shrugs. She says we can't investigate until she fixes a delicate piece of ghost hunting equipment she calls the ELMO, a backronym for electromagnetic locator modular outfit, apparently. I tell Jamie I'm sorry about his friend dying. He asks who I am, and I give the truth.

I'm a detective. He brightens a bit and looks at me differently.

He says he thought he talked to all the police detectives already, and I say, "No, I'm not a police detective." He's excited when he asks why private detectives are here so fast, and I have to backtrack. I'm not a private detective either, more of a concerned citizen who occasionally gets paid for being nosy. And as I'm saying it, I realize how dumb this all sounds. I say I

Let's say I'm not here about any investigation. I'm here because my boss is obsessed with this thing, ghost talk. There was this girl who disappeared here, maybe suspiciously, maybe to just get attention. And pretty much every fact out of my mouth is making him pull his head a little further back, like he's trying to see me from farther and farther away.

Finally, I say that Lou and I do solve crimes together. Often, I add, even if I quietly think it's not that often. But Lou and I don't give up. We'll figure out the solution. Jamie is confused, but also I can see he's slightly hopeful. Here's an investigator interested in his friend's death.

The cops didn't ask enough questions, he says. He thought they'd have more questions. He thought there'd be forensic equipment and lab work and digital recreations of the crime. He thought the cops would do anything at all. He asks if he can help us out. Shelby and Benjamin are crouching down in a flat patch of dirt to fix the Elmo.

It's a black length of PVC pipe with an antenna and lights on it. And it's supposed to measure electromagnetic radiation. Or it does when it works properly.

When I first saw one of these in a tic-tac, I had to look them up. If a body that conducts electricity goes through the static electromagnetic field radiating from the antenna, it triggers the lights. And it's geared for distance. One light for ten meters away, all the way to five lights for... You've got a ghost on you.

I ask, "Does it work?" She says, "Well, it's never gone off during an investigation when I thought there wasn't a ghost." She adds that you can get false positives when you don't account for handheld devices. Cell phones are the worst. The Elmo goes nuts if there are a bunch of phones in the same space.

So she engineered a homemade Faraday cage to block interference, and the glue has... But then she stops explaining and glares at Benjamin. He's supposed to be helping, but instead he's dreaming her fixing it. "What?" he says. "People want to see how you do it. Competence porn is your brand." Shelby says to me, "He's going to add Haunted Mansion sound effects and scary text. Watch him."

They argue back and forth, sounding so much like siblings that I wonder about their different last names until Shelby ends the conversation when she says, "Bertie doesn't do any of that shit."

In the quiet, I ask if they have any clue where Bertie went. They don't. Benjamin is peeved. He says, as tight as he is with Bertie, she should have told them she was coming to Redlands. We basically mentored her, he says, but Shelby shakes her head.

The PCPC's whole connection is that Bertie bought some equipment from them and she promoted it on her feed. She messaged Shelby a few times to say how much she admires her. Benjamin says, she messaged me once too, which falls flat. We both look at him until Shelby says she doesn't know much more about Bertie except that she's a good skeptic.

Shelby is worried as hell about what happened to her. I ask if she knows why Bertie chose this farm. Shelby just points back to what Bertie said in her video. Some workers died here a long time ago, apparently.

They have not made a lot of progress with the fix. When I see Molly walking up with a local, I'm guessing, flannel-wearing, pretty if you're into that, in a glance, I'd say a helpful neighbor, a good friend, that kind of thing.

I introduce Jamie to Lou. She asks him whose farm this is. It looks abandoned. Jamie says he's always just heard it called the Sailor Farm. Lou asks if he means it belongs to a family named Sailor or Sailor likes sailing on the Mayflower. He considers it and says he never thought about it, but maybe there was a Sailor family at some point.

And Lou is now in one of her modes. She peppers him with questions. Who is he? How long has he lived here? How far away is his house? Does he know the deceased? And I clear my throat. I say, "Maybe all that can wait?" Jamie has lost his friend. Also, no one is paying us to do this.

Jamie seems fine with being asked things, but also being quiet. He's been laconic so far, maybe a little dazed, or maybe he just takes things slowly. He says all the questioning is good for him. He'd like to help find out what happened to George. And the girl you're looking for, he adds.

Lou says Birdie chose this place for a reason. She thinks that while she's working with the PCPC crew, I should find out its history. Jamie knows where the courthouse is. Lou says he and I should go there to look through property records.

Now, I'm not sure about that idea. I'm efficient on my own, but Jamie is happy to show me the way. He says I can follow his truck, and he turns on his heel and is too far gone down the pathway for me to object.

Before I return to Shelby and Benjamin, I put my phone in the car so it won't interfere with their investigation. Apparently, their Elmo is now working. They are arguing about how to respond to Bertie's disappearance. Shelby is worried and wants to ask their members for more help.

Benjamin thinks Bertie is fine and would, like him, want the PCPC to tease and promote this. He says the whole situation is made to go viral and it's up to them to get something great out there first. Shelby sighs, saying that just increases the risk of pareidolia. And when he looks blank...

I say, it's about how the brain finds patterns in random data. It's a phenomenon I'm very familiar with. Oh, Benjamin says, pareidolia. This is the first time Shelby really seems to notice me.

She grabs the Elmo and starts to walk with it. I ask if she's ever seen a ghost, and she says there's a lot of maybe out there that the brain is begging to be a yes.

She says her grandmother from Hokkaido seriously believed in fairies and ghosts, and she always wanted to believe herself. But since she got into the sciences for a living, she remains cautious about what proof means. Benjamin over there, she says, he's impatient with the science side. He's a believe first, promote second, question maybe later type.

Benjamin actually agrees with this, but adds, "Ask Shelby how she bought her ionic. It wasn't because her expensive light strips and detecting equipment were bought by skeptics.

Shelby has her device in its cage, and she's walking carefully with it extended from her body like it's a lantern. Her phone is measuring the number of feet traveled, and she has an app open with a graph on it that's flatlined. She's found nothing so far.

I say, "I know she's measuring electromagnetic radiation, but why? What does that have to do with anything?" She says, "Sometimes in haunted areas, there are places where EMR travels in ways that don't fit scientific explanations."

Does that mean ghosts are made of EMR? Or they travel on an EMR frequency? Or what? Shelby doesn't know. No one does. I have a lot of questions about this. Shelby keeps walking and Benjamin keeps filming her.

I think about all the people I know who try just to get through their days to make things that make no sense, make sense. I ask Shelby if sometimes she feels like she's applying logic to something that doesn't work logically. She chuckles and says, "Every day."

The courthouse looks like a 1950s vet clinic that overshot its budget on one of those sculptural front walls that tries to make cinder blocks look like lacework. Jamie is waiting by his truck in the parking lot when I pull up. It's got dents in the tailgate and a slightly crooked Eat More Kale bumper sticker.

He holds the door open for me. It's not hard to navigate here, he says, but it can be tricky. For instance, he says, the land records are in the same office as where he got his marriage license, which is the same office where he filed his divorce petition. The clerk, Ellen, is sitting at a desk covered in photos of her three teenage sons. She points to a desktop computer on the counter and says, Have at it.

The computer looks like the one I used in high school. I almost wonder if it knows how to connect to the internet. We enter the address and pull up nothing. Ellen tells us that's not unusual. "Budget cuts and digitizing records do not play nicely together," she says. She asks what we're looking for, and Jamie says the Sailor Place. And she nods, asks if that's the place the cops were at this morning.

Jamie has to say his friend died there, and the clerk says she's sorry about that, and directs us to the land-tracked records. These are huge books the size of newspapers with maps inside. Jamie is suddenly focused. I can tell the quest to find information that might help is good for him right now. He doesn't say much at first. Even when I ask, his answers are quick.

He farms chicken and eggs, rotates in a few crops with the seasons, wanted to stable horses at first, but his ex was allergic, so compromise. He has a dog named Edgar the Peaceful. I ask why he chose that name, and he says the dog kind of chose it himself. I can't tell if he's being funny or sort of serious, and that makes it even more funny.

I ask him if his own place is in the land tract records, and he says "probably," but he's never looked. Then I ask if it's a farm, or a ranch, or a spread, and he chuckles at how I say "spread" and asks if they have spreads where I'm from. I say "probably," but I've never looked. We spend the next few minutes not looking at each other.

Then we find something weird. More like it's what we don't find that's weird. We keep digging backward and the sailor farm land is just unregistered going back as far as the records go. In map after map, the address is literally skipped over as if it doesn't exist.

Every land survey and deed record back to when they were handwritten with quills, I guess, skips the property. It's like someone had it erased. But who? We go back to the computer, and then the clerk digs out old local county directories, and no matter how many ways we think of spelling it, there's no Saylor family in Redlands for the last 100 years, at least.

Someone is hiding something about that farm. And why did George Perez die there? And where is Bertie? The sun is starting to hit an angle so that the weeds in the field are casting shadows. Shelby is still walking slowly, making an arc with the device in front of her. Every once in a while, Benjamin asks if it's time to look for audio. He...

has something Shelby designed that can measure EVP, electronic voice phenomena. But Shelby keeps shaking her head. Benjamin says, but what if Bertie is, like, trapped in another dimension and she can only... And then, the way Shelby looks at him, he doesn't bother finishing his sentence.

I ask how they met Birdie. She first reached out to the commission while writing a paper on scientific approaches to ghosts in high school. She bought some expensive equipment and immediately shot such gripping videos that sales of the equipment almost tripled.

Most ghost videos, Shelby says, look like they were shot by a 90s camcorder tied to a dog. When Birdie does them, they're field investigations. I can vouch for that. I ask about It's Hocus Pocus, the troll who's always, "Um, actuallying," in the comments of Birdie's videos. Could this person have been involved in her disappearance?

Shelby and Benjamin exchange glances. They've wondered the same thing. It's hocus-pocus is an enigma wrapped in a riddle, wrapped in malice. He's always been critical in the comments about investigations, and he's hypercritical and almost possessive about Birdie's videos.

Benjamin says he's the kind of guy who, when he types, good luck, you feel like he's saying you'll need it. Then Shelby and Benjamin agree it's time to see what their devices can tell them about the mysteries of this farm. There are two ways of knowing something, and they are on display in simultaneous moments playing out a few miles from each other in Redlands.

At the abandoned farm, Lou watches the ghost hunters as each brings out a separate meter. Benjamin takes the Elmo. Shelby has a smaller, more docile-looking monitor with dials that measure magnetic, electric, and radio frequencies. They walk together, sweeping their devices around and double-checking each other's work as they cross the field. They narrate their process for their cameras. They are finding nothing unusual.

In other words, nothing is lighting up or beeping. No dials are sweeping incomprehensibly. So it's unclear if either device is actually working. Benjamin taps on his with his index finger, and Shelby smacks hers twice with the heel of her hand. And lights seem to spray outward like the monitor is wincing in pain. But still, there's nothing.

Lou walks behind them, both wanting to ask more questions and to give them quiet in which to work. Finally, Shelby explains there's always one big question around Ghost that she hopes a field investigation answers. She always discounts hauntings or apparitions at places like abandoned quarries or gothic houses that are generally spooky. And she makes the quotes as she says it.

Those places are never really haunted. She thinks legitimate sightings happen in certain places because there's unresolved trauma associated with them. Seminaries, say. Group homes. Plantations. Shame and secrets and injustice seem to be what make ghosts. Bertie must have known that some trauma happened here, something involving those farm workers who died. But how did she know? And what exactly happened?

And the big question is, if there was a ghost, why did this ghost need to be here? And so, here's one way of knowing things. Looking for evidence to reach a conclusion. Simultaneously, Molly and Jamie are having a cup of coffee outside the courthouse. Jamie surprised her by letting Edgar the Peaceful out of the cab of his truck to join them. And over coffee...

While Molly scratches Edgar's forehead, Jamie is explaining how he misses his friend, George. Since he wasn't able to work after getting sick, George gave up his apiary and stopped traveling. Jamie took him in and gave him a warm bed and good meals, and after he lost his appetite, good conversation. And when the conversation started going one direction, a hand to hold on to.

He keeps saying that if he'd known what was going to happen, he would have stopped George from leaving that night. He would have scolded him. George was an old man. He couldn't just pretend to be independent. Not anymore. Not without worrying people. And here, days later, the worst has happened. He apologizes for dumping on Molly and then asks if she has anything terrible she wants to share. And she laughs and says if he gives her enough time, probably. Sure.

So this is the other way of knowing things. Two people have concluded that they understand each other a little bit, and now they're looking for all the signs that will confirm that feeling. It's a different kind of mystery than ghosts, but not that different. The ghost hunters walk across fields, looking for signals. There is plenty to find. A dead man, a missing girl, a mysterious farm with a hidden history.

There are signals of trauma, both distant and new, but nothing that an EVP machine can detect. Shelby looks up, disappointed, and announces, "I don't think there's anything here."

Hey, Jeffrey Cranor here. Are you horror movie averse like me? You kind of want to know what happens, or you want to figure out which horror films could be right for you? Well, my friend Cecil Baldwin loves horror movies, and he's helping me love them as well, one film at a time, in a random order. Maybe he can help you too. Listen to our weekly podcast, Random Number Generator Horror Podcast Number 9, wherever you get podcasts. Just search Random Horror 9, and you'll find it. Oh, and hey...

Boo.