Hey, everybody, Steve here. As we recently announced, we are no longer producing new episodes of the podcast, but we did have content that we had recorded that we had not put into the regular feed for everybody to hear, and we wanted to share that with you, of course. So what you're hearing here is one of those episodes of Down the Rabbit Hole that hadn't gone out into the regular feed and had only previously been available through
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don't know the answer to I don't know. Hey, guys, Welcome to a very special episode of Thinking Sideways a k a. Down the rabbit Hole with thinking Side figured up by that awesome theme song. Yeah, I always forget, you know, we don't have the theme the studio, so I always forget that there's some side was kind of deliation there. So it's always writing in the back of my brain because I really liked that constantly running in your head. It really is. It's it's why I'm like,
it's a good one. It's one of our special ones on one of the runner ups in our contest. Yeah. So today we're gonna talk about mystery. Actually, are going to talk about a mystery. Yeah, it's super creepy. Yeah, this mystery was suggested by somebody named Krista a very long time ago. Thanks Christa. Basically, we're going to talk about the story of some missing hippies. Yeah, because everybody loves when the hippies are missing. We've been happy that
they've been missing for decades. But just a quick brief little mention here if you didn't notice, we marked this episode explicit because we're going to read some journal entries and it has some foul language and I know a lot of you have been waiting to hear us swear a lot, so congratulations. But if you have little ears and you don't want them exposed to that kind of language, just you know. We're going to start with the story.
Oh that's crazy, okay. Unnamed date of August nineteen seventy one, a group of what is always described as hippies decided to set up camp at Stonehenge. Yes, this story involves Stonehenge. Wait, I can ask which Stonehenge it is. Is it the big one or is it a little one from Spinal Tap, the one that was in danger of being crushed by dwarves? The big one. It's also not the one that we have up here in Washington. Well, that's not the real
thing Stonehenge. It's not very good replica. Frankly, it's not anyway. Sorry, let's get totally off topic already. It's fine. Listen. Every story is okay to be diverted towards Spinal Tap for a moment. I agree. I personally think that's fine. Yeah, this was before the monument was protected from the public. It used to be open to the public. But you may or may not know, believe it or not, People just walk up camp. Yeah, take a crap do whatever they want to ship. It's probably why it's in the
state that it is. Probably also, or as Joe always kind of makes joke at or made note of in every single spot he possibly could have in my script, that maybe this was just when the public was not yet protected from Stonehenge dangerous place. Those big stones could have fallen on anybody at any time. That is an insurance has well, there's a lot of mystical force that's kind of focused in Stonehenge too well, so actually that
that plays into our story. The reason that this group of hippies quote unquote was going to Stonehenge is because they wanted to have a really big party. And you know, Stonehenge is kind of or what at least was kind of out there. But they also wanted to well it's in between two highways, so it's pretty, but it was more out there. They also wanted to absorb the spiritual vibrations that surround this mystical monuments. A lot of that stuff going on there. They arrived at about eight p m.
And they pitched their tents and got to partying right on. Yes, I was just say, wait, how do we know all these details? Where does it where? Does this this record come from officially, just based on what I know is going to come in later in the start a forensic examination of the site. Okay. Now, actually there are some journal entries and on sent letters that existed at the site. Okay, so that's how they know that may decide they were found very close by, though there's no real times mentioned
in the letters and journal entries. But just maybe don't ask that question at all, Okay, I'll just let's just my head and continue, let's get buying. Well it might it might be too that they everybody just assumed they were hippies and they were going to party and do drugs and have one X, you know. But yeah, well I just all I will say is that I'm asking for a certain level of suspension of disbelief for Okay,
belief suspended. Great. So with that belief suspended, about a p M. The group pitched their tent no disbelief, a suspension of dispose. Around one fifty am, the partying was still going on, but then at about two a sudden flash of lightning rains down and a storm just let's loose. Yeah, apparently on that you know that it rolls in kind of quick there. Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's out on the well, I mean, Britain's in Ireland and storms blowing off the
ocean all the time, and they're actually pretty quick. Yeah yeah. The group, seemingly relatively undeterred by the storm, decides to take the party to their tents. The storm is reported to have been a pretty strong lightning storm. So there's just lightning striking every you know, the rocks around them, on the ground everywhere. Yeah, it's like Thor is just really mad and throwing lots of stuff at them. I've always presumed that was when Thor was drunk and just
dropping the hammer because you're so hammered. Yeah, that's that's why. Yeah, well was it a Fantasia one episode part where one of the gods had like all the lightning and it was just dropping from behind him. Since i've seen it, anyways, that's what I think was happening. He just dropped the armful of lightning. Reports are that eventually the whole area was bathed in uh eerie kind of blue light, perhaps
from the lightning, perhaps from something else. This report comes from a police officer who happened to be on patrol at two o'clock in the morning suspension of disbelief, and it's corroborated by a farmer who was for some reason out at two o'clock in the market, the midnight mushroom suspension of disbelief. Both men said that the light was so blinding that they had to avert their eyes. The blue light was eventually accompanied by quote unquote a blood
curdling scream or many blood curdling screams. Both men reacted to this whole thing by thinking, Oh, I'll just run towards that blue light were from. I can if I was standing there, and I would say to the cup, well, I ain't going over there. I don't know how what they how they were in relation to each other, A couple of miles or you know, they must have been like a couple of no, I mean to each other. Yeah,
where they're standing next to each other. YEA, no idea about that, but yeah, maybe maybe they went running towards the tents to see if people needed help. They both arrived, though, like I said, I don't really know how long it took either of them to arrive. If they arrived at the same time, totally different times possible, but they discovered either together or apart or whatever, that the tents had
been totally obliterated and the group was entirely gone. The men investigated and did discover that some journals and notes had been left behind, scattered kind of around the space, immediately held down by rocks, I guess, or you know, stuck on rocks or whatever. And though the tents and all the other belongings had been obliterated, for some reason, these journals survived. The only thing that was left in
the tents were the tent pegs. Smoldering tents. Yeah, they were there, kind of like, you know, burnt, but yeah, there were some tent pegs left. The first journal entry was dated July tenth, nineteen one, and basically it was just talking about how a couple of the men of the group it was one of hippies, was one of the guys male missing hippies. One of them, Um, it was his journal. That would be the mm H, missing
male hippie. Yes, but yeah kind of yeah. Anyway, the first general entry talks about how the guys went out and basically just decided that they thought it would be fun to go camp at the Big Rock Place in England, which was Stumbhenge. I Like, I don't even know the name of it. That's how dumb those hippies were. Yeah, they decided that they would invite their girlfriends and then m f H and then maybe some of their other friends, but they weren't sure if the law enforcement would be
too close. The man man basically. The next one was dated July eleven of the same year. They basically just talked about, you know, talking to people about wanting to take this trip. It sounds like they were kind of on the American side of the pond here. Yeah, maybe
talked about crossing the pond. Yeah, that's they do. They This one just briefly mentioned that one of the girls, whose name is Wilma, said that she didn't really want to go because she had had a dream of a circle of rocks and God's hand striking or something like that, so she didn't really want to go. And I think this is the reason that this is often presented is to kind of set up that Wilma was reportedly maybe
a little psychic about this whole thing. Well, Wilma's been drinking a lot since Fred had died, though, because they were they were not trusting her spiritual or psychic abilities quite so much. Next entry is August seventeen, which I
believe is the day before the incident happened. I believe the incident happened on August eighteen, though it's never actually explicitly dated that it was August eighteen, but just for the dates of the journal entrees and letters and things like that, they are apparently out at somebody's farm doing something in England, and it sounds like Wilma still not really into the idea of going to Stonehenge, and come to think of it, it's possible that the farmer that
was out was the guy whose farm they were working on the day before that was Mr Jacobson, So I guess it's possible. I don't really know. I don't really know anything about this. They talked about working at Jacobson's farm, they did, yeah, so it's possible that he heard the lightning and knew they were going to be out there and came out at two o'clock in the morning, and that's why he was out there. I don't really know anyway.
The next journal entry was the final journal entry, and it was on August eighteen, basically just kind of talking about setting up camp, although it doesn't I don't know why. If you were partying and all that stuff, you would really uh be writing journals. But we've all been camping, though, and there's a time when you get your camp set up and your friends are still thinking around to get their set up, and you've got time on your hands. Yeah,
and so you'll sit I've done. I think we've all been set and said, well, I'll just read for a couple of minutes or something. But if you are a journal or you'd sit down and write in your journal, I only this passage would have taken about five or ten minutes to write. Even though this ding dong apparently his hand cramps up after so little right now, Yeah, he does say, might as well, Julius, Julia is calling me to help, might as well because I'm getting to
just get it's getting bored just writing. My hands cramping up. Well, then there's three letters, and will I guess go ahead and read these three letters. By the way, I do want to just mention that the the I mean, we've summarized this, but there's a lot of talk of pot there's a lot of talk of getting it on, you know, typical hippie vernacular stuff that is in here. So it very it's fits. It's very stiff stereotypical, is what I
want to say, supposed journal entries. Yeah, I will. I'll read the first letter and then you guys can each paper rock scissors over who wants to be Wilma. The first letters from Julia, who was you know, the one who was calling the journal or says quote, the guys brought pot Can you believe that? I thought we'd just take a trip down to see the place and have a nice camping trip, but no, they had to go bring that stinky ass grass ship here. Men just don't
know the first thing about manners. This chick calls yourself a hippie. Yeah, really, well she doesn't. Everybody else calls them a group of hippies. Listen, there's always group of hippies that has one square among them. Always happens. So sorry, I should have mentioned. All three of these letters are dated August, even the same day. There are certainly a letter writing busch, weren't they. I guess I don't know.
Convenient for a story. Yeah, and I don't know who these letters were being written to or anything like that, but there you go. So the next one was from a guy named Lucas, and you guys can just do Lucas. You know what I mean. Lucas, you want to be will I don't care, all right, I'll be I'll be Lucas. That's fine, Daniel and okay. So August nine, seventy one from Lucas, Daniel and I are smoking it up. It's times like this when us five are together, away from
our families in the city. That's smoking relaxes you the most and makes you think maybe I'll quit my job at the auto shop. When I get back. Julia is fuming, smoke out of her ears that we brought the stuff, but I don't mind. Almost every time she comes around, she takes a drag, makes her loose, if you know what I mean. Wilma huddles in front of the tent, growing nervouser by the minute. She's swearing something bad's gonna happen,
that we're gonna die, or some other dark ship. I wouldn't believe her lately, but she ain't been drinking for a couple of weeks. If she don't brighten up soon, I swear I'll push her out myself. Push her at one with that. I don't know, ye, I don't even know what push her out me, Probably maybe push her out in front of a train or a truck that I like to well. Wellness, yeah, wellness, the psychic one. I'm gonna do it my Wilma voice. Right, it's raining.
I knew they'd be rain. Okay, Actually, please continue to use your voice. There's always rain when the blue glow comes. The blue glow comes for me every night, but only when I'm not drunk. They took my paw straight into the sky like nothing. He told me about them before that, that they don't come after you if you're too drunk to see your own hands. Okay, so that's why she
was drinking this past few weeks. I haven't been drinking, and I've been having my future dreams again, but they haven't come for me yet, not since the others started talking about coming to Stone Hedge. She very scared of the lightning, always has been. But that's not what you should be scared about. I think the lightning is closed the tree and the rocks too. I think the rocks are there's the things rocks. They're glowing brighter than the lightning.
If someone find it's this out to this guy for sack and placed down and the rest and this is all allows eligible after that, presumably because of the blinding light or something. So she was writing her last final letter in the middle of the lightning under a lightning Well, then we should have been We really missed an opportunity, devon. We could have been in the background going some four lot and make thunder noises. You're right, we should have been.
Right anyway, we're planning our parts. Sorry it is sorry everyone, that's for this last letter again. You know, I think it's meant to be have been composed during the storm, but I'm again I'm not totally sure. That's an odd thing to do in the middle of a lightning storm. Yeah it is. Yeah, Yeah, that's our story, thank god. So yeah, they So they all disappeared, and they left some letters in journal entries behind, but that's it. No trace. I guess we've got some names, um, but other than that,
I don't know they were where they're from. That's true. So you guys to talk about theories about what this could have been, let's do it. Let's talk about a few theories. Sure, okay, but before we get into theories. Let's take a quick break. Now that we're in this wonderful ad break, I think I want to tell you what this story makes me think of. It makes me think of feet, because I think that these people should have beat feet at the first sign of that storm.
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talk about some hippies. So the first area would clearly be aliens. This was an alien abduction human harvesting. She even wrote in her letter about the things that come down from the sky took her dad and stuff. I know, I think they just took him. I think they probed him. I mean maybe, but all we know is they took they took him, they took his dignity, they took him away, but it doesn't really matter. Took him straight into the
sky like nothing. And you know, they're camping at Stonehenge, which is pretty much always referred to as kind of an alien ancient alien technology spot. They can see it from the from the from more of it the landing doctor anyway, So that would be our first theory. I think it's a pretty good one, blue Light. But you guys don't like the theory ones. I mean, it makes of all of the stuff that we have except for one.
It makes the most sense, fair enough, It actually does, because let's be honest, for me to triangle is goofy, well the Stonehenge to triangle, yeah, not a triangle for me to call THEE and the I mean that is the next theory, but we don't really need to talk. Think we know. Yeah, uh next one, Joe added, I think, well, oh yeah, spontaneous human combustion yeah, or spontaneous tent combustion. Yeah,
that too. Spontaneous all this stuff combusting journals, Yeah, well those probably got blown away by the wind before they got you know, you know, well that's yeah, it is. Uh so this one is like you know what I mean, I mean, actually, usually spontaneous human combustion, which apparently does seem to happen occasionally, it's not exactly spontaneous. Usually there's a spark of something that lights you on fire. But if you're a certain level of fatness. Apparently you'll burn
like a candle. So it does happen. But I don't know if these guys were you know, they're hippies. They were scrowning, probably probably undernerished, Yeah, probably probably not good candidates for spontaneous human combustion. Could have been a murder. It could have been actually a murder of body wirling screams and the bodies were taken away and the tents set on fire. What if they're murdered by the cliche
that was their existence? Uh? Well, you know that it could be that there was somebody there's somebody out there kind of fancies himself the guardian of stone Age and felt that these guys were disrespecting the sacred spot. That's true, men in long robes with voluminous with big hoods on I can't say that. Yeah, yeah, okay, And we have one more theory. But before we talk about that theory,
do you guys have any other theories? Well, somebody here wrote that there was the farmer was actually a former Nazi scientist. I don't know. That's kind of funny, But the Nazis did not actually have a death ray that you know, so it obviously could not have been harvesting Stonehenge. It could have been Tesla from the grave. It could have been Tesla, the space coope Tesla, or the scientist test, Scientist test with his death ray. Remember, yeah, I totally
remember his death ray. Yea. Even that this is quite a while after World War Two, I could imagine the Nazi scientist who was working on it back in the third right days and managed to escape or be transported to the West after the war, and which happened to a lot of scientists, and he was just tinkering in his basement with his death ray over the years and eventually had a prototype built and decided, hey, there's some sticky old hippies. Nobody's going to miss Semifi vaporize him.
So he went out and tested it. Um. So, if I have to summarize that theory right there, yeah, that's utter bullshit. I would say that's uh. I would say it's unsubstantiated bullshit. Yea perfectly plausible. Last theory is actually the truth. And I'm sorry, oh no, we solve the mystery. We are going to solve the mystery. It's actually that this is an urban legend and the basis of which is based on a TV show called qua quater Mass. Yeah, professor,
a British professor named Quatermass. Yeah, this was like a lead into one of these was abduction people being harvested TV show thing. Yeah, I think at this particular point in time, I understanding. I never saw the show, but my understanding is at this time instead of setting in the near future, and all the hippies joined this cult and they call themselves planet People, and they gather at prehistoric sites hoping, hoping to be essentially abducted by aliens
and transported to another better planet than our own. And so that's we are being abducted, and so in the food Yeah, well that's it. Spoilers seventy nine. I think it's thirty years later. Yeah, it's not too soon. Yeah, we've seen that happ and all that stuff. Um but yeah, sorry, sorry everyone, everybody liked the story, but this is totally from the first episode of that series. What was when this happened? So yeah, but it's a fun little story,
and it is it is reverberating around the internet. It's it's certainly cut and pasted in a lot of places. It's all copy pasted. Yeah, pretty much believe. Yeah, I except for the journal entries, I rarely found it anywhere that it was told in anything but the same four paragraphs. Yeah. Yeah, I think that actually the Devin Harris has actually performed a valuable service for you all and and got it together every bit of information there is about this particular story.
Generally when you see it, you don't see like you don't see quotations from the letters of the journal entries for example. Yeah, I mean maybe I'll post it on a Reddit or something like that. Yeah, yeah, put it out there. Well it, but yeah, I guess that's it. Sorry, guys, thank you, don't be sorry. You sel the mystery. So good detective work. Thank you. Yeah, good job. You know, as you know probably this is str premium content, and so we just want to thank you guys for subscribing
to us on Stitcher premium. It really really supports the show. We really appreciate it. Yeah. So, I guess with all of that having been said, we will see you next time I'm down the rabbit hole next month, and we'll probably before then because we've got our other regularly. You'll see us regular but this is special. Wait, wait, guys, before we end. We're kind of missing an opportunity here. We've we've given the advisory. So is there any foul
language that you quickly want to air? Heck, poop, darn, sorry, I have anything good anymore? All right, okay, well see you next time. Everybody,