Thinking Sideways: The Grinning Man

the podcast. I'm Devin, joined most weeks by and Steve Steve makes a funny face. This week, we're going to talk about a mystery that is a little bit associated with the mystery we've already talked about. That would be the Mothman. Scarier. This one's better, No, I mean I think the stories are better true. I'll give you that.

Thank you for giving that. Yeah, uh. This week you probably know we're going to talk about the Grinning Man, who, it turns out a surprising number of people don't know about. I didn't know about Earning Man ahead of time. I didn't either. Every time I'm like, oh yeah, the Grinning Man, people are like, I don't know what you're talking about. I'm like, oh, that's my story's at end of episode, Okay, all the credits. No, he also had a name, he did um. He may have been called Indurd Cold. He

could have also maybe been called Ingrid Cold. I saw it as injured of the places, but I did see Ingrid every once in a while, so I thought i'd throw it in there, just in cases auto correct. I hope, I hope so. But he only told told his name to one person, only in person, and it was in Injured in that one, which makes me think that I would assume so. But you know how these things go. It's all. We got to throw it all in, we

do so. The Grinning Man is described as quote well over six ft tall, totally bald, with black, beady eyes that are set a little too far apart. He most often is said to wear a shiny green or metallic suit or overalls, and is staring in your window right now, looking now, now, now, just kidding, probably maybe my hand, don't look. I hope it's not nighttime where you are.

People who have met or seen the Grinning Man are often so taken aback that they can't say for certain if he has ears or a nose, because what they notice, as you might guess from his name, is the smile. Huge. Yeah, like very uncomfortably large, just like a jack d Yeah. And I don't necessarily get the sense that it's like, you know, an extra large mouth or anything. It's not an actual ear to ear. But did you guys watch

Buffy ever? Yeah? Yeah, do you remember the absolute best episode of all Buffy canon, which is called Hush, which I actually did see. That's the one where it's completely silent, all of the voices get taken away by those creepy, terrifying guys who float around and smile constantly. I don't remember that one. It's a really really good it's by far the best episode of Buffy to ever exist. Go out check it out. I was really impressed with the

musical episode. Yeah, that was a good one. This one's better. No, I think that that's the way I kind of picture the smiles of being not inhuman, but uncomfortably large and fixed, fixed, constant. Yeah. Okay, the Grinning Man may have his skin maybe kind of grayish, maybe tannish, maybe greenish, certainly not a supernatural healthy color, not supernatural, but very natural. They only ever saw him at night at night, Yeah, so it's harder to tell. I think it's like a pallid tone. Whatever it is

would be the way I would describe it. Apparently, sometimes he maybe wore a black belt, right, well, so when he wore overalls or coveralls, he was maybe wearing a black belt. Probably not wearing black belt with the suit that you would notice necessarily true jacket would the way, yeah, it would. He apparently sometimes communicates telepathically with the people he encounters. I think I only heard about that happening once. I don't know if you guys encountered it anywhere else.

Which is where we get the name Indrid Cold. And he was seen at Point Pleasant, West Virginia. Yeah, West Virginia, And if you'll remember correctly, that's uh where Mothman was seen made his debut. Was he seeing that point Pleasant or near like not too far, very close to yeh. So he's a Mothman sidekick or just the Mothman. Maybe the Mothman's ball, the boss supervisor. Maybe Mothman is his pet. He was just taking him out for a walk and

he got off leash somehow. What what if he's like you know, the mothman collector the catcher like the dog catcher. So he's always he's always there because he's always chasing him. Well, actually, we'll touch on that a little bit in a minute, because one of the theories kind of plays into that. So we're gonna in this episode it's going to be one of those ones where we kind of tell stories.

It's less theory based, more story based, and start contrast to like last week, where it was like almost entirely theory Yeah, almost entirely theory based. Sorry about that. It's not your fault, it's mine. It's Steve's fault. He made us watch that horrible movie again again and again again. I think it's a pretty good movie myself. We disagree on that. He didn't think I could make that voice. Did you know that was legitinely terrified? Sorry, but you're ready,

we'll get back on track. Yeah, that's that's We've got an important mystery to self here. Okay, now that we've taken a pause to recover, the editing might be a little weird there because we were cracking up. Sorry, guys, let's tell this story. I'm gonna start by telling the story of the first maybe documented sighting of the Grinning Man. And would you say this is the standard version or is this the official version? Standard version? A version, like,

how would you cluse? It's a version, It's the thinking sideways version. It's the kind of thing that we all kind of do, where we search out the most authentic documents but also mixing accepted lore. I just because sometimes we do it. This is exactly what we're told. You just want to clarify that. Yeah, this is kind of the general telling of this story perfect. I'm so we're going to tell this story. And then I want to tell you about the story that made me interested in

the Grinning Man years and years ago. That was my first point of contact for even hearing about the Grinning Man. It was at least three years ago. And uh, well, we'll talk about that in a second. Two kids in October. Two kids, two boys, James and Marvin. And she's not telling you their last names because they're unpronounceable, but they have like five names. It's it's fine, Uh no, James and Marvin because this is the Sties. And somebody named their child Marvin like a jerk. I'm sorry, that was

an okay name back in those days. It was a pretty good name. It's an old dude name now, but because yeah, that's true. Any idea how old these kids were? They were teenagers, they weren't. I thought they were like early teenagers though it's not like sev but barely teenagers, young teen, tweens and teens. They lived in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and they were walking home from if I recall correctly,

some kind of mischief. Then the first reading of the stories that I did years and years ago, I distinctly remember being included in in the stories that like, they were out creating mischief and they were walking home from the toilet paper. I wasn't Maybe I wasn't able to find that again though, so it could be my misremembering. They were walking home along Fourth Street, which Joe may or may not have Google street viewed, actually didn't. He

didn't go. I was busy. The road runs near the turnpike, and um as they arrived at a fairly treacherous part of the journey along a fence that kind of went past the turnpike. So there was the fence and then there was this huge hill and then the turnpike. Uh As, they were walking over a turn at this place. Is it below the ground level? Yeah, and so there was.

It was a very very steep incline, so steep in fact, that almost everybody agrees that it's unclimbable from the turnpike, that it would be impossible for whatever whoever these boys saw to have climbed up from the turnpike. Apparently nobody had really ever been seen on the other side of that fence. Well, it would make sense because it was like impassable, and who would be dumb enough to climb the fence just to like be on a impassable incline

basically right, or to climb up that grade? Yeah? Yeah, yeah. So the boys were, you know, the story is always really dramatically told. They're like passing in between pools of light. They were walking along a fence, you guys, and they paused to catch their breath. I don't know if they

were like ridiculously out of shape. They weren't. Yeah, I would guess one had to pee, and I believe it was James looked at Marvin, who was peeing apparently totally facing him back was to the fence, and said, who's that behind you? And they turned around and there's a man standing on the other side of the fence. Yeah, of course. And now they were already a little on edge because somehow, I don't know how, they had heard rumors of that night one of the women in the

neighborhood being chased by a quote, tall green man. I don't know how they heard that, but Okay, I guess the grape vine moved way more quickly than I anticipate in the sixties, I guess apparently. But but at this time they saw this guy was about a quarter to ten. It was about quarter to ten around really fast, So I guess. Yeah. Um, they described this guy that they saw as quote, the strangest guy we've ever seen. He was the biggest man I ever saw. At about three

days later, this guyist afologists. Yes, my favorite upologist, John Kiel, Yes, he somehow heard that they had seen this guy and showed up and interviewed them in three days and three days later. Yeah, yeah, And here's what Kiel wrote about the interview. I don't think he actually quotes them or anything, So this is a quote from him talking about his

interview with them. Quote. The man was over six ft tall, day agreed, and was dressed in a sparkling green coverall costume that shimmered and seemed to reflect the street lights. There was a wide black belt around his waist. He was very dark complexion, with little round eyes, real beaty set far apart. They could not remember seeing any hair, ears nose on this figure. Yeah, that's they don't remember that because as soon as they saw him, they ran like a little girl. They saw the grin and then

they were like, maybe just we're getting out of here. Bye. Yeah. Yeah, was like twenty days away. Yeah, it was pretty close. Apparently there were reports of UFOs sightings at quote exactly the same time, forty miles away. Okay, so this is we're going to hit like a little interesting spot. So we'll just talk about this real quick. Steve's already super annoyed. He hates it when we talk about UFOs at all. Um small diversions. You guys know about the Men in Black? Yes,

the Men in Black. These are different than the movie, different than the movies. Yeah, so no, Will Smith, no, Will Smith Jones, No, sorry, what about the pug? The dog? Definitely not the pug. So the you know, I mean, and they you are aware that, like some descriptions have these quote unquote men not being men, alien humanoid aliens. I s yeah, maybe the bibs, Yeah, they're bibs. They're most often described as unusually pale, most often with no eyebrows,

no hair, no facial hair. Once I I did see describe them as at once being pale, complexioned and swarthy. So I'm not totally sure how that that doesn't make any It doesn't make any sense. Maybe they were spotted, Yeah, maybe that's it. Some reports say that the Men in Black speak with weird accents. Some say they communicate in weird giggling noises, like butthead, Yeah, exactly like that. Yeah, we're in the spot. It's you know that part of

the episode again already where Steve makes weird faces. He doesn't like this appearance. Yeah, it's Keel Keel Drives sightings. But the Men in Black were also seen in well so yeah, and anyway, in October of nineteen sixty six, there was a rash of sightings of um UFOs Men in Black and then also um the Grinning Man in Elizabeth, New Jersey, and the surrounding areas. But in New Jersey they are even some alleged pictures of the sightings of

men in black, but nobody actually has a copy. Well no, actually I looked at them online and it's it's just hard to tell because it's nineteen sixty six, so it's not like it's the highest definition picture. And then dudes wore black suits a lot in those days and the fedoras, So you know, you catch a picture of a dude lurking in you know, from a slightly far distance, he's kind of standing in a doorway. You take a picture of it. What are you going to get at night? Well, no,

it was during the day. During the day men in black? Do you go out in the day? And I wasn't able to find any actual reports of the actual UFO sightings that happened in October of nineteenth sixty six in New Jersey. So do you check the papers. I did not check the papers, but I checked a lot of different websites, but more than one site did refer to nineteen sixty six as the year of UFO sightings. So it's not nothing. You're gonna talk about this now or

in the series section. You can talk about it now. Let's talk about it now the Black Book. No, here's my problem with this whole thing for this story of the grading. Man, I know we have more story to go, but in this original one, and I'm using air quotes when I say original, Kiel's the only one. He's the only source, and he's he's the one who says that

there were all these UFO sightings. And one of the places that he loves to talk about is the n i c a P, which is the National Investigations Committee on Aerial Phenomena. They're the ones who tracked UFOs. That was their big thing at there that nearly is active with their archives are online, and he's there was UFO sightings in the area every day. So I went through the prior month and then the month after in nineteen sixty six, and there's like three a month, and most

of the sightings are all over the maps. So like, I really I questioned this just because this one thing that he's making such a big deal of turns out to be absolutely completely wrong by an organization that tracks that. So yeah, So in other words, there were three in that whole time period, and none of them were in New Jersey. No, No, in New Jersey there was three. Like there's tons and tons and tons in the month

of night and each month in nineteen sixty six. But they're all over the world, you know, They're everywhere, So it's not as if it was New Jersey the month of October nineteen sixty six, bang bang bang bang bang bang bang. It was a couple of them, but they were in New Jersey in general, not necessarily this one small town. So that that really really I have a problem with him being the only source and then him

making claims that are provably I agree. Yeah. I also, I don't think we mentioned if you aren't familiar, if you didn't listen to the Mothman episode, or you just don't know. John Keel, who we're talking about right now, is the author of The Mothman Prophecies. That's his most famous work. He's an author. On top of that, he also was a fictional screenwriter for horror movies for really

long time. So that's uh interest that. Yeah, Well, when he wrote I can't remember the name of his book before the Mothman Prophecies, he's a lot of first showed up in a book of strange stories. That's not the name, but that might as well be the name, and the Mothman got I think it was all of chapter fourteen and several chapters before he briefly mentions the Grinning Man and what we read in what you just read and you see all the internet is directly taken from that.

There is no other source for the story of Marvin and James. Yeah, there's there's nowhere else. Yeah kind of, that's usually what those things were a little bit, yeah, often, Yeah, Okay, it's great. I love that, and it's going to make the theory section go even faster. Yeah, but this is the story. We're going to read this. When are you going to read it to us? I mean, we're about we're there right now. Actually, yeah sweet. There's this story on reddit, that one that's a creepy one story. It

first appeared on our the subreddit Let's Not Meet. Sorry, I wrote it and read it lingo, you really did? Started to read it um, and then again the subreddit No Sleep Let's Not Meet is um. It's meant to be all true stories, true horror stories, true experiences that people have actually experienced, whereas No Sleep can be true or fictional, no matter what, it's just horror stories. The author of this story claims that it's true. He's continued

to claim it's true. If that's the case, then I don't ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever ever want to be outside alone when it's dark, and you'll be fine. Maybe this story is called The Smiling Man, and I'm not going to tell the whole thing. It's really easy to find. You can just google the Smiling Man and it is literally the first thing to come up. But we're gonna do some mixture of direct quotes and then summarize what happens in between. The story is written by

a user named Blue Title. I did get permission to use this story from the author, Just so everybody knows, I also spoke to him. I keep saying him. I'm just assuming him. I didn't actually ask, because it's read it and that's rude. But we'll talk a little bit about the discussion I had with him after the fact. So Blue Title starts the story out by talking about

how he likes to walk at night. I think we all do things like this sometimes, you know, walk or drive or something at night to clear your head, or if you can't sleep, or a drink and drive. Not a thing to admit, not a thing to do, definitely not. I don't even know what that means. So around two am he turns down a side street heading home off of kind of a more main thoroughfare, when he sees the silhouette of a man dancing. That was a strange dance, similar to a waltz, but he finished each box with

an odd forward stride. I guess you could say he was dance walking, heading straight for me. Deciding he was probably drunk, I stepped as close as I could to the road to give him the majority of the sidewalk to pass by. I mean, the closer he got, the more I realized how gracefully he was moving. He was very tall and lanky and wearing an old suit. He danced closer still until I could make out his face. His eyes were wide open and wild head tilted back slightly,

looking off at the sky. His mouth was formed in a painfully wide cartoon of a smile. At this point, the author wisely crosses the street. Uh, and terrifyingly, the man quote unquote man the figure follows him, kind of it won't he won't move until blue title looks away from him. So like an angel and doctor who kind of weeping angel like the weeping angels. So he you know, he decides this guy is drunk. He like is creeped out by him, so he looks at him, he turns,

he walks across the street. He turns back and is paused, just frozen, like he's about to cross the street, exactly parallel from blue title. So Blue title desides, but I'm just I'll just keep walking. That's weird, it's creepy, but I'm just gonna keep walking. So he turns around and walks for a minute or two, and then turns around again. He had crossed the street and was now slightly crouched down. I couldn't tell for sure due to the distance in shadows,

but I was certain he was facing me. It was clear that he had moved fast. I was so shocked that I stood there for some time staring at him. And then he started moving towards me again. He took giant, exaggerated tiptoe steps, as if he were a cartoon character sneaking up on somebody, except he was moving very very quickly. I'd like to sit at this point I ran away or pulled out my pepper spray or my cell phone

or anything at all, but I didn't. I just stood there, completely frozen as a smiling man crept towards me, and then he stopped again, about a car length away from me, still smiling, his smile, still looking to the sky. When I finally found my voice, I blurted out the first thing that came to mind. What I meant to ask was what the do you want? Yeah? In an angry, commanding tone. What came out was a whimper, what the fun? Regardless of whether or not humans can smell fear, the

concertainly hear it. I heard it in my own voice, and that only made me more afraid. But he didn't react at all. He just stood there, smiling, and then, after what felt like forever, he turned around very slowly and started dance, walking away just like that. Not wanted to turn my back on him again, I just watched him go until he was far enough away to almost be out of sight, and then I realized something. He

wasn't moving away anymore, nor was he dancing. I watched in horror as a distant shape of him grew larger and larger. He was coming back my way, and this time he was running blue. Title decided to run to Yeah, I would smartly, so right, Yeah. He ran to a busier street, at which point he turned around and the smiling Man was gone. Didn't follow him onto the busy street, which also makes sense for a weird creepy dude. Yeah,

he would like to stick to the shadows. Yeah, as I said, I did exchange a few messages with the poster off their blue title. He said the suit didn't match the description of the smiling man. It wasn't metallic, it wasn't greenish, he said, it was probably black or I'm sorry of the grinning man. Got it, okay, smiling man. Well, we've just been doing the story of the Yeah. He also said that the the guy had a headful of hair and that he was over six ft tall, certainly,

but still within a normal range for a human. That really he thought this guy was more of a psychopath than he was, like an alien or something like that. Maybe drunken ballerina, drunk ballerina. You know, it's hard. Did they say he never went up? He never stopped doing his nighttime walks after that he did for a while. I think, yeah, he was like maybe no, so low in the comments on the original one. So it was

the let's not meet. Somebody said, oh, hey, you met the Grinning Man, which was my first point of contact for the concept of the Grinning Man. So this is where you this is where I first came across it. And you know, people seem to not really know about the Grinning Man. You know, it wasn't highly voted up. And then there's a subreddit called the Smiling Man dedicated to maybe not just this story, um, dedicated to the

idea of the Smiling Man character character himself. And it does bring up some points about the difference between the Smiling Man and the Grinning Man, most of which I would say, are you know it's like, well, the Smiling Man likes to toy with his victims, whereas the Grinning Man likes to play with his victim. I mean, you know, it's it's that I don't know what the vote is, but it's that close a difference, got it. Yeah, I

don't know. The Grinning Man really doesn't seem to do anything other than the communicating telepathically with that one guy. That's yeah, that's been my sense to So I don't know why any you know, how anybody was like, he tries to do this, he tries do that. I don't know. Of course, on the other hand, you don't. You don't really know what he does with everybody, because it might be that the people wind up getting killed by him yea, and they can't report it. Yeah, so who knows For

some random reason, some people get let off the hook. Yeah, you might want to stop at this point look out your window. Just kidding. There have been other reports of seeing the Smiling Man. I would dismiss of them. Oh and also for for our local listeners or like Pacific Northwest listeners, that original story of the Smiling Man took place in Seattle, So sleep tie, what the way did did blue title? Did he get a good enough look

at this guy? Or if he ran into him and get on the street in the daylight, what do you recognize? I think, yeah, absolutely, But he hasn't seen him anything, hasn't seen him, sense No, hasn't seen him. But Seattle is not a small place. Okay, But back to canon, Oh yeah, or the Grinning Man. Since I don't know, I think there's a reasonable chance that if both parties exist, they may be one and the same the Grinning Man. The Smiling Man and the Grinning Man both exists, that

they could be the same thing. Well, but there's there's differences between the two reported differences. That's true, which makes me think they couldn't be the same entity, that they could be the same, the same thing, the same kind of thing. Yeah, you know, Joe's not We're both weird looking dudes. I would mistake one for the other. Sorry, Joe. Sure,

One more question about Blue Titles story. Uh did he say I it doesn't really come across in the story for sure, But did he say that he felt like the Smiling man's movements were I mean, obviously they were unnatural,

they were strange. But did you say that he felt like they didn't see the story, they thought that they were like physically impossible for human being, right, No, The sense that I have from everything, you know, from exchanging messages from him and reading the comments and things like that, the sense that I have is that Blue Title does believe that the Smiling Man is human or very close

to human physiologically the same. Yeah, it wasn't. It was heard stuff, but it was more I mean, like, you know the kind of stuff that like Jim Kurt carry might do. You know, physicality wise, it's not impossible for human although times like the cartoons from the thirties and forties where the guy's got his arms out and they're just doing the seesaw motion back and forth, waves crossed. No, not that kind of liquid bone motion. No, that wasn't the sense that I okay, so you could have been

a human being. Okay, So to this other sighting in November of nineteen sixty six. This is where we get in indurd cold from the name sorry, the name, oh, the sewing machine salesman by the name of a woodrow Darren Burger, Darren Berger. Yes, that's how he pronounced it. Yeah, sure it was. So he was driving home after a long year of work, which some of us know about. Yeah, apparently he saw this really weird vehicle quote unquote drop out of this guy and land on the road in

front of him with a really loud noise that will happen. Yeah. He described it as an old fashioned kerosene lamp chimney flaring at both ends, but I assume a lot bigger. Yeah, sorry, yeah, looking like that, And for anybody who doesn't know, I knew what it was, but I still looked it up to make sure. If you don't know what a kerosene lamp chimney is it's a cylinder with a bulge in the center. That's really the simplest description of what it is. Yes, yeah, yeah,

but I was like, what what part of it? And so I had to look it up. So I realized not everybody is familiar with us. Yeah, apparently it had was it flared at both ends a little bit, so I think it was like wider and then slim, and then there was a bulge and then it was slim and then flared again. Yeah, that's how he described it. So when good old Woodrow slammed on the brakes of his truck, this like hatch, I guess, split open in the side of the weird vehicle that had just crashed

in front of him. I didn't have a good sense. I don't know if you guys did. If it was like crashed, oops, this thing is ruined or crashed. It sounds like I just sat down, just set down hard, really hard. Yeah, but it didn't destroy it or damage it. I I don't know. I don't know if it's I don't have a sense. I don't. You don't either, neither of you do. Steve's mad already. He has something. I'm sure it sounds like the guy. The guy popped out and then got back in and flew off again. Right,

So I couldn't. I could not have damaged it that much. Right. Anyways, the tall, dark skinned man climbed out. Woodrow said that he had slightly elongated eyes, but the most notable attribute was a wide, creepy grin. Yeah, and he could see glinting in the lights of his truck. Okay, the smile, not the man. Woodrow said that he was wearing reflective clothing, reflective kind of it was. This is one of the big disparities between the two stories. The suit that the

man was wearing wasn't green. It was just kind of more metallic. So it's just shiny metallic, not green. No, that was you know. I mean the grinning man maybe wants to change his outfits once in a while, right, Like what, he's not allowed to change his clothes. Come on, guys, just the belt as an accessory is not enough. You got to have a full outfit, Jake, I think I think that's fair. You gotta send your clothes with the

laundry at some point. Yeah. Anyway, So, Woodrow said that the grinning Man telepathically communicated with him and asked him a seriar is of odd questions. Did he remember any of these questions? I don't think so. But he did say that his name was Cold and that he would come back and visit Woodrow sometime. So, just to point out, this conversation was not had entirely verbally, and I think

at all, Uh, thank you, Woodrow was speaking. The grinning man was speaking telepathically because they would ruin his grant if he would. Yeah, you can't grin, and well you can, but it's not easily. It's it's really strange when I do it right now, So he doesn't work. This episode of Steve makes weird faces grinning and talking at the same time. Um, so, I don't know. Apparently Cold then got back to his vehicle again. I don't know, like necessarily where the like indurid Cold came from. I assume

it's from a different telling the first name. It's not the first the last time that he saw him, Yeah, that's how it came about. Came back again many times, Yeah, many times. So the Cold gets back in his little craft thing and zooms away, and then I guess visits Woodrow a bunch of other times and they talk about posies and sunflowers and how hot to bake bread? Right now? Is that not what they talked about? And Andred never tried to be violent or have sex with Woodrow or

anything like that. No probing, no probing. But other other people who lived in Point Pleasant, which is where this interaction happened, yeah, claimed to have seen Indred cold and spoken with him too. Steve has that little black book again, I do, because well, actually, and there's not much on this particular bit in the book. But here's the deal.

Woodrow went to the news the next day and they interviewed him for like a half an hour, and then he went and talked to a bunch of other people, and all of that audio is available to listen to it. I did. I didn't even research Woodrow, Darren Burger, because I know, just assumed that you never existed. Yeah, No, he's a says this whole The ship crashed to the ground in front of him. He described it as a vehicle approached him from behind, past him on the left.

He looked over at it, saw it, and then it went in front of him and slowed down and got blocked him. Once Indrid got out of the vehicle, the vehicle went in the sky and hovered, waited for him to return, then landed, picked him up and took off again. He was in a dark suit like as in a suit and trousers. Is the impression I got from the way he described the suit. Uh, had hair, had you know, a nose, normal features. And the only mentioned in the entire thing about the grin is he had a smile

on his face, a pleasant friendly look. That was it. Maybe maybe Injurd Cole is the smiling man not the grinning man. You know, we're accidentally doing an episode on the smiling Well, I think you're trying to so. But he did. But but Indurd's cold actually did speak to him telepathically, Yes, he said, he spoke to him telepathically. And was his description of the ship or craft the same, very similar. I mean the chimney, the kerosene lantern chimney

part parts still holds true. Uh, that still all happens. The crashing to the ground part doesn't happen. He asked him about what the town is and stuff like that, and then he says, yeah, we're gonna speak again. And Woodrow goes on, with the help of another author to write about his other encow outers with Indrid, where he meets two of Cold's companions whose names I don't recall, and things don't go good for him because nobody believes him.

He writes these crazy books, his wife leaves him, he turns into a wreck louse because he's sure that people are after him. Like I have a feeling he was a little unhinged from the beginning. But if nothing else, I really believe that this whole thing was in his head simply because he'd been working hours and hours and hours,

and now he's got this long drive home. And have you ever been driving and you're just spacing out and you're having this whole thing go through your head, and then you realize fifteen minutes has gone by and you don't remember driving. He could have freaked himself out to the point and said that's got to be really told everybody about It could very well have been in yeah, or he was nuts, or he made it up. But that did he say how many? How many more times

he talked to Indured. I know that he has quote unquote documented how many times he spoke to him. I don't know that number myself. I didn't I didn't go any deeper after that, I I gleaned, I got the information I needed at that point, and I just left it be. He didn't say anything about what they talked about on these various occasions or not again, Joe, I I went through the initial encounter, and I read stuff about the later encounters, but I didn't read any of

the later encounter text. Alright, Wood, Yeah, maybe the best witness Also, maybe thirteen year old boys not the best witnesses fourteen or John Keel or John Keel. How about this one. Let's try this one on for size. Another one a twenty six year old night watchman named Pierre zan Fretta. He was on patrol in the village of Triglia, Italy um in December of nineteen seventy eight, and he

claims he was abducted by a trio. I'm sorry I shouldn't say this laughing, but he was abducted by a trio of gigantic, yellow eyed semi reptilian aliens, but also apparently the Grinning Man was there with them. He says he was abducted like times or something like that. There were semi reptilian yellow line Yeah, but that like overseeing the whole operation was this grinning man. What is semi reptilian?

I'd see like a mixed between reptilian and humans. Think about that old Star Trek episode, the original from the original show, and it was Grock or whatever his name was, I don't remember if it was the one Kirk fought. Yeah, that that the alien center of the planet. Exactly who you're talking rex head and he's not semi reptil guy was full on its dr who wit again? Then okay, you know the let's see the woman who um has the girlfriend and they Yeah, and they're in London. Yes,

I know exactly what race their semi reptilian. They're reptilian. No, they are humannid. They're like humans, right, their bodies are humans, but they stand upright on two legs and the two arms and they speak. That doesn't make them humanoid. They're still a reptile. They're reptilian. Actually, this is the whole reptilian without even being a reptile. Okay, well, yeah, let's just leave this alone because this is an argument that will take a long time and go gowhere. Agreed, and

we'll do a whole episode on it. Please know, anyway, I don't think this guy is a very credible. Witnesses want to talk anyone. Now, you don't think the overseers the grinning men? Notice I said men, man, They say, so they abducted in. What did they do with probe? Lots of experiments and probing like a lot of probing questions. So what were you doing last Thursday at seven p m at the what's the average air speed of European swallow? How many drugs have you taken tonight? Sir? And we're

any of the mushroom shape? Really it's in little white and green mushrooms. Well, does anybody have any theories? I actually do, were there? There's not a lot of them, and there's not a lot left at left. Sorry. Yeah, So the theories are as per Debon usual in bullet point form. One is that he could be an alien or an alien species. Right. I guess the proof of this or the theory would go that they're the Grinning Man.

Sightings are by and large in conjunction with UFO sightings, except not all the time, and not really not really. There's a huge difference. They're distance, not difference, but the distances, but also difference, not always. I wonder if you. I wonder if perhaps the grinning Man is actually a number of different human beings from far far in in our future. We were traveling back in time and don't know how to be like normal human beings by our standard. Exactly,

have you watched Fringe? No, have you watched Fringe? Okay, they have the observers who was already over like years ago. I'm planning out watching them. Okay, Well, I'm not going to spoil anything. There's these guys who always walk around in a black suit with a white shirt and a black tie and wear a fedora, and they're they're white, and they have absolutely no hair on their entire bodies and they know what's coming. Yeah, they're meant to be men in black, so that is you know, it could

be like that. But they're from the future, so could be that. But Joe's suggesting is right, they're just ding dongs from the future. Just I think it's fair. Right, if we were to travel back, what even a thousand years in human history, right, our social conventions would seem super weird to anybody, and we would seem super tall to everybody. It would seem well I wouldn't, but you guys would actually would a thousand years ago. A thousand years ago years ago, i'd be totally almal Yeah, but no,

I mean I guess that's true. I didn't have that, but I guess we'll add it right now. Time Traveler, Well, it kind of falls into the next theory. It's that he's a men in black, right, He's a man in black. He's part of the Men in Black black. Well, because the theory could I mean, some proponents of the men in Black theory think it's just like normal human men for aliens or and well know, I mean the part of it is that kind of the what the movie

is about. That they're right, But then the other part of that is that maybe actually the men in Black are aliens or people from the future or whatever. So yeah, that that's my thing is that, you know, there's the whole the movie genre is there hiding the aliens. But if they're aliens, what are they hiding? You know what I mean? Is that necessarily? Yeah, it's like, well, maybe it's just that that their fashion sense is antiquated and we don't know what they're up to. I'm just I'm curious.

I never understood it. Well, like, what's the deal with the Men in Black. If what was in the movie wasn't right, and I know what the movie wasn't real fiction, it wasn't Well, if they were aliens, it would be that they were working in collusion with the government to hide the more drastic aliens from the world or maybe hunt down and hutown and capture or kill these more

drastic aliens. Yeah, because they could pass as human. Kind of imagine that would be kind of an interesting thing if it never came out that that's true, that you know, there's a bunch of aliens. They're here on Earth just tracking down the criminals who have escaped to Earth. That's a very long episode in and of itself. Well, well, you know the easy answer those either of you ever watched that movie Critters. No, it's an old eighties horror movie.

It's their little hairy round guys. They were like, you know, medicine ball sized and hairy, but they had nothing but teeth and they ate constantly. Well, the bounty hunters who chased them were shape changers, and so they would find a local and you know, quote unquote scan and then change themselves to look like that interesting, So it could be that kind of situation is the one scan they have in their system that's considered passable on this planet

happens to have a stupidly huge grin and a black suit. Yeah, exactly. Or they're trying to, you know, pass this friendly and normal, and they're like, oh, people smile when they're friendly normal, So it's just we're just gonna smile. People are so dumb, we totally blended. Don't say anything. They just look at you and keep going quickly. That's absolutely, absolutely true, absolutely true. Yeah. Yeah.

Next theory is that he's the moth Man, could be just wearing a different kick I go with that, or Wrangler yeah right, wrangler. Yeah, they're like released the moth Man and he's like, man, I just definitely to right. I just got that kid down to sleep. Now you want me to wake him up again? Yeah? No, you don't think, um, I don't, I know, I I lump, I lump. If that's where we're going in with Mothman, might as well just be mass hysteria. Yeah, because that's

the last theory. Mothman had had wings and stuff, didn't he. Yeah, well, the last theory is that he's just made up. That's a possibility. I want to throw in another theory, which is that people sometimes put on costumes. Yeah, they get they get a mask, you know, and they get out outrageous cal could be you know. I added to the list of like made up subheading like sleep deprivation mass

hysteria sort of thing, because they think it's true. Every single sighting that you've heard has either been like kids who are already freaked out about something scary and they saw a tall guy who was smiling at them and they were like, no, talking about that. One family who supposedly also encountered the grinning man is everyone was talking about Jimmy and or James and Marvin because there's because there's the other story about the family who has all

the weird extraterrestrial stuff in their house. Yeah that was I don't know it was. But the only thing that was like grinning Man kind of specific to that story was the daughter woke up one night and it was a huge man towering over her bed. And she's like four or five, so all adults are towering, and some weirdos that are. She didn't necessarily say that he was wearing a green or it doesn't sued or had a

un naturally wark. Yeah, yeah, I know that one I didn't even include because I found it to be so weak. Well yeah, but if you look at the website to talk about the Grinning Man, that one is almost always included. Well that's because there's not very much good stuff. But were trying to make a four page article. You have enough ads on your website, you will pull it'll pull it. Yeah,

the Woodrow sleep deprived. The night Watchman probably sleep deprived, and and honestly not to like cast dispersions, but Blue title sleep deprived. You know, in his by his own admission, he walked because he couldn't sleep well. Insomnia. Yeah, well, little freak out. Somebody probably drunk in your brain interpreting it as like being malicious. On the other hand, it

could just be a jerk. It could have been somebody had a little fun with him with I mean, in all of these cases too, right, it could have just been somebody having fun. My personal theory is that this whole thing is John Keel's fault, and he started a trend, which these things always happen, is one guy publishes something and suddenly everybody sees it. It's you know, when you buy that one car and suddenly you see that car

everywhere on the road. That problem. But yeah, no, I don't like the One of the interesting things about the UFO phenomenon is that nobody ever saw UFOs until the plane was invented. That's true. Yeah, there's reports of UFOs in like ancient Egypt and the Greeks and stuff like ancient Aliens. Man, do you not watch that show? Yeah, but it never I mean, it was never as as big a thing as it is nowadays. Though. Well, we weren't that interesting, or we weren't looking at up. We

were busy doing others. We were looking at the ground. We're like, oh man, this pyramid is not going to build. Its cracked that with a little harder. Yeah, no, I think I think it's made up. I'm sorry, guys, No, really, I wholeheartedly agree. I think some people saw what they believe to be the same character. I'm not saying that what they saw and what they believed they saw is wrong, but I'm saying the ord into the story completely made up,

and therefore they're operating off of skewed information. Yeah. Absolutely, yea, some of these people probably don't even exist. I mean, Woodrow did I don't know about the Frankie not Frankie, James and Marvin. Yeah, they're they're they're gone. They don't exist anymore. They're not. That's the one thing. Kiel never cites his sources. He's awful at it. So they're gone for all intents and purposes. Gone. Yeah. Yeah, Well they're

probably still alive if they actually ever existed. That's my problem. I don't think they actually ever existed. Probably not. Well, we should wrap this up before it gets too dark, because I don't really want to have to go home in the dark. Well, I mean, you can wrap this up as fast as you want, Devon, but you gotta

put all this equipment away, so you're kind of hosed here. Okay, so you probably know where you're listening to us, But if you want to read any of the links to the researcher, you can also leave a comment on our website. The website is Thinking Sideways podcast dot com. Also on the website there's links to our Patreon and uh donate button for PayPal, and then also a link to buy swag, which is pretty awesome. Sorry merch not swag. Swag is free. Yeah, I'm sorry. We can we don't give we give away

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And you can't tell, but I've got a huge unnatural granum and I'm standing outside your window. Okay, we'll talk to you next week. Is I have a really weird look on my face. That's true. Okay, talk to you guys later by