Short Stuff: Dodleston Messages

it's got a fraud. Yeah, it has a lot of stuff in it. And um, what we're talking about. He is known as the Dondalston Messages and it's a I guess a fairly well known occult event that took place in Doddleston, um, which is I think in Chess here, yeah, um, in England in the mid eighties. I believe it was eighty six over span of eighteen months. And it was so strange that the people involved wrote a book about

it and we're still talking about it today, that's right. Uh. There's a gentleman named Ken Webster and his wife Debbie who bought an old cottage Meadow Cottage because they named their cottages over there, and sure, and this thing was old. It was eighteen century brick cottage and they were fixing it up and um, and this is just sort of a precursor to the messages. But apparently there was some

other weird goings on before the messages. Uh, and that when they were fixing it up one night, Uh they are one day they noticed some six toed footprints in the dust that walked up the wall between the bathroom in the kitchen. Uh ken that they reckoned it was a prank and uh they had a guest staying with him, Nick, and they all kind of decided it was a prank by whom I don't know, But they decided to paint over all that stuff off. And the next day they

found footprints in the paint as well. Yeah. And then cat food packages or little cans were stacked up in pyramids, real Poulter guy stuff. Yeah, Poulter Guests the movie by Toby Hupairr. So Um, this this that was Yeah, like you said, it was kind of a precursion to the whole thing. Um, and it really took off and got strange when um, what was the guy's first name Webster.

When Ken Webster, who was a teacher at a school, brought home a BBC micro computer and it had a word processor UM program on it called Edward w r D pretty cute and um. He would write on it, he would use it, and every once in a while a weird message would pop up. And it got even weirder when it turned out that the author of these messages, who Ken Webster, his girlfriend Debbie, and their their house

guest Nick All said, we don't know who's doing this. Uh. The author of those messages claimed to be living in the year fifteen forty six, and it actually lived in that same cottage, or was living in that same cottage in fifty six when he's writing these messages to them in which is immediately weird because it was an eighteenth

century cottage. Yeah. But the one thing we do want to point out that wasn't quite clear to me at first is that this computer was not hooked up to some early kind of modem in some early weird version of the Internet in the sticks of England. It was just a computer sitting there alone, and ostensibly these messages would just appear on that word program, right, Yes, and all right, very very big, also really important. Anytime you turn that computer off, like you couldn't save anything. You

could save it on like a floppy disc. But if you turn the computer on it whatever was on their last wouldn't just be there again. Okay, that's great. I think before we take a break, we should read uh some of the early posts. Um. The messages began by saying basically, who are you people? Um, you've stolen my house. The first message ever on the computer said the following, true are the nightmares of a person that fears safe?

Or the bodies of the silent world? Turn pretty flower turned towards the sun, for you shall grow and so, but the flowers reaches too high and withers in the burning light. Get out your bricks. Pussycat. Pussycat went to London to seek fame and fortune. Faith must not be lost, for this shall be your redeemer. It's pretty yeah, I mean it's pretty creepy. Admittedly, if if I were to get a message like that on a computer not plugged into the Internet, it would be great. Yeah, it takes

a real turn with Pussycat. Pussycat went to London to seek fame and fortune. It seems like a cusatory, you know. Yeah. So this was I think that was the first message that ken Webster got, and he went on to write book I think in eight nine called The Vertical Plane that chronicles all this and more. UM And like you said, we're going to take a short break and we'll come back and talk about this some more, because it gets even weirder shortly after stuff you should know, stuf, stuff

you should you should know. Okay, So ken Webster's intrigued, and he starts asking questions of this author who signs UM. The early post is l W and then finally later on L the L turns out to Standford Lucas with a K, and Lucas is writing in what's called early modern English UM, which is not really easy to recreate in any kind of fast manner, which is one of the defenses that Ken Webster UM brought whenever he's accused

of this being a hoax. He's like, first of all, I don't know how to do that, and secondly, I certainly don't know how to do it in any kind of quick manner. And some of these supposedly came back like answers came back rather quickly when he would ask them a question. Yeah, he said, I doth have no talent forthwith Uh, here's the second just it's fun reading these. Here's the second message. I ride on behalf of many

What strange words you speak. You are a worthy good man who has a fanciful woman, and you live in my house, who dwell in my home with lights which the devil makes It was a great crime to have stolen bribed my house. Yeah, so this is the point where Lucas is like, what are you guys doing in my house? Um? And apparently in fairly short order they

developed kind of a fondness for one another. So like the the accusations and the problems with them living in that cottage, um get dropped pretty quickly and they start going back and forth. And um, I just saw it described as a mutual a deep mutual affection for one another that developed. Yeah, from the other side, just a pinbell from another dimension. But here's the thing, m h, there's some there's some holes in the story. There's some

problems with the logic to all this. If you haven't picked up on that by now at computer, one of the ones that pops up and I didn't catch the eighteenth century cottage thing, and apparently no one else in the world did either except for you, Chuck, So congratulations

on that. But Um, one of the things that that um Lucas does to kind of set a trap for Ken to see if they're actually if he actually is from the future like he reported, was that Lucas told them that he was educated at Jesus College, Oxford Jesus or hay Suits, one of the two um, and that the problem with that is that that Jesus College wasn't

founded until fifteen seventy one. Remember he's writing from fifty six, so he is saying, like, if you're from the future, you would know that Jesus College wasn't founded yet from the time that I'm writing from. But the problem with that is, how would Lucas know that this Jesus College was coming years and years after the time that he is ostensibly writing from. It's a problem. There's a real

another name that came out later. Apparently Lucas wasn't the real name, but it was Thomas either Harden or Hawarden, and they say that someone that had that name existed in the fifteen fifteenth nearby. No, not nearby, a hundred and fifty miles away, which might as well be in another dimension at that time. You know, well that's nearby to me, but sure, I guess at the time it yeah, in the fifteen fifties with a donkey pulling you around. Okay,

good point. Another cool thing that I think we should mention is that there were times where it appeared that Thomas a k A. Lucas could see what they were doing, because the guy Ken had a picture of his car a Jaguar near the computer, and like the the Thomas person referenced that picture in the message and said, I found a picture of your cart, but it is a crude thing, for without the horse it won't go far. So apparently this thing can see them, which is a

pretty key thing. But also I literally wrote ha ha next to that, because it's so dumb. You see a picture of a Jaguar automobile, do you think you'd be like, that's a cart without a horse. I know exactly what that is. Well, I mean I had wheels and it's squaring. It's just I mean I could see that was the one that was like, well, there's there's the basically the

admission of guilt by Ken Webster right there. Uh, this thing gets a little weirder though even right does take Chuck Well, a third player, a second ghost, and a third player comes into this when uh, someone named one

O nine pops onto the scene. Yeah, and twenty one nine popped onto the scene inadvertently because Lucas reference twenty one O nine and a post because when Ken Webster said he's from the year, Lucas says, I thought you were also from twenty one o nine, like your friend who brought the box of lights pray, And he didn't say box of lights. He said Leam's boist, which is early modern English four box of lights, which everyone has taken. Two. They taken all that to mean that the traveler, the

time traveler from nine brought Thomas or Lucas a computer. Okay, how would you operate a computer though in fifty six is a big question that I have as well. Yeah. The other question I have is, uh, did these messages here before his eyes? Or I did see where he would take like a car drive and come back, and that they would they would be there? Is that how it generally worked? That's what I saw. Yeah, Like he never thought to just round the clock, sit there and

watch the computer. I guess not, or maybe he tried and it didn't work, so that's when he would go for a drive. Who knows, or maybe he made all this up. So what was possible? So Ken Webster says, well, there's a there's a third party involved in there from twenty one o nine, I'm gonna start trying to message them, and in very short order, twenty one o nine, who only referred to themselves as they or them um, they responded and they said, hey, man, we're not really happy

that you stumbled upon our presence. Like we're we've been basically running an experiment here that you and Lucas and Debbie are all involved in and it's going to change the world. So just pretend like we don't exist. We're gonna go back into the woodwork now and just keep watching and manipulating. Right. Eventually they bring in a paranormal investig Asian team, the Society for Psychical Physical Psychical. Yeah, the s SPR. We've talked about them plenty of times. Yeah,

am I saying that psychical research? Uh, And they brought them to investigate. They came out three times said we got nothing, No, activity at all. Um Thomas eventually said that, uh, he was forced out of the land, so maybe that

was the deal. He lived at a place that was there, and it wasn't necessarily the same cottage, but at any rate, he said he was never heard from again, and but did say he would leave something for them to discover in the future, right, Yeah, He said that he would write from his perspective this series of events in a book and would leave it in a place that it

could be discovered. So kenn and Debbie and everyone who believes in the Dottalston messages are waiting for that book to be found to prove this once and for all again. It's possible that book doesn't exist. It's possible this was a hoax. Um. There's a really good post on it called um on um on a site called The Joy of Mirror Words by Tom Ruffles. It's called The Vertical Plane by Ken Webster. I guess it's a book review.

And Tom Ruffles, PhD is very generous by considering that maybe Kennon Debbie we're doing this but weren't aware of it, That maybe they were using telekinesis and weren't aware of it, and that's how these messages were being generated. Before he finally settles on it's likeliest that this was just all a hoax. As for what Chuck believes, if you couldn't tell fraud, Occam's razor tells me it is fraud. There

are no haunted computers the end. Yeah, which is kind of a bummer because I I was anticipating us to at least kind of entertain this for a second. But it's impossible. It's impossible. Well, fun story, It is a fun story. How about that? So Chuck said it's impossible. I said, it's impossible. We've given our final judgments. That means short stuff is out. Stuff you Should Know is a production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts my heart Radio, visit the I heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. M h m hm