 Ads heard before, during, or after the podcast are not endorsed by Paranormality Magazine or myself unless voiced by me personally. All other ads are pre-recorded, inserted by ad agencies, and are not under our control. Welcome to Paranormality Magazine. Each week, Paranormality Magazine explores all 40 subjects, from phantoms to UFOs, and every cryptid creature in between. Each week, you're treated to a collection of well-researched and investigated stories, interviews, and reports on cutting-edge paranormal projects and topics they know you crave. And here in the podcast, I share stories from the magazine to give you just a taste of what you receive in every issue. I'm Darren Marlar and this is Paranormality Magazine. G.E. Kincaid was a professional explorer and hunter. He's often cited online as being the first white baby born in Idaho, although there doesn't seem to be any confirmation on this. His career in exploration was well-recognized, however, and he'd been in the employee of the Smithsonian Institute for nearly 30 years by the time of this expedition, collecting and sending in samples and artifacts throughout the U.S. He was on an expedition, taking the Colorado River through the Grand Canyon to its southernmost points. At this point in time, 1909, he was only the second person to attempt this journey, and he had done quite well, traversing several dangerous rapids on his journey. When he reached a southern area of the canyon, he was floating down the river when he noticed a bizarre cave entrance. The cave looked different from one that he had seen before during his journey. It seemed smoother in a way that natural caves do not appear. It looked as if it had been built by humans. This was particularly bizarre as the cave was several thousand feet from both the bottom of the canyon and the river, and from the top of the canyon as well. It was built in a fashion that it was completely undetectable when looking down from the top of the canyon and almost undetectable from the canyon floor, save for a few angles where it becomes visible. Intrigued by the cave, Kincaid pulled over his raft and began the difficult process of scaling the rocks to reach the cave. He noted that there was no trail leading to the cave to be found, and that the path and the climb up were quite difficult. There was a set of steps carved into the rock just below the cave entrance, and Kincaid believed that the cave must have been built at a time when the river was flowing at that height. This means it would have been constructed several hundreds of thousands of years in the past. He says he followed the main corridor of the cave until he reached a center area. From the center area, there were several more large tunnels leading off in different directions, similar to spokes on a wagon wheel. Between these paths were a large number of rooms that were, quote, about the size of ordinary living rooms of today, though some are 30 by 40 feet square, unquote. He noted that there are oval-shaped passageways leading into these rooms, and that the stone walls were about three and a half feet thick. He said that they were so straight and smooth they could have been laid out by an engineer. But perhaps the strangest thing he saw was near the entrance. He found a religious idol that suggested a far-off origin. Over a hundred feet from the entrance is the Cross Hall, several hundred feet long, he said, in which are found the idol or image of the people's god sitting cross-legged with a lotus flower or lily in each hand. The cast of the face is oriental. The idol almost resembles Buddha, though the scientists are not certain as to what religious worship it represents. Taking into consideration everything found thus far, it's possible that this worship most resembles the ancient people of Tibet. He continued saying, Surrounding this idol are smaller images, some very beautiful in form, others crooked necked and distorted shapes, symbolical probably of good and evil. There are two large cacti with protruding arms, one on each side of the day, sun which the god squats. All this is carved out of hard rock resembling marble, unquote. One might notice the plural tense. This is because this account was written after he had returned to the site from his initial visit. This time he was accompanied by a professor that the newspapers identified as A. S. Jordan and a team of other scientists. He also describes finding workspaces inside this underground city. He found implants of copper and gold, a variety of ornate pottery, a storehouse for grain and seed, a large amount of cat's eye crystals and even a strange platinum-like metal that they could not identify. They went on to another room to discover it filled with decorative urns and later a room filled with mummies. He noted that all the mummies in this section appeared to have been adult males and that they were graves marked by tablets written in a kind of hieroglyph that they said resembled similar ones found elsewhere in southern Arizona. Unlike those glyphs, however, these were said to only contain a few images of animals, one of which was described as looking prehistoric. If that wasn't enough, the suspicious and bizarre account ends with a bizarre and possibly paranormal claim. One thing I've not spoken of may be of interest. There is one chamber of the passageway which is not ventilated and when we approached it, a deadly, sneaky smell struck us. Our light would not penetrate the room and until stronger ones are available, we will not know what the chamber contains. Some say snakes, but others think it may contain a deadly gas or chemicals used by the ancients. No sounds are heard, but it smells sneaky just the same. The whole underground installation gives one of shaky nerves the creeps. The gloomy feeling is like a weight on one's shoulders and our flashlights and candles only make the darkness blacker. Imagination can revel in conjectures and ungodly daydreams back through the ages that have elapsed till the mind reels dizzily in space. This somewhat confusing paragraph seems to be one of the linchpins into the crazier aspects of the hollow earth theories. Many posters on the internet today comment on this paragraph, claiming it is evidence of a reptile-controlled underworld, putting much emphasis on the sneaky description. In fact, wherever this story seems to be posted, there seems to be people in the comments section claiming to have life-and-death battles with reptile creatures under the ground. Perhaps this is one of the reasons the story isn't taken very seriously by many investigators. I also struggled with this story. Whether or not to include it was a subject of much debate in my mind. Its main proponent is an investigator named David Childress, who, to put it lightly, has a mixed reputation. As stated before, I'm not trying to present any story that is presented as fiction or is so dubious in nature that it is an obvious fake. For many, the story falls in the latter category. I found scores of articles online dismissing the story as a hoax, but I found most of this stemmed from one ill-informed email. Nearly 100 years after the story was first published, a journalist followed up by sending an email to the Smithsonian to see if they could confirm this story. The email said that they could find no reference to the people mentioned in the story in their archives. This was either a lie, a simple mistake, or a half-truth. They indeed had no record of a Professor A. S. Jordan or a G. E. Kincaid. However, there was a D. S. Jordan, who later went on to be the first president of Stanford University, and he had worked closely with a L. Kincaid during the time period described. Both were in the employ of the Smithsonian for many years and conducted several expeditions together. The email interaction was in the early 2000s, so it was quite possible that this person simply missed the records in what has to be a massive physical paper archive. Either way, it has led to the belief that this story has been intentionally suppressed. I am more of the belief that it was accidentally suppressed, as a result of a few newspaper typos. Some more serious academics now believe that the story was indeed true as well, and that the location was simply inaccurate. Whatever the truth, this is one of the earliest examples in this region of a human presence that is said to be hidden beneath the earth. Cursed Objects The concept is fascinating. There are movies about cursed objects and entire museums dedicated to cursed objects. I imagine that when you hear the words cursed object, you picture a doll, a wooden box, a wedding dress, or a painting. Your imagined cursed object is dark and mysterious. Possibly it has eyes that you look into and legs that may carry it to you while you sleep. Or maybe it holds a ghost or a demon inside, waiting to be released and terrorize you and your family. Did you picture a set of children's bunk beds when picturing cursed objects? If you followed the story of the haunted Tollman House in Wisconsin, I am sure that was the first object that came to mind. Billy White from Paranormality Magazine brings us the story. Many cursed object stories involve old objects that have been passed down or found in antique stores. I confess I once owned a man's prosthetic leg that was promised to be cursed. Granted, I never witnessed any paranormal activity around that prosthetic leg, but if any object would be cursed, you would assume it was an old prosthetic leg. I don't think many of us worry about our second-hand bargain furniture finds being cursed objects. Perhaps the Tollman family should have given more consideration to this in 1987. Allen and Debbie Tollman, along with their three young children, two girls and one boy, moved to a new home in the rural town of Hurricane Wisconsin on April 13, 1986. Allen would be working in the area as a shift supervisor at a manufacturing plant, so he would often be working late at night or even until the early hours of the morning, leaving Debbie at home with the children. According to Allen and Debbie, their home was a dream and they had absolutely no problems until February 1987, when everything changed dramatically. In February of 1987, Debbie and Allen did what many of us parents do. They found a bargain. They purchased a bunk bed from a used furniture store. Seems harmless and simple, right? Personally, I've purchased many bed frames, couches, dining sets, etc., from second-hand and consignment stores. It has never once crossed my mind that I could be bringing home some sort of negative paranormal entity. I'm sure that when the Tollmans purchased their bunk beds, they did not imagine that they were going to be entering a nine-month period of terror for their entire family. When Allen brought the bunk bed home, he initially set it up in the basement, which means it was not placed in a child's room in the beginning. According to the Tollmans, prior to bringing this bunk bed home, their children were never sick. However, once the bunk bed entered their home even in the basement, the children were sick nearly constantly. Debbie was taking the children to the family physician many times a week and sometimes she was even having to take all three children to the doctor at the same time for various illnesses. While the Tollmans never explained why the bunk bed sat in the basement for multiple months, they reported that they brought it upstairs. Their son slept in the room next to the bunk bed set. According to their young son, the first night having the bunk bed upstairs, his clock radio began turning itself on and changing stations randomly. When this happened, their young son fled to Debbie and Allen who were in their living room. The son reported that he was even able to see the dial moving on its own. Like many parents, they attributed this to an overactive imagination or, worst case scenario, malfunctioning electronics. They certainly did not think that there could be a paranormal entity. The Tollmans were not superstitious people and did not particularly believe in the paranormal at this point. It actually took them a while to suspect that the problems that they were experiencing might be supernatural in origin. Allen first began suspecting that there was something strange happening in their home a few weeks after the radio incident when he was painting in the basement. He later stated that Debbie called him upstairs to take a break. When he came back down to the basement to continue his work, he found that his paintbrush had been dipped, handled first, into his paint. He knew that there was no way he had done this himself, but he decided to not tell anyone about the incident because he still believed that there had to be a natural explanation. Debbie and Allen's two-year-old daughter was sleeping in the bunk bed and she began telling her parents that there was a woman with red eyes who would appear in her room late at night and start a fire in her room before disappearing. Coming from a child, the Tollmans still firmly believed that this story had to be imaginary. I believe this is one of the reasons that the Tollmans story is so relatable. Throughout the beginning of their experience, every aspect of the story is extremely relatable, from the purchase of a second-hand, large furniture item to dismissing the occurrences at their home until they got too blatant to be ignored. The Tollmans began to believe that these incidents might be more than just the imagination of their children or strange happenings when their son woke up screaming in the middle of the night also claiming to see the woman in his room. He claimed that when he saw her, she was glowing completely red as if she were on fire. Debbie and Allen had never told their son about the woman that their daughter was saying that she saw in her room. To them, it was too much of a coincidence. It was at this point that the Tollmans called their personal pastor to visit their home and give his spiritual advice. Their pastor reported that he could feel a demonic presence. He asked the Tollmans to increase their church attendance to combat the evil entities in their home. However, the Tollmans later believed that these actions only made the spirits in their home angrier as after they took this action, they began hearing more voices throughout the home. Doors were banging, the children reported seeing the woman more often, and the radio was once again being controlled by some unforeseen force. Allen eventually reached his breaking point when he demanded that whatever was in the home, leave his children alone and attack him instead. After he made this demand, he claimed that he heard a voice from the garage say, come here. He went to look in the garage, but all he saw was the glow of a fire with red eyes in the garage door windows. Allen began sleeping on the floor of his daughter's room to offer them comfort and help them sleep. One evening while sleeping on the floor, he saw a thog rise out of the floor in his daughter's bedroom and he heard a voice telling him, you're dead. One night, Allen realized that he would not be able to make it home until the early hours of the morning. He knew that he wouldn't be able to make it home to comfort and protect his family, so he invited a skeptic relative to spend the night and sleep in his daughter's room. Prior to spending the night in the home, the relative stated that he did not believe in any of the stories or the hauntings, but that night he claimed that he saw the burning woman and left the home swearing he would never return. This was the final straw for Debbie. The family fled the house in the night with the plan to sell and not return. Two weeks after this incident, the Talmans had the bunk beds destroyed in a local landfill. Rumors of the house grew throughout the small town. As rumors do, they quickly grew out of control. People in the area were claiming that the walls of the house were running with blood along with other outlandish stories. The sheriff in the area soon had to deal with paranormal investigators, along with many people who were threatening to burn the house down. The story eventually caught the attention of the producers for unsolved mysteries. The Talman home and the bunk beds were included in the first season of unsolved mysteries. However, by that time the house had already been sold and the bunk beds disposed of. Both the new owners and the filming crew reported absolutely no paranormal experiences in the home. The Talman home was eventually investigated by the Committee for the Scientific Investigation of the Paranormal. The Committee did not believe that anything paranormal had actually happened in the home, despite the terrifying experiences faced by the Talman family. In fact, the Committee stated that they believed all of the events were actually hallucinations caused by a gas leak. This hypothesis is actually supported by the Wisconsin Power and Light Company who did have to replace faulty gas fittings in several homes in the area. Whether the experiences the Talmans faced were caused by cursed bunk beds, ghosts in the home itself or a gas leak, the Talmans reported that they never experienced any further paranormal activity after leaving the home and disposing of the bunk beds. Also, there has been no other activity reported by any other owners of the residence. Whether the cursed bunk beds brought in a demonic entity, so it was removed when the beds were disposed of or there is a more natural cause, the Talmans and their previous residents remain peaceful and calm. Want more Paranormality? Subscribe to Paranormality magazine and each month get it delivered digitally or via mail in our print version. Paranormality magazine is a collaborative endeavor featuring works from people like you who have a passion for all things mysterious and unexplained. Our goal is the pursuit of knowledge, gathering captivating stories from our own team of writers, researchers and investigators, as well as from writers such as yourself. Each monthly issue also includes a list of paranormal, horror, UFO and cryptozoology events around the country, incredible paranormal themed artwork, articles and writing sent in from our readers, suggested books and podcasts to consume and more. Visit ParanormalityMag.com and subscribe today for as little as $3.99 a month. In 1773, Captain Cook became the first modern explorer known to have breached the Antarctic Circle and reached the ice barrier. He intended to sail completely around Antarctica looking for inlets through the Wall of Ice. Sailing a total of 60,000 miles along the Antarctic coastline, he never once found an inlet or path through or beyond the massive glacial wall. The ice extended east and west far beyond the reach of our site, while the southern half of the horizon was illuminated by rays of light which were reflected from the ice to a considerable height. Captain Cook. These are the misguided and ill-informed words of Juan J. de Caspi. The male model turned flat earth figurehead, made waves back in 2019 when he claimed that he was going to prove flat earth was real once and for all. To do this he was going to go to Antarctica and prove that the ice-covered continent was actually an ice wall that held in all the oceans of our flat world. Here is his own words on just how he planned to do this. All we have to do to shut this debate down once and for all is to get the distance of the coast of Antarctica. It had been done by early sailors who managed to make 60,000 miles which irrefutably proves the flat earth model. But like all the other mountains of evidence for flat earth, this is not enough for ballers today. If we can get to the coast of Antarctica and sail all the way around it, we'll get the distance that will prove it's the outer edges of flat earth and refute entirely every single argument anyone can possibly try to pitch for the sun worshipping cult of a heliocentrism. They've made laws to not allow any kind of motorized equipment on the ice which would help us prove not only flat earth but what's beyond the ice wall. But in reality, we don't even need to get onto the ice to prove flat earth. The coast of Antarctica on the ball earth is no more than 14.5 thousand miles. On a flat earth it would be over 60,000. We have evidence of 60,000 and none of 14.5. J. DeCaspi The evidence he's referring to is the same as his first quote, this supposed journey of Cook around Antarctica. Cook was indeed sent to the Southern Arctic Circle to see if there were lands beyond the ice, somewhere south of Australia. His journey did take well over 60,000 miles. But this is because he was not tracing the perimeter of the continent. He was sailing for the most part just outside the Arctic Circle and he would often loop back to New Zealand for supplies while discovering several islands in the Pacific. In fact, he only crossed the Arctic Circle three times during the entire voyage, yet flat earthers use this journey as a piece of linchpin evidence. Despite this, J's plan was to take a cruise ship and recreate this imagined journey around the ice, film it and turn it into a TV show. That would surely show all those globe heads once and for all. Unfortunately, it seems like this plan will never come to fruition. Perhaps it's because ships are required to use mapping and navigation techniques based on the fact that the earth is round, or perhaps because flat earthers don't have enough disposable income to sponsor such a journey. Either way, it seems the project has died and J has shut down all his social media pages, say for one page, for his modeling career on a talent management website. People have believed the earth is flat for a long time. However, not as long as J. DeCasby would make you think. The idea that most medieval people thought the earth was flat is a misconception. In fact, the Greeks 2,000 years ago used math to figure out the earth was round. Most learned people throughout history have been exposed to the idea that the earth was round and it was generally accepted. The non-learned people at the time were much too busy to be concerned with earth-shaped philosophy. Despite this, the conspiracy that the earth is flat has taken a new fresh breath of life in the wake of the internet and has surged in popularity. Most people have at least heard of the modern-day flat earther, but popularity in the conspiracy world is still not a huge accomplishment and the notion that people really do believe in it has been propelled by certain celebrities in recent times. Do Tila Tequila and B.O.B. still count as celebrities? In reality, there are many fans of the theory, but a lot fewer who take it seriously. That's really a more accurate view of this theory that most people completely miss. So let's get into it, the secret history of the flat earth. The existence of the modern flat earther started in the late 1800s. It was perpetrated mostly by one man, Samuel Robotham, known by his much cooler pen slash stage name Parallax. He wrote a pamphlet on Zetetic Astronomy but was better known for his lectures and debate skills. From 1850 up until the time of his death in 1885, he would travel around the United Kingdom and hold lectures and debates on the subject of the flat earth. He was reportedly an elegant speaker and was able to remain level-headed in even the most heated debates. Hundreds of newspaper articles also attest to the fact that he would seldom lose these debates. His reputation grew and he was invited to speak at town halls and universities across the nation, leaving many uneducated people questioning their held beliefs. The twist on this story is that Samuel dropped out of school, never finishing elementary. History remembers him as a fast talking charlatan, but everyone agrees that he was extremely well versed in his theory and an excellent speaker, willing to debate anyone of an academic level in the matter. He essentially made a career out of poking holes in the academic theory and it was easy to do at the time. The basis of his argument, the Bedford level experiment, was equally probable at the time, like most other experiments that argued the earth was round. Today, with modern techniques, we can disprove the Bedford level experiments. In 1956, Parallax's ideas were revived. The Flat Earth Society was founded by a man named Samuel Shenton. Shenton read the Zetetic Astronomy, which had evolved into a book over the years when he was young and clung to the theory. Over the years he compiled piles of scientific evidence, leaving the more religious bends of the theory behind. Despite his controversial view, he was elected as a fellow in both the Royal Geographical Society and the Royal Astronomical Society, showing that he was quite popular in academic circles. In fact, famed astronomer Patrick Moore was even a member of the society for a time. Why did academics include him in their clubs and attend his seminars when his ideas were so contrary? Well, the answer lies in the dry sense of British humor. Huber might be misleading because it wasn't entirely a joke. The British scientists of the era could appreciate this thought that the standards of proof are malleable. It provided them with a lens to look at their own work with extra scrutiny. And there's a good amount of evidence that Shenton was in on the joke. He often spoke at science fiction conventions, and in fact the body of most of his work was retired to a science fiction society, owned by a friend and a president of the Flat Earth Society, perhaps showing a sense that he was aware that his work was fictitious. Many people say he did firmly believe the theory, but a lot of his behavior and interactions might suggest that this could have just been him playing a character. In 1963, after astronaut John Glenn orbited around the Earth, the Flat Earth Society sent him a membership card with a note saying, okay, wise guy, a clear example of dry British wit. Whether or not it was a joke, Shenton passed away and the works that were not stored went on to the possession of people who would use the theory as proof of the validity of religious doctrine. However, the value of the concept as a thought experiment continued. The Flat Earth Society was picked up in Canada by a trio of writers and philosophers in 1970. This time around they were more outright with their message, the Canadians not being able to pull off the sly satire that the Brits version did. They wanted people to realize that they were willing to accept scientific theories without actually physically experiencing or seeing the evidence for themselves, and then they wanted to challenge that notion. The group even received funding for a movie from the Ontario Council of Arts. The film was shown to school children as a kind of mockumentary meant to promote the idea of critical thinking and free thought. It was also to show you can make a convincing argument for anything if you try hard enough and so taught skepticism of the media. The Flat Earth Society has also been claimed by the mysterious and half-assed Secret Society of the Discordians, Hale Aris, as one of their psyops against society as part of their larger project Operation Mind Bleep or OM. The point of which is to insert confusion and chaos into institutions deemed too powerful or organized. According to the Discordians, the Flat Earth Society was set up to give membership to legislators or citizens groups dedicated to preventing the dissemination of modernistic ideas in education. I've written in depth about this concept on my website, but enough history, we've lost our main focus. The Ice Wall that is Antarctica. The Ice Wall theory is perpetuated by the idea that Antarctica is a forbidden land where average people are never allowed to visit. This is a myth and it is simply not true, but proponents of the Flat Earth have always struggled with basic facts. But it also stems from ancient illuminated Biblical texts, which show the Earth as a flat disc under a dome. This idea is still popular today, as our pal Jay describes ever so eloquently. When we look at Antarctica, if you take a globe and you squish it down, the Antarctic would go all the way around the Earth. It's kind of like an ice shore and it's very, very large. It's not like you just go there and you can just peek over it. We don't believe anything can fall off the edge because a big portion of the Flat Earth community believes that we're in a dome like a snow globe, so the sun, moon and stars are all inside. It's very high, but all contained inside, so there's no way to actually fall off of the Earth. Those snow globe style images have appeared often and in many cultures, which fuels this belief in the same weird way carvings do for ancient aliens. They also like to point to the symbol of the UN, which contains it as a Mothal equidistant projection map, where the North Pole is the center and the South is at the edges of the circle. According to Flat Earth theorists, they used this projection as their symbol because the UN knows the truth about the real shape of the Earth. Though why they would spend so much time and effort making us think the Earth is round, just to admit it isn't through symbology in their logo is always a bit silly to me. Something about hiding in plain sight, I suppose. Either way, maps remain an important and fun aspect of the theory. That is, if you're a person like me who likes to look at maps. Many inspired Flat Earthers have taken it upon themselves to draw new maps of the Flat Earth, many of them containing lands beyond Antarctica. In these maps, Antarctica is simply the inner circle of the large target-shaped map, which includes large ice walls that further out one goes. In between these ice walls are continents, usually given fun names for Egyptian mythology. These continents are the Flat Earthers' response to the Hollow Earth theory. All of this and potentially more was going to be revealed by Jay Takaspi and his expedition team. But unfortunately, he never made it, so I guess I'll have to go myself. Thanks for listening to Paranormality Magazine. Get more information about the magazine and subscribe to our monthly publication at ParanormalityMag.com. That's ParanormalityMag.com or click the link in the show description. And if you're a researcher or investigator, send us your stories. We might feature you in our next issue. If you have a paranormal podcast, you can add it to our website so our readers can find your show. And artists, if you'd like your work to be featured in our magazine or on our back cover, contact us. Again, our website is ParanormalityMag.com. I'm Darren Marlar and I'll have more Paranormal for you next time from Paranormality Magazine.