Wide Atlantic Weird

Wondering what all the hype is about? As the hype builds, Cian phones friend of the show and man of medicine James Lynch for a brief chat about the Coronavirus. Is it unique? Should we be scared? And are there any conspiracy theories about this one yet? (the answer to this last question is OF COURSE). Whether you're a sceptic or you've been prepping for the virus apocalypse for years, you'll pick up a few tips from this short episode of WIDE ATLANTIC WEIRD.

Music by Kevin Gill and Cian Gill

While a winter gale rocks the Essex woods, Cian stokes the fire and cracks out a remarkable story written in the mid 19th Century by a fellow Corkman. Allow us to introduce to you the remarkable (and unjustly forgotten) Fitz-James O’Brien: immigrant, man of letters, toast of the literary scene of both London and New York, Civil War fighter, and writer of classic tales of the mysterious. Barely remembered now, this astonishing Irishman once wrote stories of early science fiction that bear comparison to the work of the great H.G. Wells from over forty years later.

In What Was It, a brave New Yorker deigns to spend several nights in a haunted house in order to get to the bottom of the hauntings, only to find that the source of the poltergeist-like activity is something unique in the history of the supernatural (and science fiction of the time!). And for a bonus, for this story, O’Brien gives us a crash course in the kinds of weird literature that were popular at the time, and Cian digs out an old tune for a musical ‘treat’ at the end of the episode.

So if it’s a weird, windy, stormy night for you, wherever you are, find yourself a decent winter ale, start up the fire, and dive into the WIDE ATLANTIC WEIRD to find out … WHAT WAS IT?

Theme Music: by Kevin Gill and Cian Gill

THE GALLOWS TREE: Song by Cian Gill, lyrics from the poem ‘The Demon Of The Gibbet’ by Fitz-James O’Brien

While driving across England, Cian reads some classic accounts of mysterious disappearances from wilderness areas and national parks in the US in an attempt to review the idea proposed by David Paulides that there are strange elements that link each of these cases. Full credit for this idea goes to Mr Paulides. From the forests and cafes of Southern England, Cian does his best to get lost, both physically and metaphorically as he goes down the rabbithole into a world of podcast-ready true crime, conspiracy-hiding Parks services, and maybe even a little Bigfoot. This episode features both true mystery as well as further musings on the conspiracy mindset and how it is consuming all before it - but this time, from a green and leafy setting! Special thanks to CO.AG for music (see below).

Sources:

Link to Paulides' Site & Books

Coast To Coast AM Interview

Dennis Martin Disappearance, Knox News

Music:

CO.AG - Encounters With A Shadowy Figure

CO.AG - Haunting Atmosphere

Cian quits the cabin and travels to London where he’s joined by Faye from Youtube’s The Ghost Trail and Ali from punk band The Scuts to test whether any of them really have any psychic ability using the (infamous) Zener cards. Yes, the ones from Ghostbusters. Invented by Karl Zener for JB Rhine back in the 1930s, Zener cards were instrumental in Rhine’s decades-long attempt to get proper scientific evidence for what he termed ‘extra sensory perception’, and get real scientific recognition for the field of parapsychology along the way.

Rhine did succeed in creating one of the only actual university departments dedicated to studying the paranormal, so Cian and his team decide it’s high time they test his methods and see exactly WHAT"S IN THE CARDS for them! Back off man, we're scientists!

Links & Credits:

The Ghost Trail Series – Youtube

The Scuts – Bandcamp

Unbelievable by Stacy Horn

Tom Delonge Joe Rogan Interview

Original ‘Exorcist’ Case, Mark Opsasnick

I Am Grateful – Jared Elejorde

Cian leaves his Essex cabin in search of mystery: join our host on the first Wide Atlantic Weird road trip as he travels to Scotland to investigate the site of the famous Dechmont Woods encounter of 1979.

This case has it all: a credible witness, a police investigation, and a sighting of craft and ‘creatures’ utterly unique in the UFO canon of alien greys and silver-suited Nordics. In all seriousness, it’s one of those classic ‘high strangeness’ cases that still baffles today, one so deeply odd that any attempt to explain it results in even less credible scenarios.

It’s going to take more than bad service station coffee for Cian to keep his nerve on his investigation into THE DECHMONT WOODS ENCOUNTER.

New Theme Music by Kevin Gill and Cian Gill

Video clips:

Arthur C Clarke’s Mysterious World

Sound:

She Is In The Woods by COAG

NOTE: If you have a low tolerance for banter, you can safely skip the first 20 mins.

In the early 90s, when we didn’t really have much to worry about but didn’t appreciate it, our collective unconscious fears manifested in the form of The X-Files, a TV show that took inspiration from supposedly real paranormal encounters, and in turn helped to perpetuate the belief in UFOs and government-alien conspiracies.

Join Cian and Chris ‘Carter’ Joyce for a spoileriffic investigation into three classic (and one not-so-classic) episodes of season 1 to find out how this pop culture juggernaut helped to prepare us for the era of Trust No One, No Experts, and Post Truth. We’re both suffering from seasonal ailments so please excuse the various sniffles (and the rumbling in the background is a lovely warm fire).

Cian digs out an old favourite from the days of pulp magazine adventure and horror: a short story by Clark Ashton Smith from 1933 about a trip down a South American river that goes very, very wrong. If you enjoy chaps in pith helmets going to forbidden lost cities and learning Things Man Was Not Meant To Know, if you like seriously disgusting body horror, and if you like Triffids and other kinds of vile, vicious vegetation that like to feast on man, then look no further! There's but a smidge of Cosmic Horror here, and perhaps a touch of Ancient Astronauts too. All in all, it's an astonishingly unsettling, horrible and entertaining tale to listen to while you sit round your Christmas hearth. Cian downs a green tea during the telling of this tale, but feel free to have something stronger yourself, if you think your stomach can take it.

Etext of the story

She Is In The Woods by COAG

Things are getting about as festive as they ever do in the Wide Atlantic Weird cabin: the forest around is bare, and the fire is roaring. It’s the right time for some ghost stories, so Cian is joined by Faye from the Youtube show The Ghost Trail. They brew a batch of Columbian coffee and get comfortable. The Ghost Trail is all about visiting spooky locations and telling ghost stories, so it’s an ideal time to talk about it!

Cian and Faye discuss the making of the series, as well as the state of paranormal shows in general (they agree that there’s a lot of bad ones out there). They get around to talking about the ‘recording’ theory of ghosts, infrasound, spontaneous human combustion, the ‘third man’ theory, time slips, crisis apparitions, and many other topics. In fact, it’s a veritable seasonal feast of paranormal subjects. WWW hasn’t touched too much on ghosts so far so this is a good place to get started!

Links:

The Ghost Trail Series

Faye's Books

Rain Sound Effect - Free Sound Library

VCR Sound Effect Some Sounds

Stories of hiking and camping in remote places frequently feature elements of isolation and horror. On a sunny day on the porch of the Wide Atlantic Weird cabin, Cian explores a few campfire-worthy examples. Are they true? Your host offers his 2 cents, but you can decide for yourself.

 Cian brings you a few of his favourite scary (non-supernatural) outdoor tales, mostly culled from the darkest corners of Reddit. Loneliness, isolation, creeps, cultists and serial killers feature in this collection of odd stories. There's even a wistful, nostalgic element, as Cian reflects that, as horrifying as some of these narratives are, he is drawn to them as they remind him of his time  living in the Great Outdoors in North America. 

Grab yourself a can of Dr Pepper and join him in a skin-crawling, yet somehow comforting, bevy of stories from big countries: the US, Canada, and Australia - countries big enough to prove that not all those who wander are lost. 

NOTE: There are a few bad words in this ep.

Music:

Ghost Story by Kevin McLeod

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36kwJ6mwgrk

On a brilliantly starry, starry night, Cian leaves the Wide Atlantic Weird cabin to wander through the woods, sit by the railway tracks, and phone his friend Chris ‘Spooky’ Joyce. They have an important conversation to resume: The Coming Of The Greys! Yes, the interrupted journey is un-interrupted (?) at last in this sort-of follow-up to The Coming Of The Greys: One From The Vaults!

So where do those darned alien Greys come from anyway –and why are they so interested in probing us? (Hint: the answer ain’t Zeta Reticuli)

The guys dive back into the nitty-gritty of the infamous 1961 Hill case to get things started. So many threads – why did the ‘men’ the Hills reported in their creepy initial UFO sighting only morph into more alien-looking creatures after the weird dreams began? Did Barney Hill have unconscious memories of waking up on the operating table? And why in the blue blazes did anybody ever think that hypnotic regression was a reliable way of recalling real memories?

From there, the guys hit up the TV version with James Earl Jones, have Close Encounters Of The Christopher Walken Kind in 1989’s Communion(which has nothing to do with eating wafers), get paranoid untangling the influence of the X-Files, and generally try to figure out how the Grey came to represent the standard image of an extra-terrestrial.

Oh, and of course this episode should really have been titled Fifty Shades of Greys.

Sources:

The Iron Skeptic: What Did Barney See?

http://www.theironskeptic.com/articles/hill/chronology.htm

Entirely Unpredisposed, Martin Kottmeyer

http://www.debunker.com/texts/unpredis.html

Varicose Brains Part 3, Martin Kottmeyer

http://magonia.haaan.com/2009/headhunt/

Alien Abduction At The Outer Limits, Jason Colavito

http://www.jasoncolavito.com/alien-abduction-at-the-outer-limits.html

Doctoring Villas Boas, Eye Of The Psychic

https://www.eyeofthepsychic.com/ufo_fontes/