Would You Visit A Ghost Town?

[00:00:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's when he heard someone screaming for rescue from the fire inside.

[00:00:08] [SPEAKER_01]: He ran up the stairs to tell someone, and they said when he entered the control room, he was the first person to open that door in three years.

[00:00:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Get ready for a campfire story. I'm Edwin.

[00:00:23] [SPEAKER_01]: I'm Michelle. And we'll share spooky stories with playful banter that will keep you up at night.

[00:00:29] [SPEAKER_00]: So throw some wood on the fire, and put a wiener on a stick.

[00:00:33] [SPEAKER_00]: We're telling you a campfire story tonight.

[00:00:40] [SPEAKER_00]: So a little while back, I listened to this one show. I already told you about it. Celebrity Ghost Story.

[00:00:45] [SPEAKER_01]: I thought you were going to explain The Office to me.

[00:00:48] [SPEAKER_00]: Well, that's the other show I guess that I watch. Like aside from The Office, it's this one.

[00:00:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Anyway, it really got me thinking about how all these stories develop. A haunted mansion. Like all these places are so like rich people.

[00:01:00] [SPEAKER_00]: And you know that I'm not really into celebrity stuff, right? Like I'm not into like...

[00:01:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you don't know who anyone is.

[00:01:05] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I can't identify them. I think I can identify Jennifer Lopez most of the time.

[00:01:09] [SPEAKER_00]: Shakira.

[00:01:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Shakira. I don't know. But anyway, like basically the show is this person sits in front of a camera and just tells a story that they had like a ghost story.

[00:01:19] [SPEAKER_00]: And they do, you know, they get actors and they do the whole re...

[00:01:23] [SPEAKER_01]: When you say celebrity, I mean what level are we talking about? It's not JLo on this show.

[00:01:30] [SPEAKER_00]: No. For example, this one's from Daniel Stern. You know who that is?

[00:01:34] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, yeah. He's the... He's one of the robbers in Home Alone. He also did the grown-up voice on The Wonder Years.

[00:01:41] [SPEAKER_01]: I had no idea.

[00:01:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Have you watched The Wonder Years?

[00:01:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Nope.

[00:01:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Then it doesn't matter to you.

[00:01:49] [SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, this guy begins his story of a trip through the English Moors with his wife. This is in the 80s sometime.

[00:01:58] [SPEAKER_00]: They rented a car and they were going to drive through the countryside.

[00:02:01] [SPEAKER_00]: They wanted to go to a town called Tavistock to stay out of bed and breakfast.

[00:02:06] [SPEAKER_00]: And they end up at this town called Whitacombe to see a church there.

[00:02:10] [SPEAKER_00]: They get there, there's nothing much around. They pull in and then they see a church.

[00:02:15] [SPEAKER_00]: So they were excited about it. They're like, wow, cool. Let's go check it out. Whatever. Right?

[00:02:19] [SPEAKER_00]: So they start walking around. They're exploring.

[00:02:22] [SPEAKER_00]: And they suddenly begin to notice that people are walking around, but they're walking very like awkwardly, looking straight ahead like zombies.

[00:02:30] [SPEAKER_00]: That's what he said.

[00:02:31] [SPEAKER_00]: Nobody was talking and they were being completely ignored.

[00:02:34] [SPEAKER_00]: They were just walking past them, very slow, and everyone dressed in black.

[00:02:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, they decided to get the heck out of it.

[00:02:44] [SPEAKER_00]: Like we need to find out how do we get to Tavistock to the bed and breakfast?

[00:02:47] [SPEAKER_00]: And that's when they see a woman.

[00:02:49] [SPEAKER_00]: She's standing kind of by the church and they want to ask her for directions.

[00:02:53] [SPEAKER_00]: She's turning away from them.

[00:02:54] [SPEAKER_00]: She turns around and she stares at them with white eyes, like no color in the circly part of the eye.

[00:03:04] [SPEAKER_00]: And she begins to speak in tongues.

[00:03:07] [SPEAKER_00]: They both stand there. They're just like, they're kind of freaking out, but she's still talking.

[00:03:12] [SPEAKER_00]: So like they're kind of there. You don't want to be rude because you're in England.

[00:03:15] [SPEAKER_00]: And then they take off straight to the car.

[00:03:18] [SPEAKER_00]: They start driving away.

[00:03:21] [SPEAKER_00]: And just a few minutes later, like they're driving like they're about a mile away probably.

[00:03:26] [SPEAKER_00]: A tire pops.

[00:03:27] [SPEAKER_00]: The guy is straight up movie scene, right?

[00:03:30] [SPEAKER_00]: Like the guy says, hey, we should probably head back and get it fixed.

[00:03:36] [SPEAKER_00]: And the wife is like, no, we're driving like that.

[00:03:41] [SPEAKER_00]: So they keep driving like they drive on the rim like they're not stopping.

[00:03:44] [SPEAKER_00]: So they finally make it to have a stock and relate to the reservation.

[00:03:48] [SPEAKER_00]: And then it tells them, yeah, we were at this place called Whitacombe and the attendant is like, Whitacombe say that place is a ghost town.

[00:03:56] [SPEAKER_00]: Don't go there. There's a lot of dead people walking around.

[00:04:01] [SPEAKER_00]: And then he tells us the story of a church, the actual church that they wanted to see.

[00:04:06] [SPEAKER_00]: Turns out that one night, this is back in like a long time ago on a Sunday,

[00:04:11] [SPEAKER_00]: there was a lot of thunder lightning and there was service at the church.

[00:04:15] [SPEAKER_00]: There's a terrible storm.

[00:04:17] [SPEAKER_00]: Lightning suddenly struck like the roof and the steeple fell.

[00:04:20] [SPEAKER_00]: It was burning.

[00:04:22] [SPEAKER_00]: Four people died.

[00:04:24] [SPEAKER_00]: And that was like the story of the town.

[00:04:26] [SPEAKER_00]: It was kind of like we'll put it on the map.

[00:04:28] [SPEAKER_00]: They have artist depictions of what happened, the burning of the church.

[00:04:32] [SPEAKER_00]: But since then, they say that place is haunted.

[00:04:35] [SPEAKER_00]: Celebrity ghost stories had runs and reruns.

[00:04:38] [SPEAKER_00]: And I just kept playing because it was a really popular episode.

[00:04:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Of course, I looked it up to see what about Whitacombe is it haunted?

[00:04:45] [SPEAKER_00]: It turns out that the local town historian was overwhelmed with these requests.

[00:04:49] [SPEAKER_00]: They're like, you know, who are you or whatever they kept replying.

[00:04:52] [SPEAKER_00]: So instead, what he did to all these replied, all these people reaching out to him, he replied in this blog post.

[00:04:58] [SPEAKER_00]: And in his reply, he put, hello America, like basically talking to America on Sunday 21st.

[00:05:08] [SPEAKER_00]: October 1638, when the church was full for a service, the terrible thunderstorm threatened the valley.

[00:05:14] [SPEAKER_00]: One of the four pinnacles of the church tower was struck by lightning with the result that it came crashing through the roof of the church and killed four people.

[00:05:23] [SPEAKER_00]: One, an ancestor of mine, Susanna Beard.

[00:05:26] [SPEAKER_00]: Parts of the tower were found in the manor house garden 400 yards away to the north and considerable damage was done.

[00:05:34] [SPEAKER_00]: The schoolmaster at the time was a Richard Hill, and he wrote a detailed summary of the event.

[00:05:41] [SPEAKER_00]: We understand that his manuscripts in the Bodleian Library of Oxford University.

[00:05:47] [SPEAKER_00]: Regarding the people dressed in black in rural areas of Devon, when there is a funeral of someone local or well known, most of the local people turned out to pay their last respects to the departed.

[00:05:58] [SPEAKER_00]: It is possible that when TV presenter was in the village, an event of this kind was taking place and we would all have been in solemn or somber mood.

[00:06:08] [SPEAKER_00]: Our church is dedicated to St. Pancras and due to its large size, it is affectionately known as the Cathedral of the Moor.

[00:06:17] [SPEAKER_00]: In its present form, it dates from the 14th century, but there is little doubt in my mind that there has been a church here for much longer, even to the point that it was a religious significance in pre-Christian days.

[00:06:28] [SPEAKER_00]: There is a great deal of prehistoric evidence here in Dartmoor. I personally collect prehistoric implements and tools, and the earliest that I have dates from 8000 BC.

[00:06:39] [SPEAKER_00]: There is no Roman evidence here, but there was Roman activity within eight miles of here and of course in Exeter, our county town.

[00:06:47] [SPEAKER_00]: On the second Tuesday of September each year, we hold the annual Whitacombe Fair.

[00:06:51] [SPEAKER_00]: People come from all over the world to this special day when animals are shown, sporting events take place and the history of the area is on display.

[00:06:58] [SPEAKER_00]: Whitacombe Fair was an opportunity for farmers to sell stock when it was begun several hundred years ago, but now it is more of a fun gathering.

[00:07:07] [SPEAKER_00]: On Dartmoor there are many ghost stories, the hairy hands, black dogs, specters, all mixed up with the legends as I mentioned earlier.

[00:07:14] [SPEAKER_00]: Our history group has written a small book about Whitacombe and other about Whitacombe Fair, and these are obtainable through our website.

[00:07:21] [SPEAKER_00]: There are several more of you that have written to us and I hope that I have answered most of your queries in this letter.

[00:07:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Thank you for your interest in the Whitacombe and we would like to send you all season's greetings and all the best for 2011.

[00:07:32] [SPEAKER_00]: Yours sincerely, A.E. Beard, honorary secretary, Whitacombe History Group.

[00:07:38] [SPEAKER_00]: So he was defending his town. It's not a ghost town.

[00:07:42] [SPEAKER_01]: No, it was just a funeral which I kind of thought from that story is that it was a funeral and then like them talking to that woman.

[00:07:49] [SPEAKER_01]: She probably just had a thick British accent and they just probably couldn't understand it.

[00:07:57] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, the accents get a little weird in the countryside.

[00:08:01] [SPEAKER_00]: To say that it's speaking in tongues.

[00:08:05] [SPEAKER_00]: And the eyes probably, old people you know you get.

[00:08:08] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, cataracts. She was blind.

[00:08:10] [SPEAKER_00]: What this told me is that, yeah, sometimes we can hear a ghost story, an abandoned town or a ghost town.

[00:08:17] [SPEAKER_00]: In reality, it might just you know, you might get there on the wrong day like when you get to Seattle most of the year.

[00:08:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, everyone's just not talking or acknowledging you but they're not dead.

[00:08:28] [SPEAKER_01]: You're not dead. That's just the way it is there.

[00:08:30] [SPEAKER_00]: So don't always believe what you hear. Sometimes people just get there on the wrong day.

[00:08:38] [SPEAKER_01]: Now we're going to a real abandoned ghost town.

[00:08:42] [SPEAKER_01]: Abandoned for very good reason and it has a very dark history and will stay abandoned.

[00:08:49] [SPEAKER_01]: I think they'll probably start the cleanup in 2065.

[00:08:53] [SPEAKER_01]: We might be alive.

[00:08:54] [SPEAKER_01]: We might be alive when they start the cleanup.

[00:08:57] [SPEAKER_00]: We'll update.

[00:08:58] [SPEAKER_01]: We'll update if we're still alive then.

[00:09:02] [SPEAKER_01]: Picture this.

[00:09:03] [SPEAKER_01]: Doors banging open and shut in the wind.

[00:09:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Hastily abandoned amusement park rides creak noisily.

[00:09:11] [SPEAKER_01]: Snowy boulevards are dotted with wolf boar and fox tracks.

[00:09:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Outside decaying apartment high rises, nature has begun to creep through the gaps in the concrete.

[00:09:23] [SPEAKER_01]: But at night that's when the animals come and any sound echoes all over the city.

[00:09:33] [SPEAKER_01]: These are the ruins caused by the Chernobyl nuclear disaster that left the city of Pippa

[00:09:40] [SPEAKER_01]: and the surrounding farms and pine forests a ghost town.

[00:09:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Scarier still is that the streets are stocked by an invisible killer,

[00:09:51] [SPEAKER_01]: radiation sickness and cancer that will kill a person slowly and you never know when it'll strike.

[00:09:59] [SPEAKER_01]: So here's what happened.

[00:10:01] [SPEAKER_01]: In 1986, the Chernobyl nuclear plant went into meltdown located in the Soviet Union at the time,

[00:10:07] [SPEAKER_01]: which is modern day Ukraine.

[00:10:10] [SPEAKER_01]: So during this meltdown, at least 28 people were killed in the original disaster.

[00:10:15] [SPEAKER_01]: But thousands more have died from cancer as a result from the radiation that spread after the explosion

[00:10:21] [SPEAKER_01]: and the fire that leaked radiation into the air.

[00:10:25] [SPEAKER_01]: Isn't that crazy?

[00:10:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, the abandoned area is now called the exclusion zone.

[00:10:33] [SPEAKER_01]: It's frozen in time and in panic.

[00:10:36] [SPEAKER_00]: I never understood radiation honestly.

[00:10:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Like I remember learning about it in school, but like never really got it, got it right?

[00:10:44] [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I mean, it's kind of hard to grasp because it's invisible, right?

[00:10:47] [SPEAKER_01]: But it like it's invisible thing melting your skin off depending on or it's the other kind where you just get a weird cancer.

[00:10:55] [SPEAKER_00]: Emissions of like little waves that are like waves and they can contaminate everything.

[00:11:00] [SPEAKER_01]: Like the animals are so interesting, they don't allow people back in.

[00:11:04] [SPEAKER_01]: So the first 10 years after the accident, the animals were all being deformed and weird and like not living a long time.

[00:11:15] [SPEAKER_01]: Stuff was happening.

[00:11:16] [SPEAKER_01]: But now all the animals that are still there like rats, cats, dogs, cows, there's wolves.

[00:11:22] [SPEAKER_01]: There's a lynx that's come back.

[00:11:24] [SPEAKER_01]: Like nature is actually healing itself, but they're all radioactive.

[00:11:28] [SPEAKER_01]: So there's radioactive wolves.

[00:11:30] [SPEAKER_00]: That's a cool name for a band.

[00:11:32] [SPEAKER_01]: So now animals are more normal looking, but they're still contaminated.

[00:11:35] [SPEAKER_01]: Like there's still a bunch of cows that have contaminated milk in the area because it was farmland.

[00:11:41] [SPEAKER_01]: Like there's still a threat of contamination.

[00:11:46] [SPEAKER_01]: If you just do the wrong thing, go to the wrong place or lean against the wrong object, it could kill you.

[00:11:51] [SPEAKER_01]: Like there's still that going on in this town.

[00:11:55] [SPEAKER_01]: As with all eerie sites where a number of people have lost their lives, PIPYA is rife with ghost stories and strange folklore.

[00:12:04] [SPEAKER_01]: And there's this guy named Andrei Karsov, a nuclear physicist from New York, basically told one of these stories because he was visiting the area in 1997.

[00:12:14] [SPEAKER_01]: He went to the power station at 730 a.m. and went into reactor number four.

[00:12:19] [SPEAKER_01]: Also, the reactors weren't fully shut down.

[00:12:23] [SPEAKER_01]: They, sarcophagus, the one that had the meltdown, but they didn't fully shut down the Chernobyl site until 2000.

[00:12:29] [SPEAKER_01]: So FYI, that's pretty crazy.

[00:12:31] [SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, so this guy, he's a scientist.

[00:12:33] [SPEAKER_01]: He's going to do research.

[00:12:35] [SPEAKER_01]: So he went to the number four reactor, sarcophagus, which is where the explosion had occurred.

[00:12:42] [SPEAKER_01]: You can't go in due to radiation, but he took radiation readings.

[00:12:45] [SPEAKER_01]: And that's when he heard someone screaming for rescue from the fire inside.

[00:12:53] [SPEAKER_01]: And he ran up the stairs to tell someone.

[00:12:56] [SPEAKER_01]: And they said when he entered the control room, he was the first person to open that door in three years and that the only way someone could get inside the old reactor was through the doors he had come through.

[00:13:09] [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, you know, the reactor door requires a password, a handprint.

[00:13:14] [SPEAKER_01]: Yet someone or something was inside yelling.

[00:13:21] [SPEAKER_00]: Uh-uh, that's a ghost.

[00:13:24] [SPEAKER_01]: And so later that evening they were eating dinner.

[00:13:26] [SPEAKER_01]: The scientists were all eating dinner and outside the building by the river next to the plant, a floodlight turned on in the room of the installation.

[00:13:35] [SPEAKER_01]: There was no way anyone could be inside.

[00:13:38] [SPEAKER_01]: They figured it was a power surge or something.

[00:13:40] [SPEAKER_01]: And one of the colleagues said that it was like, oh, must be a power surge.

[00:13:44] [SPEAKER_01]: And then the second they said that, the light turned off.

[00:13:47] [SPEAKER_01]: That's terrifying.

[00:13:49] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:13:50] [SPEAKER_01]: But even more than that, in the days leading up to the Chernobyl disaster, several workers in the control room of the nuclear power plant claimed to have seen a creature that became known as the Blackbird of Chernobyl.

[00:14:05] [SPEAKER_00]: These are the coolest names.

[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_01]: I know, right?

[00:14:07] [SPEAKER_01]: They really did it.

[00:14:08] [SPEAKER_01]: They really did it with the naming.

[00:14:10] [SPEAKER_01]: Those unlucky enough to see the creature were said to be plagued with terrifying dreams and threatening phone calls, which I'm like, how did this thing call them?

[00:14:20] [SPEAKER_00]: Hello.

[00:14:21] [SPEAKER_00]: It's me, radiation.

[00:14:23] [SPEAKER_01]: The terrifying creature rose above the horizon of Chernobyl and Pippa, a hideous humanoid with giant wings, a black headless body, red glowing eyes sending a message of doom to all those who gazed upon it.

[00:14:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Sound familiar?

[00:14:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Yes.

[00:14:39] [SPEAKER_01]: People have come to believe that the Blackbird of Chernobyl is actually a form of a creature we all know and love, the Mothman.

[00:14:47] [SPEAKER_01]: But also the presence of the Mothman only means one thing.

[00:14:52] [SPEAKER_00]: Disaster.

[00:14:54] [SPEAKER_01]: Disaster.

[00:14:55] [SPEAKER_01]: Although these days, the Blackbird of Chernobyl is something more of an internet legend similar to Slender Man.

[00:15:01] [SPEAKER_01]: And also, some people believe that the authorities and Pippa actually invented the story to prevent people from entering the radioactive areas as looters are still a security problem, which is horrifying.

[00:15:15] [SPEAKER_00]: They're still trying to get in there?

[00:15:16] [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.

[00:15:17] [SPEAKER_01]: But anyway, weirdly enough, before the Ukrainian War, they opened it up as a tourist location.

[00:15:23] [SPEAKER_01]: So you can go visit and let us know how it goes.

[00:15:29] [SPEAKER_01]: If you're already in, you know, you're late in your lifetime, you'll probably be dead before cancer gets you.

[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:15:36] [SPEAKER_01]: If you're going to go explore it, I guess.

[00:15:38] [SPEAKER_00]: Go to Chernobyl, go swim with sharks, go catch an alligator.

[00:15:41] [SPEAKER_00]: Just go for it.

[00:15:43] [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I saw this thing, Life After People.

[00:15:45] [SPEAKER_01]: Did you ever watch that documentary?

[00:15:47] [SPEAKER_00]: No.

[00:15:48] [SPEAKER_01]: I think you'd really like it because it just shows you environments and how they're going to decay after people.

[00:15:54] [SPEAKER_01]: But they used Chernobyl like there's this great footage of Chernobyl because nature is really reclaiming it.

[00:16:02] [SPEAKER_01]: And so it's like, oh, here's a study of how nature can heal itself after a huge disaster.

[00:16:09] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't think I need to see that, but I loved watching it on the TV.

[00:16:13] [SPEAKER_01]: I don't need to go there.

[00:16:14] [SPEAKER_01]: But once again, all this was before the war.

[00:16:17] [SPEAKER_01]: We'll see what happens after the war.

[00:16:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Fan Corner, fan, fan corner.

[00:16:23] [SPEAKER_00]: This is from Night Guard.

[00:16:27] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.

[00:16:28] [SPEAKER_01]: Hi, Night Guard.

[00:16:29] [SPEAKER_00]: Night Guard says, From what I can remember, there is a railroad where I live that said that what looks like a lantern goes down the track without anyone holding on to it.

[00:16:39] [SPEAKER_00]: Can you imagine that?

[00:16:40] [SPEAKER_01]: That'd be spooky to see.

[00:16:42] [SPEAKER_01]: And also a great story for Tell Me a Ghost Story.

[00:16:44] [SPEAKER_01]: So please call in or leave a voice message somewhere and send it to me.

[00:16:50] [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it says my Bible teacher said he saw not one but two lights at once, which no one has seen before.

[00:16:56] [SPEAKER_00]: And from what he could gather and even got a picture of it in the background of a picture with his youth group.

[00:17:03] [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks a lot, Night Guard, and for also your other comments in the other episodes.

[00:17:06] [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, thank you.

[00:17:07] [SPEAKER_01]: You're a frequent commenter and we love it.

[00:17:10] [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks for your comments.

[00:17:11] [SPEAKER_00]: Send in your comments, questions, suggestions, ideas, anything you got for us so we can talk about it.

[00:17:18] [SPEAKER_00]: The next Campfire Story episode.

[00:17:21] [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, we got to put out that fire that never goes out.

[00:17:27] [SPEAKER_01]: Campfire Story is hosted by Michelle Newman and Edwin Covarrubias.

[00:17:31] [SPEAKER_00]: This podcast was edited and sound designed by Sarah Voorhis-Wendel of VW Sound.

[00:17:37] [SPEAKER_01]: Make sure you follow us wherever you get your pod.