Become a Creator today!Start creating today - Share your story with the world!
Start for free
00:00:00
00:00:01
Cocaine Bear & Bela Lugosi's Cursed Mirror
20 Plays1 year ago
On this week’s episode, it’s Goldi-Lugosi and the Three Bears!
First up, Lauren claws back the true (crime) story behind COCAINE BEAR! While the movie might feature over-the-top mauling and a drug-fueled animal-attack man massacre in the forest from a Black Bear hopped up on coke, the real story is far less gory and way more sad…for the bear, that is. Next she explores two additional true life bear attacks that occurred in Montana…and, unlike the first one, these are grizzly. Listen if you can bear it.
Next, Felicia tells us about a potentially cursed and haunted mirror that was once owned by none other than Bela Lugosi! Mr. Lugosi was of course the OG Dracula in the Universal Monster movies, but he also had a strange and spooky life off-screen, as it appears that his interest in spiritualism and the occult wasn't just research for his roles. Uncover the paranormal experiences people have had around the mirror, IF YOU DARE!
If you have requests for future episodes or just want to hang out, follow us on Instagram @sinistersisterspodcast
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction and Weekly Topics
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome to the Sinister Sisters podcast. I'm Lauren. I'm Felicia. We're best friends and we like spooky stuff. Yes, we do. We're back this week. We're going to see what each other's topics are.
Movie Talk: 'Cocaine Bear' and 'I See You'
00:00:28
Speaker
Mine is a little relevant. I'm thinking about the timeline of when this will come out, but hopefully a lot of people have seen Cocaine Bear and it'll be fun.
00:00:38
Speaker
Yeah, what does it come out? It's already out. Oh my god. I'm so behind. I still haven't been fine. Oh My gosh, I was just gonna ask you if you'd seen it. I was gonna say that would be great for recommendations. Not yet I haven't seen a damn thing Lauren Except for a rerun except for reruns of Grey's Anatomy That's amazing. Honestly, I think that's all we need in the world. But have you seen a couple? This is the embarrassing part of this podcast. No, I haven't
00:01:08
Speaker
No, I think this so you wanted to do the research before you saw the movie. I think that just like read the book before you see the film adaptation. I'm gonna say yes to that. Yeah, no. See how accurate it is. Right? Yeah. Tell me your recommendations. My most like relevant to horror things. We watched a thriller movie that just hit Netflix. It actually came out in 2019. Though we looked it up. It's called
00:01:36
Speaker
I see you with Helen Hunt. You've probably been offered it. I think I saw it when it came out. I think I reviewed it. Is that with the girl? Oh my God. And she's like blind. Wait. No. Oh, it's not the... No, no, no, no. Not much. And how she's deaf.
00:01:59
Speaker
Maybe it's, oh no, I'm thinking of C for me. C for me. Okay. What is yours? What is this one? I'm sorry. ICU is, I don't want to give too much away. It's a thriller. It's on Netflix. There's like a lot of really good shots. I feel like we haven't seen Helen Hunt in a long time, which is just like fun to see her. There's a really creepy like frog mask in it.
00:02:23
Speaker
Ooh. That's exciting. Yeah. I don't want to give too much away, so I won't give too much. But it's really interesting and scary. I did fall asleep in parts, but I don't think there's anything I get through nowadays. I really don't. I feel that. I feel that. And I did.
Nostalgia and TV Shows: 'Yellow Jackets'
00:02:41
Speaker
Oh, my God. Oh, yeah. No, you go.
00:02:43
Speaker
I was just saying, I took a nap today and I had this like crazy experience that so I, so I turned off Grey's Anatomy. I said, I need, I'm sick by the way. So I was like, I need to take a nap. I fell asleep. And when I woke up, I, I could, I had this memory of like, when you're in your childhood home and you're waking up from a nap and like on the couch and like your mom's in the kitchen and you're like,
00:03:08
Speaker
okay, if you need to come help me with this, like wake up, Felicia, come to dinner or something, something. And like, I got that just feeling of like, oh, everything's so easy right now. I just have to go get my dinner. And then I woke up and I said, no, not this life again. That is honestly devastating to wake up from. I know, but it was kind of a magical moment. I was like, oh, wow. It was like such a like,
00:03:35
Speaker
Visceral memory. Oh, that is beautiful. When all you had to worry about was like walking to the table. Can you imagine? Oh my God. So my recommendation for this week is take a nostalgia nap. I love it. That's what we all need. That's all I saw. I think that's a great recommendation. Thank you. Oh, I was going to say too, I saw the new, no, I saw the new episode of Yellow Jackets as well. I'm sure you haven't seen yet, right?
00:04:04
Speaker
Yes. No, but I freaking loved it the first season. So I got to watch it. It's so good. I watched it last time. It's all showtime, right? Yes. I don't know about you. We like.
00:04:16
Speaker
Yes. That's exactly what I think we ended up doing was we like waited until it was all out and then we did like a free week trial and I think that's what I did. Yeah. But yeah, James was really committed. So he just paid for showtime for the month. So I was like, wow. I know that's how good that show is. It really is so good. And Juliette Lewis is so flipping crazy. I love her. Incredible. Incredible. She's just unhinged. There's just like one part where she's like, you know, cause she was kidnapped at the end of the,
00:04:47
Speaker
last season so she's like strapped in and she's like struggling and her legs are like like she looks like a gymnast like she's literally all over the place and i was like what is going on like showing off that you're flexible i cannot wait to see that i'm so excited
00:05:04
Speaker
I know. I think we all like I every time I see her, I'm like, I wish I was like a little bit more Juliette Lewis in my life. She's so cool. Oh, she's so cool. She was like in a punk band like back in the day, or I think she's still in a band. She's like, yeah, she's like, I want to say it's her. It's not her band that did the theme song, right? I think I looked this up last time. Insane. I don't think so. I think I would know that. Actually, I think so too.
Oddities Expo and Taxidermy
00:05:29
Speaker
Yes, you do.
00:05:31
Speaker
I will say too, very quickly, we went to, and this is just because it's, I was thinking about crazy, I don't know, craziness. We went to this oddities expo yesterday in Dallas and it was so fun, but I like, okay, if you had asked me before this, I would have said like, no, of course, like I don't like taxidermy. No, of course, like I don't like weird like animal skeletons and things. Like that's so weird. There was this like artist, I can't even describe it, that had
00:06:01
Speaker
mice skeletons doing like menial tasks, just like a mouse skeleton like in a little mouse kitchen, like do the mouse kitchen thing. Was it taxidermy or just the skeleton? Just the skeleton. Oh, interesting. Because I've seen like the little taxidermy mice that are like dressed up in little cute outfits. And like, honestly, I really like those. I know it's dark, but I like them. But just the skeleton.
00:06:27
Speaker
Just the skeleton. And then for some reason, this is even more specific. I was loving they had all these mouse skeletons that had wings, like fairies. Oh, that's so cute. I love that. I don't know what it was, but I was like, like James is like, um, is this like a whole new part of your personality that you're discovering? I was like, I think so.
00:06:46
Speaker
Well, I love that. I love it. I mean, I love it. But I mean, I hate it in certain ways. But I also love it in other ways. Agreed. And then I found out I found out so much I feel like but apparently like people don't people aren't allowed to do taxidermy bats anymore.
00:07:02
Speaker
Because it was such of a thing, like such a thing that like they, I don't know if it was like PETA or whoever was like, hey, you can't do this. And that you can't like, it's not okay to like make taxidermy bats anymore. I wonder if people were like killing the bats to do the taxidermy. I think so. It was like too big of a thing. Which is very upsetting. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we did see, there were a couple of things that took it too far. Like there was a literal like,
00:07:29
Speaker
baby kitten taxidermy that I was like, oof, I don't like this. I don't think I could take that. I don't think I could take that. No, I was out. Then they had little Toby next to me. I know he's kind of cat sized.
00:07:43
Speaker
but they also had that weird like I hate this thing they had like people like hung up by hooks like as like a freak show act I hate that I hate that I'm just like why are we doing this oh it doesn't matter I yeah there's some people that do that um on the internet and I'm just like don't do that
00:08:05
Speaker
Why is that fun? I don't know. I think it's a sex thing. It's like a kinky thing. But then in public at an oddities expo, I was like, I just want to see this. It's upsetting. I'm just like, how does someone figure out they can do that? I don't know. I'm saying. You drink a lot of water? What do you need? I don't know. It's not for us. It's not for us. No.
00:08:27
Speaker
We're never going to be part of the Hellraiser. That's awesome that they had that. Yeah, definitely not. No. They had like some two-headed cows taxidermy. I don't know. It's like not entirely for me, but there were parts that I found delightful. Love it. That's great. Anyway, I should dive into my story. Yes, because I'm telling you, I have nothing to recommend to you other than an app.
00:08:54
Speaker
I think it's beautiful. Maybe we should just, we're going to do like life recommendations sometimes. Yeah, that's good. I recommend a bowl of pasta and a little glass of wine and a nice nappy nap.
00:09:09
Speaker
It's beautiful. Amazing.
The True Story of Cocaine Bear
00:09:12
Speaker
Okay. Well, as I hinted, so I'm actually going to do two stories this week, which might mean that it's one full episode. We'll see how this goes, but I'm going to start out with the true story behind Cocaine Bear. Thank God, because honestly, I'm dying to know it. I can't wait. Yes. I felt like it was helpful. So the actual Cocaine Bear.
00:09:32
Speaker
was nicknamed Pablo Escobar, which is- Oh, wow. Oh my God. I know. Or people called him Koki the bear or Snow Bear. He was a real life 175 American black bear who fatally overdosed on cocaine back in 1985.
00:09:54
Speaker
Honestly, yeah. I'll get into it a little bit more. I was going to say, both of my stories are honestly, I'm team bear, like mostly. Okay. On September 11th, apparently a very sad day for everyone, in 1985, former Lexington Police Department narcotics officer who was now a smuggler, a drug smuggler, his name was
00:10:23
Speaker
Andrew C. Thornton II. So he was trafficking cocaine from Columbia into the US. He had like another accomplice with him and they dropped a shipment in Blairsville, Georgia and then they hopped back on their little plane for their next stop. And for some reason during the flight, we'll talk about this, they ended up
00:10:50
Speaker
dropping a load of 40 plastic containers of cocaine into the forest before abandoning their plane in Knoxville, Tennessee. This is really sad, but Andrew Thornton was actually killed instantly because his parachute failed to open.
00:11:10
Speaker
Which is just so crazy to me that we use parachutes when things like this happen. I'm like, isn't there some better technology? I mean, I'm sure it's better than it was in 1985, but I did do a little research into this man and he was actually a prominent Kentucky horse breeder.
00:11:31
Speaker
Interestingly enough, before he moved over to become an expert paratrooper for the US army, and he even earned a Purple Heart when the US invaded the Dominican Republic in 1965. So it's very odd to me that he had trouble with his parachute because that was like part of his job in the army, like he was experienced at it.
00:11:54
Speaker
According to the FBI, they dumped the cargo because the load of the two men, in addition to the amount of cocaine, was just too heavy for the plane to support. I guess they couldn't get it high enough into the air and decided that they had to drop the cocaine. Then another working theory that people have on the internet is that maybe Andrew Thornton thought that the feds were trailing him.
00:12:22
Speaker
they decided to get rid of the cocaine and then basically keep some of the stash, dump some of the stash, and take some with them when they parachute it out and drop some. Thornton, as I said, was found dead in Knoxville, Tennessee. This is also just some details, but he was wearing Gucci loafers and had roughly $15 million worth of cocaine strapped to his body. Holy shit.
00:12:51
Speaker
He was a wealthy man. The 80s were wild. The 80s were wild. So no one knew about this extra dropping of cocaine and nobody obviously knew about the bear or anything else until four months after this. So the New York Times reported in December of 1985, so that was about
00:13:15
Speaker
three, four months after, that the black bear was found dead in the Chattahoochee National Forest, and as I said, died of an overdose of cocaine. So he was found amongst those 40 plastic containers with traces of cocaine. And also very sadly, he'd been dead for about a month when they found him. So more just like proof that shit goes down in National Forest and nobody knows. Yeah, seriously.
00:13:44
Speaker
But Dr. Kenneth Alonzo, who was Georgia's chief medical examiner at the time, he did an autopsy on the bear, and he found three or four grams of cocaine in its bloodstream, although it's likely that the bear actually consumed even more. There were, again, rumors going around that he did eat all 40 containers worth of cocaine, which would be about 35 pounds, which is insane.
00:14:14
Speaker
I can't imagine that the bear would taste something like that and think it's food.
00:14:21
Speaker
Right? That's so confusing. Maybe he was starving. I don't know. Yeah. I mean, it is like an interesting concept in general because so people think that what actually happened is that some humans found some of the cocaine and took some of it, and then he just consumed the rest of what was there. But overall, there hasn't been a lot of research into
00:14:47
Speaker
like what cocaine does to animals or even just like we don't even really know like what alcohol does to animals or marijuana like there's like not like a ton of knowledge around like whether animals like experience a high like us because I think you don't really know you know like I don't think people really know how they could like
00:15:08
Speaker
You can't obviously talk to an animal and be like, how are you feeling experience? Yeah, exactly. It's wild. So animals will like we do know that like they get you know, sleepy after sipping alcohol or like there is I thought this was interesting to there has been like some
00:15:24
Speaker
findings around reindeer consuming mushrooms. Oh, no way. Acting crazy after consuming mushrooms. But we don't really know if animals will lick cocaine and then be like, ooh, I want more of that humans. Interesting. It's all a little interesting. The sad part is that's pretty much all we know about the cocaine bear. There's no murders. They make that into a whole movie.
00:15:54
Speaker
I know. So there's no murders or limbs. So the, you know, the screenwriter of the film, whose name is Jimmy Warden, said that the film's like, you know, not historical fiction. It's just like what he wished happened after the bear hit all that pokey. Okay, okay, okay. I see. And then Elizabeth Banks, who is the director of the movie,
00:16:17
Speaker
signed on to direct just because she thought it was the opportunity to give the bear a point of view. And she felt really sad after knowing the true story. And she said, the quote is actually, I really felt like this is so fucked up that this bear got dragged into this drug run, gone bad, and ends up dead. I felt like this movie could be that bear's revenge story, which I kind of love. Yeah, it's a little better perspective, I guess. Yeah.
00:16:45
Speaker
But it's really overall less of a story about a drugged animal going crazy in real life and definitely more so just how humans trash and nonsense puts animals into danger all the time.
Bear Attacks in Glacier National Park
00:17:05
Speaker
I decided after learning about the sad truth of the cocaine bear story, I was like, well, I'm sure, mostly it was me thinking back to Travis the chimp and animals going crazy. That was such a sad one. It was a really sad one and dark one. We've said that, right? Nope is Travis the chimp, right? Yeah, absolutely.
00:17:30
Speaker
Yeah, so I think there's definitely this interesting unexplored or maybe not unexplored. I think I love that we can include topics on our podcast that are animals gone wild. And so I wanted to look a little bit more into that and bear attacks and how often is that a thing? And we had bears in my neighborhood growing up. I don't know if that's a thing. I don't know if that's a thing in Maryland ever.
00:17:59
Speaker
Yeah. What about North Carolina? Gotta be, right? Probably more bears than with Carolina. I don't know. We had just a lot of deer, I feel. Not a lot of bears though. Yeah. And even to this day, like my parents will call me and be like, you know, there are bears back on the street or like they see like mamas with baby bears all the time. Like it's pretty crazy. So I'm going to talk about one of like the, and this is, I will say like, this is a relatively recent story. There is,
00:18:28
Speaker
you know, there are death, there is death of teenage women. And so
00:18:34
Speaker
If that is bothersome to you, this is kind of a dark one in those ways. So it was, because I know sometimes we do like more spooky or supernatural and this is just like, it was just death. So the summer of 1967, there were these two women, they're both 19 years old, both working at the Glacier National Park in Montana. So again, like to me, a very appropriate place for there to be bears. Yeah, that makes sense.
00:19:04
Speaker
Yeah, so they were going kind of on separate, you know, they didn't know each other or anything. It was like separate overnight backpacking trips with their friends on August 12th. Unknown to them, there had been grizzlies around like spotted near lodges and campsites and they were, you know, attracted to mostly it seems like, like, and all again, go, go into more of this later.
00:19:29
Speaker
But there weren't really like the same safety precautions at national parks as there are now. So there was like a lot of food left behind by tourists. People weren't great about cleaning out their campsites. So there were and there were also some like bad forest fires that were driving the bears into areas populated by humans. So Julie Helgeson was one of the girls. And so she was from Albert Lea, Minnesota.
00:19:56
Speaker
She came to work, this is actually like a sad summer job to me, but she came to work in the laundry room at the East Glacier Park Lodge.
00:20:04
Speaker
So she and her friend named Roy Dukat arrived at their sites. They were backpacking. They arrived at their campsite at about 7 PM and they ate their dinners. They watched the sunset and they decided again, not for me, not a big camper, but they decided to sleep under the stars. So I would never, I would never, I would be in, you know, zipped fully into my tent.
00:20:35
Speaker
but Julie and Roy
00:20:38
Speaker
woke up right before dawn and they were woken by a large grizzly bear sniffing at their sleeping bags. Oh, my God. I know. So Roy would later tell investigators that Julie had actually seen the bear and woke him up by saying, like, hey, play dead. And so they were like, you know, staying as still as possible. And the one in the grizzly bear knocked the pair out of their sleeping bags.
00:21:07
Speaker
sunk his teeth and claws into both of them. And this is really sad. The bear dragged Julie about a hundred yards away and she was screaming for help the whole time. And Roy's arm was badly mangled, so he kind of like ran off to go try to find help and wake the other campers that were nearby.
00:21:28
Speaker
and a helicopter with medical supplies arrived, but basically because people were so freaked out by this bear, the ranger leading it was really cautious and so it held up.
00:21:40
Speaker
the search party because they were like worried about other people getting hurt. And so this is also really sad, but nearly two hours passed before a group left to go try to find Julie or save Julie. Oh my God. That is fucked up. Two hours. I mean, obviously she's dead. Yeah. Nobody wants to help her.
00:22:06
Speaker
I know if you're like, if your arm is like bleeding and you're mangled, I'm like, maybe you wouldn't, but I'm like the other campers. Wouldn't somebody like somebody? It's very upsetting to me. So Roy was taken to the hospital and then a ranger with a rifle led a group to go, you know, fall. This is dark to follow like the blood trail to go find her. Get ready for this. Two hours later, she was just badly wounded.
00:22:33
Speaker
No way. So they found her. Yes, very sad. They found her, carried her back to the cottage, a helicopter arrived to take her to the hospital, and she had reached the cottage by 3.45 a.m., but died soon after that, minutes before the helicopter got to her. And so she unfortunately died before the rescue hospital, you know, before the rescue team was able to get her to the hospital, which is so sad. It is so sad.
00:23:04
Speaker
other 19-year-old backpacking girl. It is also very weird to me that they were the same age and going on separate- This is a separate story. Trips. Yes. This is a new separate story. Oh my God. Same area. Oh, geez. Not the one in Montana. Seemingly different bears. It's very weird. I mean, yes, different bears. I don't know why I said that. They're confirmed different bears. Okay. Michelle Coons was from San Diego.
00:23:32
Speaker
She was working at the park as a gift shop saleswoman during that summer. Her group that she went on this backpacking trip with was Paul Dunn, Ray Nozak, Ron Nozak, they were brothers, and Denise Huckle, and then we love it or hate it, but Michelle's dog Squirt was also on the backpacking trip. Squirt.
00:24:00
Speaker
I'm scared. I'm scared already. I'm scared for squirt too. So on their way to the site, they ran into a group of people. This also kills me. I don't know. I'm always on the hunt for moments in my life where I'm like, someone is warning me not to do a thing. Maybe I shouldn't do the thing. But on their way to the site, they ran into a group coming basically like the other direction who said, we saw a bear in the area.
00:24:27
Speaker
And when they got to the site, the campsite, they kept going. When they got to the campsite, a bear showed up pretty quickly. So their camp was raided by a bear as they cooked dinner, but they ran away and thought that everything was okay with the bear now. And so they just moved down a little bit onto the beach to go to sleep.
00:24:51
Speaker
I'm just like, that's where I'd be out. If you see a bear. Absolutely. I'd be out of there. You're not spending the night. So the bear returned by about 4.30 AM and Denise woke up to the bear sniffing her bag. So she laid very still. It kept going around, like checking out the other sleeping bags. And then the bear approached Michelle and she woke up and screamed. Basically this is also just, you know,
00:25:18
Speaker
Again, not judging anyone, but all four of the friends besides Michelle jumped out of their sleeping bags. One had the dog squirt with them, carried squirt, climbed up into trees to get away from the bear.
00:25:34
Speaker
Paul said that he yelled for Michelle to climb a tree, but it was too late. So she yelled that her zipper was stuck and the bear bit off her arm. Oh, my God. Can you imagine your friends just leaving you? But then I'm like, I don't know what they were supposed to do. Help with the zipper. Help with the zipper. I don't know. Okay, we're never going camping because I can't be put in this position.
00:26:00
Speaker
No, I can't either. I'm like, I don't know. And then I was like, oh, my God, they grabbed the dog, but they didn't grab their friend. And then I'm like, I don't know. I don't know what I would do. Well, the dog is probably easier to carry. I mean, I would have to take Toby. I would grab Toby for sure. Oh, yeah. Did you hear that? Toby's easy to grab, too. He's light. Yeah, he's so small. So they try to yell and scare the bear off from the trees.
00:26:29
Speaker
But just as I didn't know this was, I also did not know this was like a pattern, but Michelle was dragged away by the bear as well. So the friends stayed in the tree. It's also again, it's not a great look for more than two hours, stayed up in the trees for two hours. And then at dawn, they came down and ran for the nearest ranger station.
00:26:53
Speaker
asked for help, went and looked for Michelle, and they found Michelle's body about 100 yards from the campsite, and she had died from her injuries before anyone got to her. Really sad. Are these bears eating the people or just attacking? Okay, so we'll get into this a little bit. Obviously, the victims are the saddest part of this story. That is a horrible situation. Horrifying. The park did not handle things that they should.
00:27:23
Speaker
They did end up hunting down these bears and killing them, and they did find when they were going after these bears, the bear that mauled Michelle in particular was very small and definitely starving. This is really sad. They found shards of glass in its gums from it previously going through human's trash.
00:27:50
Speaker
getting it stuck in its mouth. And then not being able to eat because the glass was in its mouth. So eating became painful for the bear. And so- This is terrible. It's really sad. And so they did do an autopsy on this bear. They did find human remains inside. There was even an article that I saw that literally said a clump of blonde hair, which is really gross. So they know that this bear killed Michelle.
00:28:19
Speaker
clearly was starving, it doesn't seem like they consumed the people whole by any means. I think they did unfortunately find parts of each of their bodies, but I think it was definitely a driving factor to get food.
00:28:38
Speaker
And then at Julie's site, the first victim that I spoke about, so the rangers actually ended up killing three bears, including the mom of two baby bears. And so this is really sad. So when they were shooting at the bears, one of the rangers missed and hit a cub and broke the cub's jaw, but it lived and survived.
00:29:06
Speaker
And so miraculously, both of those cubs survived through the winter even without their mom. But unfortunately, they never identified if any of those bears that they shot actually killed Julie. So they don't even really know if those were the right bears that they were shooting at. This is so upsetting because there's no villain because you just feel bad for everybody.
00:29:32
Speaker
Everybody. Like you feel bad for the bears. And I was going to say like, I feel bad because I obviously like have never been in a situation like this and I'm sure you go into survival mode. So I'm also like, what if that was your friend and then you just like live the rest of your life knowing that you didn't help them. You didn't help them or whatever. Yeah. It's really sad.
00:29:55
Speaker
So they, you know, as I said, tried to kill the bears. They weren't really sure. The really fucked up part is there was literally advertising for the national park saying like, come see our grizzly bears before this attack.
00:30:10
Speaker
Yeah. No, please don't. Please don't come see our grizzly bears. I just think I guess this in the 1980s, like we just didn't understand that they were this dangerous. And so it was also like a stormy evening. There was a lot of lightning and thunder that could have, you know, unsettled the bears. And it just ultimately seems like it was just like poor park management. But the kind of interesting thing, you know, I would think that this is like enough, like,
00:30:40
Speaker
media and attention and everything else to change park policies. But it really seems like it was also kind of like egged on or enhanced because there was a book that was written in 1969 called Night of the Grizzlies by Jack Olson. And that seems to be like another big push towards changing policy at national parks.
00:31:04
Speaker
And so that specific national park, they definitely made changes. The Rangers after this attack cleaned up all of those areas of, you know, campsite trash. They created policies so that campers were no longer allowed to feed the animals, which is horrifying that people were feeding bears at any time. And that you were also, you know, after you left the campsite, you were required to like,
00:31:29
Speaker
remove your own trash and parks had to close campsites and trails and better track when bears were spotted so that people wouldn't go to those areas anymore. And they also released all this education about how to better stay safe in bear country and just stay more alert and better pay attention to all of that.
00:31:53
Speaker
But it's really just like the, and yeah, I just can't imagine what the news was like at that time. The same night two 19 year old girls were killed by grizzly bears. It's just like so horrifying and upsetting. That is, that is mind blowing. And just another, yeah, story of like nature taking back or fighting back or anything else. Man, that's brutal.
00:32:23
Speaker
I know. I started out with like, oh, Cocaine Bear will be a fun story. And then I was like, damn. It's just so dark. It's so dark. We did a good job. Thank you. Okay, cool.
The Haunted Mirror of Bela Lugosi
00:32:49
Speaker
Today I'm talking about a cursed, potentially cursed or haunted object. Ooh. It's one of those ones. We haven't done one of those in a while. Yeah. It's one of those ones that I'm like, is this, I'm a little skeptical about, but it's got some cool history. So we'll, I'll give it to you. So this is the haunted mirror of Bella Lugosi.
00:33:20
Speaker
So if you don't know, Bela Lugosi is most famous for playing Dracula in the universal horror films of Dracula and a lot of other horror films from the 1930s to the mid-1950s. Bela Lugosi is his stage name. So his name is Bela Vereenik Deso Blasco and he's Hungarian.
00:33:49
Speaker
And he did a lot of theater shows in Hungary for many years before eventually ending up in New York. And he starred in the Broadway adaptation of Dracula in 1927 playing Count Dracula. I don't know if you knew that, but it's- I didn't know that at all. Yeah, so he played Dracula.
00:34:17
Speaker
Yeah, before the movies even came out. And when he was doing that on Broadway, he like barely spoke English like he just memorized the text. And then when it got to the universal picture in the 19th, we'll see, 1931, I guess. Yeah, he like he was so famous for playing Dracula in the theater that they gave it to him.
00:34:44
Speaker
Oh, my gosh, I love that. I feel like I didn't know any like I feel like we always love when the theater actor gets to play in the movie. I know. I'm sure it was so different at that time, but still that it was like enough of a hit on Broadway and he didn't even know English like he was. I know. Yeah, it's wild. I mean, he does have an amazing presence. He absolutely does. Yeah. Yeah, he's just he's yeah, he's very, very striking. And and even like his
00:35:13
Speaker
voice everything about him. I mean, he became what we understand as Dracula from then on. And even he had, I think I've read before, he had a hard time doing things that weren't horror films after that. He was just very typecast as in horror movies, but I'm like, he's still a great career. And he was eventually, when he died, he was buried with his Dracula cape. That's just a fun little-
00:35:40
Speaker
I didn't know that either. I love that. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, so this. OK, so I found I was looking up haunted mirrors because I felt like there would be some. I agree. An episode of Zach Baggins. I mean, here we are again. Here we are again with Zach Baggins.
00:36:02
Speaker
Oh, God. Will he ever be a guest in our podcast? Maybe. I don't know. Do we want that? I don't know. I don't know. But Zach Baggins, so obviously he's got his haunted museum and he had this. He's had multiple shows now, but the one show, I think it's called Deadly Possessions. And on that episode is he is acquiring this mirror and
00:36:30
Speaker
Yeah, so apparently- I actually don't think I've ever watched that show, anyway.
00:36:35
Speaker
It's well the version I watched was truly hilarious because so to put it on YouTube you know, which is illegal this person had to flip it so it's mirrored so the film so the footage is like mirrored which is just flips it's fine and Then they pitched the entire audio down So Zach Baggins voice it just sounds like this
00:37:04
Speaker
It's so funny. So I had to watch the whole episode like that, but it's just so it wouldn't get flied for copyright and taken down. Oh, my God. That's hilarious. But anyway, so apparently Belagossi was interested in the occult and spiritualism and those kinds of things that were also just very popular in the time that he was in America. He was a member of, oh, I hope I say this right.
00:37:32
Speaker
the Rosicrucian Order, which is a, it's not really a church, but it's like a community, it's on their website, they still exist. And it's called, they call themselves a community of mystics who study and practice the metaphysical laws governing the universe. It was founded in 1915, and Bellagosi was a member, and it's based on
00:37:55
Speaker
like a spiritual movement in Europe from like the early 17th century. And yeah, but it's basically like, it's like, it's like spiritualism, mysticism, kind of stuff like that. Yeah, I was I always feel so interested. And this is this goes for like, modern actors to where it's like, which came first? Like, what's he
00:38:19
Speaker
Cass is Dracula and then he was like, ooh, now I kind of have an interest in this. You know what I mean? Or is it like, always have an interest in that, which makes you feel like you want to be Dracula more? I don't know. Good question. I have no idea. But yeah, so after, so he had this mirror in his house and there's not much about the mirror
00:38:39
Speaker
there's not really anything about the mirror until after his death. So when he died, the person that bought the house was this kind of like B-movie film producer named Frank Selectory. And when he moved into the house, the mirror like came with the house, it was on the wall. And
00:39:02
Speaker
Frank, I guess, had some mob ties of sorts and was killed in a mob-style murder, which I won't go into detail, but I guess had to do with the screwdriver and was very, very horrifying. Oh my God, a screwdriver? I know. It was very, very dark. But so it was murdered in the house in 1982, and the mirror saw it happen.
00:39:32
Speaker
Just like Oculus. Just like. Oh, man, that's man. That would be fire. It's good. It's so good. It's very scary. OK, so his daughter or no, sorry, my bad. His niece, Cindy, became in possession of the mirror at a certain point. And as soon as she brought it into her house,
00:39:57
Speaker
She started, her family started noticing scary things about the mirror. So for example, it was hanging up in their bathroom. Her daughter was like curling her hair and she could see the reflection in the mirror and she thought, she felt that she saw a hand come out of the mirror and grab her. Not good.
00:40:19
Speaker
Not good. The other family members said they saw like a scary face in the mirror and they started to wonder whether it's like whether it was cursed while being in Bela Lugosi's house or whether something to do with the murder of their uncle had to do with like the mirror being cursed. So it got to the point that
00:40:48
Speaker
One of the daughters felt bite marks on the back of her neck and she had all these marks there. It's, it's pretty standard haunted objects. Um, but it's just, it's horrible. And so they have to, yeah. Yeah.
00:41:07
Speaker
So it got to a point that they felt like they really needed to get rid of this mirror. And so they brought it to Zach Baggins and they were like, we can't, we don't feel good about giving it to someone. We don't want to sell it. Do you want it? And so he's like, obviously, yes, thank you. So he interviews them and
00:41:29
Speaker
He only ends up talking to the the mom who's the niece of the mob guy and one of the daughters, the daughter that had the most trauma from the mirror, like didn't want to come on the show. And I think apparently she's like had to seek some help for like whatever mental stuff the mirror has kind of put her through. So I think she's had a very hard time, which is very sad.
00:42:00
Speaker
That is sad and also like goes against, I don't know, I feel like we always are like, oh, people like, you know, make up this stuff to like get attention or, you know, like. And then it's like they don't even want to get to tell the story. Then it's, I don't know, it feels a little more real. More real. Yeah. Yeah. And so and then Zach Baggins, he did some experiments with the mirror and
00:42:24
Speaker
The first thing that happened in the episode is about 12 hours after they brought the mirror into the museum, the whole basement like flooded where it was, which had never happened before. Love that. And then he also did an experiment with a guy just looking into the mirror. And it's this guy that I guess like, I don't know if he like identifies as a vampire. I wasn't very clear on this part, but he looked into the mirror and his girlfriend was like standing near him. And at some point he looked,
00:42:54
Speaker
at his self in the mirror and he looks at his girlfriend, he looks back in the mirror and then he like fell and like
00:43:01
Speaker
hit his head and was like unconscious. Oh my god. Yeah, so that's not good. And yeah, so now it's still, it's tangy right now in the Zach Baggins Museum and he has it covered up with a, like some fabric. I think you are allowed to look into it if you really want to, but he has it covered up and he has this like the top hat of Bela Gossi like on top of it and like a picture of Bela Gossi and
00:43:30
Speaker
And all the stuff and so what zach baguins proposes in this episode is that bella legosi had potentially used the mirror. In some of his experiments with the occult.
00:43:46
Speaker
And when he died, left the space vulnerable to whatever he had opened the mirror up to. And then when a murder occurred in front of the mirror, it like allowed for a dark entity to come into the mirror. It's kind of his, you know, theory. Whoa.
00:44:06
Speaker
that's really intense yeah so like this is one of those stories it's like I don't really know if I buy all of it or not but I do think it's I mean I do
00:44:17
Speaker
I think it's cool that I found out Bellagossi was into the occult and stuff and I wouldn't have known any of that. So it was worth researching for sure. But when I was watching the episode, and maybe it's because I was watching it with all their voices pitched down, but I was just like, is this real? I don't know. And he's so dramatic that sometimes I feel like it takes away from the authenticity sometimes where I'm like, if it was less spooky edited, I feel like I would almost buy up more.
00:44:47
Speaker
I totally agree with you. I'm not producing. I know. It's hard with him sometimes where I'm like, I do think genuinely some of the stuff is spooky and crazy stories. And what you shared about the mirror, like a lot of that is like very scary. But, you know, Zach Baggins makes it a little over the top. I mean, I'm a theater kid myself, but he's a little too theatrical at times. I agree. I'm with you. And that's it. That's Bela goes. He's haunted mirror.
00:45:17
Speaker
I love it. I love a haunted item and I feel like it's exactly as you do. I love learning about Bela Gosi. Me too. Me too.
00:45:26
Speaker
All right. Well, thank you all so much for listening to this, uh, grizzly and haunted episode. Yes. I was trying to make some like, you know, I don't know. It's not the wolf man. So it really doesn't work, but yeah, I guess there's not a lot of horror films about bears. Yeah, not really, but anyway, thank you all for listening. We hope you have some sweet, sweet nightmares. Bye.