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The Mandela Effect & Skin-Walkers
25 Plays4 years ago
This week, Felicia discusses the Mandela Effect and even quizzes Lauren on her knowledge of some classic ones. Lauren covers the Skin-Walker from Navajo culture, a creepy version of a shapeshifting witch that will surely to keep you up at night.
If you have requests for future episodes or just want to hang out follow us on Instagram @sinistersisterspodcast
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Transcript
Introduction and Personal Updates
00:00:12
Speaker
Welcome to the Sinister Sisters podcast. I'm Felicia. I'm Lauren. We're best friends. And we like spooky stuff. And we took a little break. A little too late. A little summer vacay. Yeah. The first week I was in North Carolina with my family. And last week,
00:00:31
Speaker
I moved to Texas. Yeah, across the country. I feel that I will never quite be a Texan, but I'm glad to be here. Sorry if anyone's from Texas.
00:00:47
Speaker
No, I think it's just that they say on Sex and the City, if you live in New York for 10 years, you're a New Yorker. So I'm just a New Yorker. I think that's true. And I'm also looking at Lauren's beautiful new apartments, doing so well, so proud. I was just posing. You can't see that on the podcast. Hopefully they can feel it. It's very exciting to have my own space. I can't even tell you guys. That's huge.
00:01:14
Speaker
huge. Yeah, not really an option in New York City. Definitely not. Yeah. Yes. Unless you're wealthy. Yeah. But yeah. All right. Do you have any recommendations?
Reality TV Highlights
00:01:23
Speaker
You said there's one you're excited to give. So I'm curious. Yes. I finally after, you know, waiting a long time watched sexy beasts
00:01:33
Speaker
Did you watch? Oh, I didn't watch it. I was ready to talk to you about it. But basically, it's a reality TV show where one person goes on three dates with people in masks. They're all masked in these crazy.
00:01:50
Speaker
animal or monster, crazy special effects kind of masks. Pretty serious. Very serious, but it was really funny. It's like it knows exactly what it is. It's really goofy. It's like very shallow. Like there's a lot of like insanely like not politically correct
00:02:12
Speaker
statements from people. Like at some point this guy is like, I don't really care what they look like because I can see their ass. And you're like, what? Oh, my God. Can't wait to watch it. It's crazy. It's crazy. But it's really funny. They're really short episodes. It's a very quick season. My mom loved it. So highly recommend. OK, can I tell you something? Please.
00:02:39
Speaker
So I have not seen Sexy Beast yet. But when we were getting the ads for it, Travis mentioned something about knowing the panda. And I didn't know about Matt. And I was like, huh. And then while we were in North Carolina, someone else brought up that show. And he was just like, oh, yeah, like the panda is from New York. I was like, oh, well, how did you know her? And he was like, oh, I don't know. And I was like, and so my brain was like, did you date
00:03:08
Speaker
I'm trying to figure out where he's going with this. He was like, wow, I guess we mashed on Tinder and we talked for a while, but we didn't. They never saw each other in person, but they talked for a significant amount of time. And I was like, oh my God, you mashed with the panda.
00:03:29
Speaker
He could have been on the show. He should have been. No, he can't, because we're in a very committed relationship. For a long time, too. We just had our five-year anniversary. But I did think that was amazing and hilarious. And he said this is her thing now. She does reality TV shows about love. And she just goes on multiple of them. They say, how would your friend describe you in three words? And she's psychotic, crazy, unhinged. And you're like, what?
00:03:59
Speaker
Oh my gosh, she knows what they're looking for. I feel like she was one of the people that we actually thought looked better in the mask. Like she really looked not better, not better. Like cuter. Like the panda, the panda mask was like very cute on her. I do like I mean, I think it's kind of adorable because some of the others are like big scary monsters. Yes. No, she was really she was a very convincing panda.
00:04:26
Speaker
Yeah, I meant that in a nicer way that it sounded really harsh. She just a cute panda. No, I know what you mean now I know but yeah, I just thought that was so funny. So yeah, we haven't seen the show yet But at some point I think we have to you have to at least watch that episode because she's crazy Oh my god, I can't wait. I cannot wait Anything else or is that the big one? That was the big one. I was trying to think of something else.
Movie Discussions
00:04:50
Speaker
That I watched, that was scary, but I don't think I watched anything else like in the horror vein. Well, you've been very busy, so it would be surprising. I know. It would be surprising. What do I have? Okay, so I watched...
00:04:55
Speaker
I
00:05:04
Speaker
The Boy and the Hole, which is a... Oh my God. Yes. The one that I recommended. You had already seen it. Yeah. Yeah. You recommended it a long time ago. So I watched it yesterday because it kind of came out on VOD. I think it's IFC Midnight, right? Yes, I think so. Just loved it. Like the weirdest movie. It's so unsettling. It's so casual.
00:05:28
Speaker
in like acting and directing about what's going on. Like it's not shot like a horror movie. It's like shot like a, just a casual family drama. But like what's happening is so messed up.
00:05:40
Speaker
And that kid is just like like having a good time. He's just eating ice cream. It's just like what? But OK, like this is not really spoilers, but I'm just going to say I just want to talk about two things really quick with you just because you've seen it. One, I thought the most like terrifying parts was when the kid is using his parents voicemails. I won't say how, but that was freaking freaky.
00:06:10
Speaker
And then a question for you, because I just don't really understand what the point of having the red-headed little girl's story in there was. Literally, no idea. That makes me feel better. No, I truly wish it had been cut from the whole thing. Yeah, we don't need that. And I'm like, if it was supposed to add deeper meaning or something, I didn't get it. No.
00:06:34
Speaker
I kept thinking we were going to reveal that they were somehow related or they were just like, I have no idea. I didn't get it. Well, at first, I thought she was the daughter of the gardener. Yes. And then I was confused. And then the last scene when we see her again, I was just like, I don't really know what we're trying to say here.
00:06:53
Speaker
No clue. No clue. I wish I wish I had been able. Maybe we just didn't figure it out. Yeah, maybe it's just us. So if you know, please let us know. Yeah, I love that kid. I think that boy is such a good actor. He's so good. The whole cast is so good. And did you notice that the mom is Amanda from St. Maude?
00:07:12
Speaker
Yes. Yeah. Amazing. Like what a year for that woman. Jennifer Ely. She's so good. Yeah. So good. So good. Michael C. Hall, right? And Michael C. Hall, who I didn't even recognize most of the movie, by the way. Yeah. Maybe just because of his beard. I don't know. But like I wasn't thinking that was Michael C. Hall. He's getting a little up there in age. Yeah. He's playing dads now. Yeah, exactly.
00:07:35
Speaker
Yeah, what else did I watch? Oh, I saw the Green Knight. Oh my gosh, I have to see it. I haven't seen it yet. I won't really say anything other than like, it's very beautiful. Like it's A24 gorgeous. But also maybe a little long and a little boring. You weren't the biggest fan. I wasn't just because like the plot.
00:07:57
Speaker
It was a little boring. I can't wait for you to see it and you can tell me what you think, but... Did you see it in a theater? I did. Or you saw it on... Oh, you did? Yeah. Oh, interesting. Because I always feel like sometimes I am more bored if I watch it at home than if I go to a movie theater, because you're forced to actually pay attention in a movie theater. But if you're bored in the movie theater, that's not good. Yeah. It just felt like it was really stretched out. And slow? And slow.
00:08:26
Speaker
And the plot, I was just like, this plot is like not great. But I don't even know if I've seen a trailer to be totally honest. Honestly, you don't need to really, but it's worth seeing it just because it's so beautiful to look at. Oh, I can't wait. And I like that actor. Yeah. I forgot his name. I know. I'll look it up and then just, you know.
00:08:50
Speaker
Shout it in the middle of your story. That sounds perfect. That sounds perfect. But yeah, that's pretty much all I watched. Oh, no. Travis and I are watching Kevin can fuck himself. Oh, on Netflix? On Amazon. Amazon. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You have to watch it. I've been offered that. It's freaking good. It's kind of like WandaVision-y without the superhero-ness. But it's very- Dev Patel.
00:09:14
Speaker
Good job. Good job. Yeah, it's kind of like it switches back and forth between like sitcom and drama. And it's very interesting. We have one word on it left. We're saving it. But it's great. Okay. I think that's all my stuff. Those were so good. Yeah. So many things. So many things. And now I guess I'll start talking because what I'm covering this week
Exploring the Mandela Effect
00:09:40
Speaker
is dun dun dun dun, the Mandela Effect.
00:09:45
Speaker
Ooh, I'm excited. Yeah, it's something that I've definitely seen talked about on social media over the last few years, but I'll give you just a quick history. It, of course, comes from the discussion of the death of Nelson Mandela. It was coined by Fiona Broome, who's a blogger and paranormal researcher, which I'm just like, yes, good for you. Oh, and a lady. And a lady.
00:10:12
Speaker
But she basically talked about how there is a large group of our population that vividly remembers Nelson Mandela dying in the 1980s while in prison and remembers the funeral on the news and the eulogy and all this stuff. And turns out Nelson Mandela died peacefully in his home in 2013.
00:10:37
Speaker
So it's like, why? Why do all these people remember something that in our reality didn't actually happen? So I'm going to go through a bunch of examples in a minute here, but like the kind of idea is, or others, a couple ideas. One is that a large group of people are misremembering something.
00:10:59
Speaker
And then the more fun Reddit theory is that there are parallel universes and some of these things are just a little close together and a little bit swapped out. So I've never heard that. I love it. You haven't heard that. That's the theory I'm always like the most interested in. But okay, so before we get to like, you know, the nitty gritty, I'm just going to go through some examples with you and I'm going to kind of quiz you.
00:11:28
Speaker
I might fail everyone. That's fine, that's fine. All right, ready? Tell me a peanut butter brand that starts with a J. Jiff? Correct. A lot of people call it Jiffy, myself included. For some reason I call it Jiffy. It's never been called Jiffy, it's called Jiff. This one you probably know about already, but can you describe the Monopoly guy?
00:11:53
Speaker
Yes, this is the one that I already know, so he does not have a monocle. Correct. Just two normal eyes, top hat, cane. Did you ever believe he had a monocle? Yes, I fought my brother hard on this. My little brother was showing me pictures and I was like, you're not looking at the right pictures.
00:12:17
Speaker
Okay, so some of these, I already know you're going to know, so it might not be as fun, but let's do it anyway. What's the most famous line from Sounds of the Lambs, Lauren's favorite movie? Oh, yes. So it's Good Evening, Clarice, but people think it's Hello, Clarice? Yeah. Okay. I had always heard Hello, Clarice, even before I saw the movie. Oh, yeah. As a kid, I feel like that was such a thing, people would be like, Hello, Clarice.
00:12:42
Speaker
And when people like, I think like, you know, like when Family Guy does it or like other things like that, it's definitely, yeah, always hello, Clarice. Absolutely. Here's another one. What's the most famous line from Star Wars? Oh, that's Luke, I'm your father. Yes, but that's not what it is. No, the line is no, I am your father. Yes, but everyone says Luke, I am your father.
00:13:08
Speaker
How can the most famous line in movie history not be a line in that movie? That's bad. That's a bad one. Yeah. How do you spell tunes in Looney Tunes? Oh, I've done this before too. Dang it Lauren. I think it's T-U-N-E-S. It is. Okay. But I would have said T-O-O-N-S. Yes, me too.
00:13:35
Speaker
Because they're loony tunes. They're loony songs. Yeah, what the heck, man? One of the most famous of this is, of course, the Berenstain Bears. I'll just say this one because I think this is the most famous. So most people remember Berenstain Bears and
00:13:55
Speaker
apparently it's actually the Berenstain with an A, bears, which is weird. And so, and everyone swears that, or not everyone, but huge groups of people swear that their books growing up said Berenstain bears. And I would also think that, but apparently it's Berenstain. And that's one of the biggest like online controversies about this. All right. And I have, oh, I actually have two more. This one might be a little trickier. Okay.
00:14:23
Speaker
Do you know the movie Risky Business? And it's okay if you haven't seen it, but have you heard of it? Yes, it's Tom Cruise dancing in socks. Exactly. Can you describe Tom Cruise's outfit while he's dancing in his living room? So I think it's underwear, socks, button-down shirt over a wife beater. Uh-huh. Anything else? Oh, sunglasses.
00:14:52
Speaker
Right. So everybody thinks he's wearing sunglasses in that scene, including myself. He's not wearing sunglasses in that scene. But he is wearing sunglasses in other scenes in the movie. So maybe we just assume he would be wearing sunglasses in a scene where he's dancing. Yeah. And also, if you look up risky business like Halloween costume, people do this one all the time. Everyone's always in sunglasses. But he does not wear sunglasses.
00:15:21
Speaker
Wow. I just also googled it to make sure. And yes, they're all wearing sunglasses, every single one of them. It's very funny. That's amazing. Yeah. And then this is kind of the last one that also got like a lot of internet hype. And this is that. So did you ever see the movie Kazam back in the 90s? It sounds so familiar.
00:15:49
Speaker
Okay. I don't know. It's about a genie. It's from 1996 and it has Shaquille O'Neal playing a genie named Kazam. I saw this movie a ton as a kid. I don't know why. I know. I'm sorry. I didn't see it. Okay. But? Yeah. But a lot of people seem to also remember a movie called Shazam that starred Sinbad. Okay.
00:16:18
Speaker
And this is not one that registers for me. A lot of these other ones did. But there was a lot of internet people that are very angry and say that there was a movie called Shazam with Sinbad. Sinbad was never in a movie called Shazam. And people will fight tooth and nail that it existed and was somehow erased from our culture. What? I like that one too. Yeah.
00:16:42
Speaker
That's such a weird one. I know. It's so weird. OK, so now I'm going to talk a little bit about what people think about this and why it is because obviously like one person remembering something wrong makes sense.
00:16:56
Speaker
but a whole group of people remembering something wrong, like half the population, that's really, really weird. So I was looking into this. And one thought is kind of this idea that memory is a puzzle and your brain typically has to fill in the gaps of things that you don't exactly remember.
00:17:19
Speaker
So Jean Brewer, this is a quote from her that I got off of a YouTube video, but I think it's pretty good. And it's about this idea of memory reconstruction. So when you recall an event, you use memories around it, taking elements and pieces of other events and fitting them where they make sense. I hear that. Yeah.
00:17:42
Speaker
So for example, if you picture your childhood bedroom, this is just like a random example. If you picture your childhood bedroom,
00:17:54
Speaker
and you think of everything in your mind and you put everything where it's supposed to go, you might not remember everything perfectly, but your brain will just kind of fill in the gaps of those. Like maybe you don't remember, you know, what the knobs on your dresser looks like. But if you don't remember, your brain will add knobs there that you've seen somewhere else.
00:18:16
Speaker
Yeah, that's really cool. Yeah, it's a cool thing. And it's like kind of this genius thing that our brains that our brains can do this because basically our brain doesn't want to have gaps because it would be confusing in our memories. It would be confusing to not be able to see certain things. So they just kind of fill in the gaps. One of the things that I thought was really interesting talking about eyewitness accounts in crime
00:18:44
Speaker
So if you listen to a lot of True Crime podcasts, as I have and Lauren has as well, there's a lot, I hear this all the time, where it's like eyewitness testimony is notoriously unreliable. Yeah. And why would that be? And I even found a statistic from the Innocence Project and they overturn wrong convictions. And 73% of those convictions, the basis of that case was on eyewitness testimony.
00:19:13
Speaker
And it's because our brains just can't remember something that well. And we're also really, really, what's the word? Something to persuasion. Oh, yeah. What's the word I'm looking for? Easily persuaded or? Yeah, I guess so. Something like that. But yeah, it's this idea that if somebody tells you something enough times,
00:19:35
Speaker
You think you remember it. I don't know if you had this experience, but I think about this. This one came up for me. So when parents tell the same stories over and over at like family events or whatever about things that happened when you were very young.
00:19:51
Speaker
You might not have those memories, but because you've been told the story so many times, you think you have that memory? Totally. I do that all the time. I'm like, I have memories from like, yeah, it's just something I've heard about myself. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Or it's like, Lauren said this before, which I'm just going to out you right now, but you start telling a story and realize it's not your story.
00:20:15
Speaker
100% I reclaim stories as my own. But it's something that your brain tricks you into. It's not necessarily intentional. For example, this is the point before, but my parents always tell this story about I
00:20:33
Speaker
My brothers were making sandwiches on the coffee table. I was very little, like barely walking. I went over. They left the jam out. I emptied the entire thing of jam all over my entire body everywhere. And I have this perfect image in my head of what happened and the furniture in the room and me and all this stuff, but I don't really remember that.
00:20:54
Speaker
I just have their memory, my interpretation of their memory imprints it in my brain. So weird. It's so weird. And then the other thing. So this is a couple other versions of that. You know, when you hear gossip or like the game telephone, but I like to think of it more about gossip, where every time the story is passed on from one person to another, it changes slightly.
00:21:22
Speaker
sometimes it gets more and more exaggerated. And it's like, and because you're hearing it from the person before you, and you don't know the truth, you weren't there, you just believe whatever that is, and then your brain adds to that, and then you keep passing it on. So it's like, do any of us actually know what we're talking about? Probably not.
00:21:43
Speaker
I also have just a self-proclaimed terrible memory, and so I'm sure that I do A to C so much. Absolutely. Absolutely. A to C is a great way to look at it.
00:21:56
Speaker
And I do the same thing. And I think this is kind of, I've noticed this with members of my family also where some, like I'm very much, and I think you are the same, like a planner and a future thinker. So our brains are constantly moving, like moving forward and not really registering what's just happened all the time, which is sometimes a bad thing, honestly. Yes. Yes. Kind of hard to live in the moment. And then other people. We're on bad of that. Yeah, absolutely. Either future or past.
00:22:24
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. And so and then other people, like, I know it sounds like a negative thing to say someone lives in the past, but they they're focused a lot on memories. And so like my brother Thomas can remember freaking anything.
00:22:39
Speaker
It's crazy, like from our entire childhood, like he has this ability to remember things that like my parents can't remember, like my brother and I can't remember, but he just like, it's like a steel trap. I'm so jealous of that. That's why James is the same way. It's like minute details. I'm like, how do you do that? Yeah, I'm like a general thinker. Oh, me too. I'm like, I think something like that sort of happened. Yeah, exactly. I like sounds familiar. That's always what I say. I'm like, yeah, sounds familiar.
00:23:07
Speaker
It's only bad when people are like, I told you this very clearly. And then I'm like, mm, got nothing. Yeah, got nothing. So the other version. So this is obviously what we've talked a lot about is this idea of false memory. And then the other version that we mentioned already, but I want to like kind of just discuss a little bit more. Like I don't have a lot of research on this. I'm just interested in it. And it's this idea of parallel universes,
00:23:33
Speaker
And I just finished reading this book, and this is why I kind of ended up doing this topic. I just read this book called The Midnight Library by Matt Haig, and it's a novel. But it's about this girl that commits suicide. She's stuck between life and death, and between life and death is a library. And while she's there, this librarian and this room full of books,
00:23:59
Speaker
She can she has a book of regrets and then she can pick out what regrets she wants to like a race and so like go back in time. And then she picks a book where she made a different choice and see what that life would have played out as. And it's this kind of idea of like all of these universes, all of these lifetimes, all of these things are all happening kind of at the same exact time, just in different planes. That sounds like such a cool book.
00:24:29
Speaker
It is, it's really good. And I mean, the book's kind of really about kind of like the idea of having regret is kind of pointless. But it's really nice, it was a very helpful book. It was a really helpful book for like what I'm thinking about recently. And I was just like, yes, this was like great. I highly recommend it to all. The Midnight Library. But yeah, and then I was kind of, I'm not gonna be able to explain any of this scientific stuff.
00:24:54
Speaker
But I was trying to watch some videos on parallel universes. I'm just totally lost in so many ways. It's complicated. Yeah, it's so complicated. But there seems to be like a few different versions of this like
00:25:05
Speaker
one that I am going to say these wrong, I am going to do my best, I'm going to be the super general. So there was one that was I think called like the bubble theory. And it's this idea that like all these universes kind of are happening separately in these different bubbles. And then there was one that I thought was even more interesting where it was described as like pages of a book, where it's like, each universe, what's happening on it, it's all in the same
00:25:34
Speaker
book, but each page has something slightly different going on. And so all these universes are just like sitting right on top of each other of each other. And everything is like very different. Like, oh, sorry, everything is everything could be from a very little difference to a very big difference. And it's all happening simultaneously. So and I feel like a lot of stuff. It's a lot. And so I feel like some of that stuff has been coming up, or at least probably on my feeds, because I
00:26:03
Speaker
sometimes look at conspiracy theory stuff because it's interesting to me. But like ideas of parallel universes of living in a simulation, like all these things where it's like, what if the reality we know is not the reality that is true? It's just our perception of it. And I think that's actually kind of true in general, because our brains feed us information and interpret it. So everyone's reality technically is different. Like you and I could be watching the same movie and get something completely different out of it.
00:26:33
Speaker
Like that is like a perception of reality in a way. Like it's a very general version, but all of us are like interpreting kind of the same data with different views of it. So in some ways you could kind of say it's already happening, but in this way that the Mandela effect is talking about is much more like
00:26:56
Speaker
No, no, like the information, the truth is different in each universe. And that's the information being fed in is actually different versus the interpretation of the data. I guess. It's so much. It's so much. It's so freaky. It's very freaky. I don't know if I like the idea of alternate realities or parallel universes or not. I don't know either because
00:27:21
Speaker
It freaks me out to think there's like a version of me somewhere else doing something or like making different choices. Yeah. And it's like, is that version happier or sadder? Yeah. Is she okay? Yeah. Like I don't really want to know, honestly. No. Yeah. That's a good point. That's a good point. But yeah, that's basically the Mandela effect. It was fun looking it up. And it was funny also. Oh, I did watch a video from Mental Floss.
00:27:47
Speaker
And they were talking about a bunch of these different Mandela effects that I went through with you earlier. And they did have a couple of reasonings for some of this that I thought that was interesting. So first of all, Jif and Jiffy, in grocery stores, there is a brand called Skippy. And that's usually next to Jif. And so the idea is that maybe your brain is just confusing those things together and you're getting
00:28:13
Speaker
Jiffy. Jiffy. The Monopoly guy. There is another very famous cartoon icon brand with a monoclon top hat.
00:28:22
Speaker
and a cane and that is Mr. Peanut. So maybe our brain is just kind of like putting those in the same folder. Because they both have top hats and canes. Exactly. Risky business. The sunglasses. He wears sunglasses on the poster of the movie and in a lot of other scenes. So our brain might just be like clouding all that together because like once again like we can't be expected to remember every scene from every movie perfectly.
00:28:50
Speaker
it's just not possible. So our brains just kind of fill in the gaps and blend it all together. And those are kind of the ones they had explanation for that I thought were made sense to me.
00:29:02
Speaker
The Nelson Mandela one in particular is very confusing to me. But yeah, that is weird. Yeah, I kind of wonder if it's like we have people that are I mean, because I think I can actually be both of these ways. But sometimes I feel like strong like leader types. Like I know my older brother in particular does this all the time. We're like,
00:29:22
Speaker
if he says something, I believe it's fact. Just how he says it and what he says, I don't even know what it is. I just believe him blindly. And I think there's also kind of that sheep effect of if enough people are saying something around you, you're like, well, I guess that's fact.
00:29:39
Speaker
Absolutely. And it brings me, once again, back to the true crime stuff of not only witnesses, hearing a lawyer tell them something and thinking it's probably true, but also when you hear these cases of people confessing to crimes they didn't commit. And that's kind of a thing that happens with this extreme interrogation techniques.
00:30:02
Speaker
It's horrible, but depriving people of sleep and water and food and all this stuff and questioning them in these really aggressive ways to the point that their brain is so wanting to get out of the situation, they just start to agree with you. And they're just like, yes, I must have done that. OK, great. I confess.
00:30:21
Speaker
What? But yeah, easily susceptible. That's what I was trying to think of like an hour ago when I started this. She got there. And that's where I end the Mandela effect. Yay. That was so good. I loved learning more about that because it's such an interesting thing to me. Yeah.
00:30:49
Speaker
Since we don't have official ads for the podcast yet, we'll do one for ourselves. We would love if you could subscribe to us and leave a review. Also, if you want some pics to go along with the episodes, follow us on Instagram at sinister sisters podcast. And now on to the next story.
00:31:08
Speaker
Okay, I'm taking us a very different direction. Take me away. And I just remembered when we were about to record that people asked for less folklore. Too bad. Too bad. We don't care. Yeah, or we forgot one or the other. We forgot. I forgot.
Skinwalkers in Navajo Folklore
00:31:25
Speaker
I'm talking about skinwalkers, which are part of the Navajo culture. So, you know, indigenous people
00:31:34
Speaker
Folklore is where we're at, and they are a type of harmful witch who has the ability to turn into possess or disguise themselves as an animal, which is very freaky. Love. I love it. I'm interested. I'm in. I'm in. She sucked. This witch is called Yi Nao Nao
00:31:55
Speaker
delushi by the Navajo, which basically translates to, with it, he goes on all fours. It is just one type of Navajo witches, and it is considered the most dangerous and unpredictable.
00:32:09
Speaker
So this is kind of an interesting thing. So I guess witchcraft is just kind of part of Navajo culture. It's not something supernatural. They think that witches just exist alongside humans. And it's really been a part of their belief since the beginning. So the Navajo believe that there are places where the powers of both good and evil are present, and that those powers can be harnessed for either.
00:32:36
Speaker
So medicine men use these powers to heal, aid members of the community, while the flip side is of course witchcraft. So they use it to cause harm or hurt other people. So a lot of these things you probably already know, but obviously this knowledge of witchcraft is passed down from elders to their children to their children to their children. And there are many different versions of skin walkers in
00:33:03
Speaker
different cultures and they all have like different descriptions of these creatures. But sometimes the story begins with witches that were living, you know, respected lives as healers or spiritual guides and later kind of are like influenced to use their powers for evil. And interestingly enough, unlike other, you know, versions of witches, they are traditionally male, although they can be male or female. I know.
00:33:33
Speaker
So traditionally male, and they kind of walk freely with the tribe during the day and then only transform secretly at night. So in order to become a skinwalker, he or she must be initiated by a secret society that to, right, it gets even better. Their initiation is a very evil act. Normally the killing of a close family member and most often a sibling.
00:34:01
Speaker
Oh, well, that's horrible. Very Cain and Abel. Ew. Yes, yes. So if you want to be a skin walker, you have to kill your brother. And after that task has been performed, the individual then, you know, gain supernatural powers, which gives them the ability to shape shift into animals, which is crazy. So they can turn into coyotes, wolves.
00:34:25
Speaker
Yes, it kind of seems like it. It seems like, what are they called in Harry Potter? Animagus? Oh, yeah, yeah. But they, yes, they can turn into coyotes, wolves, foxes, cougars, dogs, and bears. The name Skinwalker comes from, because obviously they're wearing the skin of the animal that they transform into,
00:34:46
Speaker
And the different pictures are kind of funny because sometimes they just look like the animal or sometimes they look like they're like wearing the animal skull on them with the skin on top of them. But they're just like a more powerful human. But anyway, I like the idea. So the image is like they're in human form wearing the skin.
00:35:05
Speaker
wearing the skin of the animal and like, you know, having that ability. But some of them are just like a bear. Like some of them are just depicted as a bear. So I mean, obviously that seems better to me from a, from a like believability standpoint of they just turn into this animal at night. It's cooler.
00:35:24
Speaker
That is really cool. I like that. They choose what animal they want to turn into depending on the abilities needed. So if they need claws, they become an animal with claws. If they need something that's fast, flying, any of those things. And because of this, they consider it taboo for people during the day to wear any pelt of a predatory animal.
00:35:49
Speaker
So you can wear sheepskin, leather, buckskin in Navajo culture, but I guess if you were going to wear wolfskin or bear skin, that's looked down upon or it's more taboo. Yes. So another ability that these skinwalkers have is that they are able to take possession of the bodies of human victims if they lock eyes with the person.
00:36:17
Speaker
Yes. I know. That's more scary. It's very scary. And after taking control, the witch can make its victims do and say things that they wouldn't otherwise. Damn. So very freaky. So once they're in this animal form, their eyes are still very human. And when lights are shined on them, they turn bright red. So that's how I guess you can tell if it's a skinwalker is if you see some bright red eyes.
00:36:44
Speaker
Yeah, obviously, this society of witches is rumored to gather in dark caves or secluded places, whether they kind of like plot their activities there or perform ceremonial rites. And a lot of these are these ceremonies are said to have included dancing, feasts, rituals and sand painting, which is something that I had never heard of before. Yeah, what's that?
00:37:11
Speaker
There's artwork that you'll see as sand painting. It's basically like pouring colored sands and pigments together. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I've seen people do that as like street art. Yes, exactly. In a modern version, obviously. Right, right. That's why I'm like, I don't know exactly what it looked like in Navajo culture at the time.
00:37:34
Speaker
Get ready for some grossness. So they're also said to engage in necrophilia. No. Female corpses. No. Also committing cannibalism, incest, and grave robberies. Jeez. Why the incest? I don't really know why that's a part of it. Maybe I was like, I was like, do they, is that because they have to kill their sibling? Is there some part of that? I don't know.
00:38:00
Speaker
It's so dark. It just gets darker and darker when you think about all of it combined. It's not great. They also have powers to read other people's minds. They are, similarly to other things we've talked about, they're often thought of as the cause of disease or illness, destroying property, any unexplained deaths are often blamed on skinwalkers.
00:38:26
Speaker
So those who've talked about their encounters with these skinwalkers describe a number of ways to know if they're near. So they make sounds around homes such as knocking on windows, banging on walls and scraping noises on the roof. And on some occasions they've been spied peering through windows supposedly. But most often they appear in front of vehicles in hopes of causing a serious accident.
00:38:54
Speaker
So I know, right? There's just so many similarities. I feel like to like werewolves or or other, you know, I can't remember which one we were talking about that would always show up in front of like cars. That was like there. Oh, that was.
00:39:10
Speaker
Is it the Mothman? Yeah, maybe that's what I'm thinking of. That's terrible. And also it's interesting because you're talking about it also in a way of like it's really spanned to like modern day. Yes. Yes. I was going to say the second I said about vehicles, it's like I think there are clearly some, you know, some cultures that still believe or at least have believed for a long time.
00:39:32
Speaker
So some more of their powers are there also said to be able to control wolves and owls and other woodland creatures and make them do their bidding. Some are able to call up the spirits of the dead and reanimate the corpses to attack their enemies. So truly, lots of abilities. They can do it all. It's kind of like every mythical creature we've ever heard of. It's like all rolled into one.
00:40:00
Speaker
I'll roll it into one. They are extremely fast. Some are said to be able to run faster than a car or being able to jump high cliffs. And they are said to leave tracks that are larger than those of any animal. But that to me is like when they're in bear form, I'm not sure. There's just a lot of rumors, a lot of suspicion.
00:40:22
Speaker
But they are, this kind of reminds me of the werewolf thing, sometimes they are seen to be like in tattered clothes following the transformation, which makes me think of werewolves. Yeah. And they are said to kind of kill out of many different reasons or hurt or harm out of many different reasons, greed, anger, envy, spite or revenge.
00:40:48
Speaker
Sometimes they rob graves for personal wealth. Sometimes they, you know, steal ingredients that they need to do magic. But they continue or, you know, they are able to live longer lives because they kind of live off of the lives of their victims. So they have to continually kill or else they will die, which is a freaky idea. It's pretty much like evil evil. There's no sense of like protection or something like that.
00:41:17
Speaker
of a tribe or something. Yeah, it does seem like just evil across the board. Okay. Okay, cool. Just checking. Yes. Although I guess there is kind of the thought that, you know, there could be people in the tribe living generally kind and normal lives during the day and then just being evil at night. Oh, okay. I see. Yeah. Kind of werewolf-y. Yeah. So they've, as I said, they've long been blamed for, you know, things like sickness or drought.
00:41:47
Speaker
But kind of the craziest sort of more fact-based thing that I was able to find is that there was the Navajo witch purge of 1878, which initially evolved from a cultural response to so many people moving across onto their lands. So it was kind of like a time that new people were entering their area.
00:42:11
Speaker
And so it caused, there was like a series of wars with the US Army and the Navajo were expelled from their land and forced to march the long walk of the Navajo in 1864.
00:42:23
Speaker
So during that time, they obviously suffered a ton during that time, bad water, failed crops, illness and death. And then this is wild to me too, is that after four years, the government finally admitted that they made a mistake and the Navajo were allowed to return to their homeland. It's so horrible. It's just the most stuff thing. It's horrible. We truly suck. We truly suck.
00:42:49
Speaker
During these years, many of the tribe members were said to have turned to shapeshifting as a way to kind of survive. So once they returned to their homeland, they felt that there were skin walkers among them. So this is what that Navajo witch purge was, which sounds kind of similar to a version of the Salem witch trials where there were accusations of witchcraft.
00:43:14
Speaker
And people kind of began hunting for skinwalkers. So when someone found a collection of witch artifacts, they ended up killing people. And in total, there were 40 Navajo who were suspected witches that were killed.
00:43:32
Speaker
Oh, 40. Yes. It's also just sad from the standpoint of it. It seems like kind of, you know, my understanding is basically that white people came, tried to take over the land, forced them to leave. And then once they were able to return, it seems like they kind of turned on each other because times were so tough. Yes. Oh, God, so horrible. Which is really sad.
00:43:54
Speaker
But I guess I was just kind of surprised that I mean, I'm sure there have been so many different kinds of witch trials or people being accused of being witches and being killed. But I had never heard of anything in, you know, indigenous people stories or, you know, in this case, the Navajo.
00:44:12
Speaker
In my brain, it's like Native American tribes are so much about protecting each other because of everything they've had gone to. It seems so surprising that this kind of story would happen. Right. But I mean, I guess it's also just that it clearly is so a part of their culture and so real that it also, I'm sure, was just, you know,
00:44:35
Speaker
And also, whenever you hear stories like this, I'm like, did that stop it? I don't know. Did they kill 40 people? Yeah, what's the result? Were they like, yay, we're good now? I don't know. I don't know. Even Salem Witch Trials, I just can't imagine that it was like, yay. Everyone's fine now. Yeah. It's just so awful. It's very awful. So there are a couple other
00:45:00
Speaker
sightings or people saying that they've seen them in the 1990s, so nice and updated.
00:45:07
Speaker
there was a ranch in Northeast Utah, far away from the Navajo reservation that became the partial focus of the skinwalkers. So it was called the Sherman Ranch, which is also the UFO ranch. So it has like a history of UFOs, alien sightings. Yes. I know what you're talking about. This is, yeah, I thought about doing this place before. Maybe I'll do it next week. Yeah. Yes. So these people have long thought that
00:45:33
Speaker
the Navajo put a curse. So this Sherman Ranch is located near the Ute Indian Reservation. And they have long thought that the Navajo put a curse on their tribe, kind of like to get back at them from something in the past. And so the skinwalkers have plagued the Ute people that live near Sherman Ranch.
00:45:55
Speaker
Yeah, it's funny because when you started talking about Skinwalker, my brain was like triggering something and I remembered Skinwalker Ranch. Like this is all the same thing. That's so crazy.
00:46:06
Speaker
It's all kind of, yeah, I was gonna say, it's all linked, all of these crazy things happening on Sherman Ranch. So maybe you should cover it next week or one of us should. It just sounds like a crazy area. But as I've kind of hinted in all of these things, obviously the Navajo believe that when people become skinwalkers, they've sort of forfeited their humanity and so they should be killed. So how they are killed,
00:46:36
Speaker
So successful killing of a skinwalker generally requires the assistance of a shaman, which I also think is really interesting. So they know how to do spells and rituals that can turn the skinwalker's evil back upon itself. Or another alternative is to shoot the creature with bullets that have been dipped into white ash.
00:46:56
Speaker
which is really intense. I know, I kind of like a new- It's also where I'm assuming the originals stole that from. To kill an original vampire, you have to dip a steak in white oak ash. Oh my gosh. Yeah, so they stole that from the Navajo? That, I mean, I feel like a lot of things have probably been stolen from the Navajo. Oh, sadly. I'm sure that's true.
00:47:20
Speaker
But that is kind of the info I have on Skinwalkers. There is so much out there because obviously when something's been around this long, there are many different versions, there's many different facts, but I thought they were these kind of freaky creatures. I just liked that they were male witches and that there was like
00:47:39
Speaker
kind of their version of a witch trial, which I thought was so interesting. And I'll definitely share some pictures on our Instagram of what they look like, because there's lots of cool imagery out there. For sure. That's awesome. You know what? If you don't mind, I do want to cover the Sherman Ranch next week. Yes, do it. And as a continuation. I've had that topic in the past, but it's actually kind of vast, because they have so much unexplained activity there.
00:48:09
Speaker
It's kind of wild, but yeah.
Episode Conclusion
00:48:12
Speaker
I'm going to do it. I'm going to cover it. I'm so excited. Well, amazing. What a good week, different topics. We hope you all enjoyed it. And until next time. Have some sweet, sweet nightmares. Bye.