Oddity Shop
This podcast examines the oddities of the world...Cryptids to Conspiracies, Cults to Curiosities, Myths to Mysteries, and so much more! Stop by the shop, where the bizarre is always on sale... Each week your curators, Kara Perakovic and Zach Palmer will be opening the shop and sharing stories with you.
Oddity Shop
Ghostly Emails: The Digital Afterlife and Mysterious Messages From Beyond
Welcome To The Oddity Shop, Where The Bizarre is Always on Sale. This week, your curator Kara has a tale that will have you checking your email inbox for spooky messages
Ever wondered if your tech gadgets could bridge the gap between the digital world and the afterlife? Our journey takes a curious twist as we tackle the tech challenges of setting up YouTube TV for Kara's parents, navigating the minefield of passwords and updates with comedic flair. But what's tech without a hint of the paranormal? We ponder whether spirits could hack emails, just like humans do, and share real stories of mysterious emails that blur the line between ghost tales and phishing scams. Could the digital age be the new frontier for afterlife communication? It's enough to make you question your email inbox!
As we wrap up, the enigma of emails from beyond unfolds, revealing personal stories of comfort and connection that defy logic. From considering the ethical implications of a dead man's switch to quirky tales of receiving messages from deceased loved ones, we explore the heartwarming and eerie sides of these experiences.
And for our fellow oddballs, there's a playful nudge to join our community on Patreon, where more exclusive content awaits. So, grab your headphones and "creep it real" with us at the Oddity Shop.
References:
- https://www.getastra.com/blog/security-audit/phishing-attack-statistics/
- https://abcnews.go.com/blogs/technology/2012/03/ghostwriter-mysterious-emails-sent-from-beyond-the-grave
- https://www.reddit.com/r/RBI/comments/1hymmip/i_got_an_email_from_a_deceased_friend/
- https://medium.com/of-misdeeds-and-mysteries/the-messages-from-beyond-eaca3fe7ac25
- https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/so-supernatural/id1500667648?i=1000668583799
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I want to dance with the mothman At the IA shop, baked in the moonlight At the IA shop. Creep through the graveyard To the IA shop. The door's always open At the Iity Shop. What's up, oddballs? Welcome back to the Oddity Shop, the podcast, where we tell you all the creepy, odd, weird, strange and bizarre stories from around the globe. I am one of your two curators, zachary, sitting here with the lovely, gorgeous, amazing one year freshly older, but doesn't look a day over 21 years old thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you, you're welcome you're welcome, welcome.
Speaker 1:I feel like you've been giving me some like really great intros for a while, so I needed to do a gas you up one you need to up it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it was recently my day of birth. It was.
Speaker 1:I think that was one of my favorite birthday parties and, honestly, you and I at this party fought for the guest's attention from a Lions game that everyone thought was going to be a huge game, and I think we did good pretending that we knew what was going on with sport.
Speaker 2:Oh, actually, that's because we didn't care, we didn't even entertain, we didn't acknowledge the game.
Speaker 1:I sat with my face looking at the game and then at one point you look over. You're like are you OK? I just hold up my phone like, yeah, I'm looking at pictures of puppies, yeah.
Speaker 2:No, it was funny because that was actually my birthday that day, so and it was a Saturday. So I'm like hello, it has to be on that. And then I invited everybody, you know, like a couple weeks prior, and then, slowly, as it got closer, people are like, yeah, but will the game be on? And like I'm just like I mean, I'm not that dumb, but I wanted to be like what game?
Speaker 1:Right, I actually was pretty much like what game? Until you all explained it to me.
Speaker 2:Literally every single person that I got invited that day or the night before was like, well, is the game going to be on? And I'm like, oh my God, I'll have the fucking game on. I get, I love hosting and I love having people over, but I do get a little bit anxious because I feel like I have to entertain everybody, even though I know that that's not true and these are all just like my closest friends that literally can just sit at the table and just talk to each other. But when you're having like some sort of like party or event or whatever, like you feel like you know what I mean Like you want to entertain. So it's kind of nice, though, because half of the people were just like entertaining themselves with the game, and then some of us were just chatting and listening to music and just, you know, drinking, smoking, doing some things. Like I thought it was fun, I think it was super chill, it was like it was kind of perfect, and then the whole day before that, I literally slept in and I texted you. I said I don't want to get up yet. You said sleeping girl, and then we had the chillest day.
Speaker 2:That was the day of your party. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. We had the chillest day. People didn't come over till five. You ran all my errands. Thank you so much. I love you.
Speaker 1:I was going to go get food anyway, so I'm like yeah, but you went to Kroger twice. Oh, I know you so well, right, and I know like and this isn't a dig, no, but I don't care about aesthetics of things and I know sometimes you do. So I was tasked with getting birthday candles for a cake and you wanted to take a really specific, really awesome picture.
Speaker 2:This is what's funny, though, is, I told myself, because I was going to go get the candles and I was going to do all this stuff, but I was just tired. I had a little bit too much to drink with you the night before. Not, you didn't drink, I did just because you and I just hadn't seen each other in a while. So I was feeling a little yucky and I was mad at myself for it. But whatever, it doesn't fucking matter.
Speaker 1:It doesn't fucking matter. So I didn't even give you any direction. You told yourself yes and you didn't give me direction. I went through the valentine's day aisle, the card and party aisle, the uh baking aisle. Everyone had a different selection of candles and I'm like what I wanted? Because it was a black cake and I know you love beetlejuice. I wanted something with green candles, oh that would be no multi-pack. No, anything had green candles.
Speaker 1:Then I'm like, okay, straight white candles, no, they only had the twisty ones. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna get those. But then I found one with off-white and gold. I'm like, okay, I'm gonna get those two. But then there are sparkler candles. So I'm like I'm gonna get those two, but then, like this blue one might work instead of green. I think I came home with four or five packs of candles.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it might have been three or four, maybe four, I think it was four.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I was just like, oh my God, You're like well, I didn't know Literally other than your birthday party, though I don't have much to talk about. And can I also just talk about something else that happened at your party that had everybody dying Sure.
Speaker 2:Okay, so for those of you who don't know?
Speaker 1:Kara is like the tchotchke queen.
Speaker 2:No, don't say tchotchke Hold on.
Speaker 1:Well, let me, I was going to fix it. Okay, not just like useless tchotchkes you do find very useful.
Speaker 2:Well, hold on, because what I'm saying is tchotchke. When you say the term tchotchke, people think of like old ladies with shelves full of just little shit everywhere.
Speaker 1:That is okay it's like little appliances, little like, yeah, very specific use items they're just like okay. So she starts off, though, with bringing out her ring cleaner, and she's like, and honestly like, you're making recommendations because you want your friends to like have things that you love.
Speaker 2:Well, this is what's funny is, I've never realized I've done this ever in my life.
Speaker 1:You've always been this way a little bit, but it wasn't to this extent. So she had everyone put their rings and glasses in the ring cleaner.
Speaker 2:It actually started off with the ninja slushie, because I was making us all slushies and everyone's like, oh my god, that is so cool.
Speaker 1:And so I'm just talking about it because I have it then then the like the acupuncture mat came out, the mopper came out, and you're giving everybody like these product demos and having them all try it, everything. And at one point I look over and me and emily are like when is the catalog going to come out? Like, is this a pampered chef thing? Is she trying? So you're like, but it was so funny because it felt like one of those like multi-level marketing, like Tupperware parties but you weren't trying to actually sell us anything.
Speaker 2:And the funniest part was is that it was all organic. It all came up organically because I was literally looking, shauna went to grab a piece of something like a food and it like her ring was shining under my light, I was like, girl, oh my God, it looks so beautiful.
Speaker 2:And I was like we got to get you one of those sonic cleaners, cause she goes, oh, I just got it clean from the jeweler. I said we got to get you a sonic cleaner. She's like does it work? Well, I said let me grab mine. And then I'm like everybody put your rings and I'm putting people'sie on the floor. So I'm like let me go get my steam mop. And I'm steam mopping. Everyone's like that's so cool. And I'm like, yeah, it's great. I mean I had already made Emily buy that. Emily already purchased.
Speaker 1:I can't even remember what like the last one was.
Speaker 2:The acupuncture mat.
Speaker 1:Because there was something at the very tail end of the night where you started. You finally caught yourself because you started.
Speaker 2:You're like oh my God, I'm doing it again. That's right, because then I was like I'll send everybody links of everything. I'm going to make you a spreadsheet. But I don't, you're right, I don't remember what the last one was. But anyway, now I'm like, oh my God, I'm like I'm not afraid, but this morning I was texting Zach right away this morning, or no. I'm like, dang, you really need to get this walking pad, because I just edited our patreon videos and typed an episode and I walked for two hours I'm like it's amazing with a standing desk. And then I'm like I'm not trying to sell you this, I am just suggesting. And then I sent him the link and I'm like, wow, I am crazy you, you truly missed your calling to be on qvc.
Speaker 1:I think like for sure maybe I should have those parties okay. I Okay, I think we're way too far into this. I don't have anything else to talk about.
Speaker 2:What's on your?
Speaker 1:mind before we open the shop.
Speaker 2:I don't have anything else really Cool, and I don't really have a question for you. I'm sorry, but well, I guess I'll ask you this.
Speaker 1:I feel like I don't even know how to open the shop. Okay, I do have a question. I'm going to Okay. Okay, do you want to know how I spent?
Speaker 2:my Tuesday morning slash afternoon. How did you spend your Tuesday morning slash afternoon? Okay, I spent two hours trying to help my parents get YouTube TV. Oh no, okay, so I create an account with mom's email on on my Mac, right, because I'm FaceTiming this woman. Okay, and it's morning.
Speaker 1:There is nothing worse than trying to set up electronics. It's hard Remotely.
Speaker 2:So here's the thing they wanted to do the trial of YouTube TV. Because we have YouTube TV and they want to down. They don't watch a lot of whatever, it doesn't matter. So I'm trying to help them and I'm like, wait, they can't create this account, it's gonna be too hard. So I'm on my Mac creating the YouTube TV account right with her email. Okay, via FaceTime, yeah, we're just, yeah, okay. So then I get to the part to have them download the YouTube TV app on their TV and the app says that it needs an update. So I'm like, okay, I'm FaceTiming them and listen this, my, I love my mother so much, but she's warbling all around. I can barely see my stepdad and the TV. I'm like I can't see what you're doing. Sit down, just sit down and face the TV.
Speaker 1:Plus, as much as Google, products are great as soon as one part starts to update, especially with the TV, for whatever reason it freaks out.
Speaker 2:So this is LG. Okay, so this is what happens. So the TV needs an update. The so the TV needs an update. The YouTube TV app on the LG needs an update. They don't have an LG account or whatever, and it's saying that they need that. It's required now to download the update to this app. Okay, so then I log in on, I'm on my Mac and I create her an LG account with my mom's Gmail. Because I'm like I'm making everything easy. I have a picture, I have all her passwords written down for every account and I'm like but I didn't do that. So who the hell did that? Because I'm like what? So I'm like, okay. So then I do forgot password Cause. Then my stepdad's like you know what Maybe we did when we first got this TV?
Speaker 1:literally nine years ago Right and just forget about it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, okay, so I do forgot password and I get that figured out and then I go to sign in right, you'd let me reset the password. And I go to sign in and it fucking says your LG account was used for a Taiwan LG account. You need to delete the Taiwan account first.
Speaker 1:Oh God.
Speaker 2:Okay, I sat there for way longer than I ever wanted to, with which I will tell you. This is really cool, and I'm not selling anything but the Google translate app. No, the Google translate app. Now you know you can put the camera button on, but all you have to do is hover over. You don't take pictures. So I'm literally hovering over my laptop screen, still on FaceTime with my damn mom reading this shit, spent 30 minutes doing that, and then I'm like you know what it's got to be my brother. I get a hold of my brother.
Speaker 1:He's three hours, you know, behind, or oh, I didn't even think about him, yeah.
Speaker 2:Oh my God. So I get a hold of him and I'm like, hey, did you use mom's LG account in Taiwan? And he's like I have no idea why I would ever use an LG account and I was in Taiwan in like 2016. So I don't think so, but maybe, but I can't help you. So I'm like fuck it. So then I create mom a secondary email just so I can make a fucking new LG account. Okay, all right. Then I get the fucking LG app updated, finally, cool. And I go on my computer and I sign up for the free trial for YouTube TV and I log in and it says you're unable to use the free trial oh my god I said did you guys already try to do this?
Speaker 2:and my stepdad goes, yeah, but we couldn't get it to work so they already wasted their free trial. So I'm like no big deal, I have a secondary email that I now created. I didn't want to use the secondary email because that's more confusing. But then I'm like fuck it. So I do that, and then I go all the way through and it's like tied to the same card and it kept saying you can't, it's already on file type deal Like you can't have a free trial. And then I literally said fuck it. And after two hours of doing this they didn't even get their free trial. And watch them, not even watch this.
Speaker 1:No, they won't.
Speaker 2:Okay, so anyway, okay. Then I started thinking about why someone would use like her email in Taiwan. I'm like just for like just for like the LG app. Like, but like. Why would you do that? Like what else would you need that for? Because my brother is like it's not, it's not me, he's like I. Really, why would you ever use an LG app?
Speaker 1:yeah, you wouldn't, unless you had the product for sure right, okay.
Speaker 2:So I'm like, if that's the worst that they did, though me and my brother like fuck it, who cares, right. But then it like got me thinking about like hacking. And then that got me thinking of like the statistics of email hacking.
Speaker 1:I literally thought you were just going on like a sidebar story about your mom, like I don't have a question, so I didn't realize this tied into the episode. Okay, okay.
Speaker 2:So, according to Astracom, 55% of phishing websites use targeted brand names to capture sensitive information ease. According to the F5 labs phishing and fraud report of 2020, which makes sense, cause you know how you always get those ads that look like the um, the wherever you're shopping, and then, once you click it, you don't notice that the website is actually different. They're good.
Speaker 1:So I almost got one that was super well done. It looked like Apple and it was right. After that whole, you had to accept the terms and conditions for iCloud to work.
Speaker 2:It was an email saying I didn't do it and I almost fell for it, and I'm usually pretty good about the phishing stuff, yeah, but it's hard I mean they're getting good 84% of US-based organizations have stated that conducting regular security awareness training has helped reduce the rate to which employees fall for prey, and my company does this all the time. They'll send out a fake phishing email and see who opens it and then, as soon as you open it, you literally have 24 hours to complete a training about phishing.
Speaker 1:That's so funny.
Speaker 2:So phishing scams, scam accounts, oh my God. Phishing scams account for nearly 22% of all data breaches that occur, which is just like it's like the most prevalent cybercrime. In the FBI's 2021 IC report, I see three part, which is just that's actually low I I I guess I could go both ways.
Speaker 1:I guess, yeah, 22 does seem low for that I guess though I don't know enough about all the other kinds of hacking to yeah, uh, in 2021, it was nearly 83 of companies experienced phishing hacks yep and then 36 of all data breaches involve phishing, according to Verizon's 2022 report, and it was estimated that by 2022, ransomware or phishing attack will occur every 11 seconds.
Speaker 1:One of my friends who works for quite a large corporation, I think during 2020,. They got literally shut down for almost a week from a phishing ransomware scam that got into everything.
Speaker 2:It's so crazy. At 16%, phishing was the second most reason for data breaches and the closest or the costliest, averaging $4.990 million in breach costs. And one of the most expensive phishing attacks was through compromised emails, with around 19,000 complaints having a loss of 1.8 billion. Oh my God, okay, so that I just you know it's going down this rabbit hole. So definitely easy and common to have one of your accounts hacked, especially like through your email. So then it got me thinking. We have after death phone calls, we have Ouija boards, spirit boxes and other equipment and items that we use to talk to the dead. So if we can hack into emails, then why can't the dead?
Speaker 1:Are you saying hack the Ouija board or hack the email? The email, oh.
Speaker 2:A spirit box works by rapidly scanning through various radio frequencies, right, so essentially acting like a radio scanner that continuously moves between stations without stopping and with the idea that spirits can manipulate those frequencies to create audible words or phrases, you know.
Speaker 1:Right, like kind of through the white noise.
Speaker 2:And then, according to the theory behind the Ovilus, spirits are thought to communicate by subtly altering environmental fields, which the device then interprets as changes and translates words into pre-programmed database. So essentially like speaking environmental fields, which the device then interprets as changes and translates words into pre-programmed database.
Speaker 1:so essentially like speaking the obvious, that's the one that it is like the word quiet spirit box that says words okay yeah, it just says the words so if spirits can manipulate, like through all that like, why can't they manipulate the email waves and all that shit?
Speaker 2:right, it makes sense, I know. So I'm excited. You might have heard of this one, but it has been one that has already been on my list and in my brain. But once I started going down this spiral of all this stuff, I'm like, oh, my god, this kind of like correlates. Okay, so let's talk a bit about our main character. Okay, and his name is jack froice. Okay, jack, according to his mother, is a sensitive, kind-hearted and unique 32 year old from pennsylvania, and when we start with a description like that, we know that unfortunately, they died did he also lit up the room right?
Speaker 2:yeah, okay so, in june 2011, jack unexpectedly unexpectedly died from a heart arrhythmia and, according to the Cleveland clinic, a heart arrhythmia, if you didn't know, is a heart rhythm that isn't normal. Your heart may be beating too fast when you're at rest or just not beating at a regular pattern, and they range from being like serious to harmless. So some people don't even have symptoms, and it's an estimated 1.5 to 5% of people have heart arrhythmias. Okay, and then, kind of like I said, though, because you don't have symptoms, it does make it difficult to like estimate how many people actually have it, and because I love all of you guys, I'm going to give you some symptoms so that you can be aware.
Speaker 1:Oh, time for self-diagnosis.
Speaker 2:Heart arrhythmia symptoms may include heart palpitations, dizziness, lightheadedness, faint episodes, shortness of breath, chest discomfort, weakness or fatigue. And for the curious, arrhythmia causes include coronary heart disease, irritable tissue in your heart, high blood pressure, changes in your heart, valve disorders. You know, blah, blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:I love you, but I'm sorry to tell you that you would never cut it in pharmaceutical commercials. That was way too slow to rattle all that off.
Speaker 2:Oh God. So basically, the healing process can be heart surgery or, like I said, it might not even be serious. Okay, so he didn't know he had it. It was tragic 32 years old, ugh, too young, I know. So, again, we sadly lost him and it's sad, but that's why we're here, sad, depressing things. Okay, so we know that we never like get over death of a loved one. We know that. But as time moves on, you know, so do our lives and we kind of better accept it. So five months after a death, I would say, is still fresh, absolutely, but you're probably like been trying to like get back into your routine and your life as best as you can, but that's still not a lot of time. So can you imagine, five months after losing your childhood best friend, he emails you. No, because that's exactly what happened to Tim Hart.
Speaker 1:Yeah Well, I figured that's where we were going with this. All right, tell us about Tim.
Speaker 2:Tim told the BBC one night in November. I was sitting on my couch going through my emails on my phone and it popped up Sender Jack. I turned ghost white and I read it. The subject line I'm watching, oh, I just got chills, yeah. So then, referring to the context in the email, tim stated it was a very quick and short, but to a point that only Jack and I could relate. And this is what the email said Did you hear me? I'm at your house, clean your fucking attic. What do you do?
Speaker 1:Clean the attic. That is the absolute first thing I'm doing. Actually, I'm just going to make sure he's not hiding in the attic. Yeah, my head would start to play games with me Also. This um, it kind of reminds me of the calls from beyond the grave that we did about the people who did the phone calls or receiving phone calls. That's kind of why I said, like if they can do all that, why couldn't you know?
Speaker 2:So, if that's not really like weird or creepy enough for you, days before Jack died he was actually in Tim's attic. The two were discussing what needs to be done to finish it and, as it was like really dirty, unfinished addict, jack had made comments along the lines of like dusting or sweeping it before he would even begin to help do anything.
Speaker 1:I kind of love that though, because like that makes the message really Exactly, it's less random or like somebody got into the email, or something like that.
Speaker 2:It's personal, but not so personal that like it's just yeah, so as this was a private conversation, it was just with friends. Like it makes it more unlikely to be a prank, like you were just saying, or like a hacker. Like you could say that maybe Jack's told somebody about his experience in his friend's attic, or that Tim said something about being in his friend's attic, but like why would either one of them be like oh yeah, I was up in Tim's attic today and I told him it was dusty, or like yeah.
Speaker 2:Jack told me my attic was dusty. It's just such a weird thing to randomly tell anybody else for it to then be them to say it's just ad. So yes, there are like really cruel and fucked up people in the world, but like why send that if you were hacking the account? It's just so pointless to me I like, if it was somebody hacking it like why, what?
Speaker 1:I don't know it would just be kind of a pointless hack.
Speaker 2:Yeah yeah, jimmy, or jim mcgraw, jack's cousin, grew up more as a brother to jack and he received a november email.
Speaker 1:Oh, wait, remind me, when did uh tim get his email? June, november november, okay, june is when he passed. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:So this is a little bit later, in november, I think it was like a couple weeks, uh, or like the end of nove. I think the other ones made the beginning. It was a couple of weeks, part Gotcha, and I've got obviously from no other, no one other than Jack, subject of this one. I knew you were going to break your ankle. Tried to warn. You Got to be careful.
Speaker 1:I'm guessing his ankle.
Speaker 2:A week prior to Jim getting this email, he broke his ankle on his way to work, like walking outside of his house on his way to work. He broke his ankle on his way to work, like walking outside of his house on his way to work. And then basically he said, aside from like his, like family, like a few family and some of the friends, nobody knew about this accident, like he didn't really tell anybody. Yeah, that's wild. If somebody that also happens already emailed him, then was like.
Speaker 1:So now you would have to know about both things if you were a hacker.
Speaker 2:Right, such weird little things that, yeah, and I guess you could be like well, if you, if I told my mom I broke my ankle, she's probably going to tell 500 people, so that's a little bit easier to say that like, I'm sure somebody could have found more out about his broken ankle than the attic, but still, it's something so fucking weird that I just don't know why you would fuck with somebody with that. No, it makes no sense.
Speaker 2:So Tim had actually replied back to his, like he emailed a follow up, but he didn't get a response and Jim just stated I'd like to say Jack sent it, just because I look at it as he's gone, but he's still trying to connect with me, trying to tell me to move on, to feel better.
Speaker 1:I mean one that's really cute and comforting, to get from beyond the grave too. But like I also feel kind of what you're saying, where we're talking about the phone calls, like it almost has to be easier to manipulate a keyboard or a computer than it would a phone call or some of the other messages. Like it doesn't seem like.
Speaker 2:Are you manipulating the keyboard?
Speaker 1:Oh, I'm sorry, I mean like for a spirit to manipulate an electronic written word rather than spoken word in their own voice. So I argument for spirit, not somebody manipulating. Yeah, yeah yeah.
Speaker 2:So Patty Jack's mother said I saw they made people happy. They made some upset, but I see it as people were still talking about him and then Patty also said like was quoted saying think what you want about it or just accept them as a gift.
Speaker 2:I think that, regardless of how these emails happened, the most important thing to take away is just that sometimes there doesn't need to be an explanation for everything, primarily when it can serve to help bring comfort to you after a loss. Whatever the meaning is to take from something like this is to accept it and to move to a better place.
Speaker 1:I agree so much with that. Especially when it comes to grief, you can rack your brain trying to figure out if something was real or not right, but whether in that moment it's real or not, if it brought you comfort, the feelings of comfort are real, so let it be real to you.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and then Tim said like he doesn't mind, even if he found out the emails were just a prank from somebody who, like, hacked into his old email account. If somebody's joking around, I don't care because I take it what I take it, whatever way I want, the mysterious emails are still unsolved because, like I, like I said, jack's loved ones kind of just accepted it as a sign from him. There are some articles and one interview that I watched with both of them and his mom. One of them does say that there were others, but I don't think those others wanted to come forward. Yeah, and there was no mention of what any of those emails said did they have screenshots of the ones that?
Speaker 2:yes it did talk about, okay, yeah it's implied that more people got emails from him and they were just as like weird, like this, uh, but I don't know what they say. No one's like reported on them. But I was racking my brain like for other explanations is like what? Like why was nobody else like talked to about this, like his mom? His mom didn't get one. She was one that didn't like but other than like loved ones, just like checking in from beyond, like the two guys, like I don't know.
Speaker 2:I'm just like it's so weird to me because the two guys have mentioned like could have mentioned the addict broken his ankle and then someone pulled this prank. But, like I said before, like what was the person like purpose? Like what are they? What would they gain? Right, and like, if you're pranking, this is bad, but like, if you're pranking, wouldn't you then like respond to the reply to tim? Like, unless you're like really trying to creep him out, but you think you'd really like fuck with him a little bit yeah, like you, you'd keep the ruse going for me it kind of right if we think about evps or other um evidence we get from beyond the grave.
Speaker 2:It's never a full back and forth conversation, snippets it's yeah, it's when you can muster the energy, so maybe and then I but I do think that if it was a cruel prank because if this is a prank that is really cruel oh, you're gonna email his two, like his best friends or his cousin, like. But I was thinking, if you are that cruel to do that, wouldn't you fucking email more people or email his mother?
Speaker 1:yeah so, unless you really hated just these two individuals, I don't know I don't know, but there was also nothing malicious they weren't gaining, so like if they were trying to get information or trying to make that person upset or something like. Then I could see more of the argument. But like why, why would you do this as a prank, without follow?
Speaker 2:up. That's why I'm just confused, I don't know. Another thought was Jack could have future scheduled these emails, true, but that doesn't explain how he would know that his cousin was going to break his ankle, yeah. And like, why would he pre-schedule an email? It's not like he knew he was dying. And like, why emails? Because you can pre-schedule texts which would just be so much easier to your loved ones than, like, they're likely to miss an email. They're not going to miss a text.
Speaker 1:Honestly, if I like was dying, that's the shit I would probably do is like schedule stuff out. But yeah, like you said you, you can't predict the because the the ankle injury, like sure that could explain the first one. But it was also a freak accident, the way he died or not, that's what I'm saying, yeah he didn't know.
Speaker 2:So it's like, yeah, and I could really see like randomly emailing you and being like fucking clean your attic.
Speaker 1:Right, you know what I mean. Like, even like. Oh dude, if I like had a couple months, and they're like, hey, you're dying the way, I would mess with you.
Speaker 2:All right, well, here we go. So there's a website called deadmanswitchnet and, if you don't know, a dead man switch is a switch that is designed to be activated or deactivated if the human operator becomes incapacitated, such as through death. So this could be for, like government people that are like you know. It could be for anything, it's just like that's called a dead man switch, like if I get knocked out, this switch, blah, blah, blah. You get what I mean, but the website is also called that, so let me read you the gist of the website.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:Because I think you're gonna like it. So this is what this is all the website says why Bad things happen. Sometimes they happen to you. If something does happen, you might wish there was something you had told the people around you how you feel, what you regret, what you wish you had said. Or maybe you just want to make sure your pets are taken care of promptly. For that you need a dead man's switch. How this is how it works. You write a few emails and choose the recipient, recipients recipients. These emails are stored privately until they're sent. Your switch will email you every so often, asking you to show that you are fine by clicking a link If something were to happen. Your switch would then send the emails you wrote to the recipients you specified, sort of an electronic will.
Speaker 1:You could say oh, I am not consistent enough with checking my emails. Oh my God, I'd write like some like like tell all secret stuff. And then it's just like no, I was just camping for a weekend.
Speaker 2:I should have looked. I should have asked Reddit if anyone has done a dead man switch and then didn't die. So then. The next one, though, is when? So notifications are sent at certain intervals by email, telegram or browser push notifications. You can set the intervals to whatever you want, from one day to years. By default, the switch will notify you 30, 45, and 52 days after you last showed signs of life. If you don't respond to any of those notifications, all your messages will be sent 60 days after your last check-in.
Speaker 1:Okay, so this is not like an instant thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah, of course you can have your switch postpones its activation, like you know, if you're on vacation or whatever, by telling it to not try to, to not try to contact you for a specific period of time. Uh, the service will resume normally after however many days has passed In default examples. You don't really care, but you get it. And then basically, it just says how much it's like right now. You can add one email with up to one recipient each, and then, upgrading your account, you could do premium things, oh, I'm sure. And then the last little thing is but but nothing, that's it. Nothing to it. You can get started right now.
Speaker 1:Just register using the following button. How much is it for? Like five? Okay, because that would be fun, honestly, no. I would have to figure out, like my, who my five mortal enemies are. I don't think I even have five.
Speaker 2:I don't know, oh, I guess, if you're going to do it to people that, yeah, you can't do to your loved ones.
Speaker 1:Right and just like the like our boy did at the beginning of this one just I'm watching you.
Speaker 2:So, anyway, maybe Jack did have some sort of inkling of didn't tell anybody and again set this up, or he was just lingering around long enough to mess with his two favorite loved ones one more time. So I did want to end us, though, with my favorite reddit. I knew there was gonna be some reddit stories yeah, I was able to find some additionally, like people that had like this happened to them. Yeah, I was just.
Speaker 1:I haven't heard about this specific gentleman, but I do feel like I have heard fairly recently somewhere maybe another podcast or something about people. Honestly, it could have been reddit too.
Speaker 2:Just yeah, messing around okay so this username is ultra havens, um, and it is the title is. I just received an email from my dead dad and it was posted under personal encounter. My dad died six weeks ago. Earlier this evening I received an email from his account. It simply said check this out, followed by a copy, pasted headline and a link to a news article from two days ago pertaining to the university I went to and a topic I care about. It was extremely, extremely. It was exactly the type of article that he would have shared with me and we would have talked about.
Speaker 2:I rationally assumed that my mom must have sent it from the computer which his email is still logged into. That makes sense. But she told me that she did not send it and had no knowledge of the article or news in question. She did share with me that she had an encounter about an hour before I received the email. For context, my mom lives alone in the house she shared with my dad. I live about seven hours away. She said that she heard the garage door open and close and got scared. So she called our neighbor who told her that she could only see the light on in the garage. But my mom checked the light was off. She had recently had many partial dreaming experience of seeing and hearing his spirit. I've also dreamt of interacting with his spirit several times. I'm always aware that he's dead in those dreams, but this email is my favorite tangible and unexpected experience. Has anyone out, has anyone heard of ghost reading the news or sending emails? Edit Sorry.
Speaker 1:I was actually just gonna say there's an edit with an update, right I? So I surf Reddit when I can't sleep. I have definitely read this one, okay, so there's a couple edits.
Speaker 2:Edit I did reply to the email with a message to him. At it to the link was to a legit news website. Don't worry guys, I'm aware of phishing scams and know to be weary of strange links and messages. The email was too eerily personal in nature. Edit three I just checked for email spoofing thanks to I don't know what this user is, but and it appears it and it appears by legitimately sent from his Gmail account from a local IP. I'm going back to my parents' home at the start of May for Memorial Gathering so I will be able to investigate my dad's phone and computer and other things, and that's it.
Speaker 1:That's so funny, remember, because I told you I was just reading about this summer. Recently I read that one, do you?
Speaker 2:know why? Because this was just posted very, very recently. So if you read, read it, read it.
Speaker 1:I need water hold on, if you read, read it, read, read it.
Speaker 2:It's easy enough to do but I thought that was kind of a cool one because it had it's crazy, because it had everything that we just talked about like it had the email from dan. It had like some ghosty, weird feelings and then it had, like he even put in there about the phishing email which is like exactly how it let you down.
Speaker 1:No, the synchronicities were there.
Speaker 2:No, that's an interesting one so I think that's definitely his dad because or her dad, whoever's, because there's no way that mom had an experience of that happening. Like dad clearly walked, came into the garage and walked in, did you went. The computer got to send you this link, son or daughter, whoever you are, it's so cute.
Speaker 1:Which too right. Then you can make an argument and not make an argument. You could have the debate Is this intelligent or residual?
Speaker 2:I mean the only thing, not the only, but I could go both ways. The reason that I would lean more towards intelligent is because I get that the routine of it would be residual, but because it's like a new article and like a new thing, I feel like it's an intelligent right.
Speaker 1:I agree with you, but also like if he in the past came down, sat down, pulled up an article and sent it to him, because the only thing that made me think residual is how you said earlier, when he knew it was his dad was um or her I don't know if it's a male or, yeah, their parent it's the exact type of article like my dad would send me.
Speaker 2:so this right, that's true, so it could out of the norm. So like I mean, you would never know, you could argue no, we could debate this all night, but oh yeah, I thought that was a fun one. Okay, so this other one is from ProFmoxie ProFmoxie, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Prof like professor.
Speaker 2:Oh, profmoxie. Yeah, when I'm reading it as a username, it's all one and I'm like what? I got an email from a deceased friend and then this is under the category or under the subreddit advice needed. I am really spooked. Tonight I got an email from a friend who died two years ago. The email is like this, and then there's like a screenshot. The screenshot was weird, though, so it didn't even make sense to me, but and he kind of made up some names and stuff me. Subject Thank you kindly, body for the glimmer, a skull emoji, a hammer emoji and then a broken heart emoji. That's fucking weird. Skull hammer, broken heart, yikes. So again for the glimmer, and then those emojis that's so cryptic for the sake of this post, we'll call him jack von.
Speaker 2:he passed away two years ago. Before he died, we had a falling out and hadn't spoken in 15 plus years. It wasn't a major falling out, just a disagreement, and we drifted years. It wasn't a major falling out, just a disagreement, and we drifted apart, which was easy to do as we moved across the country. Don't imagine too much drama here. We're in our late 50s 60s. We're too old for this crap. We never exchanged emails using my current email address. We were never friends on any social media and never texted. I only found out he died through a mutual friend on any social media and never texted. I only found out he died through a mutual friend. The email address this email came from is something similar to preciousmusic68 at gmailcom. It's not an address I know or a phrase I recognize. I googled the Gmail address and found it was associated with a comment on a blog post from five years ago. Interestingly, that blog post is a picture tour of a park near where my friend lived before he died.
Speaker 1:Oh weird.
Speaker 2:The front part of the email address, preciousmusic68, is associated to a Discogs account. My friend was a musician but the name on the account is Doug something, not my friend, and there is no other info on the profile that could be something else entirely. Otter still is. This email address is glimmermynameatgmailcom. The person that sent this email had to know the very specific word. Glimmer means a great deal to me and has for decades.
Speaker 1:I was wondering.
Speaker 2:Yeah, not the actual word, but similarly unique one. Obviously I know my friend is dead. There was an obituary and I read an article celebrating his life and music by some of his friends. As far as I know, this was not his email address, but I can't be sure of that fact. The emojis are freaking me out a bit. The message is oddly cryptic, like something he might have written when I knew him poet, music type, but he couldn't. But he could have not, oh my God, but he could not have sent it. I would dismiss it as spam, but for the fact that the message uses such a unique oh my God, I'm done such a unique word for me.
Speaker 2:I don't think a spam generator going through random Gmail addresses is going to align the email message and emoji. So, specifically, what should I do? Is there any way I can learn more? Should I reply and ask who this is? Should I assume it's spam and stop freaking out?
Speaker 1:Okay. So first of all, before you get too down on yourself for stumbling over words, I think I've only helped you with one word through this entire episode, so that's going to be like a banner one I don't even remember now, okay, but still that's. It's. That one is still really. I think of all of them, this one is like maybe the easiest one to kind of explain away, just because it's like it's a random word that could have just.
Speaker 1:You know there's a lot of, there's probably hundreds of words that if I just got it in an email I would be able to find meaning in it, but it's still very strange.
Speaker 2:Well, and I guess what's weird is that. So somebody in the Reddit comments, though, was like well, if your email is like glimmerzackpalmer at gmailcom, the auto like the hacked, like the auto hack is going to think you're glimmer, so it's going to say glimmer or like whatever, because we've all seen that type of shit. So they were like that is definitely a bot, like they don't recognize what is actually a name and what's not. So it makes sense to be a bot. But the weird part and is in he kind of like debated in the argument or in the um comments, and he wasn't going either way, he's just curious. He was just saying I understand that, but how would this person, this Jack Vaughn, ever get my email? That's what he was so confused about, because, yes, the word is so weird but he never had this email.
Speaker 2:It was like a newer email account that this guy would never have.
Speaker 1:I think if there wasn't the pictures of the park near his house, it would. I would write this one away easier, but yeah, there's definitely oddness to it.
Speaker 2:And then that's why he was saying like, well, I really think it like I don't know if it's actual account, but it was like the account itself, the email has something to do with music, which he was a musician. Then that one account was attached to a profile picture that was near him, like so, just very weird. But this one, I think you could be the easiest one to write off as somebody just scamming you. But it is really strange and just really creepy, like for the glimmer skull, hammer, broken heart.
Speaker 1:That's so creepy we're gonna solve this one and we're also gonna solve the calls from beyond the grave okay the way we're gonna solve. It is not gonna be soon, hopefully, and it's not when we're dead cute. Yes, okay, let's make a vow right now, whoever dies so funny.
Speaker 2:I was gonna ask you what? Where are you gonna haunt me when you die first?
Speaker 1:oh, all the ways. Let's be honest, like I'm never gonna give you a moment of peace again, I'm gonna poke your butthole a lot, only if it's not watery. I don't know how I I'm going to know that Maybe you get x-ray vision as a ghost, but no, whoever dies first. The first thing you have to do is try to call and text and email the other person and we're going to see which one comes through first.
Speaker 2:So here's the thing, off the air, if you will, we'll have to give each other like a code word that we would only know as each other sending it to us I already know what my safe word is going to be okay, I don't know what mine is, but I'll think about it, okay, so out of these, like basically three stories, what are you leaning? Hacked, you don't know, or the the only one I'm?
Speaker 1:gonna say I don't know too. Is number three same, um? The first two are just so similar to other things we've talked about. Yep, um, the obviously the phantom calls sliding kind of reminds me a bit too, because, like, if the living have the ability to manipulate electronics around them, that's true, I would imagine a energy afterlife would also. I would be interested, though it would be kind of cool to see, like for both those individuals, if they spent a lot of time doing the emails, because that's where my brain stuck on is to me something like an email could be so residual if that was part of your routine, if that dad, if his way of communicating with his son at school was to come home, open the garage, sit down and send that email.
Speaker 2:It sounded like it kind of was something that he would do and you can visualize it. It's weird because this is how I visualized it like okay. So mom says that she heard the garage door, she saw the light, okay, and like I'm literally visually okay, he walks in the garage so the light goes off. He comes in, closes the door, goes to computer, sends the email, right, she tells the neighbor that she's scared. The neighbor's like the garage light looks like it's on, but mom goes and looks and it's probably already off because it's already been censored. Like my garage light stays on like a minute or so after I walk out. Right, that's how I figure. Like oh, like you know what I mean. Like no, it's off now. Well, yeah, because he already walked through, he he'd been in the house now emailing.
Speaker 1:I feel like I usually give a little bit more skepticism to you no, because this is like an impelling yeah, no, this one seems pretty legit compelling, impelling compelling, compelling um. I said impelling, compelling are you sure, the first time I said impelling, but what I will say?
Speaker 2:I was scouring reddit and the interwebs for more people that have had this happen to them and I cannot fucking find any, which makes it even yes, what makes it even more compelling to me is that it doesn't happen that often that, like quote unquote, dead people are emailing yeah, because I I think a lot of those things that we see the same story over and over again.
Speaker 1:You have to start to ask yourself, like, is this folklore, is it being exaggerated, right?
Speaker 2:that's what I mean, and so I was trying because I was trying to put some in here that would be like that's definitely like that's hacked. You was hacked, bro, but I it was just hard. Now, obviously, like you're. My searches are like dead people being like sending emails, emails from the dead, and it's literally like everyone pop up. Be like what do you do after somebody? What do you do with somebody's email after they die? It's like no, it's not, oh yeah, so it's like a lot of that. I'd be like what do you do after somebody? What do you do with somebody's email?
Speaker 1:after they die.
Speaker 2:It's like no, it's not what they're asking you. So it was like a lot of that. I'd be like paranormal emails, ghost emails. And then it's like what is a ghost email? A ghost email is like no, fuck you. So I will say it was also really hard to find the right verbiage.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But even Reddit didn't have too many that popped up. So I don't know Like I, like you said, I'm going to go with the last one. It's so fucking creepy that I want it to be real.
Speaker 1:But I could see that one being just like. So if a ghost sends you a link, is it still called phishing?
Speaker 2:No, because it's not a phishing link.
Speaker 1:OK, well, I mean I'm setting it up for a pun here. Would it still be fishing? That's where you just say no I said no okay, what if it was harbooing instead of harpooning? Okay, there's a reason. I'm not a stand-up comedian, but I could have at least gotten a pity laugh there. Thank you all right.
Speaker 1:So I definitely think the first two are a little paranormally, and then the third one a couple years out of these shoppers and by that I mean at least 45 to 50 and we'll tell you one of us, one of us will go maybe 60 years well, what am I? 36 now yeah, 96 would be a good age okay, yeah, because tune in 60 years from now and we will tell you if this is true or not. Actually sign up for our email list and we'll email you.
Speaker 2:Post death oh my god, we'll put all of the. We can put all the Patreon subscribers on our Dead man Switch.
Speaker 1:Yes, I love that. We'll just send them all the unedited footage so you can see everything we've cut out. That is the number one perk now of being a Patreon.
Speaker 2:When we die, you get all the dirt. But speaking of Patreon, you guys should come on over to Patreon, marielle. Actually I don't know if you saw today she chatted They've got snow where she is for like the first time in three years, oh gross. She sent a picture of the Oddity Shop mug in the snow, like I have the perfect mug to use and I'm like that's so cute.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was cute. Yeah. I guess if you only get it once every few years, you're probably excited.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so it was a cute picture. I should repost it somewhere.
Speaker 1:And Kara's been forcing me to get better on camera and I'm doing videos and stuff with her. We got new things coming in there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we have a lot of fun stuff coming. So if you want to join the Patreon, that would be fun. I would love to get more people in there so that the chat keeps going. You know like we just all day can like vibe and like send good vibes messages to each other, perfect, okay, well.
Speaker 1:Well, that is what I have for phishing scams, dead people emailing letter emoji oh yeah, well, I don't know. If there's an email, there's an envelope oh yeah isn't like the little email envelope thingy let's do that, some sort of envelope, letter thing. Well, no, I love how we always start specifically and we're like what actually actually? Whatever emoji.
Speaker 2:No, what you should do is skull hammer, broken heart.
Speaker 1:There you go. That's what I want. Just email us, glimmer, we'll know.
Speaker 2:Skull hammer broken heart.
Speaker 1:Perfect. Well, good job. That one was definitely interesting.
Speaker 2:I can't wait to test it out. I kind of took you all over.
Speaker 1:Yeah, give me some medical. And I really thought too when you were starting. I'm like, you literally just came up with a question so you could tell me another story. Cool, cool, I played that off very well.
Speaker 2:You did good job no, for those obviously that don't see us, which is everybody. Zach's face was getting so annoyed because he's thinking this intro is going so fucking long.
Speaker 1:We're like 15 minutes in. People are tuning out I'm tuning out.
Speaker 2:He was. He was starting to like look around like I'm glad I have such a good poker you're like grating your, like grating your teeth, like, okay, you're like trying so hard to interrupt me so you'd be like here, shut the fuck up. Like I'm gonna edit all of this out yeah, pretty much.
Speaker 1:Wow, you are in my head okay with that how are we closing the shop up?
Speaker 2:oh my god. So yes, we've decided skull hammer broken heart broken heart emoji. That's how we I want you to glimmer is how I want you to approach me with sign up for our Patreon. We've got cool things coming, thank you. Thank you, guys. I know we probably said on the last episode, but thank you guys so much for being cool and loving that we were replaying some old episodes all January. We really appreciate you.
Speaker 1:But we're back and refreshing. We have so much new stuff coming.
Speaker 2:I know, okay, so that's really all I have for you guys. I love you so much. Creep it real oh no, try again.
Speaker 1:I love you guys so much, but the most important thing you can do is creep it. Real Yadballs Goodbye V shop. Hooked in the shadows At the IV shop At home with the oddballs At the IV shop. The door's always open At the IV shop.
