What Really Happened in Portlock, Alaska?
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- čas přidán 28. 03. 2022
- Residents of Portlock, Alaska all abandoned the town after a string of deaths in the 1940s. Rumours of a strange creature abound - oh no!
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If it isn't carbon monoxide and you're experiencing things, see your doctor. I was seeing shadow people out the corners of my eyes, then I experienced an auditory hallucination when I was out hiking. Ignored it, but combined with the memory loss I was already suffering, and now painful neuropathy, I was misdiagnosed with a TBI and now have an appointment with a neurologist coming up because there is something seriously wrong with my brain. Don't assume you're experiencing the supernatural, it could cost you your health and possibly your life.
Oh my, that sounds concerning. Hope you're doing well and were able to get help.
@@bugsandbrushes thanks. I was diagnosed with lyme disease and heart trouble and with treatment things have gotten a little better.
I had a very similar experience (shadow people, distortions in size of objects and buildings, confusion and memory loss) when I overdosed on my ADHD meds and didn’t sleep for 72 hours
I had very severe high fever twice in my life.
I was in bed and my wife was downstairs and she came into the bedroom because she heard me talking and assumed i was calling for her. She later told me i was having a conversation with a friend that had died several years ago. She was so freaked out because i told her to come meet my good friend that was in the bedroom with me and that he had come to visit me because i was so ill.
The first time i had such a high fever i was a little child and my mother told me that at one point i started looking at nothing very attentive and when she asked what was i looking at i told her i was watching the men dressed in white that were next to us and how one of the men dressed in white was telling me i was gonna be better soon.
I have no recollection of either episode.
@@sparkofcuriousity that is absolutely terrifying. I'm glad you've recovered from both fevers, I can't even imagine how freaky that must have been for your loved ones to witness
The reason the liger can grow so large while the tigon will generally not grow larger than it's parents is also fascinating. The Female tiger and male lion lack the gene to inhibit the upper size to their growth, while the male tiger and female lion carry those genes. I've honestly always wondered why the growth regulation gene was only in half of each species. I guess that nature just wasn't expecting our tomfoolery.
tomfoolery=tiger-fucking😂
The cat family in general are so crazy, because South American jaguars and African Lions can actually interbreed and produce fertile offspring (called jaglions or liguar). Then that offspring can produce fertile offspring with an Africa leopard (leoliguar). The continents haven't been anywhere near each other for at least 200 million years! So as much as you could blame human tomfoolery for even bringing these species together, it's cats themselves who just forgot to speciate sufficiently.
@@ladygrndr9424 well, all of those in particular are part of the pantera lineage. There are actually around seven cat linages surviving today. The big cats just fall into, I think, three of those.
Of course if we're not more careful we could lose some of the smaller cat breed because of our domesticated cats. Unfortunately they can bread really easily with some wild cat breeds. Same problem as with the big cats really.
The separation of the gene could be down to just basic survival advantages. A male lion would naturally benefit from being as large and strong as possible. Female tigers could be the same since they would be most likely to be guarding the cubs as well as producing bigger, stronger, and healthier babies. Meanwhile the male tigers would be better off staying slightly smaller so they are faster and more agile, as well as being able to stalk their prey and hide in tall grass/over growth. Same with female lions (which if i remember correctly, tend to do a lot of the hunting).
Thats just a theory that came to my mind when i read your comment, however i do not know very much about either tigers or lions so i could easily be completely mistaken lol. But if that is true, it would make sense.
@@shadowofenvy1847 that makes perfect sense. You're absolutely right about the roles.
As soon as you said the Native Alaskan people avoided the area, I was like, “Classic. Native people avoid the area and here come European people/European descendants like, oh this looks like a lovely spot!”
Exactly, When in Rome Do as the Romans
Bigot
Yeah, look how bad it worked out when they showed up in North America. It was such a disaster there’s three hundred million people living there now
Being the postal worker in an abandoned town sounds like a dream job to me.
Yup, the "Alaskan Triangle" is basically the most likely place in Alaska where, if something goes wrong, they'll probably never even find you - even in a brightly painted airplane (unless you crash with a satellite transponder broadcasting your position to Search & Rescue officials.)
And those transponders dont last forever, nor do they necessarily broadcast very far if they're too close to the ground/water. So even with one, rescue is not in any way guaranteed.
Do you realize that so-called triangle covers like two-thirds of my state? Which means more land-area than most other states.
Katy should research and write a script about the disappearance of an entire Inuit village at Lake Anjikuni in 1930 in northern Canada. There's all kinds of details for Simon to lose his sh@t over, would be a lovely experience for all involved.
Thanks so much for the awesome channels and content. And the witty sarcasm.
I agree. I love that story. Please, please do it!!!
She'll just rip the magic right out of its soul. I'm not sure I like this format where they start from a mindset that absolutely denies the existence of the supernatural. Just because a thing is difficult to verify with scientific methods doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
@@pakde8002 That's the entire point of the series though. They're demystifying and rationally explaining mysteries and stories that have had a plethora of mystical explanations attributed to them. "This disappearance? It wasn't aliens. This tragedy? It wasn't ghosts. This legendary treasure? It wasn't real. This haunted mansion? It's not haunted." And while not being able to prove something doesn't exist with the scientific method doesn't mean it doesn't exist, it doesn't mean it does. Unfalsifiable claims are by nature unscientific and untestable. Being untestable, however, is not equivalent to being real. We have a strong enough understanding of biology, chemistry, physics and astronomy to make claims such as "ghosts aren't real," or "aliens haven't visited earth," or "this is not a sea monster." We may not be able to test for them specifically, but we can say what is scientifically impossible based on our current understanding.
That was debunked a long time ago. From memory it was just a short story that someone had written.
@@pakde8002 that's the point, dude. Magic doesn't exist.
A lot of the ghost towns here in the USA were originally gold rush towns and railroad towns, or oil boom towns. When the natural resources dried up, the town was deserted. There's some really good ones in California! This is an interesting story thanks for covering it
I live in Nevada. Ghost town hunters love it here! I found 2 and now I am obsessed.
Coal towns as well in Appalachia
Nevada, too! I love Rhyolite
@@erikaarnold4780 which ones have you visited?! Rhyolite is my favorite, also Nelson
I live in Oregon where a lot of people think Bigfoot hangs out, but I'd like to doubly confirm the bit about real animals making some scary, supernatural sounding noises. We have bobcats out here and they sound like freakin banshees. You know how cats in heat sound kinda like babies crying? Imagine that turned to 11, with a bit of a "demonic" sounding rasp to it. You can know exactly what it is, and it still makes your skin crawl to hear it at night in the woods. Same with elk and deer, they can make some truly crazy vocalisations that you just wouldn't expect unless you knew, and they'd be very easy to imagine the sounds coming from some sort of supernatural entity or cryptid.
I was running a TTRPG game for some friends where they were facing a cryptid, and I legit used elk sounds as part of its scary monster yelling! It's such a crazy, specific and inexplicable noise.
The new cop attended a call at a local farm as the new neighbour reported a woman being beaten and calling for help Cop had a laugh when he worked out it was the peacocks calling . First time people hear a new animal they can think all sorts of things .
There are parts of Oregon that no human has ever seen let alone walked on.
There are zombies all over Portland. They’re multiplying.
Plus the smell could come from bears, they like to rut around in some nasty stuff.
Wait, wait, wait… the town suffers grizzly murders and weird incidents, the entire town _except the postmaster_ leaves en masse, and he was fine for two years?
I just solved the mystery, as it was obviously the postmaster. He scared everyone away and got the place to himself for a couple of years. Genius!
Sorry, the town in Alaska, the first story up. 😬
Can I add a further twist that the postmaster actually just really really wanted to leave and move somewhere sunny and couldn't until all of the townsfolk left?
@@Gnomlette I like the cut of your jib.
Isn’t this the plot to Forbidden Planet? 😳
that or the person causing it also left thinking everyone left and he was left behind like kevin mcallister in home alone.
Ghost town living mentioned at the beginning, his name is Brent it’s in Cerro Gordo California. His channel is amazing.
For Simon's benefit: California is in the US.
I just started binging Ghost Town Living before Simon posted this video. That’s a pretty cool coincidence.
UPVOTE THIS! Brent is doing outstanding things, check him out!
I'm a total Cerro Gordo fan! I love the place, the channel, Brent is amazing.
Love that you mentioned this here.
I was just drinking coffee out of my Cerro Gordo mug Brent released awhile ago when I saw this video. What a small world! Love his channel and what he’s trying to do for his cool ghost town!
The main reason, I think, why parents invent forest, or snow or rushing river, monsters to scare their children out of wandering into such places is to prevent them from getting lost and dying of hypothermia. There have been a lot of incidents of small children doing just that, much to their parents' grief. My mother used the "bogeyman" to scare us into not wandering off from her.
Growing up I was told so many stories by my grandad to keep me from doing things I shouldn't. My favourites are that there was a t-rex living in the woods behind my house and it would eat me if I went in by myself(the fact that a quarry blowing up rock near-by and made the whole place shake really helped make it believable to little me). To stop me venturing down to the duck pond by myself as well as stopping me from going out after dark I was told of a ghost of a man that kidnapped children and drowned them in the pond. And finally to stop me wandering in to the fields alone I was told that a banshee liked to sit on the gates there and comb her hair and if she saw me she would take me away. There were many more, I'm sure he had a great time making up stories to stop me from doing those things, it worked though.
😂😂😂😂
I was born on the Kenai Peninsula. Nobody goes to or talks about Portlock, if you ask a local they will pretend not to know where you are talking about. As scared as you may be of the place, the locals are even more so.
Unless you wanna shipwreck basically the only way in or out is by air
Oh good God, I grew up in Alaska and this is going to hurt me. Anytime reality TV gets ahold of Alaska it's bad. But listening to Simon try to say kenai makes up for it.
I live on the Kenai and I had to rewatch him saying it cuz I couldn’t stop laughing! Thank you Simon for the amusement!
I was coming on here to say something about that! I still live in AK and it is like finger nails in chalk board 🤣
“key-nai”
it is like hearing Valdez be said like it is out of Peru…
I live how bad he messes it up its funny
@@ericawhitney3899 same here.. I'm in Palmer, but my husband goes all over the state for work as an inspector and it's always funny hearing outsiders try to pronounce some of the place names up here.. (heck, there are some I can't pronounce after being up here for 20 years... lol...) but disappearances up here are sadly all too common.. we know someone who disappeared up in Denali while camping 2 summers ago.. no trace at all, left behind a wife and several kids..
So, I always thought it was said more or less like Keen Eye -- how far off is that?
“It’s not Nicole Kidman.” Jen, you’re an editing legend! 🤣🤣🤣
I’m L’nu from Nova Scotia and currently living on Anishinaabe land, and Sabé (or “Sasquatch) stories are super prevalent across all communities in Canada. In Western Canada he’s very peaceful but in Mi'kma'ki Jenu is a giant hairy cannibal, more inline with the Wendigo.
Across all communities? No.
@@wingerding okay, which First Nations communities don’t have a version of Big Foot?
I had a traumatic brain injury last April, and have been seeing things that aren't there ever since. Most things are flashes of misunderstood information in my brain, so a black car momentarily becomes a butterfly then changes back etc. But the clearest hallucination I had was of a man walking into my sisters flat, and turning to look at me. My sister had her back to it so she only saw my reaction and I just drained of colour. It was terrifying but, being rational, I knew it was just a symptom of my brain injury and not a real ghost. 😆
ah, but what about the posibility of brain damage that simply allows you to see the supernatural? I.E., things that have always been there but usually nobody sees....
Men in black and they are trying to drive you mad!!!
34:25 is now a bad time to mention that 'fishes' is a word? Fishes refers to multiple species, but fish is the plural if it is only one species. To be honest I only found this out relatively recently.
One of my favorite haughty trivia facts! I’m just not smart enough to work @busi magen’s addition into conversation…
Just like people and peoples !
I love random word trivia
It's a bad time.
I've spent time on the Kenai peninsula and even camped within 10miles of Portlock, though it's not really accessable on foot. Trust me when I say that the forests and mountains there are quite wild and full of many animals that can and will kill you. Getting lost or being attacked by wildlife is a very strong possibility. But I will point out that even today many areas in Alaska and the Yukon do not have any law enforcement or investigative agencies. People dying or going missing would not necessarily generate a police report, especially a hundred years ago. And if you are afraid of noises outside your tent, you shouldn't be there.
It's just Yukon Territory, we dropped the "the'" as. It's an artifact of British colonialism. The Territories, there are three, are policed by the RCMP and there are enough of them to regularly make the news for abusing the Inuit and other First Nations...
@@CharleyHorse33 nobody cares about your uneducated commie view
Kenai resident here…. You’re not wrong! Lol the only way to really get to portlock is by boat.
Back in grade 4, (so....late 90s), my teacher made a point of teaching us about some of the local customs and ways of life of the local First Nations band. One story we were told about was the Woman of the Woods, who was this old forest spirit of some description that lived deep in the woods and ate children who wandered off. We were also taught the meaning of this: the woods are big and easy to get lost in (especially back before European settlers showed up, chopped half of it down, and built a city that shines with a million electric lights), and also supports a population of cougars (pumas/mountain lions) and wolves, but that's hard to explain, so they tell a cool story about the spooky witch lady who will eat you.
I live much further down the coast, in British Columbia, so the local First Nations are one of the Coast Salish groups. But yeah, the whole "there's a scary monster in the woods, don't go in the woods and get lost" seems like a pretty standard thing and pretty much any adult from that culture is like "yeah, that story's made up, we just don't want our kids dying or getting lost"
It's like Santa or the Tooth Fairy, except the opposite. Krampus, I guess?
Where I live in Northern California, there are TONS of trees that you can climb inside, and the entire Pacific Northwest has these trees. They typically run 4 to 7 meters in diameter, although the largest is 11.1 meters in diameter.
That's the homeless persons pantry. Cans of food, Ramen, etc found regularly. 😢
I've done quite a bit of hiking in the US and Canada. All wild animals can pose a threat; a couple who were following me on a walking trail disturbed an Elk and it charged them and they were lucky to escape. I've seen stories of people walking just a few hundred metres into a forest, getting disoriented and lost. This is why people go missing in the woods and if they are not on a trail, they often don't get found.
Its easy to get lost even in woods you supposedly know well. If you only ever take one route, the time you for whatever reason go a different way even the usual landmarks will look different - because you're looking at them from different direction. So trying to get out by finding a spot that looks familiar may just walk you deeper into an area you haven't seen before.
Its actually quite nice afternoon exercise to go in a familiar forest but walk at different direction you usually would - although I'd recommend doing it either with a map&compass or in area that you know has some dirt roads to catch you from going completely "off the map". Otherwise the result is that you'll be another person lost in the woods. :p
There was an elderly female hiker who died of exposure, lost, near a commonly used trail and was only like 0.5 miles off trail. It took them years to find her body even though she had a tent set up. Stuff hides easy in the woods even when you're looking for it. When you find my body is the book and well.. she does basically everything wrong and there was every warning sign she should have been stopped.. and no one did.
@@spacerat111 yo.
That's Geraldine Largay!!
66 year old retired nurse who was hiking the Appalachian Trail (which so many underestimate) but yeah she lived for weeks stuck slightly off the trail.
Wild story.
@@Lanka0Kera I lived in Greenwich Village for ten years, but got lost taking a different street home from the dry-cleaners.
Not to mention that, depending on the type of forest and amount of underbrush, finding the trail again can be difficult from even a few feet away. You step off the trail to pee or check something out and can't find your way back...
Simon the rambling, tangents, and rants are what makes you relatable personally and I thoroughly enjoy it Great episode. On my second viewing already.
We all tune in for Fact Boy’s left field tangents. Not only are we informed along the way but also entertained!
Yeah I watch all of his channels mainly for the personality he puts into it, but a lot of times the writing is really good too, the facts themselves are an afterthought lol
Fr. There are so many channels that cover similar content without the tangents that you can watch. But there is only 1 Simon and those ramblings are a fun part of him that a lot of us come for
Agreed.
If you like rants listen to brain blaze it's his most chaotic Chanel
This has to be the fastest I’ve seen Simon get into the content on one of his channels where he fully lets his personality shine through. I prefer a 10 minute rambling intro full of tangents, but this works too
#1 storyteller! I have seen the story of portlock Alaska and believed every word. I love the way you told this story it all makes better sense now.
I believe it is one of my favorite of your videos.
Had a smile on my face all the way through and laughed multiple times. Thank You Simon
"Hairy man thing that smells bad" can cover perhaps a quarter of people in Alaska and should not be considered proof of Bigfoot.
Also, Alaskan didn't have much entertainment before internet. We as a state have made a long tradition of telling stories to freak out visitors. Because we can. And it's funny.
Alaska: The Australia of the U.S. The cold, dark Australia.
🤣🤣👏💕
Bars!
@@a.mathis9454 aw shit, can't forget the bars! That's where we go to come up with the best stories! Gotta make sure to plug in the moose in the winter though so they're willing to run our drunk asses home though!
@@TheSinthea yes, I can imagine that and it probably makes the long nights more bearable with some human interactions.
Little caffeine tip from a former barista for you, Simon- a shot of espresso only has 1/4-1/2 the amount of caffeine as 8 oz (the average cup/mug) of coffee. So if you want to get the most bang for your buck (and the most caffeine for a tired working parent) when it comes to that Starbucks cappuccino, I would recommend either getting a red eye (a shot of espresso in a light roast coffee) instead, or getting a latte with an extra shot of espresso or something that doesn’t involve as much foam as a cappuccino bc the foam makes for less room in the cup for that good good bean juice. Hope that helps someone out there, if not Simon himself! ☺️👍🏻
You legend! Lol
Even better tip if you can:
Buy a cheap espresso machine and some ground coffee. Stop paying for starbucks owners yachts for overpriced average coffee.
Light roast cold brew. Not sure Starbucks carries one, but if you can find it time slows around you. Peaberry works well!
Iced coffee, hold the ice.
@@signal2noize I love calling domino's drunk and asking if their frozen pizza comes with mushrooms and olives
One thing I don't think you know about Alaska is that there was virtually no law enforcement back then. The entire territory had a paltry number of policeman, and I mean single digits. (And Alaska is freakin' HUGE.) So no, there probably weren't police reports and documentation. It was the true last frontier of the United States. The people that lived there were rugged individualists that pretty much scoffed at authority anyway. I remember a story about a bush pilot that was an infamous scofflaw, that always landed on the town streets because he refused to pay airport fees. While this was illegal and potentially dangerous, he got away with it because without him and his colleagues people couldn't get around and no one would get their mail. Fascinating times in Alaska.
I moved into a ghost town of 40. We have a stable and good income and became landlords here. Which confused everyone in town. There were rumors of us being rich (we are not) and wanting to make this a booming tourist town (we do not). It took about a year for people to realize that we're just some nice crippled folks who are just more middle class in a poor neighborhood, but looking to put our roots down. Obviously people wanted to know why here of all places. "It's quiet, it's safe, it's beautiful. And legal weed."
Well, now most the town likes us well enough, and we hire locals for almost all of our repairs on the houses and improvements. So even if you could call us rich, at least we're putting our money in the right places and helping the community. We all always come together in times of troubles, and I'm happy to be a neighbor others can rely on, and in a pinch, I know I can call on them for help. It isn't weird out here to ask to have some sugar or milk from your neighbors. You know them, you talk, and we all watch out for each other even if we have petty arguments sometimes. That's the real reason I moved out to a ghost town.
Does anyone else love that Simon describes someone living in your attic and killing your children as "normal". He must have been recording too much casual criminalist!
"There's actually someone, you know, living in your attic and murdering your children. That kind of stuff. That's the normal, like, fair, for moving house. ..or just needing an extra bedroom."
I love it.
I love Dad Simon - the family stories about potty time, telling the same story repeatedly, not wanting to read details of crimes that happen to children. It's very nice.
I'm so happy someone talks about Archive 81. I love that show and I was so, so sad and mad when Netflix discontinued it after that massive cliff hanger
It’s 6 months in the future and I’m watching this on a Saturday night with a beer! I appreciated the random coffee break :)
In Vegas, you could drive a few hours to get to multiple ghost towns/ mining towns.
EXTREMELY dangerous, open-pit mines, but if you bring a metal detector you'll have fun!
That whole corner of Nevada, Utah, Arizona, and California, there's a lot of crazy remote wilderness and forgotten history.
My dad is obsessed with the curse of oak island. OBSESSED. He thinks it’s dumb and there’s not treasure but he’s still obsessed. Man if you wanted him to lecture you for 5 hours on it I’m sure he’d be more than happy to.
At this point, i’m of the opinion that either they’ll find something massive or they’ll find absolutely nothing and really put the history channel on blast
I like that you're a skeptic but leave a little bit of wiggle room for the chance that some of these fantastical tales might actualy have an inkling of truth. There's a similar story of "cryptid involved murders" with the tale of "The place between lakes". It's actualy quite a chilling tale and with a surviving eye witness, would be a great episode for you to read.
A psychological horror movie could be made about a postmaster staying on in an abandoned Alaska town waiting to be told he can leave.
DtU and CC are my absolute favourite channels right now. Thank you Simon, Katy, Jen and everyone else who works here :)
You brighten up my day.
I’d add Brain Blaze to that list for me!
What's CtU?
@@terryenby2304 But this is Decoding the Unknown... that would be DtU
@@trishapellis apparently I can’t write DtU
In Alaska in the 30s they weren't doing a lot of record keeping. Towns didn't have their own police forces, either. And if police did come to town for something, they aren't likely to write things up after. If they do, it's not likely those records survive 80 or 90 years
Many thanks on covering this topic, there really wasn't much about this location.
love this channel your commentary around the topic is great keeps my interest and fits my opinion of these kinds of subjects it just makes it interesting
Back in the ‘80’s, in Australia, my cousin bought a horse (a pacer for harness racing). This horse hadn’t won a race and was destined for the knackery when he bought it for a few hundred dollars. He trained it himself and, with blinkers added (so the horse could only see ahead and not beside them) and the thing started winning races. A lot of races. When asked what his secret was he would tell people that he would hypnotise them. This story got believed by the gullible and started to spread, so much so that a current affairs program got wind of it. They sent up a crew so he put on the act for them. They asked if he could hypnotise any animal and he said he used to do it sometimes with his dog. He would hypnotise him, give him a little bag with a note in it and he would run up to the butcher to get some sausages. When they left, he quickly called his mate, the butcher, and teed it up with him. Sure enough, the TV crew stopped at the butcher to check out the story. Yep, said the butcher, he used to but the dogs getting a bit old to carry them that far now, just as he’d been instructed to say by my cousin.
In Australia, my cousin would be called a bullshit artist…but one of the best! 😀 so yeah, bullshit away to news crews. 😬😬😬
omg I really hope this is a true story bc I love it lmao
@@heathermcnally7686 Oh, it’s true. It was A Current Affair. When they cut back to the host, Jana Vendt, she couldn’t stop giggling as they cut to a commercial.
He sponsored our football team and would often come to the pub with us after a game. We used to shout out as he approached “ Don’t look into his eyes!” And cover our eyes with our hands. Neville-John Heaton. Good bloke.
I'm an Aussie, and I agree either he or you are *champion* Bullshit artists.
Colin Robinson - News crews are in search of news and so bullshits artists are a blessing as they produce the stories they need to feed the 24-hour news circle.
33:45 I can actually explain this one, Simon! It has to do with which language the words come from. Moose comes from indigenous American (Abenaki) languages, but both fish and mouse come from Ye Olde English, part of the Germanic language group. We keep the plural of moose as "moose" because it doesn't come from English, so generally we don't force English language rules onto this word. 🙂 Thanks for your lovely videos!
Ahhh! That's interesting.
Which is why goose becomes geese; it comes from old Germanic and has its own plural.
The german words for goose/geese are spelled gans and ganse.
He just said the plural for “mouse” is “mouse”. Small brain, he is.
@@pambronson4467 Close, the German plural is "Gänse"; the Umlaut moves the pronunciation to "gense", making it even more similar to "geese".
Always love your channels!
For any future Alaskan readings, Kenai is pronounced Key-nai (you had the last part correct, so A for effort!)
Feel free to ask me about any other Alaskan pronunciations! I'm a lifelong Alaskan currently living in one of the rural towns on the Prince William Sound.
Do you actually have towns that have 30 days of night? Living in Minnesota we get a lot of long nights, so I have to ask...
@@jtschmitz6334 not down on the peninsula. It's north of the 65th parallel but yes. The ones on the northern most coast experience this.
Simon! The main reason this channel stands out amongst all the other “unexplained mysteries” type channels is because it’s you! The goofy stories about your daughter and your life experiences are what makes this podcast special!
SIMON OMG! Ramble on about your kid’s potty training or a documentary on the amazing system of post-it notes used for administrative communication in the Ipswich town hall you watched yesterday, I DON’T CARE!
I love these videos and their subjects, but I also love your tangents. It brings something more personal to the videos and I love that with all my heart. I love it when people talk about random stuff in their lives.
FYI: CO detectors don't detect very low levels of CO poisoning that can still mess a person up. The detectors generally only detect the levels that are likely to be deadly in a relatively short period of time. Just make sure to keep up on the maintenance of your furnaces and, when it comes time to change them, consider buying an electric heat pump instead of a new furnace.
This is correct, though I believe there are devices that can check for low levels of leaks if you have any suspicions and some detectors now claim to be more sensitive. Still, make sure to have at least one in your house.
For the most part problems are only temporary at low levels, you'll be OK as soon as you get fresh air...but people may think you're crazy for a bit.
And yeah, even if you disregard CO, heat pumps make so much more sense in 2022. You shouldn't be burning things in your house anymore.
Woah. Did not know this.
@@ryanroberts1104 Heat pumps make sense... But holy shit, just got a quote for one to replace my furnace/boiler. Good lord, it was the equivalent of $60k BEFORE ducting into the house.
@@decodingtheunknown2373 That's strange - I know existing duct work is not common in Europe so that would make it more expensive, but $60k before that is absurd! I've had several smaller systems installed in rental houses for around $3,500 in the US, with existing ducts.
The new "mini split/ductless" types are great too, it's also a "heat pump", but packaged a bit differently. In the US you can get a nice one for $2,000 on Amazon, and many are meant for self install. Or installation is about another $2,000. Those started in Europe, should be a much cheaper option there.
POint of information: I've seen, in certain redwood forests in California, huge old redwood trees with hollows at the bottom big enough for a human to lie down and curl up in. It's also possible to shelter from the weather at the foot of a large pine or fir which has low-hanging branches. So technically it *is* possible to "live in trees".
Reasons to move house:
- There's a murderer in your attic killing your children.
- You need an extra bedroom.
Kenai Peninsula is on the Cook Inlet (Portlock seems to be at the mouth of the inlet). A friend who worked at a canning factory on the Cook Inlet in the '70s taught me that much of the area around the inlet is wilderness, with most canning towns accessible only by seaplane or boat. The inlet itself can be a dangerous place to boat (by mainland standards at least), between challenging weather & exceptionally cold water. Plus those canning factory towns tended to draw in a steady stream of Alaskan greenhorns (people with no experience dealing with Alaskan weather & wilderness). When you figure 2-3 dozen people going missing over 2 decades is 1-2 people a year, in these conditions, that doesn't seem exceptional.
An unusually high number of drowning victims washing up near town (if, in fact, the number IS unusual) is a factor of the ocean currents in the area (& how they relate to areas of dangerous navigation - refer back to "these are dangerous waters")
well, the article states that it was dall sheep hunters that had gone missing and were found dead. that doesn't sound like greenhorns to me.
Speaking of strange sounds in the woods. A friend of mine lived on the edge of a small wooded area. She came upon her neighbors going on about the noises they were hearing from the woods. One of them claimed it was a “capucher” monkey (capuchin was likely what they meant). My friend proceeded to educate her neighbors that the noise was not a foreign monkey but more likely two foxes fighting over food.
We used to have a fox living in the woods near us that would run up and down the street making a horrible screaming noise. We figured she was probably in heat and looking for a mate. Believe me, foxes can make horrible noises.
Yes! Foxes seriously make the most evil and crazy noises.
@@nancypine9952 Female foxes in heat are probably the source of Irish banshee legends, as I'm sure that the Irish were too scared to investigate the source of the noises. I too heard an eerie screaming that crossed our yard one night, and my father immediately recognized the sound as a female fox in heat.
Another animal that makes an eerie call is the peacock, whose mating call sounds like "Help! Help!"
Damn Simon I love youre chanels and topics!! thank you!!! keep on keeping!! :D
To be fair, it is important to remember that 1920-30s New York isn't the same as 1920-30s Alaska. All the modern things you would expect like newspapers, police force, radio just wasn't as developed as I think you are thinking. Again, this was the middle of nowhere Alaska. Their police force was probably 2 people, their newspaper (if they had one) wouldn't have been well archived. It just wouldn't be the same as if somebody went missing in a metropolitan area during the same time.
Just FYI Simon, I’m pretty sure bears can move on two legs? And both grizzlies and polar bears live in the state of Alaska (and some hybridisation has occurred in the wild of these species).
That thing is called grolar bear I think.
@@DarkZodiacZZ pizzly bear would have been funnier
@@falconmclenny7284 Wikipedia agrees with you
en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grizzly%E2%80%93polar_bear_hybrid
@@williamrosenbloom215 yeah right.. look maa, I'm a zoologist.
Polar bears evolved from grizzlies so that makes sense.
If you were a teen in the US during the late 2000s/early 2010s, you know what a liger is thanks to Napoleon Dynamite... Lol
Touche’. Thought the same. Though the Today Show did a bit on them possibly due to the film lol
More like the mid-2000s tho
Another good one Simon. Very amusing.
Random fact: moose is derived from the Algonquian languages (Narragansett “moos” and Eastern Abenaki “mos”) which were thought to be derived from “moosu” which means “to strip off,” which is in reference to how moose strip bark when feeding. In those languages, the plural form and singular form used the same word.
Having grown up in the Pacific Northwest, it's not impossible for me to believe that there is a tree big enough for someone to live in. They're more rare now that they used to be, but since we have old growth forests, there are some trees that are thousands of years old and take several people holding hands (some even up to 10) to get all the way around the tree.
Also, having lived in a large cities and towns where cougars, coyotes, and elk have been seen wandering the streets late at night or early mornings, it's not hard to think that a wild animal could have killed someone. My dad saw a coyote once while running and one night as I made my way home, a male deer with large antlers (he was at least six years old) walked in front of me on my way home in a small city called Bellingham. It was probably one of the few times I was actually scared of a deer, as I realized that if I didn't remain calm that deer could've killed me with his antlers.
I have yet, however, to see proof of bigfoot. As much as it would be cool for a Sasquatch to exist, I think most people are mistaking bears for them. The back of bears feet look suspiciously like a sasquatch footprint.
Something to add about coyotes.
My brother was walking home from a buddies home one night in early April a few years back. The beginning of his walk involved about a 1 km trek into town with new housing development on one side of the road and farm field and bush on the other. Partway down the road a coyote limped up to the edge of the road from the field with a paw raised. It whined at him a bit and he, briefly afflicted with empathy, to a step toward it. It took a step back into the field. My brother took another step towards it and it backed up into the field agian. At this point my brother used his head and stopped and took some time to peer into the dark field. He noticed a few pairs of small bright orbs blinking in the darkness in the field. Smartened up quick then. He walked briskly the last few hundred metres into town. The coyotes peeled off when he hit the street lights.
I think folks underestimate the appetites, audacity and cunning of some animals after a hard winter.
Oh man I miss Watcom County, thanks for making me smile.
@@chrisnelson735 I miss it too sometimes. If my whole family didn't live in Oregon, I might've stayed there.
@@brianlittleforest631 I'm glad your brother realized what was going on before he became dinner. Animals are much smarter than we give them credit for, and here in the PNW you learn quickly to have a healthy respect for the wildlife. Sometimes you can have a special experience, but mostly it's best to just give animals their space.
Shit there's coyotes, foxes, deer, etc in the middle of Minneapolis. A metropolis of well over a million people and I've seen coyotes walking down the street by my apartment in the middle of the city.
I used to work at Joe Exotic's zoo, so yes I have heard of the liger. The naming convention for hybrid animals is the male is the first part of the name and female is the last,
so male lion + female tiger=liger
male tiger + female lion = tigon, not as big as the liger
male lion + female liger = liliger
male tiger + female liger = taliger, don't know why it's spelled like that but it is correct
So what do you get when you breed a male liger with a female tigon? A lion?
@@jmanj3917 Nothing. Almost all of them will be infertile (like mules), though there is a very slim chance the tigon might be fertile, but it is incredibly rare. Males will in the first generation always be infertile.
@@davidmurrell5143 oh. Ok. I must have been confused. I thought, for Whatever reason, that the males were usually the more fertile ones overall, and specifically in the ligers...so much so that these males almost, if not literally, always needed a female of either; full breed, as in either fully lioness or fully tigress.
Is this wrong? Outdated? Partially correct, but only in certain specific ways? I'm just wondering; Please don't feel obligated to explain anything in detail to my dumb ass...lol
@@jmanj3917 Turns out I was not entirely accurate, female ligers and tigons are fertile, and while opinions differ, males are generally thought to be infertile. I did find a couple of sources that suggested differently, and the hypothetical result of your pairing would be a li-tigon (the male species always goes at the front)
Whoa. Bet you have even stranger, weird stories to tell.
Simon would catch fire talking about David Paulides Missing 411.... 😂😂😂
1:52
The memes behind 'missing people, gruesome murders' cracked me up xD
Maybe you can do an episode of the mystery of WTF happened to the history channel...
Capitalism. Mystery solved.
@@andiward7068 dam, was gonna say ALIENs, you win.
@@martynraveybracey7202 Capitalist aliens, maybe...🤔
Captialiens. 😉😁
"Why are we on this long ramble before the show begins?" Because, Simon... that's what always happens and we enjoy it. :D
We come for the content, stay for the rambles.
As always Whistler, you're a legend!
My dad wanted to move my family to Alaska. I remember telling my dad, "I don't want to get killed by big bears, or something else, and I don't like cold weather." This kid knew what clicked.
Absolutely love the change in the way Simon speaks and carries himself in this channel versus the others. Convinced this is the one he allows himself to do high as hell.
Sometimes a ghost town will have a post office. The post office is a hub for the rural route carriers to collect and deliver mail from the surrounding rural people who live on farms or ranches - some of whom at least occasionally go to the post office to purchase stamps, send packages, certified mail, and such. There is a ghost town - population 1 - the postmaster, not far from where I live - and the post office there is needed with no plans to close it.
That's the point of the usps
I live in technically what is an unincorporated community, not really a town, at some point it was I'm sure, but now we don't even have a population sign. I think most of us that are technically here, are on one road. That being said our post office is in a town of a few hundred, and it's only that large because it encompases most of the surounding rural area. It has a small post office open 4 hours per day, 6 days per week. No rural mail goes through it, its under 100 PO boxes, but still there and functioning regardless! Cool stuff for sure
I knew a helicopter pilot in Alaska working for medical and transport. He said there was a jerk helicopter pilot who liked to buzz around and antagonize a particular big grizzly. One day that guy had to land and hike a few miles to do some job/errand on the trail. He ended up calling to be picked up because that grizzly had torn apart the helicopter. Incredible strength and rage can rise above what we think animals are capable of.
Sounds like "Blair Witch."
Weird. I love that channel, Simon.
Would love a Bermuda Triangle episode and Simon screaming about aliens and portal conspiracies :)
Yes please!
I am currently writing a horror novel based on Portlock! One of my favorite geo mysteries! I'm going for something in the vein of The Terror, history based horror fiction and based on that last Postal worker who lived alone after everyone else left but before the Postal Service officially closed the post office there. Love the coverage and all your channels, Simon!
Do you have an estimated time of completion for us to look forward to? I would love to support your work by checking it out. Preferably an audiobook for listening at work.
@@The_SCPFoundation thank you! I'm aiming for a couple months, hopefully before summer! Haven't thought as far forward as an audiobook but have considered starting my own channel where i narrate all my original stories, maybe with illustrations from a talented friend! I greatly appreciate the support!
Neither snow nor rain nor heat nor terrifying monsters of the forest stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds
@@thewildthesaurus well I'll sub you now so I can be ready for your posts. Don't second guess yourself. Take the chance. You may have the talent that captivates us all.
I'm pretty much crap at anything, but I can do a bit of voice acting. I'd love to help you flesh out your vision.
Finding a new Simon channel into the wild is always such a treat , lmao.
Simon, you need to sleep! 😂
Hey, great show. Love the channel, you are right about changing your mind. It's impossible to learn new things if you hold old ideas. Some things are, of course, absolute. One must be very discerning. You are just using your mind to It's utmost capacity, while learning how to use your mind to It's utmost capacity. So, fret not, oh frantic one!! Thanks for sharing.
Ah, well, this was a pleasant surprise. I watch some of Simon's other shows and enjoy his work. This is the first time I've watched this particular channel and I'm so happy that it isn't like most of the shows dealing with this type of subject matter. Very down-to-earth and skeptical. Not just repeating other mysterious stories and claiming them as "fact" just because someone said it. I have heard about this town in Alaska many times, but it was always made to sound scary and mysterious, and to imply that no one knows what happened, etc. It's great that this channel offers a logical explanation for the occurrence. And, while I do like a good mystery from time to time, it's really nice to get some believable answers once in a while.
thanks! There are still plenty of mysteries out there and we can't come to 100% conclusions on most of the stuff on this channel - this is probably the most decoding I've ever managed to do😄
@@katywatson4940 Well, yeah, obviously know one knows for sure about these things, but at least there's a logical explanation offered. Too many channels have their own agenda and try to push their narrative why conveniently leaving out this that disagree with their pet hypothesis.
Absolutely!!!
Agreed, it hurts me when my lovely and mostly intelligent father shows me videos showing how ancient architecture using large slabs of stone proves giants existed and how a certain stone relief proves the ancient Aztecs or Mayans had space travel.
@@amberkat8147 Show him the Coral Castle in Florida. One guy built that and he's not an alien. Or, he said he wasn't. 👽
Simon: I like ghost towns.
Also, Simon: I don't believe in ghosts.
Simon is just a millennial who gets really excited about the idea of available property.
You don’t understand the meaning of the word “ghost town”. It doesn’t mean a town that’s infested with spirits. It’s just an abandoned town. The remnants of a civilization long gone. There aren’t (necessarily) ghosts in the town. The town itself is the ghost. Dead but still visible.
Yes…because a ghost town is something that exists. Ana abandoned town.
"Brother's cousin's uncle's Dad" is a very complicated way to refer to either your grandpa or great-uncle, Simon.
I love that Simon doesn't pre-learn the awesome scripts & we get to learn from him while watching him learn & live react 😂 I propose this as a new teaching style 🤓 keep up the great work Simon & Crew!!
I think this is the way most people make videos on youtube today. Lol 😂
I live in Kenai (pronounced keen eye, by the way) and have been to Portlock. It's a beautiful place and since I don't believe in bigfoot or the supernatural it's kinda just empty and serene.
However, we do have grizzly bears and it's not uncommon for them to walk on two legs, which is likely the cause of the whole bipedal murder beast myth.
I’m kinda in the same boat except for the lengthy and deep Native American distinction of a “Bigfoot”. They recognize Sasquatch and bears as two seperate animals and even have Sasquatch on totem poles. Along with wolves, eagles, crows, wolverines, and other animals that are “normal” and very real to them.
Add that to the known fact of an extinct giant ape called gigantopithecus that we also know for a fact lived along side early humans in the far north(alaska) then it kinda becomes more entertaining.
+fnargler "we do have grizzly bears and it's not uncommon for them to walk on two legs"
Bears don't really walk on two legs, when they stand on their hind legs and move forward, it's more of a very clumsy shuffle which they rarely do, so it actually is uncommon for them to do it.
That said, most people that claim to see bigfoot are avid outdoorsmen who have, shocker, seen enough bears in the wild to know if they were looking at a bear or not.
is there any reason to try to resettle the place?
@@tooslow4065 No. The only thing Portlock had going for it was a salmon cannery and when the cannery caught fire and burned down, the people left. There's really nothing there to entice outsiders to move into the area and the only people that might be willing to move there are local natives, but they are too spooked by stories of Nantinaq to bother with moving out there.
They also eat people half alive wich would probably fit the "dismembered" bodies
Simon clearly hasn't spent much time in a western cedar and sequoia forest. Living inside trees is quite possible here.
If you want to know more... cedars often start on what are called 'nurse trees'. Imagine a HUGE tree lying down. up to 3 meters in diameter. LIttle trees grow on TOP of that downed tree. The new trees send roots down to the ground, as the nurse tree slowly rots away. What is left is an empty 'archway' of roots. Eventually one or two of those little trees will grow to full maturity. Often, the middle of that tree is quite open at ground level- an arched structure with more room than your average tent. They're very dry, and with some branches in strategic places, quite warm, and impossible to find unless you look at the base of every single large tree in the forest. They'd be smaller in Alaska, but I'm sure some would still quite a good place to cozy in.
There are redwoods big enough to drive through as well. It’s mind boggling that trees could get that big and kind of makes you wonder what happened to trees over time and if they all were that size at one point. One day is like to see redwoods with my own eyes
@@Sweetkaos26 megaflora (extra large plants) definitely existed during ancient times. the earth was super oxygen rich which is why so many large animals lived back then and large flora was just as common. So while some trees were probably the size we know, many were also much much larger
@@Sweetkaos26 They are amazing. I am fortunate enough to live in Vancouver, on the edge of the wilderness. Those HUGE trees were everywhere- you can still see the stumps 150 years later, throughout the forest. It is a crying shame that these ‘grandparent’ trees are mostly gone. They are ecosystems in and of themselves. If you’ve never been to Cascadia it is well worth a visit. I grew up in Ontario- they make pretty big trees there. But nothing like out here. They are amazing.
@@emmabaier9439 Imagine how small we’d feel!
I got lost in the woods on a camping trip when I was 6. I found a cozy little "cave" of branches & hid from the rain, then took a nap long enough that my father hadn't forgiven me decades later. I think it was somewhere on the Olympic peninsula. Definitely here in Washington state, in the beautiful pacific northwest.
The postmaster had stayed there much longer than other people and as I have stated before he said he saw these creatures beating their chests and actually growling at him but they didn't leave the woods. When people started dying it's because they went in the woods there were so many loggers that disappeared they were finding body parts on a daily basis
that’s scary!!!!
The casual criminalist and this channel are my favorite channels of yours bc of the commentary. It's much more enjoyable than a scripted show imo
Personally I don’t believe in Bigfoot, saschwatch, the chupacabra, etc. but at the same time, I find it super odd that almost every native tribe in the world, from America to India, and who either have no contact with each other, or are an enemy tribe, all have similar if not the same superstition and description of giants. Like maybe at ONE POINT there really was some ape like creature. Or maybe there really is a creature that exists and we just haven’t caught it yet. After all every year we discover new species that no one had ever even thought of or considered could be possible. Just very thought provoking
Dragons, too
The idea that stories told to keep children away from a lagoon would be taken as evidence is wacky as hell. When I was a kid, my dad and all my neighbors used to tell me to stay away from the arroyos (big ass drainage ditches) because a ghost woman would kidnap and drown me. When I started going camping with my dad, he spun a whole story about how the lake we were camping next to was the one this woman drowned herself in, including bringing in a whole thing about how a nearby town and monastery were established in response to all the supernatural killings in the area. The point of both of these stories are pretty clear to adult me, to keep dumb ass 10 year old me from playing near drainage ditches and lakes unattended. If some La Llorona hunter showed up trying to use these stories as evidence of some paranormal activity, it would be tremendously confusing if they were older than 12. That's kind of the same deal for people using children's stories as evidence for bigfoot. Even if there is no translation error going on there, "Don't go to the lagoon because a big scary monster will get you" is a pretty normal thing to be contained in a cautionary children's story.
Simon if there is something walking around your tent on two legs; DO NOT leave your tent. I've had black bears circle my tent (in Washington state) on two legs. I've had a few bear interactions. You lay very quietly and stay calm. Lord man, you are going to get mauled.
24:05 You’ve never walked through the woods in America, have you? Our trees get BIG out in the woods. There was one tree that was felled and they found a large mummified dog inside the trunk. And there have been a few murderers who have hidden bodies in tree trunks, one of them fairly recently.
(Some trees grow so big they sometimes die and start rotting in the center while remaining alive on the edges, so you literally have a hollow tree. And that’s not counting the ones that are struck by lightning and have large hollows burnt out in them. I used to play in one such tree.)
Would actually love that deep dive on the Bermuda triangle on this channel
Have you done the missing 411 yet on any of your channels? This was giving me missing 411 vibes and I would honestly enjoy watching you tear apart the whole 411 thing. XD
One item that unnerved me about missing 411 is when a guy superimposed a map of where the missing people went missing and a map of underground cave systems in the US. It matched up pretty good. The thought of falling down a weed obscured hole into a dark (I've been in a cave and the darkness is absolutely total) cave and not being able to find your way out is terrifying. It reminds me a little of a Charles Fort story of a man standing in a flat field on his farm talking to some visitors that were up near his farm house. He disappeared right in front of them. They thought he might have fallen down a hole in the ground but after careful examination of the ground where he stood revealed no hole, but they could hear his voice when they were at the place he disappeared. They heard it for some time. I wonder what did happen to him.
Some random person starts an argument with Simon, and he just says "No, you're wrong, I made a video about that." and he walks away, victorious.
Great show! Thanks for the quote. 😂👍
Grizzly bears on the land, Orca in the water. Mutilated bodies? But of course!
Don't forget the moose in both places!
Are orca known for killing people in the water?
@@TheLastSane1 what the F do I know. Remote cannery-towns do see a wee bit of alcoholism and violence, tho.
When Simon said "your brother's cousin's uncle's dad", that is technically your own grandfather.
Not necessarily.
@@wildview258 Yes, it necessarily is. It could be your paternal or maternal grandfather, but it will definitely be a grandfather of yours, unless it's not really your cousin/uncle.
I suggest you map out a family tree for a visual, but I'll try to write it out. Even assuming it's a full sibling, your brother's cousin has two parents of which (hopefully) only one of them is the sibling of one of your parents. The uncle in question could be the sibling of the parent not related to either of your parents, and his father would not be the your grandparent in that case. So no, not necessarily.
@@wildview258 If it's your cousin, one of it's parents is related to one of your parents, and therefore you share a grandparent. That is the definition of a cousin, a person with whom you share a grandparent. Of course, it could go to the in-law side of their family, but that's not the implication of the statement.
I am so glad "it's not Nicole Kidman" was whispered on the phone! That's hilarious execution for a correction and it would have bothered me all day lmao
"Alaska is where people go to go missing" 😂🤣 omg this show is interesting and freaking funny. It's my first time here and it's spooky weird stuff with just wrong humor and that's perfect lol
Imagine being from a place where there are no cicadas, and then you move to a place where they DO live. And one day, the trees just start... screaming... all... the... time... for weeks...
Before colonizers deforested the majority of the US's woods, there were much bigger trees and numerous stories of people living in decently sized ones that had holes in them. There were a surprising amount of trees with diameters of over 10 feet.
Agreed! Living inside a tree wasn't an odd thing. The "kitchen" which was just a fire or even a hearth with a chimney, was normally outside the tree.
@You're Gonna Hate This where did I say it wasn't rare? Oh, right, I didn't.
Ghost Town Living - That is Brent, he lives in Eastern California in the Owens Valley at the Cerro Gordo ghost town. He is slowly reviving the old ghost town and mine. He is a great guy, allows people to visit, has volunteer come up on the weekends and gives tours.
"Is there some Yeti shit in the woods?"
Yes Simon, that's undoubtedly where it would be.
🤣😂🤣😂🤣 it's like a drunk friend telling a story, starts off good but starts drifting off on random things 🤣😂🤣😂🤣
Ghost town living is a fantastic channel! All the history is fascinating, and also the idea of living in a historic place so far from anyone else sounds equal parts amazing and terrifying.
As an Alaskan I hate all of these fake shows that make “Alaskans” look stupid even though no one on those shows is an actual Alaskan. 🙄🤦🏼♀️
Also, your tangents are hilarious. 😁👍🏻
Shockingly, a town regularly chumming the water with salmon bits in Grizzly bear country is dangerous to wander around in.
We need to create a "Simon's rambling association" lol xx