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Barefoot Mysteries
Kick off your shoes, get comfortable and join us, barefoot Pat and Dave, your Barefoot Mystery Junkies, while we explore the Unsolved, the Unexplained, the Paranormal and the Weird World We Live In.
Barefoot Mysteries
From Photoshop to Fear: The Rise of Slender Man
Ready to delve into the unnerving world of Slender Man? Put on your headphones and join your hosts Pat and Dave as we unravel the terrifying origins of this digital-age boogeyman. Born from a photoshop challenge and fueled by our collective imagination, we'll share how Slender Man has morphed from an internet legend into a real-world horror. .
Strap in for a haunting tale in chapter two - an eerie account of a group of friends' camping trip that turned into a horrifying encounter with the tall, ominous figure in the woods. We'll guide you through their struggle for survival and add another chapter to the ever-evolving legend of Slender Man.
Taken from pages of: Creepypastawiki, TechCrunch.com, NY Magazine August 2015, Ranker/no sleep
Theme Music courtesy of Uppbeat
Artist: Alex Besss
Track Title: Threatened
Theme Music courtesy of Uppbeat
Artist: Alex Besss
Track Title: Threatened
Contact us at: barefootmysteries @gmail.com
Welcome to Barefoot Mysteries, where your Barefoot Mystery Junkies and Hosts, Pat and Dave, explore the unsolved, the unexplained, the spooky and the downright weird world we live in. Welcome everyone. I'm Pat and I'm Dave. You know, if you're like Dave and me and you enjoy listening to podcasts about the supernatural, the mysterious and maybe even some horrors, then I'm going to take a wild guess and say you've probably heard about the notorious monster known as Slender man. Slender man.
Speaker 2:Yep.
Speaker 1:That's why we're so eager to unravel this legend today how he came into existence, where he came from, what does he want? But, more importantly, is he real? Previous generations had Bloody Mary, the babysitter and the man upstairs. I like Bloody Marys oh, who doesn't? Chupacabra, bigfoot, loch Ness? This generation has Slender man and Bloody Marys. They have Bloody Marys too. They have Bloody Marys too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, all right.
Speaker 1:Thank goodness, bloody Marys will never go out of style. Every generation Ready. Let's do this. Let's go, kick off your shoes, get comfortable and let us introduce you to this generation's urban legend. Imagine if you will. It's already late in the evening when you finally leave your office. Push the parking garage button in the elevator, close your tired eyes and lay your head back against the back wall.
Speaker 2:Sounds like he could go to sleep.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, so exhausted you know you've been working these long overtime hours and glad to finally be heading home. The one note tone of the elevator lets you know you have now reached the garage level. As you step out into the empty three-story parking garage, you suddenly notice how unnaturally quiet it is. The sound of each one of your footsteps seems to echo too loudly. As you walk down to your parking space, you begin to squint as the overhead fluorescent lighting starts flickering and then it goes out completely.
Speaker 1:Oh you start to complain under your breath about how poor the maintenance is in this building when you notice something sticking out from behind one of the cement columns. It looks like a strangely shaped black branch. Now where did that stick come from? You shrug your shoulders and continue walking to your car, which is thankfully coming into view, when something over to the right side of you grabs your attention. Oh, come on, this can't be another black tree branch. That's weird, very strange.
Speaker 1:As you approach the driver's side of your car with a key fob in hand, ready to open and get in that car and get out, you notice something has been written on your driver's window. You read it's behind you. You're trying to figure out now who and why would someone write that. When, at that very precise moment, you see a movement in the reflection in the glass of a tall, thin man stepping behind you with long, black, thin arms outstretched. That'll grow, she out. Ooh. You try to scream, but no sound escapes your mouth. Too late. You're frozen in terror. As you realize the man has no face and then his arms encircle you. Congratulations, you've met Slender man.
Speaker 2:Slender, that sounds gross.
Speaker 1:Oh, please, yeah, never Don't park under a streetlight, for God's sakes.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I keep a little light bob on your keys or something.
Speaker 1:So where did Slender man come from and when did he get here for this generation? Slender man was breathed into existence on June 10th 2009. He's a newbie.
Speaker 2:June 10th 2009,. Yeah, he's a new one.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this happened when Eric Knudsen, under the pseudonym Victor Surge, submitted an entry on a website called the Something Awful Photoshop Challenge. In answering to the challenge called Create Paranormal Images, he submitted two black and white photos of teenagers and children, to which, in the background, he had added a tall, thin, spectral looking figure with no face. Along with the photos, he added a somewhat horror-laced story alluding to this tall, thin, faceless man wearing a black suit and a tie as being a stalker. Dressed well, though A stalker, yeah, so well-dressed, and sometimes he wore a top hat.
Speaker 2:Mm, just what he needs to be taller skinnier.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I guess that made him his faceless face look better if he had a hat.
Speaker 2:Well that could be.
Speaker 1:No well, he was a stalker of human prey, particularly favoring children. And thanks to Eric Knudsen, slender man is born.
Speaker 2:I think Slender Man's a little sicko.
Speaker 1:Just a little and he instantly overnight becomes an internet sensation. Thousands of users followed suit with their own Slendy photos, along with their own user stories. Slender man soon became more than just an internet creation of a paranormal being. He became a natural entity. There's a theory that, through user postings, video games, comics and movies, he was brought to life through the collective Imagination of the human mind and has taken on a complex and undeniable life of his own. So much so that two 12 year old girls in Wisconsin recently lured another 12 year old friend into the woods that would be Slender Man's stomping grounds. Once they lured her into the woods, they stabbed her 19 times and left her for dead. Why? So they could prove themselves worthy to Slender man.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's just crazy stuff.
Speaker 1:It's insane that he took over children's minds, but it wasn't just those two girls. Sadly, this isn't the only case such as this.
Speaker 2:Well, the more people that talk about it, the more infamous it becomes. That's right.
Speaker 1:And more and more if we've brought him to life because of our minds, despite he originated from an internet site. Do you know that there are numerous reports of individuals that say they have had actual sightings of the infamous Slenderman?
Speaker 2:I believe it.
Speaker 1:They've actually seen him. Has Slenderman then gone from eerie internet legend to real life horror story? You decide, let's take a look at a couple of stories users have submitted as proof that Slenderman is real. So they're going to tell you. I'm going to kind of go over their stories and you decide whether they really did see Slenderman. The first story was posted on Ranker and it was by a person named Marin Ho. That's M-A-R-R-I-N-H-O. I want to give them credit for this story. The story is entitled what Lurks in the Backwoods. It's a story about four friends Jeremy, jacob, mick and Kay, who decided to spend a holiday weekend camping in Algonquin Park, which is in Alberta. Canada. Sounds pretty. Oh, canada is gorgeous. At least pictures I've seen is gorgeous, and my daughters went to Canada and they said Mom, you wouldn't believe how beautiful it is.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's gorgeous, isn't it?
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, I haven't been there. No, I haven't been there. When the friends arrived at their destination, they couldn't help but notice that every campsite was empty and something seemed ominous to them. But then they thought well, you know what? There were some unexpected high winds, and I'm sure that was delaying some of the other campers, and they felt lucky that they got a head start.
Speaker 2:Let's take you to that campsite, since there's hardly anybody there. You'd really like it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, no, I mean, I like secluded campsites, but not too secluded, where no one can hear me yell for help.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yell into the woods, that's right.
Speaker 1:Well, after they'd set up camps camp one of the campers, jacob, said he thought he saw something in the woods and he thought it was like a person standing, a tall, thin person standing in the woods. Well, jeremy, who was kind of like the jokester of the group, he said I'm going to go look and see what it was, okay. So he went off there sitting around the campfire. They're drinking, they're smoking, and then they, they started to wonder where Jeremy was, because it had been a while since he'd wandered off.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like they're going to have a real good spatial viewpoint of how long this is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how long is that? You know he's been gone a while. Should we worry about him? Should we go looking for him? Well, the others thought that this was just another one of Jeremy's pranks until. Well, that's enough paraphrasing, let's jump to the good part.
Speaker 1:Here's an excerpt from the story and the tale that has us looking over our shoulder Now. They had gone out to look for Jeremy, couldn't find him anywhere, and they are on their way back to their campsite. We join them as they're going back. Hold the fuck up. I just saw something. I swear I'm not fucking around. It was just as you described Jacob, tall, really tall. What if it took Jeremy? Ah, this is dumb. I think we're all just drunk and high and in need of sleep. Jeremy is doing his thing and he'll come back soon. Like we said, he'll probably be back at the fire when we return.
Speaker 1:Mick was doing his best to keep us calm. If not for him and Jacob, I don't know whether we would have survived that night. When we got back to the fire, it had already died out, but that wasn't the worst part. There was no sign of Jeremy. When I realized he was still gone, my heart sank. I was torn On one hand, I was so fed up with Jeremy's trolling and just wanted to sleep it off and forget the night ever happened, but on the other hand, I was truly terrified that whatever I and Jacob had seen took Jeremy and murdered him in cold blood. Honestly, I was ready to suggest getting in the canoe and never coming back, but I couldn't leave Jeremy like that and we wouldn't be able to navigate in the dark anyway. Let's just get in the tent, try to get some rest. Jeremy has a flashlight and he knows how to get back here. It's only been an hour. He's probably up in a tree listening to music or something and will come back after we fall asleep and try to freak us out.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's just like him.
Speaker 1:Oh yeah, you know, everybody has that one friend Watch this, that's gonna be funny.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, at our expense. We'll laugh it off in the morning and have some breakfast. We've still got two days to explore and have a good time, so let's try and relax. Jacob had clearly calmed down a lot and his reassurance was convincing enough to get me to reluctantly agree. On the verge of tears, I joined Mick and Jacob in the tent, decided to try and fall asleep. I don't really know how, but somehow I managed to doze off pretty quickly. I guess the combination of fear, stress, inebriation and fatigue had taken its toll on me. If only I had been able to sleep through the entire night.
Speaker 1:I woke to the sound of footsteps approaching. My heart started beating faster and faster. Trying to remain calm, my immediate thought was it must be Jeremy finally back. Nonetheless, I gently poked Jacob's arm, which proved enough to wake him up in his half asleep state. He looked up at me.
Speaker 1:What All this happened in the space of about 10 seconds. By then, the footsteps were much closer to the tent. Jacob now understood what was going on. I didn't need to explain anything. We stared at each other in abject terror. As the footsteps got closer and closer, I could tell we both had the same two ideas it was either Jeremy finally coming back or we were about to be brutally murdered by a 10 foot tall slender man.
Speaker 1:My heart was pounding as the footsteps were now coming from just outside the tent. Nice try, bud, we're still awake. Jacob said in a nervous tone. The footsteps immediately stopped. No reply Complete silence. I thought my heart was going to explode out of my chest. Whatever lay outside was now right outside our tent.
Speaker 1:For a few more seconds, the most eerie silence remained. And then pandemonium. The scream of a banshee broke the calm of the night with the most blood-curdling, ear-piercing sound we'd ever heard. Mick was jolted awake and the three of us looked at each other, thinking these would be our last moments alive. The screaming was incessant. After a while it started to shake our tent. We couldn't formulate words, nor could any of us muster the courage to move an inch. We waited and waited. After what seemed like hours, the shaking finally stopped. The screaming didn't, but it was getting further and further away. To this day, I have no idea what stopped it from entering our tent, but I am eternally grateful for whatever it was.
Speaker 1:After a few more minutes, the scream was reduced to a faint sound off in the distance. It remained like that throughout the night. None of us said a word to each other. We instead tried to force ourselves back to sleep, but it was no avail. I can say good luck with that. Yeah, after several hours, the light of sunrise pierced through the tent. By now the screaming had stopped. It was Mick who said the first words. Is it safe now? I think so. Let's pack up our stuff and get the fuck out of the park. When we arrive back at the main entry point, we'll put up a missing persons report. As much as I wanted to believe that Jeremy was was fine it was tough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's not looking so hot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was tough to do that. We none of us said another word. We instead tried to just pack everything up as quickly as possible and we went to the canoes. It took us only 10 minutes before we were ready to set off. That's how quickly we wanted to get out of there. Once in the water, I started to reflect on the events. Still, there were no other campers in any of the sites, and that's when I saw it squinting my eyes what looked like a log was bobbing motionless in the water on the other side of the lake. As we paddled closer, it became clear that it wasn't a log. We waited in silence for a while before we paddled back to the access point. I will never go camping again. Good point, you know who was bobbing in the water, jeremy? Oh, wasn't a log.
Speaker 2:Oh, our buddy.
Speaker 1:Okay, all right, now one more story, because I can't stop myself. Okay, you sure yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay.
Speaker 1:This is also on Ranker. It's called Knock in the Night by Moon Baby X, and this one got to me because I love vacationing in the mountains cabins, or at least I used to until I read this story called Knock in the Night.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, the mountains are always pretty yeah.
Speaker 1:Oh, I love the mountains. Well, she starts to tell her story by telling us that there was a heat wave in the city and her and her husband decided to spend a cooler weekend at her grandfather's cabin. On the way up there, her husband keeps teasing her that Slender man is waiting for her up there.
Speaker 2:Slender man again, yes, these are all people that have.
Speaker 1:Posted stories about seeing Slender man, so he's teasing her all the way up. They reach the cabin safely, unpack their food and bags and she goes to the side of the house to gather firewood. She notices weird scratches on the outside of the cabin wall. She doesn't remember them being there, but it's been a long time since she's been at the cabin so thinks, oh, maybe they've been there for a while and she just didn't know because she hadn't been here for so long. They thoroughly enjoyed the rest of the day writing ATVs oh, that's so much fun Cuddling and making s'mores Then later that night well, I'll let her tell you. We're sitting comfortably cuddling on the sofa flipping through channels on whatever. The rabbit ears on the TV will pick up when we hear scratching and knocking along the side of the house. My husband must have felt me tense up because he immediately says it's probably rats. I look at him and say are you fucking kidding me? Rats? No way, big rats. The sound suddenly stops and doesn't start up again. So in after an hour or so we go to bed.
Speaker 1:The next morning I go outside to grab more firewood. Curiosity gets the better of me and I decide to go. Look on the side of the cabin where I heard the banging, and what I see immediately makes me want to puke. Sure, the sound was rats. Right, it was Rats being nailed to the wall. Seriously, yeah, there are half eaten rat carcasses all over the wall, surrounding by those same scratch marks that I'd seen the day before. That was enough for me. I start yelling for my husband. Whoa, that's messed up. He says when I show him I want to leave, like today, I don't want to stay another night. He makes another joke about Slender man and tells me we'll be fine. If it makes you feel safer, we'll shut all the windows and door coverings.
Speaker 2:I think I would be out before you.
Speaker 1:Oh, you know. You know, honey, I'm taking the car. Good luck, I'm leaving. Yeah Well, the cabin had these big wooden doors and window coverings that lock to prevent anyone from breaking in while no one's there. All right, I agreed to this and say we'll stay another night. Just before dusk we lock everything up, barricade the front door, mostly because I demanded it so I could sleep easily, just as the night before. We're sitting down watching television. I hear the dragging, scratching and knocking. I sit there petrified. My husband yells stop it, whoever you are, you aren't funny. Just as he says that, the knocking intensifies and we hear a deep growling through the cracks in the wood, puffs, puffs of breath. You could hear them in a crackling, inhuman voice going Come out to play with me, come out to play with me, yeah, who.
Speaker 1:I run up the stairs faster than I have ever run in my entire life, heart thundering you. It was just gonna come out of my chest, barely able to breathe. I hide. I'm surprised you touched any of the steps. I bet you didn't. I hide under the covers. What the heck that's going to do, I don't know, but it brings me an inkling of comfort. I sit there cursing my husband for not leaving when we had the chance. Whatever is out there laughs in that horrible voice for hours, knocking and knocking all over the house, claws scratching the walls, rattling the doors and window coverings, trying so hard to get them open. Eventually it stops and we fall into an uneasy sleep. Oh hell, no, I'm not going to sleep.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm surprised they didn't have a heart attack.
Speaker 1:Who does that? That morning we pack up our shit in a hurry and get into the truck. The house is covered in torn half animals raccoons, squirrels, foxes. There's even half a deer on the deck. We throw all of our shit into the back of the truck and just before we leave, I remember that my grandpa keeps motion capture cameras on the trees surrounding the entire house because he likes to watch the videos of the wildlife. I grab the cameras and flip through them as we're driving off, happy to be finally leaving the cabin behind and away from all this. The pictures are nice enough Some deer, a few blue jays which makes me smile because they're his favorite. Grandpa loves the blue jays.
Speaker 1:Just as I finally start to relax and breathe easy, I see pictures of animals being nailed to the wall cabin. The next picture has me shaking so hard I'm about to drop the camera. Written in blood on the side of the cabin where I had originally seen the scratches or the words goodbye, thanks for playing. But it's the final picture that makes me scream. The first thing I notice is the yellow cat's-slit eyes glaring into the camera, the minuscule pin prick, teeth covered in fur and blood in all manner of viscera. It's hunched over it's spine in an arch, waving at the camera, furry, stick-like legs ending in cloven hooves and the torso of a man. It's emaciated and gangly thin. It's clearly laughing at us and the fun it's having. I drop the camera, willing the image out of my mind and look out the window just in time to see it waving at me as we drive out of the woods. Well, it seems that Slenderman has, without a doubt, become a modern monster. Well, he obviously has a sense of humor.
Speaker 2:Oh my God, yeah not to the animals.
Speaker 1:No, I wouldn't have stayed that long. Well, now that you know how he originated and now that you've heard just some of real life stories and some of real life sightings, what do you believe? Is he a legend or a real life nightmare?
Speaker 2:I would say a real life nightmare. I don't know about legend.
Speaker 1:Well, whatever you choose, I have a piece of advice.
Speaker 2:What's that?
Speaker 1:If you're walking alone at night and you sense you are not alone, whatever you do, don't look back. Don't ever look back.
Speaker 2:I'm not walking alone. I'm walking with me. You are in front of me and I have you firmly placed in front of me.
Speaker 1:Good, as long as I'm in front and you're behind and closer to him, I'm okay with that Well.
Speaker 2:I hadn't thought of that.
Speaker 1:Well, thanks for joining us, dear listeners. We're glad you could join us on this look and search into the history of Slenderman. And, of course, I'm going to repeat my advice Don't look back. Whatever you do, don't look back and make sure you can run faster than everybody else. Then Dave, yeah, faster than Dave, yeah, just as long as you're faster than him. Until the next time, dear listeners, be good to each other, thank you.
