Up Near the Neverwills

I invite you to be a tourist, and step into the minds of those people lost to the unknown.

When I was five years old, I became terrified of something in my room. There was this embodied voice, sign, and I moved around the room, and the voice moved with me. When I was a little kid, I used to see, like, the medicine men have to go outside and chase away, so you know, walkers. Flarevoyance is seeing mental images, symbols.

“Why is it that so many DMT experiences report being pulled into alien realms?”

We have hundreds and hundreds of people who have seen these UFOs. I am desperately afraid of being seen as crazy. The weird borderline between dream and reality worked at the cemetery. There's something moving through the woods and staying right outside of our light. From behind the fridge, door comes a big back figure, and I could just see the small red beady eyes.

We got really close to my face, and he said, "Stay away from things you don't understand." Spectorision radio, a strange podcast that worked for strange times. But what I wanted to do, when I didn't want to be a part of the studio. The master of the club took a look at the internet, and it's so funny that I took it. I said, "You can do it, you can do it."

Yes, you can do it for a while, right? But you don't believe it? I don't believe it for a while, and if you have done it, you can do it for a while, and if you've done it, you can do it for a while. - That's right? - Save it for a while. - You can do it for a while. - Now, you can do it for a while.

This work, it's not just what I do, it's who I am. This season on Cosmosis, we're going into the field. To places where the veil is thin, and where the signal of the phenomenon breaks through. We're meeting the researchers, experiences, and witnesses who live in its wake. From UFOs to near-death experiences, from cryptids to channeling,

we're diving into the high-strangeness, the challenges everything we think we know. Because reality isn't just mere, it's weirder than you can imagine. We don't know what we'll find, but we're going to follow the signal wherever it leads, and we're taking you with us.

Be sure to follow us on Spotify, so you never miss an episode of Cosmosis.

Coming to you from SpectreVisionRadio. I invite you to be a tourist and step into the minds of those people lost to the unknown. When I was five years old, I became terrified of something in my room. There was a disembodied voice, sign, and I moved around the room, and the voice moved with me. When I was a little kid, I used to see, like, the medicine men have to go outside and chase away skinwalkers.

Clear voyance is seeing mental images, symbols.

“Why is it that so many DMT experiences report being pulled into alien realms?”

We have hundreds and hundreds of people who have seen these UFOs. I am desperately afraid of being seen as crazy. The weird borderline between dream and reality work at the cemetery. There's something moving through the woods and staying right outside of our light. From behind the fridge, door comes a big back figure, and I could just see the small red beady eyes.

She got really close to my face, and he said, "Stay away from things you don't understand." Spectorision radio, a strange podcast network, for strange times. Calling me at 10.30 on a work night, very nice.

Oh my god, literally I'm like the second ring I remember they don't give you news they off.

Don't ask? What's up? I am headed off for a two day hike all the way up here.

“I'm seeing if you want to meet me on the tail end on Sunday, maybe just some miles in the copper crest.”

Oh crap, quadriceps think I'm done for the winter, I think. Well, you usually just slow me down anyway, so I was in a different way. Where are you, I can exactly?

The Never-Wills, really. You've done this once, right? Never did.

You know about the Never-Wills?

I just heard about the Ever-Wills, so I'm headed out now, I want to catch it and send up. Oh yeah, we were always scared of there, all the way back to being kids, all these superstitions around it. Wow, the name, I mean. No, people don't go out there, no one keeps the trails up.

“There's been a couple of murders, I think.”

That's Turtle Lake territory. Do what? Yeah, there was this killer, they used to scare us with. Turtle Lake lived in the woods with all around the Never-Wills and looking for people to kill. Gee, that's funny, I don't remember the trial of Turtle Lake.

I'm telling you, no one I know is ever gone too far and they just don't like it. Some kind of cult was living out there for a while, like in the 80s. Well, they'd all be on social security now, I'd imagine, so I think I'll be alright. Hope you got your lifestyle, that's really the middle of nowhere. It's the way I like it.

You got good maps? Good is a stretch, I have enough.

“Dude, Turtle Lake, make sure you're tensed.”

I'll call you Sunday morning anyway, in case you want to do food or something before I head back. Yeah, I'm in. Alright, bye. Bye. You're still up?

Yeah, I found this old book I had, it's got some freaky stuff in the Never-Wills.

You want to hear it? Oh, Jesus, what's the book? Uh, Dark Legends of the Polk Mountains. Okay, since you have a super reliable source of everything. This is top-notch reporting.

Are you ready? Lay it on me. Where are you now? Uh, I'm on this kind of skinny gravel, fire road thing. Takes me to the trail I want, I think.

So you're basically there. It's like a free mile walk just to camp outside, eventually far. Okay, listen. Wait, I lost it, hold up that. I'm trying to muffin here and keep this book open.

Okay.

Supposedly named by Indigenous Abanaki, the forest territory known as the Never-Wills has been left wild after numerous disturbing controversies.

In 1971, a covenant of self-proclaimed witches started a major forest fire in trying to cleanse the area of bad spirits. One of them died in the place. What kind of muffin? More notably, an area just off the long donkey sole trail was reputed to become home to a secretive surgical cult for several years at a 1980s. This group of a dozen or so people living secretly outside the bounds of society was allegedly chased off from old half-built house when they began to steal from farms 10 miles away.

The people who finally ran the cult off after years of rumors about what it was doing in the woods, testified they saw people who had been horribly disfigured and who had fought back with knives and clubs. They left what few longings they had behind.

“Listen to you, you need to be on some terrible podcast.”

This area is now given a wide pass by hikers and those who live in the distant towns of Coroay and Whalen Brown. Some believe the cult returned and regenerated and lives off the land in that wide expanse of dark forest. There's a little insect with a satellite picture where the trail goes through, they march the spot. Okay, first of all, what is a surgical cult? There's nothing else in here about them, just ghosty stuff out that way for a hundred years ago. Which trail are you taking?

It's initials are DST. Are you serious? Almost clicked some big animal. That's the only trail out here that's viable, I think everything else is wild. Oh my god, what if that house is still out there?

It's the level of well-researched detail that oppresses me most about that.

Oh, just thought I'd have a pet but you're driving that. I found this very educational. Good night. Uh, I'm texting you this photo of this little map in set. There's something called the Old Wood's Housemarked on it. Bye!

♪ You're obsessed with me. Are you sitting down? I'm on the trail in the pitch dark. Okay.

“I've got some new stuff I found that you need to hear.”

Uh... No, I didn't want to look around, I found something really intense. I'm not going to stop you, where is this tidbit from? Okay, well, what I'll read you is from Wikipedia, but the source it's been-- All right, I am out.

Just listen. Okay. Roll it. I was sort of snooping after this guy rolling wrong her. He was an environmentalist, but he started out as a drug addict living in the woods for about 10 years.

Then he wrote a book about the Never Wills.

I can't find that online.

“But he has a Wikipedia page, because after he died,”

it's a nature trust or somebody basically sent it him for all of his work on the environment. Okay. Okay. So, what I'm going to read you is the part under the subhead that says "claim controversy." Okay.

Here we go. Runger's posthumously published 2008 book, "Poke Mountain Passage," was described by Earth forward as an informative reminiscent of a life-spent documenting the flora and fauna of a little explored part of the northeast. But added that it was marked strangely by claims of months spent under the sway of an unsubstantiated cult.

Runger wrote that in 1988, when he was just 20, he broke away from squatters, living in the Never Wills,

who had become frighteningly devoted to a surgeon and spiritualist calling himself Renew Stanislaw,

“who claimed that human vanity was the ultimate corruptor of the soul.”

With the removal of each bodily component keeping humans earthbound, he preached that more spiritual freedom was gained. Runger claimed in "Poke Mountain Passage," that some of the dozen members of the squatter community allowed themselves to have entire facial features removed and then even limbs in a progression towards spiritual purity. Okay.

He wrote of a man named Teddy, who over the course of years, had his ears and nose and left arm, amputated. He still there. Yeah.

When Teddy ultimately had a psychotic breakdown, he could not bear to look at his reflection or even expose his face

that would not pull a turtleneck sweater down from the top of his forehead. In December of 1988, he attacked and stabbed a hiker. A local legend seemed to grow from this alleged act, and Teddy fled into the woods and was not seen again. Runger wrote that he escaped the cult himself at this time. Deeply addicted to drugs, he claimed he chose not to report these events for fear of imprisonment,

and did not speak of them for 20 years. Get to the part about how no one's been able to prove any of this stuff. Please tell me it's in there. None of Runger's claims have ever been verified, and he passed away offering little more information. Well, if any of that's true, that's pretty great.

Just bounce out, man. If I don't tell, so I can go to sleep and not worry. Where are you about what? How much is karma building off karma? Gonna shut off the phone now, pitch by tent, curl up, have a nice sleep.

Call me if you feel anything's weird. I will.

[Sigh] [Sigh] [Sigh] [Sigh] [Sigh]

[Sigh] [Sigh] [Sigh] [Sigh] Where are you now?

Yeah, good morning.

“I'm standing on the side of four or four, some little park.”

I'm going to be about an hour late getting to your house.

It just took me forever to find my way off the trail. You got my text right. I can't believe you actually went inside that house. Yeah, it was kind of dumb. There could have been crack addicts and there was something.

What was it like? Um, bad, dark, wet, creaky. Graffiti? No, actually. Not one bit.

Nothing left inside, I see. I did find something. Ooh, so I got a souvenir. No, I left it where it was. It's not the kind of thing you want to start thinking about.

What was it? I'll text you a picture. It was a little tough to see what I was looking at. The flashlight sort of washed out the thing sitting on the floorboards. But I could see enough.

He was right. The more I looked at it, the less I wanted it in my mind. It was totally smeared with moss and grime and broken. It was an old hand mirror with a long plastic handle. Now receiving frequency transmission.

A padlock, right? You and I look at a padlock that's on a locker. And it's got the dial in there's like three numbers, right?

“The first number you have to hit it in the second number.”

You have to go around and pass it once and hit the second number.

And the third number is where the thing on locks, right? We put so much like onus on that number. The numbers, the numbers, the numbers. But if you like scrape those numbers off and replace them with like emojis. Or with Arabic or dots or something.

It's basically all doing the same thing. Maybe religion are all these stories, these spiritual stories are all sort of like the different iterations of those symbols that I was talking about. One is numbers, one is emojis, one is glyphs, one is dots. But it's all kind of operating completely the same underneath.

And that's just basically giving people symbols or stories or guide rails or guide posts to sort of like get them there.

The numbers, the numbers, the numbers. It's all doing the same shit underneath unlocking the things.

“And those three things that you have to hit are one on locks, the gears and that lock opens up.”

What is that lock? I don't know. That's a different question.