Unscrupulous
Unscrupulous
Episode 5 - The Fox Sisters + Laurence James Downey
Ooky Spooky season is upon us. So naturally Bec (they/them) had to start us off with a tale of sister's who spoke with spirts. The Fox sister's are credited with creating the Spiritualism movement, for good or for bad. Did they really talk to ghosts or were they just suffering from early arthritis?
Next Adam (he/him) gives us his most recent story to date- Ireland in the 80's. But it's not what you think! There isn't a single mention of Catholic vs Protestant; just a heavily hydrated hijacker who seems to think confusion is the best way to get what he wants. And boy, wait until you hear what it is that he wants.
Bec's Resources:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fox_sisters
https://www.theparisreview.org/blog/2016/11/04/in-the-joints-of-their-toes/
https://www.britannica.com/biography/Margaret-Fox-and-Catherine-Fox
Adam's Resources:
Flashback 1981: Hijack of Aer Lingus flight - Independent.ie
RTÉ Archives | War and Conflict | Aer Lingus Flight EI 164 Hijacked
Looking at the 1981 'Fatima' hijacking
What Really Happened When An Ex-Monk Hijacked A Plane
If you feel like learning more about the Trappists - Trappists.org
WOW BONUS READING HOMEWORK THANKS ADAM: An interesting article about just how common these types of hijackings used to be. Written by Libby Nelson - The US once had more than 130 hijackings in 4 years. Here’s why they finally stopped. - Vox
Make sure to follow us on instagram @unscrupulouspod and send us an email at unscrupulouspod@gmail.com
[00:00:25.010] - Bec Rose
Um, hello, everyone, and welcome to Unscrupulous, the podcast where we talk dishonest folks whose victims always live to tell the tale. Hello to my buddy Adam Lawlor.
[00:00:42.750] - Adam Lawlor
Hello to my buddy Bec Rose. How are you doing this week?
[00:00:47.450] - Bec Rose
I'm pretty fantastic. I'm realizing you just repeat my compliment to me, and every time, I'm like, oh, but now I'm realizing you're just parroting-
[00:00:56.330] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah. Damn. Now I've lost my edge. I've got to come up with another.
[00:01:01.110] - Bec Rose
- like genuine compliments. I mean, I understand they're difficult to come up with one neurodivergent person. Before we get into the meat of today, everyone, we do have a little favor to ask of you. We would love it if you would subscribe wherever you get your podcast. And if you felt like leaving a little bit of a review, that would be beyond incredible listing two things that you think someone else is going to love about our podcast that's going to hook them into it, that hooked you into it, perhaps. Yeah. Thank you so much. It's important that's all that's all of me shelling us.
[00:01:58.070] - Adam Lawlor
I have my first conversational topic before we go into the stories. Excellent, because I said it when I posted about the episode that was released.
[00:02:10.970] - Bec Rose
The one that was released today.
[00:02:12.640] - Adam Lawlor
Yes. Call our fans.
[00:02:18.090] - Bec Rose
At this point, they're just called our friends and family.
[00:02:21.310] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah, they're called, like, the closest possible circle of friends and family.
[00:02:26.020] - Bec Rose
Yeah. They're just their first names.
[00:02:28.890] - Adam Lawlor
Right. Okay.
[00:02:31.170] - Bec Rose
I don't think we're popular enough yet to have scrupulous people to like us.
[00:02:37.570] - Adam Lawlor
You got to come up with the name of the fans you want to see in the world.
[00:02:45.350] - Bec Rose
If you build it, they will come.
[00:02:47.350] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah. Perfect.
[00:02:49.590] - Bec Rose
I think Ray Liotta knew it. He definitely that's what our fans will be called. Ray Liotta.
[00:03:00.970] - Adam Lawlor
I'm into it. All right.
[00:03:02.600] - Bec Rose
I love Ray Liotta. R-I-P. Okay, let's get into it. I'm so excited.
[00:03:07.590] - Adam Lawlor
I am so pumped to hear your story this week.
[00:03:12.030] - Bec Rose
All right. So in the mid 1800's, the world was looking very different.
[00:03:21.490] - Adam Lawlor
I'm so into it. Okay.
[00:03:24.930] - Bec Rose
It's not as far back as you usually go, but we're going back a little bit. Our own magic treehouse, if you will.
[00:03:33.890] - Adam Lawlor
Love it.
[00:03:35.170] - Bec Rose
So it was looking very different to, of course, what we know now, but it was also looking quite different to what it had been looking like. As technology is evolving and things like the telegraph and the railroad are invented, mass immigration is shaping cities to look more like what we know them as today is happening, and the general belief among a lot of people is changing from a religious one to a scientific one. The industrial era what we're talking about. So in what's kind of believed by scholars now, in an effort to hold on to the past, for a lot of people, spiritualism was born.
[00:04:24.270] - Adam Lawlor
Oh, my God.
[00:04:27.830] - Bec Rose
Mediums were holding seances, giving people a chance to see their loved ones once again and providing people a glimpse and maybe even a hope into an afterlife. The women often credited for the birth of this spiritual movement are named the Fox Sisters. I first heard about this story in Tori Telfer's second book, Confident Women. Highly recommend that book, but most of my information today is coming from an article that I will link. Of course. So we'll be talking about three sisters altogether. But Kate and Maggie were the ones who were actually gifted, if you will. They were the ones who were having these encounters. Their older sister, who is sometimes called Anne Leah, and sometimes Leah I'm just going to call her Leah she acted as their kind of manager, if you will. Kind of putting it very loosely.
[00:05:33.910] - Adam Lawlor
Okay.
[00:05:34.510] - Bec Rose
She was much older than them and saw an opportunity to help their family when her sisters first spoke up about their encounters with spirits.
[00:05:43.310] - Adam Lawlor
Got you.
[00:05:45.150] - Bec Rose
So Kate and Maggie were the youngest of several children. So when they were growing up, they lived alone with their parents, and the older siblings were already out of the house.
[00:05:55.220] - Adam Lawlor
Whoa. So there's like a substantial age difference between all of them.
[00:06:00.370] - Bec Rose
Yeah, a huge gap. So it's just the four of them in this one bedroom cottage in upstate New York. And during the month of March in 1848, kate is eleven, Maggie is 14, and the two girls start to be pestered by these tappings in this small cottage. The family begins to become subjected to these loud thuds and cracks that seem to be coming from everywhere. Out of the walls, the floors, the bedstands, the door frames even. Eventually, the parents invite neighbors over to act as witnesses. Because when you're scared, invite friends.
[00:06:46.630] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah, bring your neighbors.
[00:06:48.310] - Bec Rose
Absolutely. I'm sure it was enough to call them over, but I like to think they're, like, come over for other reasons.
[00:06:56.930] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah, they were just like, every time the neighbors wanted to start a conversation, they were like.
[00:07:03.590] - Bec Rose
Did you hear that?
[00:07:04.330] - Adam Lawlor
I want to hear what I swish.
[00:07:07.690] - Bec Rose
Thank you so much for inviting us over your cottage. Under their breath, they're like, we're never coming back. And then paranormal things happened. So standing by candlelight, the cottage feels much smaller. Packed with so many people inside, they stand in silence. Would their poltergeist show up for an audience? They start to hear the now familiar tapping begin. One neighbor describes them as raps. Okay, pause for joke about rapping.
[00:07:48.870] - Adam Lawlor
I'm a Fox Sister, and I'm here to say I start spiritualism in a major way.
[00:07:57.670] - Bec Rose
That's what the poltergeist are tapping. They're not poltergeist.
[00:08:01.850] - Adam Lawlor
I'm a bad ghost, and I'm here to say, yeah, the only rap structure I know.
[00:08:11.390] - Bec Rose
So this neighbor describes them as raps, and he begins asking the ghost questions and was getting these rapping sounds and responses beatboxing.
[00:08:25.410] - Adam Lawlor
I'm assuming that he set up like, a system of, like, one rap for yes, two raps for no or whatever? Or was he just asking rap related questions? Like, what's the sound of a pen hitting the floor?
[00:08:48.570] - Bec Rose
I just saw stars. I laughed so hard.
[00:08:52.570] - Adam Lawlor
I wasn't gonna laugh and let you laugh so big. I was like, can you do impressions.
[00:09:01.790] - Bec Rose
Of sounds of things falling?
[00:09:10.030] - Adam Lawlor
Oh, my God.
[00:09:11.410] - Bec Rose
I don't know what kind of system they set up, because they apparently had a very lengthy conversation, because they end up finding out that when the ghost had been alive, he had been a 31 year old peddler who this is the ghost saying, this got you. Who had been murdered for the sum of $500. He had been murdered. That's the wrong place to be laughing. I apologize. So he's saying he'd been murdered for the sum of $500, and then he had been buried beneath the fox's house by a previous tenant.
[00:09:48.430] - Adam Lawlor
Got you.
[00:09:49.460] - Bec Rose
So they obviously had some type of set up with tapping, because that is a lot of intel.
[00:09:55.230] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah, that's like, how do you get such specific data? Were you a peddler or were you literally anything else?
[00:10:07.010] - Bec Rose
A ledger peddler, a fiddler? I think that they had, like, an alphabet thing set up, probably similar to Stranger Things.
[00:10:21.990] - Adam Lawlor
Stranger Things.
[00:10:25.350] - Bec Rose
Because at this time, they didn't get the ghost name. But I did see a thing saying that an older brother who had come to witness as well had set something up about the name, but they didn't get it.
[00:10:41.070] - Adam Lawlor
An older brother of the foxes.
[00:10:43.570] - Bec Rose
Yes, a foxy brother.
[00:10:45.780] - Adam Lawlor
A foxy brother.
[00:10:48.200] - Bec Rose
I mean, it's a great last name.
[00:10:49.950] - Adam Lawlor
It is a very good last name.
[00:10:52.210] - Bec Rose
So because of this, and sorry if I wasn't clear, they didn't get the name at the time. They just got this info. 31 year old peddler murdered, buried underneath the house.
[00:11:03.940] - Adam Lawlor
$500.
[00:11:04.920] - Bec Rose
$500. So rumors obviously start sprouting up all over town. Someone saying, oh, yeah, I think I remember a peddler who came by a few years ago, like, what happened to him? And tales of, like, you know, I heard they were digging underneath the fox's cottage and found human bones and teeth.
[00:11:25.220] - Adam Lawlor
Oh, wow. They went like, right for it.
[00:11:27.310] - Bec Rose
Yeah. So it's really creating a lot of imagination.
[00:11:34.750] - Adam Lawlor
There's some hubbub.
[00:11:36.770] - Bec Rose
Exactly. There's a lot of water cooler talk, but instead of water coolers, it's horse and buggies.
[00:11:43.410] - Adam Lawlor
Just a bunch of wells.
[00:11:45.590] - Bec Rose
Exactly.
[00:11:46.770] - Adam Lawlor
Yes.
[00:11:47.490] - Bec Rose
That is a much better equivalent.
[00:11:50.210] - Adam Lawlor
It's just trying to get water from their horses. And this sucks. Yeah, the 1800 sucks.
[00:11:56.450] - Bec Rose
But did you hear there's a peddler who is a ghost now?
[00:12:01.460] - Adam Lawlor
I think I remember a peddler. And then the other person's like, wow. And they have found a body underneath the fox house. It's good.
[00:12:09.390] - Bec Rose
So the story spreads like wildfire first throughout the town, causing so many curious townsfolk to come visit their actual house because they want to meet and talk to the sisters to the point where the whole family ends up having to leave and go stay with that brother in his own house.
[00:12:28.830] - Adam Lawlor
Okay. And people, I guess, at this point, are they assuming that the haunting is connected to the house, like the cottage?
[00:12:39.240] - Bec Rose
It's the girls.
[00:12:40.590] - Adam Lawlor
Oh, it's the girls.
[00:12:41.500] - Bec Rose
It's happening and following the girls specifically.
[00:12:44.910] - Adam Lawlor
Right. So they're literally just trying to get a little bit of privacy.
[00:12:50.730] - Bec Rose
Yeah. Not even necessarily from the ghost, but from the people.
[00:12:55.370] - Adam Lawlor
Right.
[00:12:56.490] - Bec Rose
They're like, he might follow us, but we just need our neighbors to stop banging on the goddamn door.
[00:13:04.410] - Adam Lawlor
Got you.
[00:13:05.370] - Bec Rose
Yeah. And the word it wasn't just contained to this area, especially how I'm saying this is an industrious area. Communication is being able to reach wider. This story ends up going statewide in no time at all.
[00:13:25.460] - Adam Lawlor
Okay.
[00:13:26.320] - Bec Rose
It said that their older sister Leah, who she didn't live in the town anymore, she lived in, I believe, Rochester and was teaching. And it said that she heard about this happening from one of her students who had read it in the paper and was, like, talking about it in class. And then she's like, that's my family. So the word spread faster that way than them getting a chance to get in touch with their own kid about it.
[00:13:55.130] - Adam Lawlor
Right.
[00:13:56.090] - Bec Rose
So she decides to go home, visit everyone, and check in on them. It's believed that it was this early on that Leah found out that the entire thing was a hoax.
[00:14:07.490] - Adam Lawlor
Hey.
[00:14:09.310] - Bec Rose
Don't know if you saw that one coming. The two younger sisters, Maggie and Kate, showed their older sister in private how they imitated the haunting sounds. They had figured out how to crack the joints in their toes without moving their body too, obviously.
[00:14:27.190] - Adam Lawlor
Okay.
[00:14:27.980] - Bec Rose
And the cracking of the joints against the wood floor caused this sound to echo and sound like it was coming from this otherworldly place.
[00:14:36.790] - Adam Lawlor
Okay.
[00:14:38.790] - Bec Rose
Apparently, this is something that they had started to do in an effort to freak out their Methodist mother.
[00:14:49.150] - Adam Lawlor
Okay. I'm into it. All right.
[00:14:51.150] - Bec Rose
Yeah. So funny. Such a, like, preteen thing to do.
[00:14:56.140] - Adam Lawlor
Yes, definitely. Yeah. That's not even a question in my mind. Like, that is absolutely how they started doing that.
[00:15:04.590] - Bec Rose
Absolutely. Yes. And their mom, I'm sure every time she jumped, they were like, just keep adding to it. So Leah, the older sister, she wants to take this show on the road. She is not like, Guys, tell the truth. She's like, Guys, let's make some cash.
[00:15:24.250] - Adam Lawlor
So was she instantly, like, go home, children, teachers, got a new job.
[00:15:32.650] - Bec Rose
Just, like, left 100%. We'll get into it. But her life before was not good, and this turned everything around for her.
[00:15:41.120] - Adam Lawlor
Okay.
[00:15:42.270] - Bec Rose
But, like, only her. We'll get into it. So the first stop on their new life, leah moved the two young girls into a house in the Holy Land of Rochester, New York.
[00:15:57.250] - Adam Lawlor
Of course, it's a Book of Mormon.
[00:15:59.500] - Bec Rose
Reference, by the way. So she moves them into this house and she charges one dollars per person for entry to see the two girls who claim to commune with the dearly departed.
[00:16:11.970] - Adam Lawlor
Okay, what year is this?
[00:16:15.610] - Bec Rose
This started in 1848.
[00:16:18.590] - Adam Lawlor
Okay, I'm going to quickly, because on my phone I have an inflation calculator. Please, I would love to know, in.
[00:16:29.730] - Bec Rose
The words of let's go to court. Adjusted for inflation.
[00:16:32.600] - Adam Lawlor
Adjusted for inflation. Okay. 1858. You said 1840, 818, 48, compute. $36.55. That is stop. No, that was even more than I thought it would be.
[00:16:51.300] - Bec Rose
Deep.
[00:16:52.470] - Adam Lawlor
That's like Canada's wonderland prices.
[00:16:58.230] - Bec Rose
No. You think it's only $18 to get into Canada's Wonderland.
[00:17:04.630] - Adam Lawlor
For the base one that they get the whole time?
[00:17:09.040] - Bec Rose
Yeah, you can only go to the.
[00:17:10.440] - Adam Lawlor
Food court, walk around, you can get stuff, but you have to pay for the pizza piece.
[00:17:17.150] - Bec Rose
You can't even use the bathrooms for $18.
[00:17:20.670] - Adam Lawlor
They'll know.
[00:17:22.110] - Bec Rose
So they are charging one dollars in that money, 18 today or whatever. And just as word of their initial encounters had spread over the state about them, about this story happening, news spread that you could see them in person, and they quickly move from meeting people in houses to packed theaters.
[00:17:45.810] - Adam Lawlor
Okay.
[00:17:47.090] - Bec Rose
On November 14, 1849, the Fox Sisters demonstrated their spiritual rapping every time at the Corinthian Hall in Rochester. This was the first demonstration of spiritualism held before a paying public ever.
[00:18:04.410] - Adam Lawlor
Whoa. Yeah. It's so wild to me, because for a lot of historical stories, there's a level of quagmire you can't pinpoint and be like, it's not as easy to say that's when it happens, an element.
[00:18:26.200] - Bec Rose
Of it being established.
[00:18:27.870] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah, people say all the time, like, oh, Shakespeare invented this word. You have no proof of that. It's just the first time that we know of that it was written down. But this is spiritualism. It is the Fox Sisters. That's wild.
[00:18:44.830] - Bec Rose
Okay. They're making history, and totally at this time, if I heard that, I know that I would have had that little flare of interest that my freaky brain has and would be like, I will pay to go see this. Come on. That would be so cool. Especially since they don't have Netflix at the time. This is what they got. The two were performing seances in front of hundreds of people, answering questions that the audience would ask. And it was often questions about their own life, like, they'd ask questions about their own love affairs or the stocks of the railroad. Very superficial questions. But as they grew in popularity, they began to have more famous people of the day be interested in them. A bunch of the people in the list, I knew, like, one of them, so there's no point in saying who it was, but the point is to say that they were very popular of the day. And it was like poets, abolitionists, publishers, people who were legitimate in their field, who were advocating for these girls, who were giving them even more credit got you.
[00:19:57.200] - Adam Lawlor
And at this point, are they saying it's the same ghost as the original one? Or are they like, carte blanche? We can talk to anybody who's dead?
[00:20:07.290] - Bec Rose
Yes. They're saying we can commune with the other side.
[00:20:10.760] - Adam Lawlor
Got you. This is a gift now. It's not a haunting.
[00:20:14.310] - Bec Rose
Yes.
[00:20:15.290] - Adam Lawlor
Okay.
[00:20:17.030] - Bec Rose
There were people, however, who were doubting the sister's abilities. Things like ghosts of famous people who wouldn't have the same grasp of grammar that they had when they were alive. How often they seemed to be able to conjure the same roster of famous people.
[00:20:38.970] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah.
[00:20:39.760] - Bec Rose
At one performance in Buffalo, cushions were placed under their feet, between their feet and the wood floor. And unfortunately, this was one of those nights that the spirits just they couldn't be reached.
[00:20:52.430] - Adam Lawlor
Oh, no. So busy.
[00:20:55.130] - Bec Rose
It was just like one of those horrible coincidences. The room was silent, but Leia was their manager. The older sister was always quick with an answer when spirits weren't feeling particularly chatty. She'd say, the negative energy of cynics is polluting the channels in communication. She would advocate that only those who were pure of heart and believed without question would be able to witness the sister's abilities.
[00:21:22.970] - Adam Lawlor
Got you. This is a real Tom Hanks in the Polar Express moment for her.
[00:21:29.070] - Bec Rose
It's only going to happen if you believe truly unequivocally. You cannot doubt.
[00:21:35.470] - Adam Lawlor
Right.
[00:21:36.450] - Bec Rose
And then you'll see it, and if there's an ounce of doubt, it's on you.
[00:21:40.620] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah, I can see that that's fair.
[00:21:44.600] - Bec Rose
But that's also something that I feel like, at the time would be very believable for people. If you are coming from a religious standpoint, you have been taught that you believe unequivocally, and if you speak your doubts, then you are bad.
[00:21:59.670] - Adam Lawlor
Yes.
[00:22:00.460] - Bec Rose
That makes total sense to me that it would turn into, like you just use that same logic.
[00:22:06.230] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah. They probably didn't have to sit down and brainstorm that. They were like, well, we'll just tell them this. There you go.
[00:22:14.860] - Bec Rose
Probably didn't even have to think about it.
[00:22:16.730] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah. It was just something on the fly. I know that at least 80% of this audience is instantly bought into that frame of thinking.
[00:22:26.430] - Bec Rose
At another point, they were investigated by a physician who noted how the knockings or wrappings were always coming from under their feet or when their dresses were in contact with the table. And he, like, flat out said he believed that they were producing the sounds themselves.
[00:22:42.930] - Adam Lawlor
Yes.
[00:22:43.800] - Bec Rose
In 1857, the Boston Courier set up a prize of $500 to any medium who could demonstrate a paranormal ability to their committee.
[00:22:53.830] - Adam Lawlor
$500 to the next person to murder a peddler so the Fox Sisters can get in contact with his ghosts.
[00:23:02.670] - Bec Rose
Well, it wasn't just to the Fox Sisters. This was for anyone who was claiming.
[00:23:07.760] - Adam Lawlor
So the movement has taken off. Other people are in.
[00:23:12.590] - Bec Rose
Yes.
[00:23:15.070] - Adam Lawlor
How do you think? And not to derail your story, because I'm loving this so far, but how do you think that crowd grows? Because.
[00:23:28.370] - Bec Rose
I think very easily.
[00:23:30.300] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah. They are the first proponents. Do they think it's real and they think that they can do this thing, or there are people in the audience who are like, I can get it on this scam. I am into it.
[00:23:42.580] - Bec Rose
Both. I think that there are people who go in and are like, I see what you're doing here, and I'm sure there are people who are titillated by that and some who are livid by that. And I am positive that there are people who went in full believing, because they had to. For some people, they couldn't figure out grief at that time. And if you think, like, okay, my person is dead, I want to be able to speak to them again, I think that we're overestimating what they had to do to be believed here. I think people were ready for this.
[00:24:25.190] - Adam Lawlor
Right? Yeah. Kind of an influence from both sides, I guess.
[00:24:30.200] - Bec Rose
Yeah. And so in 1857, as these things are gaining popularity, this is the chance for the Boston Courier. And I think this was their way of kind of almost dispelling it, saying, we will give $500 in today's money. If you want to adjust for inflation, go ahead to say to any medium, like, if you can show us a paranormal ability, we will give you this money, but you need to prove it to us. Like, you need to show us something legitimate.
[00:24:58.990] - Adam Lawlor
Right. Did the paper put out parameters? Did they have a criteria that they have to meet?
[00:25:08.450] - Bec Rose
No idea.
[00:25:09.520] - Adam Lawlor
Okay.
[00:25:10.080] - Bec Rose
This was just going to be, like, a throwaway part of the story, and we have gotten deep into it.
[00:25:14.890] - Adam Lawlor
Okay. I'm sorry, but no, don't. It is over $16,000.
[00:25:22.710] - Bec Rose
Whoa.
[00:25:24.390] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah. That's 1860. Wowzers. Yeah.
[00:25:28.810] - Bec Rose
Wow.
[00:25:29.580] - Adam Lawlor
60 grand. Okay.
[00:25:31.900] - Bec Rose
So the Fox sisters attempted, like, they go in for the prize, and they were investigated by these three Harvard professors, and they failed the test. The committee concluded that the raps were being produced by bone and feet movements. Some people are fully like, we see what you're doing.
[00:25:53.970] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah. And I assume that they would have made that, like, a public announcement.
[00:25:59.340] - Bec Rose
Yeah. So something that had started as a prank when they were young had taken over their entire lives. They had tried to end the charade, actually, as early as 1849, which would have just been a year into their newfound celebrity.
[00:26:15.200] - Adam Lawlor
Whoa. Really?
[00:26:16.710] - Bec Rose
Yeah. During one of their seances, they had their joints spell out, we now bid you farewell. But the spirits apparently were only quiet for about two weeks before they started talking up again.
[00:26:27.610] - Adam Lawlor
Gotcha. Gotcha. As spirits do.
[00:26:31.150] - Bec Rose
And so this is kind of what we're just talking about. So whether they had decided to stop or not, the flames had been fanned. Like, this train was not getting off the tracks. Spiritualist mediums, they are all over, and several of them were accredited. Whatever that means at the time.
[00:26:51.360] - Adam Lawlor
Okay. Yeah.
[00:26:52.470] - Bec Rose
But it's like, now it's just a part of culture. It was a big fascination for society at the time. In October of 1850, the New Haven Journal reported that there were 40 families in upstate New York who claimed to have similar abilities to that of the Fox Sisters and hundreds more ranging from neighboring states.
[00:27:13.050] - Adam Lawlor
That 40 in upstate New York.
[00:27:17.160] - Bec Rose
Yeah. So people are just saying left, right, and center. Me too.
[00:27:21.690] - Adam Lawlor
Right. And, I mean, I'm assuming at that, like, the people involved, like, the people who are in on the scam were, like, trying to figure it out. They probably came from all over the board, because the Fox sisters obviously started this themselves. But then I can picture the down on his luck dad who comes home from work with the newspaper and is like, Sons, we've got a tapping to do.
[00:27:51.190] - Bec Rose
But then also people who do it fully believing it. This is no different from today.
[00:27:56.510] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah.
[00:28:01.370] - Bec Rose
In 1851 as well, a writer at The Spiritual World, which I guess is like a spiritual magazine, they tallied that more than 100 spirit mediums existed in just New York City alone. Just in the city.
[00:28:14.380] - Adam Lawlor
Whoa. Okay. Wow. They just lit a match.
[00:28:21.090] - Bec Rose
Yeah.
[00:28:22.610] - Adam Lawlor
I knew vaguely about the Fox Sisters. I had no idea that was it. It was like a wildfire immediately.
[00:28:32.530] - Bec Rose
Yeah.
[00:28:33.060] - Adam Lawlor
Okay.
[00:28:33.780] - Bec Rose
So I'm sure that they weren't even the first to do this, but they were just perhaps the first that became viral of the day.
[00:28:42.310] - Adam Lawlor
Right.
[00:28:44.310] - Bec Rose
Yeah. And they did elaborate as well. Like, when Kate was older, she was the younger of the two of them. She eventually traveled to the UK and took her act with her on her own. And she was staging shows where ghosts appeared not just through wrappings, but in physical form.
[00:29:04.030] - Adam Lawlor
Okay.
[00:29:05.150] - Bec Rose
It's never really been figured out how she achieved this. Just, like, sances of now people have their ideas of cheesecloth and all this stuff, how people made physical apparitions.
[00:29:16.670] - Adam Lawlor
Right.
[00:29:17.460] - Bec Rose
But hers specifically were said to always appear with a strange, quote, psychic light during her seances.
[00:29:24.560] - Adam Lawlor
Okay. It sounds like the old mirror trick that they used in theaters in general for that kind of thing, because the glow is kind of like it's eerie, but then you're like, well, it would have to glow because it would have to be lit up and then using shadow work.
[00:29:43.040] - Bec Rose
I'm sure.
[00:29:43.960] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah, for sure. And when you've got a theater full of people who are ready to believe, you literally don't have to do that much.
[00:29:52.690] - Bec Rose
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. So now, unfortunately, neither sister really had a very happy life. This prank that they had started to mess with their religious mother had completely taken over their lives, and the two were fighting with their older sister Leah and eventually had a falling out.
[00:30:12.610] - Adam Lawlor
Wow. Okay.
[00:30:13.860] - Bec Rose
In 18, 88, 40 years after this all began, maggie was ready to make a public confession.
[00:30:20.950] - Adam Lawlor
Whoa.
[00:30:21.690] - Bec Rose
At a show she held at the New York Academy sorry. At the New York Academy of Music in front of 2000 people, she emotionally told the audience how the entire thing worked, even providing a demonstration of her joints. What? In her confession? She said, when we went to bed at night, we used to tie an apple to a string and move the string up and down, causing the apple to bump on the floor. Or we would drop the apple on the floor, making a strange noise every time it would rebound. Mother listened to this for a time. She would not understand it and did not suspect us as being capable of a trick because we were so young.
[00:31:00.610] - Adam Lawlor
Whoa.
[00:31:01.270] - Bec Rose
How dumb is this mom? It's a one room cottage, Adam. It's not like it's in another room. They're in one room, they're dropping an apple. And the mom's like what?
[00:31:13.990] - Adam Lawlor
Obviously, yes, apples grow on trees, but at some point, you have to be like, hey, you taking another apple to bed?
[00:31:22.810] - Bec Rose
Yeah.
[00:31:24.330] - Adam Lawlor
Where'd all our string go?
[00:31:28.110] - Bec Rose
The mom's just like, Ghost, ghost. Show me. It's a ghost.
[00:31:33.310] - Adam Lawlor
Oh, my God. Do we know anything about the later life of the mother? Did they drive her to insanity?
[00:31:43.650] - Bec Rose
Probably not, because they got a lot of money. But I don't know what happened to the mom. So Kate agreed at the time with everything her sister had said, but a bunch of people were like, Nah, she just said that for the money. And one thing I did read that would back that up a little bit, to be fully transparent, I found this little anecdote on Wikipedia. But it said that it was believed that she was paid around $1,500 by a reporter for a fake confession.
[00:32:15.610] - Adam Lawlor
Okay. But she demonstrated everything.
[00:32:19.290] - Bec Rose
I know.
[00:32:20.590] - Adam Lawlor
So how fake could the confession?
[00:32:23.390] - Bec Rose
That's the part that gets me. But the thing is, I didn't want to get too much into this part of it, because I think that there's so much more than this. And the things I read kind of brought this up quite a bit. But the two struggled with alcoholism through a lot of their life, and they were not happy people. Their lives were a lie. And it's believed that they both, in the end, were in poverty. So it's believed she needed the money. That was known.
[00:32:56.660] - Adam Lawlor
Right.
[00:32:59.050] - Bec Rose
But people think she was paid for this fake confession that's still contested today. Maggie even wrote a signed confession, a signed confession that was published in New York. Blah, blah, blah. Maggie even wrote a signed confession that was published in New York World in 1888. In it, she explained how they had moved to Rochester with Leah and found ways to produce the sounds using different parts of their bodies, not just their feet. She talked about how people wanted it so badly that they would imagine things that helped them believe, but only after one year from this confession, she published a recantment to her admission.
[00:33:39.830] - Adam Lawlor
Whoa. Okay.
[00:33:41.000] - Bec Rose
She'd fallen on harder times and realized that this was her one way that she could make money. This was it so rough. But unfortunately surprisingly, her announcement after her announcement, her popularity and demand was really never what it had once been.
[00:34:05.390] - Adam Lawlor
I mean, makes sense.
[00:34:06.750] - Bec Rose
Yeah. Showed them how the sausage was made and then was surprised when they no longer wanted sausage.
[00:34:13.100] - Adam Lawlor
Weird.
[00:34:15.570] - Bec Rose
Maggie, the older of the two of them, seemed to be the target of the ridicule between the two of them. For some reason, like, people targeted on her. These sessions took more of a toll on her. In Troy, New York, someone even attempted to kidnap her because they were upset with the things she was saying.
[00:34:33.380] - Adam Lawlor
Like, just Maggie.
[00:34:35.510] - Bec Rose
Yeah.
[00:34:36.230] - Adam Lawlor
Okay.
[00:34:37.130] - Bec Rose
Maggie had even been in love with this guy at one point who was an Arctic explorer, and he kept telling her, I'll marry you one day. I swear.
[00:34:46.650] - Adam Lawlor
As Arctic explorers are warmth to do.
[00:34:51.790] - Bec Rose
They're cold. Just like they're surrounded.
[00:34:56.190] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah, exactly.
[00:34:57.390] - Bec Rose
Not just the ice caps that are frozen.
[00:34:59.940] - Adam Lawlor
It's your dear. I am as inaccessible as the octic.
[00:35:11.170] - Bec Rose
He kept trying to push her to give up spiritualism and get an education.
[00:35:16.530] - Adam Lawlor
I mean, would be wrong, but, I mean, at the time, didn't that just mean, like, an education for a woman? Would be like, do you know how to sew?
[00:35:24.510] - Bec Rose
Yeah.
[00:35:28.070] - Adam Lawlor
This guy's not progressive. He's just like, it's a scam. Make your own money however you have to make it.
[00:35:33.600] - Bec Rose
Well, he did really love her, but the problem was that his family was from high society in Philadelphia. So when he's saying get an education, it's like, become mainstream. Get out of this alternative world. Get an education at a proper institution.
[00:35:50.290] - Adam Lawlor
Right. Really? It's like the coded be worthy of my family name 100%.
[00:35:58.100] - Bec Rose
They're pushing him. And so he's walking this tightrope between loving her and kind of being embarrassed by her reputation. But when he was only 36 and on an expedition, he got sick, and he died. After his death, she said that they had been common law married, having had a ring exchange ceremony right before he left, and she released a book of their love letters. But his family was not having this. They were not supportive after his death, just like they weren't when he was alive. They didn't recognize this. They flat out told her she wasn't allowed to come to the funeral. She didn't get anything that a legal partner would be entitled to. It was kind of debated as well. One article I read said definitively they had a ring exchange ceremony. But then another thing I read said that after his death, that's when she told people, that got you. So from his family's perspective, that's perfect to say she made it up.
[00:36:58.630] - Adam Lawlor
Right. And was this previous to her confessing, or it was previous to this was before.
[00:37:08.160] - Bec Rose
The confession. Yes.
[00:37:09.640] - Adam Lawlor
Got you. Which, I mean, I'm sure the confession only would have helped their case anyway to be like, well, she lied about that.
[00:37:16.280] - Bec Rose
Oh, yeah. She just had this tragic life, though, like, of losing this love, all these things, and then yeah, later in life, she would eventually become Roman Catholic and very seldom dipped her toes into the spiritual medium. Business Leia, who was the oldest sister, really thrived in this environment. Like I was saying, before all of this, she'd been a single mother, a teacher in upstate New York. Not an easy lot in life at this time. She was even a woman, which is not great. But in the spiritualism world, which was a branch of entertainment that she essentially helped build, she found success and opportunities she never would have been able to have afforded before. Right after the death of her first husband, which had left her to be the single mother, she eventually went on and married a successful Wall Street banker whoa. In 1851, Mrs. Norman Culver. I just realized that they said Mrs. Norman Culvert, so it's her fucking husband's name.
[00:38:22.290] - Adam Lawlor
Oh, gross.
[00:38:24.140] - Bec Rose
So I'm just going to cross that out and say, in 1851, a relative of the Fox family, who is a woman, an independent woman who has her own autonomy in life, weird admitted in a signed statement that she had assisted them during their seances by touching them to indicate when the wrap should be made. She also claimed that Kate and Maggie revealed to her the method of producing the wraps by snapping their toes and using their knees and ankles. They would have been alive when she said this as well.
[00:38:57.950] - Adam Lawlor
So this whole thing did not go well for the Fox family in general.
[00:39:02.930] - Bec Rose
Some mess.
[00:39:04.270] - Adam Lawlor
Okay.
[00:39:04.990] - Bec Rose
To this day, the sisters are cited in spiritualism literature and parapsychology, which is the study of psychic phenomenon and paranormal claims. That's what parapsychology is.
[00:39:17.760] - Adam Lawlor
Thank you.
[00:39:19.170] - Bec Rose
Many accounts of the Fox sisters leave out sorry. So what I'm trying to say is they're still cited today, right?
[00:39:26.150] - Adam Lawlor
And not cited, like, well, these were frauds.
[00:39:29.730] - Bec Rose
Wait.
[00:39:30.710] - Adam Lawlor
Oh, boy.
[00:39:31.800] - Bec Rose
Many accounts of the Fox sisters just fully leave out their confession of fraud and present the wrappings as genuine manifestations of the spiritual world. Remarkably, the Fox sisters are still discussed in parapsychology literature without mention of their trickery was a quote, one of the quotes from the girls. This first one is from Maggie. Her real name is Margaretta, but she went by Maggie.
[00:40:00.470] - Adam Lawlor
Okay.
[00:40:01.150] - Bec Rose
That I have been chiefly instrumental in perpetrating the fraud of spiritualism upon a two confiding public. Most of you doubtless know the greatest sorrow in my life has been that this is true. And though it has come late in my day, I am now prepared to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so help me God. I am here tonight as one of the founders of spiritualism to denounce it as an absolute falsehood from beginning to end as the flimsiest of superstitions, the most wicked blasphemy known to the world. And in 1888, Katie had said, I regard spiritualism as one of the greatest curses that the world has ever known.
[00:40:41.710] - Adam Lawlor
Whoa.
[00:40:42.910] - Bec Rose
Yeah. An important note that I just wanted to make as well is the spiritualism, because it was mostly created with women and the kind of fringes of society. It was really associated with abolition, the ending of slavery, temperance, which is like stopping drinking, and the women's rights movement.
[00:41:02.630] - Adam Lawlor
Right?
[00:41:04.470] - Bec Rose
Yeah. So that's the story of the Fox sisters.
[00:41:07.440] - Adam Lawlor
Whoa. That was a trip.
[00:41:10.870] - Bec Rose
Yeah. I love that story.
[00:41:15.450] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah. Again, I knew the basics of it, but it's wild. So today they just straight up ignore these quotes. Like, are there people in the spiritualism, like, today's spiritualism offshoots that just say, oh, that's a fake quote, or they never said that, or do they just not deal with it at all?
[00:41:41.630] - Bec Rose
Well, a lot of people think that she said it for money. There are people who admit that she said it, but they say that she was lying.
[00:41:50.210] - Adam Lawlor
Oh, that was part of the confession. That's still debated as to yeah, some.
[00:41:55.450] - Bec Rose
Of them just don't mention it at all. Some of them say that she made it up, but they are definitely very much still discussed today as the origins of this movement in this world. But they're so controversial.
[00:42:12.730] - Adam Lawlor
Right?
[00:42:13.640] - Bec Rose
Yeah.
[00:42:15.130] - Adam Lawlor
That is so fascinating.
[00:42:18.630] - Bec Rose
It is. And the sister element, I think, is quite fascinating, like, that their older sister saw what was happening and instead of making them speak up or tell the truth, was like, okay, let's perfect this and get me some money.
[00:42:38.290] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah. I was thinking about her character in this story. Reminds me of have you seen the second season of Dirty John?
[00:42:54.950] - Bec Rose
No, I didn't know there was a second season.
[00:42:57.350] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah, it's a different true story, but it's set in the it's that figure of it's Amanda Pete. She's incredible in it, but she plays this person who they followed the rules. They did everything that society and the people around them told them that they had to do to be a successful white. Like, she married young, she married wealthy, she had the kids, she kept the house, all that stuff. And then basically, her life spiraling out of control once her marriage kind of dissolves. And I kept thinking of that when you were talking about Leah especially, like, she's done the thing. Like, she got married, she has a job, she has kids, and now she's a single mom on not very much money, and it has to be a thing. Right. You did it, you moved away from your family, you got married. It was supposed to be okay. And then that happens. And, you know that society did not give her any support long term. So, like, seeing this, it's basically like, yeah, why not? We can do this and nobody's going to do it for us, so we'll do it for ourselves kind of thing.
[00:44:24.400] - Adam Lawlor
Not excusing the act.
[00:44:25.800] - Bec Rose
But I agree with everything you're saying. I just think that there is something devious of seeing this eleven and 14 year old and being like, don't tell the truth, let's keep doing this. Because what that ended up pushing was I mean, I guess you're not thinking long term. I'm not judging a single thing that they have done. Obviously, like, I have not been in this position, but to like, this was going to affect their lives forever. Like they would live a lie forever. And like at one point when Maggie was like, shit, I have to go back to this because this is the only way I know how to make money.
[00:45:12.790] - Adam Lawlor
Right?
[00:45:13.580] - Bec Rose
She set them up for long term failure, but short term success because people were excited by it. But that's got a way on you to make a decision when you're eleven and 14, like, yeah, let's keep it going. That's not something you're going to want in 40 years.
[00:45:30.240] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah, that's true. And regardless of whether she also had the ability to make sounds or whatever, maybe she didn't have that ability at all. But you do have to consider that she took the getaway role in the three of them, that she has no attachment to this. You're not paying to see Leah Fox, that she just happens to get the money and to profit off of the success. But at the end of the day, she's like, if this goes south, it's not on me. I didn't do the thing. I can do other things. I've had jobs, I'm married again. It's all this kind of stuff that's.
[00:46:12.640] - Bec Rose
Like, I think she got married again from this. I think that she was single when this started happening. She was a single mother and then through their traveling and stuff, that's when she would have had this other man. So in my viewpoint of it, it's like she had this difficult life beforehand. Being a single mother, all I hear in my head is reba. A single mother.
[00:46:40.910] - Adam Lawlor
Never stops.
[00:46:42.850] - Bec Rose
Gentle hands in the heart. Amen. Thank you. I don't even remember what I was saying. Yes. Being a single mom struggling in this way, then when this started, when she started to be able to make the money and also don't forget, she took them to her house and works with them to perfect the noises, right? Works on making it more lucrative and then kind of like unleashing it onto the world and making this new branch of entertainment for her. It was like a success story. But she had to really put her sisters under the bus and then they had this falling out. I have no idea what that was about, but I'm sure they were pissed. And I'm just saying I guess what I'm trying to say is I feel like they had a right to be pissed. But I also can understand why Leah would say, let's do this. Let's get out of here. Let's make some money.
[00:47:57.930] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah. The story has the scam from turning on everybody from all angles. The way that it turns on the con artists at the end is usually, like, they get arrested, they go to court, like, whatever, that's the turnaround. But this is like, this probably no doubt ruined other people's lives who viewed them in some way, but this definitely had a hand in ruining their lives.
[00:48:32.500] - Bec Rose
Absolutely. Again, I didn't go into their addiction issues, but Kate lost her kids because of it. It ended dark. But what's interesting, I think, is, like, this is kind of if we're going to call this like, a con, this is like a con that stems so many other cons because there are so many stories of people pretending to be fortune tellers and stealing people's money and their houses and stuff. This created something, basically. This is whatever his first name was Ponzi, who, like, Ponzi schemes were named after.
[00:49:13.060] - Adam Lawlor
Right? Yeah. It should be called Foxism. The fact that it's not even just like, oh, this was influential to the way we live today. It's here, it's still here.
[00:49:32.440] - Bec Rose
Today story could have happened in 1840 or 2020, and every bit of it is believable then and now and every influence we're talking about, like, every motivation behind it, it was the same thing then and the same thing now. Like, humans do not change.
[00:49:48.670] - Adam Lawlor
Yes. That is such a good story and I love that.
[00:49:55.650] - Bec Rose
I just also wanted to say sorry before we move on. I love the punk element of it. This was the alternative, the fringes of kind of like regular society. This was a place for people who believed in freedom, who believed in I mean, the temperance thing is boring, but, like, women's rights movement, abolitionism, like, this was a place for people to come together and meet like minded weirdos who didn't want to conform.
[00:50:29.110] - Adam Lawlor
Right. And I I remember there was I believe it was another podcast episode that I listened to a while back, but they talked about it was a specific spiritualist. But how? Because, like you said, it's kind of on that alt scene, it's the fringes of society. There was also this heavy which I never knew about and do not associate with the time at all, but this heavy sexual element to specifically this mediums shows, but also a little bit of the wider movement where it was just this weird it was like a neutral zone where because you could talk to the dead like anything could happen. And there were shows where, like, you would be in the room, the lights would be off, and then they'd tell they'd have a husband and wife in there, and they'd tell the husband that a spirit was there and they really wanted to give them a kiss. And then they'd kiss the husband in the dark and then they'd say, oh, they really want to give the wife a kiss too. And then the person would kiss the wife. And it was just this weird titillating thing that's, like it's so different from your average day to day that I cannot fathom how exciting it would have been to be in that room and whether or not you believed in it, you'd be like, for this hour, this is real.
[00:52:10.520] - Adam Lawlor
This is 100% everything I'm looking at. And I'm not going to think about what I have to work tomorrow or the fact that I have nine kids at home and no way to feed them properly. It's such a thorough distraction that yes. Escapism. That the whole country just seems to have, like yup and thrown itself into there.
[00:52:35.030] - Bec Rose
Yeah. And I can understand it getting to those the extremes of, like, sexual taboos because you're already getting into the taboo of death and talking about it. And I think it could go this one way of being more wholesome, of people coming and saying, I want to talk to a departed relative, but then you can get into the left hand magic. What's his name? Anton LeVay.
[00:53:06.490] - Adam Lawlor
Aleister Crowley.
[00:53:10.190] - Bec Rose
I can see why it would attract these different kinds of people, which goes to show so much about our psychology as animals and this unknown thing and then adding those taboos to it. Yeah.
[00:53:28.000] - Adam Lawlor
That's so amazing.
[00:53:29.600] - Bec Rose
I love this conversation and I love for me, I feel like this kind of pushes topics in a way, because it wasn't necessarily like a true crime. They lied. There was like a devious thing to it. There was like a miss act. But I love talking about this world, this time period. I'm so glad I wasn't alive in it.
[00:53:58.490] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah. 100%.
[00:53:59.450] - Bec Rose
I don't know if you've ever read the book, or if any listeners have read the book Witches of New York by Amy McKay.
[00:54:06.830] - Adam Lawlor
No, I've heard really good things.
[00:54:08.800] - Bec Rose
It's one of my favorites. And it's very much this time period and people doing this, but it's like people who can actually do it and there's mysteries ensue, but I just feel like this is such a fascinating time in human history. Like this turn of cities and society as we know it, but still very, very different.
[00:54:37.190] - Adam Lawlor
Right.
[00:54:40.410] - Bec Rose
Not that long ago. But still really long ago.
[00:54:53.550] - Adam Lawlor
All right. It's going to take us into the skies.
[00:54:57.230] - Bec Rose
Oh, we're looking up.
[00:54:59.650] - Adam Lawlor
We're looking up. So it's May 2, 1981.
[00:55:04.340] - Bec Rose
Oh, my God. This is like the most recent story you've ever told.
[00:55:07.810] - Adam Lawlor
I know, right? It's pretty wild.
[00:55:11.330] - Bec Rose
Like, computers exist in your story this time.
[00:55:14.790] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah, our parents were around it's pretty practically yesterday. So Air Lingus Flight 164 is heading from Dublin toward its destination of Heathrow Airport in London, and there are 113 people on board. The flight has thus far been unremarkable. It's a short flight, nothing really out of place. But the cabin crew does take note of a man. He's a well dressed, seemingly successful businessman who has been nothing but polite for the entirety of the flight. But he had gotten up to use the bathroom. Do you have a fear normally? Do I have a fear of flying? No, I do not. Do you have a fear of flying? A little bit.
[00:56:02.450] - Bec Rose
I mean, not a huge one. It's not my favorite thing in the world.
[00:56:07.110] - Adam Lawlor
Right.
[00:56:07.510] - Bec Rose
But lived in Europe. I've done it quite a bit. You've also lived in another country before. You tend to do it when you travel, but not a huge fan. Feel like it can't be two weeks in a row. You're bringing me to my fear.
[00:56:21.610] - Adam Lawlor
Just going, just digging right down.
[00:56:24.360] - Bec Rose
Oh, my God.
[00:56:26.570] - Adam Lawlor
So normally, the man getting up to the bathroom wouldn't mean anything. But as the flight is only five minutes away from landing at Heathrow, the fastened seatbelt sign is on. So about to ensure that the man returned to his seat sorry, just to clarify. Yeah.
[00:56:44.290] - Bec Rose
Why it's noted and worthy is because the light went on and then he went to the bathroom.
[00:56:49.230] - Adam Lawlor
Yes, got it. So everybody should be in their seats and he got up in that time.
[00:56:54.040] - Bec Rose
I got to poop. That was just like a UK chatter accent.
[00:57:02.310] - Adam Lawlor
So they're about to ensure that he returns to his seat and he's prepared properly for landing. But then the crew is shocked when the man steps out of the bathroom and his clothes are clearly soaked.
[00:57:22.990] - Bec Rose
Don't go in there.
[00:57:24.990] - Adam Lawlor
Took a turn.
[00:57:26.320] - Bec Rose
There's an Ace Ventura quote. He just comes out. He's like, I had an accident.
[00:57:35.010] - Adam Lawlor
Something awful happened to this. No one go in there at the ground like, no, I can pay. If only that's what happened. So instead, he tells the crew that he's doused himself in a flammable substance. Shit. In one hand, he's holding a lighter, and in the other, a small glass bottle of cyanide. Oh, boy. Let's get it.
[00:58:08.830] - Bec Rose
I wish he had had an accident.
[00:58:11.310] - Adam Lawlor
Right?
[00:58:11.780] - Bec Rose
I wish the true crime was like how they had to clean the bathroom after.
[00:58:18.430] - Adam Lawlor
The true crime was what this man's body did.
[00:58:22.690] - Bec Rose
You're ill.
[00:58:26.050] - Adam Lawlor
Okay, so Lawrence James Downey is 55 in 1981, and he is a man from Perth in Western Australia. In the 1950s, he actually lived as a Trappist monk in a Roman monastery.
[00:58:43.310] - Bec Rose
Can you explain what that means to me?
[00:58:45.180] - Adam Lawlor
Yes. So this is the first of two very brief asides. So, Trappist monks are officially known as the Order of Cistercians of the Strict observance.
[00:58:55.970] - Bec Rose
Can you explain that to me?
[00:58:58.490] - Adam Lawlor
Yes. So they get their moniker from La Trapp Abbey in Normandy, where their reformist movement originated. They basically started out of this one order. They thought that they weren't being serious enough about it, so they made their own monastic order that eventually takes on the name of Trappists from the monastery.
[00:59:19.400] - Bec Rose
Name I thought they did like trapping and hunting.
[00:59:22.550] - Adam Lawlor
Oh, can you imagine that's?
[00:59:24.170] - Bec Rose
The weird thing about them is that they're like, we'll trap rabbits, but that's it.
[00:59:30.220] - Adam Lawlor
That's it. That's where we draw trap things.
[00:59:33.990] - Bec Rose
Or they invented trap rap, trap music.
[00:59:38.570] - Adam Lawlor
They're way ahead of their time, so they don't take a vow of silence, unlike what many people believe, but they don't encourage what they call idle chatter and only speak when they deem it necessary.
[00:59:52.600] - Bec Rose
An autistic person's dream.
[00:59:57.950] - Adam Lawlor
No small talk at all. Specifically small talk. It's like, how's the weather?
[01:00:02.570] - Bec Rose
Shut up, Frank. Know the rule.
[01:00:08.530] - Adam Lawlor
They also do not eat the meat of any, quote, four footed animals as described by St. Benedict.
[01:00:16.690] - Bec Rose
So not trapping rabbits, for sure, they.
[01:00:18.890] - Adam Lawlor
Can'T trap rabbits, but they'll eat fish, they'll eat poultry, that kind of thing. But even then, it's in moderation. But it's literally anything that walks on four legs, they will not eat it. Yeah, pretty good. Yeah. It's just from St. Benedict's writings. And so generally, it's a very strict life of prayer and quiet contemplation. You're meant to meditate when you're eating, you're not speaking, you're eating. And you're generally listening to it, reading. You're thinking about these things, you're turning them around in your head. That's the kind of life that trappist monks live. Lawrence Downey is kicked out of the monastic orders after he punched his religious superior in the face.
[01:01:02.640] - Bec Rose
He didn't like his trap music.
[01:01:04.890] - Adam Lawlor
No, you don't understand me. It's got a face. This is who I am.
[01:01:14.470] - Bec Rose
You peaked the shit out of the audio for that joke.
[01:01:17.820] - Adam Lawlor
Oh, yeah. There's no article that I could find that says why he punched them in the face.
[01:01:25.560] - Bec Rose
Okay.
[01:01:25.920] - Adam Lawlor
Just that he punched them. So here we are. So he's wanted for questioning in his homeland of Australia related to some suspected dealings in fraud. No, not the punching. He instead spends time as a tour guide in Portugal before eventually finding himself in Ireland after a somewhat weird and vague few years. Lawrence's Irish experiences include, one, being suspected of entering Ireland illegally, two, setting up multiple businesses in Ireland, also illegally. Three, claiming that the government of Ireland was just out to get him, and four, being the recipient of assault charges somewhere in Ireland. So apparently, at this point, he's had enough of Ireland and he concocts a plot.
[01:02:19.880] - Bec Rose
More like Ireland's had enough of him.
[01:02:22.050] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah, I'm sure they were pretty glad to see the back of him.
[01:02:25.060] - Bec Rose
And can you imagine being too rowdy for Ireland?
[01:02:30.190] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah, just look at the way they're like, no, sit down, please. Go. Yeah, you've made some decisions.
[01:02:37.950] - Bec Rose
You're too loud for our pub.
[01:02:41.410] - Adam Lawlor
Wow. So he decides on a plan, but not just some measly scheme, because Lawrence Downey is going to hijack a plane. So we're back in 1981, as the confused and somewhat scared crew acquiesces to Lawrence's demands to be taken to the cockpit. Once in the cockpit, he reveals his bizarre and truly unexpected demand to the pilot. The plane will not be landing in London, but instead will be diverting to Tehran, the capital of Iran. Lawrence explains that he has, quote, a new constitution and wants to deliver it to the people of Iran himself. If his demands aren't met, he will light himself on fire and burn everything and everyone on the plane out of the sky.
[01:03:36.940] - Bec Rose
Does he have any connections to Maron?
[01:03:40.950] - Adam Lawlor
None. So the pilot gracefully turns the plane southward and then he brings up a flight issue.
[01:03:48.360] - Bec Rose
Gracefully. He's just like understood, turns on the left, blinker, checks, his blind spots are.
[01:03:56.400] - Adam Lawlor
Turning that plane, taking all the precautions hand over hand.
[01:04:01.330] - Bec Rose
No problem. Oh, friend.
[01:04:05.310] - Adam Lawlor
But then he brings up a slight issue, which is that Tehran is over 4400 km away from them. And this will in fact require a good deal more fuel than the plane currently has left. So the pilot is clear. If we're going to make it to Tehran, we need to land and refuel. So Lawrence is convinced of this and the pilot proceeds to make an emergency landing in an airport in northern France.
[01:04:32.700] - Bec Rose
He's convinced of it, meaning.
[01:04:36.630] - Adam Lawlor
Twist. So once they've landed and the emergency is known to the people on the ground, lawrence hands the pilot a nine page statement and demands that the pilot throw it out of the cockpit window and onto the tarmac. He wishes that the Irish press publish the word.
[01:04:53.200] - Bec Rose
I hope it was stapled real good.
[01:04:55.710] - Adam Lawlor
I hope so too. No, it's just one by one. It's just like flying away and they're.
[01:05:00.880] - Bec Rose
Like throws it out in manila envelope.
[01:05:06.810] - Adam Lawlor
And the wind just picks it up altogether. So the pilot does it, he tosses the document out the window and then the responding authorities get to read what the hijacker has to say. Turns out Karan was never part of the plan for Lawrence, that was just a distraction. His real demand, as outlined in his statement, is to the Vatican. Specifically, he wants Pope John Paul II to release the Third Secret of Fatima.
[01:05:45.470] - Bec Rose
What? What is that?
[01:05:48.270] - Adam Lawlor
Second aside. So, for those who aren't familiar with the story, in 1917, three children in Fatima, Portugal report seeing an apparition of the Virgin Mary. Who is a pretty big deal to the Catholics, I'm told.
[01:06:05.940] - Bec Rose
Yeah. Was it on their toast?
[01:06:08.710] - Adam Lawlor
No, it's just in person. No toast. They can't even sell. Yeah, she took some time.
[01:06:17.450] - Bec Rose
That diva showed up and was like bam. Exactly.
[01:06:23.530] - Adam Lawlor
So Mary supposedly gave them three secrets. Apocalyptic Visions. Two were revealed later and were said to coincide with events in World War I and World War II. But it's like in the way that events that Nostradamus writes coincide with things where you're like, well, if you change these five letters, it actually spells dog. And you're like, okay, I don't care.
[01:06:46.800] - Bec Rose
And dog is a pelogram for God.
[01:06:52.210] - Adam Lawlor
Exactly. The third secret, however, was kept a secret. Until the last child witness, now an older woman, was on her deathbed. And the story goes that the secret is so shocking that it was sealed by the Vatican, who refused to reveal it to the religious public.
[01:07:09.660] - Bec Rose
Okay, I'm sorry. When did the Vatican's PR get good to be like, let's come up with like, a multi year treasure hunt. You find clues and cereal boxes. We're going to wait till someone is really old. The secret is so insane, it's going to make your brain bleed. Tell your parents.
[01:07:28.820] - Adam Lawlor
Yes. They were like the you'll never believe why priests hate him.
[01:07:35.140] - Bec Rose
Yeah.
[01:07:35.410] - Adam Lawlor
The clickbait you have to click through. This is the clickbait of the this is Catholic clickbait. So it seems that Lawrence became really obsessed with this third secret, probably when he was tour guiding in Portugal and thought the only way to have it released was to steal the plane and first demand to be flown to Tehran. And invent a weird lie about a new constitution for the people of Iran. The following 8 hours were filled with tense negotiation on the ground, with Lawrence letting multiple hostages, including children, leave the plane. Eventually, one woman begins to feel ill. So they communicate this to the people on the ground and an ambulance is ordered to provide medical attention. What Lawrence doesn't know is that the ambulance is filled with French paratroopers just silly with them. The moment he opens the rear exit to let the sick woman off the plane, the paratroopers entered the plane and easily overpowered the hijacker. It was over in seconds and no shots were fired. Lawrence was put into custody and questioned for half an hour, which seems bonkers to me.
[01:09:02.980] - Bec Rose
Wow.
[01:09:03.420] - Adam Lawlor
But I have a feeling that he was just the most aggravating person to speak to. So they just let him you know what?
[01:09:10.720] - Bec Rose
That's enough time. That's literally the length of my lunch break.
[01:09:15.890] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah. I cannot wrap my mind around what questions were in there, but during these outstanding 30 minutes, it was discovered that Lawrence was not covered in anything close to flammable. It was just water.
[01:09:32.950] - Bec Rose
He did have an accident in the bathroom, possibly.
[01:09:36.770] - Adam Lawlor
And then he was like, how am I going to spin this? Take me to Iran.
[01:09:41.490] - Bec Rose
I have this random fiction I wrote about Iran.
[01:09:46.330] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah.
[01:09:47.850] - Bec Rose
He accidentally splashed a little bit of water on his pants, and he's like.
[01:09:52.110] - Adam Lawlor
I don't want to look like from, like the sink, and was like, yeah, no.
[01:09:55.140] - Bec Rose
What am I going to do? I'm just going to cover myself.
[01:09:58.830] - Adam Lawlor
Oh, God. Oh, God. Oh, God. They can't tell that I had an accident if my whole body is wet.
[01:10:07.990] - Bec Rose
They won't smell where the shit's coming from if I smear it everywhere.
[01:10:14.430] - Adam Lawlor
Everywhere. It's also discovered that he does not have cyanide. It is also water. After all is said and done and.
[01:10:27.480] - Bec Rose
Taking into consideration hydrated man.
[01:10:30.010] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah. He's very unwantered, if you will. So they take into consideration his history of the fraud, the assault charges where he's wanted in different places around the world. And then they sentenced Lawrence Downey to five years in a French prison for, quote, air piracy. Yeah.
[01:10:54.260] - Bec Rose
Is that how you found the story? Were you googling air piracy?
[01:10:57.810] - Adam Lawlor
No, I wish. I'm going to Google that, though, and see what happens. I don't even know how I stumbled.
[01:11:02.550] - Bec Rose
Across I'm going to start googling piracy way more often.
[01:11:07.190] - Adam Lawlor
So he served 16 months before being released early, and he went back to Australia, where he seems to have lived a quiet enough life that he just sort of dropped off the records. Like, nobody seems to know if he's still around, but he could be, and he'd be in his mid 90s.
[01:11:26.890] - Bec Rose
Wow.
[01:11:28.490] - Adam Lawlor
He at least lived to see the Vatican actually release the third sequel. Yes.
[01:11:33.600] - Bec Rose
What was it?
[01:11:34.990] - Adam Lawlor
19 years after his plan failed to persuade the Pope to do so, they opened the envelope and what is the Secret? It's just a good yarn about modern persecution of Catholics and Christians. The overall public is pretty disappointed. It's not nearly as cool or metal as people were hoping it would be. And even the Pope seems kind of bummed.
[01:11:59.190] - Bec Rose
This is exactly like the reboot of Gilmore Girls and the famous Final Four words and how deeply disappointing they were.
[01:12:11.210] - Adam Lawlor
So wherever he was, when he heard the news, I doubt Lawrence thought even for a second that it was worth the whole air piracy thing. Yeah, he could still be out there in Australia, just living his quiet life. Maybe he's done other scams. Maybe he's found new religious stories to get obsessed with. But that is the story of the Australian ex monk who hijacked an Irish.
[01:12:39.210] - Bec Rose
I forgot he was a monk at the beginning.
[01:12:41.240] - Adam Lawlor
Oh, my God, there's so many twists and turns in this very short story.
[01:12:48.330] - Bec Rose
It's why can you remind me what year they released The Third Secret?
[01:12:52.870] - Adam Lawlor
The Third Secret was released in 2000.
[01:12:57.290] - Bec Rose
So he likely was alive to hear it. I hope he was, because that's a bummer and he kind of deserves a bit of a bummer. And I only say that I know no one was hurt, but he traumatizes shit ton of people.
[01:13:12.350] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah, it's wild. So there's some really great articles about this that we'll post in the show notes. And then there's also a bonus one that is a bonus reading homework, because I love our listeners so much. But it's a Vox article about just how common hijackings used to be, specifically in the US. Where I didn't know there was a four year period of time from 68 to 72. I think in the US alone, 130 planes were hijacked in four years.
[01:13:49.480] - Bec Rose
Wow.
[01:13:50.650] - Adam Lawlor
It's wild. And it was usually this weird thing, like, all of the hijacking, post or not post pre 911 was very much like, usually single person or a very small group, and they had. Some weird demands or they just wanted to go to Cuba because it's like.
[01:14:09.860] - Bec Rose
It'S kind of like how we were talking about the last one, how people are the same but the means around them. This is like modern day piracy.
[01:14:20.450] - Adam Lawlor
Yes.
[01:14:22.210] - Bec Rose
Shit, though. And so scary. And you're right how different it is pre and post 911.
[01:14:28.480] - Adam Lawlor
The thing that shocked me the most, and then I was shocked that it shocked me the most. How did he get so much water onto a plate?
[01:14:38.140] - Bec Rose
Oh, my God. You're right.
[01:14:40.090] - Adam Lawlor
They won't even let you take those on anymore.
[01:14:43.190] - Bec Rose
He got it from the tap, but.
[01:14:45.930] - Adam Lawlor
He also had the empty bottle. So he was either like, bringing an empty bottle on there and they didn't question him at all. It's just such a weird thing. Like he either had the empty bottle and then filled it on the plane or filled it before he got on the plane and nobody questioned him.
[01:15:01.780] - Bec Rose
That's kind of also hilarious to come out with a water bottle and be like, I'm covered in gasoline and this is cyanide. Wouldn't you be like context clues? You don't smell like gasoline and you're holding a water bottle. I'm going to say it's all water.
[01:15:18.460] - Adam Lawlor
Sir, I'm going to have to the seatbelt sign is I don't know if you notice. Please give me the light. And he has a lighter. They won't even let you take nail clippers and you have a lighter. It's such a different thing. And some of the articles that people can read through that they have little quotes from the crew and they're just like such Irish mentality quotes. And it's just like this is like the weirdest worst possible time for this guy to have done this because there are so many other bigger things happening.
[01:15:55.330] - Bec Rose
Through the 80s in Ireland.
[01:15:58.370] - Adam Lawlor
This is the trouble.
[01:15:59.310] - Bec Rose
Yeah. This is just like a drop.
[01:16:00.940] - Adam Lawlor
This is IRA bombings. This is like, going on. So you got on an Irish flight full of mostly Irish folks. The quotes from the crew were like, this fella comes out of the bathroom and he's wet and we should have to take him to Iran, I guess. I think you are essentially for the Irish people on the flight, a lot of them would have lived in very traumatic through very traumatic experiences already.
[01:16:32.160] - Bec Rose
But they're saying that they were like, this wasn't something that I can't sleep at night now.
[01:16:38.350] - Adam Lawlor
Yeah, a lot of the quotes and stuff, they're kind of just like it was scary. It was scary at the time, but maybe more weird. More weird. And I think especially with the explanation of why this is happening, you'd be like, this is going to be very funny to talk about something.
[01:16:56.100] - Bec Rose
And was the captain lying about the gas?
[01:17:00.150] - Adam Lawlor
No, they only had, like he legitimately was like, we need to land because I can't take you much further.
[01:17:10.810] - Bec Rose
When you said he was convinced of it, I thought he was like, duped.
[01:17:16.890] - Adam Lawlor
I think it's also it might be partially a part of the protocol at the time for if this happened, because this was happening in this period of history so often that this would be a part of your training as a pilot. And then I think he was legitimately. Like, we don't power the plane with wishes. We can't just fly to Tehran. So we're going to have to land. If you believe everybody, stick your arms out. Whoa. But I think the pilot was sincere and then landed. And then when he gave the document to the people on the ground, I think the authorities were like, so you said he wanted to go to Iran, but that's not in here. And then the pilot will be like, what is in there? That little manifesto thing, the manifesto that was all about the Vatican.
[01:18:18.760] - Bec Rose
Oh, right.
[01:18:19.360] - Adam Lawlor
It had nothing to do with Iran. So for all of the in every story at least that's reported, he hadn't told the pilot anything about this. So just like the level of confusion of like, okay, first I'm not expecting to be hijacked, but here we are. Then you're landing at a different airport thinking like, okay, we're going to refuel, and I guess I'm flying to Iran now, and then being like, wait, I'm not flying to Iran. I'm helping this person negotiate with the Pope to release the third secret of the what? I've had.
[01:19:00.330] - Bec Rose
It'S confusing.
[01:19:01.280] - Adam Lawlor
It sounds like bad writing. Like, it sounds like a pilot episode for they're like, we just need to put every character in there and they all have to be the one guy. So there's going to be a monk. There's going to be an air pirate. Like, they're the same.
[01:19:17.730] - Bec Rose
There's the invention of trap music.
[01:19:20.770] - Adam Lawlor
Exactly.
[01:19:21.560] - Bec Rose
Salt on a monk over a trap music song. I just want people to laugh at.
[01:19:26.580] - Adam Lawlor
My trap music joke. We will pause for listener laughter.
[01:19:34.070] - Bec Rose
Oh, shit. That was good.
[01:19:37.430] - Adam Lawlor
It's wild.
[01:19:38.830] - Bec Rose
I like that. I laughed so much.
[01:19:43.370] - Adam Lawlor
Excellent.
[01:19:44.470] - Bec Rose
That was needed and so, so good. Okay, well, thank you so, so much for joining us, everyone, on another episode of Unscrupulous. You can join us next week when we meet more unscrupulous people who are doing more unscrupulous acts.
[01:20:02.210] - Adam Lawlor
I like it.
[01:20:03.730] - Bec Rose
Don't forget to follow us and subscribe. And, like, the whole thing isn't the outro. You'll hear it, you know it. But definitely make sure you're rating and reviewing and telling your friends and listening and all that good stuff.
[01:20:18.870] - Adam Lawlor
Absolutely. And if you ever think of a topic that you would love to hear us cover, feel free to shoot us a message absolutely. On Instagram, or you can email us directly at Unscrupulouspod@gmail.com.
[01:20:30.960] - Bec Rose
Yes. My mom actually requested an episode, so I've started looking at that. Yes. All right, so we already have reviews coming in, or I guess not. Review suggestions.
[01:20:47.390] - Adam Lawlor
Perfect.
[01:20:48.510] - Bec Rose
All right, thank you, everyone. We'll see you next week.
[01:20:52.910] - Adam Lawlor
See you next week everybody. Thanks for listening by.
[01:20:58.530] - Bec Rose
Thank you so much for listening to Unscrupulous podcast. If you want to hear more from us, you can check us out on Instagram at unscrupulouspod. You could always send us an email with any of your case suggestions or just your admiration for us at unscrupulouspod@gmail.com. Make sure to check out our show notes where you can find information on where we got our resources today and we will check you out next time.
[01:21:32.010] - Adam Lawlor
Our channel.