All right, Matt. So what do you call a med student who graduated online?
I don't know, doctor. A Google doc or a web MD? Your choice.
Good evening everybody and welcome to the graveyard. Thank you for joining us tonight.
My name is Adam and my name's Matt. Now we'll have a tombstone or settle into your casket and get
comfortable because this is graveyard tails.
Oh, all right, everybody. Here we are again, Matt. How you doing tonight, brother?
Man, I'm doing pretty good. Good. Good. So before we get into it, I don't know if you,
I was sitting here eating these things before you got on the peanut butter filled pretzels.
Yeah, I realize it's probably not the best thing to eat before we start recording because it's
like all in my mouth and. Man, they drive my mouth out. Yes, so bad. Yep. So eat the album or something.
Yes, like, no, so I may be sitting here. I'm in the water. But I love them, dude.
It's like a addiction. And the name Uts or whatever, it reminds me of the Utsi, the Iceman.
So I mean, even more of a reason to eat. I don't even know. Is that a regional thing?
The Uts pretzels. No, the Utsi, the Iceman. That's that body that they found up in
Alps or something that was preserved Stone Age guy and concluded that after research,
he'd been there for thousands of years or whatever and he had been attacked. He was in a battle
and got shot in the back by arrows and like they can track what he was eating and his movement up
and down the mountain due to what was in his stomach. And then he died on the top of this mountain
and got frozen. So everything was okay. I remember this story. I did not remember that being the name.
Yep. Let's see the Iceman. Utsi. So I don't know why I remember that so much, but
because that's what, you know, having a mind like a still trap. That wealth of useless knowledge right
there. But speaking of a wealth of knowledge, go over to podbelly.com and you can find a list of
shows that I mean, they're all the wealth of knowledge or a wealth of humor or just information.
And we're proud to be associated with all of them. So go over there and check them out at podbelly.com.
We also want to thank tonight sponsors HelloFresh and Raycon. And we'll talk more about them
throughout the episode while you're on the internet doing your thing, looking up.
Who knows stuff? I probably can't mention on this episode here. Go over to patreon.com slash
graveyard tells you can sign up to become a patron. We've got three different levels.
Our $10 a month they get video versions of the episode they get ad free audio versions of the
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So you may get a little extra bonus behind the scenes content, which may happen for this episode.
Who knows? We had an interesting start.
But
All right Adam, let's take a minute and talk about HelloFresh one of tonight sponsors.
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They have a crispy Tex-Mex pork tenderloin with a lime crema. Man, that is so good. It wouldn't
until HelloFresh that I learned I loved lime crema. I like, I thought that was, yeah, I thought
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not just go, hey man, we're having this again. If you want to go, oh, yes, HelloFresh, we're getting
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shipping. HelloFresh, America's number one milk. Matt, that's all I've got for the beginning of
this episode here. So why don't you tell us what are we talking about tonight, brother?
All right. So tonight, Adam and I are going to dig into a mysterious phenomenon that
you'll be aware of it. You may not have ever heard it. The term for it is much more modern than
the stories are. But I want to read this excerpt from a poem that is a direct, it was directly inspired
by this situation. Okay. All right. Who is the third who walks always beside you? When I count,
there are only you and I together. But when I look ahead up the white road, there is always
another one walking beside you. Gliding wrapped in a brown mantle hooded. I do not know whether
a man or a woman, but who is that on the other side of you? That is from the poem The Wasteland
by TS Elliott. And TS Elliott said that this stands of this poem was directly inspired by the novel
South, which was written by Ernest Shackleton. Right. And if you don't know who Ernest Shackleton is,
he was, he was an explorer who made an attempt to have the first team to explore an article.
And they had a very unusual experience that potentially saved not only his life,
but the 27 crew members lives that were on this venture with him. We're going to talk about
third man syndrome. Now, in some cases, you'll see it called third man factor. But third man syndrome
is what Adam and I have known it as. So you're going to hear us refer to it as that. But if you see,
if you look up and you see third man factor, it's the same thing. It's just they've just two
different, two different ways to say the same thing. And I don't know why they always are changing
things. But yeah, I mean, like you said, I've always known it as third man syndrome. And then when
we were doing this research, every time I typed it in, it came up third man factor. And I'm like,
what is this factor thing? It's the same thing. Yeah. Yep.
So as we always say, go check our sources down on the bottom of the show notes. You can found
where you can found where we find. Yep. Man, I have screwed this one up at least two times in a row.
And I say it every week, you can find where we found the information and you can, you know,
continue the research because there are some things we'll leave out. There are some accounts that
we may not touch on because they're either too brief or too long for this format or there's not
enough information saying, yep, that's what it is. But I mean, there's more out there.
There's a lot of information on this topic. So go check our sources down the bottom of the show notes.
Now, like Matt was saying, this is third man syndrome. So what is third man syndrome? Well,
it is a phenomenon that refers to the reported sensation of perception of an additional presence.
So often in extreme or life threatening situations, this will occur. So it is the feeling that
someone is with an individual, providing support, guidance or championship, even though there is
no tangible evidence of another person being present. So a companion, companionship.
Yeah, whatever. Whatever I said, as like championship. And I was like, what's an unusual way to
use that word? Oh, he meant to say companionship. And I looked at it and I was like, I would have
probably said championship to misread my own notes. It happens. It's going to be a fantastic day.
Y'all just get we're off to a fantastic start. Yeah. Well, Matt and I are doing this on a
different day of the week than we normally do. And I think that's what it is. It's got to be what
everything. Everything is the universe is not aligned right now. Yeah. So you're
level to get a bunch of this. Yeah. The the the graveyards are going, wait, no, no, no, no, you're
in here on the wrong day. I'm not prepared for this. It's bad juju in here. Anyway, we'll continue
here. So the phenomenon has been documented in various accounts of individuals who have found
themselves in an extraordinary circumstances, such as survival situations, mountaineering expeditions,
exploration missions, or combat scenarios. So those who experience the third man syndrome
often describe the presence as a calming and reassuring influence during times of distress or
danger. Yeah. So this isn't that feeling you get when you go down into your basement and you
think you're not alone. Right. That's not what this is. This is when when people are are in
you know, grave peril. Something comes along and essentially says you can do this. I'm here to help
you. You're going to get through this. Right. Okay. And it's it's just I mean, when you start
looking into this, you see all these reports of people that have experienced this. And like Adam
said, you know, mountain climbers and explorers and the combat scenarios where people's you know,
life was in danger. You know, this seems to come through. Yep. And I've got some thoughts on why
that is that I'll I'll share toward the end when we get to the theories. But it says the syndrome
was first clinically documented in the 1940s. That's when it was first documented. It's been
happening for probably as long as there have been humans. This this has probably been happening.
But we just don't have it documented like that. Psychologists have postulated various triggers
and explanations ranging from sensory deprivation, extreme fatigue and boredom to an evolutionary
adaptations. So again, what we'll touch on the I will I'll save my thoughts till the end on that.
But yeah, now it also says that if one person can summon up a benevolent presence while others
are incapable of such a thing, then the psychological comfort may give a boost in the survival stakes.
It's considered to be a coping mechanism or an example of, um,
bicameralism, which I mean, they that's a brief scientific
try at an explanation for it. But we need to get into them into the stories here of
a third man syndrome episodes and and see what you guys think. Um, now the first person like map,
like Matt mentioned that we're going to talk about as Ernest Shackleton and Matt kind of briefly
touched on it. But he was an Antarctic explorer who attempted to reach the South Pole. Shackleton
entered the mercantile marine service in 1890 and became a sub lieutenant in the Royal Naval
Reserve in 1901. He joined Captain Robert Falcon Scott's British national, uh, Antarctic
Discovery expedition, which was 1901 and 1904 as a third lieutenant. Now in January 1908, he
returned to Antarctica as leader of the British Antarctic Nimrod expedition. Man, that that word
Nimrod, if it gets thrown into anything, it screws me up. I've never I've never done any kind of,
looking into Nimrod. But I see it too in other aspects and I'm like, well, I don't know
weird. I don't know here what they're referring to, but the original Nimrod was in the bible
and apparently it was a person during the biblical times that was written about that was not very
bright. Did a lot of dumb things. So then it got picked up as just a colloquialism for you dumb.
If somebody said you're a Nimrod and then again, made even more famous by Green Day in the 90s
when they had the Nimrod thing, but yeah, you know, this ship that that he was on during this
expedition was called the Nimrod. So why they chose that? I'm not sure. I don't know what the
the significance of it in that situation is, but I wouldn't want to be on a ship called Nimrod,
knowing the history of it. Me either, and I was thinking maybe the sales were shaped like big
white cone hats like dust hats. Yeah, maybe so. Look at these Nimrods. Yeah, exactly. Well, the
Nimrods are coming. I see them and see them on their miles away. It's saluting like Benny Hill,
you know? Yeah. Somehow they've got a band on the ship that plays that as they're sailing past
the coast. Yeah, getting sacks playing. Now, this expedition prevented by ice from reaching the
intended base site in Edward, the seventh peninsula, wintered on Ross Island and McMurdo sound.
Now, a sledge party led by Shackleton reached within 97 nautical miles, 112 statute miles
are 180 kilometers of the South Pole. And another under T.W. Edgeworth, David, reached the area
of the South Magnetic Pole. Well, Victoria Land Plateau was claimed by the British Crown
in the expedition was responsible for the first ascent of Mount Everest. The sledgeing party returned
to base camp in late February of 1909, but they discovered that the Nimrod had set sail two days
earlier. So they were full of Nimrods if they got people out there on a sledgeing party.
And they're like, we're just going to set sail. So we're just going to take up two days. Two days,
yeah. I mean, imagine showing up and your rides left two days ago. Right. Right. Well, Shackleton and
his party set fire to the camp. The whole camp, they just set the camp ablaze and hoping to signal
the ship. Well, it did. And they turned around and returned to camp a few days later successfully
retrieving them on his return to England. Shackleton was knighted and was made a commander of the
Royal Victorian order. He should be knighted for that for getting left on the on Antarctica. But
why other than being called Nimrod, would you just set sail and leave these people there?
I don't know what maybe they thought they were dead. It's like we've been going for like a day
and you think we're dead. Yeah. I'm like, how? I mean, how many people could they possibly have
had where they were like, we've completely, we're missing an entire team. Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, well, here we go. Way anchor Nimrods. So there are, like I said earlier, there are so many
accounts of third man syndrome. But this one from Ernest Shackleton is by far the most famous
and it's considered to be the origin story. Now, as I mentioned earlier, the novel South,
which was a first person account by Ernest Shackleton of this expedition to Antarctica.
He explains what happened that eventually led to the survival of his small group and their
ability to rescue the remaining members of their crew. Now, in 1914, Shackleton set off on a
journey to become the first team to successfully explore Antarctica. And as his ship, the endurance
entered the Wettel Sea, which is that area on the north. If you're looking at a, if you're
looking at a globe with the United States and you go straight down, the Wettel Sea is that
area where there's kind of a hook that comes out of the top of Antarctica that may not even be
there anymore because it changes so much. But they got into the Wettel Sea and the water
actually began to freeze around the ship. So it's not like they're trying to bust through ice.
It's so cold. And you know, if you've ever seen those, those little scientific magic tricks where
they make water like freeze instantly or something because of the way it's disturbed. Okay,
something along those lines is what's happening. You know, they have introduced a ship that's
cutting through the water. It's causing the, the water to freeze to the hull of the ship. Right.
Eventually, they became locked in a giant block of ice. And they could no longer steer the ship.
So they began last, last episode we did. Right. Yeah. You know, this is, this, I mean, this
dangerous stuff. And then, you know, these people know it going in. Sure. This is a possibility.
So now their ship is locked in this block of ice and they begin to drift. And then the man
start to hear a really unfortunate sound, the sound of wood splintering. Yeah. Unfortunate is an
understatement. Yeah, true. You know, horrifying is probably better. But it's just where the ice,
you know, has, it's actually compressing the hull of the ship and it's causing the wood to break.
Once that begins to happen, you know, the ship's no longer structurally sound. It's going to go
down eventually. And they knew this. So they, they had to make an executive decision. And they
began to grab as many supplies as they could and they climbed off the ship down to the ice below.
Not land, not an island. The ice, they are climbing off of the ship onto a big block of ice
that has formed around their ship. That's still in the middle of that dang. Yeah. That dang
sea there. The wettle. What exactly? Yeah. So they, they managed to get, they managed to get off,
but they, they also managed to get several small boats off of the ship as well, which was fortunate
for them. That's because soon after the ship went down and they're stranded on this big floating
block of ice. So it was, it was one of these things where you just watched your only shelter
from the cold drop into the water. And you're on a block of ice. Who knows how stable this is.
It's like, well, we are going to die. So we should probably do something, you know, because sitting
here is going to end us. Right. So what they decided to do was load up the small boats and set
sail for elephant island, which was about 150 miles north of Antarctica.
Now, the island was only slightly better than a floating block of ice. There was very little
to gather from the, the soil because it was frozen. And, and you had to dig beneath the ice and
the snow to even get to that point. And they had no means to hunt the very few animals that were
on the island. So, you know, they didn't have anything they could take down a seal or anything
like that. They could, they didn't have equipment to, to be able to fish, you know, in, in that
environment. So I mean, it really looked like we're stuck. We're, we're doomed. Okay. So
since doing nothing meant certain death, Shackleton decided to recruit five men to journey north
to South Georgia, which is an island about 800 miles away from where they were.
There they could get help from the wailing station. Now, this journey was really difficult.
They nearly capsized and it took 17 days for the small boat to reach South Georgia.
Now, once on land, the men were, were going to need to hike across a mountain range that separated
them from the wailing station, which was on the north side of the island. So, Shackleton took
only two men to make this journey. And he knew that the odds that they would safely reach the
wailing station were slim. Sure. Yeah. So this trio, which included Shackleton himself, a man
named Frank, Frank Worsley, can't say that today, Frank Worsley and Tom Kreen set out. And after
hiking for a day and a half, the men were able to reach the wailing station and get help for their
companions that they had left behind. Every member of the endurance crew would miraculously survive
this event. Everyone, they lost nobody. That's amazing. It's, yeah, it's incredible.
But in telling the story, the man recounted a very unusual experience. Now, in the book,
Shackleton wrote, quote, during that long and racking march of 36 hours over the unnamed
mountains and glaciers of South Georgia, it seemed to me often that we were four, not three.
And at the time, he explains that he did not mention this to the other two men.
Because at some point, you got to think, I'm losing it. You know, I'm dying. I'm freezing to death
and I'm seeing things. But later, Frank Worsley would approach Shackleton and say, boss,
I had a curious feeling on the march that there was another person with us. And Tom Kreen admitted
to feeling the exact same thing, which is amazing because it was all separate accounts. They weren't
sitting around talking about it and, you know, making up this story and the guy's like, oh, yeah,
you know what? I did feel that. They just all individually said it. Yeah. Yeah. They all had
this sensation. None of them said anything while they were on the hike. This all came out after
the fact. So it wasn't like something planned. So was the crew visited by some type of entity,
a guardian angel? What? I mean, this allowed them to rescue themselves and every member of their
crew. Now, most people would pass this off as just a historical oddity. You know, oh, you know,
what a what a really neat story. Okay. But over the years, more and more people have come out with
experiencing this same thing while under extreme stress. Right. Now, one of those people was British
Explorer Frank Smite, who almost became the first person to summit Mount Everest in 1933. Almost.
Almost. Okay. Along with his climbing party, Smite made the intense journey toward the summit
in very poor conditions, but his party soon turned back after terrible weather and lack of oxygen
made the summit just an impossible task. Smite continued. He was determined to complete the climb
and reach the summit. And he just barely missed it by 304 meters or about a thousand feet. Now,
I know you're like a thousand feet. Let me tell you something. A thousand feet is not that far.
You can see a thousand feet away. Okay. Um, when if you're, you know, if you're, if you're driving
and you see a sign that says construction 500 feet ahead or something like that. Okay. Then then
you realize, oh, wow, 500 feet. Sounds like a whole hell of a lot more than it really is. Um,
so I mean, he was, he was with insight of the summit and had to turn around.
I mean, he just, I mean, there was no way he could do it. He was completely alone. His body was
giving out. He had no oxygen. And we, if you, if you hadn't, if you didn't hear the Patreon that we
did about, um, climbing Mount Everest and what's involved in that, that you, you know, um,
that it's impossible for regular people to make this climb without oxygen.
Your body's just aren't, aren't capable of functioning that way. Unless you're a Sherpa,
you're, you're not going to be able to do it. Now, again, when Smite turned around and started his
trek back to base camp, he was completely alone. But that's not how he remembers it.
Smite is quoted as saying all the time that I was climbing alone, I had a strong feeling that
I was accompanied by a second person. The feeling was so strong that it completely eliminated
all loneliness I might have otherwise felt. And this is from his, uh, diary that he wrote after the,
the attempt. Now, at one point, Smite says he was so convinced of that his imaginary guide was
really there that he tried to share some of his kindle mint cake with him.
And when he, when he reached out to offer it, he realized there's nobody there.
Mm hmm. Okay. But, you know, you've had that feeling of there's somebody right here with me.
You know, there's somebody close enough to me. You, you kind of feel their vibration.
This was so strong for Smite. He actually offered him some of his food.
Right. And I mean, I think we've all done it to, we've had that feeling. We haven't maybe tried
to offer food, but, you know, when Dallas passed away, you just get so used to somebody being there
or the dog being there that either you call form to go outside at the normal time or something
like that. But it's usually never to the point of, oh, here, let me hand food to this entity that's
not there. Yeah. So for me, the whole hallucinating or wishing somebody was there,
doesn't fit this case because Smite was so adamant in his brain that he had a companion that he
was willing to share his food with this being. And he knew he was up there alone. I mean, he knew
there was nobody there with him. You know, but he had that, you know, you're in, you're in an
extreme situation here. You've got to try to make it back to this base camp in terrible conditions
by yourself. Right. So he, I mean, he knew what was in front of him. But to, you know, to feel
that, to feel like there's somebody with me, I'm not alone. He says, you know, it took away
that loneliness that you would have felt, you know, being, being out there, possibly being trapped,
possibly never getting off of that mountain. You know, the world begins to shrink in around you.
Smite didn't feel that because he had this, quote unquote, companion with him.
Right. Now he kept walking with his new companion until the base camp was within
sight. And Smite says it was only then that he no longer felt the presence and was once again
completely alone. And one of Smite's contemporaries, British mountaineer Eric Shipton,
reported a similar encounter went on Mount Kenya with Bill Tillman in 1930. And later admitted that
he had, he quote, had this experience regularly on Arduous Mountain journey.
Now it's, it's fascinating. And just so y'all kind of know who Frank Smite is and don't think he's
just some wackado. That dream this up or whatever Frank Smites mountaineering achievements in the
decade before the Second World War became a part of climbing history. His intensive Alpine climbing
followed by two Himalayan expeditions became the prelude to Everest in 1933 on the great mountain
climbing alone. And without supplementary oxygen, he got to within 820 feet at the top,
which was a record height before efforts resumed post war. And Everest was climbed in 1953.
And as a superb Himalayan finale in 1937, he returned to the Indian Garwall to climb difficult
peaks up to 24,000 feet in a rapid lightweight style. So the expeditions were central to his life,
lifetimes work as a writer and photographer, 27 books and albums together with numberless
newspapers and magazine articles, intensive lecturing, radio broadcast and film. And it was an
output that made him a celebrity, which was a rare feat in the days before television and
internet and stuff. You couldn't just shake your booty on TikTok and get famous. You actually had
put in the work of touring and talking and all that to get as famous of a celebrity as he was.
He had tens of thousands of readers and his name was familiar to perhaps millions of the general
public. It was an incredible career, especially since he died at the early age of 48 after a serious
illness in India. So this guy was Frank Smith was well known at that time, a household name,
famous. And so when he said something like this, when he talked about experiencing the third
man syndrome, it wasn't like just some random dude got up there on the mountain and said, yep,
I had somebody with me. And they're like, yeah, sure, you did their hillbilly. It's like this guy
knew, I mean, he, he was known for this. He had climbed for years and very experienced in it.
Yeah. And, and not only that, he was highly respected in the, in the climbing community.
I mean, you know, when you, when you look at the people that were making these mountain climbing
attempts around this time, you know, people do it now. And I mean, they have, you know,
modern technology, adequate equipment, everything to make sure that they're a success. And people still
die. Do it. Sure. Sure. You know, in, in the modern era, people don't make it.
Um, so, so for, for these guys, they were the extreme of the extreme, you know, that Red Bull would
have been their, their sponsor had, had they, they've been around now. Um, so everybody, everybody
listened to when he, when he said this, oh, sure. And you were talking about how they didn't have
the equipment in 1937 when he went to India to climb those peaks up to 24,000 feet said he did
it in a rapid lightweight style. Explain to me how you can slim down your pack from what they had.
You know, they had nothing. And then he's going to lightweight style. It's like, oh, what? He had
flip flops and a, and going up in flip flops and a thong bikini. I mean, I don't understand how
you, you get, well, I mean, I know how they would say lightweight style is because he hardly had
anything when he climbed. But to me, what they started out with was hardly anything. Yeah, I mean,
the, the huge packs, you know, the, the extra provisions, the guides, you know, whatever.
He didn't have all that. Um, you know, that was, that was the lightweight style.
Which, you know, makes it even more impressive. All right. So another famous situation,
a famous occurrence of third man syndrome comes in July of 1953. Now, just weeks after the
successful Everest climb by Edmund Hillary, Austrian mountaineer Herman Buehl first climbed the
formidable, uh, 8,126 meter non-gaparbit, which is a mountain that had already claimed 31 lives.
So you knew this, this, this was, this is a dangerous climb. It doesn't matter how high it is.
It's, it's a dangerous climb. Um, and Buehl took, um, 17 hours on his ascent
without supplementary oxygen with, quote, every step of battle. He would reach the summit at 7 p.m.
only after what they call, what he called an indescribable effort of willpower that at one point
involved crawling on all fours. So this was brutal. Now, after bivying near the summit,
he resumed his descent, having inexplicably left his ice axe behind.
How you do that? That's like, you know, if you're a mountain climber, that's like leaving your head.
Okay. Mm-hmm. I mean, this, this is the one critical piece of equipment that you absolutely would
have to have. And he managed to get away without his. It could save your life in so many situations.
Right. And you, you leave it behind.
So exhausted and nearing collapse, Buehl moved into a, quote, self-induced hypnosis.
It seemed he would become another victim to the mountain. But then he sensed an unseen companion,
one which somehow provided calmness, security, and advice. He says during those hours of extreme
tension, I had an extraordinary feeling that I was not alone. I had a partner with me looking
after me, taking care of me, belaying me. He said, I knew it was imagination, but the feeling persisted.
Miraculously, Buehl reached his fellow climbers at their lower camp after 41 hours in the so-called
death zone. That's wild. Yeah. So for all reasonable thought, the,
Buehl should have died there. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, he, he had everything against him, you know,
one of the most dangerous mountains in the world. He had forgotten his ice acts.
And he is all alone without any oxygen. Right. I was going to bring up the oxygen thing because
I know Texans who would need supplemental oxygen walking through Tennessee.
Yeah. I don't, I don't know how, how he did that without oxygen. When I first moved to
Tennessee, Matt, my ears popped, driving down Briley Parkway. And I afforded because I was not
used to that elevation. Yeah. So I don't know how this guy did that without oxygen and without a
pickaxe. I know. It's, look, take, take all of this other stuff out of the picture.
This is incredible that these, these men were able to do this at all.
Now, let's, let's venture off of the mountain and look at another situation of third man syndrome.
Uh, this one comes, this one predates Shackleton's event. But it was, it was,
uh, grouped in with the third man syndrome after Shackleton had, had written his book and people
had started talking about it. I love this one. I have to say this before you'd get into it.
This one, I love it. I love it. And I love this story too. And I remember a few weeks ago,
when you and I were, you and I were talking about this, we weren't talking about it in, in great
detail. When you add the detail in it, I love it even more. Yep. You know, how many times you,
you start picking out details of a really great story and you're like, ain't that great anymore?
No, this one is even better. Yep. So 1895, experienced sailor Joshua Slokum was on track to become
the first man to sail around the world completely alone. Now, Slokum stopped in several countries
along his voyage with one of his first stops being in the Azores, which is a small, uh, string of
islands off the coast of Portugal. Now here, he was celebrated by the locals and given gifts of
cheese and fruit. As his ship drifted away from the islands, he couldn't help himself. He had to
try some of this rich, decadent food that they had gifted them. Slokum began eating the cheese and
fruit and being unable to really stop himself. He wound up overeating. And although the food was
delicious, he noticed he began to feel strange. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Slokum realized in terror that he
had gotten food poisoning and was reduced to writhing and pain on the cabin floor. So soon after,
the ship began to be tossed by strong winds, which was indicative of an approaching storm.
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Look, this guy is out in the open water by himself. And now he's got food poisoning.
That is bad enough. Are you going to say, have you ever had food poisoning?
It feels like you're on a rocking ship anyway with your stomach. Can you imagine being on
a rocking ship with a rocking ship stomach? Yeah. I mean, he probably had it coming out of both
hands. You know, eyeballs and nose. I mean, if he could leak from his ears, he was. Yeah.
So here he is. He is miserable. He is, you know, having severe abdominal pain. He can't hardly do
anything but lay on the ground. And now he realizes I'm drifting into a storm.
So he just, he gathered up all of his strength and started making some preparations on the ship
for the storm. Now, he did what he could, but he eventually collapsed in pain and fatigue before
he could finish everything. He began to drift in and out of consciousness. And when Slocum came
to, he realized that he was no longer alone aboard his ship. Now in his account of the event,
Slocum said, quote, to my amazement, I saw a tall man at the helm. He would have been taken for
a pirate in any part of the world. Senior, he said, I have come to you to do no harm.
The man doffed his cap and offered a comforting smile.
The man continued to say, I have come to do no harm. I am one of Columbus's crew.
I am the pilot of the Pinta come to aid you. Like quiet in your cabin and I will guide your ship tonight.
So Slocum reported that he continued to kind of drift in and out of consciousness over the next
several hours. But when he finally came to, he found that the skies were clear, the seas were
calm and his companion was nowhere to be seen. Even more strange was the fact that the ship was
right on course and had traveled 90 miles through the night. And it's interesting to the Pinta
mentioned by this mystery man had been the fastest of Columbus's three ships on his voyage to the
new world. Now Slocum would recover from his illness and in after three years would complete his
circumnavigation of the earth. And in 1900, he published his account, the account of his journey
called sailing alone around the world. You see why this is such a great story. Yeah, I mean,
if the companion that sailed Slocum out of the storm while he could do nothing for himself,
was the spirit of one of Christopher Columbus's captains. That's crazy. I mean, it is incredibly
cool. And it makes me wonder. Yeah, it's amazingly cool. But it makes me wonder.
Because one of my thoughts is maybe that these are guardian spirits like your guardian spirit,
not necessarily, hey, here's one third man syndrome guardian. And if you get in trouble,
it's this specific guardian angel or guardian spirit that comes to every person. But
what if it's your own specific guardian spirit. And this man because of him being a sailor
and because of what he was doing, his guardian spirit was the captain of the Pinta. Yeah.
I mean, how cool would that be? And why would this guy make that up? Like, what good would it do
to say I was, I screwed myself up. I ate some bad food and I shouldn't have eaten cheese,
but I ate cheese and I got sick. I mean, that makes him look like a fool. And he would have died,
had it not been for this. So why would you say that just to make it up? And I mean, get,
you think during that time frame that it was cool to say stuff like that? I don't think so.
No, no, not at all. Because the first thing that everybody would do is go, dude, you were really sick.
You were hallucinating. You know, you hallucinated another person on board your ship.
You were that sick. You looked out, you looked out and made it through somehow.
Well, I mean, if that was the case, he really did look out because that means that essentially
an unmanned ship survived a storm in open water and remained on course. Not only that,
actually covered 90 miles in the right direction. Right. How is that even possible?
Yeah, it's not possible because an unmanned ship would get sideways in a wave and go under.
That's right. I mean, it wouldn't survive at all. You have to be at the helm at all times
turning it into the waves so that it doesn't capsize.
And for really based on this particular one, but I think it fits for all of them,
I have my own little theory that we'll get into later.
Okay. Now we're going to go, we've gone from the mountains to the water. Let's go to the
air during his solo trip across the Atlantic Ocean on May 20th and 21st.
Charles Lindbergh fought a storm, disorienting fog, ice in the fuselage and severe fatigue.
At one point, he actually was reported as he is falling asleep with his eyes open and suffering
hallucinations. Now many believed that Charles Lindbergh experienced a, you know, the unusual
phenomenon of third man syndrome. And these incidents that he experienced didn't hit the mainstream
public until 1953, when the book, The Spirit of St. Louis was published.
Now the text contains a timeline of events, including notes concerning the idea that maybe
Lindbergh wasn't alone in his plane during his transatlantic flight. Here's just a few quotes.
And this is courtesy of good ghosts that help. Okay. And it's about the beings that he began seeing
halfway through his historic flight. Those phantom speak with human voices. They are friendly,
vapor-like shapes without substance, able to appear or disappear at will to pass in and out
through the walls of the fuselage. They were discussing problems of my navigation, reassuring me,
giving me messages of importance unattainable in ordinary life.
Says these, these spirits have no rigid bodies yet they remain human in outline and form.
They're neither intruders nor strangers. It's more like a gathering of friends and family
after years of separation as though I'd known them all before in some past life.
Now, and I know this, this is really speaking to Adam's favorite theory, you know, that not only
would we have guardian angels, but these guardian angels would be specific to us.
Yep. And in this case, possibly old family or even like companions in a past life.
Right. Right. And I mean, one of the reasons I believe that is because of the story I've told
on here and I think I told it when we talked to Chris is that time I was driving to work and
fell asleep and my granddad woke me up, my granddad had passed away four or five years prior to that.
But I know specifically that he yelled at me, Adam wake up right before I drove off the edge of that
hill. So that's what this reminds me of that he has maybe past relatives or something like that
that are coming back to make sure he makes this flight. Right. Right.
All right. Now, this next one, we included just because it's so cool and it's modern.
Okay. Now, Ron DeFrancisco was a Canadian working on a US immigration work visa in the south
tower of the World Trade Center in New York City on 9-11. He was a manager at Eurobrokers office
on the 84th, 81th, 81th, the 84th floor. All of a sudden, I'm from St. Louis.
As a Canadian, he felt as it was a unique honor for him to have been appointed to this position
and to be working in the World Trade Center. And that's regarded by many as the most prestigious
building in Manhattan. Now, when the first plane hit the north tower, the people in his office
heard the crash, saw the flames and smoke coming out of the building, but they didn't realize at
that point that it had been a hijacked plane that was involved. Now, as the phone started ringing
and people started asking, Ron and the other employees, what had happened? They surmised that a small
plane had lost its way and accidentally hit the building. They could see that the flames from
the crash were forcing people in the north tower to flee and in some cases jump to escape the fire.
As news reports started coming in, giving more accurate accounts of what was happening,
Ron got a telephone call from his good friend in Canada telling him to get out of his building.
He heated the warning and made his way over to the elevators, just then the second plane hit
his tower. Ron says the impact of the crash was so violent that the building swayed some seven
or eight feet and he thought for a moment that the building would just keep going and tip over.
But instead, it started to sway back the other way. So after the building stopped swaying,
Ron made his way to the staircase. Ron made his way to the staircase. Unlike in the north tower,
where the plane came in level, in the case of the south tower, the pilot of the plane came in on
an angle evidently to cause maximum damage. In a sense, this was fortuitous for Ron and that the
right tip of the wing of the airplane plowed into the tower above the 84th floor, although the body
of the plane crashed into the building just below it. So the 84th floor didn't take a direct impact.
Yeah, that's super lucky. Yeah. Now Ron made his way to the staircase. Smoke was coming up the
stairs from the lower floor. Now he tried to make his way down, but people from lower floors were
coming up to escape the fire below. So he turned around and he tried to go up.
Now since the right tip of the wing of the plane hit the tower above his floor, that part of the
tower was on fire. There was no way to continue to go upward. And for perhaps the first time,
Ron DeFrancisco realized he was no longer in control of the vents of his life.
A sense of doom descended on him and the rest of the people trapped between the floors,
unable to go up. Once again, he turned to go down facing the building smoke coming up the staircase
like a smoke stack. Now there was also fired down below and despite using a piece of drywall
to shield himself from the heat, as he went down, his body was being burned. In fact,
one of the articles I read said that, you know, he was immediately hospitalized when
that he got out of the building. It was so hot that his contact lenses had melted to his eyes.
That is, I can't even wrap my head around that. So Ron thought it was all over. You know,
this is where it ends. He was overcome with smoke and about to give up, but just then Ron says he
heard a voice and felt someone grab his hand and lead him through the smoke. He cannot really
explain exactly who it was, but he drew strength and faith from it to continue downward despite the
burns. Then he heard a second voice, the voice of a firefighter, while he could not see in the smoke,
the firefighter said to come in the direction of his voice further down the stairs.
Ron reached the firefighter and told him he couldn't breathe. The firefighter examined him and told
Ron to go down to the bottom where he would be cared for. And that's what he did.
Since he was now below the crash site, the sprinklers had come on making the descent
much easier. But when he finally emerged on the ground floor, he was blocked from exiting the
building by firefighters who said it was too dangerous because of falling debris and the
bodies of those who had jumped. So instead, he was directed into the basement and exited the building
there, making him the last survivor out of the second tower. Now, this one, you know, we,
I kind of went back and forth because I, I'm not sure of what happened, but as I went back and
read this and I read other accounts that pretty much read the same way. I mean,
Ron didn't do like, you know, an interview tour for something like this. You know, I can imagine
he would have probably rather not spoken of it ever again. I can imagine. Yeah.
So there's not just a ton of information from Ron himself, but from what I found, yeah,
this, this voice in this hand that led him. It was not necessarily another person
because this person was calming. This person was comforting and led him through the smoke. He
couldn't see how could anybody else at the same level he was see that wasn't prepared like a
firefighter would be with masks and and lights and everything else. So that to me kind of takes
away the idea that this was another employee that was with him on the stairwell. Also, remember,
he took a piece of drywall and used it as a fire shield to get down as far as he did.
There wasn't anybody else with him doing the same thing.
Right. So he gets and I was going to say how did somebody get like back up to him if that's what
yeah, you know, if they're going to say it was a it was a firefighter or whatever. Yeah, he ran into
firefighters when he got down. There was no way that the firefighters could get up through that
that smoke and heat of the fire to get to him to lead him back through the fire and the smoke.
Right. So yeah, I'm with you. That takes that away. Yeah. So so now we go back to
third man syndrome. Something a companion took his hand and spoke to him and it you know,
because I mean, at some point, you're just you're out of it. You're you know, you think you're
going to die. You know, you're not thinking clearly, you know, you're in a panic, you're burning,
you're in severe pain. And you know, yeah, you just think it's over. I can't survive this.
And you hear this voice and you feel this hand start to lead you and you take comfort in it.
You you get strength from it to continue on. So that's exactly what third man syndrome is all about.
And so when you go back and look at it, you think this was this was not likely another firefighter.
I certainly don't think it was another employee. This whatever this was got him to a firefighter.
It took him straight to a firefighter that was able to help him.
It was something that could do it without harm to itself. Yeah. And be in a calming position
where that had been another human in some fashion. They would have probably been screaming from the
the heat. Yeah. Just like he was. They wouldn't have been able to see. Like you said,
how if it was a person, a coworker, how would they have known where to go? He didn't. Right.
He knew the building. Right. So yeah. So yeah. So you know, this is
look, as I get it as an American, you know, this is a tremendous story.
You know, and not only that for a Canadian man to have experienced this while working in the United
States, you know, it's just, I mean, there's just so much emotion behind this.
Like I said, after reading it and reading it, I said, yeah, this is this is something happened
there. Something happened for this man. Something got him out of that building. You know, he
he was this close to making it and wasn't going to make it unless something intervened and something
did. Yep. It in a hundred percent to me fits the third man syndrome requirements. I guess you
would say. Yeah. To be considered a third man syndrome thing. Life was in peril.
Thought he was going to die. Something came and calmed him, led him through the experience
in the safety. Yeah. Now, this last story is a little different. And the YouTube video that I got
this from they even said, this is a little bit different, but it's way too cool not to include.
I think it still qualifies. So you tell me what you think, Adam. All right. So one day in the
mountains of Tibet, missionaries Bob Ekval and Ed Carlson, both graduates of Wheaton College
were writing their horses fully aware that larger packs of marauders or bandits, whatever
might overtake a smaller group. They both carried rifles and it says they both knew how to use them.
Though Ekval claimed he had never killed a man. He stated that he had shot the horses out from
underneath a few. As Carlson and Ekval wrote up a remote pass, they saw in the distance
several men on horseback galloping toward them, obviously plotting an assault.
Suddenly, these would be bandits stopped and retreated. Now later, this is what really blows me away.
Later, Ekval came across one of these men and had a conversation with him.
And they asked, why did you ride away like that? You know, you obviously could have taken us.
Had the drop on us. And he says, you know, you outnumbered us.
And the guy replied, we weren't afraid of you. We weren't afraid of your friend.
But who was that shining one with you?
And Ekval was just baffled.
So that's amazing. Ekval and Carlson weren't aware of their third man.
But these bandits that sought to do them harm, they saw something, something that scared them
pretty bad. And they had to turn around. And Ekval and Carlson were completely unaware,
but it saved their lives.
I'm with you. I think this fits. Yeah. I think
had Ekval and his buddy Carlson been maybe in that situation longer,
had had longer time in the perilous situation. They might have become aware
true of their third man. But because it happened so quick, us dumb humans, we had,
it takes a big slap in the head for us to realize most paranormal
anything. Yeah. And to get us to realize it, we're just not as in tune to it.
So I think if they'd have spent more time in that situation, maybe they would have
come to be aware of their shining friends there. And if we kind of superimpose the events
of these other stories that we've discussed tonight, on top of this one,
Adam's point holds true. The majority of these other people were in danger for a much
longer period of time, you know, sometimes hours, days. But when the danger resolved,
the presence left, you know, when you hear, which one was it, when you hear,
uh, uh, fuels story. And you think about smile story, offering food,
the loneliness going away, this calm, this I can do this, um, all of that, you know, builds up.
But as soon as the, the dangers over, they all say we were, we were alone again.
You know, once, once I could see base camp, I knew I was alone. I was alone.
Like I didn't feel the presence anymore. So, you know, in this case, you know, Carlson and
Kval, they see the bandits and they immediately realized we're in danger. And as soon as they
realized they're in danger, they're out of danger. Right. So imagine if, if these bandits come up,
they're coming up quick. Oh, crap. We're in trouble. This, this shining image appears with them.
The bandits turn around and, and take off. And they're out of danger. The shining image goes away.
So I think, you know, that is the situation. They were out of danger.
No, no need for this guardian, if you will. And they, they never noticed it because it was over so
quick. Right, right. They had to spend hours in it. Maybe, yeah, they might have been, yeah,
they might have been aware of it. Right. So, you know,
you take these stories for what you will, but it, it does seem like
these people experience something and that something saved their lives. What was it, though?
You know, what was it? So, let's talk about some of the, the ideas that, that we've kind of
pitched around as far as what could cause this, the situation. Right. Now, John Geiger actually
wrote a book on the third man factor, the third man syndrome. And I've got an excerpt from his book
here that I want to read. And then we can discuss some theories. But he says,
drawn from all these examples are vital clues, the five basic rules that govern the third man's
appearance and invest the experience with meaning. These rules are the pathology of boredom,
the principle of multiple triggers, the widow effect, the muse factor, and the power of the
savior. Together, they help to explain the onset of third man factor, but they are casual in nature.
They do not explain his origins or where the power comes from. Over the years, various theories
have been proposed to explain the third man, a running and running concurrently with these,
interspersed among the chapters of the book are accounts of the search for an explanation.
These attempts at understanding are themselves a record of man's changing conception of himself.
They begin with the guardian angel, followed by the sensed presence and the shadow person,
as clerics and then psychologist and finally neurologist theorized about the phenomenon. They,
the trend has been a gradual reduction from the outside in, from God to the mind to the brain.
Whether any of these explanations is finally enough to account for the third man mystery,
you will have to wait and see. So, biologist says has a term for the boundaries that the physical
world imposes on human beings and it's called limit physiology. At some definable point,
as conditions change, humans can no longer succeed, and at a more critical point, they can no
longer survive. It is a formula based on a series of scientific measurements. For example,
an increase of only nine degrees Fahrenheit to core body temperature causes fatal heat stroke,
or at minus 58 degrees Fahrenheit, bear skin freeze is in a minute. Quote, to state it plainly,
rarely does one person survive under extreme conditions when another dies, simply because the
survivor has greater will to live. Wrote, Claude P. N. Todosi, maybe in the study of the biology of
human survival, says, and yet in these stories and situations where success appears to be impossible,
or death imminent, something happens. There amid the anxiety, fear, blood, sadness,
exhaustion, torment, isolation, and fatigue is an outstretched hand. Another existence,
offering a transfusion of energy, encouragement, and instinctual wisdom from a seemingly
external source. A presence appears. A third man who, in the words of legendary Italian climber,
Reinhold Messner, quote, leads you out of the impossible. So no one really knows, and almost no
scientific explanation has been put forward as to what this is. Some scientists might explain
this phenomenon away as the two halves of your brain conversing, proving the two brain theory,
the idea that the two hemispheres of your brain are separate and may talk to one another.
Others may put it down to a guardian angel or a guiding spirit. And that's where I land, Matt.
Yeah. And I'll, because I've already kind of touched on it, I'll not mind out and then get your
thoughts. But I feel like most, if not all, humans are watched over by what has been called
guardian angels, but I feel like it's our ancestors or some presence in our history that has
a significance to us. But we don't know this person, they know us. And I feel like
that like in my case with my granddad, that woke me up from maybe driving off the dang mountain
or whatever. I feel like these people are maybe in the afterlife, the other world, but they are
allowed to come back and commune when their loved one is in danger or needs their help.
And I feel like my opinion is that's what this is. This is someone,
someone gets in peril. And the person who cares about them that's on the other side says,
I'm going to help them through. They're not done in this life. They've got more to do.
And I'm going to help them get through. It's not their time. And to me,
that's what I feel like it is. And I could be way off like I am with most things. But that's
kind of where I land on it. I don't think you're way off. I don't. In fact, I like the guardian angel
theory. I don't think I land holy there. And that's what I was hinting at earlier.
So with with Slocum's case, with being on board that ship and being too sick to man it through a storm.
You know, he has another individual who is obviously a tremendously skilled sailor.
To not only get the ship through the storm, but to get it on course and further down the line.
I think about this idea of you, you can, you manifest yourself in this situation.
Slocum, I mean, to understand, Slocum didn't wake up one morning and decide, I'm going to sail
around the world. Okay. He was already a highly skilled sailor. You would not attempt something
like this if you weren't. So he was well suited to get through this storm and stay on course.
But he was far too sick to be able to do it. So in his distress, did his mind somehow manifest
either like a Tulpa that was there to help him or yeah, or did he have an out of body experience
where his body was sick and couldn't go, but his spirit could and knew what to do and took over.
Um, yeah, I can see. I mean, who knows. But that that what that's what I said with his story
in particular, that's kind of what came to mind is what if sort of something like that happened,
if you look at the mountain expeditions, you know, these, these guys are alone.
And they know what to do. They also know how much danger they're in. And you know, they,
they manifest this person that essentially says, you can do this. You know how to do this.
You've practiced for this. You know, it's like the moment. This is what you're trained for.
Yeah. And it, and it bolstered them enough that they were able to keep going. And that's the
other thing when we look at, you know, at some point, the human body is just like,
you know, I can't do this. You know, I can't swim through lava. You know, I can't, I can't,
I can't be exposed to a temperature that would freeze me. Right. You know, right. So,
it was all a matter of in all these cases, they just had to keep going. They couldn't stop.
And that presence convinced them. Do not stop. You can do this. You just have to keep going forward.
And look, if you're earn a shackle, too, you know, if, uh, if you're fuel, if you're
smile, you know, if you're slow, you know what you have to do. You know that moving forward is the
only way, even if your physical body won't allow you to do it. Your spirit pushes you forward.
And you just need that, that companionship that reminds you, you can do it. And what better
companion than yourself, if you yourself are the expert here.
Now, you know, I, I can see that. I mean, my, my one argument against it, but
I don't know that it even holds up. But it's like, if, if it was you kind of, uh,
astral projecting or whatever, wouldn't, don't you think there would be more of a recognition
on who that entity was? And then, like, if you've already reached what you feel is your
quote, limit physiology that we discussed. I don't know. You know, and because to me, that would
seem in these situations, some of these situations, it seems like the person has hit a point of
deep down in their core, they're resigned to die. So how would
they then find that will to project themselves and lead themselves out? That's my only
argument to it. And then with, um, what's his name that, uh, the airplane, Lindbergh, uh,
Lindbergh, that's it. Uh, he had multiple apparently. They said it was like friends. Now, I mean,
I'm not saying that there's no way your theory is valid. That's just my questions to what,
if it is what then, you know, um, I don't know. I mean, I, there's no way you or I could,
we could sit here and discuss it for another three hours and still not be able to come up with
an explanation for it because way smarter minds than us have tried. Yeah. Yeah. In fact, when we were
doing this research, I told Adam, I said, let's look at psychological texts. You know,
are there, are there case studies on people that have experienced this? We didn't,
we didn't have any success, but sure sounded like something that would, would have a,
a psychological background as far as maybe some research or study, um, on cases of this,
because it, it could be a psychological phenomenon where your, you know, your brain is talking to
itself essentially. Um, and I think they're out there. I just don't think they're available
for what we can see because there was mention of, quote, being it, third man being used in studies.
Now it, I couldn't find how they did it or anything like how they manifested the third man,
if they did, but I did see where it said the third man has been used in psychological studies.
Dotted out it now, but I think those papers are maybe hidden away in a research office or something
where they're not published in a way that we can get. Right. Yeah. And that's a good possibility.
But it's, it, it, it's fascinating to talk about this. So, you know, when you, when you consider
all those cases of human survival in, in cases where it seemed not just improbable and impossible
for somebody to survive and, and accomplish what they did. Um,
it, it, it, it, it's just, it's, it's, I don't even know, it's, it's incredibly cool.
But one thing I, I, I will say is that, um, you know, I, I've experienced situations to where I
kind of felt like I wasn't alone, that somebody was kind of with me, but I was never in a situation
where, um, I, I was, I felt like my life was in significant danger. You know, and I think that
is probably the, the impetus that brings us about, that it's, I'm, I'm going to die. You know,
there's, there's no, there's no escape from this. Uh, I've never been in that situation ever.
And, and I hope that I'm never in that situation. Um, but I have been in other situations
to where I, I, I, I, for, for all practical purposes, I should have been in panic and I wasn't,
you know, and you, you kind of feel like the, to me, it's like that, that whole thing of,
well, that's what I should have done. The, the part of your personality that says, well,
this is what we should have done comes out and tells you, this is what you need to do.
And you get through it. You know, you're, you're not in necessarily any danger.
Um, but maybe it's just, you know, a lot of stress or mental anguish or frustration,
whatever it is, it, it, it's not going to kill you, but something says, hey, you know,
ease up. You know how to do this. You know what to do. This is what you need to, this is what
you need to do. And, and you do it. And then you're like, wow, you know, I didn't, I didn't realize
I could, I could pull something like that off and you surprise yourself. But if we, if we take
that to an extreme level, then maybe that is something similar to what's happening in third
man syndrome. We don't know. Um, but like I said, it, it is, it's incredible to, to look into this
and read these stories, um, especially from these people that were so well respected. They were
champions in their fields. Um, and for them to have gone through this and then nearly die,
but to be rescued by some unknown presence. I mean, it's, it's, it's great. It's great. If,
if you've never gone and done further research on any of our shows, this is a good one to do it.
I agree. So have, have any of you guys ever experienced anything like this?
Have you ever been in, in, in real danger and felt that some unseen presence
helped you out of it? We would love to hear it. Uh, the best place to do that is in our Facebook
group. Um, it's private. It's full of great people. No one wants to make fun of anyone or
call somebody a loony. We're just trying to, to hear some great stories and personal experiences.
So, you know, hop in there and, and let us know. Um, you can also see us on, uh, Twitter
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